Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This is a classic and simple recipe given a Southern kick with a little bourbon. The alcohol will evaporate when you bake the pie, and you’re left with a richly flavored, gooey dessert, intensely sweet with a baseline of vanilla. You do need both light and dark corn syrup for this — using only one or the other will change the pie’s flavor. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This is classic 1950s cocktail fare that, unlike the savory gelées and boiled ham canapés that are best forgotten, we still want to eat today. Just wrap cocktail olives in a simple Cheddar dough and bake until golden. Martini optional.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This recipe was brought to the Times by Julia Reed in a 2001 magazine article in which she talked about her favorite (and not so favorite) holiday culinary traditions: “I will not serve eggnog, the one holiday culinary tradition I have never been able to get behind, but I will make milk punch. With its frothy top and not-so-jaundiced color, a milk punch is prettier to look at than eggnog and is not nearly as rich and cloying saved from that state by an effective combination of bourbon and brandy. They are especially good before a holiday lunch with, naturally, cheese straws and pecans. By evening, everyone will want a Santa hat.”

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This is Julia Reed’s favorite tuna salad, the one she subsisted on for years as a child, eaten with a fork straight out of a container in her mother’s refrigerator. It’s an unfussy thing that is exactly suited to be layered between two pieces of white bread — toasted, if you must — and then eaten at the kitchen table, or, after summer ends, at the lunchroom table. The ingredients are simple and easily acquired, and be sure to use real mayonnaise.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This easy ice cream is meant to evoke hazy memories of a summer spent luxuriating on a front porch, cold glass in hand, waiting as your ice cream maker does the churning work for a late-afternoon treat. Use the best peaches you can find — the flavor of this depends directly on the fruit. You can also use mangoes or strawberries, or other stone fruits. Use your imagination, but let the ice cream maker do most of the work.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

In the Burgundy region of France, home of Dijon, pork chops are traditionally served in a sauce made with mustard, cream and white wine, and there are very few pairings that are better. Richard Olney, a prominent food writer and authority on French cooking, sautéed sliced apples and chops and then baked them all together with cream and mustard dribbled on top. I prefer the method here, but you could always fry up some apples and serve them on the side. (For a dish with roots closer to Normandy than Burgundy, make the same recipe but omit the mustard, deglaze the pan with Calvados instead of wine and stir sliced sautéed Granny Smiths into the sauce itself.)

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This deeply Southern and unapologetically sweet candy recipe came to the Times by way of Julia Reed in an article about making edible holiday gifts. Her friend, Mary Cooper “can do anything: she canes chairs, she's an excellent gardener, she even makes her own cheese. And at Christmas she always makes me the best pecan pralines I have ever tasted.” Ms. Cooper was kind enough to share her recipe with Ms. Reed who, in turn, shared it with us. As you spoon the warm praline mixture onto the parchment paper, work quickly. It dries in a snap. Some have been known to sprinkle the tops of the wet pralines with flaky sea salt before they harden.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

At one point, the only way people cooked greens was to boil them with a hamhock or a piece of slab bacon for hours until the house smelled so sour that it was indeed almost uninhabitable. But in this recipe, they aren't boiled to death, but braised for just 15 minutes or so in degreased ham stock. Not only is there no stench, but you get the great pork flavor that is such a compliment to greens without the fat.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This simple recipe, which is adapted from “Mediterranean Cooking” by Paula Wolfert, was brought to the Times by Julia Reed in a 2004 article about easy Italian cooking. Ms. Reed said it was her favorite summer steak recipe, and for good reason: It requires very little effort and just a handful of ingredients to yield spectacular results. Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

These classic Southern hors d’oeuvres, made with only three ingredients, taste just as good with beer as they do with bourbon. And they come together in about 20 minutes from start to finish.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Spoonbread, a sort of cornmeal soufflé, is far more popular in places like Virginia and the Carolinas than in Tennessee and Mississippi, where I did my formative eating. I love it, but I never understood why nobody ever made it with cheese (cheese grits being one of the world's great creations), so I did. Purists will likely curse me, but I have to say that cheese spoonbread is possibly the most inspired idea I've ever had. It's great with sausage, but it would also pair well with country ham or any kind of stew or daube.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

“Why don’t you just cook something that tastes really good?” Julia Reed’s mother said that, chiding her daughter, a writer of uncommon style and wit who used to contribute food essays and recipes to The New York Times Magazine. Her mother thought Ms. Reed spent too much time thinking about complicated, over-the-top recipes at the expense of simple, honest American cooking that draws compliments not because it looks amazing, but because it’s delicious. Like, for example, this recipe, for what Julia called in a 2002 article, “the best squash casserole on the planet Earth.” The ingredients are by no means fancy — summer squash, jalapeño, white bread, Ritz crackers, eggs and Cheddar — but they combine in mysterious and marvelous ways to deliver a perfect accompaniment to grilled chicken or a weekend roast.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking

This update on a workaday sandwich takes time and work, it’s true. But the result, Julia Reed says, is the best old-fashioned tuna salad sandwich you’ve ever had in your life. You’ll need one pound of yellowfin tuna, which you’ll poach with aromatics, cool and then mix with a few chopped peppers, fennel seed, onion and herbs. If you plan ahead, you can make the tuna salad without the herbs, refrigerate it overnight, and add them in before assembling your sandwiches. Layer it on toasted bread with a lemon-pepper aioli, slab bacon and arugula. This is picnic food for the gods.

Julia Reed · NYT Cooking