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12 Days of Christmas: Christmas with Friends
Every year, I am compelled to visit my folks in Florida for as long as my calendar will allow. This usually means heading down just as all the Christmas parties are in full swing, and scrambling a bit for holiday time in the city before I go. One non-negotiable item on my agenda is always a Christmas dinner with my friends (a dinner with New York family, really). This year, a cured Smithfield ham came into my life and I served it up simply, knowing that a plate of good ham, biscuits and greens can gather people together in the warmest of ways. Continue reading… December 16th, 2010 | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, PARTIES, SAVORY, WINTER | Leave a comment
Cookie of the Month: Snickerdoodles
My best friend, Jeff, started dating this really great guy just before summer started. It progressed as most great relationships between great people do, and by the end of the summer it wasn’t only Jeff who found his life remarkably changed. Among other finer qualities that caused Alston to prance and belly-laugh his way into our hearts, Alston is an actor– who, upon summer’s recent end, is a grad student at Brown University. While his move from New York is a quality I wouldn’t expect of a new friend (or, from Jeff’s perspective, a wonderful new boyfriend), Alston is among a fairly small group of people for whom I would suffer through uncomfortable bus rides and long lines at the post office to mail care packages. So, once a month, I will make a new cookie recipe that Jeff and I will bake and send to Alston. I decided to start with snickerdoodles, a cookie that my best friend’s mom used to greet us with after school and one of the first cookies I learned to bake. It’s a quirky cookie: it characteristically contains too much leavener and a whopping dose of the practically useless cream of tartar, and is baked in an oven temperature that is better suited for roasting potatoes than baking cookies. Snickerdoodles, even with their few imperfections, bake up to be practically the perfect cookie– which is why I chose to make them for Alston first for this column. They just take a little faith, that’s all. Continue reading… September 9th, 2010 | Category: FALL, FOOD WITH FRIENDS, SWEETS | 2 comments
Hot & Easy: “Start the Party” May 14th, 2010 | Tags: queso fresco, skirt steak, sweet peppers | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, SAVORY, SPRING, WEBISODES | 2 comments
German Chocolate Cupcakes for Jeff
It was my dear friend Jeff’s birthday recently. Normally, I have a pretty good idea of what cake to make for a friend’s birthday, but Jeff is so enthusiastic about everything I’ve made him that I truly had no idea what to do. I knew I wanted to wow him, though, and knew it had to satisfy his sweet tooth. German chocolate cake, with its super-sweet and almost over-the-top coconut and pecan frosting, seemed like the perfect match for Jeff. I mentioned making these cupcakes to my friend Sarah while working together at the Food Network, and she suggested that I partially freeze the cupcakes and dip them into melted chocolate for a crackly coating. (She’s a genius.) These cupcakes definitely added to the drama of his surprise party. Continue reading… May 10th, 2010 | Tags: pecans, sea salt, unsweetened coconut | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, SPRING, SWEETS | 2 comments
Curry without Hurry
Annie is my close friend Marc’s new girlfriend, and we hadn’t had a chance to talk much when I first met her around the holidays. So, I invited her over to get to know her the only way I really know how– to cook together. When I asked her what she wanted to make, she replied that she’d always wanted to make a curry. With it slowly simmering on the stove, Annie and I had a chance to talk and hang out like I’d been wanting to-and then ended up with a delicious meal to share with our friends. Continue reading… February 9th, 2010 | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, SAVORY | One comment
12 Days of Christmas: Nochebuena with Frankie
Frankie is a very good friend of mine– he is as kind, funny and talented as he was when I went with him to his senior prom. I feel lucky to have him in New York. We hadn’t cooked together until just recently, and I thought that tonight was as good of a night as any to celebrate good friends and good food. Nochebuena is a Christmas Eve feast that a few of the Cuban families I know will be celebrating tonight, including the lovely Teddy who you might remember. Traditionally, as you will hear Frankie explain in the video we made, these Nochebuena gatherings are huge, full of family and friends eating a slow-roasted pig that would have been cooked in the ground for hours. However, cooking a Nochebuena dish with Frankie in New York presented a challenge to make something that honored all of the celebratory (and porcine) attributes of the feast with less space and time than he might have in Miami with his family. After a little discussion (and a slight kitchen accident), we ended up roasting a beautiful, stuffed pork loin and feasted with friends. Continue reading… December 24th, 2009 | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, PARTIES, SAVORY | Leave a comment
12 Days of Christmas: Christmas Dinner with Friends
Continue reading… December 21st, 2009 | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, PARTIES, SAVORY | Leave a comment
12 Days of Christmas: Yorkshire Puddings with Jeff
For the past few months, while my friends were buying their tickets to visit their families for Christmas, I have had a lot of nostalgic conversations about holiday food. Among them was one with my dear Jeff, whose family makes Yorkshire pudding every Christmas. We determined that teaching him this quick recipe would make him the cutest son ever, to surprise his mom by bringing something he made to his family’s table. Continue reading… December 18th, 2009 | Tags: muffin pan | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, SAVORY | Leave a comment
Preserved Eggs, Red Beans and a Chinatown Tour
My dear friend Pei-Yao is a profound inspiration in my life for many, many reasons-she and her husband, David, are truly remarkable people with endlessly fascinating lives. Among the gifts that Pei-Yao and David bring to our lives, Pei-Yao has given me the great honor of exposing me to her native cuisine from Taiwan and elements of her culture. Every time Garth and I are invited to their apartment for dinner, Pei-Yao cooks an incredible meal of foods with flavors, textures and ingredients I literally have never tried before. Every single dinner she cooks for us, I am blown away… but still want more. It is for this reason that Pei-Yao is pretty much the most intimidating guest to invite to dinner-but one reason of many that she is such an amazing friend. After many tours around the busy streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown, Pei-Yao promised that she would take you, too. Check out the video we shot during an afternoon stroll around the markets and streets of Chinatown, as well as Pei-Yao’s tips to build your own Chinese pantry and one of her favorite dinner party recipes. Continue reading… December 4th, 2009 | Tags: pork sung, silken tofu, Taiwanese preserved duck eggs | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, OUT & ABOUT, SAVORY | Leave a comment
A Man Cooks A Steak
Neil is my neighbor who lives upstairs. We would pass in the hall and discuss what we would cook together-being cheered on by his fiancé, Alli, who was deeply supportive of this initiative– but still didn’t manage to find time to get in the kitchen and cook. (It’s not like Neil really needs a lesson, anyway, since he has a pretty solid groove going with some staples he loves to cook, such as grilled steak.) However, once I’d agreed to teach Neil a thing or two about a simply seared steak and a basic red wine sauce, it didn’t take long for either of us to clear our schedules for an hour. November 30th, 2009 | Category: FOOD WITH FRIENDS, SAVORY | 2 comments
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About Me At culinary school in France, two years at Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine as a food editor, and all my foodie jobs in between, I've learned how to get my ideas from kitchen to page from a lot of great cooks and editors. When I'm not pitching or developing stories for magazines, I cater, cook and style food around New York City to support my growing food editorial habit. I live in Brooklyn. Archives
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