Sorrel soup, or schav

Italian parsley and young arugula in downy bunches, elastics wrapped around their stems. Stacks of pointy-leafed mint, variegated lemon thyme, and slender chives creating a landscape of fragrant green pyramids. Soft, pillowy bags of baby spinach, mixed lettuces, and mâche. But no sorrel.

“I am too late this morning? Has all the sorrel been snatched up?” I asked, clearly ...
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Causa limeña: savoury Peruvian potato torte

In my autobiography, April 2006 through July 2006 will be known as “The Dark Period.”

I don’t remember what I ate during The Dark Period. More than that, I don’t remember eating at all. It did wonders for my figure. Oh, that glorious warm summer morning when I slid into a black pencil skirt that had been ...
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Puckery, garlicky, spicy pickled asparagus*

I know it’s not exactly Friday today. But in order to bring you this Friday snippet of food fun, I actually had to pickle the asparagus first, which is a weekend job. I accomplished it, as planned, on Saturday. For the purpose of this post, however, let’s pretend it’s Friday and the weekend ...
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Sweet corn soup shooters

Here’s the scene: People are arriving at your cocktail party on an icy January evening. The biting wind has driven the temperature down to a frigid –20°C. Guests unwind scarves from their necks, shake out their hair from the confines of toques, and sling their bulky long coats over the entryway banister before entering the dining area while ...
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Zucchini blossoms in my Aunt Janice’s garden

These bright beauties may look like regular ol’ zucchini blossoms, but they’re special. In my aunt’s backyard garden, these blossoms are now yielding Costata Romanesco zucchini, an Italian heirloom varietal that grows in a lovely shade of pale green and has raised ribs running the length of its body. I find it sweeter than common ...
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Garlic scape pesto

Your instructions: Bookmark Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for garlic scape pesto and promise me you’ll make it when scapes come back into season next spring.

Sorry, basil pesto. You’re dead to me.

Pizza with spring toppings and fontina

I choose to view the last year and eight months as a lesson in simplicity, in determining life’s essentials from its frills. As it happens, having a full-sized oven is a frill, but oh — how much sweeter culinary life is when you have one at your disposal.

You might remember that back in March I Continue reading ...

Curried chicken chowder

Chowder. It’s not quite soup and not quite stew. So what is it?

Enter the Oxford Companion to Food, which tells me that in fact, chowder is thought to be named after the iron cooking pot, the chaudière, brought to the east coast of Canada by early French settlers. The Micmac peoples introduced these settlers to clams, which ...
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Title: Vegetable Love
Author: Barbara Kafka
Extent: 720 pp
Publisher: Artisan (a division of Workman Publishing)
Publication Date: 4 October 2005

The Gist: Subtitled “Vegetables delicious alone, or with pasta, seafood, poultry, meat, and more,” Barbara Kafka’s Vegetable Love encyclopedia is an authoritative exploration of vegetables by region, replete with recipes of all persuasions — not just ...
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