Chris Nordquist
Last Saturday in Southampton we had unexpected dinner guests. (Yes, it was a pleasant surprise.) The menu wasn’t a problem –I made grilled steaks with Chimichurri, one of my go-to last-minute dinners– but I didn’t really have anything for the table. While I was out in the garden snipping herbs to make a fresh batch […]
I didn’t intend to make such a luxurious lunch. It was an ordinary Saturday morning, and I was poking around in our little garden in Southampton and returned to the kitchen with my arms full of Swiss chard. I did a quick search for chard recipes, dashed to the market for mussels and had this […]
Most Saturday nights in Southampton, as we’re finishing the after dinner-kitchen clean-up, my partner David quietly begins another project: he mixes up a pitcher of his Bloody Marys to serve at lunch the next day. Forget those brash, overly salty cans of “spicy” Bloody Mary mix that you order on long flights (and furtively mix […]
Last week Julia walked into our bedroom wearing a plastic kitchen funnel on her head and singing “Happy Birthday.” Two of her buddies have had their second birthdays in the last couple of weeks, hers is just around the corner, and she’s way into the concept. The party hats seem to have made a particularly […]
I’m always looking for something quick, easy and delicious to serve with cocktails. As I’ve mentioned in my post on tips for a successful cocktail hour, I like to keep the food simple and serve the old cocktail snack trinity of chips, olives and nuts and just One More Thing. This delicious tapenade is my […]
At probably the most awkward point in my teens, I lived for a time in England with my family. I have many wonderful memories of this period. Few, however, are of food as the late 1970s were a time when Britain was still earning (rather than living down) its reputation as an island of culinary […]
As I was doing a little “research” on this classic cocktail, a friend commented, “Really? That sounds like a such a granny drink.” Well, maybe so, if your grandmother wears a lot of vintage Chanel and tells racy stories about Paris in the 1930s. After a good run allegedly starting in 1900s Paris, the Sidecar […]
It was nearly noon on Sunday. I wanted to make a nice lunch for the three of us, but I also thought it would be more fun to play in the pool with Julia than to run to the market and work in the kitchen. (She agreed –“Pappa, pool!”) This recipe is perfect for this […]
Simple, almost obvious. And yet I’d never seen it before. Last weekend our friends Visnja and Franck visited us in Southampton and brought gifts for Julia and for us. They didn’t attach gift cards or tags, but, under the wrapping, they wrote a message for the recipient directly on the box. (The seam in the […]
One of the happiest memories of my childhood is making bread with my grandmother. She baked often in her busy farm-style kitchen, and had virtually unlimited patience for little hands helping with the day’s culinary activities. Maybe because of this I started baking this bread in the days after Julia was born, and I’ve made […]
