Mushroom

Serve with a green salad.

Serve with baby spinach salad dressed with oil and vinegar or blue cheese dressing, your choice.

Tagliata refers to Italian-style steaks that are cut thin and quickly cooked—all appealing to a 30-minute girl.

Serve with broccoli or cauliflower, steamed and tossed in garlic butter.

Stoup is what I call a meal that serves up thicker than a soup yet thinner than a stew. This hearty hunter’s chicken stoup is a family favorite of ours, especially on chilly nights.

The wonderful actress Ming Na taught me this recipe. It was handed down to her from her parents, who owned a successful Chinese restaurant for twenty-five years. It’s not fair! Ming Na is gorgeous and talented and she can cook, too! But, we can console ourselves with these Chinese meatballs. The chopped cabbage is served in a pile, the meatballs in the middle: a head surrounded by a mane . . . a lion’s head. Ming uses mushroom-flavored thick soy sauce. I cannot find that product where I live, so I use finely chopped shiitakes and aged soy sauce.

Serve with crusty bread.