Jordan’s Pink Gin and Tonic Catherine’s Gin Rickey Recipes from author Jillian Cantor We don’t see a lot about characters in The Great Gatsby or Beautiful Little Fools eating, but we sure do see a lot of them drinking! Every dinner and every party and every bit of drama is fueled by prohibition-era cocktails. In […]
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Rachel Hawkins: “The Reckless Girl” Punch Recipe for Reckless Girls
Rachel Hawkins: “The Reckless Girls” Punch Recipe “The Reckless Girl” aka The Artist Formerly Known as Danger Punch recipe is so reckless that I only make it once or twice a year, and then only for the Most Special of Occasions, i.e. It’s That One Day In The South Where It’s Hot, But Not Too […]

Claire Keegan’s “Small Things Like These” Christmas Cake Recipe
Claire Keegan’s “Small Things Like These” Christmas Cake Recipe Here’s an updated version of Odlum’s recipe, mentioned in Small Things Like These. It seems to turn out well, every time. The trick, I think, if there’s any, is in getting the oven temperature right. Is there anything lovelier than a slice of Christmas cake with […]

Pati Jinich’s Double-Stacked Shrimp and Cheese Tacos / Tacos Bravos de Toño
Pati Jinich’s Double-Stacked Shrimp and Cheese Tacos (Tacos Bravos de Toño) from TREASURES OF THE MEXICAN TABLE: Classic Recipes, Local Secrets (Mariner, 2021) Tacos bravos is very much in the Sonoran tradition of super-dressed, super-sauced, and super-cheesy shellfish dishes. It’s one of the specialties of Toño Contreras, the owner of Mariscos El Rey in Hermosillo. […]

BAKING WITH DORIE: Dorie Greenspan’s Miso-Maple Loaf
Dorie Greenspan’s Miso-Maple Loaf from BAKING WITH DORIE: Sweet, Salty & Simple (Mariner/HarperCollins, 2021) If I owned a bed and breakfast, I’d make this my signature treat. Sturdy, coarse-crumbed (I say this with admiration) and on the brink of savory, the loaf is reminiscent of many crowd-pleasers. It may make you think of honey cake, […]

THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY: Amor Towles’s Fettucine Mio Amore Recipe
THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY: Amor Towles’s Fettucine Mio Amore One of my best friends growing up was an Italian American named Claudio, who lived in Milan. When we were boys in the 1970s and Claudio would come to New England for the summer, he would be horrified by the American insistence upon drowning all pasta in […]

TRISHA’S KITCHEN: Trisha Yearwood’s Grandma’s Sky-High Biscuits Recipe
Trisha Yearwood: Grandma’s Sky-High Biscuits from TRISHA’S KITCHEN: Easy Comfort Food for Friends and Family by Trisha Yearwood (Mariner/HarperCollins, 2021) My Grandma Lizzie used to make biscuits to go along with every meal. Most often, she made a quick buttermilk biscuit, but sometimes for Sunday dinner she made these high-rise yeasted biscuits. I remember them […]

WHAT YOU WISH FOR: Katherine Center’s Campechana de Mariscos Seafood Cocktail Recipe
WHAT YOU WISH FOR: Katherine Center’s Campechana de Mariscos Seafood Cocktail Recipe My novel, What You Wish For is set on Galveston Island in Texas, the place where I write most of my books, in a sunny little beach house by the Gulf. This is a special story for me. I grew up coming […]

SO WE MEET AGAIN: Suzanne Park’s Korean Mandu (Deep Fried Dumplings)
SO WE MEET AGAIN: Suzanne Park’s Korean Mandu (Deep Fried Dumplings) Recipe In my novel So We Meet Again, Jessie Kim, after moving back home to Tennessee, spends a lot of time cooking with her umma. For many Asian families, food is an expression of love and affection, whether it’s through preparing homemade meals […]

THE BOOK OF LOST FRIENDS: Lisa Wingate’s Buttermilk Pie Recipe
THE BOOK OF LOST FRIENDS: Lisa Wingate’s Buttermilk Pie Here’s a recipe that’s a true time period delight from Hannie’s era —Hannie was a freed slave in Louisiana in 1875. It would also be a favorite in the cafe’s dessert case in present-day Augustine, Louisiana. It’s not a ‘pretty’ pie, but served as a […]