What, you may be asking, is a “puffy omelette”? Well, it’s an omelette that’s puffy, you see. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. A puffy omelette is what my Betty Crocker 1950 Picture Cookbook called an omelette where you separate the eggs, beat the whites stiff, and then recombine, and cook, first over the stovetop and then…
Amana Colonies Cottage Cheese
This winter, I did two things with my life: I chased politicians around the Democratic Primaries, and chased the best pie in each state I went to. This is how I ended up in the Amana Colonies, a cluster of towns in Iowa that was founded by a collectivist sect of German Pietists. (The connection…
So you want a cookbook?
By now, a lot of you have cycled through your entire repertoire, and are looking down a bleak corridor of repeats unless you find something else to cook. I’m going to try to post some recipes here 3-4 times a week. But that’s not enough for you, is it? You need help now. Well, if…
What to Do When You Can’t Just Pick up a Rotisserie Chicken on the Way Home From Work
We’ve all done it, right? Something has been nagging you all day, but you’re busy as heck and you can’t figure out what it is. So you shove it to the back of your mind and concentrate on more pressing matters. Customers. Bosses. Coworkers who clip their fingernails at work–which, if you ask me, should…
Baked mushrooms
Everyone has those moments when the virus makes them a little crazy. My mother’s came when I went over to carry her kitty litter into the house. (Don’t worry, I washed my hands thoroughly and kept my distance from her.) As I was leaving, she cried “Wait! Wait!” I returned to the deck, wondering if…
Refrigerator Rolls
Like so many of the rest of you, we are locked in for the duration–or in my case, until I have to drive up to Boston and help my Dad get settled when he’s released from cardiac rehab. (The duration, she said. Why are we all suddenly talking like we’re at war? Oh, right, because…
Short Ribs With Mushrooms
We have a kitchen. Sort of. The open shelving that will run on one side is still somewhere out there in the possession of a guy named Dave, a charming and romantic Appalachian character who does not hew slavishly to modern bunkum like timetables, or telephones. This complicates the task of getting the kitchen in…
The Late, Great Applesauce Cake
So, funny about that applesauce cake I just made … Ok, mildly funny, anyway. Or maybe not that funny. Maybe not funny at all. Maybe I am weeping miserably in a corner, as the cake sits forlorn on the table, waiting, waiting for a chance that will never come … You see, the Post had…
Slow-Cooker Beef Ragu
Apparently, in less than an hour, I will be watching an interview with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, in which he will tell us that he was a virgin in high school, and for many years afterwards. Whatever your opinion about Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, I hope we can all agree that we don’t want to…
Learning to Love the Counter Depth Fridge
I have very firm opinions about kitchen design. One of those opinions is that you build a kitchen to use, not to admire. And hence, when we began to plan our renovation, I was adamant that we would be keeping our old fridge. It was eight years old; it had never been what you would…
The Cookery Monster 