Dinners

Sally’s Salmon

As I mentioned before on this blog I once owned a microwave oven that had a Seafood button on it – and the simplicity of that combined with a divine bottled sauce from Trader Joe’s made cooking salmon simple and good. (Okay, so certain family members referred to it as “that microwaved fish Mom makes”…

Fourth of July Lasagna

  Fourth of July in Lake Arrowhead is a moveable feast. If you have a view of the fireworks from your deck, friends will come over with friends (in one case friends of friends with their friends) and this all works out because it’s a close knit neighborhood and I always like the friends of…

A Poet’s Recipe: Shrimp Barka

If you watched Obama’s first inauguration you saw the beautiful Elizabeth Alexander read her inauguration poem, “Praise Song for the Day”, a poem I love so much that I’ve been reading it to my students ever since. (Google it and see for yourself.)  Below is not a poem but a recipe from her memoir, The Light…

A Movable Feast: the gift of food

There have been no posts for awhile on this blog because R. is ill  so we’re not cooking for friends or going out to dinner. But the other night my friend Kara announced she was bringing a small dinner party to us to celebrate our friend Rob’s birthday.  She arrived with Rob and a complete…

Chef’s One Pot Chicken

  This dish, which is delicious and as last minute friendly as a recipe can get, appeared in an article about what chefs cook on their nights off by Sam Sifton in the New York Times Sunday magazine a few weeks ago. He adapted it from a recipe by Andrew and Rishia Zimmern who got it…

Dinner Party Chicken with Mushrooms and Artichokes

Sometimes R. has looked back longingly on my company chicken du jour casseroles from the past. (And this is so far in the past that we were married to other people at those chicken dinners.) I found one of the old recipes and cooked it the other night.  R. gave it a 6. What can I…

Beatrice’s Brazilian Stew: Warmth for Cold Nights

This is delicious – a fish stew flavored with cilantro, lime, red pepper and garlic that tastes very rich but mainly is just vegetables and fish. My friend Beatrice served it at an elegant little dinner party (with bread and salad), but it also works for a very casual evening with hungry friends helping themselves…

Sudden Supper: One Pot Pasta

I came up with this one evening when R. and I arrived home hungry with nothing planned for dinner.  It was made out of what was in the fridge and turned out to be really good. So last night I made it for friend who came over at the last minute for dinner. I asked…

The Orange Dinner

Ever since a disaster dinner the other night, I’ve been thinking of adding this new category to the blog. I didn’t want to depress anybody but on the other hand, sometimes misery loves company. Two nights ago I had a total culinary meltdown. Normally I try out a new dish just on R. and I…

Smoked White Fish with Friends

I’ve had a smoked white fish from Costco sitting in the fridge since the holidays. I thought I’d serve it for the Christmas Buffet but Googling what to do with it scared me (bones were apparently a problem) and what with shelling those four pounds of shrimp for the buffet, I never got around to…

A Guy Dinner: Meat and Potatoes for R’s Birthday

For my husband’s birthday, two days after Christmas, we had another dinner party. A very easy one, with red meat included because that’s what he wanted, and also carrots which he loves and I’d never cooked before. In spite of my oh-my-God-I-don’t-want-to-overcook-this-beef panic and the carrots, it turned into a very simple dinner. Here’s the…

Mashed Potatoes That Will Save Your Sanity

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic but it’s true. This recipe can help you avoid going crazy in the kitchen while cooking big holiday dinners. When I prepared my first Thanksgiving dinner years ago, mashing potatoes at the last minute gave me a full blown panic attack. How are you supposed to mash potatoes…

Carolyn See’s Perfect Chickens

Carolyn See is one of my favorite writers. All her novels (The Handyman et al) and her best selling non-fiction book for writers, Making a Literary Life, plus her essays and book reviews, can make me laugh as well as move me to tears, often in the very same paragraph. When I emailed Carolyn and…

Aunt Susan’s All Day Stew

We all know red meat isn’t good for us so you won’t find many meat recipes on this blog. If you need to have red meat why fool around? Go grill yourself a steak or go out for a hamburger. (In one of her wonderful Home Cooking books, Laurie Colwin said never cook hamburgers at…

Islesboro Seafood Bake

When my niece Elizabeth got married last summer on Islesboro off the coast of Maine, I discovered this recipe in the local paper. It sounded like the perfect dinner party dish – rather elegant and rich, and you could make it ahead of time, even the day before, and then just heat it in the…

Pasta with Tomatoes, Arugula and Burrata

  Two months ago I didn’t even know what burrata was (mozzarella cheese filled with cream), and now it’s part of my favorite pasta dish. I found this recipe online at Williams Sonoma and my first attempt was not a success – it scored 3’s with my friends.  But salt (I had forgotten it the…

Writer’s Chicken

The other day, in a discussion about this blog, my granddaughter Emma said, “Mom told me that when she was growing up you only knew how to cook five things.”  Well, yes, actually this is more or less true. I cooked pasta (but many varieties!), soup (again, many different kinds!),Thanksgiving dinner (surprisingly I’m very good…