I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but after more than seven feet of snow pounded us last winter in Connecticut, I miss it. Sure, the entire back of the house was destroyed by ice and took weeks to repair. And, yes, it’s true, the bushes out front still haven’t recovered. But I miss snow. So does The One. We’re snow freaks. I think it comes from a cellular-level aversion to humidity. He grew up in the steam oven called Baltimore, and I, the South Coast of Massachusetts, where Narragansett Bay is fond of making it near-impossible for clothes to dry on the line in August. The minute the weather gets sticky, on goes the central air conditioning and in the freezer go our heads.

But our utter adoration of all things cold is more than DNA deep. Part of our snow fetish is what we do while it’s piling up. That’s when we pad into the kitchen, The One in his saggy plaid pajamas, his rooster hair sticking up, and I in my baseball cap. I grab a cookbook and languorously flip through it while he roots around in the fridge and the pantry. What we really want to make, though, is what I’ve dubbed Blizzard Beef. It’s a dish that we tackle only when the three acres of woods out back turn into a swirling wall of nature’s equivalent to Wite-Out. In other words, true to the recipe’s name, a blizzard. Sadly, with the exception of a marvelously freak storm in October, which I missed because I was in Indonesia, this year we’ve had nothing more than mere pathetic dustings. Our brand-new KickAss 14,000-watt generator never got a workout.

Still it’s hard not to get hopeful when weather forecasts grow fantastically ominous, causing ripples of anxiety that send our Roxbury neighbors to Costco for bottled water, rock salt, and 100-ounce bags of Doritos and tubs of hummus. While other people cancel plans, we make menus. Lots and lots of menus. Deep-dish French toast for breakfast. Coq au vin for lunch. Daube for dinner. After all, you never know when foolhardy friends, sans generator and facing empty shelves at the supermarket, just may need food, lodging, and some measure of civility and frivolity for a few days.

Blizzard Beef, on the other hand, is something we reserve for us. No sharing. Ever. It’s our tradition. I don’t even know the dish’s real name. All I can tell you is the recipe is from The One’s family and owes much to Pennsylvania Dutch frugality. It calls for three ingredients: beef chuck steak, Worcestershire sauce, and water. The beef is seared almost black on all sides, then water and several very healthy glugs of WS are poured into the pot. It’s left to its own devices to slowly, gently burble away over the wee-est of flames for hours–usually three or so in all. (Here’s a video we made several years ago on the eve of a real storm.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n80VHgp-js8

Those hours when we’re puttering around the kitchen, singing to Dream Girls and waiting for the Blizzard Beef to be done, are when the meat and liquid start to tango, Argentine style. The beef begins to break down, giving itself over to the charm and wiles of the sauce. Emboldened, the Worcestershire begins to concentrate, leaning in with a sharp vinegar-y tang which the beef can’t resist. And if you close your eyes, you can detect the impish scents of lemon, cloves, and pepper, each of which also seduces the meat–and me, for that matter. After several hours, the beef’s resistance is gone. It can be skewered with sharp objects and makes no objections. The Worcestershire sauce has claimed another lover.

(Excuse me while I take a moment to gather myself.)

This past weekend, The One and I were snuggled under the quilt on the couch, with Chloe, our Persian, burrowed somewhere in its folds, watching TV when the local weatherman interrupted  to warn of us of a “storm of potential significance.” The way things have been going, we knew what that meant: at best a heavy frost. The One looked at me. He didn’t have to say it; I knew he had Blizzard Beef on his frontal lobe.

But could we, really? In such undistinguished weather? It felt as if we were breaking some time-honored tradition, like wearing white after Labor Day. Or watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and not yelling at the Broadway production numbers. Blizzard Beef without a blizzard. It was now or never. So with the temperature hovering in the mid-50′s, we toasted the spoilsport that is global warming and tucked in.

I wasn’t going to bother posting this. But maybe somewhere, someday, you’ll be lucky enough to get caught in a blizzard with only beef chuck steaks, Worcestershire sauce, and water and will need to do some kind of MacGyver cooking. If so, here’s your dish. It’s so simple, there’s not even a recipe. We always serve it up with over-the-top (read: tons of butter, cream, and love) mashed potatoes and some kind of green as an attempt to feel virtuous.

