Whenever I’m in a sour mood or feeling down, I reach into my fruit drawer, and pull out my lemons. For me, lemons are not synonymous with problems – lemons are the solution.
I had been wanting to make a lemon soufflé for several weeks now. The first recipe I tried had a good lemon flavor, but did not puff as much as I would have liked. It also had a faint taste of the corn starch that figured prominently among the ingredient list.
I scrapped that recipe, and created my own, …
As I’ve noted before, it’s important to have a food gameplan when picking Caitlin up from the airport. That means having a restaurant and itinerary picked out in advance of pick-up.
In addition, I also like to have a snack waiting for Caitlin when she arrives – a little something to tide her over during the drive back into the city. Often, the snack is home-made, something sweet that I’ve made either that day, or the day before. Occasionally, though, time gets ahead of me, and I have to settle on something from the store.
But whether it was store-bought or home-made, I had, apparently, developed a steady habit of having a snack in the car on those airport trips. To the point where I had created a nearly Pavlovian connection between the airport and baked goods.
Sure enough, …
When I’m in the supermarket checkout line, I often look longingly at the Cook’s Illustrated in the magazine racks. The magazine always looks so informative and helpful. The sleek black and white drawings, the hands-on, practical tips, and the absence of advertisements. But at $5.95, it always gives me that moment of pause.
So I was particularly excited…
Popovers are one of my favorite things to make – and eat. The only problem is that, right now, I’m usually cooking for one. And it’s just not safe to leave me alone with warm popovers. Indeed, the last time that happened, I wolfed down five vanilla eggnog popovers before noon. I think I was able to save one for Caitlin, but I may be wrong.
This past Friday, I attended a pot-luck “dinner.” Only instead of the usual dinner items, everyone was charged with bringing a brunch item. There were donuts, scrambled eggs, french toast, more french toast, smoked salmon, bagels, and the like.
My contribution, naturally, was popovers. Herb and cheese popovers to be exact. I had been meaning…
Choosing a recipe can sometimes feel like putting together a baseball team. It is the home chef as general manager.
In each field, the objective is the same — to please the folks at home by offering them a winning dish while remaining within the allotted budget. The objective is straightforward. As is the theory behind it: acquire the best ingredients, assemble, and serve warm.
But this process is never as straight forward as it seems. Expensive ingredients, like high-priced free agents, may…
