Vernal family farms fava beans

My colleague Mike Vernal recently invited us to his house and we were sent off with a bag of fresh fava beans. Nothing says spring better than fresh fava beans and English peas. I have quite a few English peas recipes (Risotto with English Peas, Linguine with English peas, preserved lemons, and pancetta, Chilled English…

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Romano bean and potato curry

This dish can pass for Indian cuisine although the inspiration behind it purely Bulgarian: I just substituted the sweet paprika in the original Bulgarian recipes for curry. This is the kind of vegetarian stew that I grew up on.  Beans, lentils, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, okra, Romano beans, were cooked in endless combinations and variations, commonly known as gyuvech (гювеч). 

Risotto with dungeness crab

As I promised in the original risotto post the possibilities are endless.  Dungeness crab risotto is fresh,  luxurious and indulgent dish.  I have to say that I was introduced to Dungeness crab by our dear friend Wendy who has been hosting us for crab night for years.  I learned from her that the California Dungeness crab season is during  the “r” months: November to April.

Quince Jam

Quince fruit is inedible raw but it makes a great preserve, and jam, and of course, membrillo. My grandmother used to make quince jam. You probably assumed she was a great cook who inspired my cooking passion. In a way she did… because she hated cooking and was an atrocious cook, so someone in the…

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Whole fish “La Rosetta”

This dish is my attempt to reverse engineer a recipe from the La Rosetta restaurant in Rome. Saal and I went there for the first time in 2008 on a recommendation from my friend Luben Dimcheff, and it was one of those meals you remember. We went back with Luben and my parents in September…

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Banitza – a Bulgarian classic

Banitza (also known as bоrek in Turkish, and tiropita in Greek) is a phyllo dough pastry with eggs,  feta cheese and lots of butter.  It is one of the few dishes that small kids and adults delight in equally.

Duck breast with lavender and honey

This recipe is something I recently reverse engineered from an old memory. In the distant summer of 2000 I visited my dear childhood friend Gergana in Narbonne – in the south of France, and she took me to a seasonal restaurant in middle of a vineyard called Le Souquet’s. I had magret de canard au…

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Thanksgiving feast

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday – I fell in love with it when my college friend James MacLachlan took me to my first Thanksgiving celebration at his family’s home in Mechanicsburg, PA in 1991. My idea of time well spent is cooking all day, and Thanksgiving is a good excuse to cook for 2…

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