P.S. This morning I woke up to six inches of white happiness on the ground–the most I’ve seen in a year. The forecast says rain this afternoon. But for now, I’ve got my chuck searing, so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Instant Entertaining | HarperCollins Publishers, 2010 | Serves 4

Who couldn’t use a savvy, sophisticated, assemble ahead of time, eat-your-veggies strategy? And here it is. Simply tuck veggies in parchment paper along with a slice of lemon. Then set them aside until you’re a few minutes away from dinner, casually slip them into the oven to cook untended, and then watch as they’re unwrapped at the table to a chorus of oohs and aahs. Suddenly those green beans or asparagus spears aren’t so humdrum, huh? (Confession: I think of this as a sort of Cracker Jack, given the surprise that awaits. And I always keep a stash of unbleached parchment paper, preferably white rather than brown, on hand so my parcels portray a pretty aesthetic.) –Renee Schettler Rossi

LC Fancy It Up Note: These parchment parcels function not just as a rote recipe but as a bendable blueprint. Follow your fancy and…

• Vary the vegetables, adding baby bok choy or sugar snaps or bean sprouts or thinly sliced carrots or whole scallions or, well, you get the idea.
• Slip in other aromatics in place of lemon, such as herbs, lemongrass, or a slice of ginger.
• Swap olive oil for a splash of white wine or sake, or maybe even a splash of soy sauce and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.
• Strew the vegetables with other flavorings, like chopped olives or sesame seeds.
• Turn it from an easy-clean-up side to a no-clean-up meal by adding a fish fillet and maybe some thinly sliced potatoes. Allow up to 30 minutes or so for cooking.

Active time: 10 minutes | Total time: 25 minutes

Steamed Veggies in Parchment Parcels Recipe

Directions

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James Oseland | Saveur: The New Comfort Food | Chronicle, 2011 | Serves 4

Chef Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune restaurant in New York turned us on to this simple, classic Italian preparation. Baking fennel in the oven with cream and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese makes for a luxurious gratin with a delectable caramelized top.–James Oseland

LC Spoiler Alert Note: No fewer than 13 of our testers–a baker’s dozen–rushed to make this simple, satiating, stunning side dish. And then each of them gushed about it. If you’re not quite convinced it belongs on your table and are the type who doesn’t mind a movie review giving away the ending, by all means, skip ahead and read the reviews below the recipe before making it. But bear in mind, it’ll just delay your gratification.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiNGkA1-H1o

Active time: 10 minutes | Total time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Fennel Baked in Cream Recipe

Directions

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Say “Valentine’s Day” and bam! two traditions immediately pop into my mind. Those tiny candy hearts we all grew up with and the heart-shaped hamburgers my mom used to make to commemorate the day.

My mom—the best mama on planet earth—was not what we’d refer to these days as a crafty or Etsy type of mom. This was, after all, back in the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar ’70s. She worked full-time while raising us four kids. (So did my dad, but that’s another story.) Still, her mothering was impeccable and expansive and she was always there for us, even if she wasn’t, you know, always there for us. I think it’s pretty cool that all these decades later, that juicy little patty of a memory is still intact and still delights. And what a totally simple thing, right?

Because it tends to be the wee small things that become our cherished refrains, I’m gifting to you some brand new (yet still super duper simple) versions of those memorable candy hearts and burgers. These everlasting Handy Candy Hearts (pictured above) are ready for you to just print and hand out. You’ll find specific messages for mates, offspring, and unrequited crushes. And this Home Sweet(heart) Home video spotlights five easy ways to say “I love you!” with food. Prep time for each is about, oh, four seconds.

And here is one more way to proclaim your love. You could literally shout it from the rooftop!

I hope you have a very sweet Valentine’s Day. And please, would you let me know in 20 years if any of these ideas morphed into lingering memories for your family?  :)

amy k.r.

David Leite | The New Portuguese Table | Potter, 2009 | Serves 6 to 8 as a side dish

Your first thought when you saw a side dish of onions, chestnuts, and bacon was Thanksgiving, right? Well, the Portuguese don’t celebrate the holiday, but they do grow  plenty of chestnuts. When something is as vital to the local economy as chestnuts are to the Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro region, people find plenty of ways to cook and eat it throughout the year. While living in Portugal, I had chestnuts in soups, bread, and dessert, but I’d never had them tossed with onions and bacon, as they are in this dish adapted from a recipe by chef Michel da Costa. It makes sense. The nuts are an excellent foil for the saltiness of the bacon and the caramel sweetness of the onions.

