Blette Soup

Stupidly easy recipe. Throw about a third of a cup of unwashed rice into a quart or so of chicken stock. Simmer it until the rice is done, and throw in a couple kind of bashed up but practically whole garlic cloves. Throw in a chopped up bunch of chard (that’s the blette), and cook …

Los Angeles Fishventures

I have been remiss. Last May I went to a beautiful wedding in Los Angeles, and took advantage of being there to eat a lot of Mexican seafood. The entire nonsensical experience is catalogued in this particular Chowhound thread. The frequent posters were super helpful, so I did my best to photograph and describe everything …

4 Ingredient Salmon Tartare

Before I make any salmon main course, I make this tartare. I love raw salmon, I love how it tastes with soy sauce, and I do not have the wherewithal to confidently cut my own sashimi and still have the rest of the fish be nicely shaped portions, so I do this. Chopped raw salmon …

Stock Tips

Rachel Fershleiser once said “If I die, tell the New York Times I liked soup.” Then she made this soup zine with her friend Ami Greko. I think the Times will be able to figure it out on their own. Most of the zine (which you should buy at Housingworks) is made up of recipes, …

Sixth Borough Punch

There is no photo for this punch. I hadn’t planned to blog it, but the audience that drank it last night at the Con Vivo gala demanded I post the recipe. They did this after they drank it, so blame them for the lack of art. This recipe uses all of my cheap tricks in …

First mint of the year is in the bottle

I learned this trick last year, and it’s awesome. You take a bottle of bourbon (cheap is best, given what we’re going to do to it), you pour out a shot or so, and stuff in as much mint as you can possibly fit in the bottle. Then you wait two days, then you pour …

Kir Bourgeois

I didn’t realize until I started writing this post that I might have to worry about the gender of the adjective in the name. I probably screwed it up. Anyway. We know about the kir royale: creme de cassis (made from blackcurrants) and champagne. But we’ve started buying this blackcurrant concentrate/syrup/squash from our favorite local …

Grapefruit Old Fashioned

I haven’t been blogging a lot of cocktails recently. I apologize. I’ve been distracted by two things. 1) Writing a 20-some minute piece for Rhymes With Opera in two months, and 2) really getting to know the Old-Fashioned. I’m a solid whiskey-drinker, and I like my cocktails, so I suppose it was only a matter …

Useless Whiskey & Pear cocktail

Why useless, you say? Well, how often do you get pear cider from Ikea AND Rogue whiskey? It is tasty though: 20 grams Rogue whiskey 80 grams Ikea pear cider (I suppose another, better cider would be fine, too) splash Angostura aromatic bitters Just put them all in a glass and stir. Ice if you …

Korean Superbowl Chili

This dish has origins basically nowhere. Standing in a Korean market yesterday, my girlfriend said “let’s have chili.” I said okay, and put some garlic sambal and gochu chang in my basket, and here we are. This stuff is awesome. It’s meaty, warm and spicy with a background sweetness that makes it very hard to …

Gin plays well with vinho verde

I’ve seen a lot of gin and sparkling wine cocktails, frequently balanced with some sugar and bitters. A lot of times there’s the fashionable bitters-soaked sugar cube in the bottom of a glass with gin and then wine on top. You can even go up the price scale for both gin and champagne to show …