My friend, Barbara Tropp, left us all too soon. Barbara was a Princeton Chinese scholar studying Chinese poetry when she arrived in Taiwan in the 1970s. Her experience there transformed her into an avid taster and translator of Chinese cuisine. My copy of her 1982 cookbook, The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, is stained, marked, and worn….
Roasted root vegetables are so simple to prepare. They add a deep, earthy heartiness to a meal. The vegetables above graced our Thanksgiving table. I recommend them as a satisfying side for roasted meats, such as turkey, ham, or beef. Our vegetarians guests found them filling and comforting, too.
I love watermelon. I wait all year for the middle of summer when I can once again enjoy the taste of fresh, ripe watermelon. A hot late July or August day and a big, thick slice of chilled watermelon is heaven! Better yet, add some good friends to the scene and you have an invitation to share laughter…
Salsa verde is extremely simple to make. The end result is a sauce with a distinctly flavorful punch. This example of an Italian green sauce is but one of many versions. Green sauces can be found in cuisines around the world: Italian pesto, Indian cilantro mint chutney, Mexican salsa verde…the list goes on.
The taste of this simple sauce of slightly sweetened, fresh strawberries transports me back to my childhood summers. In my memories, the berries are just picked and still sandy, the air is warm and humid, and my friends and I are barefoot and laughing. Ah summer!
Here we are, deep into tomato season. It is HOT here in the Washington, DC area; temperatures in the 90s are predicted for later today with high humidity. It’s not a day to spend a lot of time inside cooking, and it’s too hot to even fire up the grill. So here’s a fresh, simple,…
This is a simple, refreshing soup that’s good hot or cold. The original inspiration comes from Deborah Madison’s The Greens Cookbook. It’s a vegetarian soup that can be made vegan. You make the stock from asparagus ends and leek tops, and you use the body of the asparagus and leeks to make the soup. I’m not…
We had our first hard frost last night. Just as the sun was setting I snuck out to the backyard to salvage any last frost-fragile offerings from my garden. I found several sweet peppers: some ripe and red, a couple in transition from green to red, and a few others still green. There were a number…
A friend recently asked me for a recipe with pumpkin. Truth be told, I don’t cook with pumpkin that often. I use other winter or hard squashes more frequently. So I’m offering up this butternut squash recipe in lieu of a pumpkin recipe.