My commute here in LA is almost the same as it was in New York, 40 minutes give or take. The only difference is that I sit my butt in a little Corolla instead of the blue-benched 4/5, and so I can no longer do either of the two things I used to do on my commutes in New York -- sleep, or read, but mostly sleep -- because I would die. For exactly 3 ...
fall
cafe mami’s yaki beef & tofu
Last weekend we had a couple of exceptionally wonderful friends come all the way from snowy Cambridge to visit us and meet Luke for the first time. Their visit was especially well-timed, not least because B3 was at his chattiest and chubbiest, now that he has 4 1/2 ...
sprouted flour pancakes with vanilla pear compote
Even with the advent of a waffle-maker to capture my interest (and my kitchen real estate), I can never go too long without coming back to pancakes. They’re happy food — from my dad and boxed pancake mix on the weekends, flicking the skillet to flip them in mid-air, to a beach ...
almond white chocolate flax oatmeal, for mamas
Happy 2017! This is the year that my brother graduates from college (!) and when he first started as a freshman I kept telling everyone that 2017 didn't seem like a real year that would actually happen. But somehow, it's here. (Despite 2016's best efforts.) Our waning weeks of the year were spent eating (of course), avidly watching B2 make a dent ...
hazelnut coffee cheesecake
For as long as I can remember, hazelnut coffee has been my dad's way to start the day. Almost every day of my childhood and every day that I'm back home now, I've come downstairs in the morning to find him sitting in our sunny breakfast nook, already up for hours, with an oversized mug of coffee in his hand and a newspaper spread out on the table, ...
pear, parmesan, & balsamic salad
Our Christmas tree is up! It's the first real, live, non-plastic tree to make an appearance in our household. We chose it in about five seconds flat last Saturday with babe in tow, in the signature haste of panicky new parents who are still not very good at this "taking the baby out into the world" thing. (Luke, meanwhile, was just passed out ...
thanksgiving leftover stuffing waffles
A few years ago I came across an Alton Brown diatribe against one-use kitchen gadgets (or "unitaskers," I think he calls them) and thought it would be a good rule not to buy them for our New York kitchen. This more or less worked (mostly thanks to B2 putting his foot down on random Amazon purchases and the fact that we just had no room, lest we ...
custardy crème fraîche apple pie
What a strange, hard week this has been. It feels like it has been hard in every sense of the word -- difficult, unyielding. I hope everyone is okay. This is the first of a number of recipes I've had saved up for these first few baby-filled months, and, thankfully, it is so very easy. I think "easy" was going to be my mantra in the kitchen for ...
king arthur flour holiday table: harvest pumpkin scones
Too often I feel like scones get the short end of the stick in the coffee shop scene. Maybe it's because they sit out behind the glass for a little bit too long by the time that they make it into a wax paper bag, ending up just a little too dry and flavorless, unsatisfyingly crumbly, and thus under-appreciated. I'll admit that before I tried making ...
kabocha & maple caramel baked french toast
I've been mostly working from home in these last couple of weeks before the home stretch, but went in to the office last week to wrap up loose ends, take home all the heels that I totally forgot about for the last six months, and to do fun things like meet with my pro bono clients, who got all the adoptive funding we requested! It did mean that ...