Growing up my mother and grandmother fed us picadillo, a dish of ground beef, potatoes, tomatos, onions and spices. It was the perfect meal–delicious and satisfying–and always enjoyed with fresh flour tortillas on the side. It’s a dish I still crave to this day, and like most Latin cuisine it has its regional differences.
As I’ve traveled I’ve noticed that almost everyone has their own version of meat and potatoes, and it’s easy to see why. A traditional Irish corned beef and potatoes, a Kashmiri Rogan Josh served with slowly stewed potatoes, or Brazilian churrasco enjoyed with mounds of Brazilian potato salad- – mix a protein and a starch and happiness is always guaranteed…not to mention a fully belly.
Sometimes in my moments of quasi-food snobbery I chide my friends who refuse to join me for dinner, fearing I’ll pick something that falls outside their culinary comfort zone. I practically have to sign a form promising them no organ meats, no intense heat, no stinky cheese, no bellpeppers and certainly nothing that comes from the “strange” parts of an animal (which always leads me to ask why a rump roast isn’t strange but a tongue is, but whatever!) However, the perfect meal to satisfy my picky meat-and-potatoes kind of friends are, well, meat and potatoes. But only meat and potatoes in their most simple, smoky and stripped down form: steak frites.
I've spent a good chunk of the last two weeks surrounded by spreadsheets, crumpled paper packets, cartons of dairy products and dirty ramekins. Josef Centeno has a lot to answer for.
I know it doesn't look like much, but looks are often deceiving. 
I’ve made lots and lots of rugelach in my
day, but this one takes the cake. I have made my grandma’s, I have
made Ina’s, Martha’s and Rose’s. This one, from Cooks Illustrated is by
far the best I have ever had. Better than Weby’s bakery (most Sunday
mornings, when I was little, you could find me and my dad, waiting in
line to buy the fresh baked egg-onion bread). My kids don’t really like
raisins or dried fruit in their sweets. I altered the filling. I
substituted mini chocolate chips for the raisins.
I discovered the love of cooking at age 7. Since that first cake that I baked for my dad’s birthday, I have always cooked using ingredients found in the kitchen. I can probably count on one hand how many times I created something from a box or a mix and never really thought there was any other way.