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Articles by Lee White
Lee's Kitchen: Just wait until you try this dessert
All winter, friends have been wailing about winter. When will it be over? Will summer ever come? Others are complaining about the cold. Some have slipped on ice. For me, winter on the Connecticut shoreline isn’t bad. I grew up in Troy, New York. Went to college in Ithaca and Rochester and lived and worked in Worcester, Massachusetts. Even the isolation during the pandemic wasn’t bad for me. I read a lot, I write a lot, I cook a lot, I learned about HGTV. My daughter installed Roku on my television.
Lee's Kitchen: Never tasted tiramisu? Try this Original
Once I turned into the full driveway of Nancy, my daughter-in-law’s, it looks like a party was in progress with four cars and mine made five. As I grabbed a couple of bottles of wine, my big roasting pan with a rack big enough to hold a 25-pound turkey (or a five-pound butterflied leg of lamb), and my overnight satchel. I yelled, “I’m here.” Nancy and two of my granddaughters picked up the now 15-pound roasting pan and we all walked into the kitchen.
A la Carte: Count on Chicken Chili on a Cold Day!
I have four definites before I give you a recipe: I have made the recipe and it was good Someone I knew had made this recipe and gave me the recipe and I understood the intranets and trusted them The ingredients were available or that a substitute would work for you I tinkered with the recipe and felt the tinkering made the recipe even better. This was not the case with the tourtière you read last week.
Lee's Kitchen: Lemony shrimp and risotto on a cold winter day Original
I used to wonder about people who won’t go out if the weather is crappy, especially if it is snowing. I grew up where there is snow most days from mid-November until the end of March. I don’t remember having any snow days, but maybe we did. In any case, I never saw a school bus and, to this day, I have never been on one. From kindergarten until junior high school (now called middle school), I walked to school, came back for lunch, then back to the school until it was time to go home. Walking.
A la Carte: Two New (and Lucky) Soups for the New Year
Luck can be two different sides of a coin. Just a couple of weeks ago, I lost one very good friend, and another very good friend lost his mother. Just three days after that, I went to a birthday party for Jacques Pepin, who is now 86. It was a small party of maybe 14 people. Most of us have known each other for 20 or more years. Jacques’ beautiful wife, Gloria, died just a year ago, while Marty Travis’ husband died less than a decade ago. My husband died 12 years ago.
Lee's Kitchen: Winter is a good time to try tourtiere
Jan. 4—Before the holiday season, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, a wonderful cookbook writer who lives mostly in Maine and visits Italy often, talked about the French-Canadian tourtiere. I made it a few times for my husband but he really didn't like the seasoning. He said the same when I made Cincinnati Five-Way Chili (chili with beans, onions, seasoning, spaghetti and cheese).
A la Carte: Time to Celebrate, Time for Tiramisu!
December 22, 2021 by Lee White Christmas has become a quiet day for me. My own daughter, Darcy, is in California with her husband. Stepchildren are all over the country and their children are, too. My stepson and his wife, whom I adore, are divorced and my daughter-in-law will spend her day with her parents, who are quite old and don’t drive the nearly two hours to get to Newburyport. I won’t be alone, though.
Lee's Kitchen: This tiramisu cheesecake is beyond delicious
Christmas has become a quiet day. My own daughter, Darcy, is in California with her husband. Stepchildren are all over the country and their children are, too. My stepson and his wife, whom I adore, are divorced and my daughter-in-law will spend her day with her parents, who are quite old and don’t drive the nearly two hours to get to Newburyport. I won’t be alone, though.
A la Carte: Terrific (Homemade) Treats to Take to Friends
Column #1 A year ago, a COVID vaccine was my holiday hope to family and friends (and everyone else in the world). I think all we wanted was a vaccine that this once-a-century pandemic could be handled and we wouldn’t have to watch Andrew Cuomo every single morning on television (although we didn’t know then that his final showstopper would be his last ever). By the end of February, I got my first shot and the second three weeks later. Last August I got my booster. So here it is: December, 2021.
A la Carte: A Delicious New Twist on Turkey Left-Overs
November 23, 2021 by Lee White If you are reading this on Wednesday with your morning coffee and you are lucky enough to have scored a Thanksgiving dinner at someone else’s house tomorrow, you are like me. I was asked to make two pies (one apple, one pumpkin), green beans and corn bread. In any case, I will be making these things this evening and all I need to do is show up an hour ahead of the dinner and find an unused counter to stash the pies.
