Another year in food begins

Spring is finally here. I love spring…and look forward to everything it brings: bright, saturated colors in the sky and landscape, open windows, and the fresh and light foods of the new growing season. In general I’m a huge fan of “eating local"—but at the same time I’m so grateful to live in a world where beautiful seasonal vegetables from other (warmer) regions are available at my local grocery. In the Midwest we have had a crazy spring season (unseasonably warm…then record breaking cold…then super warm again…). I have not yet seen local asparagus, but you can bet I purchased the first bunch of plump fresh California-grown spears that crossed my line of vision at the store a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t been without a bunch since.

I have two asparagus recipes to share with you this month: an asparagus tart and a simple braised chicken. But I have shared many more recipes featuring asparagus over the years on my blog…and for two years now, through my newsletter. If you are looking for ways to enjoy the April and May asparagus abundance, there is much to choose from. Happy cooking.

A few daffodils I brought inside before our dip into the deep freeze.

A savory asparagus tart for one…. or two…

I have been cooking…and collecting recipes…for so many years now that every year when each new season rolls around I have an abundance of favorite recipes that I am eager to make…and eat…once again. There is an asparagus tart that I love…and that I used to get to make at least once a year when I taught it for a basic French class. It is a large tart filled with a creamy egg custard and asparagus spears arranged like the spokes of a wheel. It is beautiful. I still make it for clients, but because it makes a large tart, I don’t ever make it for myself. (As much as I love it, I don’t want to eat it every day for a week….). This year I decided I wanted to make a tart that, like my old favorite, was all about the asparagus…but was in a size that was more appropriate for my small table.

Making friends with fennel

Last month I was captivated by cauliflower. This month I have been a bit obsessed with fresh fennel. It was never my intention with this newsletter to focus exclusively on one seasonal vegetable with each issue. But it does make sense in a publication that tries to focus on the needs of a small household to devote time to sharing how I use one vegetable in a variety of ways (so I don’t tire of it before I am able to use it up). So I hope that you won’t mind a second issue in a row that is centered exclusively around one vegetable.

Because fennel might seem a bit unfriendly, it may not have been something you have used—or turned to with any regularity. It reminds me of the leek in this regard: it is used routinely in Mediterranean cooking (particularly the peasant foods of Provence and Italy)….but not so much here in the U.S. (even though it grows well here). I fell in love with it while working with chefs who had worked extensively in the south of France…and while spending time working there myself. I hope that I will be able to entice you to seek it out and give it a try in one of the recipes I’m sharing this month.

But first…a couple of March images from my world: A house finch nest on my mother’s front porch. Daffodils…and forced blossoms from my peach and pear trees. It’s almost spring….

In season

One might wonder why I am choosing to write about fennel now though—in early March. If you look in most cookbooks devoted to vegetables, you will find that fennel is considered to be a spring and a fall vegetable. And accordingly, in the Midwest where I live, it shows up in the farmers markets sometime in June…and it will occasionally appear again in September. I have never thought of it as a doldrums of late winter kind of vegetable…although it has always seemed generally available “out of season,” with the uneven quality one would expect of vegetables subjected to long distance travel.

At the end of last month, I decided to offer a salad that included fennel in a pop up dinner. We are nearing spring…and I thought it would add a refreshing lift to a winter menu. I hesitated though, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to find nice fennel. I finally decided to risk it because I really didn’t need a lot. When I went shopping I found beautiful and abundant fennel at almost every store (on sale even). I was truly surprised by this….and frankly a bit mystified.

As it turns out, most of the fennel in the U.S. is grown in Arizona and California—where it is currently the perfect “cool season” for cultivating fennel. What you find at the store will likely not look as pristine as what you might find from a small local grower during your late spring and early fall (since it will have endured the rough handling of cross country shipping), but once trimmed for use, it should be very nice. Fennel is “in season”…right now.

Cauliflower and friends

At some point during late January I started noticing beautiful, plump heads of cauliflower prominently displayed at my favorite grocery stores. They seemed to be everywhere—as if cauliflower was having an extra banner year. Even so, I hesitated to buy a head. I like cauliflower. But the heads are usually large…and for someone in a small household, one head will provide several meals. I always feel like I need to really be in the mood for cauliflower to commit to it.

But since the cauliflower I was seeing was so beautiful…and also on also on sale everywhere I went…I finally decided to buy some. And as it turned out, I really was in the mood for it. I enjoyed it in so many different meals and in so many different ways (in pasta, in a pilaf…with meatloaf!), that I found myself purchasing a second head. It was good to be reminded of how versatile cauliflower can be…and of how many friends it has in the winter pantry. I hope after reading this month’s newsletter that you will be in the mood for cauliflower too.

