This is it: the final countdown. The movers are coming Wednesday, we’ve donated tons of books and cookbooks, and today we clean out the fridge and freezer.

We’re only moving two blocks away, so I’m being a little dramatic about the size of this move, but we’ve lived in this carriage house in Boerum Hill for three years so there are a few sentimental pangs as we bid it goodbye. I’m also really excited to cook in my new kitchen which I’ll be showing you soon. Spoiler alert: it’s green and white and the pantry has aquatic life wallpaper.

So first things first: fresh corn polenta.

If you’ve never made fresh corn polenta, stop what you’re doing now, go get some fresh corn, cut the kernels off the cobs, and put them in a blender and puree until smooth.

Then heat a little olive oil in a pot, add the corn mixture and a little salt and turmeric (for color), and stir on medium heat until it thickens up.

That is the best thing you can possibly cook at this moment as we transition from August to September: it’s summery and autumnal all at once. And it positively explodes with corn flavor. If you like videos, here’s the how-to on Instagram:

As you can see, I topped it with fried eggs, chili crisp (to counterbalance the sweetness), and some parsley for color. But you can pair this fresh corn polenta with anything: the spatchcocked chicken below is a great choice.

Okay, get this: on Thursday night I started making tomato sauce to use up the remaining dried pasta that I had in my pantry only when I opened the pantry, there was like 1/8th of a box of dried penne. D’oh!

So I did what any rational person would do in this situation: I spontaneously made fresh pasta from scratch.

It sounds like an epic thing to do at six o’clock at night but I just whipped up King Arthur Flour’s recipe: 1 3/4 cups semolina flour, 3/4 cups of pizza flour (I just used AP), 1/2 teaspoon salt, whisked together. Then, instead of using a food processor, I cracked three eggs into the center of the well of flour, slowly incorporated them with a whisk and then switched to my hands, adding water (3 to 4 tablespoons) to help it come together.

Then after kneading it into a smooth ball, I wrapped in plastic for 30 minutes to rest, cut it into four pieces, and ran each through my pasta attachment for the KitchenAid until I could see my hand through the sheet, then cut them into papparadelle. I boiled just until they floated then added to the tomato sauce. Easy peasy (haha).

For the green beans, I cooked in salted water, shocked in ice water, then flash fried in olive oil with lots of garlic. It sizzled loud enough to scare Winston.

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Now let’s talk chicken. Specifically the best spatchcocked chicken I’ve ever made.

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Get this: my friend Sophie and her husband Harry had us over to their house for dinner on Tuesday night. Sophie cooked up lovely roasted yellow peppers with anchovies, a salad from her parents’ garden, and a pasta with homemade zucchini pesto.

My job was to bring dessert. Easy-peasy!

I recently bought the book Sift by Nicola Lamb — a truly gorgeous, useful baking book; one that belongs in any home baker’s library — and decided to choose a recipe from it. I selected the Miso Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies because… duh. Who wouldn’t want that?

The recipe was so alluring because of the surprising flavor combinations but also: the recipe made five large cookies. You heard that right: a cookie recipe that produces FIVE. LARGE. COOKIES.

I texted Sophie to see if she wanted five giant cookies or 10 regular-sized cookies and she texted back, “FIVE GIANT OF COURSE.”

First step? Make the miso-glazed walnuts.

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Hello from the mad scramble that happens one week before you move.

What you see above is my everything drawer. I’m embarrassed at how chaotic it looks: microplanes and measuring cups and immersion blenders, oh my. So first things first, I cleaned that out and got rid of a few things to donate (jar holders, I no longer need you). Here’s the after picture — you neat freaks will breathe a sigh of relief.

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Now on to the pantry where we have half-full containers of almonds and coconut flakes and white chocolate chips. These, obviously, won’t be going on the moving truck; so I decided to do the next best thing. I made Clean-Out-the-Pantry Banana Bread.

Pretty right?

