I have a soft spot for sandwich cookies. Or maybe a better turn of phrase would be: I have a sweet spot for sandwich cookies. Always have. Oreos, with there unpronounceable list of ingredients, are pretty darn close to perfect. Nutter Butters, part gooey peanut butter, part crisp, peanut-shaped confection, were a favorite afterschool for snack. Even the refined Linzer cookie, delicately dusted in puffs of confectioner’s sugar, are eaten like the heartier American sandwich cookies by me. Twist of the top, gobble this plain cookie right up, then move on to the other adorned half. I love ritualistic dining.
I’ve made one sandwich cookie on this site before, so why not make the blond counterpart, the Caramel Cream Cookie?
This cookie doesn’t have snowy white, lard-based cream, and it doesn’t have stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth peanut butter, it has complex cream of nutty browned butter, reminiscent of [...]

Seared ahi. It may have you thinking back to the days in the early 90’s when it seemed that every restaurant was going avant and serving a thick slice of almost raw tuna. We were all so amazed to be served this supremely rare piece of fish at a non-Japanese restaurant. Well the phenomenon has cooled a bit, but it seems that seared ahi is here to stay. Now home chefs, and restaurants of a lower caliber are serving up pieces of tuna, the breath barely being taken from the gills. And of course, I have something to say about it.
I have eaten one too many dry, overly meaty tuna steaks to let this behavior go on. It’s the typical story: I order seared ahi and out comes a beautiful, thick steak, grill marks dark and emblazoned. But then I cut into it. It is desiccated, parched of any moisture, [...]