I’m thrilled when folks want to make recipes from this site and my books, including those who are gluten-intolerant or have celiac. However I’m the first to admit that gluten-free baking is not my area of expertise. So I can’t usually say how and what to substitute in recipes that call for wheat flour. Wheat flour acts as a binder in recipes and gives cakes…
I’d read a rather head-scratching review of a book that I was very fond of from the day it landed in my apartment. Burma: Rivers of Flavor is a cookbook that has been haunting me ever since I opened it up and leafed through the pages. It was written by Naomi Duguid, a seasoned cookbook author who traveled throughout the country before the change in…
After all this time you’d think that I would have figured out how to go back to older postings here on the site, update them, then bring them up to the front. Because if things change on a subsequent visit, or if I hear something major has changed, I like to make sure we’re all in the same loop. But not being so tech-savvy, I…
UPDATE: My visit to Lebanon was in 2013 and I had a marvelous time visiting. In recent years, a powerful explosion rocked Beirut, and subsequent social and economic changes happened, and I haven’t been back. Before planning a trip, do some reading or talk to a travel professional about visiting Lebanon and what to expect. The Middle East is a pretty fascinating place, and on…
A while back, a friend made the Apple-Red Wine Tart (in Ready for Dessert), which calls for the fruit to be cooked in red wine in a nonreactive pan. I didn’t realize it at the time, but many people don’t know what nonreactive cookware is and he called to tell me the dessert was great, but his pan was stained. (And this was someone who…
I purchased my trusty zester in 1983, back when no one had heard of rasp-type zesters, which are now a lot more popular than their old-fangled counterparts. I got mine when I started working at Chez Panisse and the cook training me on my first shift told me that I needed four essential items; a chef’s knife, a paring knife, a bread knife, and a…
It’s too bad that so many people are only familiar with Middle Eastern pastries that aren’t so well made. If you sample them far from where they originate, often they’re made with old or stale nuts, they’ve sat around too long in plastic packages, or the cheeses aren’t exactly fresh. While it’s true that some of them can be a bit sticky-sweet for Western tastes,…
(Just a note: This post contains a somewhat graphic image of meat being prepared which some folks might not wish to view. For that reason, I’ve placed it after the jump and near the end of the post so you don’t have to see it. If images like that are challenging to you, I recommend that you don’t scroll further and perhaps that you not…
The Lebanese are real “snackers”, a point brought home by Mazen Hajjar, the owner of 961, Lebanon’s first (and only) craft brewery that told me if I went into someone’s home in Lebanon and they offered a drink – but no bowl of nuts or seeds, “You should go…just get up and leave immediately.” Fortunately I never had to, because true to his word, each…
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