It’s very loosey-goosey: you could throw in regular chocolate chips, pecans, dried cherries, peanut butter chips (are those a thing?), let your imagination run wild.

I fed a slice to Craig and he said: “It tastes like you threw everything from the pantry in here.” Exactly!

Clean-Out-the-Pantry Banana Bread

But it’s not enough to cook my way through the pantry; I’ve also got to cook my way through the fridge. When you move do you take 1/4-full jars of chili crisp and maple syrup and apricot jam? We’re only moving a few blocks away.

That said: I found myself with a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes, some zucchini, yellow squash, and eggplant. So what did I do with it?

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Hi there! We’re two weeks out from moving to Cobble Hill.

They say that moving is one of the most stressful things a person can do and now I understand why: it’s not so much the packing or going through everything, it’s the anticipation. Those of us who like to nest — pretty much every home cook and most people reading this — understand the importance of setting up your nest. And when your old nest is going bye bye, you want to race to the new one as soon as possible so you can make things cozy so you can feel snug as a bug at home again.

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All we can do in the meantime is go through things and get rid of stuff. We have piles of books we’re going to put on the street on Saturday morning for eager readers to snatch up (my version of paying it forward). Now it’s time to tackle the kitchen. And that’s why I’m starting with my pots and pans.

The Superheroes

There are four items that always sit on my stovetop and they are my anchors, the pots and pans that I use the most.

The star: my Le Creuset Signature 7.25 quart Dutch Oven in Caribbean Blue. My parents got it for me when we first moved to Atwater Village and I’ve used it to make everything from making Bolognese to beef stew.

Then there’s my old war horse, my oval Flame-colored 6.75-quart Le Crueset Dutch Oven which I’ve had since the dawn of the internet. It’s so aged and so loved it has black spots all over it: the sign of a pot well-used.

Most often I use it to boil pasta while making a sauce in the blue one (see my spring cacio e pepe) but it’s also perfect for projects that don’t require a giant Dutch oven. Making jam. Simmering vegetables. Searing meatballs. I love it.

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The silver pot is my All-Clad Stainless Steel 4-quart pot which is so shiny and pretty and just makes me happy when I use it to make oatmeal or soup or to cook quince, as one does.

And finally there’s my yellow teapot from Crate & Barrel that I bought years ago (I can’t find it on their website, though the company is Chantal). I use it every time I boil water which is not that often (mostly when I’m drinking tea).

My Favorite Non-Stick Pans

I bought this Oxo 12-inch fying pan/skillet after seeing them use it on America’s Test Kitchen and wow do I use this pan. In fact, I used it tonight instead of a wok to make eggplant in garlic sauce (I can toss the veg in the air more easily in this and it doesn’t give off smoke from stuck-on bits). It’s perfect for quick sautés, pancakes, eggs, you name it. I genuinely use it for everything.

If it’s omelettes I’m after, I’m loving my Zwilling 8-inch frying pan for its size and its slick surface.

Even after using it for many months, my omelettes never stick when I make them (a quick spray of Pam is a good insurance policy) and they’ve never looked better. Don’t credit the chef; credit the skillet.

Then, of course, there are my Lodge Cast Iron Skillets which are practically indestructible.

I use them for everything from frying chicken to making upside-down cakes to eggs on a green blanket. They’re that versatile.

Metal Pans

I’ve had this large All-Clad Stainless Steel Sauté Pan with a Lid since before I met Craig and what’s great about it is that you can develop a fond on the bottom when you brown your chicken or your meat or anything else that benefits deglazing to make a sauce.

Like the duck breast with grapes that Melissa Clark taught me how to make in Secrets of the Best Chefs, for example; you build up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan, deglaze with balsamic, then add fruit. It’s sublime.

Then I have my smaller All-Clad frying pan (8-inch) which I first encountered in Rebecca Charles’s kitchen writing that same book. She uses it to cook fish: probably because it gets really hot really fast and it perfectly holds one filet.

It’s also really good for toasting spices or toasting oatmeal for a single portion.

