If you’re thinking of catering a Mad Men party this weekend with authentic 1960s cuisine, you may want to reconsider—a look at the terrifying stuff that passed for dinner back then offers a clue as to why Julia Child was regarded as such a revolutionary. The following photos are from Betty Crocker’s Dinner in a Dish cookbook, published in 1965, a mayonnaise-slicked, canned-fruit dotted roadmap to an American culinary era thankfully gone by. First among the supper-time atrocities: a “Summer Salad Pie” (above), whose ingredients include lemon-flavored gelatin, tomato sauce, and tuna fish tossed together in a cheddar-cheese pie shell. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re in the thick of barbecue season, which means if you’ve got a patch of earth, deck or roofing tar big enough to hold a grill, a cooler and a few chairs, it’s your civic duty to throw one. Or several. You think we’re going to leave this simple summer pleasure to suburbanites?
If your mind works like mine, right about now you’re considering how much it’s going to run you. And it’s true, entertaining can be a costly proposition. As the gods of thrift would have it, though, many of the staples of backyard barbecuing—beans, coleslaw, iced tea—are built from peasant-level ingredients that can be had for spare change. Read the rest of this entry »
Photos by Marie Viljoen
What if you have a hankering for meat and a vegetarian’s budget? You might consider shopping halal. At the Atlantic Avenue butcher shop where I buy leg of lamb, it goes for $4.50/lb., as compared to $6 to $7 a pound at Fairway and $7.99 at Whole Foods last time I checked. There are some differences between halal lamb and the kind you’re probably used to, and we’ll let you decide how you feel about the slaughter practices.
It tastes a bit different as well—halal lamb is completely drained of blood and it hasn’t been aged, so it’s not that super-tender lamb chop you’re going to grill to a pink medium-rare. This is hearty flesh that responds to marinades, barbecuing, and to slow simmering. Here’s a recipe I came up with…
Read the rest of this entry »
My friend Bill, a writer, tutor and Crown Heights resident, loves going out to bars, events and movies. But like all of us Brokesters, he’s on a bit of a tight budget. So, to help balance his all-important drinking/music/movie habit with the need for food, Bill’s devised a strategy to eat on $15 a week or less.
Bill moved to New York in 2007, after finishing grad school in Philadelphia. He subsisted on frozen Trader Joe’s burritos and boxed mac and cheese until a friend suggested he get a crockpot. Even though his first experiments were a series of cream-sauced, Velveeta-slicked disasters, he discovered the appeal of slow cooking. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re thinking of catering a Mad Men party this weekend with authentic 1960s cuisine, you may want to reconsider—a look at the terrifying stuff that passed for dinner back then offers a clue as to why Julia Child was regarded as such a revolutionary. The following photos are from Betty Crocker’s Dinner in a Dish cookbook, published in 1965, a mayonnaise-slicked, canned-fruit dotted roadmap to an American culinary era thankfully gone by. First among the supper-time atrocities: a “Summer Salad Pie” (above), whose ingredients include lemon-flavored gelatin, tomato sauce, and tuna fish tossed together in a cheddar-cheese pie shell. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re in the thick of barbecue season, which means if you’ve got a patch of earth, deck or roofing tar big enough to hold a grill, a cooler and a few chairs, it’s your civic duty to throw one. Or several. You think we’re going to leave this simple summer pleasure to suburbanites?
If your mind works like mine, right about now you’re considering how much it’s going to run you. And it’s true, entertaining can be a costly proposition. As the gods of thrift would have it, though, many of the staples of backyard barbecuing—beans, coleslaw, iced tea—are built from peasant-level ingredients that can be had for spare change. Read the rest of this entry »
Photos by Marie Viljoen
What if you have a hankering for meat and a vegetarian’s budget? You might consider shopping halal. At the Atlantic Avenue butcher shop where I buy leg of lamb, it goes for $4.50/lb., as compared to $6 to $7 a pound at Fairway and $7.99 at Whole Foods last time I checked. There are some differences between halal lamb and the kind you’re probably used to, and we’ll let you decide how you feel about the slaughter practices.
It tastes a bit different as well—halal lamb is completely drained of blood and it hasn’t been aged, so it’s not that super-tender lamb chop you’re going to grill to a pink medium-rare. This is hearty flesh that responds to marinades, barbecuing, and to slow simmering. Here’s a recipe I came up with…
Read the rest of this entry »
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