Dried wild mushrooms are like a present that you get to open twice: when you cook with them, not only do you get to use one of the richest, most savory, most complex foods there is, you also get their broth, which is a treat to use now or later in whatever you like. Plus, [...]
Our first all-vegetarian Thanksgiving (and our first Thanksgiving in our new house) was a definite success. Low-key and low-stress, we spent the day hanging around the kitchen: cooking, eating, cooking more, eating more. Not a bad way to spend a day off. Considering how adventuresome our menu was, I’m feeling proud – I’ve never made [...]
I promised in my last post, about homemade tomato sauce, that I’d soon write about the gnocchi I made to go with the sauce. I’m overdue in sharing. The truth is, I started making the gnocchi with the thought of writing about how easy it was, how it seems so intimidating but really it’s a [...]
Eating and writing about porcini mushrooms recently got me thinking: these mushrooms are really expensive, but they’re so much better than plain old mushrooms that it seems worth the occasional splurge. There are also foods that are so much better than their inexpensive counterparts that it seems criminal to buy anything else – but this [...]
I never liked mushrooms until I started eating other varieties besides white buttons (and cooking them in lots of butter). So my mushroom fascination is relatively new, but I’m entranced by them now, and I’m very excited about the mushroom vendor who frequents the winter season of our farmer’s market. Yesterday, they had fresh porcinis, [...]