Most Saturdays, you’ll find me on the prowl for ingredients to turn into a dish with staying power, one that improves in flavor when made in advance and that will get us through part of a hectic week. In August, you might find an eggplant tian on our table (leftovers can be worked into pasta or provide […]

New York, October, 1978. The restaurant? Les Pleiades. Tucked in the Surrey Hotel, at 20 East 76th Street, it was one of the city’s classic French “red room” restaurants and a legendary gathering place for art dealers, collectors, auction-house experts, and museum directors. The first course on everyone’s plate? Céleri rémoulade, impeccably cut matchsticks of raw […]

Heading south on Interstate 81, I follow what was once the Wilderness Road through the Shenandoah Valley. To the west is the crest line of the Allegheny Mountains and to the east, that of the Blue Ridge. It’s a nice drive, with picturesque views of pastureland and Constable skies, but the truck traffic is wearing. I’m ready […]

Summer weekends are for rusticating. Sometimes, we head down to visit friends in southwestern Virginia, where a typical Saturday might be spent mowing a field, hiking up to the Blue Ridge Parkway … or lolling in a porch swing with an absorbing read and a long, tall glass of something cold. Dinner is straightforward, often […]

  Up until the late ’80s or so, the only parsley you would see in its raw form in this country was a jaunty boutonnière (or prom-worthy corsage) of curly parsley on dinner plates across the land. My mother even garnished our meals with the stuff, turning my little brother’s intense love of a record album […]

I call New York City home, but I’m not from here. I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon, which is why I treasure the fact that local lettuces are available at the Greenmarket for most of the summer. Long after what I consider an early crop has disappeared, a variety like French Crisp, from grower Keith Stewart in […]

Beach chairs. Check. Umbrella. Check. Lots of good stuff to read. Check. Cooler. Check. Pepper mill, black peppercorns, sea salt, coffee, extra-virgin olive oil, a freshly sharpened utility knife. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Packing the car for a week at the beach, down in North Carolina, can be tricky. I like the freewheeling aspect of […]

  It’s easy enough to get into an olive oil rut. We all find brands we’re comfortable with—an inexpensive one for cooking, a fancier option for vinaigrettes or drizzling—and then stick with them for years. Decades, even. But given the extraordinary array of olive oils available in fancy-food shops and many supermarkets today, it’s a […]

  It’s easy to be extravagant in the spring. Last week, we traveled miles to see carefully tended beds full of tumbling, fragrant old-garden roses. And this week, we traveled miles to eat soft-shelled crab. I know sweet, succulent soft-shells are available here in New York, but every June I feel compelled to pick up […]

When William Woys Weaver learned that his Culinary Ephemera: An Illustrated History had taken top honors for culinary history at the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) cookbook awards, presented last week in Austin, Texas, he responded in characteristic, generous fashion. He fired off an e-mail thank-you to everyone in his orbit. “Dear Friends,” he wrote. “I […]