Dear friends, family, colleagues, casual acquaintances, and indifferent web surfers,

You may have thought that I had stopped cooking delicious deserts to pursue other, more social pastimes. Maybe I threw a wild party, watched a football game, or even went clubbing. Not so. I’ve been quietly cooking and baking away during my few waking hours away from work, but simply haven’t found the time to share my experiments.

I’m of the firm belief that tarts are among the most rewarding of desserts to bake, because it always looks like you’ve put way more effort into them than you actually have.… Read More

I’ll admit, I sometimes have odd cravings. Raw carrots, candy hearts, frozen peas… the list goes on. But earlier this week, after consuming some mediocre lentil soup at a mediocre falafel joint in my neighborhood, all I could think about was lentils. In a lentil-induced haze, I ran to my local supermarket and bought a handful of ingredients: carrots, celery, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and–you guessed it–lentils. After two hours of chopping, sautéeing, ransacking my spice cabinet, sprinkling, simmering, and stirring, something new and delicious was born.… Read More

Let’s imagine that you, dear reader, are filled with admiration for my cooking projects and immediately run to the kitchen to try out each of these recipes over and over. If this is the case, then you have a veritable swimming pool of pesto sitting around, waiting to be used. And you’re probably sick of eating it with pasta. Well, here’s some great news! You can have fresh, homemade pesto pizza! Yum yum! And it’s so easy! … Read More

I have a confession to make. I’m a pesto snob. I spent years sampling store-bought varieties, disappointed with everything in a jar, and nearly all of the fresher, refrigerated ones. While studying abroad in Paris, I lived on yogurt, baguettes, and–yes–pesto. Watching a friend make pesto out of a packet nearly killed me.

You know that saying? About what to do if you want something done well? And don’t have a celebrated Italian chef locked away in your kitchen cupboard? Clearly, the answer was to find a good pesto recipe and obsessively refine it over the course of several months.… Read More

Ever wandered, drooling, past a bakery window and wished that you could have a tart of your very own? A tart to cherish, to love, to pile high with freshly sliced fruit? Well, now you can!

As is often the case, I volunteered to provide dessert for a social occasion without actually knowing what I’d make. Or if I had the necessary ingredients. Or even the time. This tart is the result of an hour of frantic online recipe browsing, leafing through cookbooks, and running around Harris Teeter like a madwoman, and another hour of stirring, accidentally powdering all nearby surfaces with confectioners’ sugar, slicing fruit quickly rather than safely, and pouring hot jam.… Read More

At the beginning of last week, I found myself with half of a delicious cantaloupe. Now, that may not seem like much of a problem to you. Eating cantaloupe is a pretty enjoyable activity, after all. But it just so happens that there’s one thing even better than than fresh cantaloupe on a sweltering summer day: icy cantaloupe sorbet!… Read More

I’m always on the lookout for new adaptations of lesser-known fairy tales, and just over a month ago I was lucky enough to find one practically on my doorstep, at the National Gallery of Art. De Vilde Svaner (The Wild Swans) is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most beautiful stories, and I had high expectations.

The more I read about this production, an hour-long Danish production with art design created by–no joke–Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, the more apprehensive I became. A film with découpage backdrops and actors greenscreened in? I just wasn’t convinced that they’d be able to pull it off.

And oh boy, was I wrong!… Read More