West of the Moon

cooking

three small pieces.

1)  Robert asked, a week and a half ago, for my thoughts on the whole New Yorker / female writers thing.  (To the extent that it’s a thing, I guess?  Robert pointed to the Jezebel coverage; I prefer the Hairpin version, which has less explanation but exponentially more interesting commenters. )  Short version for those unfamiliar: [...]

Tags: chicken, mary h.k. choi, women in publishing, yes still talking about the stupid chicken

weekend cooking.

New recipe #2 for 2011: we tried something new from Bittman’s The Best Recipes in the World, a Szechwan beef stir-fry.  (A cookbook note: I like this one, mostly, but it’s got a lot of problems.  There are weird lacunae in some of the recipes, small missed steps and things you have to guess about, [...]

Tags: cookbook menace, new recipe

promises were made.

I will never reach the Peter-and-Jessie level of ambition of trying to do fifty new recipes a year.  I just don’t think I have it in me–Matt and I were pretty ambitious last year about trying to cook new things, and I still doubt we tried more than twenty new recipes.  For me, weeknight cooking [...]

Tags: kitchen disaster, new recipe, roast chicken

things i’ve learned about cooking.

I have, somewhat to my chagrin, become one of those teachers who will go on (and on and on) with totally unfeigned enthusiasm saying things like “you’re learning new things all the time!  Everyone is learning new things! It’s awesome!”  I’m sure my students hate this about me, just like they hate when I make [...]

Tags: life lessons

revelation.

People!  Oh my god!  Pie crust is so much easier to make when it’s not sticky-awful humid summertime!  This was, like, zip-zip-zip, rolled out beautifully, cooks up all flaky-lovely.  This was fabulous.  (Pity that the good pie fruits all coincide with sticky-awful humid summer weather.) Pie #1, apple-cranberry-ginger, for me and Matt, is out of [...]

Tags: pie