Summer fruit shortcakes.

Where is it written that a girl can’t bake her own birthday cake? And who says it has to be a quote-unquote cake at all, really? Why not shortcakes, topped with luscious summer fruit? Absolutely. And …

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Fun ingredient of the week: Burrata.

While visiting my brother, Bill, in Chicago last summer, I had occasion to try something new: burrata cheese. It rocked my world. What’s burrata? Imagine that fresh mozzarella, fresh ricotta and cream all partied together. Burrata …

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Pasta with sausage and other good stuff.

In my library of a decade’s worth of old Bon Appétit magazines, I know exactly which issue to reach for: September 1995, the American Restaurants Issue. Page 93. Page 93 is dog-eared, wrinkled from the steam …

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Basic risotto.

We have a Williams-Sonoma Collection cookbook (you know, one of those slim, almost square volumes they’ve published for years) devoted to risotto. We’ve had this since about 1996, and it is thoroughly abused: spine cracked, pages …

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Almond-butter cookies.

My love of peanut butter runs deep, twined in the double-helixes of my DNA. I know this because my beloved grandfather never turned down a handfulorthree of peanuts. Family lore has it that he favored peanut …

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Valentine’s Day cut-out cookies.

What could be more perfect than sharing the love with your sweetie, your family and your co-workers by way of a batch of heart-shaped cutout cookies? Why, frosting them with buttercream icing, of course! This butter …

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Pizza with pretty much everything.

As I was paging through the December issue of Food & Wine over the holiday break, a gorgeous pizza recipe caught my eye: Called Pizza Vesuvio with the Works, it’s from Rustic, the new restaurant that’s …

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Fusilli with shrimp & chicken.

When I was newly married 20 (gulp!) years ago, one of my first acquisitions for our tiny apartment kitchen was a subscription to Bon Appétit magazine. Bon Appétit taught me as much about cooking—and especially about …

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A better Christmas fruitcake (cookie).

I don’t love fruitcake, but I’ve always loved fruitcake cookies. I recall making them as a kid, using a recipe from a special-edition holiday cooking magazine. I’ve no idea what happened to that Christmas fruitcake cookie …

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