Pancake Day

But before I jump in to cauliflower… Last week it occurred to me that the newsletter would be going out right before Mardi Gras (aka Fat Tuesday… Shrove Tuesday… Pancake Day…). Falling on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (the first day of the Lenten season—a time of spiritual reflection and self discipline that often includes fasting), traditionally the day marks the last day one can enjoy rich, decadent foods until Easter. Somehow pancakes came to be part of this pre-Lenten feast. Some sources will tell you this is because pancakes use up large quantities of eggs, butter and milk—all perishable, rich ingredients that need to be used up before being banned from the house for forty days. To be honest, pancakes aren’t the first thing I would choose to eat if I had to come up with a final rich meal to enjoy prior to a period of abstention. But I do love them…. And I always appreciate a delicious food tradition.

Simple food…comfort food

This time last year I was in the mood for easy, simple recipes because I was recovering from the flu. I was also housebound in the wake of a big (for my region) snowstorm, so familiar, pantry-based foods made sense. This year I spent the tail end of my holiday gearing up and cooking for an event for a much larger crowd than is my norm. As a consequence I was pretty tired heading into January. The last thing I have been in the mood for this month is any kind of cooking that requires lots of ingredients, an extended amount of time at the stove, and a large pile of dirty dishes afterward. All I want is simple food.

Frankly, I don’t remember a January when I haven’t been in the mood for simple food. I’m always tired after the holidays. I always want to slow down. I always want an excuse to be good to myself after a couple of months devoted to making others happy. So this isn’t an unusual January craving. And in reality, it isn’t just simple food I crave…it’s also comfort food.

view as I prepare my evening meals during the winter months

The term “comfort food” is sometimes frowned upon …pooh-poohed as trite. But I find it to be perfectly descriptive. Good food—simply by virtue of the fact that it fills and nourishes—is one of our greatest sources of the feeling that everything is going to be ok. And if that food ticks one of the following boxes: simple, familiar, associated with happy/safe memories—what could be more comforting?

So this month I wanted to share an everyday soup from France (Potato Leek)…and a couple of scaled down and simplified recipes for dishes that are probably universal comfort foods (lasagne and chicken pot pie). If these last two aren’t on your list of “easy, simple recipes,” don’t worry. Most of the time they aren’t on mine either. But when made in batches for two, they are pretty quick and easy.

Lasagne for two

When I think of classic Italian-American lasagne, the first thing I think is that it’s a lot of work…and it makes a big mess. While I have happily eaten this style of lasagne when someone else prepared it for me, I didn’t grow up on it so it hasn’t ever been something I wanted to take the time to make for myself—particularly since a standard pan of lasagne makes 8 to 12 servings. Even if I were to freeze it, it would take me a year or two to eat it all.

Cooking as an antidote to the holiday hubbub

It is a cliché…rooted in reality…that we are often so busy trying to make the holidays special that we end up being too exhausted to be able to celebrate in a meaningful way. Holiday movies and television shows are made almost every year about this phenomenon (it’s the basic plot line of A Charlie Brown Christmas). Amy Grant wrote a holiday song about it. We seem to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do all the things.

I assume it has always been this way. And since the pressure points are different for everyone, I don’t want to presume to offer a one size fits all solution. But what I can do is encourage each of you to carve out moments for yourself as you are able. For me, mealtimes often have to be that moment. If you like to cook, going through the memorized motions of a simple, familiar recipe can be calming. (Even the clean up afterwards…allowing you a minute to restore order to your kitchen…can make your world feel a bit more peaceful).  You have to sit to eat (or at least you should!), why not take advantage of the moment to slow down? Light a candle…set the table…put on some music.

So for this month’s newsletter, I wanted to offer some simple meals and recipes that can be on the table with minimal work (and without creating a big pile of dishes to be washed afterwards). But even if the recipes seem too complicated and you want to set them aside until after the holidays, I hope that during this busy season you will occasionally take the time to feed yourself well, making the things that make you feel nourished, and that give you the energy to enjoy the beauties of this season of lights.

Baked Risotto

I used to teach a class called “Quick Weeknight Meals for the Holidays.” The class included recipes that could be on the table in a short amount of time…or if the time wasn’t exceptionally short, that could be completed in a mostly hands-off way. One of the recipes in that class was for baked risotto. I thought of that recipe one evening this month when I was trying to come up with something for dinner that was relatively quick to prepare and that would use up a significant amount of spinach (and some mushrooms). I knew I could always make pasta (I make this pasta a lot), but I really wanted to change things up a bit.

Cooking in November…for the big feast…and the home table

Last November I wrote about managing the main components of the Thanksgiving feast (turkey, dressing and gravy) for a small gathering. This year, rather than writing about Thanksgiving in such a specific way, I thought I would share instead some things I have been doing in my day to day cooking with a couple of the early season winter squashes (delicata and honeynut). Conveniently, these recipes would be appropriate for the Thanksgiving table too and could easily be expanded for that purpose. I am also sharing a dessert that I made recently for a small private dinner. It was beautiful, rich, and festive…and I think it would be a great addition to a small (or large!) Thanksgiving dessert spread.