A la Carte: More About Pie, Plus a Tart for Vegetarians
Okay, my friend, Lisa, suggested what I make for Thanksgiving: two pies—one apple and one pumpkin. Easy-peasy. Also green beans and corn bread. I also want to let you know that I am not going away for the holiday, just a short drive down I-95. So, if you have questions, think of me as your own Butterball Hotline. You have my e-mail below the column, so if you have a question between now and turkey day, I’m around. So, today’s column is the last word on pies … at least for 2021.
A la Carte: Three Columns Today: Perfect Pie Crust, Shepherd’s Pie & Ginger Chicken Hash
Is it too soon to talk about pie? I do not think so. Thanksgiving is just under three weeks away. For many years I made the crusts from scratch. The best recipe was given to me by Deb Jensen, who lived in Stonington and had a couple of restaurants in the borough. But before that, she had a restaurant in New York City that, if I remember correctly, was called Pie in the Sky.
A la Carte: Lee Offers a New Twist on Vegetables … With a Bit of a Kick!
A few weeks ago, my refrigerator was filled with tomato sauces and chicken. I had made that huge, seven-pound chicken, which I ate for at least five days (sandwiches, tacos, chicken salad.) As for the tomato sauce, Judy Robertson gave me some from her garden and two other condo friends gave me her mother’s recipe for sauce with chicken while another gave me some topped with her own ricotta-filled shells. Then there was more chicken.
A la Carte: Chicken Tikka Masala Makes a Perfect Meal With Friends
August 18, 2021 by Lee White The isolation, almost a year, actually, didn’t bother me as much as those who had to fill supermarket shelves, teach children at home or lose a job. Because I live alone, I have always pretty much eaten when I want to eat and pretty much eat what I want to eat. But I sure missed the fun of sharing food with friends. So when friends offered to come to my home and cook in my kitchen with food I love but cook rarely, how could I resist?
A la Carte: Need to Slow Down Your Metabolism? Try Auntie Todd’s Slow-Carb Muffins
July 16, 2021 by Lee White Todd Lyon, restaurant reviewer, food writer, all-around great person and fashionista from New Haven, Conn., found that her body had turned its back on her … sort of. She developed Type 1 diabetes. She loved breakfast, but found out that her favorite breakfasts (cereal, toast, pancakes, fruit juice and the like) gave her body a jolt but metabolized quickly.
A la Carte: So You Have Heard of a BLT … Well, Why Not Try a BLT Soup?!
By the time you read this, my CSA (community-supported agriculture) will have begun. Will the farm stand at Stone Acres be filled with the summer’s best of the best? Well, not really. Sweet corn will be a few weeks away (and usually the Connecticut’s first sweet corn comes from the Windsor area) and tomatoes may not available for another month or more.
A la Carte: A New Twist on an Old Favorite with an Unexpected History
Sometimes I try to come up with recipes that have themes or special times of years, such as holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July or Labor Day. But I sometimes I forget, before Columbus landed first in the Bahamas and later on the coast that would become America, that the native Americans were here first.
A la Carte: Cowboy Beans … a Sure-Fire Favorite
I have had the requisite failures in the kitchen, and they may have been legion, but the one I remember happened decades ago and it had to do with baked beans. We lived in our first old house in Leicester, Mass. It had massive stone kitchen fireplaces, this one with a beehive oven. That failure was on a day we invited friends for dinner. It was a cold winter, and we had taken a few classes on hearth cooking. I decided the dessert would be a bread pudding, but I would make it in the regular oven.
A la Carte: Cowboy Beans … a Sure-Fire Favorite
I have had the requisite failures in the kitchen, and they may have been legion, but the one I remember happened decades ago and it had to do with baked beans. We lived in our first old house in Leicester, Mass. It had massive stone kitchen fireplaces, this one with a beehive oven. That failure was on a day we invited friends for dinner. It was a cold winter, and we had taken a few classes on hearth cooking. I decided the dessert would be a bread pudding, but I would make it in the regular oven.
A la Carte: Cowboy Beans … a Sure-Fire Favorite
You are here: Home / Columnists / Nibbles / A la Carte: Cowboy Beans … a Sure-Fire Favorite I have had the requisite failures in the kitchen, and they may have been legion, but the one I remember happened decades ago and it had to do with baked beans. We lived in our first old house in Leicester, Mass. It had massive stone kitchen fireplaces, this one with a beehive oven. That failure was on a day we invited friends for dinner. It was a cold winter, and we had taken a few classes on hearth cooking.
