Year: 2009

January 4, 2009

Back in June, I discovered that if you make a spinach pie sort of concoction but roll it up like a cigar (spliffakopita in Greek) you can avoid sogginess and have the whole exterior flaky and crisp. In order to avoid redundancy, here is the link to the post documenting this momentous discovery. It’s important enough to repeat that the addition of chopped broccoli really does take it to another level. We still had some…

January 2, 2009

There’s a rhythm in Moroccan Gnawa music called Sha’abi. It’s in 6/8, with the main pulse usually played on a bendir (frame drum) with syncopations from both karakab (castanets) fluidly creating a tension between the triplet and the 16th note- and clapping, by at least two people, forming triplets around a beat of four played against the six. Combined with ostinato bass from a sintir, and singing, it’s some of the most trance-inducing music there…

January 2, 2009

Right after Thanksgiving I semi-accidentally got a job as the food writer for Chronogram magazine. My first piece, about salt pickling and curing, is out now in the January issue. You can read it here.

January 1, 2009

My plans for our new year’s eve dinner proved to be more lavish than our appetites, so I reined it in after two courses. I went out to grab some provisions, though it was snowing pretty hard, and came back with some good salmon, three little Cornish hens, and a little rack of six lamb chops. I had visions of super-luxe yet homey three-course dinner (plus dessert) dancing in my head as I deftly avoided…