Mark Bittman wrote his final "Minimalist" column in The New York Times today after a run of 12 years or so, and as part of that he listed, with links, the 25 most memorable recipes from some 1,000 he's featured in the series.
Now, I've had mixed opinions about Bittman. I thought he blew it as the first and only wine columnist at Cooks Illustrated, writing a column so pedestrian and old-style snobby that Cooks seemingly just dropped the idea of writing about wine after his short spell there ran out. And I've felt that some of his Minimalist columns betrayed a writer who created a recipe in his mind and published it without having tried it first to see whether it would work.
But after that rather tough opening, I've got to turn it around: When Bittman hit it right, his quick, easy and imaginative recipes could be outstanding, and right up my alley. Today's list was mostly winners for me, so much so that I've bookmarked and saved it and plan to cook through a bunch of them in coming weeks. I started tonight with "spaghetti with fried eggs" in garlicky olive oil, and it was 10-minute quick and amazingly good. Credit where it's due: I'll miss The Minimalist, at least on the days when he was "on."
Here's the Minimalist's Top 25. Enjoy!
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... favorites/
. Here's a snipet of a conversation between Dale and me, from a post about Kale last year