I didn’t feel like cooking but I did anyway – partly because there were 2 pomegranates on the counter. Rollin’ around like sassy little things. So pretty, so bright eyed, so desperate to mingle.

This seemed easy enough. I had fennel leftover from the citrus salad. Ripped straight from the pages of Bon Appetit, a quinoa-fennel- pomegranate salad was born. Layers and layers of flavor: lemon, cumin, herbs. Oh reader, it was quite a parade.

A spectacle of color. A flashy lunchtime retreat. This was a dish ready for its close up.

I don’t have much energy. I’ve still got whiplash from the last few days so I’ll make this brief.

1. First there was the Ryan Adams concert: a sea of plaid shirts and strategically tousled hair. I ran into my best friend’s ex-boyfriend and I may or may not have snubbed him. I’m a protective little cuss. Which led me straight into my seat where I alternated between body jerking and wild blinking. It wasn’t New Age dancing. It was after 9 pm and I was trying not to fall asleep.




2. Then there was Sunday dinner where we hemmed and hawed over what we’d eat on our trip to the mountains. Who cares about hiking and sight seeing when there are four days to obsess about what goes down our gullets? I’m making North Carolina pulled pork, thanks for asking, which I plan on coddling all day like a baby.



3. Finally, there was this asparagus, which while warm and vibrant green couldn’t have been any more boring. So, this vinaigrette did the trick – a quick emulsion of pureed sesame seeds and oil. Some lime and rice vinegar. A bit of soy sauce. You can argue about economics and taxes and the physical size of Mitt Romney’s head but no sane person could argue with a sesame vinaigrette. It would win the popular vote in all 50 states.

Generally speaking, anytime you find your dinner splattered on the walls, under the lamp shade and down your shirt you can bet there was something wrong with the recipe. But before you start pointing fingers, just know that I was something like 20 years old when I used fennel for the first time. Not knowing how to deal with it’s strong, liquorice flavor, I paired it with some veggies, rice and called it a day. It tasted like gasoline.

My boyfriend at the time, a generally well behaved pre-med student with a very tidy Clifton apartment, GQ magazines stacked by the wall and a giant collection of watches, had an unusual reaction. There, in the center of his dining room, he gathered his food in the palms of hands, tightened the congealed mess like a snowball and launched it clear across the room, sending it straight into the bay window where it smacked and puttered down to the floor.

Immediately, finding great humor in this incident, I counteracted with a missile of my own … which I directed aptly to the top of his head, where it had a glorious cascading effect, dripping down his face, down his shirt, to his shoes. And so began fennel war 2002.

I didn’t use the stuff for half a decade after that.

But people! Things are different now. My boyfriend, now my husband, still eats my food … willingly … without throwing it! Come to find out, fennel is really pretty simple to use, and really tasty – so long as you pair it with the right ingredients. For instance, citrus and fennel are perfect mates. Oranges take the edge off, fennel removes any overbearing tartness.

So, we eat this salad now with fancy forks and nice linens and without having to spend 45 minutes prying fennel out of the couch cushions.

I’ve got a secret, folks, and it’s born from the kind of raw emotion that divides nations, ruins presidential campaigns, sabotages relationships. I hate to admit it but my secret burns even hotter than John Edwards in a hotel room … and even though it’s so, so wrong, I hope you’ll understand.

Selfishness, greed, power. You wouldn’t know it but it’s all right here in this recipe.

Last week had me alone in the kitchen – left to my own devices. Dustin was cat napping after 30 hours on the job and my stomach was telling me something had to be done with all of our tomatoes. But what to do? Winter tomatoes taste watery and dull. Unless of course, you roast them slowly or sauté them gently in a pool of olive oil. Which is what I did … along with a heavy hand of minced garlic.

A sauce like this has an unspeakable beauty, a distinct richness and creaminess that comes from tomatoes and olive oil mingling at a low temperature. Once the tomatoes become the consistency of jam, you fold in the cooked pasta and squirt lemon on top.

But now, reader, we get to my tragic downfall as a human being. The part where I reveal my true colors. Oh the innate selfishness that is mine!

As I downed the last noodles in my bowl, I heard Dustin thump out of bed and squeak across the hall, clearly marching towards the smell of garlic and tomatoes. But as his footsteps neared closer and closer, I couldn’t stomach the thought of sharing what was left. Quickly, I turned to the pan, emptied the contents in my bowl and darted to the living room.

“Got anything for lunch?” he asked, innocently rounding the corner, looking like he’d had one hell of a long shift at the hospital.

“Sorry.” I said. “I only made enough for one.”

Say what you will … yes I am that girl with the messy hair and the half-wrinkled shirt who is often thinking four steps ahead without remembering to wear cute shoes. But when it comes to cooking, I’ve got priorities.

It’s late over here – or should I say really early – and that’s a nice thing because the house is still and even though the wind is loud and scary out there, I’ve got my husband and dogs tucked safely upstairs. Which means, I’m okay for now to write you a little love letter about roasted smashed potatoes.

Of course, it’s not a chef’s recipe … in fact … you don’t really need a recipe (but I’ll give you one anyway). The idea is to roast a bunch of new potatoes and to smash them with the back of your knife, then crisp them in a skillet with butter. They’ll crackle and spit over the high but don’t be put off, you’ll have the last word in the end.

Which of course, means you’ll get creamy roasted potatoes with all the benefits of crunchy, caramelized skin. A hint of thyme will set it over the top so long as you use the fresh stuff. And as always, season with salt and taste as you go.

For me, this side dish ensures a rare and simple, even peaceful dinner with my husband … who for whatever reason has decided to let me be what I’m gonna be, hair and all, love of potatoes and beyond. A marvel which has confirmed my longstanding suspicion that us cooks have something on the rest of the world. We’ve got dinner.

