Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

When I started this blog lo these many years ago, the intention was to cook New York Times recipes AS WRITTEN, utilizing ALL the ingredients identified, and then blog about the results. Well, hmm.  That didn't exactly happen. Before retiring, I saved a stash of NYT recipes and actually cooked some of them, however seldom did I follow the recipe as written, for the following reasons. 1. I didn't have that much time to cook dinner.  My commute home was 45 minutes on a good day--let's not talk what traffic was like when it snowed, shall we?  Though I like to cook, by the time I hit the garage door, what was cooked was me as opposed to the food.  So I used the recipes more like guidelines as opposed to be followed to the letter instructions. I love this. 2. Often the ingredients specified in the NYT recipes, or so it seemed to me, were either a bit arcane or more readily available if you actually lived in New York and there was a neighborhood bodega or Asian market on th...

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, which for the Christian calendar closes the Christmas season. Not everyone closes their season on this date.  Many shut 'er down right after the 25th.  Christmas trees have been sitting at the end of driveways, awaiting garbage collection, for over a week.  Slowly you notice the dimming of the holiday lights, always a source of sadness for me in this gloomy darkness of what has been a grey, slushy, muddy, brown winter.  The stores turned everything over on the 26th and now the pinks, reds and whites of Valentine's Day brighten the aisles. Being the fan of the Christmas season that I am, I start early--mid-November this year--and will begin the dismantling today.  Tomorrow I will pull the plugs on the outdoor lights.  We will bring the fake deer gracing the front lawn into the storage shed.  The planters will remain until the medium holding the decor in place melts, probably late March.  The Christmas dishes ...

I spent Memorial Day weekend in Iowa with my friend, Jeanie and her family.  My oldest daughter, Molly, and her family were also there.  That meant 8 kiddos, 6 of Jeanie's 8 grands and 2 of my 6,(in total ages 2-8), in constant--and I do mean--constant motion.  The weather cooperated.  Hank only ran out once and actually came trotting back to Jeanie's in short order.  Communal cooking equated to fabulous meals.  I posted on Facebook that I LOVE the Come to the Table service that St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in West Des Moines, where Jeanie is a Deacon, offers on Sunday night at 5 p.m.  Regardless of your religious denomination, if you live in the Des Moines area, be there on Sunday night or be square. On Monday, I drove over with the Smiths to Iowa City where Jeanie's son (and my son from another mother) Tyson and his family live to celebrate Eleanor Smith's 6th birthday.  Still 8 kids, still constant motion, still loads of love. Tyson has n...

Remember how I said I was going to follow the New York Times recipes to the letter ? Um, not so much.  At least not today, St. Patrick's Day of all days, for a traditional Irish meal. This morning when I opened the NY Times Cooking app on my phone, there was a lovely looking recipe for Guinness Pie .  My oldest daughter had invited herself to dinner (in fairness, we usually have dinner at their house on Friday nights); I thought I'd invite my son and his family, too.  All this on account of us watching the 3 Grandsons at our house because Friday is not only Flip Flop Friday (cf: my Facebook page), it's also Grandpa Dan-o Child Care Day.  So that recipe was calling to me. During the day, I recalled our trip to Ireland almost 13 years ago.   The first meal I had was a very yummy Guinness stew.  Actually, it was about the best meal I had the entire week we were in Ireland.  The Irish are know for their whiskey and beer, not their food.  S...

Yes, the above is a plate of deliciousness. For about the past year, I have been bringing dinner over to my daughter and son-in law's.  This conveniently coincided with the birth of my youngest granddaughter, Georgia Rose. While I was working, I would stop and pick up a meal on my way to their house from work.  We really varied where we ate.  Indeed Bucca was among our favorites, but we also tried different restaurants in St. Paul (since that's where they live).   But now, since I'm Cooking the NY Times, I'm able to either make the meal and home and transport it or cook at their house. Yesterday I used the chuck roast that another daughter turned down to make Stracotto:   https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1650-italian-pot-roast-stracotto?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=pot%20roast&rank=0 Scroll down the list of ingredients and you will see red wine.  I believe the recipe calls for robust,...