VIVRE POUR MANGER

Fiddleheads are local food that announce the arrival of spring. Sprouts of ostrich ferns picked in the wild, they are a culinary and mathematical delight–such taste and the Golden Mean. Fiddleheads are similar to their fern-cousin asparagus, but their the texture and delicacy are closer to spinach.

At a New Year’s party in Berlin, I was happily playing sous-chef for Tiffany. As a token North American, I was told to make “some sort of dip” for a crudité platter. In fairly short order, I assembled something passable from convenience store cheese that resembled a plasticine version of Boursin, sour cream, and sundry seasonings. [...]

Books have always fascinated me, especially old ones since they tell so much about the previous readers. Dog eared pages, margin notes, bookmarks, and newspaper clippings tucked between pages are always great finds. Few things in life are better than finding century old pressed four-leaf clovers. But books are only so useful, since a person [...]

Baguette on hand, we were ready to take on the world, or at least head upstairs to the cheesemonger and prosciutto merchant.

It seemed out of the blue when I got a call from a friend who works in a bar to inform me that the ten pounds of scallops I had ordered arrived. ‘Right,’ I thought, only vaguely remembering the agreement that I made with a local fisherman. Now, true to his word, he had returned [...]

Creativity doesn’t always work. Occasionally, my no-recipe approach to cooking yields some horrid results, which deserve documenting as much as the successes. Here is the story of avocado meringue.

This “card” was added to a cookbook that I own that was published in 1887 in Houlton, Maine. The title pages reads “Tried, Tested, Proved. The Home Cook Book, Recipes Proved and Contributed by the Congregationalist Ladies of Houlton and their Friends.”

As you can see, the card advises that some of the recipes contain [gasp] [...]

First, a note about chowder: it is not vegan, vegetarian, lactose-free, gluten-free, or kosher. For those with “allergies” it could produce full-on anaphylaxis, making it the soup equivalent of a loaded gun. Don’t let any of this detract you: well-prepared chowder is a gentle yet well-meaning fuck you to gourmands in need of mettle.

Preserved lemons have remarkable versatility, striking good looks, and a sublime flavour.