pickled sugar snap peas

peter piper picked a peck of pickled PEAS

I don't like peas. My dad makes a pasta dish with onions and oil and frozen peas and the peas are always the worst part. Whenever he serves it, I always wonder why anyone bothers to eat the tasteless little buggers.

So, as you can probably imagine, I was less than thrilled when the season's first food co-op share included a little cardboard carton of sugar snap peas. The co-op is a big commitment in terms of the quantities of food you're getting, and I really want to waste as little of it as possible. However, that didn't mean I was looking forward to eating peas. At all.

While I was searching for a good sugar snap pea recipe, I came upon this one, which calls for pickling them. I'm not a particularly big fan of pickles, (in fact, there are a great number of pickles I don't like at all), but the idea appealed to me because it meant that I could prepare the peas and then pack them away for later. With so much produce and so few people eating it, there's only so much you can eat on any given day. I pickled these peas the day after my first pick-up, after eating a salad for breakfast, after preparing coleslaw, and before making spinach meatball risotto and a great big salad for dinner. I wanted to use those peas, but I wasn't about to eat them that Friday. Enter pickling them, which was supposed to take two weeks.


cold and refreshing pickled peas

This recipe was also great because making it was super fast. Once I had sliced a couple of cloves of garlic and cleaned the peas by snapping off the end and peeling off the string, the bulk of the work was done. I dissolved equal parts sugar and salt into white vinegar on the stove top, and then added as much cold water as I had vinegar.(I think I may have actually added too much vinegar and not enough water, but these were still good.) I put the peas and the garlic and some red pepper flakes in a jar, and then poured the cooled vinegar mixture over them. Into the fridge they went, and I didn't try them until a week later.

Crunchy and acidic, tempered by a bit of the peas natural sweetness, these make quite a good snack. Just don't bite them in half, lest you want ice cold vinegar running down your chest. Actually, in the summer heat, that might not be such a bad thing. Who knew peas could be so refreshing?!


gimme da peas

Since unenthusiastically pickling my first batch of peas, I've been cooking them with pasta and quite enjoying them. I regret being so biased against such a delightfully sweet and crunchy vegetable after encountering them only after a long sojourn in the supermarket's freezer department. It was unfair of me. I've got a couple more pea dishes that I'll be blogging about presently, but if we get more this week I think I'll try this. Pancetta and sage and garlic and ricotta? Sign me up! We'll see if I get it together with all those non-pantry-essential ingredients before snap pea season ends, but it does sound delicious.

homemade mayonnaise for a summer potato salad

So I finally did it: I made my own mayonnaise! This is one of those things that only professional chefs and food bloggers do anymore, and now that I count myself among the latter, I suppose it was only a matter of time before I joined the ranks of the mayo makers.


freshly made mayo

Look how gorgeous! Watching the unlikely combo of egg yolk and olive oil come together to form a delicate and creamy mass was oddly satisfying, but I have to say that I probably wouldn't try to pull this off on my own.

I started off whisking the yolk vigorously with my right hand, and trying to slowly drip in the oil with my left. My parents have a nice olive oil bottle with a small spout, but if left unchecked it still was more of a small but steady stream rather than a series of oil droplets. I soon tired, and called in my dad from the sidelines. We teamed up, taking turns with the more exhausting whisking and easier dripping. It came together beautifully, and was lightly seasoned afterward. I suspect it could have held even more olive oil, but we were both getting tired and I decided it was good enough.

As cool as I felt making mayonnaise from scratch, the primary reason I decided to try my hand at it was that I was making potato salad, and I didn't have nearly enough Hellman's. This potato salad was part of the ribs and zucchini meal I posted about yesterday, and immediately followed my gigantic coleslaw. As such, I had already used most of my parents' stock of the condiment in question. Enter the handmade variety!


macaroni and cheese

My parents weren't too crazy about this potato salad. I guess it was tasty enough. Boiled potatoes cut up and mixed with mayo, diced celery, minced parsley and basil. I added salt and pepper, and possibly a little dijon. This was just a quick and dirty potato salad, (labor intensive mayo aside), as the real star of the meal was the ribs. I'd like to try making a more interesting potato salad later on this summer.

dry rubbed ribs/zucchini and yellow squash with tomato sauce

dry rub barbecue

So couple of weeks ago I went home and my dad and I made dinner. My parents had ribs in the fridge, but we decided to try something new and try a dry rub recipe.