The One for Sourdough

My mom bought me this Staub Dutch Oven during the pandemic to make sourdough bread (remember that?) and every so often, when I get the urge to do it again, I’m glad that I still have it.

The Pots and Pans That I’m Giving Away

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Most people treat a recipe the way that Linus treats his blanket: they try to work up the courage to put it down, but as soon as they do, they start wailing.

So let’s do this calmly.

Take a look at this eggplant and tomato pasta with mozzarella that I made last night for dinner. (Video here.) It has all the makings of a traditional Pasta alla Norma — eggplant and tomatoes, for starters — but the way that I put it together was anything but traditional.

I roasted the eggplant instead of frying it in tons of oil. I used tomatoes from the farmer’s market. And, most shocking of all, I used fresh mozzarella instead of the traditional ricotta salata.

What gave me the mozzarella balls to do that? Where does this confidence come from? Or is it even confidence?

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School just started in Florida, where my niece and nephew live, and therefore even though we’re in the heart of summer, I feel fall encroaching. I associate school with fall… sorry! But there’s another sign fall is coming: I’ve been noodling on my blog again. For some strange reason I always do that at the end of summer.

What you have to understand about me and my blog, which I’ve been doing since January 2004 (!!!) is that I never understood the technical aspects of things. Even last year, I had to hire a designer to help set things up because I could barely figure out how to upload a banner image.

But now that there’s A.I., I’m able to ask it questions as I go along. Why does the “Subscribe” button shift to the left when I look at the page on the phone? (Which it still does, I’m working on it.) Should I make the homepage static and shift the blog elsewhere? How does that affect things? What’s a query loop? What’s a stack? How do I make things orange?

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So I’ve been playing with it all last week — this might be linked to anxiety about the move (I’ve also been frantically playing video games: I beat Hades two days ago) — and I kind of love what I’ve created. It feels cozy and fresh but, most importantly, it makes it easier to access my 20+ years of archives.

And also easier to add new recipes. Speaking of which, I made a real banger this week that I’m definitely making again: Joshua McFadden’s Barley Salad with Beets and Plums, which I served with scallops on Tuesday night.

The combination of plums and beets is so winning and appropriate for that summer-to-fall transition I’ve been talking about, plums being a summer ingredient and beets being a fall ingredient, more-or-less. We loved this so much we had it again for lunch yesterday and added goat cheese. That was pretty fab too.

Click the button for the recipe:

Barley Salad with Beets and Plums

If you want more recipes appropriate for this time of year, here are a few of my favorite August recipes from the archives:

The World’s Best Crab Cakes

Craig’s dad Steve has been making these for years with fresh Dungeness crab they catch on Eliza Island in the San Juan Islands near Bellingham, WA.

Whole Lemon Strawberry Sorbet

That’s right: a whole lemon goes in here! The recipe’s from The River Café cookbook and it’ll have you puckering up for more.

Roasted Halibut with Burst Cherry Tomatoes and Salsa Verde

I made this last summer and loved the bright sauces that pepped up a perfectly cooked piece of fish.

The Fluffiest Coconut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

My friend Ryan loves coconut cake and I made this one year for his birthday and I think he was pretty impressed.

You can explore more of my blog recipe archives here and also don’t forget the rest of my recipes that live here in the newsletter for paid subscribers.

Speaking of which, I have to tell you about this miso corn I made…

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Hey everyone,

Did you miss me? After our frantic/stressful hunt for a new apartment near our neighborhood (see: here) I needed some time off and what better way to take time off than our annual trip to Provincetown?

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For those who don’t know Brooklyn, we currently live in Boerum Hill which abuts two other neighborhoods: Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. The three neighborhoods are so closely linked that people shorten them to BoCoCa, which is funny because I went to high school in Boca. My memoir will be titled From Boca to BoCoCa.

It’s been a very hectic few weeks (months?) since we made the decision to leave our lovely little carriage house to find something a little more practical for two middle-aged men and their dog.

