Springtime is shad time on the Hudson

May 7, 2008

Some people would rather have shad without shad roe, some prefer roe, some are partial to both, and others would just as soon have neither.

Recent columns

• Springtime is shad time on Hudson

  May 2, 2008

  Some people would rather have shad without shad roe, some prefer roe, some are partial to both, and others would just as soon have neither.

• Vita-Mix is loud, but don't be afraid of it

  April 30, 2008

  Could Vita-Mix be the one kitchen appliance your mother doesn't have, the one she craves for Mother's Day this year?

• Rethinking oysters as a farm treat

  April 23, 2008

  An opened oyster lay seductively on its half shell, its small heart still pulsing.

• Arthur Schwartz's tribute to Jewish home cooking

  April 16, 2008

  There was a time, decades ago, when Arthur Schwartz used to catch a ride to work with me.

• Depression lessons in leftovers

  April 9, 2008

  Last week, a news story ran about people who have jobs and homes yet are finding it so hard to make ends meet that they are turning to food pantries.

• Nothing beats pigs in blankets

  April 2, 2008

  You don't need a survey to know that the first hors d'oeuvres to disappear at parties both casual and elegant are pigs in blankets.

• A LA CARTER: Buy a share in the farm, and eat fresh

  March 26, 2008

  Community Supported Agriculture grows each year on Long Island. Every spring, when I put together a list of farms that offer shares, guaranteeing shareholders weekly boxes of produce, I find afterward that I have missed a few.

• Duck on Long Island's Easter table

  March 19, 2008

  With gas approaching $4 a gallon, Easter dinner may be a time to think about the fuel and labor it takes to transport food across the country. Instead of buying salad greens and asparagus from California, you can find alternatives grown closer to home. And Long Island's famous duck can be the centerpiece of an Easter meal.

• A locavores' dinner on Long Island

  March 12, 2008

  The New Oxford American Dictionary declared locavore the word of the year for 2007. Simply put, the word means food that comes from near where you live. Some locavores limit it to within 100 miles, some to fewer.

• Pickle pops for puckery pleasures

  February 27, 2008

  There's a lot to worry about in this world, foodwise and otherwise, big and small. On the food front alone, think of these: possible "mad" cows, ground beef recalls, contaminated lettuce, mercury in fish, hormones in milk. Every day seems to bring a new headache, or a possible tummy ache.

• Dining out on culinary history

  February 20, 2008

  In my best black sequins, I made my version of a grand entrance to the grand old bar at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park South in Manhattan, a sprawling mansion that once belonged to New York Gov. Samuel Jones Tilden. At the piano, Marty Silver was tickling the ivories to the tune of "Goodbye, My Lady Love," a melody popular in this year of 1908.

• French macaroons from a Shelter Island bakery

  February 13, 2008

  Chocolates are so last year, when you can have fragile French macaroons in an array of yummy pastel colors, flavors and fillings.

• Cookies make Christmas

  December 12, 2007

  Friends don't let friends bake alone.

• Nothing beats it

  November 8, 2006

  The day I got my smallpox vaccination, in a nearby Mississippi River town, my father brought home a big mess of river catfish.

• Provocatively packaged food for thought

  June 2, 2004

  An egg crate arrived in the mail. No, actually, it was a book inside an egg crate.