Dorie’s French Yogurt Cake Glazed with Lemon Basil Jelly

On Memorial Day, while I was planting lemon basil in my garden, I remembered that I’ve been wanting to make a French yogurt cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from my Home to Yours. What’s the connection? She glazed her cake with lemon marmalade and I’ve been thinking that a glaze is the perfect use for [...]

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Two Kumquat Jams: Rhubarb and Strawberry

This is the year of the kumquat for me. I haven’t posted the sweet preserved kumquats with spices yet and I finally figured out how to poach kumquats to make candied kumquats that hold their shape (the answer is slowly and not for too long). However, kumquats have been a regular feature around here for [...]

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Turnip and Greens Soup

What in the wor(l)d? This is a simplified version of a classic French soup known as “Potage Untel” as Julia Child referred to a similar concoction. In today’s world, to find the origin of “Untel,” we go to Google. And guess what, we find out more information than we ever wanted to know about Intel [...]

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Strawberry Ice Cream

I made an awesome orange-strawberry sorbet the other day, not documented but hopeful, although it was icy. I was surprised, since it had added an abundant amount of orange zest and Grand Marnier liqueur and a reasonable amount of pulp. Every frozen concoction goes through the exercise of texture, so-called mouth feel (not my favorite [...]

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Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Saucy and silky in texture, slightly tangy, aromatic and deep red, this strawberry rhubarb jam pleases our food-related senses. I tend to prefer strawberries combined with something else: last year red currants and also rhubarb; the year before, Balsamic vinegar and black pepper.  This recipe is similar in technique to last year’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam with [...]

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Spring Vegetable Lasagna

Light and fresh are not typical descriptors of lasagna, but made with strips of oven-roasted zucchini, ricotta seasoned with spinach and arugula, a few fresh tomatoes reduced with red peppers, and local raw milk mozzarella, this dish was decidedly spring-like.  Since the zucchini was young and a little floppy, I added a single sheet of [...]

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Spaghetti with Pesto of Radish Greens, Mint and Walnuts

The ribbing in my household over my statement that I have rarely met a vegetable I didn’t want to roast is rivaled only by my interest in pesto. I mean “pesto” in the generic sense of a mix of ingredients that is pounded. The word comes from the Latin “pinsere,” which led to various iterations [...]

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Simple Asparagus and Leek Soup

A Bowl of Spring The weather’s ugly, cold and wet, and yet Burstings of spring and just sprung leeks Mean warmth will be here soon, in weeks From straw, asparagus is green anew And begs to join a springtime stew We will prepare, and warm the bowl For simple soup that wakes the soul  Asparagus [...]

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Pickled Asparagus with Curry Spices

After a few seasons of trying, I am gradually improving my pickled asparagus and this one looks like it will be the best yet. Last year I made curried pickled asparagus using ground spices and while the taste was good, the powdery substance created a slurry that I thought was unattractive. So this year, I [...]

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A Cookie for Circle of Women

This past weekend, I volunteered to prepare the food for a reception and art auction attended by 150+ people in NYC. It was a benefit for Circle of Women (CoW), a non-profit organization that was started and still functions as a student-run organization at Harvard with affiliates at other colleges and also high schools. There [...]

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