Gluten free

It may not seem like it, what with all the cakes and cookies and bars and brownies and pots de creme and cocktails, but I spend a lot of time thinking about wellness. I haven’t always been that way. I was a habitual lunch-skipper in high school (who occasionally pooled fries with friends). I subsisted mostly on grilled cheese for …

I spent the entirety of the week before last in a baking marathon. These brown butter apple almond cakes were just one of five different desserts plus a two-tier cake I made. I was tasked with creating and producing a dessert buffet for our friends’ Traci and Dan’s wedding. Traci loves good food and is …

Can we talk about fish sauce for a minute? It smells terrible, but it tastes delicious—so salty and funky with all of that wonderful umami flavor. When I was a vegetarian (before I slid into pescatarianism and then back to omnivorism), the only exception I made was for fish sauce. I didn’t eat anything made …

I like a good cocktail. You might have noticed this before. But I have to admit I’ve been holding out on you. I haven’t yet told you about the Brooklyn cocktail. This is one of my all-time favorites. It’s the kind of thing I am, more or less, always in the mood for. It’s a …

I have this love-hate relationship with eggplant. Almost anyone who has ever been a vegetarian has been served some sad bitter under- or over-cooked eggplant dish as the vegetarian option at a mediocre catered event. Maybe it’s a greasy, oddly chewy eggplant parmesan or part of the sad filling next to the limp and watery …

Lately, early on weekend mornings, Dan has been taking our dog, Inka, to the lake. He gets to spend some time at the beach before it gets crowded, when it’s still possible to appreciate the quiet of the lakefront, and I get some much appreciated morning quiet time at home when I don’t have to …