Savvy Eats

I think this is going to be the week when asparagus is more plentiful and costs less than $8/bunch at the market.  I’m already dreaming up ways I can use those little green and purple stalks in my dinners. I’m especially intrigued by the rice-less “risotto” in this menu! A Savvy Week: Ramps and Asparagus [...]

Growing up, when it came to special occasion and weekend dinners, my sister and I would take turns choosing the entree. My sister’s favorite was always grilled steak. My dad would mix the meat with some sliced onions, and slather it all with a bunch of mustard. After some time at the grill, he would [...]

Recently, I’ve felt like I need to revisit my earliest blog posts. The first few recipes, the first few Brain Food 101 posts: they have good content, but the quality of the writing leaves something to be desired. So here we go: the types of wheat flour, revisited. Gluten is made up of two proteins, [...]

There is a beautiful simplicity to the perfect roast chicken. The browned, crispy skin that everyone, even the most health-minded of guests, fights over. The flavorful, meltingly tender meat that hardly even requires a knife, shredding under the pull of a fork. In many kitchens, a chef’s worth is judged largely on their ability to [...]

Tomorrow, I’ll turn 26. My twenty-fifth year was interesting one. While I was often sick, plagued by headaches and nausea, the year was still overall positive. We took some big trips: a 10-day jaunt to Oregon and Washington, a fun yet exhausting weekend in Massachusetts for the Healthy Living Summit. I made a short visit [...]

Now that it is warm and springy outside, I’m all about adding a little lightness to our meals lately. I want to keep our meals simple and easy, too, so we can go for bike rides in the evenings and still have a healthy dinner.  Salads and half sandwiches are now lunchtime standards, and last [...]

I didn’t mean to post chorizo recipes two weeks in a row, truly I didn’t. I  meant to post gnudi, little ricotta dumplings in a sauce filled with fresh, springy vegetables. Except when I went to make them on Tuesday, I realized that the ricotta had gone bad. So I made chorizo con papas instead, [...]

Since recommitting myself to pursuing a writing career, I’ve had to find ways to add some structure to my day. In an engineering or other traditional job, I’d have a set start and end time to my day, and assigned projects and deadlines. But working for myself, that isn’t the case. It can be so [...]