Meatless March

I witnessed a Hitchcockian moment in my yard yesterday when a swarm of grackles passed through.  Fantastic Tippi Hedren costume on Halloween a few years ago But you know what's scarier than "The Birds"? Climate change. Back in 1963 we worried about Tippi Hedren; today we worry about  climate tipping points . One way that individuals can fight climate change is by adopting a primarily plant-based diet, and " Winter Salad Hummus Bowls " (Epicurious) are a superb vegetarian meal choice. You need time to make each element--the eggs, the greens, the  seed topping , and the  hummus --but they don't all need to be ready at the same time, so you can make some or all of them in advance. It's delicious, healthy, and gorgeous. Even the kale is palatable! Vegetarian dishes like this are a simple choice to reduce your carbon footprint, given the disproportionate contribution to climate change of diets heavy in animal products, relative to plant-based diets. If you sk...

I'm not one of those people who loses interest in food in times of stress, like  Marissa Tomei . I never, EVER skip a meal. I start looking forward to lunch after I finish breakfast. And I have a problem with sugar, which has gotten worse in the current Dark Times. There. I said it. I read that data shows  people are consuming less sugar  since the pandemic started, and I am not proud to say that in this house we are bucking the trend. For example, my backup dancer was super eager to make a cherry upside down cake, so we tried it last week. Unfortunately a lot of the topping was left in the pan when I flipped it, plus the cake didn't really have a lot of chocolate or cherry flavor - it was just super sweet. These disappointments did not stop me from eating the cake, not in the slightest. I ate a lot of that cake, which is now gone. Perhaps to compensate, I am also committed to eating a lot of the healthy kale and lentil salad (Bon Appetit) that I made last night...

Before I even say a word about this tart, I'm going to make a confession: I did not make the tart today. I made it way back on February 12, and I thought to myself, "You are going to have days in March when you order a cheese pizza and call it a night, and on those days, you will wish you had something more inspiring to share with your legions of followers." Despite my mid-February optimism about Meatless March going viral, I still have only 27  followers on Instagram, so maybe not the "legions" I envisioned, but I digress. This NYT Mushroom-Parmesan Tart recipe (subscription required) is very delicious, but it took me a darned long time to make. In fact, it took me a darned long time even to start making it, because I was almost out of Parmigiano Reggiano, and since I am a parmesan snob, I had to wait until I got around to a trip to Whole Foods before I would attempt it. Once armed with the proper parm, I was all set to make it one night, until I real...

As a little kid, I categorically did not eat green things. By my 20s, I had perfected this dinner party trick: when a salad was placed in front of me, I would subtly push the leaves around on my plate with my fork, occasionally putting a crouton or a walnut or some other non-green element into my mouth, thus giving the impression of eating the salad. But I was absolutely not eating that loathsome salad. At some point in my adulthood, it belatedly dawned on me that people need green things to stay alive. I remember the first time I made myself a salad, with no real idea what a salad should be. I put baby spinach leaves in a bowl, and placed chopped tomato on top. I ate that sad pile of vegetation, and could not picture myself ever doing so again. A friend was horrified when I described this experience, and pointed me toward salad dressing, a revelation. I persevered, and it got easier. It turns out that repeated, positive exposure to basically any food can turn you into a fan (...