Cherries – Under the Wire
I know I’m just under the wire with this cherry recipe, but I rushed to get it perfected so that I could share it with you. So please run to your market, get the cherries even if they’re the season’s last, and find an avocado. You’ve got a treat in store. I’m proud of this […]
Salade Niçoise Authentique
Salade Niçoise, how we all love this blend of potatoes, green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, anchovies, tuna and…WAIT !!! STOP!!! Do not EVER tell any self-respecting Niçoise that you like your Salade Niçoise with potatoes, green beans, lettuce, or tuna and anchovies at the same time. This will make you an outcast and possibly consider you a […]
Grilled Eggplant Salad
This recipe for Eggplant Salad (which I serve as an appetizer) comes from one of my favorite books, HONEY FROM A WEED, by Patience Gray (Harper and Row, 1986). The book is a love story on every level, not least about the simplicity of growing and foraging ingredients in various parts of Italy, Catalonia, The […]
Summer Grill Medley, Heavy on the Eggplant
I know, all I write about these days is eggplant. It’s the season. And besides I’m in love with eggplant. It comes in the most gorgeous colors, it wears its fat, bottom heavy shape with pride and when grilled, it turns to seductive pudding. How can this vegetable (which is technically a fruit) not be […]
Cooking and Teaching with a Social Purpose
Last week was extraordinary It began ten years ago, when Evelyn Isaia and her daughter, Camilla, came to a week-long cooking class I was teaching in Paris. By weeks’ end we were friends and over the years we’ve kept in close touch; I taught a class at her home in Miami, and when she and her […]
The Best Summer Snack
This is the best summer snack ever, one I discovered a million years ago on a Tuscan farm, and am revisiting in a Tuscan village. It’s so easy. Take the best piece of bread or focaccia you can find. Peel a fat, new clove of garlic and rub it all over the bread, on all […]
Eggplant
Eggplant is the most luxurious vegetable I know. There is something about its texture, particularly when oven-roasted, that transports to exotic places where dreamy color, wealth, flavor abound. It is gorgeous from inception to full growth, its taut, shiny purple to creamy white skin almost silken in texture over its voluptuous flesh that just waits […]
Pesto for Winter
I just harvested my mini crop of basil from the front garden. Until now we have had unseasonable warm temperatures so I left it in the ground,wanting the leaves to eke out every possible gram of flavor from the soil. But today the temperature is dipping and if the plants stay in the ground much longer, the risk is […]
Scallops are Here
Scallops are here! Scallops are here! They’re early this year and the prediction is there will be few on the market because the price of oil is keeping boats in the dock. I hope this is not true. There was plenty for all at the Le Neubourg market this morning, and I hope it stays […]
