morsels & sauces

In this  Cook Your Books  series, I have chosen 15 books to read in 2017 based on somewhat arbitrarily chosen categories. My theory (bogus it might turn out to be) is that all 15 of these books will somehow connect to food. And I plan to write about that food.   It turns out that these entries are a sort of long-form blog-post. So settle in.  This tenth installment is  a book of essays. In this aspect of the challenge, I really did think about choosing a wonderful Wendell Berry collection, but I knew there was an essay on food in that collection, so that seemed to be stacking the deck in my favor. So I went for something that seemed less obviously connected to food.  And I am going to admit, there were a few moments of panic that I would be making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to pack on the trail. In Terry Tempest Williams' latest collection of essays The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks , she explore...

Is it too hot to cook inside? It sure was this Sunday in the Bay Area. Smoking hot. Of course, there are two answers to hot weather: grilling and gazpacho. We did both. (Gazpacho found here   to come later, I promise .)   This little lamb skewer comes from none other than my favorite person, Diana Henry--this time from her cookbook,  A Change of Appetite . (Want to read a great review of this book?  See here .  While Alex Guarnaschelli says she loves the book, she finds that it's culinary whirlwind tour a little discombobulating and she's not sure what she would turn to this book for. I do. I turn to it whenever I want something light and fresh and filling without weighing me down. And that happens throughout the year--be it on a hot summer day or after enjoying too many holiday treats come January. I know exactly why I come to this particular Diana Henry book.) So the husband fired up the grill and made some lamb, which was simple enough. Shocking...

And now for the final entry in my week-long experiment with Food52 . Their new(ish) cookbook  A New Way to Dinner   has been my inspiration for a week of lamb-based meals (although the creamed broccoli rabe (that tried to sell itself as creamed kale) was the hit of the week), and what a week it was . This is a big, peppery, leftovers salad, and I highly encourage playing around with ingredients.  Have fresh peas? Blanch them quickly and then throw them in. Need to get rid of some waxy red potatoes? Boil them briskly and then slice them into this salad. Truly, I think this tasty salad could just be a gateway to whatever is fresh and in your fridge. Seriously, we're using leftover lamb here. I see no reason to not clean out other parts of your pantry. As it is, the crisp celery next to the bitter arugula, the piquant horseradish mixed into the creamy buttermilk: friends, this is as perfect for the dead of winter as it is the heyd...

I have many cookbook ideas, and the ladies from Food52 just wrote one of them.  Okay, before we go too far down the path of this cookbook and this week's recipes, let's just review what Food52 is and then let's sally forth. Food52 was begun only about 3 years ago in 2013 as a gathering place for cooks, foodies, novices, the curious to come together to talk about food every week of the year (hence the 52). From seersucker tablecloths to quince paste , soup ladles to fennel pollen , russet potatoes to food mills , this website talks about, sells, makes it all. And they're growing.  But be careful. Should you click on any of those links, I will see you in about an hour, for you will undoubtably (as I just did) find yourself going down the rabbit hole of website browsing and mouth watering.  Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, Food52's founders, have put out four cookbooks , and this one-- A New Way to Dinner --is the late...

Here we are, about to hurl ourselves into fall tomorrow, and I am giving you a recipe for a spring dish. What?! Can I tell you a secret?  I made this recipe about two months ago, and I am just getting around to posting it. This is what happens when you spend August traveling and getting ready for the start of school. And then you spend the opening of September launching that school year. No matter how prepared you think you are, you're not prepared.  September. Post Labor Day. Full on ready for pumpkin lattes and wool sweaters and tart apples. And it appears I was cooking with rhubarb. I was not. (But I was. Back in July (which for many places might feel a bit late, but in California, rhubarb does seem to have a long season)). I liked these little meat balls. There's not an ounce of bread in them, so if you're all up in the Paleo diet, these will do you just fine. If you're like me, however, and all up into the feeling...