Recipes & Stories
Always in my Kitchen
Food that
feeds the soul
Seasonal recipes, family flavors, and the kind of kitchen adventures worth writing down.
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Cold Shrimp and Crab Claw Platter
There are dishes I make because they require skill, and there are dishes I make because they require excellent ingredients and very little else. This platter is firmly in the second category. Cold shrimp and crab claws, properly seasoned and served with two good sauces, are the kind of thing that stops conversation when you set them on the table. I have served this at gatherings and felt very pleased with myself, and I will not pretend otherwise.
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Rhubarb Custard Tart
Rhubarb is one of those ingredients that looks like it cannot possibly taste good and then surprises you completely. The stalks are alarming. The color is magnificent. And once it is cooked down with a little sugar and poured into a buttery tart shell with a silky custard underneath, the whole thing becomes something I find very difficult to eat in moderation. Let me just say, this tart has caused me to start a second slice before I am done with the first.
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Crab Cake Salad
I have always had a weakness for anything from the sea that comes pan-fried and golden. Crab cakes are the kind of thing I order whenever I see them on a menu, just to see how someone else does it, and then I come home and make my own version. This one sits on a bed of dressed greens, something crisp and cool underneath something warm and a little crispy, and the combination is, let me just say, very satisfying.
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Honey Cornbread
Cornbread is one of those things I always told myself I didn't need a recipe for. And then I tasted one that stopped me mid-sentence at a potluck, and just like that, I needed a recipe. This version has butter and honey in the batter, and more honey on top, because I couldn't help myself. It is warm, golden, and dangerously easy to finish in one sitting. I say that from experience.
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Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes
Stack them as high as you dare. There is cold butter, real maple syrup, and fresh berries waiting, and absolutely no reason to be anywhere else this morning.
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Herb Roasted Turkey Platter
A whole bird roasted low and slow under a thick blanket of sage butter, until the skin turns a deep, crackly gold. The kind of turkey that makes everyone find reasons to wander into the kitchen.
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Rainbow Sourdough Milk Bread
Milk bread fell into my life after one sourdough loaf and the thought that I could do something more interesting with it. The tangzhong paste, a small amount of flour and liquid cooked together before going into the dough, keeps this bread soft for days rather than hours. The colors come from beet, turmeric, spirulina, and butterfly pea flower, which means every slice looks a little different depending on the swirls, and I find this more satisfying than I probably should.
Read recipe →Food as memory
I have been in this kitchen for a long time. Since age nine, actually, when my mom handed me my very first cookbook and I never quite recovered. These are the recipes I keep coming back to: the dishes that take all day, the aroma that fills the whole apartment with something wonderful, the sweets passed down by people who didn't measure anything and somehow got it perfect every time. I could not not share them with you.
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