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This week alone – National Sibling Day, National Pet Day and now – I need a nap – National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day. Wait, I can’t sleep through that!

So here, in honor, still holding court after almost 100 years, THE sandwich, the grilled cheese. No grill in sight, tis true, but bury me in cheese, please.  A post reprised, the grilled cheese repraised.

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Delicious By Design includes photos produced by Renee Comet and me. Something like 35 of ’em, none of them sweets. Lots of meat and bacon and butter, plenty of onions and garlic. This food is loud and proud and crusty on the edges.  The author and designer, Rob Sugar, gave us free license in the studio. Well, at first we were on a retractable leash, but Renee and I gnawed through that on day one. Then our imaginations ran free through the neighborhood.

Free rein comes with responsibility, of course. Damnit Janet. As much as we sometimes want to bark at squirrels and dig big holes under fences and shake muddy water all over you, we don’t and we didn’t. No we don’t cause we are PROFESSIONALS.

Like grilled cheese and tomato soup, creativity and capability are halves of a whole at Renee’s studio. At their tastiest when mingled.

Yitz’s is the sort of deli that creates a longing in me. Perhaps in you, too, particularly if you have some jew in you. I do. It has never been nurtured, but it’s there, like a deep vein of chopped chicken liver in my soul – fatty and rich and comfortable.

Yitz’s is the sort of deli that creates a worry in me, too, because worrying runs in my veins as well, making me a certified member of the tribe. Yitz’s is so NOT of the moment – thank you – that one wonders if it will last as long as it should. Forever, that is. Forever and then another week, in case we got busy and didn’t make it in for a bowl of borscht and a corned beef on rye last Tuesday.

Yitz’s is the sort of deli that reminds you that your hipster self is tired. All you gotta bring is your appetite and your most bare, soulful self. Think cultural tethers , think leave my pretensions in the car, think we are one big rugelach loving tribe.

Yitz’s is the sort of deli that serves delicious food. And no one needs to critique/review/remark on it. It’s a good place. Always, one hopes.

Friend and neighbor, Michelle, sent us to Yitz’s. She knows Toronto, lucky girl. And she gets us, lucky us. Thank you, Michelle!

I did not know there was a need for this advice – another case of “behind closed doors”. Making toast is usually done in the privacy of one’s own kitchen, an intimate affair, and I was under the misguided impression that what goes on in my home is “normal”. We freeze bread. And bagels. Sliced. For toast. For sandwiches.

My family is small. My mother’s family was small. She freezes sliced bread. As mother, as daughter.

So yeah, duh, unless you have bread at your elbow at every meal, freeze on.

Photos by

Story by 

Toast lovers, I have a modest proposal for you: Do not bother with bad bread. Say goodbye to sweet, cottony, lightweight toast, the kind that squishes under a butter knife or slumps under a blanket of jam.

Read on here.

Thank you, Karen Barry Schwarz, cabin roommate, nighttime hilarion, toast connection.

This is my new book and I’m very proud of it.

While it comes from the wonderful American Girl people and is a terrific book for girls, it is also a terrific book for boys. Girls and boys of any age – school age to dotage – who want to cook. I think it would make a great gift for college kids, young adults, newlyweds, or anyone else who is beginning their kitchen adventure.

Recipes include hot and cold sandwiches (of course there are sandwiches!), roast chicken, salads, the best chocolate chip cookies ever, amazing chocolate cupcakes, perfect marinara, what to do with vegetables, and all that one needs to create all meals, snacks, and occasions surrounding food.

Seriously, I love this book.

You’re the Chef is available right here.

Get ’em while they’re hot. The griddle is on the back berner.