Cooking

It’s that time of year when return-to-school activities are ramping up. Parents, kids and school staff are increasingly focusing on preparations for the approaching school year. Registrations, launch conferences, purchasing school clothes and supplies, transportation and meal planning, obtaining physicals for athletics and renting a trombone for the aspiring marching band musician in the family. The to-do list can seem endless.

There is no escaping the sense that we are living in the era of peak protein, a moment in time in which reverence for the macronutrient borders on religion.

During summer in my hometown of New Orleans, it can be sweltering even at 7 a.m. But I don’t sweat it. I’ve whittled down the time it takes for me to get out of bed and prepare my morning cold-brew coffee to a record low. Fill a cup with ice, splash in some concentrate and water, and I’m good to go.

We all have our favorite takeout foods. It’s always a pleasure to prepare them at home. Here are three of my all-time favorite takeout burgers and sandwiches, which I don’t make nearly often enough.

My most recent takeout experience at Chipotle – one of our teenager’s favorite sources of quick food – didn’t go so well.

Summer is picnic time, with its welcoming weather, lush greenery and active wildlife. It’s the perfect time to enjoy the many large and small parks around us. Picnics provide an opportunity to ease our mental gears and momentarily escape the usual rigors of our busy lives. Picnics aren’t uniquely American, although we Americans have undoubtedly set the record for distances traveled to picnics, given our obsession with automobiles and our appetite for travel.

My lovely wife, Gina, has been trapped in the kitchen for the past three weeks, working hard to keep up with all the baking needs. She looks tired. I feel like I should feel more guilty about it, too, but I don’t. In truth, it pleases me to see her sidetracked with a hobby that doesn’t detract from those of my own. I don’t say this to be mean, but after years of distractions from my own projects to complete Honey Do’s, or impromptu tasks that suddenly spring up as urgent necessities, I feel elated with the possibilities the current situation presents.

There are few types of food, let alone sweets, that everyone can agree on. But if I had to pick one with widespread, if not universal, appeal, it would be rustic, nostalgic and casual baked fruit desserts. You know the kind: best served warm, ideally with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and easily made with whatever fruit you have around.

A multilayered dip with eye-catching appeal is always an attention grabber at a gathering, drawing everyone to it. And it carries a conversation-starting spirit of discovery, because while each layer is visible, the best way to find out what they’re made of is to dig in and explore.

The first time I heard the phrase “your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” it was uttered by my father at Luby’s Cafeteria in San Angelo, Texas.

Summer is swiftly rolling along, and Independence Day is just ahead. Planning and preparations are in full swing. Many will be traveling over an extended three- or four-day holiday weekend. It’s America’s 250th Independence Day. A lot can happen in 250 years, and a lot has. We still have much to celebrate and be thankful for, irrespective of the turmoil we see around us. So, relax, celebrate and be safe this Fourth.

Some of Hawa Hassan’s earliest sense memories are the smell of burning tires and the sound of crackling gunfire.

Sandwiches are one of the most prolific assembled foods on the planet. If sandwiches were an animal species, they would be right up there with ants for being adaptive, industrious and wildly successful. Like ants, sandwiches can lift a hundred times their weight and can thrive virtually anywhere, in one form or another. Sandwiches are portable and frequently carried to work, school and picnics. They’re the perfect provision for all sorts of outings.

For years, whenever I invited people over for a meal, it was a Big Production. I favored showstopping dishes, such as bo ssam or sides of poached salmon with elaborate mousseline sauces. Even regular dinner parties sometimes had themes.

I’ve found writing these introductions to be educational. I’ve learned about St. Patrick’s business with the snakes and Bronx slang for “hold the mayonnaise.” I plan to use that if I ever order a hot dog from a street vendor there.

When I first came across Italian rice salads, I was listening to the radio. On “The Splendid Table,” my friend and food journalist Russ Parsons was talking about them to cookbook author and chef Rolando Beramendi, and I was captivated.

Italy is recognized as the birthplace of pizza, that incredible edible disk of toasted bread crowned with cheese and other toppings. Proto-pizzas trace back to the early Roman Empire. Initially, pizza consisted of wood-fired flatbread, frequently topped with olive oil, salt, cheese and garlic. It may surprise readers that the first pizzeria to open in ancient Rome is thought by a few to have been a small shop in Pompeii displaying an ancient Latin inscription above its doorway, “vis colligendi pizzae,” or “the gleaning power of pizza.” I know, the similarity is amazing! Gleaning was a big thing back then, and this is the earliest known writing suggesting the Romans believed that nearly anything could go on a pizza.

While some people mark the start of spring once they spot the first asparagus of the season at the farmers market, for me that moment arrives when I spy strawberries. Plump and glistening, the berries have an aroma that’s like a siren song: I’m powerless against it.

When my best friend, Robin (plus her husband, Aaron, and their toddler daughter, Nora) moved from D.C. to Chicago in August, our in-person meetups were replaced by intense text threads or long phone conversations. We chat about day-to-day life, like everyone else, but we also frequently recount and dissect meals we cooked and/or ate.