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 […]

October is a swing month. The trees are reluctantly turning red and orange and yellow. Kitchen gardeners are sowing fast-growing radishes and lettuces while simultaneously harvesting pumpkins and cauliflower. Even when the weather is fine, there’s an edge to the air, a sharpness, when you take a deep breath. October, with its fat-bellied letters, is […]

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 […]