The Carriage House was great but it was growing prohibitively expensive, especially since the whole point of living in New York is to be out and about seeing shows, eating dinners, going to museums, etc. The older I get, the more that I want to spend money on experiences rather than things. Craig agrees.

But we didn’t want to move until we found an equally stylish, slightly smaller place with a fabulous kitchen. I can’t tell you how many hours, days, weeks, and months I spent checking StreetEasy for just the right place. Like I’d literally write a sentence of my new novel then bop back over to StreetEasy to see if anything new popped up. It was a real estate slot machine and I was the little old lady with the cigarette dangling out my mouth, sunglasses on my face, and blisters on my fingers from pulling that lever one-too-many times.

Then I won the jackpot. I found n 1100 square-foot, ground-level apartment in a historically-landmarked Townhouse two blocks from Cobble Hill Park. There’s room for our piano and shelves for our books and a gorgeous garden planted by the landlord’s late mother. Most importantly, the kitchen has so much character: it’s green-and-white and there’s a pantry with sea creature wallpaper. The stove has gas burners (score!), there’s plenty of counter space, and tons of natural light from enormous windows.

Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures during our tour because the situation was so competitive. A lot of people wanted this place! Either it was our enthusiasm for it or the fact that Winston is so cute, but we came out on top and now we’re set to move in on September 2nd.

Needless to say, there’s still lots to do: arrange movers, set-up electricity, pack my cookbooks (oy!). But now you know why it’s been a little quiet around here.

Next week we’re taking a well-deserved vacation to Provincetown and when we’re back, the packing/selling of furniture will begin. If anyone’s in the market for a mostly-new Peloton and/or a queen-sized bed with nightstands from CB2, let me know.

Here’s to our new life in Cobble Hill!

Yours from BoCoCa,

Adam

Hey everyone,

Things are light and summery around here and with all of my gym-going and protein-prioritization I’m down seven pounds. That wasn’t my goal, of course, but it’s a nice side effect of having to exercise five days a week to slow the progression of The Big P. (Welcome to the club, Carly Simon.)

I’ve talked already about how the diet feeds the exercise and the exercise feeds the diet but one thing I haven’t talked at all about is how all of this is making me more social. Parkinson’s is the gradual loss of dopamine receptors in the brain, which is why so many people with Parkinson’s struggle with depression, which also explains why exercise is so key for it — it helps make up for that loss.

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And the results, for me, have been personality-shifting. I used to think I was an extroverted introvert (well, technically, I still am because I lose energy when I’m around people… sorry!) but now I think a lot of my anti-social tendencies were due to a lack of dopamine.

We’ve been taking this town by storm this July. Above you’ll see a pic from Saturday night when we ran into our friends Rachel Shukert and Isaac Oliver at the play Birthright starring our pal Hale Appleman, who’s fantastic in it.

On Wednesday last week we saw The Odyssey which gobsmacked me with its scope and its efficiency — those three hours whizzed by. (I’ll never look at a pig the same way again.) Afterwards, we spontaneously went to Borgo which was a little embarrassing because I was in shorts and a t-shirt but it was worth it for this ravioli.

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What else? We went to Sawa for the first time and they literally make the pita in front of you which is pretty hard to beat.

And the labneh you dip it in? Almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

Same for the baba ghanoush.

Finally, I fired up the grill last week and grilled swordfish for the first time, along with some runner beans (coated in oil) and a peach (same). This is my kind of summer meal.

Gearing up to go to Provincetown next week, so taking care of lots of last minute business here so I better run.

Hope your July was as fun as mine was!

Until next time….

Your pal,

Adam

Sometimes when I’m introduced, a friend will say: “This is my friend Adam. He’s a chef.”

I kind of bristle at that because (a) a real chef would scoff at that very notion because (b) I’m not trained in any way and (c) I’ve never cooked in a professional setting due to the fact that (d) I make my living as a food writer, not a chef!

