Month: August 2022

A fruity dessert that takes advantage of peak season produce is one of life’s greatest pleasures, particularly during summer’s bountiful fruit season. Naturally, it’s hard to beat flaky, buttery crusts filled with tender, saucy peaches—or tart, juicy berries blanketed with a crunchy crumble. But after a long day, I don’t always feel like going full pie mode. Here’s something fun to cobble together.  It’s an understated and, dare I say, high-minded dessert—with the effortless vibe of a crisp white button-down layered over a summer outfit. Apricots are coated with honey and olive oil, then quickly grilled or roasted until tender and caramelized. A mixture of cream and tangy crème fraîche gets whipped with some vanilla and more honey, dolloped on t...

“It’s hard not to feel like we’ve just become best friends,” I blurted out to Odette Williams as we wrapped up our call. The author of the forthcoming cookbook Simple Pasta laughed as the words poured out. After all, we’d only met over Zoom an hour ago. But without missing a beat, Williams said: “That should be your opening line to this story.”  Everything about Williams feels fun, casual, and uncomplicated. Conversation with her flows like honey, enveloping you in her world of any-occasion spritzes and homemade cakes left for friends on their front porch. Williams’s first cookbook, Simple Cake, explored basic cakes that can be dressed up and down for any event, from those simply sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar to instructions on how to make...

Every barista has a version of this story: You’re working behind the bar, pulling cortados or scooping ice for constant orders of cold brew, and a customer comes in to pick up a bag of coffee. They browse the shelf of choices—debating between a lovely selection from Mexico or a fresh new Ethiopian naturally processed coffee—before picking up a bag, walking to the register, and asking: “This bag says the coffee tastes like blueberries. Is it blueberry-flavored?”  Nearly every bag of coffee comes with some version of tasting notes, a short list of descriptors varying from vague flavor sensations (“this coffee is sweet!”) to obscurely specific (“this reminds me of Swiss German cake my grandmother used to make me as a child”). Distinct from flavored...

“I’ll just toss some seeds out anywhere I go,” says Tara Jensen, a baker with over two decades of experience turning milled grains into beautiful loaves of bread. “We just moved into our new house and I threw rye and wheat everywhere I could in the yard.” Jensen’s career started when she walked into Morning Glory Bakeryin Maine. Patti Smith was playing on the stereo, and it was helmed by a woman wearing all black with tattoo sleeves on both arms. Immediately, Jensen asked for a job. After almost two decades working in bakeries like Red Hen Baking in Middlesex, Vermont, and Farm and Sparrow in Asheville, North Carolina, Jensen launched her own one-person bakery, Smoke Signals, in Asheville in 2012. When it closed in 2018, she began teaching bakin...

Perhaps the biggest pet peeve for a chef who has dedicated their professional life to evangelizing about the foods of Kerala is to see TikTok videos (or Instagram Reels) of Malabari parotta and appam being peeled off the pan with Telugu or Carnatic music purring in the background. Understanding the nuances of South Indian culture is no easy feat, even for a certified Indian like myself. The southern part of India is divided into five distinct states: Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, a state that was carved out from Andhra Pradesh as recently as 2014. Each of these are tightly knit regions, collectively forming the lower half of India while containing their own idiosyncrasies. So that soundtrack is a stretch, sort of li...

Two things that cookbook author Yasmin Fahr values in a recipe are fun and ease. And cheese boards, the broad category of board cookery that Fahr captures in her new book, Boards and Spreads, are the “perfect meeting point” of the two. The regular New York Times contributor and Serious Eats columnist set out to distill this plank age we are living in with a delightful and savvy book that includes outside-the-board recipes from a Charred Salad Platter to the Egg Pita Sandwich Board, as well as smart ways to serve potluck classics like chili, tacos, and kebabs—reimagined with the board in mind. We reached out to Fahr, who recently moved from New York to Miami, to find out about her take on the salami river (we swear it’s a real term), how to snazz...