But before I get started I wanted to mention a couple of things related to this publication. First, I have recently added a “Featured Posts” section across the top of the Home Page. This month I have been featuring the newsletters from this October and last October…as well as the aforementioned small Thanksgiving post from last November. I will usually feature posts for the current season…or posts that include recipes or techniques that I want to highlight. Hopefully this, in addition to the Recipe Index page, will make it easier for you to navigate old issues…and find recipes and techniques that you want to revisit.

I also wanted to mention the recent free Zoom class (All about Pie Dough) that I offered for premium subscribers (that’s you!) last week. It was a fun class…and I believe that the participants found it to be helpful. I enjoy teaching these short, cook along, Zoom classes and have always thought it would be a great addition to the newsletter to occasionally offer classes that cover something I have shared here—I could do a deep dive into a technique…a simple demonstration of one of the recipes…etc. I’m letting you know because I would like to know if there is interest…and I would also love to have your input! If there is ever something I have shared that you would like to see demonstrated…or that you would like to make alongside me…please let me know. You can do so by commenting on the post…or via email (just reply to the post). In the same vein…I am always open to requests for things you would like me to write about in upcoming issues. All this to say: I would love to hear from you!—not only about class and newsletter topics, but just general feedback: what you enjoy…what you would like to see more (or less) of…. I want the newsletter to be something you enjoy and find helpful.

A small cheesecake

I have always loved cheesecake. Sadly, most versions of this delicious dessert share one big problem: they are invariably too large. Cheesecake is a rich dessert. I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to make them so tall. Even a narrow slice of a traditional cheesecake is just too much. If you have been following my blog for a while you probably already know my opinion on this matter. I have posted two recipes for “cheese tarts” (a Marbled Chocolate and Pumpkin…very Thanksgiving appropriate, BTW!…and a Lemon & White Chocolate). I have also posted a couple of slightly more traditional cheesecakes (Key Lime and Raspberry Swirl). What all four of these cheesecakes have in common is their diminutive stature: They are purposefully shallow so that the diner can enjoy a reasonably sized piece at the end of a meal.

The Return of Oven Season

I love autumn for many reasons—the angle of the sun… still, cloudy days with leaves slowly drifting down… cool nights followed by days of changeable weather… mowing season drawing to a close… open windows… the welcome quiet of a home absent the background hum of fans and air conditioners…. And of course I love being able to casually turn on the oven at any time of the day once again.

October view from my window

As I sat down to write this newsletter, I remembered that the return of oven season was front and center in my mind when I wrote my October newsletter last year. It probably will be next year, too. After four months of cooking dinner almost exclusively on the stovetop or grill…and baking only on “cooler” days (or early in the morning or late at night)…regularly turning on the oven for dinner is a treat. And since that is exactly what I have been doing for the past few weeks, easy dinners that make use of the oven is what I am sharing with you this month. First up, a roast chicken dish…and then an amazingly simple baked fish preparation.

An autumnal meal of chicken, sweet potatoes & shallots

Sweet potatoes are one of the first fall foods that I grab when the market and produce departments begin to shift away from summer ingredients. One of my favorite fall cakes includes sweet potato purée and I like to have them on hand for that. But I also buy them because they keep well. Summer ingredients still feel appropriate to me during the early, warmer days of autumn—so that’s mostly what I am still buying. But occasionally the temperature will dip…or the day will simply have a distinct autumn feel…and I will want a dinner to match the mood. That’s when the few sweet potatoes I’ve stocked will come in handy.

Autumn breakfast with Marbled Chocolate Sweet Potato Cake

Recently when this exact thing happened, I decided to use the sweet potatoes in a roast chicken dish (keeping pre-salted chicken parts in your freezer makes spur of the moment dishes possible). I chose a recipe I have always liked from Maria Helm Sinskey’s The Vineyard Kitchen. I wanted to share it in the newsletter not only because it is delicious, but also because it is a nice example of how a recipe meant for a larger crowd (all of the recipes in her book are calibrated for 8 servings) can be reconfigured into a recipe for two.

Late summer’s rich flavors

The constants in my produce pantry during the month of September (and as far into October as I can manage) are zucchini, bell peppers, eggplant and tomatoes. Almost every evening meal involves one or all of these vegetables. And while I really do revel in the gifts of each season, there is something about these end-of-summer vegetables that I find particularly appealing. They bear the brunt of summer’s heat…and instead of wilting (which is what I tend to do in the heat), they thrive—and give us some of the most richly flavored vegetable dishes of the year: ratatouille, gratins and tians, pizza toppings, pasta sauces…and more.

