[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt] Note: For the four weeks between January 14th and February 11th, I’m adopting a completely vegan lifestyle. Every weekday I’ll be updating my progress with a diary entry and a recipe. For past posts, check here! Day 12: Wednesday Breakfast: None (per doctor’s orders) Lunch: A half falafel sandwich with a ton of salad from Maoz Dinner: Smoked eggplant puree with an herb salad on bruschetta and crispy orechiette with scallions, olives, and Read More...

[Photographs: Carrie Vasios] It may seem counter-intuitive, but in the middle of snowy weather the best places to look for menu inspiration are those that don’t really get winter at all. Take Morocco. The geography of this country is a hybrid of dazzling coasts and arid deserts. As a result, Moroccan cooks know how to make the most of limited produce as well as how to cook up some awesome seafood. Moroccan meals can start with over a dozen small salads, but for convenience this menu Read More...

Community Question is a category inspired by you. Here and there readers write in with questions that are better served by the varied, experiential knowledge of those who read and contribute in the comments. —————————————————– The following question is from Shelley B: “Does anyone have a recommendation for interactive distance education for home schoolers? Science or foreign Read More...

…And the world smiles with you. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile. Turn that frown upside down. Smile – It’s the second best thing you can do with your lips. “A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” Phyllis Diller “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” Mother Teresa “One word or a pleasing smile is often enough to raise up a saddened and wounded soul.” Therese Of Lisieux Read More...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to use up things I already have in the cupboard, plus eat seasonally, plus make things that are relatively easy to make – and this salad fit the bill on all counts. It combines tahini with wild rice and used up some of the marvelous root vegetables that I can’t help buying at the market, even though I should be using up what I’ve already got on hand. It’s not the prettiest salad in the world, but compared to what I Read More...

You know, there’s nothing quite like a goodbye cake for that really emotional farewell: Because “this cake isn’t going to pay for itself” wouldn’t fit.   If you’re one to keep your feelings bottled up, you can always rely on a tried and true saying to do the emoting for you: A missing apostrophe, an unnecessary comma, a snarky sentiment… this is what Cake Wrecks is all about, folks.   Sometimes a playful insult can help soften the blow of Read More...

First things first: thank you for the well wishes! That cold was a real heavyweight champion, the type that takes you down so hard that, for five or six days, your eyelids never make it above half-mast. I’m so glad that’s behind me. Though I did sneeze twice as I was typing that last sentence.A couple of years ago, not long after we opened Delancey, back in the days when I was still cooking Read More...

In the last week I’ve done a bunch of things. I returned to a vintage shop, just up the street, to buy a pair of old metal kitchen stools (painted a muted shade of robin’s egg blue). Someone beat me to it. I baked a granola pound cake (a bit of a miss), brewed two batches of California common, and bought a sack of stinging nettles at the Farmers market to work into the cottage cheese pancakes I can’t seem to get enough of. There were three loads of laundry, two runs of the Read More...

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt] Note: For the four weeks between January 14th and February 11th, I’m adopting a completely vegan lifestyle. Every weekday I’ll be updating my progress with a diary entry and a recipe. For past posts, check here! Days 11: Tuesday Breakfast: An avocado with good crunchy salt. Lunch: Chow fun noodles with bok choy and Chinese chives in fermented black bean sauce. Dinner: Bok choy and Chinese chives in fermented black bean sauce with chow fun noodles Read More...

[Photographs: Robyn Lee] Chicken McNuggets used to be my favorite food. I still like them, but not as much as I did in my early 20s, when I would ask potential roommates, dates, and employers if they liked McNuggets. Back then I was so convinced of the McNugget’s perfection that I figured I could accurately gauge a person’s decency based on where they stood on the matter. I’ve since realized that the world is full of perfectly lovely people who don’t care for them, Read More...