That said: I have my moments.

Tonight I came up with a dinner on the fly that was just a little bit inspired, if I do say so myself.

Part one was super simple: I made an heirloom tomato, peach, Persian cucumber salad by cutting up those ingredients, as seen above, adding some sliced red onion and dill and tossing with three tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon of syrupy balsamic vinegar, plus a large pinch of Maldon sea salt, and a few grinds of pepper.

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The inspired part came after I lifted the salad on to plates.

There was all this liquid left at the bottom of the bowl. I thought: what if I reduce it — with all of that sweet tomatoey, peachy goodness — and use the reduction to glaze the salmon?

So that’s exactly what I did. I started the salmon in a cold cast iron skillet, skin-side down, until it was sizzling. Then I placed it in a 450 oven until it was mostly cooked through. Finally I turned on the broiler, drizzled on the reduced syrupy salad dressing, and broiled until it got some color.

Pretty, right?

My one mistake was that I wound up pouring the reduced salad dressing over the salmon and slowhed a bunch of liquid into the pan which screwed up the crispy skin I’d worked so hard to achieve.

Ah well: the salmon tasted amazing and my husband had a tear rolling down one cheek as he said, “I’m so glad that I married a chef.”

Okay, there was no tear and he didn’t say that, but if he did I wouldn’t have corrected him. Because this was one fab dinner.

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That’s all for today, folks!

Your pal,

Adam

Call it counterintuitive, but it hit 99 degrees yesterday in New York and I decided to make soup.

What would drive a sane person to do that? How about an abundance of corn, tomatoes, green beans, and squash crowding the refrigerator. Plus a bag of Rancho Gordo Cranberry Beans that’s been sitting around for months.

The definition of “minestrone” varies, but to my mind it’s any soup with an abundance of vegetables, some kind of beans, and maybe pasta (this one was pasta-free).

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So whose recipe did I follow? I didn’t. I followed my instincts.

Step one: I cooked the dried cranberry beans separately so it didn’t make the soup murky. Just rinsed them off, put them in a pot of cold water, added salt, brought it to a boil, let it boil for 15 minutes, lowered to a simmer, and cooked for about 90 minutes until the beans were creamy. No other flavors needed.

Then in a large Dutch oven, I sautéed a chopped onion, some carrots, celery, a few cloves of garlic, and a red chili with a pinch of salt.

When that was soft, I added two large red tomatoes that I cut into cubes.

Another pinch of salt, then I let those break down a bit. Next it was cubed squash and sliced string beans which I kept about 1 to 2 inches long, plus more salt.

Looks pretty good, right?

Once it was all coated, I added boiling water to cover and simmered ever so gently. Remember: the name of the game was getting the texture right. Not mushy!

As I cut corn kernels off the cobs, I had a sudden impulse for how to add extra corniness to the proceedings.

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Our friend Stewart moved to Philadelphia after Covid with her husband Arun and their daughter Gloria and ever since she’s been urging us to come visit.

It was one of those things that never quite worked out until this past weekend when we were able to sneak away on the train. Did you know it’s only a ninety minute train ride from Moynihan Train Hall to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station? I did the crossword puzzle and we were basically there (it was a Friday puzzle so it took a while).

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On night one, we hit up Suraya, a Lebanese restaurant that was one of the most recommended by my followers on Instagram. And it lived up to the hype!

Though the food was somewhat familiar — hummus and labneh and muhammara and baba ghanoush (in reverse order above) — it was the presentation that knocked me out. And the pita was made fresh and served hot in paper bags.

For my entree, I had the pomegranate molasses coated lamb which was a taste of lamb-y heaven.

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We were lucky enough to stay with a charming friend of Stewart’s, Nathan Winkler-Rhoades aka @pizza.nathan, who joined us for coffee the next morning at ReAnimator (a hip, eclectic spot in West Philly). Here he is with Stewart and Arun’s bright and spunky young daughter, Gloria.