It is true that I associate these vegetables with one of my favorite places in the world: the South of France (home of most of the aforementioned dishes), but I’m not quite sure if it was my love for that region that precipitated my love for these vegetables, or vice versa. I tried to tease this out as I thought about this month’s newsletter…but to no avail. Suffice it to say, they are the subject of this newsletter: one recipe is firmly planted in that favorite region, one takes its inspiration from a classic from nearby Italy…and finally, in a total departure for me, one of the dishes I am sharing this month is based on a classic dish from Japan.

An old favorite

But before I jump in, I wanted to direct you to a pasta recipe featuring eggplant, tomatoes and peppers that I posted years ago on my blog. It is from the south of France…and it is a favorite. I first made it during the summer the year I returned from cooking school. While trying to figure out my first steps in my new career, I spent the summer evenings looking through cookbooks. I was particularly drawn to Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells. Her descriptions of the bistros of France…and the foods served in them…reminded me so much of my food experiences in London and in cooking school. Just reading it made me happy. This pasta is from that book.

Recently at the end of a rather long, frustrating, and unsatisfying day of work (capping off a week to match), I decided to make this pasta. I chose to make it for no other reason than I had all the ingredients and I knew I could make it without any effort or thought (perfect for my mood). But then… as it simmered away, I lifted the lid to check on it, and its rich familiar aroma filled the air. My spirits were immediately lifted. And when I sat down to eat, it tasted so very good….making everything seem a bit better. I like to think that—as corny as it sounds—this dish was just what I needed to remind me of a time when my career was new and exciting…and I was newly in love with the food of France.

I know this pasta won’t do all of that for you (I’m sure you have your own list of recipes that make your heart feel a bit more full). But I hope you will give it a try all the same. It is truly delicious…and perfect for this time of year.

Finding inspiration

Inspiration for the foods I prepare everyday can come from so many places: The produce at the farmers market or grocery store… The things in my pantry that look particularly beautiful (or conversely, “have to go”)... A dish on a restaurant menu... Ideas culled from an afternoon spent thumbing through old cookbooks and food magazines… Images seen while idly scrolling on Instagram… Food and taste memory…. Most of the time it’s a combination of several of these things—with what I happen to have on hand almost always being part of the equation.

This summer a constant on my kitchen counter has been a pile of vine ripened and cherry tomatoes. This is always the case during the summer months, but this year I seem to have an extra abundance—from over-buying on my part (they are hard to pass up when they are beautiful) and from the generosity of friends with bountiful gardens. As a consequence every recipe this month includes tomatoes (I hope your counters are similarly full!).

Feeding yourself well when it’s too hot to cook

I admit it: the heat of July and August makes me kind of grumpy. I love to cook…but the idea of heating up the house by turning on the oven is pretty unappealing. I even try to minimize my use of the stove this time of year. Since I spent my late 20s and early 30s in restaurants working in the eternal summer of the hot line, feeling this way has come as a surprise. It is also a bit of a problem for someone who loves to cook and eat well. Fortunately, one benefit of writing this newsletter is it motivates me to actually prepare meals rather than spend the summer eating fruit and ice cream and drinking icy beverages

Galia Melon Shrub (see last month for the basic recipe)

If you follow me on social media or are a long time reader of my blog, you are probably aware that many—if not most—of my meals in the summer months are simple and spontaneous vegetable and/or fruit salads that require no (or very little) cooking. Last year my August newsletter was all about learning how to make spontaneous/no-recipe salads (using cantaloupe as a starting point). And my blog is filled with salads featuring variations on the theme of corn and tomatoes. You could do worse than spend your summers eating these kinds of preparations. But of course there are other ways you can think about “beating the heat” as you cook for yourself during the hottest months of the year.

Spontaneous lunch salad of tomato, avocado, corn….

Fire up the Grill

More and more over the past few summers I have been relying on my grill for high heat cooking. For most of my life I used the grill only for the occasional steak or hamburger. But of course you can do so much more with your grill. And while standing over a hot grill on a ninety-plus degree day isn’t exactly my idea of fun, at least when I’m done cooking, I can come back inside to enjoy whatever I have made…and leave the heat outside where it belongs.

A Bountiful Spring

We had what felt like a perfect spring season this year. Of course nothing is ever perfect…but this year came close. Once the weather began to warm up enough for the spring bloom to begin, we never had a killing freeze or frost. In my part of the country, this is unusual. Because I’m mostly a flower/perennial gardener, I usually feel the loss of bloom caused by these late freezes and frosts most keenly in the loss of daffodils, tulips, magnolia blossoms, etc. This year their bloom was glorious.

When I moved a few years ago, my property came with some recently planted fruit trees: sweet cherry, Seckel pear and peach. Because they were young…and the wild life voracious…I have never tasted much of their fruit. Last year, maturity seemed to have begun to arrive: there was a noticeable increase in the production of cherries and the tree produced enough for me to have a nice little crop in addition to what the critters hoovered up. This spring, when I saw the magnificent bloom (undiminished by a late frost), I knew I was in for a bumper crop. And it proved to be so. There was more than enough for all. Because harvesting fruit isn’t built into my schedule, I wasn’t able to get all the fruit available to me…but I spent every minute I could harvesting and pitting.

