Biscotti and I go way back. We met inside a rustic Italian farmhouse just outside of Pisa many years ago. The terrible October wind was howling as only the Tuscan wind can, and I’d just finished a long, extravagant meal with new friends. I’d arrived in Italy just two months earlier, and was young and giddy with naïveté. So, when the ...
My friend Gina turned me on to these super easy (her 7-year-old son can practically make them on his own), super thin oatmeal cookies. She was pulling them out of the oven to serve as dessert for a dinner party when I took this photo. She even improvises with this recipe, adding poppy seeds or ...
We may live in Brooklyn, the land of the artisanal everything, but when it comes to chocolate, you just can’t beat Lindt Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt. Our friend Jenny turned us onto it, and since then, we’ve never served an $8 beautifully packaged chocolate bar ever again. Sure, I know the artisanal chocolates have ...
On a recent trip to France, we had marshmallows in a way that totally made us rethink them–beyond hot chocolate and s’mores. First we had them at a restaurant where they were on display in the center of the room, and they served them from the jar, table-side, cut to order. Then we had them ...
Former Cookie contributing editor, she’s just come out with a must-have dessert book, Sweet Home: Over 100 Heritage Desserts and Ideas for Preserving Family Recipes
I was at my favorite grocery store on the East Coast, Wegman’s—and saw a yogurt I hadn’t heard of before, Noosa, so I figured I’d try it out. The next day, I was with a friend who has an extremely discerning palate, and we tried it. It wasn’t just good, it was great. Like so ...
My friend Liana’s mom loves to entertain, and she has lovely but also irreverent presentation ideas. On a recent visit, for dessert, she took some beautiful strawberries and just put them directly on the table, and took the pastries her guests had brought, and did the same thing.
Our friend was serving up some ginger snaps post-lunch, along with some caramels from Trader Joe’s. Her son Sam, who is always coming up with some clever idea, told us about his invention, which is to take the caramel and smush it in between two ginger snaps. I figured it had to be ultimately appealing ...
Last week when we were staying with friends, their kids and our daughter got really into making/serving every breakfast meal. I wasn’t so into the soggy cereal, but I think they really nailed it with the lemon curd dolloped onto plain Greek yogurt. It was so delicious–just the right amount of tart and sweet. It ...
I am a big fan of Medjool dates, but they are so rich, that sometimes they’re almost too much. Recently our friends introduced us to the Barhi date, at the farmers’ market in Santa Barbara. Their kids ran to the Da Vall Date Garden stand asking about the “butterscotch tasting date”. Wow, it was amazing—they ...
God bless my mother-in-law, who loves her a project. On the Saturday before Easter (though these are good for any time of year) we set out to make these adorable chick cupcakes from Martha. Here’s the deal: make any vanilla cupcake and buttercream frosting recipe you like. The frosting should be sculptable without being too ...
We are not a butter cream kinda family. I know, that might seem weird, but we just don’t like it. So when it comes to frosting, I haven’t found the one that we love, until recently, when our daughter made some box mix cupcakes, and we needed to find a recipe for the frosting. Everyone ...