Not surprisingly, it makes for a crowd-pleasing Thanksgiving side dish and will be on our table this year. Again.–David Leite

LC Know Your Chestnuts Note: This recipe calls for cooked chestnuts, which you can find in a jar or vacuum-packed bag. Those gorgeous nuts you see in big bins this of year are a pain to roast and peel, but more than that: they can be starchy tasting. If you have the luxury of both jarred and vacuum-packed chestnuts, picked the jarred. Fewer broken casualties that way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q-r2dowH74

Sautéed Onions, Chestnuts, and Bacon Recipe

Directions

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1. In a large skillet, cook the bacon over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the fat has rendered and the meaty bits start to crisp, about 12 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain.

2. Meanwhile, fill a bowl with ice and water and set aside. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Drop in the onions and blanch for 30 seconds. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and plop them into the ice water. To peel the onions, snip off the tip and remove the papery outer layers. Set aside the onions.

3. Raise the heat under the skillet to medium, plonk in the onions, and sauté in the bacon fat, stirring occasionally, until spotted with brown and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the chestnuts, cooked bacon, and honey and toss to warm through, being careful not to break the nuts–they’re fragile. Season with salt and plenty of pepper and then scoop into a decorative bowl. Sprinkle with the parsley.

David Leite | The New Portuguese Table | Clarkson Potter, 2009 | Serves 12 to 14

This orange-olive oil cake was, without a doubt, the hardest recipe to develop in The New Portuguese Table. Cindi Kruth, one of my recipe testers, and I made 13 versions of it until I knew it was as good as the recipe I got at Papas, the tiny restaurant up the hill from my apartment in Lisbon. The problem was—and I have no idea if this was intentional (you know how some cooks can be)—but they gave me a recipe for a classic chiffon cake. Yet their mighty bolo de laranja was dense and rich, and just one slice could satisfy even my appetite.

Friend and Portuguese food scholar Janet Boileau was smitten with the orange-olive oil cake and also went to work trying to figure it out. In the end, it took a call to the wonderful Lisbon chef Fausto Airioldi to help me get a handle on the dessert. He agreed with me that this was no stinking chiffon cake. It was too full of the bold flavors of Portugal. So, that’s when Cindi and I started from scratch, literally. Several weeks later, we came up with this. And if you had a chance to stop by one of my book signings, you would have had a sample. It’s what I always serve, and people always ask for, when I’m fending off those huge lines of three and four fans.—David Leite

LC Atenção Note: Make sure to use a light-colored Bundt pan. A dark one will turn out a cake that sticks and is unpleasantly brown. The pan David uses is the Nordic Ware’s Anniversary 15-cup Bundt Pan. And since this orange-olive oil cake only gets better with age, don’t even think about taking a bite until the day after you make it, or even the day after that.

Active time: 20 minutes Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Orange-Olive Oil Cake Recipe

Directions

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Editors of Phaidon Press | Recipes From an Italian Summer | Phaidon Press, 2010 | Serves 4

Summers in Italy can be extremely hot, and many people prefer to eat simple food, and often a one-dish meal, in order not to have to spend too much time in the kitchen. However, they still want something tasty, appetizing, and refreshing. This Italian summer dish of spaghetti with raw tomatoes, called spaghetti al pomodoro crudo, is ideal for this purpose. This recipe is simple, casual, quick to prepare, and works perfectly as a light lunch or supper.—Editors of Phaidon Press

LC Summertime…and the Cooking is Easy Note: Although the title of the book implies that this is an actual recipe, it’s actually something much less—and, at the same time, much more. It’s a basic blueprint, a lesson in summer simplicity, that grants you autorizzazione to make it your own. Love garlic? Sliver the cloves rather than leave them whole to ensure a more pronounced oomph. Don’t have basil? Maybe you don’t need it. The only requirement is that your rendition demands minimal effort. After all, it’s summer. And it goes without saying—in Italian or any language—that this ought to be made only with proper pomodoros, maybe even heirlooms. And preferably from the greenmarket. None of this hothouse business or you’ll be disappointed. Trust us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RajcbguIZRs

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 20 minutes.

Spaghetti with Raw Tomatoes Recipe

Directions

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The third and final installment of the great afternoon of grilling with Jamie Purviance triptych was the one I was looking forward to the least. Not because I was tired of Jamie. (But, boy, was I tired—just look at what 10 hours of shooting can do to a guy’s hair and the bags under his eyes.) No, I was dreading it because the subject matter is the bane of almost every skilled griller I know: fish.