There are few sure things in this world.  You can count on the sun rising, taxman finding you and herpes to come back with a vengeance.  But most promises of satisfaction guaranteed have so many disclaimers that it’s impossible to get your money back.  Even banging isn’t always guaranteed to wow when you sleep with [...] Read More...

Attention New Yorkers, COOK TO BANG IS s partnering up with NYC cooking school MOPAC: Meet Other People And Cook to teach culinary seduction classes just in time for Valentine’s Day: MY TASTY VALENTINE. On February 14 you and your sweetums can go out to a crowded restaurant for an overpriced meal that you’ll be [...] Read More...

Without a doubt, the very best part of fried chicken is the battered, seasoned, gold-tinged and impossibly crisp exterior. But, as far as I’m concerned, the tender chicken within is no distant second. The best fried chicken recipes have you soak the uncooked chicken in a salty/sweet brine of buttermilk and seasonings for at least day, resulting in meat that’s decadent long before it hits the fryer. Wouldn’t it be great if the insides could garner the same gushing their Read More...

From Serious Eats: New York VIEW SLIDESHOW: Exceptional Shojin-ryori at Kajitsu in the East Village [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt] Kajitsu 414 East 9th Street, New York, NY 10003 (between 1st and Avenue A; map); kajitsunyc.com/ Service: Excellent. Very knowledgable wait staff who are not afraid to talk to the chef if you have questions. Setting: Minimal and remarkably spacious, exquisite tableware. Must-Haves: Only two fixed menus are available, though a few additional side dishes can be Read More...

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt] Note: For the four weeks between January 14th and February 11th, I’m adopting a completely vegan lifestyle. Every weekday I’ll be updating my progress with a diary entry and a recipe. For past posts, check here! Days 10: Monday Breakfast: Sliced grapefruit; toast with beans. Lunch: Raw food from Gingersnap’s Organic Dinner: Tofu with Flowering Chives and Hot Pepper in Roasted Chili-Bean Sauce. Steamed Bok Choy. Rice. Raw daikon Read More...

I should have thought to provide a corresponding printable list with Saturday’s Stocking Up post before I posted it…but my mind rarely works that efficiently. Thanks to all of you for your great feedback and for sharing your own tips for stocking up. Here’s a printable PDF document of my list for those of you who’d like to take it to the supermarket with you on your next trip. It’s by no means 100% complete and comprehensive…but it’ll give you a Read More...

By Emelie Sanders. Everyone’s relationship with their past is different. Some flee from it, some cling to it, some accept it, and some deny it. In Krissi Dallas’ novel, Windchaser, seventeen-year-old Whitnee decided to embrace it. Six long years trying to cope with the mysterious absence of her father left her confused about who she was, what happened, and what was to come. Upon returning to Camp Fusion, Whitney revists her past with best friends Caleb and Morgan. The three of them, Read More...

Well, here’s something you don’t see every day: [adjusting spectacles and consulting clipboard] Here we have two neanderthal males with questionable chest hair hatching from watery eggs. As you can see, the one on the right has acclimated to the process, while the one on the left is all “AAAAAUUUGGHH!!” Which is a paraphrase, of course, since in Neanderthal it’d actually be more like “OokalockahoohooGROOOOOOONK!” Now when I first saw that picture, I Read More...

Attention New Yorkers, COOK TO BANG IS s partnering up with NYC cooking school MOPAC Meet Other People And Cook to teach culinary seduction classes just in time for Valentine’s Day: MY TASTY VALENTINE. On February 14 you and your sweetums can go out to a crowded restaurant for an overpriced meal that you’ll be [...] Read More...

Thank you so much for all your cheers, congratulations and excitement! Sometime in the last few weeks, the little guy in my belly went from being a very abstract sort of thing to a real person who likes to wiggle around like clockwork at midnight (oh dear) and whose face I cannot wait to see. I was waiting for this to happen, for the pregnancy to morph from something I couldn't really wrap my head around to something that makes my heart leap. Now that that feeling is here, it's even Read More...