Dip into the archives of my blog, go way back, and you’ll see that at the very beginning one of my very first gastronomical spirit guides was Amanda Hesser. I read her book, “Cooking For Mr. Latte,” while studying for the bar exam (here’s my 2004 post about it) and then proceeded to cook my way through the book. I’ve made her vanilla bean loaves, carrot fennel soup, chicken roasted with sour cream and mango chutney, salt and pepper shrimp, and, of course, the almond cake that is my go-to dessert when I’m entertaining distinguished guests.
So I was extraordinarily flattered, humbled and excited when Amanda invited me to appear on the website she created with another wonderuful food writer, Merrill Stubbs: food52. We cooked two asparagus dishes together, the one you see in the above video (Thai-inspired asparagus salad with Meyer lemons) and the one you see in the below video (Absurdly Addictive Asparagus.)
Cooking with Amanda made me feel like I’d come full circle. Six years ago, Amanda Hesser’s world couldn’t have seemed further away. Here I am cooking with her in her kitchen:
[P.S. In terms of which dish I liked best, definitely the asparagus salad. Leave off the fried Meyer lemons, and you have a pretty easy, amazing first course for a spring-time dinner party.]