I have been tickling my dendrites with jazz, coating my tongue in dark chocolate, and then the word dumpling happened, and I felt Minnesota leak under the windowpanes like a draft. Dump-ling. It sounds like what it dares to do to me. But, oh. With Thai glaze—not so dumpy. I’m headed to a warm place, […]
Category: Dinner
I Live Under the Corn Tower Chowder
The preparation of “Rank Order Lists,” a tragic game of favorites used to match medical students with their residency institutions, is a phenomenon I’d also liken to Box of Lies, a Jimmy Fallon mixer that KP and I appropriated this year for our annual Christmas present-as-prize spectacle with our families. The awkward chicanery on both sides […]
Chicken-Andouille Gumbo and Bread Pudding
Well if I had pralines for breakfast, I suppose it’s a sign that I’m returning to good health (or rather, evidence that indeed I do share genetic material with the estimable lifelong confectioneer, Ruth Broomfield.) Between Whiplash and Birdman, jazz featured prominently this year at the Academy Awards, and something about jazz gets me in a […]
Asian Pork Meatballs for Year of the Sheep
I am mad at biology—this, my ruminative thought while stuck with the flu on the couch under three blankets, swaddled in my leopard fleece robe and topped with a rabbit pelt-lined hat. Nothing hurries a common virus, it comes and goes as it must. I can only flush it again and again with fluids; how […]
Tomato-Portobello Stacks with Wasabi and Cheater’s Bearnaise
It is going to take daily dance parties if I am going to survive this winter. Blood needs to flow; meanwhile, all liquid outside my body has stopped. Our driveway is puddled with glass, and every day I’m dancing against friction to keep myself upright. These veggies burgers are a foreshadowing of grilling days to […]
Avocado, Feta and Cherry Tomato Salsa Flatbreads
Haiku #7 Since honesty kills drama, why not walk through each new day stark naked? Avocado, Feta and Cherry Tomato Salsa Flatbreads Adapted from Food and Wine 2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing 1 small shallot, minced 1/3 cup chopped mint 1/3 cup chopped cilantro 1 1/2 […]
Fish Tacos with Mango and Mint Salsa
Haiku #5 Today’s delusion: Winter shall vanish if I shake this maraca. Which I did, and POOF, I ended up in Florida where the weather is a balmy 70. No comparison to where I left, tomorrow’s high is -14 degrees. The poor chicken’s eggs are freezing. As it turns out, a frozen yolk is a […]
Slow-Cooked Salmon with Chickpeas and Greens
Like salmon, KP and I will be pushing home against the snow current sweeping across I-90, also against the current of ever-thicker probability that our Mazda at 221,000+ miles will cease to function for another 3,500 miles. Against the odds, it is instinct telling us that there is no place like home for Christmas. Looking […]
Lettuce Turnip the Beet McMuffin
Each man is a half-open door/leading to a room for everyone, wrote Tomas Tranströmer. This line is ever on my heart at the Thanksgiving table, the very place a hallway for kindred souls. Each face a doorway; each smile the light beneath it. So grateful to have my brother visiting Minnesota for the first time. […]
Squash Gratin on the Interview Trail
The interview trail is a curious path— I’m a little weary of taking the tour through all the possible different versions of my future self, because it turns out the hall of mirrors goes on in infinite reflection. Strange to think that the choices I make in the next three months will all but shatter […]