Posted in appetizer, bacon, brains, bread, breadcrumbs, Castilla-La Mancha, Castillano, castille, cheap meal, Chorizo, cumin, easy, Garlic, hearty, manchego, offal, peppers, pigs, racione, Restaurant Review, Spain, Spanish, tourism, tradition, travel, trotter, unhealthy on Feb 16th, 2016
“The pen is the tongue of the mind.” – Don Quixote de La Mancha I have been told that the Inuit have more than 30 words for snow and a similar number of descriptors for the myriad tones of white, blue and grey that color their environment. If desert-dwelling Arabs had a similarly nuanced vocabulary […]
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Posted in America, appetizer, cheap meal, chives, easy, lower fat, peppers, Philadelphia, pistachios, restaurant, shrimp, soup, Spain, tomato, vegetables, vinegar on Aug 13th, 2014
The longer we live, the more we understand that our lives, especially now that we have two children, are about compromises. These are often in the form of compromising what we want to do, more or less completely, because our children are either unwilling or unable to do it. Recently though, a new kind of […]
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Posted in appetizer, chick peas, chickpeas, Chorizo, cilantro, grilled, grilling, octopus, Olive Oil, pork, sauce, sausage, Squid on Mar 8th, 2014
I know that I am the best cook(er) in the world because my three year-old son tells me so when I make him fridge surprise for dinner. (The surprise being that there is anything remotely edible in our fridge.) Naturally, this makes me exceedingly happy, especially so since he tends to eat such meals with […]
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Posted in America, appetizer, cheese, Chorizo, easy, feta, Olive Oil, Spain, Uncategorized, winter on Mar 3rd, 2014
While awake in the middle of the night, hoping like hell one’s infant will go back to sleep soon, one experiences a range of emotions, including, but not limited to, joy, frustration, fatigue, anger, sadness, despair and, with any luck, relief. And, as one sits rocking away or pacing incessantly in the inky blackness of […]
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Posted in bisto, British, butter, easy, egg, England, entertainment, flour, Garlic, gravy, kale, milk, mushy peas, onions, Recipe, Recipes, sausage, toad in the hole, tradition on Dec 3rd, 2012
In his rather witty book, French Lessons, Peter Mayle attends the annual Fete de Grenouilles (Festival of Frogs-Legs) in Vittel, France, and describes an episode at the festival banquet in which an attendee, elbow deep in amphibian thighs, tells him that if he thinks eating frogs is unusual, she had heard of an even more […]
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Posted in Asian, blogging, Brooklyn, Chinese, crispy, cucumber, duck, pancakes, rant, roasted on Apr 11th, 2012
We chose to make a faster version of Peking Duck which can usually take up to 3 days to prepare!
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Posted in anchovies, butter, carrots, compound butter, France, French, French-ness, lamb, liver, Meat, offal, saute, squash, vegetables on Feb 9th, 2012
Rarely on time, and never on trend, we are perennially late to the party. Yes, we may have been blogging about offal since way before David Chang made it cool, but we have yet to purchase our first ironic message tee featuring butchery terminology or get our forearms inked with a selection of cutlery. This […]
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Posted in alcohol, baking, British, butter, Christmas, culture, custard, Delia Smith, dessert, easy, England, festival, festivals, fruit, history, holiday, holidays, nuts, spices, tradition, winter on Jan 2nd, 2012
Most Brits associate mincemeat with Christmas – its intoxicating mix of fruit, spices, booze, nuts and mixed peel provide Pavlovian stimuli, stirring memories of cherubic choirs a-caroling, roasted poultry, and the Queen’s speech – whereas I associate it with Easter, because it was always around then that we finally ran out of mince pies. I […]
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Posted in ale, America, beans, beer, braised, British, carrots, Christmas, easy, England, family, holiday, holidays, Meat, onions, pork, Potato, rosemary, sauce, stew, tradition, travel, vinegar on Dec 20th, 2011
I often think that living in a small scruffy New York City apartment is akin to a pioneer life in a log cabin somewhere remote. Sure, the commute is easier, but the myriad quotidien affronts and man traps of a city existence certainly resemble the perils of life on the range.
