The most efficient pantry I’ve ever had was in the smallest apartment I’ve ever lived in—a studio on the top floor of a brownstone on Berkeley Place, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The kitchen, which was teensy but shipshape, boasted an old-fashioned porcelain double sink (luxurious suds up to my elbows was how a dinner party […]

I greatly admire—scratch that. I’m in awe of those who can talk to a roomful of people about a single subject without benefit of notes. I could practice from now to kingdom come and never achieve their ease, let alone their ability to synthesize complex material on the fly, avoid tangential to-ing and fro-ing, form […]

It was bound to happen sooner or later: The temperature dipped down into the single digits and made itself at home. Last Saturday’s trip to the Union Square Greenmarket began, then, with swathing myself in Heattech—Uniqlo’s fabulously comfortable thermal line of turtlenecks, T-shirts, leggings, and socks. Forgive the shameless plug, but the stuff really works, and […]

Perhaps the fact that my husband and I were January babies (we were born three days apart in the same year) is why we both crave sunlight and warmth, especially now. That would be our present to each other in 2013, we decided, and made a run for it. Sam wanted golf and a tropical garden or […]

The year, 2006. The city, Jerusalem.  I was there to help to help a friend celebrate an important birthday; there were six of us in all, and after days filled with sightseeing, we would order a large, satisfying spread of mezes (from beets puréed with za’atar and yogurt to spiced kofta studded with pine nuts), grilled meats, […]

The pushcart vendors in New York City are amazing. I’m not talking trendy food trucks here, but the unsung produce sellers who stake a claim near subway entrances and corner drugstores. This time of year, they jockey for position with the sellers of resiny Christmas pines, firs, and spruce. Where else can you pick up […]

Around this time last year at a holiday lunch, our friend Elaine Greenstein, an art teacher and author-illustrator of children’s books, gave us a beautifully wrapped but decidedly knobbly present. Intriguing. The parcel was both heavy and cold. When held up to an ear and shaken cautiously, it sloshed. I freed the object from tissue and ribbon, then lifted it […]

This just in, a postcard from our true-blue friend Robert Clepper (and the ever-delightful Wanda, his Jack Russell terrier). “Dear Jane and Sam, Hope that you are well, warm and fed. Sorry for the adversity. You remain in our prayers and hearts. Love, Robt. & Wanda” Take it from someone who knows: Robert hails from […]

The pear is one of the world’s great dessert fruits. Native to the South Caucasus, North Persia, or the Middle East, it’s been cultivated for more than 4,000 years. Homer called it “the fruit of the gods,” and Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici (best known as patron of Galileo Galilei, his childhood tutor), was said to have […]

I am eating my way through October with gusto and greed. It’s the year’s great swing season, after all. The days are still warm and long enough to allow the last of the tomatoes, eggplant, green beans, and corn to sweeten and mature. Short-season cool-weather crops of lettuces and radishes—tender and juicy—are being harvested. And […]