Sweet Cherries

Since part of the goal of my newsletter is to open up a window into my kitchen so you can see what I’m actually cooking right now, I thought I would share some of the things I made with my cherries. Even if you don’t have a cherry tree, you can make any of these recipes…simply substitute whatever sweet cherry (most likely Bing) that is available to you.

I’m sure that no one is surprised that I made a cherry coffeecake (with chocolate chips and walnuts):

…and cherry ice cream:

Both of these are recent posts from my blog. Over the years I have posted several recipes using Bing cherries to my blog. The recipes are mostly for desserts/sweets…but there is one savory pork recipe in the mix that might interest those of you who prefer savory cooking. The recipe can easily be pared down from six servings to one or two simply by adjusting the pan size down to accommodate the smaller quantity of ingredients.

Spring Abundance

There is a moment sometime in May when I have to start being careful not to purchase too much produce…whether I’m at the grocery store…or the farmers market. Frankly, this is a “problem” for me throughout the growing season. May is just when it starts. There is just so much beautiful abundance.

When asparagus appears in March or April, I get into the habit of purchasing asparagus every time I see it. Then suddenly there are radishes and spring onions (and green garlic!). And I start buying spring onions whenever I see them (I’m so tired of storage onions). Soon there are greens (baby lettuces, arugula, spinach, chard, kale…along with varieties unknown), as well as peas (snow…then sugar snap…then shelling)….and strawberries…and rhubarb. Very soon the baby root vegetables will appear.

I want to cook and eat all of it. But it’s just me doing the eating…so I try to be less exuberant with my purchasing. In light of that, this month’s newsletter will still have recipes that include spring onions, asparagus and radishes. To this mix I have added some rhubarb, Swiss chard, sugar snap peas, and halibut.

Enjoy Halibut in Season

If you live (or have lived) near an ocean or a large body of water, you are probably aware that fish is seasonal. Its availability is affected by (among other things) migration and spawning habits, water temperatures…and human regulations. Having grown up and lived most of my life in land locked states, I have learned about the seasonality of fish from restaurant work…and paying attention at the fish counter.

Fresh, wild-caught halibut begins to show up in the stores in late March/early April. The season ends in November. Pacific halibut is most plentiful in the spring and fall…Atlantic has a short season in May and June.

Looking forward

April is the moment of the year when my perspective as a cook suddenly shifts. Even though artichokes and asparagus…and nice looking lettuces and greens…are coming in from California during the month of March, much of my cooking is still centered around the “always available” (broccoli, kale, plastic containers of baby spinach, mushrooms…) and of course the foods that have kept well since last fall (roots, winter squashes, storage onions…). For the period of time stretching from sometime in November and going through the end of March, cooking feels like it is mostly about looking back. But suddenly in April, with the arrival of the local asparagus crop, there is a realization that this is the beginning…and there is so much more deliciousness to come over the course of the next few months. And as I see the world itself greening up along with the asparagus, I start looking forward.

View from my window of the world greening up. I love how the gray day makes the colors pop.

Asparagus as the star

When good asparagus (nice plump spears) is available, it is unusual if there isn’t at least one bunch in my fridge. (Check out last year’s April newsletter for tips on storing your asparagus.) I use it all the time—as a solo vegetable side, as the main event topped with an egg (poached, fried, softly scrambled), in a pasta, pilaf, risotto, frittata or salad…or as part of a medley of other spring vegetables. I could go on…. It seems like I can’t get enough of it.

Cooking during that unsettled moment between winter and spring

As a Midwesterner, I am used to the crazy up and down weather swings of late winter. One day it’s snowing…the next it’s sunny and in the 60s (or 70s!). I always feel sorry for the plants and animals that are just trying to survive…or decide when to come out of their winter hibernation.

This sweet little bouquet of the first daffodils seems a bit early…but maybe not?

One of the difficult things about the weather ups and downs of early March is preparing food that feels right. I’m not yet hungry for the light, bright foods of spring…but I’m tired of the roots, greens, dried beans and squashes of winter. Fortunately, there are some “almost spring” foods that bridge the gap nicely, going equally well into a dish that will be appropriate for a cold blustery day…or a dish that will fill the bill on a warm, sunny one. Not surprisingly, these foods begin to appear right around the time I’m ready for them

Fresh Artichokes: they are worth the effort…

The new crop of artichokes from California always catches me by surprise. They appear while it’s still winter—sometime in late February or early March (when I’m not really thinking about spring food yet). But when they arrive, they make a splash: they take up a lot of space…and savvy produce managers know to put them out on a hard-to-miss display (often in uniform rows, stems plunged into a mound of crushed ice). When I see them, I always try to grab one or two, even though I wasn’t planning for them. They will keep a while in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer…and I want to enjoy them before they have had a chance to languish on the store shelf (where, out and exposed to the air, they will dry out and become tough).

