God, I really thought I was going to get more of these recipes done this month! It certainly felt like I ate a lot of food from this cookbook, although in retrospect I think that may just be because I made two 4-serving chicken dishes that got spread out over multiple nights. No regrets with what I did make, only what I didn’t — I’m a little annoyed at myself for not making the most basic recipes, like Hummus or Tahini Sauce. Those are only two of the recipes I prepared for and didn’t get around to in April. I’m sure I’ll get to them in the future, because this book was fantastic, something I’ll be referring back to for a long time yet. I’m not surprised: I picked Tahini because it was written by Adeena Sussman, known for a great many cookbooks but, to me, primarily for Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings books. But amid the tumult of a job search and a trip to Nashville, things got…not lost, exactly, but set aside. Which is okay. (But I was really looking forward to the Sweet Potato-Tahini Dinner Rolls.)
Read MoreProsciutto di Parma (Short Stack 03/12)
Another month, another Short Stack! This month’s was Prosciutto di Parma, which was great because prosciutto is one of my favorite meat products and I really enjoyed learning new ways to cook with it that aren’t just “slap it in between a bagel with fresh mozzarella and call it a sandwich” (although that ‘recipe’ is really good, I promise).
I did better than I thought I would, given that prosciutto di Parma can be expensive and given the other things I had going on this month. I shot for CASE/BY/CASE NYC for the first time this year, a wonderful interview with the incredibly inspiring Ale Lariu, who spoke with us about the unique challenges that women (and mothers in particular) face in the workforce. I love shooting for C/B/C — I’ve learned so much and been privy to so many fascinating, educational conversations. I like to think of myself as someone who can get excited about anything so long as I’m interacting with someone who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic. There are very few subjects that outright bore me. I’m thinking here of another C/B/C interview, this one discussing data science, which I really know next to nothing about and yet found so interesting. (I won’t go on here, but you should read it.)
This is really my goal in doing this Short Stack project: I want to get enthusiastic about ingredients I don’t know anything about.
Read MoreYogurt (Short Stack 02/12)
In typical February fashion, my cooking didn’t go as planned and there was hardly enough time for what did. Earlier this year I decided to work toward a more plant-based, vegan-ish diet, and Yogurt was left in the dust, due to its inherent nature as a dairy product.
I should have more to say, but I don’t. February has always felt like a transitory month. I’ve had a lot of headaches, real and logistical. I read a lot this month, and I cooked a lot this month, and I tried many new foods this month. That’s probably part of it: transition into a version of myself both more and less like who I was years ago. When I was 10, I could finish a book in a day, and I never dreamt of eating rice. I’m not sure what my motivation was. I was afraid of the possible texture, I think. Reading cookbooks has let me grow softer with my fears. When Samin Nosrat described tahdig in her recipe for Persian-ish rice, I thought it sounded like something I’d like, and if I didn’t at least no one would be the wiser. So I made it, and it was delicious, of course.
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like I like my Honey (Short Stack 01/12)
In late December, I finally took the plunge and bought a Short Stack Edition. I’ve been intrigued for a while, every time I see them at the Strand — their covers are eye-catching and some of my favorite food people (Molly Yeh, Dorie Greenspan, and Alison Roman, for example) have written for them. On my girlfriend’s suggestion, I picked up Honey, and then it occurred to me that it would be fun to try to cook my way through as much of a book as I could each month of 2019.
Since buying Honey, I’ve become a little obsessed with its author, Rebekah Peppler. I bought her book Apéritif a couple weeks ago, enchanted by the idea of being someone who makes and drinks her own cocktails at home (like my dad — I really feel like I take after him far more than I could ever have expected, but that’s for another post). One of the things I like a lot about Apéritif is that, as Peppler writes at the end, it exists in a world without cishet white men.
This is dreamy at the best of cultural moments, but particularly lately.
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