T. Susan Chang

Try A Do-It-Yourself Mother's Day

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:24:00 +0000

My mother didn't plant a great many spring bulbs. But over by the pachysandra patch, there was a single lovely pink tulip, and I kept my eye on it for two weeks before Mother's Day. When that Sunday morning arrived, I rushed out, snipped it and ran inside to where she lay sleeping to present it to her. "Did you pick that outside?" she inquired, her expression shifting from sleepy surprise to something more complicated. I nodded proudly. "Oh ...

Preserved Lemons: Older, Wiser And Full Of Flavor

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 06:11:00 +0000

On many occasions in my longtime relationship with cookbooks, I have had this experience (which will sound familiar, if you like Middle Eastern flavors as much as I do). I'm happily paging through my new Moroccan or Lebanese or Israeli book, lost in dreams of lamb and sumac, saffron and figs. "Mmmm," I murmur over a glossy page, "that looks delicious."

I trace my finger down the ingredients list. Shallots, check. Tomatoes, check. Cinnamon stick, check. And then there it is: Preserved lemon. "Drat," I think.

In Praise Of The Humble Lentil

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:54:00 +0000

The year I discovered lentils, I was broke and lonely and didn't know how to cook. Lentils, it turned out, would have gone a long way toward providing the solution to some of these problems. However, when I first had them, they were a mystery.

They also were the cheapest thing on the menu at the Middle Eastern deli around the corner. The dish was mudardara, I was told. "What's that again?" I said, unable to untangle the knot of plosive consonants.

Understanding The Brussels Sprout

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 06:47:00 +0000

"What are those?" I asked my mom, suspiciously eyeing the little cardboard tub with its cellophane cover. It held a heap of pale, miniature cabbages. "They're Brussels sprouts," she said. "They're supposed to be good for you," she added, sealing my doom.

At dinnertime, the mystery vegetable reappeared, steaming hot and greenish-yellow but otherwise unaltered. It gave off a sulfurous stench. I recoiled, but I knew my job.

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks

T. Susan Chang — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:03:00 +0000

"Just throw the whole lemon in the food processor for lemon bars."
"Don't just soak your dried beans — brine them!"

The Hard-Boiled Truth About Egg Soups

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 07:26:00 +0000

The chicks arrived five months ago — eight gray, blond, black and tawny puffballs no bigger than the eggs they'd been hatched from a day earlier. They had a slavishly devoted audience within minutes and names within 24 hours.

A Roll For All Seasons, Wrapped In Rice Paper

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:42:00 +0000

It all started several months ago, when I was fishing around for something not-too-unhealthy for lunch. Spring was over — the once-tender lettuces now milky-hearted and stiff-leaved — and I was bored with salad. I love sandwiches, but every time I gorged on bread I stepped a little heavier onto the scale. "If you're going to eat constantly," I said to myself, knowing that I would, "you simply can't afford to pack on that many carbs at a time."

It was at that point that I discovered rice paper, in the noodle section of my Asian grocer.

Zucchini You Actually Can't Resist

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:43:00 +0000

"Ugh," my sister exclaimed one evening as we were making dinner. It was supposed to be an easy poached chicken with a ginger-scallion sauce, eaten with cold cucumber wedges, and we had just discovered that what we had bought at the store was not cucumber, but zucchini. It was an easy mistake to make — they were the precise same shade of green. But where the zucchini's skin was mostly smooth, the cucumber's was lumpy. We were not happy.

Let's consider, for a moment, the many faults of zucchini.

Just Add Water: The Miracle Of Seaweed

T. Susan Chang — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:29:00 +0000

A while back, a craze hit my kids' school. It seemed as though everyone in the lunchroom was bringing in those little green packs of seaweed from Trader Joe's — roasted, salted nori, sometimes flavored with wasabi. (Most of these kids like yogurt and olives, too.) Granted, our town has an idiosyncratic population, and many of the parents are health-minded. It was the kids, though, who couldn't get enough of them.

I understood how they felt. When I was pregnant, for a while I wouldn't eat anything but cucumber rolls, and it wasn't about the cucumber.

Just A Pinch Of Thought Brightens Fruit Salad

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 04:28:00 +0000

Around the time I was just old enough to know how to cook but still young enough to have some free time, I started throwing brunch parties. The menu was always the same. I would bake a braided challah or Belgian waffles or blueberry muffins or all three. (This was show-off food, since none of my other friends had yet developed an interest in baking.) I'd prepare some mimosas and strong coffee.

Stand Back When Snapping Turtles Crop Up In The Garden

T. Susan Chang — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:59:00 +0000

Late spring in a New England vegetable garden is usually a time for the last asparagus, the crisp lettuce and arugula, the first pea shoots, and the first sprouting of warm-weather crops like peppers and zucchini. What you don't expect to see planted in your beds are snapping turtles. But that's just what turned up in mine twice this week.

I was talking in my garden with a friend when I noticed what looked like a large leather satchel tossed in the strawberry bed.

Plant Eater's Paradise: 2012's Best Summer Cookbooks

T. Susan Chang — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:43:00 +0000

This summer, cookbooks are going for the low-hanging fruit. And the low-growing vegetables, the high-hanging nutmeats, and the free-standing grains. Out of orchards, farms and gardens, food you don't have to chase or butcher is taking center stage in some of the season's best recipes.

Summer is, after all, so often a time of accidental vegetarianism. It's when even carnivorous folk (myself among them) are seduced by fields and farm stands, lured in by lettuce and tempted by tomatoes. We don't necessarily set out to go meatless.

Overnight Breakfast: A Feast For Reluctant Risers

T. Susan Chang — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:44:00 +0000

I've never been much good at mornings. For most of my life, I prided myself on being a night owl, the type of gal who could always handle one more thing after midnight — another phone call, a few more pages of a novel, a last turn on the dance floor. For years, I even showered at night. And if, in the morning, I couldn't produce a civil word before my first sip of coffee, well, that was a small price to pay.

The other price was breakfast.