Bread recipes always seem weirdly explicit and slack at the same time. Bernard Clayton Jr.’s great book, “The Breads of France” has recipes that say, “prepare starter – 12 minutes.” “Fermentation – 6 hours minimum.” Prepare Dough – 18 minutes.” “First Rising – 2 hours.” Click to continue »
Haven’t we all planned dream meals with certain dishes in certain environments, the guest list – small or large – exactly inspired, the soundtrack to it all poignantly appropriate, dream meals that may never even occur? Combining the various elements to a great dinner – from the guests to the wine – can seem like composing a work of Art. Sometimes, just dreaming it is satisfying enough.
I had duck this weekend, and David Lebovitz’s amazing Fresh Ginger Cake, but I haven’t chucked my January diet yet, which really isn’t a diet at all but an unaccountable desire for hot, strong, Asian tastes. Click to continue »
Here’s a story of a recipe that’s traveled around the world, serving many purposes, in a matter of days. Click to continue »
Portrait of a beautiful lunch to-go from Willowrest last week: roasted Asian salmon with vegetable chips (snap-crispy, taste like the actual vegetable, these are my new favorite snack, and available at Willowrest in small tubs), and sesame noodles. Click to continue »
The half-block space on Duncan St. in Gloucester, that to the unschooled looks like a basement entrance to the CVS around the corner on Main St., has always been a restaurant to love. For years it was The Glass Sailboat, where everyone in Gloucester, from the fish piers to Bass Rocks, stopped in for good coffee, a homemade muffin, and maybe some homeopathic remedies from the Common Crow across the room. The place grew up a little, got liquor and music, and became the Sunny Day Cafe. While people mourned the old Sailboat, The Cafe was accepted in a community that doesn’t even like its vacant lots to change.
This underground space – the street windows open down into the dining room – has for years served artists, musicians, fisherman, house painters, everyone from Gloucester’s lawless to Gloucester’s lawyers, because the food – whether its coffee and great sandwiches or now Alchemy’s Bistro Fare – has for some reason always been great and the mood a little edgy, a little untoward, a little underground. Click to continue »
My weekend pick is to curl up somewhere with a novel and a cookbook. My friend, Otto, agrees.
On cue, the December 31st sun begins to set and I want cilantro, lime, sesame oil, chili paste and noodles.
I’m starting the New Year with a recipe that may indeed be the recipe for World Peace: Porridge. Click to continue »
Everyone cooked in my family, even my brothers. We subscribed to Gourmet Magazine and hungrily read the articles about what people in little French villages were having for supper, and then my mother and I tried to recreate them ourselves.
My academic background is in painting and writing, but I waitressed at Jasper’s and Hammersly’s Bistro in the 1980’s, when dining in Boston was just becoming exciting, and the people in it - waitstaff and kitchen staff - were like a small university of students and faculty. Everyone knew each other, ate in each other’s restaurants, and were aware that dining in Boston had just turned a corner, inspired by youth, global awareness - these were chefs who had traveled to Europe - and new respect for American ingredients. It was a wonderful community of people who cared about all sorts of good food and wines. Because they cared about these arts, they also cared about growing food, preserving space for it to grow, preserving the lifestyles of people who grow it. We were all beginning to understand that caring about what was served on a plate was to care about the bigger picture.
Married, the mother of two daughters, I now live in Rockport, Ma. My daughters cook. Everyone in our house welcomes a new cookbook for the dinner and dessert possibilities it might offer, which really means the possibility of changing our lives just a little, pretending we live in a little French village for a night. Isn’t that what food does, too - a little bit of theater every single day? “What are we having for dinner tonight?” is really the question of “What is the performance tonight? Where are we traveling? Who will we be?”
I write a column called “Food for Thought” for The Gloucester Daily Times. In it and on this blog, I’m always looking for the possibility food offers for transformation and I’m looking for those wonderful communities of all kinds who care about preparing a great dish, setting a beautiful table, drinking a good glass of wine, and then having a great conversation.
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