No tomato left behind. That’s my gardening motto. Every year I “farm” in my Brooklyn backyard. The crop that likes me best is tomatoes. In the spring, I’m innocent, I pour over the Silver Heights farm catalog of hundreds of organic veggies which is pretty much like reading food erotica.
Blue cheese stuffed celery sticks have come a long way, baby. Along with deviled eggs and pimento cheese craze, you’re going to start seeing new spins on these hip 60’s party tray nibbles at the hottest restaurants. They’re gluten-free after all! My makeover features the addition of hot sauce chicken cracklings as an homage to Buffalo chicken wings.
No batter, no dredging, no added nothing. Just chicken, salt and pepper and slow, long heat (aka cook the sh*t out of them) make these chicken wings crunchy and crispy. You can eat them plain but we never do. Put something sticky, add something crunchy and go to town!
Imagine if people could get smoked duck breasts instead of hamburgers at a fast-food joint. That’s the world I want to live in. You know that old saying: “Give a man a smoked duck breast that’s vacuum-sealed and will live in the refrigerator for months, and he will always have a delicious meal up his sleeve.”
Why didn’t my mom make garlic fried rice as my first food? I wonder if Filipino moms do? I love my mom and my family, but I often wish I were born Asian. This simple, five-ingredient vegan side dish makes me wish I’d known it all my life.
What if you had your way with the classic Cobb salad? As Frank Sinatra sang, “I did it my way.”
This is a Cobb salad that met up with a Niçoise salad that rejected its own fishiness. Not that I hate fish, but I thought if I add tuna and anchovies to this salad, on top of all the other things I already added, things would have definitely been a little fishy. ba-dum-bum-CHING
If you want to hear your most patriotic friends squeal, bring a red, white and blue watermelon salad to a potluck. Even the ones who may not agree with how this country runs will get a pang in their li’l disappointed hearts for this fun-looking salad. This salad bring delight and maybe just a smidgen of hope. LOVE IT or leave it because it will be eaten.
Ethereal… that’s my experience of a well-made Pavlova. I fell hard for this dessert when I first had it in Australia. There’s something about the contrast of the pillowy soft sweetness of the meringue against the cool lusciousness of the whipped cream and the sparkle, tang and varied flavors and deliciousness of the fruit. Passionfruit is very common in Australia, but not so much in New York. Whenever I see it here it’s a SIGN that I must make a “Pav” as it’s called down under.
Even though it’s one of my favorite cuisines, I rarely cook Japanese food because many of the dishes are very complex and you need special ingredients. Braised daikon with mushrooms is very simple to make. It does require a couple of unusual ingredients that I always try to keep in my pantry. I try to stock up on them at the Japanese grocers, but you can get dashi, mirin and dry Chinese mushrooms or fresh shiitakes in many Korean-run “bodegas” here in New York and many places online.
LUCK is what you need to grow tomatoes these days because at any moment globally warming ENRAGED Momma Nature can throw drought, flood, frost, hail, etc. to seriously dent or demolish your tomato harvest. If you’re lucky and you get tomatoes and you have too many tomatoes, I encourage you to make Bread & Butter Green Cherry Tomato Pickles. You can also just buy green tomatoes as they have also been showing their faces at many a green market these days for fried green tomatoes. They are delish but these are healthier and keep better.