This turned out to be really easy. We used a lot of brown sugar mixed with cracked black pepper, kosher salt, cayenne pepper, paprika, cumin, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, nutmeg, mace and savory mix. Dad massaged the spice rub into the meat, let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two and then slowly grilled it to perfection.


that's the rub

Sweet, savory, spicy and delicious. No barbecue sauce required. I'm a girl who often hates ribs slathered in gloppy sticky sweet sauce, so these really were right up my alley.


zucchini in tomato sauce is a Cascone family favorite

We also made zucchini and summer sauce in tomato sauce. This is something my family has been making for years, and it's easy and delicious. Simply slice the zucchini and squash into centimeter thick rounds and simmer in your favorite tomato sauce. Serve with extra black pepper and grated romano cheese.


ribs, coleslaw, potato salad and slightly out of place zucchini in tomato sauce

Here's the whole dinner plate. As you can see we also had leftover coleslaw. You can also catch a glimpse of the potato salad with homemade mayo that I'll be talking about in my next post. I know that Nathan hasn't posted anything this month, but you'll all be stuck with me for at least two weeks longer. Boyfriend is off exploring Italy for the next two weeks, and I'm holding down the fort up in Harlem. Hopefully, this oppressive heat won't prevent me from keeping busy in the kitchen while he's gone!

cilantro lime coleslaw

coleslaw with a kick

This was my first foray into the world of slaws, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This mammoth bowl of coleslaw is only half of what I made. A head of cabbage goes a long, long way!


a brightly colored slaw

I decided to make this coleslaw because there was a big old head of red cabbage languishing away in the back of the fridge. Back when Nathan and I made our second bagna cauda pasta dish, I had been in charge of the grocery shopping. I was tired after a long day of work, so when I went to my local Key Food I half hoped/half believed that the red cabbage they had on display in the produce section was actually radicchio. When Nathan arrived he quickly set me straight, and was so kind as to head back out to try his luck at Fine Fare. We both feared the mission would prove fruitless, but he inexplicably found two lonely radicchio heads, sitting in the produce case as if they were waiting specially for us. Indeed, the cashier had no idea what they were, nor how to ring them up, and the manager was equally flummoxed. After much discussion, it was determined that they must be runty red cabbages, so they ended up costing about fifty cents collectively.

That worked out great for the bagna cauda dish, but it also meant that I wound up with a totally superfluous head of red cabbage. Fast forward to my first food co-op pick up a few weeks later, and I've got a fridge full of veggies and a barbecue to attend at my dear friend Christine Jones nee Flood's house. I know I want to bring something to eat, and when I remember I have the cabbage, coleslaw is the obvious choice. I also still have winter food co-op carrots that aren't getting any younger, so I'm thinking this is perfect.


coleslaw close-up

When it comes to finding a recipe, I turn immediately to the smitten kitchen, where Deb has a well established love for slaws. This basic Ina Garten recipe seemed like it would work well enough, but then I dug a little further and discovered this cilantro-laden variant. Since I had gotten a bunch of cilantro from the co-op, I decided to go in that direction.

I chopped up a full head of red cabbage, about half of a small red onion, and then I peeled and thinly sliced 7 or 8 little carrots. This took forever and a day, but I like to think my newly acquired knife skills would now speed up this process considerably. I also decided to add some garlic scapes, which I sliced into little rounds. Then I chopped up some of the cilantro. After all the slicing and dicing was completed, I packed all my chopped veggies into the biggest tupperware I had, which was fit to burst.

