Garlic can be — to put it mildly — a little strong. There’s a reason that it’s used to ward off vampires.
And if you ask Caitlin, garlic seems to have a particular staying power with me. I can come home around 9:00, some eight hours after having eaten lunch, and Caitlin will come up to me, and draw back, before demanding, “What did you eat that had garlic in it?”
To avoid those moments of recoil, …
Sometimes the simplest dinners are the ones that shine and surprise.
This dinner was not inspired or born of a late-night epiphany. Instead, its origins were pedestrian and utilitarian. It was a question of practicality over originality. There was no high math.
It was Saturday morning and I was taking inventory in the refrigerator. I was checking expiration dates, volume levels, and the state of the fruit and vegetable drawers. Milk was running low and the sour cream was running bad. There was plenty of fruit, but not enough vegetables. The cheese still looked strong, but the herbs were getting soft. …
When Caitlin is out of town, I find myself thinking of fun things to make for her, to welcome her back. These are, more often than not, sweets. This time, I wanted to do something different.
Early in our relationship, I had flown up to Washington, D.C. to spend the July 4th holiday with Caitlin. We had gone to the National Mall for the concert, featuring Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, and a host of other performers. We had gone to a Nationals game…
One of the great things about making the candied ginger was the ginger syrup. As part of the process of making candied ginger, the ginger is steeped in a simply syrup for about an hour. The result is a sweet, intensely ginger syrup. Intrigued, I mixed this syrup with seltzer…
Every so often, I’ll catch myself, and realize that it’s been a few days since I’ve had a good, solid, salad. I may have had some vegetables – I certainly love my sweet potatoes and butternut squash – but for some reason, a head of lettuce is not one of my staple purchases. So, whenever I come to this realization, I go for a Greek Salad.
I think there’s something about the saltiness in the feta that drives my love for the Greek Salad. Or maybe the soft taste of the sliced red onions, given a pickled quality by the vinegar. Or maybe the sharp taste…