Author Archive

Liberate Yourself from Takeout with Purple Kale Kitchenworks

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 by Adriana

Ronna Welsh making chilled soup at the Green Market.


For me a two-minute dinner prep usually means slicing up a cucumber and rumaging through the refrigerator for leftovers, but for Purple Kale Kitchenworks owner and chef Ronna Welsh 2 Minutes to Dinner is a system that helps busy parents use chef techniques to put creative, healthful meals on the table within minutes.


Actually, 2 Minutes to Dinner is the companion blog project to Ronna’s Purple Kale workshops, where she teaches an exciting new way to improvise in the kitchen (with free-flowing wine in her 43 square-foot kitchen, no less). The method isn’t about your typical 30-minute meal. (See Michael Ruhlman on how the quickie meals mindset is killing cooking.) Rather, it’s a method of front-loading a lot of the prep work of cooking when you have time instead of doing everything from scratch in that 30 minute window between getting home from work and the hungry-child meltdown. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Food & Drink

Parents Need to Eat Too

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 by Adriana



Corn, Zucchini and Tomato Saute



There’s a saying that having a baby is like throwing a grenade into your marriage. I’ll let the other bloggers here take that one on, but I do know that having a baby can be like throwing a grenade into your culinary life. If you also happen to be simultaneously trying to make a living so you can keep a foothold here in Park Slope takeout starts looking more and more attractive. But you don’t have to throw in the kitchen towel, says Debbie Koenig, a writer in Williamsburg. She teaches a cooking class for new parents called Parents Need to Eat Too and is currently writing a cookbook by the same title. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Food & Drink

What To Do With All Those CSA Vegetables

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 by Adriana

Rubarb! Kale! and Chard! Oh My!


It’s that time of year, everyone! Time to start picking up a box of fresh, delicious, locally-grown produce from your CSA. There in the box you will find your vegetables, looking virtuous and healthy… and maybe also a little daunting. What, exactly, are you going to do with all that kohlrabi?


It’s the classic CSA conundrum. You want to support local agriculture and eat healthy, but you don’t know what to do with all the kale. And the guilt you feel seeing it all wilt in the crisper–it’s so depressing. I’ve done a CSA in the past and this year I’ve been subscribing to Basis Foods–not a CSA but similar in that every week I pick up a bag of produce not of my own choosing. It’s been great overall, but I now have three bunches of radishes languishing in my refrigerator. I’m living for the day someone starts a Local Orbit hub in Park Slope so I’ll be able to select my own vegetables. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Food & Drink

Beyond the Kids’ Menu

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 by Adriana

Farro Risotto


Remember the manufactured brouhaha a couple weeks ago over Fornino opening without a kids’ menu–and then capitulating to parents’ demands and adding one after all? I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought 1) all this over ONE GUY’S review on Yelp? and 2) hey HEY hey, aren’t pizza and pasta already kid foods? We took our son to the Williamsburg original a few months ago and he had the $9 Margherita pie–which my husband helped him finish–just like when we go to kids’-menu-less Franny’s. I’m with Park Slope parent and blogger Grace Freedman in believing that kids can benefit when you skip the kids’ menu altogether.

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Posted in Around the Slope, Food & Drink, Parenting Culture, Uncategorized

“You always cook what you want to eat…”

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 by Adriana



the offenring meal

The Offending Meal



“…and you never cook what I want to eat!”


This is what my six-year-old son wailed the other night when I presented him with dinner: a potato, zucchini and cheese frittata. I thought Jasper would appreciate the egg (we like scrambled eggs, yes?), the potatoes (potatoes are okay) and the cheese (total cheese fiend) and just overlook the zucchini (controversial). But, no. Somehow all of these ingredients together managed to conspire against my son and convince him that the sum of their parts was too horrible to face. And so, despite my attempt to feed my family a nutritious meal that would appeal to both kid and adult palates, yet another dinner had dissolved into grief and despair.

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Posted in Around the Slope, Food & Drink