My first knowledge of a book with this stately title was spoken about in reverentially hushed tones by the chefs cooking around me. I had not yet become aware that cookbooks could change my life. I had cooked for 6 or 7 years before that thunderbolt struck my noggin. I was in…

It seems to me that the greatest flavors can only be obtained by the most menial jobs. When we start off cooking in the restaurant life … we ‘grunt cooks’ are given those jobs. In time we move up to other chores that are less monotonous from those on the outside watching….

Scientist and author Alan Lightman was born and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. His father Richard Lightman was a movie theater owner. His mother Jeanne Garretson was a dance teacher and Braille typist. Early on, Lightman demonstrated an interest in both the sciences and the arts. A few years ago he wrote…

Hearing that word many of us might be thinking of our high school days and dishes like “macaroni wiggle” and “Neptune’s surprise”, prepared by women in nurses smocks, hair nets and white stockings with lines running down the back. Women of Slavic, Polish and Scandinavian ancestry, at least in my case, with…

You have probably seen the images on television. I hope you have not had to live them. It is of a magnitude of heartbreak that humans should not have to bear. If there is one thing we’d need more than food or water at the end and that is human touch. There…

Mr. Sam Sifton is the newly appointed cultural and lifestyle editor of the New York Times. Precedent to that he was the founding editor of New York Times Cooking. He also is a friend. We met over a mutual love of food. He has been kind to include me in the Times…

If you could read my words versus listening to them you would see that there is a comma between home and cooking. That is what have been doing. We have been home … cooking. And also ordering from our neighborhood restaurants that are valiantly struggling to keep the fires burning, their teams…

Wise sentences for these times are needed more than ever. One of the sentences I’m enjoying is, “You are not stuck at home, you are safe at home”. Of course some aren’t. Some are in hospitals. Some are buried. For the majority of us we are home as we’ve been told by…

If you like the idea of memorable flavors … flavors with musical reverb, resonance and improved texture, let me suggest that spice rubs should be in your repertoire. I think most people associate spice rubs with grilling and barbecue. And that is a great place to focus on because they are superb…