A salad is one of the most difficult dishes to perfect. As someone who orders one for lunch daily, I'd argue there are only a few places in town where I can order a salad that's inspired yet affordable, nutritious yet filling, and easy to eat yet properly dressed.
I've come to expect today's gourmet salads to fall short of their double-digit price tags: at a new restaurant last week, I ordered a radicchio, endive, green bean, and roasted carrot salad that was 97 percent bitter greens, two percent green beans, and one percent carrot. A few days later, I dropped by Yigit Pura's Tout Sweet, where I had to reconcile a beautiful beet, orange, candied walnut, and grapefruit salad with the six-inch-long field greens that accompanied it.
Too many chickpeas. Tired, ubiquitous "field greens." Not enough chicken. My list of salad pet peeves could go on and on. What are yours?
After years of taking the reins regarding my family's Thanksgiving meal, I'm playing more of a supporting role this go-around. I'll be spending the holiday with my boyfriend's parents, and while I'll be toting along a festive 
Blustery winds and looming overhead clouds have left me with soup on the mind. I may be biased (I'm a stalwart soup supporter), but I'd argue few foods are more comforting and, in many cases, easier to prepare than a warm and cuddly bowl of the stuff. While I may flirt with 
While sweet and salty are obviously sought after in the food department, bitter's a flavor that gets a bad rap. True, there's a sort of astringent quality to bitter foods that can make them unpalatable when served plain, but everyone has a different threshold for bitter foods. 
One sunny afternoon, I baked a salty-sweet lover's dream of a tart. When it came time to document my hard work, I asked my boyfriend to man the camera as I added finishing touches. With our eyes on photo composition, we set the tart on the windowsill. He turned to show me the pictures, and managed to clumsily nudge the tart pan clean out the third-story window with his elbow. I burst into tears, devastated that my afternoon's labor was for naught; he apologized profusely and jogged down the stairs to assess the situation (and likely escape my petty wrath). He returned carrying the gory tart remains and the mangled tart pan, and a few salvaged bites of the tart calmed my frazzled nerves. In the end, all was forgiven, but not forgotten. 
While I appreciate the freedoms of adulthood, sometimes I have a hankering for a morning watching weekend cartoons while munching on a bowl of the sweetest cereal that would pass parental approval. Now, I’d wager that the true parental divide is as such: those who would and those who would not allow sugary cereal in their house. While my mom was staunch in her disapproval of Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, French Toast Crunch (RIP), etc., my dad was a bit more permissive on that front.
While Summer's lush produce and frozen treats are fine and dandy, my heart belongs to those in-between months, Fall in particular. Why, you ask? Autumn unleashes a plethora of culinary riches: peak harvest season, 
Making kombucha, fermenting kimchi, or cultivating mushrooms: they are all 
To be quite honest, I'm not much of a camper, so when I do venture out into the woods, I make certain to pack an ample variety of treats to keep my spirits up and the smiles coming. While 
make it into my duffel without fail, they pale in comparison to my favorite camping treat of all: ooey-gooey roasted marshmallows. Roasted marshmallows may seem simple — boring, even — but I can't get enough of them, especially when they're toasted up just the way I like them: with a crisp, pale golden-brown shell and gooeyness throughout.