A lovely purple one I happened to pick up this year (it cooks and tastes the same as the green ones).

Most people’s exposure to artichokes is from the canned variety (marinated or not). Generally these are artichoke “hearts”—which is the central core (inner leaves, undeveloped “choke,” and stem) of baby artichokes. The large, fresh “Globe” artichokes that you spot in the stores in late winter and into spring are prized for the “bottoms.” The choke of these specimens has developed into a fuzzy and/or thorny and inedible thistle…and the edible base has grown into a thick, succulent disk. This disk (or bottom) is what you eat when you cook a globe artichoke. In very fresh artichokes, part of the stem and some of the inner leaves will still be tender and edible. You can actually purchase canned artichoke bottoms…although they are not as common (and I admit I have never used them).

I mention all of this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, canned artichokes are vastly inferior to fresh. They actually don’t really taste very much like artichoke. Their most pronounced quality is a sharp acidity from the canning process. The marinated ones at least have some flavor added back in…but they still don’t taste much like an artichoke. Worse, some of the tough and chewy inner leaves always make it through the canning process. If you consume canned artichokes often, you likely don’t even notice these chewy bits…it’s just the way they are.

The second reason I mention it is that enticing people into the adventure that is trimming a globe artichoke down to its bottom is a hard sell. Trimming an artichoke requires some dexterity with a paring knife…and produces a mountain of vegetable detritus: bits of stem, large leaves, possibly some thorns…and fuzz. But I’m here to tell you that they are worth it.

Taking stock & looking forward… and enjoying the quiet of February

As I type the newsletter this month the snow is falling…and just outside my window, the birds are busy at their “table.” I hope moments of peace and beauty are visiting your home this month, too.

Some news about the future of “Notes”

It has been almost a year since I published my first issue of “Notes.” Anniversaries are always a good time to stop and take stock. So before I jump into what I’ve been cooking this month, I wanted to take a minute to share some of my thoughts about the newsletter and its future.

First, a big “Thank you!” to all of you. I hope you have enjoyed the things I have been writing about…and the recipes that I have shared. If you are so inclined, would love to hear back from you (via the comment section) about which issue(s) you particularly enjoyed…or found most helpful. If you have thoughts about things you wish I had talked about (or discussed in more depth), I’d love to hear about that too.

I also want to apologize for the fact that commenting sometimes feels like a bit of an onerous task (because of how the Beehiiv platform is set up). When you try to comment (ie—click the comment button), it is likely that you will be asked to log in. If you have only read the newsletter through the email—or have never commented—you may have never been asked to log in. Clicking the “login” button will trigger an email to you that will provide a “get access” link for the site (all the old posts, comment sections, etc.). This “email access” system is the default. If you wish to switch to “password” access, you may do so by logging in and clicking “manage subscription” on the drop down menu (at the top of the home page). I don’t know if that’s any easier…but it is at least closer to what people might be used to.

The main thing I want to share is that there is a significant change coming to the newsletter. Beginning on April 1, all subscriptions will be converted from annual to monthly when they come up for renewal on their one year anniversary date. This conversion will be done automatically in the billing system, so you won’t have to do anything if you wish to continue your subscription. Annual subscriptions have been $30/year. The monthly rate will be $3. I apologize that this is a slight increase ($6 over the whole year). The difference is mostly to cover the increased Stripe processing fees (since they will process more frequently). If you wish to cancel your subscription (I hope you won’t!), you may do so via the link at the bottom of this email. When you cancel, you will continue to have premium access until the end of your current subscription period.

I am making this change because the newsletter has not attracted the number of subscribers that I had hoped. Consequently, I may need to bring it to an end. I love writing it, but I have to think about the best use of my time when it comes to providing for myself. I realize it takes a while to build an audience, so I am continuing as long as possible. At this point I believe that I will keep writing the newsletter until the end of this calendar year. I do hope to be able to continue past then. My goal is to fulfill my obligation to all those who have purchased annual subscriptions. Once all of the subscriptions have been switched to monthly (about a year from now), I will be able to stop publishing if I need to—without being faced with having to issue a lot of prorated refunds for time remaining on annual subscriptions.

As an aside, I will continue to offer one year gift subscriptions. I can add an option for one month gifts if that would be of interest (let me know!).

I hope everyone had a sweet Valentine’s Day….(these lovely—and delicious!— cookies were a gift from my friend Nancy).

January 2025…an unexpected moment of hibernation…

I hope that everyone’s 2025 is off to a peaceful start. For me, the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 have had a bit of a March 2020 vibe. I picked up the flu over Christmas…and then the Midwest was buried in a historic snowstorm. Since Christmas day, I think I have been out of the house only two or three times.