I brought this home to Long Island and dressed it the next day, about a half an hour before the party. I was in a bit of a rush, so I ignored the recipe's measurement and just mixed together some mayo, salt, pepper, sugar, lime juice, cayenne pepper and dijon mustard. This only lightly coated my slaw, which was actually what I was aiming for. At this point I realized that I had enough coleslaw to feed a small army, and that only about half of it was going to fit into the largest salad bowl my parents had. Needless to say, I had a lot of leftovers. This slaw is great, but it gets soggier and more liquidy as the days go by, so unless you're having a party of 20 people, stick to half a head of cabbage. That being said, cilantro and lime are a kick ass way to jazz up a typical slaw. It was a great take on a traditional summer dish, and I would certainly make this again.

The whole barbecue was awesome, although I'm sure any Southerner worth his salt would have had a few choice words with us for calling it that. Mrs. Flood served up a typically impressive spread, including amazing brats. Meaghan made some delicious orzo salad with chickpeas, grape tomatoes and basil which would have totally housed Jimmy Bradley's lentil version. It was a delicious dinner, and not bad to look at either— and neither were the lovely guests! It's always a blast to get back together with my high school friends, and I only wish it could happen more often.


it may not be real barbecue, but it still looks like summer to me!

meatball and spinach risotto

So something I like to make is a meatball risotto. I am not sure if people usually put meatballs in risotto. I have a feeling they don't, but I don't care. I love meatballs, and I love risotto, so I see no reason not to combine the two into one meal.


risotto meatball and spinach, topped with shaved parmesan

I've made this meatball risotto twice now, once last summer for my dear friend Mary Kate, and now again this summer for Nathan, his mom and his grandma. I make little meatballs and cook them in the pot I'll be using for the risotto. Once they are cooked through, I take them out of the pot and add the onions, and then the rice. In this instance I also added some thinly sliced garlic scapes. Otherwise, the preparation of this risotto was pretty much the same as it always is. White wine, followed by lots and lots of chicken stock. At the end I added the chopped spinach some nice food co-op parsley, a hunk of butter and some shaved parmesan.


salad with radishes and garlic scapes

I also made up this beautiful fresh salad of Boston lettuce from the food co-op, more garlic scapes and those green market radishes. I've been working on finished up that $1 bunch since the tenth of June now! That is just crazy. Yesterday I tried roasting them, I'm so desperate to get rid of them!

I'll probably do a more in depth write up of my meatballs at a future date, but I usually just mix in seasoned breadcrumbs, eggs, milk, minced garlic and parsley and form it into little balls. I try not to over mix the meat so it won't get tough. This particular time, I was using meat I had gotten over the winter from the old good co-op, and I think it was a little too lean because they weren't the most tender. Or maybe I just needed to add more milk and eggs. In any event, these meatballs didn't have to stand on their own, so they were quite good enough for my purposes. We all enjoyed the meal, and each others' company, which is really all you can ask for.

In one of my earliest posts I had talked about another dinner I made and Nathan's grandma's house. It was a very time consuming affair, so this time I did a lot of the prep work before heading down to Chelsea. Having the meatballs mixed and the garlic scapes and radishes chopped meant I didn't have to waste much time slicing and dicing, and that I could dive right into the cooking. This meant I was able to have dinner on the table only 30 to 40 minutes later than initially planned. I'm getting faster you guys, slowly but surely!

egg salad is not boring

I feel kind of silly blogging this, but honestly, if I'm feeling lazy and am out of leftovers and all I have in the fridge is a carton of eggs, egg salad sandwiches are my lunchtime savior. Boil two eggs until just shy of hard, (I like the yolks to be solid, but softer and more orange than the traditional hard boiled egg), chop them up and toss with mayo and whatever mix ins you please. It's easy, fast, and bound to please.

