Chris Nordquist
We don’t eat a lot of beef, but, every once in a while, a big old slab of grilled red meat really hits the spot. Over the years, I’ve concocted lots of spice rubs and marinades, and some have been interesting, but none have really stuck in my repertoire, because, I think, most of them […]
Last Monday good friends with a farm in upstate New York brought us box of beautiful late summer produce. In it was a big basket of tiny wine grapes — super ripe and filled with a flavor that’s tarter and more complex than supermarket table grapes. (I’ve noticed these grapes starting to appear in markets […]
Like many people (ok, some people), I love to page through cookbooks and food magazines, looking for meal inspirations or clues to how to recreate an amazing flavor I experienced while traveling. Too many great recipes never saw my kitchen, though, because they called for a key ingredient that I couldn’t find, or didn’t have […]
I can see why many of my friends dislike baking. Baking instruction always seems to begin with a stern admonition that goes something like, “Unlike cooking, baking is serious business requiring great precision. It is gravely important that you follow all instruction to the letter — all improvisation, experimentation and other forms of self-expression will […]
An interesting thing about having a child has been the way my own childhood memories have crept back into my consciousness. When my mother was finished frosting a cake, she would use the leftover icing to make graham cracker sandwich cookies, wrapping them in wax paper and putting them in the freezer to be rationed […]
This relish is a culinary magic trick I learned from the great Judy Rodgers of San Francisco’s beloved Zuni Cafe and perform regularly, particularly in the warmer months. With the exception of the optional preserved lemon, it’s made of common pantry ingredients (which, I think, should include preserved lemon, but that’s another subject), comes together […]
What’s makes a perfect dish? The answer, of course, depends on the circumstances, but, in my world at least, it’s likely to meet the following criteria: delicious, uniquely flavored, quick, inexpensive, good to prepare in advance, nearly foolproof. This one handily passes all of those tests, but even if it didn’t, I’d still make it […]
Preserved lemon is a complex, almost exotic flavor that really needs a better name. Calling this condiment “preserved lemon” is sort of like calling a nice Bordeaux “preserved grape juice:” it’s technically accurate, but it misses the point. Forget candied lemon peel and its sticky sweet fruitcake friends. Originating in Morocco, preserved lemon is a […]
Truth is, I don’t really love ice cream, and I never used to take the time to make it myself. With the exception of vanilla, most flavors seem one-dimensional and overly sweet (strawberry being, to my palate, the worst offender in this regard), and there always seem to be other handy ways to blow my […]