Historically, whenever I grilled fish, most of it ended up dropping through the grates and getting incinerated—each piece slowly shriveling up as it turned a blacker shade of charred. After these marine Joan of Arc moments grew too numerous—I mean how many patio autos-da-fé must a man witness before he gets the hint as to his lack of affinity to fire and fish?—I simply walked away from anything aquatic. I figured if I were to singe anything, at least let it be something solid that I could chase around the grill with a pair of tongs, like grilled steak or fire-rostissere chicken.

But during our last video of the day, Jamie taught me three important things. (Well, he taught me plenty of important things, but if you remember just these three, you’ll be able to stand facing your grill with a grate full of fish and not quiver. Too much.) First, use high heat. Second, the 70/30 rule. And third, the Zen of fish cookery–that’s me trying in vain to practice it in the photo above.

The use of high heat
What blew me away was that high heat—upward of 500 degrees—is the right temp, especially for salmon. It sears the fish, helps it hold together better, and creates great grill marks that result in it releasing easier. Lower heat, which I always thought was best for such a delicate protein, actually causes the flesh to stick worse than your aunt’s thighs on plastic car seat covers. And sticking flesh is what causes you to lose your mind when you try to flip your fillets.

The 70/30 rule
The 70/30 rule is something chefs use. It means to cook the fish for 70 percent of the time on the first side—the flesh side—and then to flip and cook the skin side for 30 percent of the time. Again, this reduces stickiness and keeps the fish juicy. Oh, and it lets you pull off what is without a doubt the coolest grill trick of the season: removing the fillet whole while leaving the skin on the grill. Boo-yah!

The Zen of fish cookery
This is the hardest of the three major points for me to put into practice. It’s all about becoming one with the fish and having patience—that sort of thing. (Hell, I have a hard enough time becoming one with myself, let alone joining forces with my meal.) But rushing things on the grill, especially something as delicate as fish, will only end up with the dog (yours or a neighbor’s) surreptitiously slinking away with your dinner that you chucked across the yard out of utter frustration.

Need to practice the practice of Zen cookery? I do, I must admit. Until I’m able to roll that beautiful piece of salmon as suavely as Jamie does in the video, I’m turning to these recipes—Grilled Red Snapper Tacos, Grilled Swordfish Puttanesca with Fennel and White Beans, and Portuguese Grilled Shrimp with Hot Sauce—kind of like recipes with training wheels.

Video by Inextinguishable Productions.

In  chapter two of  the continuing saga of my backyard grilling session with Jamie Purviance, I learned the tricks and subtleties of making a rotisserie chicken. The reason I insisted Jamie divulge all of his poultry pointers is that The One and I have been devouring rotisserie chickens (AKA RoChix) from Citarella in New York, two blocks from our apartment, for years. They’re so tender and packed with flavor, we knew we had to figure out how to cook them—even better.

After tucking into RoChix from other places for comparison, one major difference surfaced: Citarella brines their birds. So that’s what we wrassled with first. We tried all kinds of combinations of herbs and spices, as well as varying salt amounts, until we finally hit upon what comes closest to (and some of our NYC guests swear is even better than) Citarella’s: lots and lots of thyme, a handful of garlic cloves, a bit of rosemary, a pittance of whole black peppercorns, salt, and sugar. (Interestingly, Jamie commented that adding sugar is unusual for chicken brining, but we found that it helps give the bird an incredibly crispy golden-brown skin.)

After we seared the brine recipe into our brains, we began knocking these suckers out of the oven left and right. But we realized a lot of chicken-y goodness was being left in the pan. (We took a page from Ina Garten’s book—literally—and tossed homemake croutons with the pan drippings to great affect and copious rounds of applause.) But still that didn’t solve our dilemma: The more fat and juices that dripped off the chicken into the pan, the less juicy and flavorful the bird. Plain old physics, right?

To fix that, we bought a vertical rotisserie (What can I say? Counter space was at a premium.)—which proved to be a bust. All those incredibly chickalicious juices just sluiced off the bird, leaving the top utterly dry and stringy. That’s why when I bought the Weber Summit S-670, I made sure it was kitted out with a rotisserie.

On the appointed day, with rotisserie saber in hand and forks at the ready, Jamie showed me how to truss the chicken, slide it onto the saber, secure it with the forks, and let it rip. Because it’s a horizontal rotisserie, it bastes the bird in a continual bath of goodness from stem to stern as it rotates.