Generally, I like to saute a little minced garlic in oil to add to my egg salad. This shouldn't surprise you. I also like to put in finely chopped onions and celery, because a good egg salad has to have a little crunch. (When we made that carbonara and overcooked our eggs, Nathan made an egg salad without a more toothsome component, and it was like eating baby food.) I also like to have some chopped parsley in there, for color. I once had a giant bunch of fresh dill that I was struggling to use up, and that was an awesome add in, bringing a huge burst of flavor. I season generously with salt and pepper, and add just enough mayo to make it all stick together.


egg salad sandwich with celery and radish

This egg salad in particular could have used a bit more punch– I didn't add the onions or garlic, partially out of laziness and partially because my previous attempt at this dish had given me a particularly bad case of dragon breath. What I did add was tiny, crunchy little bits of radish, in addition to the requisite celery. I mainly did this because I thought a pop of red would look really nice, but having the pepperyness of the radish did help make it less bland without the garlic and onions.

You could also add mustard to your egg salad for added flavor and to cut back on the mayo. You could make it spicy with paprika or chili powder, or toss in some pickles to add some acid. You can switch out the onion for scallions or sub in red onion or garlic scapes or shallot. Bacon and egg salad is also a great combo, but I wouldn't do that if I wasn't planning to eat my sandwich right away. No one likes soggy bacon. Anyway, my point is that there's a lot of room to be creative here. Just keep in mind these three rules:

1. season, season, season! and don't forget the onion!
2. don't forget the crunch, or it's just mush in your mouth
3. you need some sort of binder, like mayo, to make it come together

Otherwise, enjoy!

what I did with my CSA share

As you all recall, it was two weeks ago that I picked up the first CSA share of the season, which meant a fridge full of veggies to consume. And what did I do will all that jolly green goodness? Well, I had dinner downtown after I picked up the food on Thursday night, but I kicked off Friday morning with a nice green salad accompanied with a poached egg and goat cheese, both of which I had gotten the previous weekend at the market. I also sliced up some garlic scapes very thinly, as though they were scallions, and added that to the mix. With something so green and cheerful for breakfast, you can't help but feel like it is going to be a good day.


salad for breakfast

I had off from work that day, and was thus able to spend the afternoon cooking and planning recipes to use up my vegetable stockpile. I sliced up all the ingredients for a red cabbage and carrot coleslaw with cilantro, garlic scapes and a lime mayonnaise. This I brought to my friend Flood's barbecue the next day. I pickled a jar of sugar snap peas and stored them in the fridge. Then I turned my attentions to that night's dinner, which I made for Nathan and his mom and grandma. A meatball risotto featured garlic scapes, parsley and fresh spinach from the csa, and was served alongside a leafy green salad of boston lettuce, scapes, and Union Square radishes. On Sunday, my parents and I made a delicious dinner that included co-op zucchini and summer squash with tomato sauce and grated cheese, as well as dry rubbed ribs and potato salad with homemade mayo. Later in the week I had more salad, this time with fried goat cheese, which I served alongside bacon and onion loaded five cheese macaroni and cheese. The next night my pasta leftovers got paired with a gingery tatsoi stir-fry tossed with the extra zucchini and squash we didn't cook over the weekend. By the following Thursday, all I had left in the fridge was my arch nemesis kale, a bag of turnips, and some cilantro and parsley.

This week, I've been less successful. Thursday I went straight from picking up the food in Harlem to a bar down by West 4th St, and ended up eating leftovers once I got home. I cooked some delicious pasta with peas and broccoli rabe on Friday night, but Saturday afternoon I went to brunch with Nathan and in the evening Laura, Lauren, Paul and I scored tickets at Shakespeare in the Park to see A Winter's Tale. Sunday I used food co-op basil to make pesto, which accompanied a food co-op salad and coffee pork chops. But Monday I went straight from work to a barbecue hosted by Grace and Marianne, Tuesday I saw Toy Story, and Wednesday I went to a talk about Clementine Paddleford at the New School followed by a bar trivia night, so there was not been much opportunity to use up all this food. I don't even want to think about how much produce awaits me when I go home to cook tonight. Dauntingly, there is another pick up tonight, so it's not going to get any easier!