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Nathan isn’t just a consummate host; he also slings up some of the best pizza in Philly at his food truck and now his brick and mortar spot, Pitruco. Here’s Gloria modeling the signature Margherita pizza which had the perfect balance of crispy chewy crust, tart tangy tomatoes, and creamy bufala mozzarella cheese.

We also had the spicy garlic pizza (glad I had some gum to chew after!) and the mushroom pizza with porcini creme and taleggio.

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Fueled up on pizza, Stewart, Craig, Gloria and I headed to The Barnes Museum, one of the most highly-recommended museums in a city full of amazing museums.

The thing about the Barnes is that it’s the personal collection of Albert C. Barnes who had only one stipulation when he left his art behind: that it be displayed the way he had it on the walls of his home.

So at the Barnes you’ll see Van Goghs pressed up against Cezannes dangling above Miros and so on. The collection is so overwhelmingly thorough — I’ve never seen so many Renoirs in one museum — you could spend a whole day in just one room.

From The Barnes, Stewart dropped Gloria with her dad to watch some kind of soccer game (?), and we all met up again for wine and oysters at Supérette.

Sitting outside the bright and sunny wine bar and market was a treat. They were also watching a soccer game inside… so weird!

We’d put our name in at Sao, the sister restaurant to the highly-celebrated Mawn, then got a message that their power had gone out, so that was off the table.

I casually thumbed through Resy and saw that Palizzi Social Club — a spot that requires a membership and is almost impossible to get into, according to our hosts — had a reservation in the bar upstairs.

We showed up wondering what would happen. Would they care that we weren’t members?

You go in that door and like something out of a cartoon or an old mob movie, you buzz a buzzer and a sliding eye hole opens and they check you out before letting you in. (I found this picture on the internet, but it’ll give you the idea.)

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Once inside, they said normally you have to already be a member, but they let Stew become one for $20 and before we knew it we were ushered upstairs to a glitzy room where a mellow band was performing some jazz standards.

Palizzi has some strong rules about sharing images of their club online:

So I won’t share any images (sorry). All I’ll say is that my white negroni — which had mezcal in it — was the best cocktail of the trip. And the room and vibe were truly memorable. Worth all the hoopla.

We left hungry (there were only snacks upstairs), so we headed to another highly-recommended spot: Le Virtù.

Their most famous dish is the one that you see Stewart holding up in the top picture: Maccheroni alla Mugnaia, aka single-strand pasta with peperoni cruschi oil, garlic, peperoncino, and pecorino.

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Honestly, this was one of the best bites of pasta I’ve had in a long, long time. The noodle had the perfect chewy texture and then the chilies and cheese and oil offered up so much flavor and salinity and crunch. And it was all one noodle! Luckily Stewart shared.

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Yesterday, we grabbed more coffee at ReAnimator and then had our farewell meal at Cleo Bagels, a celebrated new bagel spot also in West Philly.

The bagels at Cleo are expertly made and come with creative toppings. Like my whitefish salad on a toasted everything bagel came with romaine lettuce and crushed potato chips.

So much for only eating protein and veggies this month!

We called an Uber, said goodbye to our Philly friends, and before we knew it we were back on the train to New York and home with Winston a two hours later.

The moral of the story is: if you live in New York, you absolutely must spend a weekend in Philadelphia. There’s so much to recommend it and, as Nathan pointed out, we barely scratched the surface.

Thanks Nathan, Stewart, Arun, Gloria, and the city of Philadelphia for a fantastic weekend. Can’t wait to come back.

Your pal,

Adam

The other day I was walking along Front Street in Dumbo, near my gym, when something caught my eye outside of a Sweetgreen.

Alice Waters, the doyenne of all things local and one of the pioneers of the farm-to-table movement, put her name on a Sweetgreen salad. Why in the world would someone of her stature do that? After a quick Google search, I see that she did it to raise money for her Edible Schoolyard project which, fair enough.

