Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 135

Cornmeal-Crusted Catfish

I recently downloaded the Monterey Bay Aquarium app for my iPhone. It's a great way for those of us who want to buy sustainable seafood to know what's ok and what's not. Only a few fish get the designation "Best Choice"--most fish, like monkfish, cod, flounder, and skate are to be avoided, and other fish like haddock, hake, and pollock are "Good Alternatives"--but "Best Choice"? That's an exclusive designation. And I was surprised to see, while checking the app at Citarella, that...

How I Cooked Dinner for The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

Picture it: you're in your kitchen, starting to make dinner, and you look out your window and there on the street below is The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. What do you do? Why you turn to Twitter, of course.

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Radishes with Butter & Salt

Everyone has a favorite dinner party moment. Me? I have to confess that my favorite moment comes at the end: when the food's been served, the wine bottles are empty and I collapse on the couch with an extraordinary sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and relief.

For Craig, it's the opposite: he loves the moment at the beginning, when people arrive, the wine gets poured and we sit around chatting until the first course begins. I can't wait to serve the first course but Craig often...

Sugar Snap Peas with Whipped Ricotta

We ate a wonderful dish at Franny's a few weeks ago of sugar snap peas (my favorite springtime vegetable) served on a cloud of whipped ricotta resting in a sea of olive oil. It was such a beautiful dish--the bright greenness of the snap peas, the cooling creaminess of the ricotta--that not only did I serve it as an appetizer at the dinner I cooked for Lizzie and Tyla, but I also served it again two days letter when I cooked a dinner for our friend Diana's birthday. And both times it was a b...

Jambalaya

My dad used to watch a cajun cooking show (yes, my dad, who's probably never cooked a meal in his life, watched a cajun cooking show) where the host would yell out with his thick N'awlins accent: "Spiccccy cajjjun fooood!"

(Did you ever see that show? I think it was on PBS and the host had white hair and glasses.)

Surprisingly, in my six years of running this site, I've never cooked a cajun dish. Shocking, I know, and deeply irresponsible. Cajun food, like jazz music, is one of America's ...

Strawberry Shortcake

"Whoah," you're probably thinking, "am I on drugs? What's going on here? That picture, it's so good, so professional, so unlike any picture I've ever seen on this blog before. What gives?!"

I'll tell you what gives: I didn't take that picture! (Collective gasp.) No, that picture was taken by my new best friend for the next year or so. Say hello to Elizabeth Leitzell (here's the link to her website), the new snapshot photographer who'll be coming along with me taking pictures of me cooking ...

Excellent Pork Chop House

When going to lunch with a James Beard award winner, it's best to let them choose the venue.

Such was the case when I had lunch with Rachel Wharton last week. I first met Rachel years ago when she profiled me for The Daily News and we ate lunch at S'Agapo in Queens. I thought Rachel was one of the quirkiest and most spirited food writers I'd ever met and also one of the hardest working. Now her hard work has paid off: she won the 2010 James Beard award for her "Back of the House" columns t...

Gazpacho and Blue Cheese Toasts

I know there are curmudgeonly food people out there who are down on Food TV, specifically the high-octane food competition shows that command such a large audience on Bravo and Food Network. But this is a story of how one of those shows inspired me to turn an ordinary weeknight dinner (one of my killer salads) into something totally new and unexpected.

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The Great Herring War

As a final tribute to the late great Rue McClanahan (not to mention Bea Arthur), here's a food-relevant clip from The Golden Girls featuring groceries, a herring circus and, of course, cheesecake. Where do you keep YOUR Raisin Bran? Have a great weekend.

Yogurt with Walnuts, Raisins, Honey & Mint

As a kid, I felt the same way about plain yogurt as I did about white crayons: why do these things exist? Who would eat plain yogurt? Who would color with a white crayon? What kind of sick, twisted soul would find these things appealing?

As an adult, I still feel the same way about the white crayon--Why does it exist? To color on black paper? Who has black paper?--but I've had a change of heart about plain yogurt. Especially now that I've discovered plain Greek yogurt, which is thick and r...