Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 136

How To Make Your Own Lobster Rolls

There's a lot of hubbub in New York, lately, about lobster rolls. Apparently there's a glut of lobsters (see this New York Magazine article) and new lobster shacks are sprouting up all over the city. My loyalty, as always, belongs to Pearl Oyster Bar which makes the best lobster roll I've ever had. But did you know that its chef, Rebecca Charles, once taught me how to make her signature lobster roll for a video Craig and I did for Serious Eats? And did you know that, since then, I've made s...

Pies n' Thighs

It took two trains to meet my friend Cole for lunch in Williamsburg--a D to Grand Street and then a J to Marcy Ave.--and for some, that might be a long way to go for a lunch time meal. Not me: especially when that lunch time meal is comprised of fried chicken and pie.

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A Rice Cooker

Recently, I received a rice cooker from a company called Zojirushi which happens to be the #1 rice cooker manufacturer in Japan. I know that because the P.R. e-mail said so and it also assured me that even though I didn't think I needed a rice cooker, I did in fact need one: "Now that I've been using one consistently for 4 years," said the e-mail, "I can't imagine cooking rice without one."

Needless to say, I was dubious.

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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...