I guess it startled me because the salads at Sweetgreen are profoundly mediocre. How do I know? Because I eat them. Here’s the Chicken Sesame Crunch salad that I had just this week:

The ingredients are fresh. The dressing is decent. And yet something always feels off about them. What is that something? It took me a while to figure it out but now I can state it clearly: a human touch.

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Do you ever wonder what food writers really eat?

I wonder about it all the time. Especially the food writers who have impossibly-svelte physiques and rich over-the-top recipes. There’s a disconnect there that underscores a profound truth that I’m only now discerning: the buttery croissants, the fried chicken sandwiches, the platters of cheesy nachos form only the tiniest fraction of these writers’ usual diets. Their day-to-day habits involve exercise and lighter, more slimming fare and they treat these culinary diversions as “work.” Many of them even give their food away or, worse, throw it away. How do I know this? I’ve seen it happen!

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And while all of this may be obvious to you, it was never obvious to me. I really took people at their word that they were really eating what they were cooking. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a household where nobody cooked (not a criticism, just the truth) I was seeking more than just instruction from my cooking heroes when I first started out. I was seeking guidance on how to really feed myself and feed my family (aka: my husband, Craig).

So when I saw Lidia Bastianich pouring glugs and glugs of olive oil over a pasta already stuffed with cheese or Ina Garten using six sticks of butter and two packets of cream cheese to make her coconut cupcakes (really!), I didn’t think that was a special occasion thing, I thought it was how people really ate every day. And I fed myself and Craig accordingly.

So if you’ve been following me for years, you’ve probably wondered — as my mother always did — how I could cook with so much butter and so much olive oil and so much salt and so much cream with nary a concern about calories or cholesterol? Well, my doctor put me on statins five years ago, so that covers the cholesterol part. As for the calories, I’m only now —at age 47 — really learning how calories work.

At rest, the body burns between 1300 to 2000 calories a day. So if you don’t exercise and you’re eating an almond croissant for breakfast, a turkey club for lunch, and a spinach lasagna for dinner, you’re putting thousands and thousands of extra calories — aka, energy — into your body than it can’t possibly use. So it stores it as fat.

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Again: “Thank you, Master of the Obvious.”

But calorie consciousness flew in the face of the Epicurian lifestyle I was indoctrinated in when I first started out as a food writer. The edicts were clear: Fat is flavor. Season your food like a chef. Be generous with the cheese, the butter, the breadcrumbs. Bring on the wine, the sausage, the coconut cream pie.

So what changed? When did I start talking about calories in my newsletter? How many of you are hitting “unsubscribe” at this very moment?

Well, as you may already know, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s last May and the primary advice I received from every source — from my neurologist to my doctor to my friends who also have Parkinson’s — is to exercise, exercise, exercise. And do you know what makes it hard to exercise? Eating way too many calories, feeling logy, and not wanting to get off the couch.

I used to think I could still eat whatever I wanted as long as I exercised. It took me this many years to realize that while that may technically be true — there are plenty of food writers (especially food critics) who consume rich foods on the daily and then spend three hours a day at the gym — it makes it much, much harder.

So what’s my new strategy? You can see it in all of the photos above. Protein + a vegetable for dinner every night. During the day it’s Siggi’s skyr for breakfast (did you know that I once hung out with Siggi?) with berries and a smidge of granola; then a protein-packed smoothie for lunch if I’m in a rush or a salad with chicken if I’m not.

Then for dinner I get to be creative with the simple prompt of: choose a protein, choose a vegetable, and maybe add a healthy grain like quinoa or brown rice, etc.

Instead of being limiting, it’s actually liberating. As you can see by all of the examples, I’m having lots of fun with this. And the premise behind eating protein is that it fills you up more and replenishes the muscles that you break down when you lift weights, which I also started to do. I’m also trying to integrate more fiber, hence the sweet potatoes (though I could do better).

