my kitchen diaries

this is diner journal, a food quarterly that anyone who likes food + cooking should order, pronto. website here.
my favorite is the photography – it’s always interesting and accessible and inspiring:

this weekend, i made the recipe for ribollita. caroline fidanza’s feature on this classic italian soup was both informative and highly amusing. here are some photos from the process:

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“right food, right place, right time. it is my belief – and this is the point of this book – that this is the best recipe of all. a crab sandwich by the sea on a june afternoon; a slice of roast goose with applesauce and roast potatoes on christmas day; hot sausages and a chunk of roast pumpkin on a frost-sparkling night in november. these are meals whose success relies not on the expertise of the cook but on the more basic premise that this is food of the moment – something eaten at a time when it is most appropriate, when the ingredients are at their peak of perfection, when the food, the cook and the time of year are at one with each other.”
- nigel slater, introduction to “the kitchen diaries: a year in the kitchen with nigel slater“

this is what i hope to start doing here more often this year: journaling some of the meals i cook and the things i eat. i spend a lot of time cooking and eating, and quite often the things i eat go hand-in-hand with the weather outside, what is fresh at the markets, or what i’m in the mood for at that particular moment. i became somewhat obsessed with nigel slater’s book this past year (remember this?) and i think i’d like to have a journal in which i record what i am eating, and when.  and hopefully, by looking back through it at the end of the year, i’ll remember the good meals (and bad), and how i was feeling at that moment (for example, i can remember when i tried to ignore the bitter january cold by eating pounds of blood oranges).  i think this will be fun (and it will give me something to take pictures of…)

so my first entry: on sunday, i spent all day cooking ribollita from diner journal.  it was really cold outside (though sunny), and i was going to spend the day out and about, but i ultimately decided to stay in with the sunday NYtimes, while chopping and stirring and cooking ribollita soup.  it did take all day to cook it, and i’m usually not a fan of laborious soups, but this one was 100% worth it.  so deep and rich and full of flavor.  perfect for a sunday night in the winter.  plus, i got to use my new borlotti beans from rancho gordo.

and a link for today: speaking of nigel slater, you should read his weekly column in the guardian. great stuff.

i also made these cookies for nora’s birthday on saturday night. wow.