I’m taking another course! Last time was six weeks of cooking. This time, we’re baking. I can fairly confidently call myself a cooker. But a baker? Not so much. Sure, I bake. But serious baking takes patience. I take shortcuts. Baking needs precision. I need to taste and modify as I go. Baking requires a scale. I require [...]. Read More »

Where to begin?Thank you. Thank you to my family, especially my father who, while traveling for business, stopped at every available wifi hotspot to vote from a different IP address.Thank you to the friends who voted and recruited their frends to vote, and their friends’ friends.Thank you to the colleagues who, when our network blocked them [...]. Read More »

Where to begin?Thank you. Thank you to my family, especially my father who, while traveling for business, stopped at every available wifi hotspot to vote from a different IP address.Thank you to the friends who voted and recruited their frends to vote, and their friends’ friends.Thank you to the colleagues who, when our network blocked them [...]. Read More »

Remember my mixer? The one that leapt to its death like a goldfish from its tank? What? Am I the only one who had lemming-like goldfish growing up? Well anyway, the old has been been replaced by a bigger, shinier model. I have not yet had a chance to make (or share the recipe for) the challah that challenged [...]. Read More »

My last full day in Vienna, I woke up with the city. Before the cafes opened, I stepped out of my hotel into the misty haze hiding the slowly rising sun. I boarded a small bus and sat next to the driver as we made our way through the sleepy streets. Past the men in light [...]. Read More »

As I send this post out into the world, I’m sure most of you are getting ready for the weekend. I like to think that if weekend were a Jewish holiday, Thursday night would be “erev weekend” – the night before the weekend begins and the time to start celebrating. But, I’m not here to [...]. Read More »

As I send this post out into the world, I’m sure most of you are getting ready for the weekend. I like to think that if weekend were a Jewish holiday, Thursday night would be “erev weekend” – the night before the weekend begins and the time to start celebrating. But, I’m not here to [...]. Read More »

I have a whole slew of recipes and pictures to share from a dinner I made several weeks ago. They are a bit overdue but too good to miss. So, here goes. The first is a classic roasted chicken. I’ve always been a little apprehensive about cooking a whole bird. I’ve never actually made a Thanksgiving [...]. Read More »

I’m back from my spur-of-the-moment weekend in Vienna. No recipe today, but there’s a sachertorte in our future. Once I translate a few recipes from German. If you’ve never been, then let me tell you – Vienna is a walkable elegant city. Perhaps the most elegant city I’ve ever visited. Elegant in a dapper sort of [...]. Read More »

Guten Morgen from München. Well, the airport at least. I was greeted at the Dallmayr cafe an hour before my connecting flight. Ahhh… Another short flight and now I’m off to get wienerschnitzel here in Austria. More later. Filed under: Uncategorized. Read More »

Guten Morgen from München. Well, the airport at least. I was greeted at the Dallmayr cafe an hour before my connecting flight. Ahhh… Another short flight and now I’m off to get wienerschnitzel here in Austria. More later. Filed under: Uncategorized. Read More »

Welcome to 2012. Before we get too far into the new year, I want to send out the recipe that carried me through the last few weeks of 2011. With the track record it has, I suspect it will carry me through the first weeks of 2012 as well. I met this wild mushroom soup when [...]. Read More »

Welcome to 2012. Before we get too far into the new year, I want to send out the recipe that carried me through the last few weeks of 2011. With the track record it has, I suspect it will carry me through the first weeks of 2012 as well. I met this wild mushroom soup when [...]. Read More »

Welcome to the South. Atlanta, to be exact. I spent last weekend with my adopted Atlanta family. They “adopted” me years ago when my parents had moved to the West coast and getting home for the holidays proved difficult. The first time I went home with Meira was Rosh Hashana. I met the family – Monica, Caroline, Micah [...]. Read More »

In the months before Christmas, I started a class of chopping and stirring and cooking with gas. I dragged myself up every Sunday at eight. Luck’ly they set out strong coffee to wait. Knife skills and techniques were taught on week one, but at home were dull knives that weren’t much fun. Week two was eggs that we poached, [...]. Read More »

Just a quick hello this afternoon and a couple of grilling recipes for those of you lucky enough to be in a location warm enough to take advantage of the grill. Remember that pan of cakes making its way to the cooling rack (Careful!) in week five of my cooking class? Well, after they cooled, [...]. Read More »

Happy Hanukkah everyone! This year, I started celebrating a day early. I didn’t light any candles, but I could have said a shehecheyanu — the blessing traditionally recited on the first night of Hanukkah (and other holidays) and other special occasions. This was a special occasion alright. Because I fried. And fried. And fried. An Israeli [...]. Read More »

Happy Hanukkah everyone! This year, I started celebrating a day early. I didn’t light any candles, but I could have said a shehecheyanu — the blessing traditionally recited on the first night of Hanukkah (and other holidays) and other special occasions. This was a special occasion alright. Because I fried. And fried. And fried. An Israeli [...]. Read More »

I hope you don’t mind that I got ahead of myself, sharing with you week six of my cooking techniques course before week five. But I absolutely had to get that pear recipe out to the world post-haste. As promised, here’s the missing lesson. Week five’s topic was dry heat, which includes broiling, pan-broiling, grilling, pan frying, deep fat [...]. Read More »

Today was the sixth and final class of my cooking techniques course. But wait, you might be asking yourself, isn’t it a six-week course? And then you’ll calculate, haven’t you only posted four classes? Finally you’ll wonder, what happened to class number five? I can’t put anything past you guys. Turns out that one of the recipes that we made [...]. Read More »