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Have I completely cut bread, alcohol, and dessert out of my life? Absolutely not. I’m just more mindful of how much of it I eat and have shifted those categories from an everyday occurence to an every-so-often thing.

So, in conclusion, don’t think of this as: “Adam went and joined the dark side!”

Think of this as: “Adam is showing you the reality of what 90% of your favorite food writers are probably already doing, they just think it’s too boring or un-clickable to share with their readers.”

And on that happy note, it’s off to the gym….

Your pal,
Adam

It’s 91 degrees right now in New York, supposed to hit 99, and still I might go to the gym?

This is the new me, an identity shift that started in early June, wherein I joined a fancy gym and committed to going five days a week. I’ve been consistent every week for four weeks — adding weights along with the cardio I’m doing for my Parkinson’s — and this we…

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In the world of proteins, I’ve pretty much tackled them all (well at least the biggies). Rack of lamb? Child’s play. Roast chicken? I could make it in my sleep. Tempeh? Well, tempeh’s another story.

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On my desktop, I have two journals: a Life Journal (sorry, it’s private!) and a Book Journal (also private, except for you lucky readers of this newsletter).

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Normally, I do a round-up of everything I read in a given year at the end of December as a sort of “year in review.” (See: The Books I Read in 2025, The Books I Read in 2024, 2023, etc.)

But since it’s summer and reading season is upon us, I thought I’d share my Book Journal a little early so you can get some inspiration. There are a few beach reads in here and a few that I definitely wouldn’t read at the beach (Dante’s Inferno, for example, unless it’s really hot).

So without further ado, here are the books that got me through 2026 so far and my thoughts about them….

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (Finished at the end of December but didn’t log it until January)

The story of Hamnet is the story of being married to an artist. Yes, it’s about grief and loss and marriage and family, but the arc of the novel is of a woman who’s fallen for a poetic soul, who clings to that soul and creates three children with that soul, and when one of them dies, she blames him for not being there because he’s off making plays in London. And it’s that fact that propels the ending: what could this man possibly be doing when his family needs him so desperately in Stratford? The answer to that question not only gives the book its title, but it completes the story’s arc: that poetic soul has used his and his wife’s grief to create the greatest work of art in the English Language. The book is magical and wispy and moving and artful; the movie is visually stunning, but it spoiled one of my favorite things about the novel: the holding off on revealing the Shakespeare of it all until the very, very end. Still, both are moving and capture something heart-wrenching about the unimaginable loss of a child.

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Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Finished January 9^th)

I really try not to be hyperbolic these days but I’m sorry, this book is one of the best books I’ve ever read. When I was in grad school the thing the teachers tried to hammer into me – and it’s the one thing you can’t really teach – is to try to write from a vulnerable place. Shuggie Bain is raw – like the kind of raw you feel when you scrape your knee and it’s really, really bleeding – and yet it’s also the salve and the Band-Aid. The book concerns the life of a young gay kid growing up under horrible circumstances in Glasgow, Scotland. If that sounds too bleak, the book is somehow full of humor and warmth and the central relationship – between Shuggie and his tragic mother, Agnes – is one of the most beautifully rendered mother-son relationships in literature. I’m jealous of anyone who gets to read this book for the first time and I won’t ever forget it.

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It’s a funny thing about cooking: the only real way to learn is to fail. Fail, fail, fail, and fail again.

And I’ve failed so many times — see my blog archives — that I inevitably became a very good cook. Believe me, it wasn’t a natural born gift, I just really liked eating and that’s the only prerequisite. Enjoy eating, try …

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Happy Friday, everyone!

Instead of a normal cooking/eating/dining post, I’m here to answer your most burning questions in the comments. Nothing is off limits.

To get the ball rolling, here are some questions I’ll ask myself.

What's a dish everyone swears is easy that you still somehow manage to ruin?

Great question, Adam!

Okay, I have my answer: anything tha…

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Hi there.

I had so much fun this past weekend popping into Three Lives (my favorite bookstore) and seeing the paperback of Food Person on prominent display.

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