• Hi there, my name is Heidi Swanson. 101 Cookbooks is my recipe journal. It's where I write about the recipes that intersect my life, travels, and everyday interests. Often the recipes are from my cookbook collection, sometimes not - they might come from a friend, or I might write about a recipe I created myself.
  
  I focus primarily on natural, whole foods and ingredients - vegetarian recipes that are good for you and for the planet. Welcome!

I spent most of the week under my favorite blanket on the couch - sniff, cough, cough, sniff, sneeze, repeat. The good news is I'm on the mend, and after a short walk today something tells me I wasn't alone in my misery. It seems as if half the city is coughing into their elbows. So yeah, last week was all about the small victories for me - going downstairs to get the mail, finishing a load of laundry (as in one), writing letters, and eventually, as I was starting to feel better, making a batch of orange and oat scones from the My Nepenthe cookbook. If only you could have been there when they came out of the oven, yum.

They were good later too though. I nibbled at a golden corner of one of the scones a...

Continue reading Orange and Oat Scones and recipe...

I met Harris Salat on an Oldways trip to Puglia, Italy in 2006. He's a straight-up New Yorker, and the east coast yin, to my west coast yang. Which, come to think of it, might be why we get along so well.

I suspect many of you have read articles written by Harris, he writes for some of the big guns -- The New York Times, Saveur, Gourmet until recently, and Salon. One of his beats is Japanese cuisine. He travels there regularly and has trained in Japanese restaurant kitchens in New York and Tokyo. On top of his freelance writing, he also co-authored both Takashi's Noodles and Japanese Hot Pots. You can see him in that photo up above, to the right of Chef Tadashi Ono and Chef Hisao Nakahigashi of Kyoto (center). I'm excited he has agreed to share a few of his favorite...

Continue reading Favorite Cookbooks: Harris Salat ...

I did that thing the other night, Halloween actually, where you're invited to a party and can't decide exactly what to bring. At first I said I'd bring a hearty salad of some sort, but as soon as I heard the word salad leave my mouth, ideas for savory tarts started flitting around my brain. And wow, is that a pâte sucrée tart shell in the freezer? Maybe I should make something with that. I also decided, right around the same time, that it would be a good idea to bake cookies for trick-or-treaters instead of handing out candy. I was looking at a long day in the the kitchen for sure.

I got an early start, and in the morning collected ingredients from all my favorite shops. It was beautiful and sunny out, and hey, we should really go for a walk. And do you want to...

Continue reading Autumn Potato Salad and recipe...