Cradling a bourbon in one hand, my father would always remark during our Thanksgiving celebration—in which the turkey played second fiddle to an oyster roast—that southern colonists were throwing cocktail parties by the time the Pilgrims anchored off Cape Cod. That must be why milk punch feels so right. My Thanksgivings here in New York […]

My grandmother was relaxed about canning; it was something she did all her life. Her daughter, my mother—not so much. To her, standing over a hot stove stirring boiling jam was the last thing she wanted to do, ever. My father, who adored homemade relishes, pickles, jellies—I believe I got my condiment gene from him—saw […]

I’ve been on the road lately, to a few unfamiliar cities. And I’ve been struck by  the fact that whenever I ask the people who live in these places about the most interesting food story going, nine out of ten of them will tell about a restaurant or chef. But 18 rich, full years at […]

I learned to cook without black pepper in the place where it is king: Tellicherry, a small town in a remote part of southwestern India. Its shadowy warehouses overflow with sacks of the spice, bound for markets all over the world after being harvested from the vines and sun-dried. I’d traveled to Tellicherry—called Thalassery in […]