View from my kitchen…early January 2025

Feeding yourself well when you don’t feel much like cooking (or even eating)…and when you don’t have the luxury of being able to make a quick run to the store…is an interesting exercise. But since there is a lot of illness going around at the moment…and winter storms will be the lot of many over the course of the next couple of months…I thought some of the things I made would be worth sharing with all of you.

The other thing I should mention that began to guide a lot of my daily food preparations during these early moments of the new year has been a desire to empty out my freezer stash a bit. I love my freezer(s). Having things that are ready made (by me!) is an unbelievable luxury. But when you are in the habit of using your freezer regularly as a means of diminishing food waste, at some point you find that you have a lot of odds and ends that are taking up a lot of space. So as I cooked from my freezer over the past few weeks, I made a concerted effort not to add anything new. The recipes I share this month will reflect that, too.

Chicken Soup

I have never really been a big fan of chicken soup. I think I associate it with the Campbell’s variety of my childhood: an overly salted hot liquid with the occasional tiny nubbin of “chicken”…and not nearly enough noodles. I imagine if I had an amazing family recipe for chicken soup in my background—the kind that makes you feel better when you are low in both body and spirit—that I would feel differently.

While I was down with the flu, I began to crave the chicken soup of my imaginings: a rich and flavorful broth crammed full of soft, fresh vegetables, and big chunks of shredded chicken. I think noodles would have been nice…but I didn’t have the right kind on hand…and I certainly didn’t have the energy to make them. So I put them out of my mind.

I began to poke around a bit online and flip through some of my cookbooks looking for a likely recipe. Most recipes that I found started with a whole chicken…and then took several steps and a few hours to make. Worse, they produced enough soup to feed a large family or a small army. Even if I had had a whole chicken on hand, none of this would have been appealing.

Celebrating the season…at a daily table

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Most of us find ourselves caught between wanting to just sit and enjoy the season…and racing around at top speed to make it so we (and others) can sit and enjoy the season. It’s a paradox. I try hard to carve out moments…no matter how busy the season gets…to just sit and take it in.

For me…and I think for anyone reading this newsletter…those moments are frequently at a table. I was reminded of this over the weekend when my friend and baker extraordinaire Nancy posted an image on Instagram of one of our work lunches from this past week. (For those of you who don’t know, I usually work a day or two every week for Nancy in her bakeshop, Chef Shop.) No matter how busy we are, we always stop for a proper lunch. They are simple: typically leftovers from one of our home tables…or a combination of our leftovers…or grilled cheese/quesdilla… And always a little salad (or a little plate of seasonal fruit). But because we make the effort to plan (just a simple stream of texts back and forth: “what do you have?”…) they are usually quite tasty. I am so grateful I get to work with someone who values a daily ritual of the table.

Pasta with leftovers

Whether your household is small or large, being creative with leftovers is such an important skill when life gets extra busy. Frankly, it was the thing I thought I would focus on the most when I started this newsletter. But not everyone has the same set of leftovers I (or you) have…and often the delicious things I make from them fall into a never-to-be-duplicated category. Writing about these creations would often necessitate that I also share recipes for the various things that created the leftovers in the first place. This would make for a cumbersome newsletter.

Another friend reminded me recently that not all of my recipes created from leftovers are one time only affairs. She sent me a note that she had made my Bow Ties with Brussels Sprouts, Carrots & Italian Sausage for dinner the previous evening…and her husband was still talking about how delicious it had been. This particular pasta came about because of a slightly different kind of leftover—the odds and ends of uncooked vegetables that were too few in quantity to make a dish on their own. The funny thing about leftovers like this is that you will probably have the exact same leftovers pretty regularly (because people tend to buy what they love). In this case, it is not unusual for me to have a stray Brussels sprout or two hanging out in my produce bin during the late fall and winter months. And I always have carrots (and 2 oz. portions of Italian sausage in my freezer). This pasta of “leftovers” has become a regular favorite.

A delightful feast—even when it is very small…

My childhood Thanksgivings were sort of medium-sized affairs. But I wasn’t really aware of this because they seemed so large: the whole, multi-generational clan (which I am now aware was smaller than many clans) gathered at one of my grandparents’ homes (we alternated years). Since my own nuclear family was large, I had no reason to believe that one day many of my Thanksgivings would be tiny. But life is always a surprise.

Over the course of my adult life I have enjoyed Thanksgivings at tables both very small and very large. I love them both. I was not expecting to love the small ones. I wrote about one of them on my blog about ten years ago. As I look at that old post I realize now that that was not my first tiny Thanksgiving. It was the second. The first was about thirty years ago. It was maybe a year or two after my father had died…and my siblings all had other commitments and plans that year. So it was going to be just me and my mother. I remember that I had no expectation that I would really enjoy the day. But for me, not doing anything special to celebrate the holiday was out of the question. So I made plans for a pared down traditional meal. As the day approached, I discovered that a single friend was going to be alone, so I invited her to join us.

