David Lebovitz's Leftover Vegetables with Chicken
Hey gang,
Be excited! Today's Lunch Therapy guest is one of your favorite food people: Mr. David Lebovitz.
David (who, in case you don't know, is the author of The Sweet Life in Paris, L'Appart, My Paris Kitchen, and The Perfect Scoop) was kind enough to record with me when I was in New York and I decided to ask him questions about the parts of his life we know nothing about: in particular, what was he doing before he moved to Paris? We cover his childhood in Connecticut, his time at film school in Ithaca (don't trust him with any doorknobs!), his time wandering around Europe, and how he ultimately landed in San Francisco and got hired at Chez Panisse by Alice Waters herself.
CLICK HERE to listen and, as always, your reviews are most appreciated. Last week a few of you actually listened to me and clicked over and wrote reviews and it warmed the cockles of my heart! Even if you just do a star rating (five stars is the most fun to click, I hear), it makes a big difference.
Also: if you have social media (like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) please feel free to share the episode if you enjoy it. I can use all the help I can get!
OK, OK, enough badgering you.
Last Monday, I decided to skip the gym (if I don't go on Monday, the week is shot... and sure enough: I didn't go all week). But not only did I skip the gym, I decided to really lean into my rebellion and make a cake. Just for myself. And so I made this pumpkin bundt cake with a maple brown-butter glaze from The New York Times:
This was just what the doctor ordered (though, not my personal trainer): it made the whole apartment smell like fall and, because there's sour cream in the recipe, the cake was incredibly moist as well as flavorful. (Note: any time you see sour cream in a cake recipe, you know it's going to be good. Also, always use heaping teaspoons of the spices you put into a spice cake like this. More is more, as far as I'm concerned here.)
Now if you're worried about me being home alone (Craig is still in New York) with a whole pumpkin bundt, fear not! I learned a valuable lesson when I made this cake; it's the same lesson that Kevin Costner learns in Field of Dreams: "If you bake it, they will come."
And sure enough, the next day, I ran into my friend Conor who was visiting his husband's brother and I said: "I have some pumpkin bundt cake, if you want to come over later" and he brought the whole clan and we all ate cake and had a grand old time. So bake a cake even if you have no one to bake a cake for! (Unless you have a really bad personality, then I don't recommend it.)
I also made a bean soup the other day that was really above-and-beyond:
For detailed instructions on how I cooked the Rancho Gordo beans, click here (I wrote about it on Instagram); as for how I transformed those beans into soup, it was simple as cooking some sausage in olive oil, adding onions, carrots, celery, and garlic, a can of tomatoes, and then all of the beans and their liquid. I let that simmer for an hour or so until it was soup, and then topped with Parmesan, parsley, and served with some grilled (aka: broiled) bread, rubbed with a garlic clove and drizzled with olive oil.
It was a perfect fall meal.
OK, folks, I'm off to the gym because it's Monday and if I don't go, we all know what happens! (And I have leftover white chocolate cherry oatmeal cookies from the weekend, so I really don't need to bake more.)
Until next time....
Your friend,
Adam (the "please review my podcast in iTunes!" guy)