The city promised higher-than-usual July 4th fireworks for better visibility from home this year. In a swirl of holiday excitement, I promised our guests tacos. Scalable, flexible, easy-to-prep tacos.
Being seriously rusty on the entertaining front, however, I made a bunch of silly mistakes. The adobo tofu wasn’t one of them.
Read MoreThe orgeat separated. Almond-flavor-loving me had sprung for an artisanal version of this important mai tai ingredient, a special syrup with a floral, nutty flavor.
At the time, friends who lived in Hawaii before returning to Colorado inspired the doomed purchase. They’d brought back incredible rum — bottles, plural — and concocted the most incredible mai tais I’d ever sipped. On reflection, they were actually my first mai tais. Spoiled forever.
Read MoreBoston was on my mind frequently over the past year. I was a post-grad there on 9/11 trying to eke out a living, carrying around a brick of a cell phone. When uncertainty permeated everything, a local Cambodian-French restaurant provided respite.
This restaurant served an incredible dish called mee Siem. It was unlike anything I’d ever tried at that point: rice noodles in a complex spicy sauce piled with bean sprouts, sweet bell peppers, fresh cilantro, fried tofu strips, crackly pork, and omelet ribbons. They published a cookbook. That recipe wasn’t in it.
An early Google search for the dish produced zero results.
Read MoreFrom November through a rainy, cold spring, the agreement with our neighbors was unspoken. Holiday string lights on porches and outdoor trees stayed up. Those twinkly lights still bring me comfort, even as the days get sunnier and freer.
There have been other holiday holdovers. Sometimes I’ll rewatch the festive series “Dash & Lily” on Netflix late at night. And we finally saw the “Great British Bake-Off” New Year’s special featuring the cast of “Derry Girls” long after ringing in 2021.
In that episode, the actors are challenged to make smoked salmon and beetroot blinis straight out of the Before Times. Passing around a plate of picturesque hors d’oeuvres? For more than a year, our “appetizers” were often chips we ate over the sink.
Read MoreSnow, again. Much though I’d normally rejoice at the coziness of flurries, this was not a welcome sight in April. Peering through the dining room window at giant flakes mounting on the tree limbs, outdoor chairs, and our battered grill, my exclamations startled the cat.
Forget about planting seeds and sipping rosé in the warm sun. Let’s go get the snow shovel.
On the bright side, the Greek cheese and leek pie from Rena Salaman’s “The Greek Cook: Simple Seasonal Food” felt just right.
Read MoreMarch was already awful, and that was before this week in Boulder. Earlier this month I experienced what felt like the worst pandemic burnout yet. To try and find a bit of joy, my mind turned to banh mi sandwiches.
They reminded me of summer, recalling food trucks, fresh air, sunshine, grilling, sharing meals with friends. I’d been wistful about these special Vietnamese sandwiches while weathering spring snowstorms and continued isolation, repeating to myself, “We have to hang on just a bit longer.”
Read MoreCheese fondue is ridiculous to think about right now. It’s a dish meant to share with a group, which still isn’t possible. Several ingredients are pricey, even on sale. Prep takes a while. Not the kind of thing that goes in a container to swap with friends in the parking lot. And, speaking from experience, fondue can break easily.
But here I am, going for a pot of the melty stuff.
Read MoreAlthough I could hold my own in Uno after school at the local YMCA, competitive gaming wasn’t really my thing.
As little kids, my best friend Sarah and I turned Monopoly into a cooperative endeavor, pooling resources to help each other. Overhearing our conversation, Dad came into the living room and tried to explain the real rules to us.
Read MoreBasic bread. That’s all I wanted to make. Nothing crazy. Not baguettes or sourdough or ciabatta or bagels, although that makes more sense, knowing me. Just a crusty bread at altitude. But successfully producing something so simple proved elusive. Pun intended.
Several years ago I made the unwise decision to attempt a first-ever loaf of homemade bread after a full day of holiday baking. I pictured the heavenly, crusty boule of Kalamata olive bread that my friend Laurel’s neighbors made to share with us, back when she lived in Corvallis, Oregon.
What I wrought in Boulder was closer to hell.
Read MoreIn the Thanksgiving photo from 2005, I’m flanked by friends old and new as I tentatively slice into a gigantic roast turkey. We’re standing at the counter in a tiny New York City studio apartment. I’m sweaty and focused. It’s the moment of truth.
The kind man working at the grocery store in Harlem, where I bought ingredients for the dinner, had given me precise instructions. He said his wife roasted a turkey for church nearly every Sunday. Buoyed by that thought, I wrote down what he said on a piece of paper. Put melted butter over the skin, cover tightly, let it rest, don’t panic...
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