What to Cook

It took me far too long to start a conversation with an old Iraqi man named Monther. This is something I will regret all my life. I was never sure where Monther lived, but I always knew where he could be found: at a small Middle Eastern place near my house that regulars call Ya Hala. First he was its owner, then its most loyal patron. He would always sit in the same corner booth laden with woven red cloth, taking his lunch or coffee or tea. I can still picture him there now, eating his favorite mix of chicken and labneh with cucumber salad, waving me over to join him. In Ya Hala, since renamed Grill House, the voices of Fairouz and Umm Kulthum ring about the dimly lit dining room, where dramatic Arabic calligraphy adorns the decorations on the walls and the doors. I like to think it’s the kind of old-fashioned cafe easily found in Baghdad or Damascus or Beirut, but instead tucked away, inconspicuously, on a busy road just outside New York City. It feels like the sort of place wher...

(Akchamczuk/Getty Images) The people we miss around the table. W hen I was a boy, my mother would take me to her best friend’s house about once a month or so for Sunday dinner. The house was in northern New Jersey, and the friend had an Italian background. If you know anything about Italian New Jersey women from this time, then you’re already imagining the six-quart pot on the stove, the steam escaping every time the lid is opened, and the wooden spoon going in and pushing around meatballs and sausage. Advertisement This wasn’t just a dinner, but a ritual. For many families I knew, those six-quart pots overflowing with the smell of tomato and sweet Italian sausage were so much a part of Sunday afternoon that, for them, they felt like a feature of nature itself. The sun rises, you go to church, and then in the hours that follow, the dearest woman in your extended family’s collective life makes her sauce. Or “gravy” — there were always fights about the naming of this wonderful sub...

What to Cook This Week - The New York Times What to Cook This Week - The New York Times Posted: 31 Jan 2021 07:30 AM PST Good morning. Even before the pandemic ended dinner parties (remember them?), I had a complicated relationship with appetizers, nibbles, nuts and cheeses, any consumption that precedes a meal. I don't like the idea of cooking for any great period of time — assembling a braise, making noodles, overthinking a salad, preparing a dessert — so that a guest can arrive in my home, eat a quarter-pound of salted cashews and then pick at dinner a half-hour later. It's churlish of me, I know, but there you have it. I want you seated at the table hungry, and I will feed you in response. But Dorie Greenspan's bringing me around. She has a lovely piece in The Times today about the savory little quick breads called cakes salés that she discovered at a Picard shop in Paris, and which she has reverse engineered into a recip...

Cook for Yourself - The New York Times Cook for Yourself - The New York Times Posted: 25 Jan 2021 07:30 AM PST Good morning. I was flying solo there for a couple of days, cooking only for myself. This was not as simple as I'd thought it might be, as many over the years have pointed out to me in letters and messages, at cocktail parties, at the end of news meetings, once at a funeral. The business of cooking dinner, for me, for a lot of us, is inextricably linked to the idea of service, to the notion that by feeding others we are offering pleasure as a kind of gift, a sacrament. Left to our own devices, we might fall into traps: eggs all the time, toast, cookies. One night I found myself spooning peanut butter into my mouth over the sink. That's not a good place to be, and particularly during this pandemic, when so many are spending so much time alone. I resolved to do better. At the market, I found a skirt steak about the length ...

What to Cook This Weekend - The New York Times What to Cook This Weekend - The New York Times These Recipes Are So Smart - The New York Times 17 Cooking Tips Our Food Staff Swears By - The New York Times What to Cook This Weekend - The New York Times Posted: 29 Jan 2021 07:30 AM PST Good morning. We're deep in winter on the East Coast of the United States, starting and finishing our days in darkness, frost on the windowpanes, salty grit at the doorstep. It'd be nice to have a roaring fire this weekend, at some giant pile of a house like something out a John Irving novel, sit on a couch in front of it for a while, then head into the huge kitchen to make dinner: a fresh ham; baked beans; mashed parsnips; a honking big double apple pie. Good on you if that's possible. For most of us, it's not. It's just another weekend in the same place we've been for months and months, working or looking for wo...