A la Carte: A Special Soup for Summer … Asparagus, of Course!
I had promised to send you my friend Stacie’s flan recipe, but time, as often, got away from me last week. Perhaps I was dreaming about a book I just finished reading, “We Begin at the End,” a sort-of growing up and murder mystery recommended by my good buddy, Rick Koster of The Day. Or maybe I was thinking about a new novel I am reading now, “The Plot,” written by an author whose books I have loved. This one is a novel inside a novel written by an author who is writing a novel.
Lee's Kitchen: As the plot thickens, so does asparagus soup
Jun. 2—I had promised to send you my friend Stacie's flan recipe, but time, as often, got away from me last week. Perhaps I was dreaming about a book I just finished reading, "We Begin at the End," a sort-of growing up and murder mystery recommended by my good buddy, Rick Koster of The Day. Or maybe I was thinking about a new novel I am reading now, "The Plot," written by an author whose books I have loved. This one is a novel inside a novel written by an author who is writing a novel.
A la Carte: Surprise! Creamy Cauliflower Rice with Shrimp is a Winning Combo
I used to write about the surprises I often find in my garage freezer. I used to call it Lee’s Freezer Diary. The truth is that if I kept a diary, perhaps there wouldn’t be surprises, since the freezer often looked like Fibber McGee’s closet. (For those younger-than-me readers, it was a radio show in the 50s and maybe in early television in the 60s.
A la Carte: Pasta, Pesto … and Chicken!
April 30, 2021 by Lee White I woke up to this sun-filled morning and decided that, for dinner, I wanted pasta with the basil pesto I still have from last summer’s batch. I am happy just with pasta, but my body didn’t need, with its still pandemic 20 (extra pounds), five or six ounces of pasta. I wondered if I still had Pam Anderson’s How to Cook Without a Book on how to make a thin chicken cutlet to go with that pasta. I looked in my bookshelf and I hadn’t given it away to the Book Barn.
A la Carte: Celebrate the Season with Spring Green Spaghetti Carbonara
There was snow in parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, according to friends and family who live in those places, but not here (crossing fingers here for the next month or so). But there has been rain, and lots of it, for the beginning of April. Now it has been glorious, except for that night that dropped to 28 degrees. But to me it is spring. I bought a large flat of pansies and a new garden trowel and will put them in my little plot of land in front of the porch. Birds are busy.
A la Carte: A Better Bit of Brisket Made for a Super Seder
It was such a nice seder for Passover 2021. My friend Lisa and Eric invited six of us, all but eight of us vaccinated twice, the others soon to get their second. We played boules for a couple of hours; I hadn’t seen Jacques, the Hopkins or the Yavaris for over a year. In addition to appetizers including home-made latkes, along with gefilte fish and chopped liver, we drank wine.
A la Carte: Smart Spice Veggie Soup Goes Easy on Calories, But Big on Taste
I had such a lovely weekend in Newburyport, Mass., two weeks ago. My granddaughter Casey, a junior at UMass-Amherst, is still in on campus learning in-person, but Sydney, whose 26th birthday we were celebrating, was there, as was middle-granddaughter Laurel, a tennis teacher/elementary school teacher. We all met at my daughter-in-law’s house and my son, Peter (the two are divorced, but still friendly and very involved with their daughters) was there for dinner.
A la Carte: Chicken Adobo with Coconut Rice is ‘Good and Easy’
This was another interesting food and friend weekend. I began the week with a Milton cauliflower pizza, which lasted for two evenings. I also finished up the beef stew topped with some quinoa I’d cooked and refrigerated. I like playing with quinoa. Then I made a sheet pan dinner that also lasted for two night.
A la Carte: Crispy Peanut-Chile Chicken with Sweet Potatoes … to Love!
I was so thrilled with the roasted sweet potato pie I made last week, that I decided to use sweet potatoes again for a recipe I found in an almost-two-year-old magazine I was about to toss. This time the recipe called for chicken and sweet potatoes, with the addition of peanut butter and hot chiles.
A la Carte: Crispy Peanut-Chile Chicken with Sweet Potatoes … to Love!
You are here: Home / Towns / Lyme Old Lyme / A la Carte: Crispy Peanut-Chile Chicken with Sweet Potatoes … to Love! I was so thrilled with the roasted sweet potato pie I made last week, that I decided to use sweet potatoes again for a recipe I found in an almost-two-year-old magazine I was about to toss. This time the recipe called for chicken and sweet potatoes, with the addition of peanut butter and hot chiles.
