I can't believe I didn't actually discover raclette in France. It was in London (don't tell!). And being the cheese lover that I am, I'm shocked that it took me until my late twenties to make such an epic discovery. The guys...

I like doing things that don't exactly break with tradition, but are just ever so slightly different. And therefore, special. Just a little bit of thought can change the same ol' same ol' to a showstopper.

Enter potato salad. I love nothing more than...

Some people celebrate birthdays and weddings and anniversaries and graduations.

I celebrate celeriac season.

I'm not kidding. Seeing those straight-from-outer-space bulbs in the produce section sends me in a fit of rapture, and I usually clap my hands together, gasp, and do a little...

I always go for comfort food, but there are times when I want my vegetables to be a bit more stilettos than sweat pants.

Enter the leek.

The unsung hero of French food. Any stock, any soup, any sauce, should have a sign graffitied across the plate, "leeks were...

You know in the cartoons, when Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck has some genius idea, and a light bulb goes off in the corner of the screen? I may not have a tail or whiskers or feathers or be drawn in marker, but I...

I'm about to board a plane for London, where I currently live, thinking about things that go together in unlikely circumstances. My mother always says that when two things find each other that go together well, they should never be apart. True...

I was hungry and grumpy (when are those two ever seen apart?) at the Nice airport a few weeks ago. I couldn't find a McDonald's, so I figured it was time I tried the other fast food in France: Quick.

I scanned the menu for something different. I didn't come...

I love burgers. But I hate myself afterwards. What feels good in the act always leaves me feeling sick, full, and out of control. So I consider my love of fish sandwiches, fish burgers, I call them, to be a badge of maturity....

There are times for frilly, doily-edged tarts. For desserts that come after a meal and before you stop eating. That is not what I want right now.

Now, I feel like something so naughty, I will grin about it and blush afterwards. I want...

This recipe is a hardcover. Which sounds a little bit strange without explanation.

A few months ago, I bought a Kindle. And I buy Kindle books avidly. But only the ones I want to read once. The ones I don't want to see...

When I was in second grade, we had to make elevation-accurate plaster of Paris molds of our favorite continents. I built, surprise, surprise, Europe, talking particular care of the Gallic region. Sometime when I was attempting the Alps, this girl in my class, Christina,...

When it comes to French food, we always think of the ivory tower. Not the gutter. Charlottes and tians and soufflés are all well and good, but give me the choice between haute cuisine and a hole in the wall off a well-trod avenue,...

This is a back pocket recipe. Think of all the things that live in your back pocket. You wallet. Your iPhone. Maybe a comb, if you're the Fonz. Back pocket items are the bare bones of necessity. When you need to pay, when you...

This recipe is not particularly beautiful, or especially complicated. But that doesn't mean it's not one of the best. It completely debunks the myth that effort and deliciousness are proportionally related.

The success of these green beans is completely based around one simple secret...

I've been feeling restless. In that soul-churning kind of way, where you don't even want to stand on one foot for too long. Sitting down for a prolonged plate of pasta is out of the question. I want to eat something noncommittal, something...

I was recently in my favorite restaurant in Paris, when I looked down and noticed something on the menu that I hadn't before. Not that it wasn't there; I just hadn't noticed it. The Tuna Niçoise salad was labeled, "à ma façon," which...

This is one of those recipes that prove that even if we all have our differences, we can get along. There's this steak place that I love in New York, and of course, it has the requisite "potato menu." And just from...

I don't know if they're still doing this, but I love any surprise that comes with food. Short of an engagement ring, which I think is a stupid and dangerous thing to bury in anything you might chew. Think of how many people...

If I were running a marathon (which I wouldn't be), I assume there would be markers to let me know where I was along the track. In the road of life, my mile markers are meals. Anywhere I've ever been, at any time...

Do you remember the first Charlotte's Web movie? And the scene where Templeton the rat goes out to the carnival dump to bring back inspirational clippings for the web, and instead winds up eating himself sick on cobs of corn that he...