We all have our family cooking lore: famed recipes that get passed down from generation to generation, and others that just get lost somewhere in between. Either a selfish cook doesn't share his closely-guarded secret, or a recipe doesn't get written down until it is too late. And then there's the cherished recipe that fails—perhaps it lacks a key ingredient or important step. These chocolate peanut clusters? They only lacked one thing. My Nana. More

Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Schneider of MPR's The Splendid Table are two of my most favorite and trusted cooks, so I was excited to discover this video of the two of them cooking together. (Well, actually Lynne is mostly holding a microphone but her questions and comments are spot-on as usual.) At first I wasn't so sure about the subject matter: a recipe for a homemade garlic herb salt. Do I really need another flavored salt in my pantry? Turns out the answer is yes! More

I'm lucky enough to live in an area where even modest neighborhood cafes get their produce from local farms and change their menus often to reflect whatever their farmers are harvesting that week. I recently had my first taste of sweet summer corn at one such cafe, in a dish that combined chunks of shaved corn with tangy little cherry tomatoes and a creamy cilantro dressing. Sweet, crunchy and bursting with pure summer flavor, it was so good I knew I had to recreate it. In my kitchen somewhere along the way the combination transformed into a crispy, black-bean-speckled tostada — no complaints here. More

My favorite I'm-dining-alone-at-home-tonight meal is a classic dish that's quick, thrifty and elegant. The basic setup is simple: A cheese omelet with some buttered toast and a glass of dry Alsatian chablis. If I'm feeling like I need some vegetables, I might add a few spears of roasted broccoli or asparagus (if it's in season) or a sliced tomato sprinkled with chives and a few drops of balsamic. Served on a pretty plate and perhaps taken out to the garden if the weather permits, this meal nourishes, refreshes and delights on many levels. More

I must confess that weeknight dinners can be a major struggle in my house, which probably seems contradictory coming from someone who writes about food! It's true that my refrigerator is often filled with an eclectic group of ingredients—most of which cannot be transformed into any sort of suitable meal. I often find myself scavenging the pantry for anything I can pass off as adequate, and trust me when I tell you that a starving girl + Nutella does not equal dinner.
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A package of instant ramen is perhaps the biggest cliché item in the solo cook's cupboard. It often symbolizes depression or extreme indifference, the meal one cooks when one has hit rock bottom. Of course, none of this is necessarily true. Ramen can be delicious and good for you as well as a quick, fun thing to make. Read on for a review of the three ways a single diner can approach instant ramen. More

Sometimes the simplest ingredients, combined in the simplest of ways, have the power to stop time, erase your woes, and transport you to a place of nirvana-like bliss. Such is the power of the margherita pizza. Fresh tomato sauce, chewy mozzarella cheese, a sprinkling of basil on a crispy crust? I wouldn't be surprised if you started levitating. More

After years of world travel and dining out in everything from hole-in-the-wall joints in Laos to the finest finery of Paris's restaurants, the real food luxury for me when I travel now is to cook in, using the most simple ingredients, listening to local radio, and serving on the most grandmotherly plates.

Recently while on the road, I made a version of a salad that I love at the height of summer: shaved zucchini with Parmesan and olive oil. When it's too hot to cook and all you have is a vegetable and a hunk of cheese, this is your new go-to dish. More

I'm a Los Angeles native, which means I have never owned a decent umbrella, I describe distances not in miles but in the number of minutes it takes to drive, and I believe sliced avocado belongs on a BLT. My first BLTA was probably at a diner — any Southern California diner worth its salt has at least an add-on avocado option for its BLT — and it was probably fine. It's hard to go wrong with the combination of crisp lettuce, salty bacon, ripe tomato and avocado. But this homemade version is much better, if only for the addition of a bright basil mayonnaise that makes every bite taste like a mouthful of summer. More

Simplicity, elegance and deliciousness are especially important for the solo cook. Not that these qualities aren't also applicable those who have regularly have company at the table, but the solo cook may have particular challenges if eating and dining alone is a frequent event. It's shockingly easy to slip into the realms of frozen pizza and take-away, even if you love to cook and eat well, so it's good to have a few things on hand that bump an everyday dish into something sublime. It's for this very reason that I always keep a package of smoked salmon in the refrigerator. More