I’ve been looking for the ideal lemon bar recipe for ages.  Over the years, I’ve made bars with fabulous citrus zing and bars that held their shape when cut, but only rarely did I get both in the same pan.  More often than not, the very best tasting bars never set properly and I ended up chilling them to the edge of freezing before cutting. Or I’d just slurp up the soupy center squares with a spoon.

Leave it to Martha Stewart to solve the problem.  I found these luscious squares in “Martha Stewart’s Cookies,” Clarkson Potter, 2008, one of the best cookie cookbooks in my experience.

These bars are bright and fresh tasting with just enough mouth-puckering tartness to satisfy a real lemon lover.  Yet they’re also firm enough to slice into perfect squares when cooled. (more…)

As far as I’m concerned you can never have too many cookbooks.  My own collection spills out of bookcases in two rooms, upstairs and down.

Shelf space is at a premium, though, so I’m fairly selective about what I add to the collection these days.  A cookbook has to bring something new and unique to the kitchen before I give it a home.  I don’t need another compendium of Italian standards or repackaging of old cookie recipes and I’m hesitant to add a book from a cuisine I rarely cook because the ingredients are such a challenge to find.

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Bakers, fire up your ovens.  Cookie season is upon us.

In the coming weeks, even people who usually buy their cookies in packages will be pulling mixers out of storage and dusting off baking sheets in preparation for their annual fling with butter, flour and sugar.   For some, it’s enough to recreate the chocolate chip cookies from their childhood, working from the recipe on the back of the Nestle Toll House package.   Others will spend hours decorating fanciful shapes cut out of buttery shortbread or pressing spritz cookies onto baking sheets.

Every year, I try to add a new cookie to my repertoire.  This season, it’s cucidati, elegant filled cookies originally from Sicily that I first tasted at Lupretta’s Delicatessen nearly a decade ago.  At that time the family business was still located on Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose.  It moved to the village of Saratoga a few years later but recently closed its doors. (more…)

We eat green salads year-round at my house, but they become even more popular at this time of year, when the produce is gorgeous and temperatures jump into the high 80s.    Many a warm evening I abandon the stove altogether and throw together a huge salad for dinner.

Usually a simple vinaigrette is my first-choice dressing for a pile of impeccably fresh greens,  heirloom tomatoes and whatever else catches my eye at the farmers market.  Lately, though, I’ve been playing with more elaborate dressings to turn even the most basic salad into a memorable meal.   This updated Green Goddess dressing has become a favorite.

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I’m heading north — to Alaska, no less. It’s the ultimate road trip, more than 3,000 miles of asphalt one-way through some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world. We’ve been fantasizing about it for years and making preparations since January.

Before we left,  I baked a batch of these extra nutty peanut butter cookies for the drive.  You never know when you’re going to find yourself starving, miles from the nearest grocery store or restaurant. And I like to rationalize that there’s at least some protein in these big, crunchy cookies to tide us through a long day on the road. (more…)