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I remember reading, though I forget where exactly, another food blogger had written words to the effect that any time you start getting a big head about how great your blog is, take a look back at your earliest posts and it will bring you back to earth with a bump. Great advice, though it […]
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Posted in bacon, capers, cheap meal, chops, Chorizo, cilantro, culture, olives, peas, pork, Puerto Rican, rice, Uncategorized on May 21st, 2010
When our readers actually read our posts, it feels really good. Because we often write a lot in our post, it is understandable why some may choose not to actually read our words. We understand how many blogs exist, and many only have time to do the “blog drive-by” (you know what I’m talking about […]
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Posted in brandy, castille, chicken, cognac, crispy, fried, Garlic, herbs, Olive Oil, Potato, sauce, Spain, tapas on Mar 13th, 2010
“Eat no garlic nor onions, lest they find out thy boorish origin by the smell…” -Don Quixote to Sancho Panza, Chapter XLIII, Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Sitting around the table last night with gusts of strong breath coloring our domestic atmosphere, Amy and I were considering the profound effect […]
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A quick, sweet post to kick-start your weekend about a ridiculously simple, ridiculously delicious Argentinian dessert – Chocotorta. This very popular dulce de leche-spiked, layered dessert reminds me a bit of tiramisu with an Argentine twist. What could be more Argentinian than dulce de leche? When Joan of Foodalogue revisited her Culinary Tour food event […]
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Before we head off to England (and a five day side-trip to Northern France) to visit the across-the-pond family, we wanted to leave you with a different option for your Christmas Day meal. Some families love making hard-core meals for Christmas Day dinner – meals that take hours to cook and include many courses or […]
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Posted in appetizer, bread, Fall, flour, France, French, Garlic, parsley, Recipe, soup, wine on Nov 2nd, 2009
Turning rustic country fare into a slick restaurant best-seller has become so hackneyed these days that finding a post-modern reconstructed pot-au-feu for $45 in a hot new city dining spot can’t be far away. However, (and while we may be wrong) it might be a while before this garlic and wine soup hits high-end eateries […]
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Originally, I was going to simply write a one paragraph post helping people understand that they should not be afraid to use butter when necessary. Unfortunately, I realized how much emotional turmoil I have when it comes to this subject and others. A nice recipe for a Buttered Pea and Potato Salad had somehow turned […]
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Ahhh, don’t you love a nice, cheesy pun in the morning? I know I do! If there was an emoticon (Omg, am I dating myself by using that word? Do people even use the word emoticon anymore? Do emoticons even exist anymore?! A quick search shows yes. Still, why do I feel like such a […]
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A few years ago, my local favorite Thai take-out royally f’ed me. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit. Have you ever had a restaurant you used to love and then horrible customer service just made you reconsider your obsession with them? Did you feel personally offended because over the course of many, many years of patronage […]
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Posted in butter, crimini, easy, egg, Europe, French, Italian, Jacques Pepin, Jeffrey Steingarten, mushroom, mushrooms, quick meal, Recipe, Recipes, truffles on May 3rd, 2009
In several of his well-known paeans to Provence, Peter Mayle describes, both lyrically and at great length, his love affair with the black truffles of that region. Sometimes couched as a cloak-and-dagger chase involving bizarre and nervy rendez-vous’ along dimly-lit back roads, or illicit dealings with “men with dirt under their fingernails and yesterday’s garlic […]
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During last fall’s McCain-Obama Presidential election season, TV channel Comedy Central’s website had a feature called “remember when you cared about…” which reprised some of the now (& then) farcical action from the previous Presidential campaigns of W. Bush and John Kerry. The 2004 race was my first such campaign-season as a resident of this […]
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Posted in Bologna, bolognese, Bon Appetit, bread, easy, egg, Florence, food magazines, ground meat, hearty, Italian, Italy, magazine, Meat, New York City, Recipe, Recipes, sauce on Jan 7th, 2009
It’s a truism of my life that some of the more sickening feelings of depression are experienced immediately after the most smugly satisfying. But, I think this maxim applies almost universally when that wonderful sensation of happiness in having discovered the perfectly authentic tapas bar turns to acrid bitterness and choking rancor as a bloated family in sweatsuits and fanny-packs strolls […]