Even though I fell a bit short in week number 2, I've still built up a substantial back-log of recipes, all of which you can expect to see here in full detail soon.

farmers' market sandwich creation

sandwich with both parts of the radish

I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to improvise a lot in the kitchen. That's why you won't find a lot of recipes in my posts, but rather more free form explanations of what I've been up to in the kitchen. This might be frustrating if you're not super comfortable in the kitchen and you are looking for more exact instructions on how to replicate our meals at home, but I do always link to the recipes that were my jumping off point, so hopefully this isn't too much of a problem.

Anyway, my point is that even though I don't worry too much about following a recipe exactly, I almost have one (or two), that I am using as a guide. Therefore, when I come up with a dish entirely on my own, it is kind of thrilling, even if it is only a simple sandwich, like the one I am going to talk about today.

Going on three weeks ago now, back when Nathan and I were still doing our Master Meals series, he suggested I swing by the Union Square Market on Saturday afternoon so we could make Jonathan Waxman's famous chicken on Wednesday. I thought this was a good idea, but by the time I got down there, the chicken vendors were gone, and we never did get around to making more Master Meals.

What I did make was this delicious sandwich, inspired by the bounty of the late spring farmers' market:


fried eggs and goat cheese atop radishes

Thin-as-I-could-slice-'em radishes, creamy salted goat cheese, a runny fried egg and sauteed radish tops atop a crusty roll. All freshly bought down in Union Square and prepared with a minimum of heat and thus ideal for a hot summer day. What was especially great about this light little meal was that it all kind of came together in my head organically, (no pun intended), as I wandered the market.

"A huge bunch of radishes for a dollar? Those would be great marinated with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper and served on some buttered bread, and I can cook the greens up with some lemon juice. But how can I make this more of a full meal? Eggs for $2.25 a dozen? Oh, a HALF dozen? Expensive, but now I want to make egg sandwiches, so let's just go for it... Oh look! They are closing up for the night so a bag of four rolls is only two bucks! Anything else? There's goat cheese. I love goat cheese. Four ounces for $5. Great!"

This all came together brilliantly. The radish slices gave it crunch, and the buttery bread and runny eggs richness. Nathan made the astute observation that the lemon in the greens mixed with the egg yolk made it taste a bit like hollandaise sauce, and the goat cheese was the perfect creamy, last minute addition. These sandwiches were so good, I'm even going to write up my approximations of a formal recipe so those of you playing along at home can make this yourselves. So, without further ado:

"The Garlicus Maximus" – Whole Radish Sandwiches on Garlic Bread with Goat Cheese and a Fried Egg
makes 2 sandwiches

the green tops from a large bunch of radishes
2-3 medium to large sized radishes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
½ a lemon, juiced
½ a stick butter at room temperature, plus extra for frying eggs
2 cloves garlic
1½ tbsp goat cheese
2 rolls

1. Wash the radishes, removing the greens and setting them aside. Slice the radishes as thin as you can. (I don't have a mandolin, but I imagine it would be helpful in this situation.)
2. Mix the olive oil and vinegar in a small bowl and add the sliced radishes and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Let marinate while you make the rest of the sandwich.
3. Smash the garlic cloves into a paste. You can use a mortar and pestle to do this, or you can scrape the clove with the side of your paring knife. Mix the garlic into the softened butter.
4. Slice your rolls in half and spread the garlic butter on both sides. Toast in the oven or toaster oven until golden brown.
5. Saute the radish greens until wilted over medium low heat in a frying pan. They should still be wet from when you washed them, which will prevent them from burning in the hot pan, but you can heat up a little oil or butter before you add the greens. Add lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.
6. Fry two eggs and season with salt and pepper.
7. Assemble the sandwiches. Layer the thinly slice radishes on one half of the sandwich, and the lemony greens on the other. Pour a little of the left over vinegar and oil mixture over the sliced radishes. Spread a goat cheese over the radish slices, and top the greens with the eggs. Crack a little black pepper onto the cheese. Fold to close, and enjoy.


