English muffins are one of the first foods I can remember eating. My mom has always liked eating breakfast at diners, and as a child I would accompany her to various diners on the southwest side of Chicago. This was in the days when you could smoke in a diner, which lent a certain ambiance that doesn’t exist any more. They were pretty magical places full of regulars, and sassy waitresses. Our usual order was two English muffins and an order of bacon (crisp, please!), which we would split. She had coffee, black, and I had orange juice. It was fun.

When I was a teenager I made a lot of English muffin-pizza-things. It was a good after school snack at a time when I was always hungry.

In Paris I like to get the muffins from the American guy at the farmers market on boulevard Raspail. They are delicious, and a good venue for Bordier butter or preserves.

You see, English muffins and I go way back. I keep hoping there will be an English muffin renaissance in Chicago, but it is all bagels right now. Which left me no other choice but to make them myself. read more+++

We’ve been traveling for the past couple of weeks. We were mostly in Los Angeles visiting Bryan’s family and some friends (hi guys!). Bryan’s sister and her husband recently had the most adorable baby ever, and the highlight of our trip was getting to meet our sweet niece. She was in her fifth week of life when we were with her. Five weeks! It is hard to wrap your mind around. In addition to plenty of baby holding, we also took a small side trip to Las Vegas.

Last year when we attended the Saveur Blog awards party, Bryan entered a raffle. Luck was on our side that night because he won the grand prize: a stay at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. I think we’d need to be 10 years younger(or 30 years older?), heterosexual, and very drunk to really enjoy Las Vegas, but we did our best. Mostly we enjoyed our truly amazing suite (3 bathrooms!) and marveling at the insanity that is “The Strip”. We ate at a bunch of restaurants, but to be honest I didn’t love any of them. Everything was overpriced and under-loved. It was hard to find magic. We left the strip for a brief excursion to Amber Unicorn Books, which has the most glorious selection of used cookbooks I have ever seen—hundreds and hundreds…maybe even thousands? It is in a pretty nondescript strip mall, a fifteen minute drive from where we were staying. As we drove through the streets of Vegas that most tourists never encounter, I wondered what other secrets were lurking throughout the city. I know that if people come to Chicago and never leave the loop or Michigan Avenue, they have no idea of Chicago. I wondered if it is frustrating to live in a city mostly known for a couple of miles of casinos and shopping malls.

In any case, Las Vegas was a fun diversion, and we drove back to Los Angeles with a trunk full of cookbooks. read more+++

You hate to say things like this too soon, but it has been a remarkably easy winter in Chicago. I have done a minimal amount of complaining about the weather, which has been pretty mild. In fact, I have been thoroughly enjoying this winter and the food that goes along with it, I’m not even tired of citrus fruits yet. For the first time in a while, I am okay with winter sticking around a bit longer. I still have a bunch of cold-weather recipes I want to tackle, and I have been enjoying the excuse to embrace my homebodiness.

read more+++

I had to wait until (almost) February to post this recipe for Hot Yogurt and Barley soup. I didn’t want it to be mistaken for some sort of food cleanse or resolution—it contains barley, after all. Every January I am surprised by the intensity with which magazines are pushing “healthy eating”. I guess the idea is that if we drink juice for the month of January we can eat what we want the rest of the year? That seems like a stupid plan. Some food magazines are even profiling celebrities who only drink juice (and plankton) and who seem to generally dislike food (and joy?). Why??! What does the new year do to all of us?!

read more+++

Recently I discovered (and shared on Twitter) that there were 243 cookbooks in my apartment. The number has since risen to 245. I was both proud and horrified by the number. It is a lot of books. It is especially a lot of books for a small, one-bedroom apartment. Poor Bryan. At least a hundred of them are in piles around the house, so my new years resolution is to find a storage solution for all of these books. Wish me luck.

