I bashed myself. I cut myself. I caught on fire. I fell: I had been myopically focused on peeling garlic, and hadn't noticed a bin of beef at my feet until I walked into it.
The first sign that I'd been unknowingly affected by cooking shows occurred on a Sunday morning when I realized I was talking to myself. I'd been making toast. 'First, we cut our bread,' I whispered. 'Do you know why?' I stopped what I was doing and looked up. 'Let me tell you why.'
Most chartreuse recipes call for one bird, a fat one, like a pigeon or a partridge, secreted inside the casing, a vegetable mold, which is then turned out onto a plate.
Gramercy Park is a four-acre square given in perpetuity to the residents surrounding it, 170 years ago, by Samuel Ruggles, a real estate developer of immoderate means.
Tuscan sausages are smaller than their American cousins, each one demarcated with a string, a graceful loop drawn tightly into a knot - looping and tightening, looping and tightening, a symmetrically floppy, aesthetically appealing rhythm.
I didn't know why dessert was invented or what function it was meant to perform. Raising livestock and the harvesting of grains are ancient activities, but when did humankind decide it also needed creme brulee?