soon to be devoured sandwich

PS: If you are, in fact, playing along at home, or even just reading along, drop us a line. I'd love to hear how our recipes turn out back in your kitchen, and it's great to get feedback. Kthxbye.

cream cheese frosted carrot cake/rice crispie treats

So back in the fall Jess and I went out to her uncle's house in the Southhampton. He has an amazing glass mansion on the beach with this dream kitchen stocked with just about every gadget imaginable. The past couple of years, he's been so kind as to let Jess bring her friends out for a weekend pre-memorial day or post-labor day. Last year, we came out in September to a surprisingly well stocked fridge with instructions to help ourselves to anything. This meant delicious frozen ravioli and sword fish, high quality Rao's tomato sauce, a tin of old fashioned banana pudding mix, slivered almonds and a tupperware full of homemade cream cheese frosting. Naturally, we took advantage of the latter two items by making a carrot cake, which we slightly altered by adding some chopped walnuts, which are generally one the best parts of any carrot cake.


cream cheese frosting on an almond carrot cake

The recipe proved delicious, and I've had it stashed away to make again ever since. The perfect opportunity arose over Memorial Day Weekend, when Laura and I threw a little party for our friends at the apartment. I had cream cheese in the fridge, a big bag of walnuts from BJ's, some left over almonds from our lentil dish, a lemon or two, plus carrots and eggs from the food co-op, so this cake was calling out to me.

Somehow, things did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I suspect that Jess did most of the actually baking last time around I did mostly things like toasting the nuts and getting the eggs out of the fridge while I made salad and pasta and such. Also, the food processor and other high tech grinders and such in the Southhampton probably really sped up the process. In any event, I had no idea how labor-intensive this little bugger was. First you toast the nuts, then you chop the walnuts and grind up the almonds to make flour. Then you zest a lemon, shred the carrots, measure the dry ingredients and mix in the egg yolks. As if that weren't enough, you have to whip the egg whites, and then fold them into the batter in two batches. You might think that you could bake the cake and be done with at that point, but no, I had to make my own frosting too, creaming together a stick of butter and brick of cream cheese with vanilla and a reduced amount of powdered sugar! Luckily, that part was super easy and came out awesome.

The cake itself was pretty good, but it was a lot of trouble when I had a party starting in less than two hours. I was frosting the cake and picking out the fullest walnuts from the bag to candy and decorate the cake with while the guests were milling about. It was a little stressful. Good, but stressful!

This cake is probably best if you have a reasonable amount of counter space and a food processor, but for those of us less fortunate, there are other confectionery delights that can be made in a snap. Why yes, I am talking about rice cripsy treats, specifically this salted brown butter rice crispy recipe. As any child can tell you, rice crispy treats are the best. What savvy moms can probably tell you is that they are damn easy to make as well! Simply melt a stick of butter, let it get golden brown, then take it off the heat and stir in a package of marshmallows. Then you add a quarter teaspoon salt and six cups of rice crispies, stir it all together and then press it into a pan. That's all there is to it! So if a 20 step cake is a bit daunting, know that you can always fall back on a childhood favorite. Plus, I had almost half the cake left over and no rice crispy treats whatsoever!

knife skills

So some time last year my Aunt Cathy suggested that I take a knife skills class. I've always been incredibly slow and awkward when it comes to cutting up vegetables, so I thought this was a great idea. Anything that will make me faster and more efficient in the kitchen is definitely worth looking into.

