Sally Schneider

Improvised Life’s Very Quiet Birthday Celebration

July 4th was Improvised Life’s birthday, the day, eight years ago I pressed PUBLISH and took the site live in what seemed like a giant leap. How the 4,000 articles in its archive has come remains something of a mystery…

Move Shit Forward Even If You Don’t Quite Know What You’re Doing

‘Move Shit Forward’ can be a great practice if you don’t know what you’re doing or where you need to be.

A Cook’s Favorite Gifts for Cooks of all Stripes

Every so often, a friend calls to ask me what cooking equipment to recommend. LONG story! You’ll find an extensive list of equipment for a basic kitchen in A New Way to Cook, along with 700+ pages of essential techniques and recipes. For now, here are my tried-and-true favorites, from high to low and back.

Improvised Family

Since posting the sudden announcement a week ago that I would be taking a break due to a confluence of big life events, I’ve received the most generous response from Improvised Life’s readers: notes of sympathy, gratitude, understanding, support, all affirming that family is to be found in places we don’t often imagine.

Pan-Fried Artichokes with Crispy Sage and Garlic

Peak season for artichokes is March through May and the markets are still full of plump globes. So I am making this recipe often to serve as an hors d’oeuvres with drinks before dinner parties, and the occasional panful for my supper. It chases after the flavors of fried artichokes I’ve had in Italy, but…

The Popcorn Improvisations + a Free 6 Recipe PDF

A sensual description of Anson Mills’ Appalachian Heirloom Sweet Flint Popping Corn reminded of my popcorn improvisations, when I went haywire experimenting with different flavorings. Download 6+ recipes plus a ton of inspiration in a free PDF from The Improvisational Cook.

Fantasy Face-Lift

At a photo shoot at Maria’s studio, Suzanne Shaker and I played “face lift”, standing behind each other and gently “lifting” each other’s face. It was a funny, weird, grown-up girls’ game played by women who’d never actually get a face lift. We’re game to go where our faces take us…For a moment, we found a way to improvise younger selves.

A Chocolate Valentine’s Cake as Easy as Making a Brownie

With the difficult weather, you may find your self on-the-hook for a Valentine’s gift for tomorrow. If you’ve got the basic makings in your pantry for brownies, we recommend our tried-and-true Essential Chocolate Cake for Improvising recipe. It’s as easy to make as a brownie, with a good deal more bang for the buck, AND there are endless ways to improvise on its essential formula, adding in all sorts of unexpected flavorings to delight your beloved.

‘a new way to cook’ (gift idea + a trove of recipes)

Some time ago, Michael Druzinsky, an acquaintance of mine who is a composer, emailed his friend Mark Bernstein, who created the idea-mapping softwear Tinderbox, to ask if he’d mind talking to me about his very interesting software. Michael forwarded Mark’s reply: “Sally Schneider’s book, A New Way to Cook, changed my life. I’ve given it to lots…

2 great end-of-the-season cherry recipes

We were thrilled to see the play that the video of Sally making herb salt on Splendid Table got, including a big fat mention on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn. From that post we discovered that a year ago during cherry season, they’d riffed on Sally’s improvised cherry vinegar from The Improvisational Cookand did a lovely photo of…

video: sally making herb salt with lynnne rossetto kasper (now there’s no excuse not to make it!)

(Video link here.) As promised in yesterday’s post, here ‘s the video of Sally on public radio’s The Splendid Table showing host Lynne Rossetto Kasper how she makes her Fragrant Herb Salt, and the many possibilities for improvising with it, from roast chicken to vegetables to butter cookies. You’ll find the recipes for it and…

splendid table’s ‘key 3’ recipes from great cooks

Over the past few month’s public radio’s The Splendid Table hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper has featured an illuminating series called Key 3: a series of discussions with great cooks (not just professional chefs) about the three recipes or techniques they think everyone should know. In a break from traditional radio, Kasper and her team…

home planners and other ways to envision a space

When I was looking for an affordable space to buy in New York City, I devised strategies for envisioning how I might tailor the various spaces I was considering. I ended up teaching these strategies to several friends who were “stuck” when trying to design a new kitchen, study — any room at all; these…

3 crazy-simple summer desserts from ‘a new way to cook’ (and a reminder to enter our giveaway)

In honor of our giveaway of a signed, first-edition of Sally’s A New Way to Cook, we thought we’d publish 3 recipes for summer that are both crazy-simple (one has only 1 ingredient!) and dazzling. They make up just a fraction of the book’s chapter on fruit desserts. It includes a guide for improvising flavored…

Sally Schneider's A New Way to Cook original cover

book giveaway: sally schneider’s ‘a new way to cook’

Last week we posted a recipe for Strawberries in Beaujolais Sauce from Sally’s A New Way to Cook, and thought: what better way to kick-off the summer than to give the book away?! And a signed first-edition copy at that. These hardcover editions with the jazzy stripe-ed covers are now out of print and hard…

sally on ‘splendid table’ + recipe: sugar snaps with evo oil and shaved parmigiano

This weekend, Sally will be on public radio’s Splendid Table talking to Lynne Rosetto Kasper about her short list of favorite blogs and why she likes them. You can stream the interview or find out times it will air in area here. You’ll also find Sally’s recipe for Sugar Snaps with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Shaved…

sally on splendid table (with miso-glazed fish recipe)

This weekend, Sally will be on The Splendid Table talking with Lynne Rosetto Kasper about Miso, and all the things you DIDN’T know you could do with it. You’ll also find Sally’s recipe for Grilled Miso Glazed Fish Filets and Steaks, just in time for grilling season (though it’s great done under the broiler as well).…

making it up as we go along (an interview)

Liz Massey of Creative Liberty blog featured an interview called with Sally in her April e-newsletter. Check it out here to learn how ‘the improvised life’ came about, and Sally’s rant-ette on the creative process, how cooking relates to improvising, and the benefits of adopting an improvisational frame of mind… Here’s an excerpt: What advice…

‘juicy details of a culinary private life?’

William Morrow, the publisher, has been busy blogging, tweeting and facebooking about Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook, newly launched in paperback. They recently blogged a “Conversation” with Sally, with questions like “What’s your Mantra”, and “If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be?” They are tweeting it as the…

‘the improvisational cook’ is here!!!

The paperback edition of Sally’s award-winning The Improvisational Cook is OUT IN THE WORLD as of this morning. The book was the precursor to ‘the improvised life’; apply the blog’s heart and practicality to cooking and you’ll get the gist. It’s a guide ‘in’ to cooking improvisationally, more freely and with what’s on hand. Chapters include How Improvising Works,…

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