After about two hours in the Weber “sauna of flavor,” theRoChix was evenly cooked, bursting with juices, and had crispy, beautifully browned skin. And this was no one-off. Since Jamie’s visit, The One and I have made RoChix again and again and again—to even greater applause. (Flowers have yet to be thrown at my feet, though.) While the bird is resting on the cutting board, all that’s needed is to pop an excellent bottle of wine, grill some veg-edibles, drag the table into the middle of the backyard, and dinner is served.

P.S. All right, I’ll admit it, I’m showing off a bit here. (But you would, too, if you had a rotisserie worthy of the gods.) I can assure you don’t need one to make fabulous grilled chicken. Try Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Wings, Grilled Chicken and Red Onion Quesadillas, Grilled-Roasted Chicken. But do yourself a favor and brine it first. It makes a whopping difference.

Video by Inextinguishable Productions.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but it seems whenever I leave the comforting confines of my kitchen, with its dependable six-burner Viking stove and terribly erratic Dacor oven (which I’ve come to learn to anticipate its mood, much like a human barometer), and venture out into the backyard, I’m suddenly struck dumb. It’s like being in the hinterlands, and I have to be MacGyver, using a pair of pantyhose, wooden sticks, and an ignition switch from a dilapidated 1967 Thunderbird convertible to light the grill.

That’s why this year I decided to buy a Weber Summit S-670. Now, this beauty, which is the size of a Smart Car, has every bell and whistle a grillicionado could want: six burners, a sear station, smoker, rotisserie, and even a side burner, which I haven’t yet figured out what I’m going to make on it.

Why the midlife-crisis purchase? Well, The One and I aren’t exactly what you’d call grilling masters; we’re more like Grilling Idiots. We were so bad at cooking with open flames that we finally gave up and let our old grill die a slow, rusty death. It became one of those things that you come to accept as part of the landscape, and, in the end, simply ignore. That is until one day The One decided to risk Lyme Disease and went out back to make some burgers. All of a sudden I heard the piercing scream of a little girl followed by a heavy metallic BANG, which catapulted me from my desk and out into the backyard. Visions of guns and blood-splattered pinafores danced in my head.

“Get it out of here!” yelled The One, pointing to the grill. “Get it out!”

“What are you talking about?” He just stood there pointing at the grill. I looked around: no little girl. No blood. That ungodly sound came from him!

I slowly lifted the lid and inside was a fuzzy little mouse nest with four baby mice so young their eyes weren’t even open. The momma mouse reared up on her back legs, her small black eyes daring me, just daring to do something to her offspring. Now it all made sense. The One has a lifelong mortal fear of mice (and just about any other small animal, including squirrels, bats, rats, and gerbils).

“Turn the gas on!” he pleaded. The last thing I was going to do to these four innocent creatures and their momma was exterminate them. So, being the dono that I am (that’s Portuguese for owner, but in my family it has come to mean “kind papa to animals”), I wheeled the grill to the very back of our property, where it remains four years later, acting as a condominium to generations and generations of mice families.

The new grill, which we’ve nicknamed Brunhilde, has enough dials and knobs to rival the cockpit of a 747, and could be just as daunting. (Of course, there’s something called an instruction book, which I consider to be nothing but polite suggestions.) So when I discovered my friend and grill master Jamie Purviance was going to be in the area promoting his new book Weber’s Way to Grill, I asked him to visit and show me finally how to grill well. Over the course of an afternoon, he led me through steak grillery, chicken rotisserie, and how to ace the most demonic of all grilling challenges: cooking fish.

So sit back, enjoy Jamie’s years of grilling know-how. Oh, and in case you doubt his prowess: Since his visit, I’ve made major kickass ribeye and T-bone steaks, a sizzling chuck steak, out-of-this-world brined rotisserie chickens, perfectly grilled vegetables and fruit, and awesome toasted bread, which I used to feed the latest family of mice in the condo. Once a dono, always a dono.

Hungry for a great grilled steak? Look no further.
New York Strip Steaks with Black Pepper, Onions, and Garlic
Beef Tenderloin Filets with Shiitakes in Morita Chile and Tomatillo Sauce
Rib Steak with Bell Pepper Purée, Cilantro, and Pine Nuts
Delmonico Steak

Video by Inextinguishable Productions.