I recently received an email from Grandma Pellegrini. Yes, she does email now, she has a gmail account, and most recently a Facebook account, and is quite good at it. She is also good at ordering interesting things on amazon. Mostly cooking equipment. Just the other day I walked into her kitchen and a new…
I had a pork chop yesterday. I was dining alone, and I ceremoniously made myself a proper meal. I took a visit to the butcher who had all sorts of glossy selections piled high in the coolers, and I settled on a pork chop, bone-in. It was a good choice because it was well aged, and came from…
One of the first little bits of wisdom I learned when I decided to get serious about cooking, was how to make garlic paste in 30 seconds. It was a revelation and I thought, "Wow! These are all the shortcuts that pros know!" So then I began to work in professional kitchens and was peeved to see…
Welcome to the final installment of my three part dinner series...
After a full day of hunting on the ranch, and a full day of cooking by Paul, we finally got to eat the fruits of our labor.
The ranch has a very beautiful interior, with lovely wood paneling and a cozy lodge atmosphere. The fireplace was…
I can't really tell you where they came from. All I'll say is that I may or may not have smuggled them from Provence. I may or may not have loved them so much in the restaurant garden that I worked in, that I may or may not have dried the seeds on the windowsil of…
I want to share with you the strange things that are coming out of my garden.
This carrot for example, which looks like a chicken:
Or this scale-tipping carrot...a 1.125 pounder.
There was a 1.5 pounder even, but I ate it. I turned it into carrot soup.
I never think of carrot soup except in the moment that I'm eating…
These are some very fine treats. The kind of thing that leaves a lasting impression. The kind of thing that becomes seared into your mind the moment your teeth chomp down on that first bite and the sweet, salt, and tang begin to crawl along your taste buds. That is why they are called Devils…
In preparation for my book... I've been testing out quite a lot of recipes. These I like to call "Bananas Foster Cupcakes," because they celebrate cream and rum and cake in three lavish bites. (There's cream inside!)
I've discovered that to get a truly unbiased opinion on a recipe, it is best to set it in the…
As you know, I like changing people's minds. It makes me fuzzy inside. Most people don't like brussels sprouts. It's the black sheep of vegetables... "eeew brussels sprouts," is the default way to use it in a sentence. But they really are lovely little things, if you cook them to the edges of crispiness rather…