A la Carte: Crispy Peanut-Chile Chicken with Sweet Potatoes … to Love!
I was so thrilled with the roasted sweet potato pie I made last week, that I decided to use sweet potatoes again for a recipe I found in an almost-two-year-old magazine I was about to toss. This time the recipe called for chicken and sweet potatoes, with the addition of peanut butter and hot chiles.
A la Carte: A Duo of Delicious Desserts for Dreary Days
February 18, 2021 by Lee White As promised, as part of February’s Black History Month, I get a chance to make two recipes for this column. The banana pudding with vanilla wafers has been a favorite for a very long time. As a matter of fact, some years ago I went to a slumber party at Ginger Smiley’s house and we were asked to make our favorite-ever dessert. Mine was a banana pudding. (Ginger, never to be outvoted, blew out the jelly of jelly donuts, added peanut butter cups and shared them warm.
A la Carte: Celebrate Black History Month by Making ‘Peace Through (Puerto Rican-Style Shepherd’s) Pie,’
Even though I was born in New York State, and went to college there, too, I have always considered myself a New England girl. My husband and I met in New York City and we lived in New Jersey for a few years, but as soon as we could, we moved to New England, first to Massachusetts and then to our home in Connecticut. I have always had a subscription to Yankee magazine and we liked two- or three-day weekends much more than going somewhere for a whole week.
A la Carte: Pork in a Pandemic, Roasted with Sauerkraut Gives Lots of Leftovers
The pandemic has certainly made my days and weeks disappear. Has it really been almost 11 months since our children went to school? Last January, would we have understood the phrase “remote learning”? Would we have known what the heck this thing called Zoom is? Most seasons used to involve food. April meant that first sweet radish, sliced thin on sweet buttered French bread. The first salad made with soft Boston lettuce.
A la Carte: Something Different for Breakfast? Try These Savory Muffins
Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have an appointment for my first (and maybe my second) COVID vaccine, although that may not be the case. My last missive from VAMS (Vaccine Administration Management System) says, “Thank you for registering … If you have not gotten that notice … ” How in heaven’s sake would someone know that they had not gotten that note if they haven’t gotten it? In any case, everyone I know has gotten an appointment and has had their first inoculation … but not me.
A la Carte: Baby, It’s Cold Outside … so it Must be Time for Soup!
January 18, 2021 by Lee White It has been pretty cold outside and, for that matter, inside my condo. I keep my thermostat at 60 degrees, until friends are coming for dinner (which doesn’t happen these days because of the pandemic) or coming to watch the UConn women play basketball (my neighbors don’t have SNY network). When they visit, I turn the heat to 65. They wear their puffy jackets and I offer them down throws.
A la Carte: All About Apricots … in a Pie … for Christmas
With Christmas just around the corner, we are probably looking toward another different holiday. In my heart of heart, I believe that our next festive holiday, if not Easter, will be Memorial Day weekend with backyard barbecues and parades with marching bands. I really do believe this. In the meantime, many of us have been cooking and baking for Christmas. Perhaps dinner will be a baked ham with pineapple and brown sugar, scalloped potatoes, Brussels sprouts with bacon and, of course, pies.
A la Carte: Chicken Soup for the Soul … and so Many Other Things!
November 11, 2020 by Lee White Sometimes you make something so easy, and so often, you assume everyone does it, too. That is me with chicken soup. I do buy those quart-sized cartons of chicken soup for the pantry. Sometimes it is low-sodium (which is often a little more expensive) or low-fat (even if we are not sure how low fat is really low). But my mother never bought canned soup, primarily because she only made two kinds of soup—chicken soup from scratch or cabbage soup, made with water.
A la Carte: Zucchini Cake For Now … or Later (It Freezes Beautifully)
Sometimes, I wish I had a garden, but I don’t like dirt or insects. My late husband’s family always had vegetable and flower gardens. My parents could have had a garden, but they didn’t even know what a trowel was, never mind seeding, weeding, picking or cooking vegetables. When I married my husband and we bought our first house, one with a small yard, we had a little vegetable garden. When we moved to Charlton, Mass., we had one that was about a quarter of an acre. That was way too much.
A la Carte: How to Bake an Election Cake!
According to Walter Woodward, PhD, Connecticut’s Historian, years ago there was a Connecticut Election Cake Recipe. The newer recipe I found, “A Modern Election Cake Recipe,” looks like a half birthday cake, half fruit cake. It calls for yeast, some butter and buttermilk (the latter of my favorite add-ins for all cakes) vanilla, eggs, and so on. Like a fruit cake, you add golden raisins and a quarter cup of dried fruit.
