orecchiette with cherry tomatoes and arugula

Last night, I sauteed some shallots, minced garlic, red and yellow cherry tomatoes and fresh arugula with orecchiette pasta for dinner, and we topped it with a cloud of microplaned parmesan, eating it in front of the (omg) Wire finale. I’m pretty sure it was delicious, though I was barely paying it any mind. Alas, this is the point where you are supposed to ask me, Hey Deb, why does your orecchiette look so… er, unique?

Recipe

winter panzanella

Among the few Food Network chefs that don’t terrify me, Michael Chiarello is high on that list; his cooking, style and not overly-aggressive healthfulness fits cleanly with the type of foods I like to make and we like to eat. But, I have yet to make a recipe of his and it is, quite frankly, because he can be such a pain in the ass. The gray salt, the extra-virgin use for cooking, the $218 Balsamic, the fifteen-step recipes and his endless gadgets put me off. Would it still taste good from the kitchen of Simple Folk? Due to some haphazard sense of principle, I never bother finding out.

Recipe

german pancakes

Back when I was still getting daily “are you okay?” and “do you need anything” phone calls from my mother after my little rumble with the stairs, she told me one more she’d just made German pancakes for breakfast. “Oh, you remember them, don’t you? I made them once in a while when you were growing up.”

Recipe

where the magic happens

In honor of the thirtieth and final day of NaBloPoMo, I dialed up something a little extra-special for you. What, don’t I deserve a break?

Recipe

zucchini, ham and ricotta fritters

[Note: This recipe got some fresh photos in 2019.]

I am the last person on the internet to join the Cute Overload train; I mean, I get it, it’s cute. I love cute, you love cute, cute makes the birds sing and the sun shine and the world go round and tra-la-la. I get it. But man, oh man. Sometime in the last two weeks it hit me like a ten ton truck and people, the cute is killing me. I can’t breathe sometimes, the cute is so strong. I’m tag-surfing snorgle on Flickr, sputtering nonsensicals like “piggle snorgle tiny mouf action ohmy gah! Gah!” when Alex asks me how my day was. I want to take bites of the cute, but I know, I know I’d bite down too hard and take a piece out of the ear. When she added an “I shall leeck you” category it was about all the precious I could take and I had to let Alex in on the Overload, my new time-sucking Internet habit; Alex, who like any man with two eyes pulse, quickly found the Cats ‘n’ Racks and let’s just say, it is not just my redonk little habit anymore.

Recipe

salted chocolate caramels

I am not a candy maker. Heck, I’m barely a candy eater. Stop laughing; what I mean is, I prefer truffles, buttery cookies and crumbly, fruity things. But for some reason this season, perhaps another foppish attempt at service journalism, I seem to have gotten myself fixated on candy-making. It makes little sense considering the innumerable fantastic confectioneries in this city, but I think that at least part of the appeal is the long shelf life of cooked sugar. I like the idea of that you can give these to someone over the holidays and, if kept properly, they should last through January. Of course, not if you’ve made them well.

Recipe

potato salad with sherry mustard vinaigrette

1. Unrelated, off-topic and out-of-context, but when Alex and I came home (I was going to say stumbled up the stairs but it seems that joke isn’t funny — yet.) from our liver-pickling party on Saturday night, we found the most wonderful news in the mail, which is that we will be able to stay in our apartment another year. In fact, they’re barely raising our rent at all. Excuse me while I kiss the skylight. I’m sure most of you don’t know why it should be a Chrismukkah miracle that the hyper-trendification of west Chelsea over the last two years hasn’t priced us out to Ronkonkoma — yet — but considering the low-down, scummy process we were forced to wade through to get this place at all, I think I’ve lived in a fairly rightly-placed fear our time in this sunny apartment with the sunset view would be cut short. Just think: a whole ‘nother year for me to master those stairs. Eh. Also, my comedic timing.

Recipe

fettucine with porcini

I spent a good chunk of this morning, nay, afternoon supine on the sofa moaning. Noooo, baaaad. Really, how did I not see this coming? Pink champagne. Two old-fashioneds. Baileys. Wine. Margaritas. Champagne again. Mmmmmeeeeehhhhh. Uch, remember when four or five glasses of water, some greasy eggs and potatoes and two aspirin did the trick? I’m soooooo oooooold. Alex turned on my Stories for me, that would be the hour of the Barefoot Contessa and Michael Chiarello during which I shall not be disturbed or else don’t complain about what happens when your Giants game is on. Nothing worked. Whhhyyyy meeee.

Recipe

interrupting this lazy

I confess to have a case of the “what have I gotten myself intos” this afternoon, as I should be upstairs watching a Harry Potter movie for the 86th time with my in-laws, nursing my turkey gut and resting up between movie one and two right now instead of down in the office cranking up my laptop, but after making it to the 24th day of 30, with a busted wing no less, this seems no time to cave.