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Posted in anchovies, appetizer, butter, condiments, easy, Fall, fondue, Garlic, grilled, Italian, Italy, Liguria, Olive Oil, Piemonte, Potato, Recipe, tradition, travel, vegetables, winter on Nov 29th, 2008
And, while you’re at it, good fellow, I’ll have a warm bath with virtually anything you’ve got on the menu: pasta, potatoes, fish, chicken, soup, bread… Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… A man goes to the doctor complaining of neck ache. The doctor gives him some painkillers telling him to take two […]
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Posted in breadcrumbs, butter, easy, egg, Fall, flour, Garlic, herbs, lemon, liver, lunch, mushrooms, Olive Oil, Recipe, thyme, veal, weather on Nov 19th, 2008
A month or so ago we bought a package of veal liver at our local grocery store telling ourselves that we going to cook them, but not really having any idea how. We’ve made veal kidneys before without relying on a recipe so we were convinced we could do the same with the beast’s liver, […]
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Posted in ale, batter, beef tallow, beer, British, butter, capers, chips, crispy, easy, egg, fish, french fries, fried, history, Jewish, lard, Manchester, mushy peas, oil, olives, peas, Portuguese, Recipe, Recipes, salt, sauce, seafood, side dish, tartar, tradition, travel, vegetables, vinegar on Oct 31st, 2008
Happy Hallowe’en, WANF readers! Instead of posting shots of us dressed up in costume as the tastiest parts of a pig’s anatomy, we’re celebrating All Soul’s Day and the arrival of a much-needed weekend with a classic Friday night dish from the British Isles (where in truth, Hallowe’en has never really caught on in the […]
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Posted in asparagus, Bon Appetit, cheese, cold cuts, comte, cream, crimini, easy, egg, Gourmet, gruyere, healthy, mushroom, mushrooms, petite jurassic, pie crust, puff pastry, ricotta, salami, soppressata, tart, tomato on Sep 29th, 2008
In recent years, I’ve become a food magazine junkie. I’ve pretty much ordered every single one over the past 10 years (no Rachael Ray & Martha Stewart mags don’t count in my world) and found that only a small handful are worth reordering (ahem, Saveur, Gourmet, Cucina Italiana, Food & Wine). One that I keep […]
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Posted in appetizer, Chorizo, easy, Garlic, hearty, Jose Andres, Olive Oil, onions, paprika, Paul Bocuse, pimenton, piquillo peppers, Potato, Rioja, Spain, tapas, tradition, travel, wine on Sep 16th, 2008
It’s widely known that humble ingredients prepared with simple techniques often produce the best dishes, and it’s becoming more widely known that this philosophy lies at the very heart of Spanish cooking – a cuisine that has, in the last five or so years, become one of the most celebrated “new finds” of foodies everywhere. […]
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Posted in cheap meal, chile, easy, Fino, fried, Garlic, healthy, Olive Oil, quick meal, Recipe, seafood, shrimp, Spain, spicy, tapas on Sep 10th, 2008
Perhaps the most common, and implicitly, therefore the most popular, tapa in Spain and in Spanish restaurants world-wide, gambas al ajillo, or fried garlic shrimp, is rightfully so admired. The hot tang of garlic and red pepper flake-infused extra virgin olive oil, perfectly coating tender pink shrimp (king prawns for our UK readers), makes for […]
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Posted in butter, easy, fennel, fish, healthy, lower fat, Olive Oil, quick meal, Recipe, shark, skate, superman, sustainable, tomato, vegetables, vinaigrette, white fish, whole fish on Aug 8th, 2008
Please forgive the headline — I couldn’t resist, but in all honesty, there are some similarities between the subject of this post and Clark Kent’s alter-ego. You see, the skate is to the world of fish what the nerdy-looking Kent is to the Daily Planet —a journeyman, overlooked and underrated by those who should know […]
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Posted in easy, egg, Italian, Italy, Olive Oil, pancetta, Pasta, quick meal, Recipe, Recipes, vegetables on Jun 20th, 2008
Ok, so this is just a quick entry for a nice, summer Friday (where I’d rather be outside than blogging!) for a quick, nice summer meal. It was one of those ‘fridge meals’ where we had to use up some veggies and is not super different from some of the other ‘fridge meals’ (often pasta) […]
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Posted in appetizer, cheap meal, easy, grilled, grilling, Japanese, Korean, lemon, mirin, miso, offal, Recipe, Recipes, veal on Jun 2nd, 2008
So I know what you’re already thinking (if you’ve even dared to read this post at all!) – tongue?! WHA-WHA-WHAT!? I think i just threw up a little. Nasty. Or, maybe you’re thinking, “interesting… I’d give it a try… I trust these two.” And possibly you’ve been lucky enough to have tried tongue before and […]
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