A la Carte: It Must be Time to Bake an Election Cake!
October 30, 2020 by Admin According to Walter Woodward, PhD, Connecticut’s Historian, years ago there was a Connecticut Election Cake Recipe. The newer recipe I found, “A Modern Election Cake Recipe,” looks like a half birthday cake, half fruit cake. It calls for yeast, some butter and buttermilk (the latter of my favorite add-ins for all cakes) vanilla, eggs, and so on. Like a fruit cake, you add golden raisins and a quarter cup of dried fruit.
A la Carte: Mushrooms by the Million? Soup is the Solution!
This weekend, friends from Lyme offered a pound of freshly picked shiitake mushrooms for eight dollars a pound. I asked if I could get two. So this is a very short paragraph … I am going to give you two mushroom soup recipes, both of which are incredible. You can use shiitake mushrooms (whose woody stems should be discarded), cremini, or other varieties. One is easy; one takes a little longer. With the easy one, once cool. puree it, if you like. You may double both recipes and they freezes beautifully.
A la Carte: Meatballs are Perfect for (Small) Pandemic Gatherings
Feeding small groups of people during the pandemic is a problem. For our fundraiser for Democratic candidates (you knew I was a Democrat, didn’t you?), I decided to make meatballs and red sauce. As I learned long ago, everyone’s favorite “ethnic” food is Italian and, even though I have not a whit of Italian blood, I make lots of foods from Italy.
A la Carte: Love Linguine? Just Add Spinach, Lemon Cream, Parmesan to Make a Delicious Dish!
It was a nice week with more company at home in four days than I have had in the last four months. Tuesday evening, I had five friends for dinner. We are all good friends, all five from Lyme, and all but I had spent a bit of time together. I had visited one couple twice over one month.
A la Carte: Friday Means Fish: How About Healthy, but also Delicious ‘Poached Cod in Tomato Curry’?
I still have not had an ear of sweet corn, but the farm stands do seem to be in high cotton.
A la Carte: Pesto is Perfect for Pasta … and More
I am amazed how friends have managed to get tasks done during this pandemic isolation. The Fitzgerald’s garden looks like something out of a French painting with pots of herbs on the fence, homemade cushions with seating for friends and two gorgeous cocker spaniels lazing on my legs, adding to the ambience. The Robertson’s grass look like a golf course and their bird-feeders have hovering mammas feeding fledglings.
A la Carte: Not Your Normal Nachos … a Dipping Party with a Difference
Photo by Herson Rodriguez on Unsplash. Last week, on Facebook, a friend sent me a terrific party idea that had me dreaming how much fun it would be. In a dining room (my friend says it is not her dining room table), someone plastic-wrapped an entire top of a dining room table, then dumped many big packages of tortilla chips around all the edges of the table. In the center, there were big bowls of chopped onions, tomatoes, lettuces and chopped cilantro, along with sour cream and guacamole.
A la Carte: Forget the Calories and Savor Every Bite of a Carrot Cake Cookie Sandwich!
Well, summer is here, but it doesn’t seem as if the music is “Under the Boardwalk” or “Polka Dot Bimini.” At Eastern Point Beach, where I live in the City of Groton, weekends will only be open to City residents. There will be no day passes to the glorious beach and Town of Groton, Noank, half of Mystic and Groton Long Point will have to sun bathe and play with their children in the gentle waves Monday through Thursday.
A Bumper Edition of A la Carte: Pad Thai (with a ‘Metro Bis’ Connection) & Scampi (with a ‘Trader Joe’s’ Connection)
Editor’s Note: We apologize but somehow we missed the first of these contributions from Lee White. It should have been published a week ago (June 17), but — in the simplest of terms — it wasn’t. However, we can’t (nor do we want to) just skip it because Lee’s recipes are too good to miss and also the story in her preamble is in two-parts, so you need to read last weeks before this weeks. Does that make any sense?
A la Carte: A Princess Calls it ‘Filthy, Sexy Mush’ … So Much More Exotic Than ‘Zucchini Pasta Sauce’!
Oh, my, it was a long-overdue restaurant week and perhaps it will never be a forever restaurant week. But those restaurants lucky enough to have an outdoor space may now see our faces, and we theirs. Yes, it is still distancing and wearing masks and will be so until there is a vaccine that works and is available for everyone. But last week was wonderful.
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