Come Christmas time, my parents presented me with a gift card good for $95 at The Institute of Culinary Education in the city, with instructions to take Knife Skills 1 with Norman Weinstein. In a case of great minds think alike, Nathan presented me with a hand drawn "I owe you one knife skills class," card. This later transformed into a handsome Calphalon knife block.


nate bought me these for christmas

I've been using the knives for a couple of months now, but I didn't get to take the knife skills class until last Monday. It was an interesting experience, since it immediately became apparent that I was doing pretty much everything imaginable wrong. The techniques we learned in the class make so much sense and are so much easier and less tiring than what I've done all my life. Assuming you are just as clueless with a blade as I was, I'm going to describe Weinstein's methods and include some key excerpts from the course packet.

First of all, you have to hone your knives every time you use them, and take them to a sharpener once or twice a year. To hone your knives, you want to use a steel that is at least two inches longer than your knife. Unfortunately, my steel is only 8 inches, same as my longest knife. Lame.

"Place a work towel on a flat, non-skid surface such as your kitchen counter or cutting board. Hold the steel at a 90 degree angle to the work surface, tip firmly held on the board. Heel and tip of the knife should from a 45 degree angle, with the heel and spine at the required angle (20 degrees) at the handle end of the steel. Using moderate pressure, draw the knife back and downwards to the bottom until you have pulled the tip off the steel near the bottom with a "follow through" motion. do not turn your wrist or the angle will change. Repeat the process on the other side of the steel. Proceed in this manner 3-4 times, using alternating strokes, keeping the required angle at all times."

The second thing we learned was that the bigger and heavier the knife we use, the less force we have to exert. The bigger knife will do the work for you, and will require less strokes to accomplish a given task. For someone who always uses a 3 inch paring knife, this was big news. Unfortunately, my knife block's biggest knife is 8 inches, and Weinstein swears by a 10 inch model. I will have to get one at some point, but for now I'll just make a point to use the chef's knife I have.

To hold the chef's knife, pinch the back of the blade between your thumb and forefinger, and curl the other three fingers under the handle. DO NOT grip the knife tightly, as this will cause tension in your arm and lead to pain in the shoulder and back, and will prevent you from cutting in a fluid motion. Use your other hand to hold whatever you're cutting with a light grip, lightly curving your fingers so that you present the flat segment of your fingers to the blade rather than your finger tips or knuckles.

When you're cutting, you should never be pressing down on food to cut it. Your knives should be sharp enough to slice your ingredients effortlessly. (In fact, the should be able to cut through a single sheet of paper effortlessly. Ha! I just spent 20 minutes sharpening all my knives and that is tall order!) Instead of pressing down, you want to move your knife forward and then bring it back in one constant swinging motion.

For items that are less than an inch high, Weinstein has devised a "low technique." You start with the tip of the knife on the board in front of whatever you're cutting, and glide the knife back towards you, lowering the blade as you go. You wind up with the whole back of the blade against the board, and you cut effortlessly. Then you kind of swing back and repeat. It's difficult to get the hang of at first, but it's an awesome feeling when you do.

For taller items, like a head of cabbage, you start with your knife on the item, with the tip an inch in front the far edge of it. You pull the knife back and it begins cutting the food, and then you lower the blade and let it glide down onto the board. You should use the full length of the knife to cut, and then swing it back forward to begin again. It's similar to the low technique, but a little trickier, I think. I kept raising my elbow up, which is wrong because it creates extra work.

"To get the best swing motion from the knife hand, stand back six to seven inches from the cutting board and have you waist parallel to the table, feet slightly spread (under shoulders). Stand too close to the edge and you feel cramped and a need to clamp your upper arm to your ribs, not a good thing to do when you are trying to achieve a relaxed, fluid, swinging motion." Most things are easier to cut when they are closer to the edge of the board, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that and not drop food on the floor.

We also learned how to dice, to peel, to mince, and how to cut onions, bagels, garlic, herbs and peppers. All in all, I've learned a lot and I am excited to continue practicing these new techniques. And to make lovely tomato roses. I won't describe the method for those because it's just too easy and makes these pretty things much less impressive.


my tomato rosette secret