SPRING FINGER FOOD MENU: Puff Pastry Wrapped Asparagus; Minted Sweet Pea Dip; Avocado and Radish Crostini

We’ve been playing around with a lot of tartlettes and pizzettes here at BGSK. The craze in our kitchen started back at our holiday dinner, when Phoebe topped mini circles of purchased pizza dough with caramelized onions, cheese, and arugula. Since, we’ve migrated to homemade pizza dough and to puff pastry. But despite these changes, we seem to have met our match in tartlettes. They’re easy but elegant, homey but

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EVENT: A Weekend Away with Friends
VENUE: Kate’s House, Hudson Valley
PARTY SIZE: 10
TYPE: Friday Night Post-Drive Dinner
MENU: Chicken Marbella; Orzo; Milk Bar Compost Cookies

According to my mother, for a while in the 1980s, Chicken Marbella was all the rage. The Silver Palate Cookbook came out, and filled as it was with creative, delicious, and dinner party-worthy dishes, the surprising ingredients (prunes, capers, brown sugar??) and winning flavor combination of Chicken Marbella meant that it was served at party after party back then

When Kate invited a bunch of us out…

EVENT: Passover Seder
VENUE: BGSK’s Extended Households
PARTY SIZE: 9; 37 (plus Elijah, obviously)
TYPE: Long, Drawn-Out Culturally Significant Dinner
MENU: Matzoh Ball Soup; Brisket; Potato Kugel with Sauteed Shallots; Nutty Passover Puffs

My Aunt Jennifer is responsible for most of my formative memories of brisket, and most of my positive experiences with passover. The highlights of the family meal were always the many chairs added year after year to make up for the many new additions to the table (remember Thanksgiving?); my undefeated record with the…

There are desserts that you make by opening the cupboard and mixing together six or seven ingredients. Sturdy single-layer cakes, chocolate chip cookies, brownies-these are some of the delicious results of the simple “dump and stir” method of baking.

There are other desserts, however, that require a couple of building blocks. Layer cakes filled with mousse and topped with ganache require several steps. Sandwich cookies, trifles pavés, millionaire’s shortbread-all these desserts have a bunch of components that the creator has to make separately and then assemble with care.

Often, my baking falls under…

WEEKEND BRUNCH MENU (FOR TWO): Turkey Pepperjack Melts; Sweet Potato Fries; Cilantro Slaw; Pickles

I love a good turkey sandwich. But for some reason, I’m not really the type of person who keeps regular old sandwich bread around. In New York, that’s easy enough to remedy. When I get the craving, I’ll often just make a pit stop at my corner deli and either order their version of my go-to turkey club, or, in this case, if I have some random sandwich fixings already, I’ll ask them to just sell me two pieces…

I love buying big beautiful butternut squashes at the farmers’ market, but my eyes are usually bigger than my guest list, and unless I am making a big stew or chili that incorporates the vegetable, I will have sections of it in my fridge for weeks. Even a small, one and a half pound squash can stretch a surprisingly long way, and I always end up with leftovers to throw on top of crostini or beneath a fried egg.

If I want to be sure to be rid of the squash at the…

DINNER PARTY MENU: Lemon-Garlic Roasted Chicken Breasts; Pear Almond Tart

Stuffing was a strange recipe to come back to on a winter’s night in of movies and board games. Thanksgiving-y fare is mostly left to Thanksgiving. Even if we occasionally wonder why we don’t roast a turkey any other time, the truth is we don’t. And we don’t eat much stuffing, or much pecan pie, in February.

So I forget why I started browsing through our own archives, looking for Phoebe’s post about the stuffing she was in charge of

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OTHER GREEN EGGS: Asparagus, Scallion, and Fontina Frittata; Spinach-Pie Quesadillas; Scrambled Eggs with Caramelized Onion, Arugula, and Smoked Gouda; Breakfast Quesadillas with Cilantro Chimichuri and Chipotle Crema

Last year I celebrated St. Patty’s a few weeks early with hundreds of my fellow quarter-lifers out in Jersey, where there’s a parade and some drinking. To get Hoboken St. Patty’s started right this year, my friends Adam, Jamie, and Dave once again hosted a breakfast pre-game and I, once again, was lucky to be the guest of honor (aka kitchen wench). I made a…

Side-by-Side Classic and Spicy Chipotle Hummus hanging out on my window sill.

EVENT: The Rents’ Belated Birthdays
VENUE: Phoebe’s Apartment, Flatiron
PARTY SIZE: 6
TYPE: Festive Celebratory Dinner; Side-by-Side Dishes
MENU: Spicy Chipotle Hummus; Classic Hummus; Spiced Lamb and Sweet Potato Kababs; Rosemary Monkfish Skewers; Yellow Rice Pilaf with Pinenuts and Parsley; Arugula Salad with 3-Herb Vinaigrette

When I was little, I mean really little, I was quite a picky eater. But my palate wasn’t refined to white foods like…

EVENT: Food That Takes Two
VENUE: Cara’s Apartment, Park Slope

PARTY SIZE: 2
TYPE: Interactive Valentine’s Day Dinner
MENU: Meat and Scallion Pot Stickers with Tangy Soy Sauce; Momofuku Pork Bo Ssam with White Rice, Butter Lettuce Leaves, and Ginger Scallion Sauce; Nothing for Dessert (Phoebe on this development: “Do I even know you anymore?”)
I began mooning over Andrea Nguyen’s cookbook, Asian Dumplings, before it came out. I’ve owned it since December 25th, and I’ve read it cover to cover several times. But I hadn’t cooked from

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