Amy Powell

Specialty: 30 Minute Meals
Education:French Culinary Institute, Cornell University
Lives: Manhattan

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An October Feast for Oktoberfest
It may be called “October”fest, but if you are just now reading this article, you are already way behind on your beer drinking and bratwurst eating. Read on, and I’ll show just how you can play...


To Be Worth Your Salt
It drove the growth of civilization. It created roads that paved the way for caravans in search of it. It has raised cities and destroyed empires. Today, doctors condemn its role in high blood pressure...


Having a Life Without Bread
First it was low-cal; then it was low-fat. Then it was no-milk followed by no-bread. It seems every five years there is some new evil in our diets that is making us fat or causing headaches and fatigue...


Eat Your Stars and Get Your Greens
Ah, the things we tell kids to get them to eat their vegetables. Suddenly broccoli becomes “Trees” and raisins and peanut butter on celery sticks become “Ants on a Log.” When an unappetizing...


Building a Better Burger
This coming weekend we say goodbye to summer, stow away our white shoes, and stash the grill until the next heat wave. Even with the grill retired, however, chances are that some of those grilled classics...


Some Thorny Advice In An Easier Package To Swallow
You may not know it, but sometimes I am a bit of a philosopher. This particular trait of mine manifests itself on occasion, especially at parties and/or after consuming a bottle of champagne plus some...


Extreme Makeover My Barbecue
Ah, the end of summer. At this point the barbecue has been in rotation (perhaps as the sole cooking instrument) for a full three months now. Not a terrible thing, considering that when the snow starts...


Monday Night Raw In The Kitchen
It’s hot out there. Checking in with friends and colleagues around the country this week, the weather forecast seemed like I was having déjà vu no matter where I was calling. Helena, Montana: 90°...


What Not To Do When Cooking Fish
Much to my embarrassment, last week I had a night where I swear it were as though I forgot how to cook. I've been cooking all my life--plus there's the hospitality school and culinary school degrees--and...


Cool Drinks and Better Bar Food
As you read this, somewhere in the world it is Happy Hour. If Happy Hour is good for one thing, great deals on cool beverages, it should also be good for another: delicious bar food to go with those beverages. If...


A Bird Beyond Chicken
If you are the person who by-passes the scramble for breast meat at Thanksgiving in favor of the deeper, richer flavor of a turkey thigh, this article is for you. Even if you are a die-hard white meat...


The Other Independence Day
Chances are as you are reading this article you still may be recovering from a 4th of July celebration. But before you write off the rest of the summer as devoid of meaningful holidays until the fall,...


As American As . . . Tacos?
Sunday morning crossword puzzle, Fourth of July edition. Four down, two across. Clue: “As American as…” If you were born in this country, or maybe even if you weren’t, the answer to that line...


To Grill A Fish
To grill a fish I think is a cooking technique that brings even the most experienced grill masters a bit of anxiety. When asking an amateur barbecue buff in our beach neighborhood what his thoughts were...


Three Chefs and a Box of Crackers
Technically the situation in the above title involved three chefs, a food writer, and a box of crackers. But like any good narrator I am merely part of this story as an observer… with maybe the smallest...


The Perfect Dad Dish
We have always known that the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Thinking back to how our mothers cooked for our fathers, it might have been that very trick that we have to thank for bringing...