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  Chicken Tagine
Oreilles du Diable Salad
Lentil-Merguez Stew
Broccoli Rabe
Cracker-Barrel Biscuits
Primordial Soup
Water-Baby Salad
Grilled Marinated Lamb
Chickpea Mint Cilantro Salad
Baby Red Potatoes
Patty-Pan Squash
Air-Baby Dessert
Asparagus with Mayonnaise Sauce
Popcorn Cockles
Mango Salsa
Trout Meuniere
Kielbasa Omelet
Lime-Mint Fruit Salad
The Best Tuna Sandwich
Cold Cantaloupe Soup
Salade Nicoise
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Chicken Tagine
On low heat, saute a chopped red onion and 5-6 minced garlic cloves in lots of butter and/or olive oil. Add coriander and cumin, about a tablespoon, yes I said tablespoon, of each (feel free to use already-ground; I like using a mortar and pestle, but some people don't), a teaspoon of cinnamon, half a lemon's worth of minced fresh lemon zest, saffron, cayenne, paprika, 2 bay leaves, and a thumb-sized lump of grated fresh ginger. Stir constantly and make sure nothing burns or sticks; add more butter or oil if necessary.
When it's all cooked into a commingled fragrant brown spice puddle, add a red and a yellow pepper, diced, a large carrot or two medium carrots, chopped small, a generous handful of cracked green olives, a handful of dried Turkish apricots, chopped small, one 15-16 ounce can of rinsed chickpeas, diced tomatoes and chicken broth. Bring to a gentle boil, then right down to a simmer, and cover.
Cut up 5 skinless, boneless chicken thighs and 3 breasts, more than 2 pounds of chicken in all, into big bite-sized pieces, the kind you have to cut in half to really eat, and grill them in a cast-iron skillet in olive oil till they're brown just on the outside and still raw inside, then add them to the stew and stir everything together and gently simmer it, covered, for 4 1/2 hours. Add more chicken broth as necessary.
Saute and slightly brown 1 package or 2 cups couscous in 2 tablespoons butter, then add boiling water according to the directions on the packet. Serve with the stew. Set out bowls of chopped toasted almonds, lemon slices and chopped fresh cilantro to be used generously. This stew, quite frankly, is great. The apricots melt into the broth and sweeten it deeply, the olives give it brine, and the almonds and cilantro and lemon bring it to life. If you want it spicy, add a dollop of harissa, a Turkish hot sauce, or shug, its Israeli equivalent. This will serve four very hungry people with leftovers to spare, six normal people, or eight people who've had a lot of appetizers.
Chapter One
..."I set a table in back, on the patio," said Teddy. She was dishing something onto plates: stewed chicken over couscous. On the counter was a salad made of only some sort of strange purple lettuce, nothing else. He helped her carry things out to the patio, the two plates laden with steaming food, the salad bowl, another bottle of cold Sancerre. The evening sunlight in the yard was so intense it was almost surreal. It was an odd little garden, a jumble of flowering bushes and wild grasses crowded together in a lush tangle that seemed to grow as it liked without human interference, yet there seemed to be an original organizing principal behind the riot, God's or Teddy's or someone else's.
Henry sat at the old enameled metal table on Teddy's tiny bluestone terrace and picked up his fork. The food, which looked bland and unprepossessing, was subtle and amazing. The couscous tasted nutty and buttery. The rich chicken stew was laced with hints of saffron, cinnamon, cayenne, lemon zest, and something else, unfamiliar and exotic, but these things announced themselves very faintly, so he had to concentrate to taste them through the perfectly cooked meat and grain.
He took some salad and forked a slippery, dressing-coated, burgundy lettuce leaf into his mouth. Fresh lemon juice, coarse black pepper and olive oil mingled on his tongue. He stared at the salad on his plate.
"I grow it myself," said Teddy, who had been watching him closely. "Not directly in Greenpoint soil, don't worry, it's so contaminated would make you grow another head. Look, over there in tubs by that corner by the fence, an unusual and rare lettuce most people haven't heard of: Les Oreilles du Diable, ears of the devil. It's excellent, isn't it? Nutty and robust. I bought the seeds for the name..."
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