The Devil Is in the Details

They’re one of the all-time cliché potluck contributions — deviled eggs. But the convergence of a party invitation from our neighbors Chris & Glennis’  with a surplus of eggs from our 20-some-odd chickens proved to be more of a temptation than I could resist. You could say the devil possessed me.

Catalan deviled eggs

Catalan deviled eggs

The first time I’d done something like this was for one of my fancy XX-course New Year’s Eve dinners — a version a few years back with a Spanish theme. I created a deviled egg of sorts, the hard-boiled yolk blended not with mayonnaise and Dijon mustard but rather with those pillars of Spanish cooking: lots of olive oil, garlic and pimentón. More

Tuesdays with Donnie

I never read the book, “Tuesdays with Morrie.” It sounded sort of depressing. Plus, I have my own more festive, culinary version. I have Tuesdays with Donnie!

Donnie & his saké on a Tuesday evening.

Donnie & his saké on a Tuesday evening.

It all started one particular Tuesday, when I ran into Don and Monica Schneider at school. They’re two of our favorite people, and we hadn’t socialized with them in awhile. “I know it’s Tuesday,” Don said, “But do you guys wanna do dinner tonight?” More

Sushicicles with Imogen

Immy digging in

Immy digs in

The other day, I was having some tuna toro sashimi for a snack before dinner. As I sat at the dining room table daintily dipping thin slices of fish into soy sauce and wasabi, my 3-year-old daughter, Imogen, approached.

“I have some?” she said. More

Cowboy Cooking in the Old West

When our friends, Donna and Markian, told me they were moving into trailers on a big piece of property on the last mountain before you get to the sea, my mind immediately went in one direction: chuckwagon!

The compound

The compound (“chuckwagon” cooking area at center)

While not the height of culinary sophistication, chuckwagon cooking has always had some appeal to me. There’s something undeniably romantic about the image of sitting around a campfire in the open air, a steak sizzling in a pan, beans simmering, a kettle of crummy cowboy coffee burning. I like the elemental quality of the cuisine, where a slice of grilled cow counts as a vegetable. Plus, I wanted people to call me “Cookie,” even if just for a day. More

Skinny Girls Roadshow LIVE from Mexico — Turf & Surf

El pescado y yo

El pescado y yo

“What would you like for dinner?” the house chef, Marilu, asked us in Spanish. And we stood puzzling at her, since our Spanish is not that good.

Eventually we figured it out, and I suggested carne asada — grilled steak. It had clearly been sometime since any houseguests had requested this, since the grill was in an advanced state of rust decomposition, and much of the staff’s time that afternoon was spent scrubbing, soaking and scouring it. More

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