Hunger in Plain Sight
There are hungry people out there, actually; they’re just largely invisible to the rest of us, or they look so much like us that it’s hard to tell. The Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program,...
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Cold-Proof Your Salad
WITH all due respect to tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and all the other vegetables we’ve enjoyed for the last few months, the champions of the moment are beets, turnips and radishes. For gardeners and...
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New York Dals
It is not that I’ve never cooked dal, the family of Indian legume dishes that is a staple for the hundreds of millions of vegetarians of India, as well as who knows how many millions of omnivores;...
View ArticlePesticides: Now More Than Ever
How quickly we forget. After the publication of “Silent Spring,” 50 years ago, we (scientists, environmental and health advocates, birdwatchers, citizens) managed to curb the use of pesticides[1] and...
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A Winter's Cornucopia in Wales
THE predicament I found myself in was also an opportunity, and not unlike the puzzle that faces C.S.A. participants each week: I had a pile of vegetables and I had to figure out what to do with it. (A...
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Feast in a Day
Last month, Sam Sifton and I took up the job of cooking for 15 people at a friend’s home in Brooklyn. The idea was to feed and impress friends, family members and colleagues without driving ourselves...
View ArticleDietary Seat Belts
Here’s some good news: Seat belts save lives[1] . So do vaccinations. The world’s population is living longer. The childhood obesity rate has declined[2] in parts of the United States. That’s...
View ArticleEggs, Chicken Livers, and a Secret Ingredient
When I asked Frank DeCarlo — the chef at Peasant, on Elizabeth Street, and a friend — to show me a big-flavored, funky, simple dish that he loved, he suggested a chicken liver frittata. My mouth...
View ArticleStop Subsidizing Obesity
Not long ago few doctors – not even pediatricians – concerned themselves much with nutrition. This has changed, and dramatically: As childhood obesity gains recognition as a true health crisis, more...
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Giving Lamb Legs
The gleaming, massive lamb shank on these pages, impressive though it may be, is not the most effective way to serve what amounts to the shin and ankle of a lamb. It’s glorious, for sure, but it has a...
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Yukon Gold Standard
There are the up-and-coming root vegetables with near-celebrity status — celeriac, parsnips, beets — and then there is the potato. Simultaneously beloved and despised, the potato is our most-grown and...
View ArticleConjuring Warmth in Winter's Kitchen
This sauce/side dish — a simple combination of fennel, tomatoes and olives — is magical. Not because it’s the best thing you ever ate, but because it’s transportive: you eat it and you’re in the...
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Every 'Which Way
For something that has almost unlimited potential, the sandwich has become staid and unimaginative. In part this is because we don’t have as many leftovers as we once did (we don’t cook as much), so a...
View ArticleCoke Blinks
Once again, Coke has blinked. It famously did so in 1985, when it introduced “new” Coke, replacing its original formula with one it thought would have greater appeal with its audience. It was wrong...
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Surf and Turf Revisited
Even the best foods can become tiresome, which is the only reason you would ever do anything with oysters other than opening and swallowing them. For something almost as primitive, the people of...
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Lawns Into Gardens
The seed catalogs have arrived, and for the roughly 15 percent of Americans who appreciate the joys and rewards of growing some of their own crops, this is a more encouraging sign than Groundhog Day...
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A Time Before Tabbouleh
I had been cooking for only a few years when, in 1972, a friend gave me “A Book of Middle Eastern Food,” by a woman named Claudia Roden. In my cooking life, there was no more important influence than...
View ArticleThe Cosmetics Wars
If all goes according to schedule, next month the European Union will become “cruelty-free,” banning without exception the sale of cosmetics ingredients that were tested on animals. Don’t celebrate...
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The Wheat Lowdown
Those of us who cook believe that you have to cook to eat; baking bread is different. With so many relatively decent loaves readily available in stores, bread-baking is more of a hobby. The result, of...
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Gnocchi: 4 Flavors, 4 Sauces
A phrase often used (overused, really) to describe well-made gnocchi is "light as a cloud." It’s not an especially instructive description for a piece of real food, and for cooks hoping to try their...
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