Use Your Noodle

Pad Thai is a prominent offering in Siamese restaurants, no matter whether it’s served up in the dining room, or if it’s delivered. With good reason, of course. Juicy chicken is sliced thinly and is woven among chewy rice noodles. The combination is drenched in a luscious sauce exuberant with Southeast Asian flavors, including tangy…

Veggies, All of It?

Yep, that’s right.  Today’s entry is completely vegetarian-friendly, from the first cilantro leaf to the last grain of rice.  Yet it’s warming and satisfying, due to hearty pieces of sweet potato and a lusciously rich peanut butter-tomato sauce.  Honestly, you won’t spend the whole time you’re eating fantasizing about other ingredients.  Mainly because you already…

“Something Wicked This Way Comes”

What is that?  A witch’s kettle of Thai green curry, perhaps, pieces of zucchini mysteriously bobbing to the surface.  How about pairing it with rice, blacker than midnight, and pulsing with cubed squash, colors of the spooky season?  This is a pairing Martha Stewart imagines and features on her website. (*1)  In keeping with the…

Strong Influence

Special occasions call for memorable meals, and for many North Americans, “Japanese” steakhouses such as Benihana or Shogun stir fond recollections.  These places value entertainment, and they feature flashy, wisecracking chefs preparing meals, teppanyaki-style, on an iron griddle immediately in front of guests.  The freshest ingredients served alongside puns (some cringe-worthy, some not), knife gymnastics…

Fine Detail

That’s where it matters, in the little things that combine to bring greatness.  None greater, and none littler, than the fine-grained Moroccan couscous that underlies today’s offering, Moroccan Lamb and Seven-Vegetable Couscous.  From this fluffy and buttery base rises an immensely satisfying stew spirited to culinary paradise by a whole Kasbah-worth of subtle, haunting, North…

Beneath the Waves

Nestled among the kelp gently swaying in the shallows are shellfish grown plump in the nutrient-rich waters.  Today’s dish provides a taste of this idyllic scene, though with inland greens filling in for seaweed in the broth.  This keeps the meal ethereal and fresh, both in color and in taste, making it ideal for a…

So Addiction Begins

With a fanfare, not a whisper.  One taste is enough to banish all thoughts except how to get more…and more…and more… Such happened today with the Zucchini Bread one of you brought in to share with the office.   Moist, buttery and packed with flavor, the first bite is sublime and the transcendence continues, unbroken,…