And finally, a loose end: I was on 55KRC this past Sunday talking about blogs, books and videos. I was asked how I made the transition from design to writing and my answer had something to do with this blog, curating content and creativity. But the more I think about it, if you’re all the way to the bottom of this post and you’re still reading, the real answer has everything to do with you. Thanks for giving me that.

A savory cook doesn’t like to measure. Prides herself on creativity, spontaneity, judging temperature by sound, flavor by taste. A pastry cook prides herself on accuracy, on regiment. She is patient and organized and finds big reward in tiny little measuring spoons. For a long time I couldn’t identify with the latter … until last week when I found sanity in a cookie.

So why have I interrupted your day … hijacked your Facebook page, broken your twitter feed with this recipe? Because this cookie has tequila in it PEOPLE! And it’s got lime and salt which makes it newsworthy, in my opinion.

Don’t worry, you can go to work after eating one AND you can drive AND you can still talk without slurring.

Unless you’re like me and you eat so many of them you have to lay down flat. And you profess you’ll never have another cookie, shortly before going into the kitchen to have another cookie and then you fall asleep with crumbs on your shirt.

Sorry guys, I’m taken.

Maybe I write because it’s impossible to be what I’m not when my words are marching across the screen, crossing their arms like a pissed off teenager and demanding the truth. I write, I guess, ’cause it feels honest. I imagine, in a cross universe of vegetables, that’s how red cabbage feels.

Humble in presentation (unlike those trendy little foxes, kumquats!) and never afraid to keep it real (despite its bitter reputation). This is a recipe I came by and couldn’t resist because it turns something really earthy and simple into a sophisticated, dignified, completely balanced side dish.

It’s just a cabbage recipe, after all, and there’s actually no heat involved in the cooking process. A tablespoon of kosher salt forces the leaves to wilt –– prepares them to suck up the flavor in a vinaigrette made with lots of lime, a little bit of Dijon mustard and oil.

First there’s crunch, then brightness from the vinaigrette. Finally, a karate chop of sesame seeds. You’ll ask yourself … am I really eating cabbage here? Voluntarily?

And the answer would be yes. Because cabbage doesn’t have to change to be delicious. Paired with a few simple ingredients, it can let its natural bitter notes shine. And it can finally be admired – even craved – just for being itself.

If there were something like the culinary Olympics, I’d enter in the category of scallops. For whatever reason, they’re one of my favorite things to make – and so I thought I’d share with you a little scallop technique on this fine December day.

Tools you will need: cast iron pan, lots of butter, lots of hungry people. The key, as I hope you will see, is flour. Just as in a nice piece of seared fish, a dusting in flour will get you that golden crust you covet at fine dining restaurants.

The other key? Patience. In all of my cooking research, training and interviewing, I have found that best cooks are often the ones who don’t fuss with the food while it’s cooking. Let it sear and you shall be rewarded.

I have to apologize up front for the lack of lighthearted posts around here. During this time of year I’m usually singing Dolly Parton Christmas songs and looking for inconspicuous places to hang mistletoe. (Surprise! Now you have to kiss me!)

With my aunt in the hospital over the last few weeks, and with her passing late last week, I’m all out of sorts. I didn’t know quite what to say for a while – but now I know that what I want to say has to do with mashed potatoes.

It’s not that I don’t think you already know how to make mashed potatoes – I’m sure you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve. It’s that there’s a very specific way she made them and I think … I hope … that somewhere around your holiday table, you’ve got room.

First of all, you submerge the potatoes in cold water, salt them, and then bring them to a boil. Boil them until they’re overly cooked. And by that I mean, when you pierce them with a fork, they should fall apart. Then you add the magic.

Cream cheese. Sour cream. Two of our friends that we often don’t think about when we’re whipping boiled potatoes. But Aunt Jo always did. Every holiday season I’d look up from the table and there she’d be … double palming a tray of the creamiest potatoes I ever had.

Like most of the characters on my mom’s side of the family, she saw things in black and white. She could stonewall you and keep you out. Or she could wrap her arms around you and bring you home. Whatever she did, it was always genuine … never about pretense.

Like her mashed potatoes, she was simple and straightforward. Edged in just the slightest bit of complexity.

It’s one thing to offer a recipe I suppose … but it’s a far different thing to offer one that’s so deeply ingrained in the culture of a family. This recipe is sweet and crunchy, sticky and warm. Over time it’s developed a cult-like following: in the family, in the neighborhood, at places of work, at parties. But more than that, this recipe embodies the spirit of Mama.

Mama was my mother-in-law’s mom. That’s what her kids called her – and still do – even though she passed away earlier this year. Mama made this dish every Christmas. Now it’s being passed down to me: a German girl who married her Greek grandson. A girl who professes to hate baking but who understands that this recipe isn’t about baking at all.

On this day, we spread ourselves out in the kitchen and I watch my mother-in-law make a batch before I make my own. She pulls the razor-thin phyllo dough from a stack and drapes it like cloth, then lays it in the pan and fills it with chopped nuts. Layer after layer after layer. Her hands steady and calm. She taps and tucks and from time to time she talks about Mama.

My heart, softened, understands between memories that for her the gap is still wide. The loss of Mama will tug and pull forever.

My father-in-law, a sweet man whose father came from the mountains of Greece, tells me that old Greek women used to make their own phyllo dough … rolling it out with the handle of a broom. I can’t imagine the endurance. As I attempt to tap and tuck the dough without letting it break, my neck cries in pain.

In the end, we bake it in the oven. When it’s golden brown, we pull it from the rack, spoon sweet syrup on top and step back to admire it. It glimmers. It’s not too sweet. Not overly spiced.

It’s exactly as Mama would have wanted it.