Cooking the Books

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Carnet de cuisine

Friday, January 13th, 2012

A few months ago I had dinner with a French friend and he showed me something really cool — his mother’s dinner party notebooks. For years — decades, even — ever since she was a young bride, his maman has kept a record of every dinner party she’s ever thrown: guest list, menu, recipes. As [...]

New cookbooks

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Lucky girl that I am, I received quite a haul of new cookbooks for Christmas. Here’s what I’m cooking from these days: Since I live in a cave (apparently) I’d never even heard of Nancy Silverton’s chic pizzeria, Mozza, until I was in Southern California last month and read this Los Angeles Times review of [...]

Cooking the books

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Bonjour, mes amis! A few weeks ago, I asked you to name your recent favorite cookbooks. I was excited to hear your suggestions, and I’m even more thrilled to share them. Here’s what you’re cooking from these days:    Rhino75: Am currently working my way through Signe Johansen’s Scandilicious, Dan Lepard’s baking bible, Short and Sweet, and Glynn [...]

Cookbooks

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

I love, love, love cookbooks. I love new cookbooks, which present fresh ideas, techniques and flavor combinations. I love old cookbooks, which are like time capsules, a window into the domestic lives of another era. Browsing a used bookshop in Beaune last week, I couldn’t resist the two charming volumes above. And then, I got [...]

Currypalooza!

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Currypalooza: 1) A monthly celebration of Indian home cooking. 2) A virtual gathering of food bloggers, who prepare the same subcontinental recipe and blog about it. I’m tickled pink to be part of this month’s Currypalooza, even if my post is a week late. Croque Camille selected the recipe which comes from Mallika Basu’s Miss Masala, one of my [...]

Pot luck

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

When my husband’s office holiday party rolled around, I considered making something healthy, like a bean salad. But then I started thinking. When you’re at a pot luck, what do you want to eat? Recalling office pot lucks of my past — when the slightly junky, sour cream, powdered soup, mayonnaise, and/or grated cheese-enhanced  food [...]

Birthday baking

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

I don’t bake very often, but homemade treats do make birthdays sweeter, n’est-ce pas? I just spent the morning making a batch of donut muffins for my husband to share with his colleagues for his birthday. What’s a donut muffin? Think of a buttery muffin dipped in melted butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Yes, butter + [...]

Subcontinental spice spree

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

I love French food as much as the next person, but a girl can’t live on steak frites alone. When a crise de chili strikes, I’ve been known to hightail it over to the 10th, for a visit to Paris’s Indian neighborhood. Here, sari shops line the boulevard, spices scent the air and people scrum to [...]

Indian, everyday

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I could eat Indian food everyday, and so I was delighted to discover Monica Bhide’s new book, Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen, which offers an easy-breezy, 21st-century spin on subcontinental spice. My review of this fresh, piquant book appeared yesterday on the Washingtonian magazine website. Click here to read my review, and here for my favorite recipe from [...]

Recipe for happiness: Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, NYC

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

The more curmudgeonly among us would call an entire store devoted to cookbooks a recipe for bankruptcy, but to me it’s sheer happiness. As you might have guessed from reading this blog, I LOVE cookbooks. As an extension of this love, I ADORE cookbook stores. Too bad they’re so scarce. I’ve already filled you in [...]

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