One of the two recent additions to the collection was Piece of Cake: Home Baking Made Simple by David Muniz, David Lesniak and Rachel Allen (published in the UK as Baked in America- which is a much better title). It is a book from the two guys who own Outsider Tart bakery in London. The bakery sells American baked goods (whoopie pies, cupcakes, layer cakes, etc) to Brits, and apparently is popular. I didn’t know much about the bakery, and somehow missed the US release of the book back in the Autumn. I honestly have no idea why I bought this cookbook. Why do we buy most things? Boredom? I read a thing? I was hungry? Anyway, I added another general baking book to the dozens that I own and depleted even more of my expendable income. Bad idea, right? read more+++

Recipes for something called Strange-Flavored Eggplant (or odd-flavored eggplant) pop up a lot in cookbooks from the 80′s. I discovered this while researching the origins of a starter we ate at Nopi in London. The rather unassuming plate was a sort of smashed up eggplant spread flavored with (what tasted like) sesame oil and soy sauce. It was sweet and sour and so delicious that we considered asking for a second of the same plate because we liked it so much. I came home and started to research the dish and kept coming across these recipes for strange-flavored eggplant.

At first I was worried the origins of the name might be racist-y (strange=foreign?). But it seems as though maybe it has more to do with the translation of a Chinese character? I don’t know. The title certainly doesn’t sell the recipe, which is actually quite wonderful. It isn’t what we had at Nopi, but is similar in its vibrancy. It is full of the flavors of Chinese-American cooking and pretty hard to resist. It really does stimulate the palate and get you excited to eat dinner, which is what we are all looking for in a starter.

In other news, I very happily contributed some of my favorite things to the latest issue of Lonny. I care about home design almost as much as I care about food, so it was a fun opportunity to get to engage in some of that with an online magazine I’ve always enjoyed. I am happy with the way my spread turned out (go designers at Lonny!),  I hope you’ll all check it out. read more+++

I thought we’d start off the year the way we’d start off the day, with breakfast. In my case I am also breaking my blogging fast—blogfast? These Liège waffles have been written about before by other bloggers. If you’re anything like me, you skip them because you don’t happen to have any pearl sugar on your shelf—or you read the comments and are annoyed by the discussions of why every recipe is not the authentic recipe. Don’t be like me! Or yourself! These are so good that pearl sugar is worth seeking out, and annoying people are worth ignoring. In fact, a good 2013 resolution is to always seek out unusual ingredients, they’ll teach you something. Also, since the invention of the internet there are not a lot of good excuses for not being able to get your hands on something. It is a wonderful and terrible fact of our time. Pearl sugar is special because it won’t melt under the heat of the waffle iron, leaving little crunches of sugar throughout the waffle. This recipe is not worth making without it. No substitutions! Happy New Year!

read more+++

Friends! At long last, I am back. My absence wasn’t planned. I came down with the worst flu ever, which kept me out of commission for a couple of weeks. It was especially discouraging since I was a good citizen and got a flu shot at the start of the season. But luckily I felt better just in time to enjoy some holiday cheer. I’ll be back in earnest next week with some updates on what I’ve been cooking, but I wanted to take a moment and say hello.

Hello!

At the end of the year, I like to look back over the blog and remember all of the good food we shared. I gave myself the challenge of picking the 5 best recipes of the year.

I failed, so here are 7:

Smoky Eggplant Puree with Pine Nuts and Urfa Pepper

I liked this recipe so much it ended up making it into the wrap I designed to benefit Open Books.

Baby Spinach Salad with Dates and Almonds

This remains the most satisfying thing I made all year—simple and delicious. read more+++

This is what I made for Thanksgiving dinner. It was one of the best recipes I discovered this year, and it seemed perfect for the holiday. I think it would be equally perfect for a Christmas, Hanukkah, or New Years celebrations. Consider it my gift to you, dear reader. The gift of a perfectly roasted paprika and garlic rubbed chicken that cooks on a bed of potato wedges that benefit from chicken fat and high temperatures. When it is done, you have chicken and potatoes and only need a hearty green salad to accompany them. You also have an astonishingly simple and delicious meal. Honestly, this is about as good as it gets. I’ve made this recipe twice already and am giving it another go this weekend. Consider me obsessed.

read more+++

I’ve been randomly exclaiming Christmas is almost over!, since Halloween. Even though I’m not Christian, I love the “holiday season” (by “holiday season” I mean: snow, Christmas decorations, presents, egg nog, good cheer, and all other secular/cultural parts of the holiday). The older I get, the faster the season goes by and the less satisfying it all is. It comes and goes so quickly, hence my anxious exclamation. I’m trying to fight the forward motion of the holidays by baking as much as possible, and watching holiday classics like She-Ra & He-Man: A Christmas Special (seriously weird, and currently streaming on Netflix).

read more+++