Summer's over and the days where lunch is just a matter of few sliced tomatoes and a lug of olive oil or placing a bowl of fresh peaches and a knife on the table for dessert are gone. We've entered into the season of roasts and braises and long-simmered pots of beans. The vegetables we crave (squash and potatoes and turnips) need plenty of time in the oven in order to be edible and dessert is likely to be a pie or crumble or even a frosted cake. The food we want to eat now is food that takes time. More

After your food has been grown or raised (or processed or fermented or packaged) and harvested and shipped and displayed and purchased by you or someone you know or someone you are about to know, and hauled home and stored in cupboards and refrigerators and freezers and on the back porch and in the garage; after it has been chopped and stirred and cooked, and laid out on platters and scooped high onto plates and eaten, and revisited for seconds and eaten again, and cleared away and stored in the refrigerator for later or packed in to little boxes to be taken home or tossed into the trash or compost or garbage disposal ...
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Last week, on the same day, I encountered two very different recipes for polenta. One had a practicality born of science, curiosity and efficiency. The other was much more rooted in time and tradition. One quick, the other slow. One required a modern appliance; the other, sourcing a special, stoneground organic polenta. The former I discovered, rather fittingly, while listening to a podcast and the later, equally fittingly, while sitting on a couch next to an open window while browsing through a book. More

The day had started with the most wonderful of ambitions: a road trip to the ocean, a short hike, a picnic, maybe even a visit to the apple farm on the way home. A little exploring, a little adventure, a perfect Saturday plan.

Maybe it was the morning fog or the chilly temperatures or the headachy and expensive breadth of our planning. Or maybe we just needed a quiet morning. But at some point we realized that we had lost our zeal. put down our elaborate escapes. We were staying put. More

The squirrels in my neighborhood are plump, happy creatures with luxurious coats and extravagant tails that curl up behind them, just like in the storybooks of my childhood. Their eyes are large and black and they clutch their food in their cute little paws and nibble away at breakneck speed. The tree outside my kitchen window is their superhighway and all day long I watch them coming and going with the bustle and urgency particular to squirrels in autumn. I watch them, hoping that I can glean some inspiration, steal a bit of their squirrel mojo. For the days are growing shorter and there's so much, so so much, left to do. More

For this fall at least, and perhaps even into next spring, I'll be living in a sublet of sorts, a furnished apartment of a friend of a friend who is overseas. When I left my last apartment, I put almost all of my kitchen things into storage, thinking it would only be a month or two until I would see them again. But that reunion, like many things in life, hasn't proved to be a straight line and here I am facing nearly a year without many of my beloved kitchen necessities. Or what I thought were necessities. More

The angle of the sun and the bowl of apples sitting on my table speak of the autumn that's coming, a whispered murmur growing bolder as the schoolchildren fill the playground next door and a leaf crinkles and spins, slowly falling from the tree outside my window. An occasional persimmon appears in the market, calling out to the pomegranates and pumpkins to hurry and catch up. The idea of braised meat is appealing again and out of the blue comes a craving to knit a scarf. But summer isn't done with us yet. More

There are two kinds of hurricanes: the one that is raging up the east coast of the United States right now and the one that is my own personal hurricane created by another (number three!) disorganized move this past week. Regardless of their differences, both kinds of hurricanes require that one be fed despite the lack of the usual kitchen conveniences, preferably something hot and delicious that soothes the soul as well as fills the belly. These are desperate times and desperate times call for desperate measures. At least that's what I muttered to myself as I reached for the Instant Noodle Bowl Supper last night. More

Sometimes the first few minutes of the day are the only quiet time I have. At first light, before the day has attained its energy and push, before agendas and lists and demands can form, before my mind has revved up with all its ideas and opinions and anxieties, I get out of bed, make a cup of tea and have myself a quiet sit.
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We're deep into summer and cooking couldn't be simpler. In fact, one could barely call it cooking! It's more like arranging and dribbling and scattering. A platter of ripe garden tomatoes needs only a bit of fresh pepper and some flaky sea salt, salad greens are barely kissed by a glug of olive oil and a sprinkle of vinegar, a bowl of thinly sliced cucumbers calls for the lightest drizzle of buttermilk and a few pinches of fresh dill and maybe, if you're feeling frisky, thin slivers of red pepper (sweet or hot, your choice.) More