cook pot stories

I love spring cooking. My garden is sending up fresh shoots, the things I forgot about from last winter are surprising and delighting me. One of those is sorrel. I had no idea, when I planted it last year, that it would come back this year with such a vengeance. I've been at something of a loss as to what to do with it - I feel like a fool saying I have too much sorrel, when it's one of those things that is fleeting and delicate, but there you have it, more sorrel than I really can eat. Then I remembered. Sorrel has a tart, fresh taste. Fish is complemented by tart things. Scallops, with their sweetness, benefit from tart accompaniments. And a dish was born. My ingredients were: butter (not shown) about a pound of fresh, creamy sea scallops. If you've not cooked scallops before, or are worried about it,  this video  has good tips on selecting and preparing them garlic scallions, fresh from the garden - another spring surprise 6 or 7 big sorrel leaves pepper to t...

I'm about to break one of the cardinal rules of blogging and talk about why I haven't been posting much lately. Stick with me, there's a point to this. I have several unpublished posts ready to go. Meals in Tuscany, bread given as a gift, Passover foods, food related poems and link lists; all kinds of things. Each time I settle in to polish one to post, I get stuck, not because I don't care about the topic but because I have a friend who has an eating disorder. She reads what I write because she loves me and wants to support me. I'm concerned that something I write about food will be upsetting to her. Friend, if you're reading, please remember that I love you and this post is about my feelings, not about anything you've done. My concern about upsetting you may not be realistic. Loving someone with an eating disorder is like loving anyone else. You ache for them when they are in pain. You long to help them. You celebrate their successes. Loving this fr...

cutting greens BY  LUCILLE CLIFTON curling them around i hold their bodies in obscene embrace thinking of everything but kinship. collards and kale strain against each strange other away from my kissmaking hand and the iron bedpot. the pot is black, the cutting board is black, my hand, and just for a minute the greens roll black under the knife, and the kitchen twists dark on its spine and I taste in my natural appetite the bond of live things everywhere. Lucille Clifton, "cutting greens" from  The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton . Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.  Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd. Source:  Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir  (BOA Editions, Ltd., 1980)

Here are some of my current favorite sites in the food world. I'd love to know what sites you enjoy, please let me know in the comments section! Chowhound is my first stop for restaurant info, wherever I may be in the world. This is a lively community with highly opinionated posters. It also has cooking and general info boards. Chowhound is a subsection of chow.com , a broader food site with curated recipes, articles, videos and so on. It's also the home of Ruth Bourdain  the bastard child of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain.  Like so many, I mourned the loss of Gourmet Magazine. The Gourmet website is great, with well written articles and luscious recipes. It's a bit sales oriented, so you do need to slog through, but I have found some real gems here. Foodgawker is food porn at its best. Lovely pictures entice you to make even lovelier recipes. food52 is a food community, with recipes and articles submitted by users and vetted by chefs.  101cookbooks is a love...

My friend Ilene hosts an Oscars' party every year. It's a lot of fun - witty people commenting on clothing, presenters and award winners. There are two contests at this party. You can win a cash prize (everyone chips in) if you guess the most Oscar winners. Or you can win the dubious Urn of Shame for your pot luck contribution. Everyone brings a dish related somehow to one of the films or people nominated. I am both proud and dismayed to report that my partner Kevin Brooks and I won this year. We brought (may I have the envelope please) Natalie Port-man in Black Flan, a pun on Black Swan . A bottle of port wearing a tutu and tiara carefully nestled in cocoa dusted flan. You can see it for yourself. I had feared flan would be really hard to make, but to my delight it was actually easy. I also think I'll continue dusting it with cocoa - the bitterness balances the sweetness quite nicely. The recipe I used included cream cheese, which makes it a bit more stable (appropri...

As you know, I've decided to give some things away. You've always wanted to know how to make a Hot House, right? (It's limburger cheese with butter on toast.) How about Pumpkin and Cheese pie? Or Flamenco Veal Chops? All of these recipes and more are in this set of cookbooks. As you may know, I've been helping a friend clean out his mom's house . We've found quite a few amazing things there, including a trove of cookbooks. She enjoyed cooking in her younger days and would pick up every free cooking pamphlet she could find. I love cookbooks and so have taken many of them for my own collection. There is no way I will ever use all the cookbooks I have. This selection of cookbooks is from my friend's mom. You might enjoy the recipes, you might enjoy the astonishing 1960s and 1970s illustrations. I can't wait to see how dated our 2011 graphics look in 40 years. This package includes: 100 Ways to Be Original In All Your Cooking (by Lea & Perri...

I rarely post restaurant reviews here. I keep meaning to, thinking a food blog should include commentary on the places I eat as well as what I cook and the stories triggered by the meals, but I usually forget. Today I remembered. I had lunch with my friend Elsa today. We often spend Thursdays together in what we call "play dates." We'll each set a few goals regarding what we want to get done, work in the same house but not necessarily the same room, check in and help each other stay on track, and go someplace for lunch. Today we went to Spice n Hot Indian Restaurant in Malden, MA . We walked, since it's a lovely day and the air is finally starting to smell like spring. As we walked we admired the temporary streams and springs from the melting mounds of snow. We smelled the earth, listened to the birds and agreed that it was a good day to be alive. Spice n Hot is next door to  India Bazaar , an Indian grocery. I've been a regular customer at India Bazaar f...