Meatless March

It's the season for tree trimming, cookie making, and holiday parties. My backup dancer helped decorate the tree at her grandparents' house Our  gingerbread cookie recipe is even better when you use 1:1 gluten-free flour, because it keeps the cookies soft Did you think I wasn't going to wear my fab jumpsuit again after Halloween ? It was the perfect choice for the famous annual Turtleneck Party thrown by my friends Lucas and Ginge, but I'm starting to think it's the perfect choice for any occasion, so don't be surprised to see me wearing it to the post office. It is also the season when I check the outside temperature and, upon learning it is 23 degrees, am tempted to embrace global warming. But then I remember global warming's sobering long-term consequences. Some of them aren't far away in either space or time, like current  threats to the drinking water supply in the Philadelphia area , which is only some 80 miles from where I live. That is why I tak...

I've been trying out recipes using white balsamic vinegar over the past couple weeks. This is a brand that is sold in refillable bottles for minimal waste If you think "sour" or "bitter" when I mention white balsamic vinegar, then you are probably confusing it with *me* after the presidential election this week. White balsamic vinegar is actually quite sweet and mild. It's so sweet, in fact, that you can put it into a drink. I made a " Peach Old-Fashioned " (Saffi Saana website) with it. It wasn't great, but I think that's because peaches aren't great at this time of year. I'd try it again in the summer. The results were delicious when I used white balsamic in " Crispy Gnocchi with Tomato and Red Onion " (NYT Cooking). This is before I put in the gnocchi. I love the vibrant colors. I made " Spicy Sweet and Sour Pad Thai " (Saffi Saana website) with white balsamic, substituting tofu for chicken, adding broccoli fo...

According to my notes on " Crispy Tofu With Cashews and Blistered Snap Peas " (NYT Cooking), I first cooked it four years ago, but apparently I never blogged about it. It slipped through the cracks, but it's definitely blog-worthy. I often find snap peas too fibrous, so in the past I have made the recipe with half snow peas and half broccoli. Last night I made it with just broccoli, and as I do with every tofu recipe, I used a tofu press to get all the water out of the block before cooking it. The recipe has a lot of steps, but they're easy steps, and the result is a nice blend of textures and flavors, including a pleasant sweetness from the cashews, molasses, and coconut milk. It's a vegan dish. If you've heard me say it once, you've heard me say it a thousand times: Choosing plant-based foods rather than animal-based foods is a way to fight climate change (just ask the Danes !). That makes vegan recipes a weapon against storms like Hurricane Milton, whic...

My heart goes out to the millions of people affected by Hurricane Helene. If you feel the same, ask yourself: Are you doing what you can to curb the global warming that is making bad weather more severe and frequent ? As I see it, minimizing my consumption of animal-based foods is an important way to fight climate change, because animal agriculture is a significant source of potent methane emissions that are fueling global warming.  The irony is that minimizing meat isn't some heroic move. Far from it! For example, I assure you that there was no sacrifice involved in serving " Marinated Grilled Vegetables " and " Grilled Tofu " (both NYT Cooking) at a very enjoyable twilight dinner on my patio recently. Both were easy and tasty vegan dishes that I served with rice. My vegetables were mushrooms, broccolini, thin carrot pieces, brussels sprouts, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini. (All were good choices save for the cherry tomatoes, which rolled right off the darned g...

2024 has been a year for trying new things --some voluntary, like learning French, and some involuntary, like removing dairy from my cooking and baking repertoire for a while. If I may say so myself, I rose to the occasion and made some great dairy-free food, but mon Dieu! I missed le fromage. I missed it a LOT. So when a doctor gave us the green light to resume eating dairy, boy, did we! I gleefully added five different kinds of cheeses to my first grocery list after the lifting of the dairy restriction. One of those cheeses was gruyere, because in honor of the Paris Olympics and my French studies, I decided to make " Galettes Complètes (Buckwheat Crepes) " (NYT Cooking). Despite its name, buckwheat contains no wheat, making it a good choice if you can't have gluten.  But the recipe includes ham, and for environmental reasons, I try to keep my meat consumption to a minimum.  Our World In Data notes that the agriculture sector is the world's "leading driver of ...

Earth's two hottest days in recorded history happened recently. Phew. Wipe the sweat from your brow and plan meals that won't make your kitchen hotter.  But better yet, plan meals that won't especially make the whole planet hotter. Compared to growing plants for food, animal agriculture contributes disproportionately to global warming , so why not try out a vegan dish that requires no heat to prepare? At my local farmer's market last week, I loaded up on basil and field tomatoes, and I made NYT Cooking's " Cold Tofu Salad With Tomatoes and Peaches ." I used nectarines rather than peaches, because putting a furry peach skin in my mouth has always seemed weird to me.  I thought this dish was fantastic. It's an elevated, vegan version of a caprese salad. I love mozzarella, but tofu is a planet-friendly alternative, and it soaks up the juices, which are both acidic and sweet. I had two servings of the salad for dinner, and then pounced on the leftovers fo...

Over the course of my career, I have supervised plenty of interns, who were mostly smart and hardworking.  Way back in my own intern days, Jessica (left) was a good mentor to my fellow intern Dean and me With my earliest interns, I assumed that smart, hardworking people didn't need to be told things that I thought were obvious, like "please arrive on time," and "when you finish a task, please come to me and I'll assign you another one." But I came to understand that if someone never hears these "obvious" guidelines, then sometimes the guidelines never become obvious, even to a smart, hardworking person. I started being more explicit, and the results were good. Maybe the same principle applies to everyone, not just interns. Maybe nothing "goes without saying." Maybe everyone needs to hear from me and from you that it's not acceptable to use derogatory names for people to their faces or behind their backs. That saying "please...

As a child, I yearned for the romantic prom dresses I saw in teen magazine ads. I pictured my future self as someone along the lines of the woman in Roxy Music's 1982 music video, "Avalon."  And sure enough, I have spent most of my adulthood twirling in a metallic, poufed pink dress through an elegant mansion that is stalked by falcons, and giving icy looks to men wearing eyeliner and white tuxedo jackets. Ha ha. But the dream persists! About a year ago, it dawned on me that even though I was too young to go to prom in the 80s, I COULD STILL GET AN 80s PROM DRESS. Like a falcon scouring the grounds of an English manor house for prey, I began hunting on eBay for my long-ago fantasy dresses. There are THOUSANDS of them! The ones that are in great shape and most quintessentially 80s, with tulle and exaggerated sleeves and lamé and a Jessica McClintock label, can easily run you well over $100, but I thrill to find the bargains. This pink Zum Zum dress, which I wore at a party...