Back in the seventies, pumpkin bread made me feel like my family was breaking the rules. Pumpkin in a bread, not a pie? What?!!! Made with whole wheat flour?!?!?!? What the hell was whole wheat flour? We must have been some kind of hippies…
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.
I was inspired to make this crêpe terrine cake after eating the raspberry crêpe cake at Chikalicious Dessert Cafe in New York. The crêpes in both their version and the Lady M cake version seem impossibly thin to make. I’m not good at anal retentive, methodical repetitive cooking. I rocked thinking outside the box or rather inside the box aka terrine as I did with this cake.
I’m gluten choosy. I try to only eat AMAZING GLUTEN!!! I’m not allergic to it, but all that white flour cramps my gluttonous side. I can eat a lot more food if I avoid eating bread, pasta, crackers, pastries and other flour rich foods. That all went out the window the day I made rolls from scratch and I slathered them with maple sugar butter I made. GLUTENY GLUTTONY IN DA HOUSE!
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.