Citrus for the Save: 1-16-23
With zest, verve and an indomitable energy, winter’s sunniest fruits elevate foods sweet and savory and brighten even the grayest of days. They’re the champs that make this quintet the favorites of the first two weeks of 2023.
Lemon Focaccia
Lemon gives a home-baked bread a lift that rockets it to new-favorite status. Ella shares her experiments as she makes good on a resolution.
The Convenience of Market Cooking
By shopping a pair of new winter farmers’ markets, we find meal ideas and inspirations anew. Refresh your cold-weather menus in a flash.
Pineapple Dipped in Chocolate
The symbol for hospitality welcomes a cloak of the cacao bean’s revered progeny at Carol’s Creative Chocolatez in Somerville.
Maximus Polish Cuisine Empire
The normally heartily seasoned, bold and warming classic dishes of Poland do not get their due at a restaurant-cum-banquet facility with a Latin name that translates as “greatness and power.” Orchids that garnish plates can’t hide across-the-board lackluster preparations and routine technical lapses.
Ethiopian Breakfast Scramble
After a dinner of doro wat at Ada’s Gojjo in Asbury Park, TPW’s ingenuous food-upcycling wiz takes an idea from the restaurant’s chef-owner and spins it into the breakfast of champions.
Mandarin-Stuffed Prosciutto Cups
It’s an under-30-minutes endeavor in the kitchen and it produces a bright bite that hits on all taste cylinders. Is the little bit of fuss it commands warranted?
Zoe’s Emilio’s Kitchen
An exemplary Mexican restaurant without gimmicks and with a focus on purity, freshness and respect for ingredients settles in to a Bayshore borough that reflects its style and soul. Family, first, second, third and always.
Soul Bowls
Fruits and their friends unite, vivid colors giving way to buoyant flavors that are a sure step up from the chains that may serve more, but do not serve better.
The Fab 5 of ’22
Cherry-picking the best eats every other week is a gut-wrenching task; too many worthy dishes get left on the cutting room floor. Following that formula to cull from a year’s worth of F5s a Final 5 is beyond painful. (Eliminating the already-named fave restaurant dishes of 2022 helped.) So, take it away … and CONGRATULATIONS in 96-point neon type to the winners!
Accent Addict
New Year’s Resolution: Make a dent in ungainly collection of spices/condiments/et al by using what’s already on hand. First up: Fried Spicy Desiccated Coconut.
A Talented Twenty
As 2022 draws to a close today, we take stock of those honored by their peers with induction into TPW’s chef-picks-chef society of top toques.