T. Susan Chang
T. Susan Chang regularly writes about food and reviews cookbooks for The Boston Globe, NPR.org and the Washington Post. She's the author of A Spoonful of Promises: Recipes and Stories From a Well-Tempered Table (2011). She lives in western Massachusetts, where she also teaches food writing at Bay Path College and Smith College. She blogs at Cookbooks for Dinner.
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For many, Thanksgiving will be the first holiday where family gathers since the start of the pandemic. We offer some cookbooks that aim to keep meal prep easy, so there's more time for loved ones. -
This year's cookbooks point to big dreams, and a kind of comfort with concepts once considered the province of professional cooks.
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2014 was a year for faraway cuisines to take up residence in U.S. kitchens — cookbook authors cast their nets for flavors from Paris, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and points in between.
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Jennifer Lin-Liu's On the Noodle Road takes readers on a journey along the former Silk Road, looking for the origins of the noodle. But reviewer T. Susan Chang says that the book gets tied into knots when the quest turns cold.
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A simple addition can coax an ordinary fruit salad into another dimension, one with texture and depth instead of just a rainbow spectrum of sweetness: nuts.
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If you're the sort of person who thinks nothing of a midnight turn on the dance floor, you can handle mixing up a simple dough or cracking a couple of eggs while the moon sets sail across the sky. Then, when morning comes, flip on the oven or stovetop, and sip your coffee smugly while breakfast essentially makes itself.
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This subtle relative of bitter chicories may masquerade among the lettuces, but it's not just for salads. Sturdy escarole stands up to a saute, simmer or braise; with heat it seems to mellow and ripen in flavor, growing only sweeter for the ordeal.
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It takes a few leisurely hours to draw the magic out of meaty beef bones. Boiled at length, they produce a savory base for all sorts of soups, from borscht to pho.
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Some of the comfort foods we crave when the weather starts to cool require a lot of time and effort to get to the table. But these simple fish dishes offer warmth, autumnal flavor and the soulful reassurance of a full-bodied broth — without all the effort.
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At this time of year, most gardeners have too much of a good thing. What to do with it all? T. Susan Chang offers some tasty breads you can make in the blink of a baker's eye.