« All Events February 14 @ 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm $90 Celebrate with your sweetheart at home with a delicious Oceana Coastal Kitchen Valentine’s Day takeout dinner. Your romantic three-course meal comes together with your choice of delicious options including sushi rolls, a cheese plate, filet mignon, pappardelle morel pasta, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Add on a recommended bottle of wine or a dozen roses for an even more memorable dinner. Order by: Friday, February 12 at 11:00 a.m. Pick-up: Sunday, February 14 from 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

01/28/2021 Credit Denny Culbert James Beard: Best Chef South Nina Compton is pleased to announce that her flagship restaurant, Compère Lapin at the Old No. 77 Hotel in New Orleans, will celebrate Black History Month (Feb. 1 – March 1) with a series of collaborative dinners, taking place every Thursday in February. The month-long series is aimed to showcase the talents of some of the Crescent City’s brilliant black culinarians, as well as pay tribute to the amalgamation of cultures and cuisine that have contributed to America’s black culinary community. Each Thursday at Compère Lapin, Compton will join forces with a gifted guest Chef to create a multi-course dinner highlighting each Chef’s respective cuisine. With prices starting at $60 per person (excluding tax and gratuity), guests can choose between a 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. seating. To kick things off on Thursday, Feb. 4, Compton has tapped the iconic Ms. Linda Green, known internationally as the Ya-Ka-Mein Lady. The award-winning...

This is not a drill, people! The opening menu at Arnold's After Dark For years, we've been reporting about (and frankly, begging for) evening hours at Arnold’s Country Kitchen here on Bites. Well, Kahlil Arnold is finally ready to pull the trigger on dinner service Thursdays through Saturdays beginning Feb. 11, after a few friends and family prep events next week. Making the investment to rejigger his dining room and service model in the midst of a pandemic has been risky for Arnold, who had actually been planning the expansion of hours for years. An expanded kitchen, serving line and full bar will be new features at the already beloved Nashville institution. Initial opening hours will be the normal 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. lunch service Monday through Friday with the addition of dinner from 5-10 p.m. on Thursday and Friday; lunch and dinner from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays; and a Sunday brunch at 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (Brunch service won’t begin until Feb. 20 because the first Sunday o...

Biga, 4329 S. Peoria Ave., has a wine dinner slated for Monday evening.  Tulsa World file KT King James D. Watts Jr. Wines from the Italian island of Sardinia will be featured at a special dinner, 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1, at Biga, 4329 S. Peoria Ave. Guest speaker Sarah Effinger will discuss the wines that will be served to accompany the four-course meal created by chef Tuck Curren. The meal will begin with a seafood cous-cous, paired with Aragosta Vermentino di Sardegna, followed by a lasagna Bolognese served alongside a Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce. The entree is lamb Cacciatore, which will be accompanied by La Bomcarde Cannonau di Sardegna, with a Sardinian ricotta cake with honey and almonds for dessert. Cost is $45 per person, and reservations are required. To reserve: 918-743-2442, bigaitalianrestaurant.com. james.watts@tulsaworld.com Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!

Braised Chicken With Lemon and Olives Recipe - New York Times Braised Chicken With Lemon and Olives Recipe - New York Times Posted: 31 Jan 2017 09:29 AM PST A good cook needs an assortment of chicken dishes to fall back on. Aside from roasting or frying (and in addition to grilling), braising chicken is a simple technique to master. Chicken thighs make the best braises; use skin-on bone-in thighs for the best flavor. Though it could be done on the stovetop, this dish is oven-braised. Here are more recipes using chicken thighs. Featured in: A Chicken's Tour Of The Mediterranean.  You are subscribed to email updates from "what canimake withfigs" - Google News . To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now . Email delivery powered by Google Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States

Cooking With Confidence - The New York Times Cooking With Confidence - The New York Times Posted: 27 Jan 2021 09:52 AM PST Tejal Rao has a marvelous story in The Times this week about how restaurant cooks have taken to their home kitchens — and to Instagram — to survive during the pandemic, making small-batch meals to sell to customers, pop-up restaurant style. The food's exciting, Tejal reports — "revitalizing and intimate," in her words — and a good reminder that creativity cannot be stifled by the coronavirus, that culture continues to bubble along, that art is out there always. There's a confidence to the cooks Tejal interviewed. They're proud of their craft, of the food they're selling, and it occurred to me, reading about them, that cooking can and should satisfy and delight these days, after so many months of cooking so often, of honing our skills. You don't need some towering sourdough boule to achie...

What to cook in January: Aromatic curries, rice dishes and vegetable stews to positively envelop us - CBC.ca What to cook in January: Aromatic curries, rice dishes and vegetable stews to positively envelop us - CBC.ca Posted: 07 Jan 2021 12:00 AM PST (Photography, left: Christian Lalonde; middle and right: Betty Binon) My parents, uncles, great-aunties — they were big party people when I was a kid! Or so it seemed to me. I grew up spending weekends in homes bursting with cousins (both related and not related) and adults shouting happily over music. No one fussed to eat until 9 or 10 at night, in true Sri Lankan style, snacking in the meantime on short eats — an entire category of Sri Lankan food designed for eating in between more serious eating. Finally, the host and other helping hands would gently heat up foil-covered trays of rice scented with turmeric and curry leaves and steam Corningware bowls of prepared mutton curry, kingfi...