Stories

For me there is no food more appealing than roast chicken. I'd be happy to subsist on it all the time. Instead of roasting a whole chicken, which can take an hour or more, I prefer roasting chicken in pieces. It's so much faster especially for a weeknight meal. I love roasting chicken breasts, sometimes a whole bunch at one time. This way I have leftovers for dinner the following night or I can enjoy it for lunch atop a salad the next day. For dinner though, especially when I'm pressed for time, I like to make simple sides. And there's nothing more simpler than roasting vegetables alongside the chicken. Plus with this recipe the chicken and the vegetables both finish at the same time. Now that sounds like a simple supper.

For this recipe I chose to roast carrots and kohlrabi. Their flavors concentrate and sweeten from the high oven heat. Kohlrabi, a turnip-like vegetable with a broccoli flavor, which many people would most likely pass in the market without a second thought, is actually one of my favorite vegetables. I love them in soup, but this roasting method makes them taste even better. With only seven ingredients, this is probably the least fussiest recipes you will ever find. And the end result is so rewarding that you will want to make it again and again. With so little preparation spent in the kitchen there's more time to kick back, relax, and enjoy a glass of wine, perhaps a Chardonnay, to toast the mellow evening.

On holidays like Labor Day, the best dishes to serve friends and family are the ones that take very little effort to prepare.  That way you can spend your time enjoying the day not laboring in a hot kitchen.

Versatile salmon can be grilled, sauteed, baked, and braised. More often than not the preferred approach is to simply grill the fish--whole or filleted--with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper, the Italian way. But there are times when a little more seasoning accents salmon's natural flavors.

Spanish style preparations saute the fish with fresh tomatoes, pitted olives, peppers, onions, and parsley. American barbecue relies on sweet-heat. Another approach, one borrowing from South American and Caribbean recipes, marries citrus with honey and garlic in a simple sauce.

Serve the roasted fish with a side of reserved pan drippings and a mango-grilled corn salsa and you'll have the perfect summer meal to be enjoyed with a glass of chardonnay or an ice cold beer.

Then there was the thick morning fog rolling in like brush strokes of soft gray paint giving the town of Chinon and my deep sleep a dream like feel.

The shill sound of a phone broke the silence into unidentifiable pieces. Who could be calling—me? I somehow found the phone in my deep dream (unearthly) like state.

“Madame, they are leaving in 5 minutes for the truffle hunt, with or without you” and the high pitched voice went silent and the phone went dead.

In seconds, I pulled on my clothes from the evening before, jumped into my shoes and grabbed a mint. Down the long carpeted stairs I ran, tussled hair and all. I was the last person in the last seat of the multi car caravan as we watched the other two cars fishtailing in the soft pebble driveway.

Yesterday I sat through two and a half of the most excruciating hours of my life. Sat through, twisted my torso through, felt like throwing up through. But I stayed there riveted, horrified, sickened and saddened beyond belief.

I was at a movie, "Twelve Years a Slave." A movie that should, in my humble yet convinced opinion, be required viewing for every American over the age of fifteen. It is based on the true story of a black man, a father, a husband, a violinist, a cultured, educated, middle class citizen of Saratoga Springs New York in the 1840's who is kidnapped, brought to the south and sold into slavery. It is the story of what he witnessed, endured, and survived for twelve years before being rescued and reunited with his family.

The movie, directed by Steve McQueen, gives it to us full strength, undiluted. The camera lens takes us into the open, oozing, purple wall of the wound. Close up and into the bubbling beads of fresh blood made by the long taut leather lashing out, slashing, ripping red rivers into chocolate skin.

It's a story of a despicable part of our history and needs to be told correctly for many reasons. And it is torturous to sit through.