The meal and the day ended up being a delight. The meal for only three was indescribably easy to prepare compared to the kinds of knots people can twist themselves into trying to get a massive dinner on the table. We sat at that table long into the darkening afternoon just talking and enjoying the remains of the meal…and the peace and quiet of a late November day when we didn’t have to be anywhere…or do anything.

There have been a few more tiny Thanksgivings since. I always enjoy the luxury of preparing small amounts of the traditional items…and not having to prepare things I’m not crazy about (but that others expect). If you are facing a small Thanksgiving, I encourage you to celebrate. And that’s where this newsletter comes in. I had been cooking professionally for a few years when I prepared my first tiny Thanksgiving, so I didn’t have to go looking for appropriate recipes. I just cooked. Hopefully this newsletter will give you the tools to do the same.

Thanksgiving for two: enjoyed on my Grandma’s turkey dishes (there are only three plates left…and are one of the reasons I enjoy the occasional small Thanksgiving). The Brussels Sprouts with Fresh Chestnuts is another (since you only have to peel a few for two.)

It’s time to fire up your oven…

When the first cool days of autumn arrive, I am immediately in the mood to turn on my oven. This is not because I need to warm up the house (my mother reminded me on a recent chilly morning that my paternal grandparents used to light their oven on cold mornings to jump start some warmth in the kitchen as the rest of the house slowly warmed up)—but rather because I can finally enjoy the delicious things that can come out of my oven…without the nagging irritation of making my house suffocatingly hot.

Recently (after first enjoying the luxury of baking a cake in the middle of the afternoon) I made a baked chicken and rice dish for my dinner. It was very simple: just chicken thighs (crisped and rendered in a little butter and olive oil), baked on top of a basic rice pilaf seasoned with some Persian-inspired spices, and finished with some toasted nuts and golden raisins. I served a little garlicky sautéed zucchini on the side. It was delicious…and just the thing for a cool evening on the cusp of summer and fall. And I made the whole meal with things I already had in my pantry.

As I was enjoying my dinner it occurred to me that this idea—chicken and rice with whatever vegetables and seasonings you happen to have on hand—would be a great thing to talk about in my next newsletter.

Cooking with a template: “Theme & Variation”

As everyone who cooks for one or two knows, one of the difficulties is the purchasing. Things are in large quantities…or big pieces. So you buy for one recipe…and then you have some of whatever vegetable you bought left over. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, soon you are drowning in odds and ends of vegetables. Having some recipes that are basically templates that can be altered to suit your mood and your pantry is extremely helpful. (This is one of the reasons I love things like pasta and pizza so much—they are basically blank canvases that can be used with almost anything I have in my pantry and fridge.)

Chicken and rice is just such a template. Once you understand the basic idea, you can use what you have…whether that’s half a bell pepper, a chunk of butternut squash, half a box of mushrooms, or the end of your clamshell of baby spinach or super greens (that would really be best consumed in a wilted state)…to make a delicious dinner. Julia Child said that French home cooks had a gift for this idea of “theme & variation” in the kitchen. I think good cooks the world over anchor a lot of their everyday cooking in this concept.

Provençal Chicken with Rice (with peppers, olives, saffron and fennel spice)

Eggplant Season

Eggplant is one of those vegetables that people often think of as seasonless. Certainly specimens of indifferent quality can be found at the grocery store in every season. But if you are a gardener, you know that eggplant has a distinct season: late summer and early fall. Eggplant requires a long, hot growing season. Depending on your location, the farmers markets begin to fill with beautiful eggplant in July or August. You should be able to continue to find good eggplant for the rest of this month and into early October. I feel like we are at the peak right about now.

September market abundance

I point this out because I am aware that eggplant is a hard sell. And I want you to love eggplant. To begin, consider that often food aversions are the result of eating inferior examples of the food in question. This starts with consuming something out of season. It isn’t that you can’t get good examples of a food out of season…it just means you have to look more carefully to find the good.

A great example of this is one of eggplant’s relatives in the nightshade family: the tomato. There is nothing quite as delicious as a vine ripened summer tomato. They are best warm from your own garden (or that of a friend). The next best source is the summer farmers market. After that, those marked “vine ripened” during the summer months at the grocery store can be very nice too. Modern varieties that grow better in hot house conditions…in addition to improved and more efficient shipping…have made better tomatoes available out of season. But I think everyone knows the out of season tomatoes are a pale shadow of their summer selves. So it is with eggplant, too.

My hope for this issue of Notes is that even if you have never been an eggplant fan, that maybe after reading about it here, you will want to give it another try. Right now is the perfect moment.