Comfort Food Classics

My neighbor, a retired chef named Mr. Kowalski, watched me one November afternoon as I wrestled with a bag of frozen green beans on my … Read more

It was 11:47 PM on a random Wednesday in February, and I had a very specific, almost aggressive craving for eggnog. Not the carton stuff … Read more

My neighbor Dave wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I’d stopped by to borrow a ladder on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and the smell hit me … Read more

I was hunched over a display case of antique fishing lures, completely absorbed in the absurdity of a hand-painted wooden minnow, when the shop owner—a … Read more

My daughter asked why I couldn’t just stuff everything into muffin tins instead of the bird. I started to explain why that wouldn’t work — … Read more

The neighborhood potluck was in six hours and I’d completely forgotten. I mean, I had it on the calendar, but somewhere between the work presentation … Read more

I was standing in the parking lot of a hardware store last Tuesday, of all places, when the smell hit me. It wasn’t the usual … Read more

Note from the writer: This introduction uses the “friends_kitchen_casual” style. It begins with a specific, mundane reason for visiting a friend’s house, uses the allowed … Read more

There used to be a tiny, dimly lit bistro called The Gilded Onion tucked away on a side street in Portland that made a green … Read more

I wasn’t expecting cooking advice from my accountant, but there I was, handing over tax documents in his cluttered office, when he started describing exactly … Read more