I have a running joke with a friend that we won't drink anything with calories if it's not caffeinated or alcoholic. Juice? Soda? Not worth it. Coffee? Martini? Yes, please. I've never been a big smoothie person, and I'm not really into our current collective obsession with jucing. Why would I waste ...
Spicy Vegan Eggplant Parmesan
When I was in my awkward early teen years, I used to go to this gym in my town called Body Techniques. This was in the mid-90's, and it showed. The walls were decorated with pink and teal heartbeat lines, like the kind you'd see on a heart rate monitor, and half the gym was devoted to a windowed ...
Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Indian Spices
Do you have any cooking roadblocks? Like procedures or ingredients that make you run in the other direction? I think pie crusts and yeast breads stop a lot of people in their tracks. It's understandable--they are time consuming and difficult to get right. You really have to have a "feel" for when ...
Walnut Rosemary Polenta Cakes
When we lived in Brooklyn, sometimes on my way home from work I would stop at this fancy gourmet shop not too far from the subway. They had unbelievable prepared foods, with unbelievable prices to match. I'll never forget the time their sidewalk sign advertized a special: "Buy 9 sandwiches and get ...
Two Potato Latkes
When I switched to a mostly vegan diet, one of my primary goals was to put plant-based dinners into regular rotation. I felt like I had slipped into a completely meat-dependant way of cooking. Every time I made a grocery list, I would think about the days ahead and whether we would have chicken, ...
Orange-aide
This past July, while we were on vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Owen fell in love with this lemon-lime-orange-aide sold at the farmers' market across the street from our house. It came in big plastic cups, and since Owen has yet to master drinking vessels of the non-sippy variety, much of it ended ...
Broccoli Salad with Avocado and Pistachios
Many years ago, I got to spend one day doing kitchen prep work for an event featuring two of my all-time favorite cookbook authors--Ina Garten and Patricia Wells. I honestly don't know how I held it together enough to dice chicken breasts and shred zucchini. The whole time I felt like I had to make ...
Emergency Vegan Pasta with Garlic, Chili, and Breadcrumbs
I have to come clean. Last week I fell, and I fell hard. It started when a family friend and neighbor invited me over for an Indian holiday lunch. I ate many, many of her homemade spinach and cheese samosas, and they were worth every single bite. A few days later my parents came over for an early ...
Quick Chipotle Black Bean Soup
My first apartment in New York was on East 83rd Street, on the same block as an Italian restaurant called Erminia, which the Zagat Guide described as "cave-like," "transporting," "romantic," and "very expensive." We never went, but my roommates and I walked by it often, on our way to the Mexican ...
Maple Applesauce Cake
When I was in the fifth grade, we moved across town to a new house with several huge apple trees in the backyard. My parents simply let them grow wild, never spraying them or cutting them back, and every fall to this day they shower the yard with hundreds of lumpy, spotted, and sometimes wormy ...
