Are You Peckish?

The following excerpt and recipes are from the just released—yesterday—​Peckish: Suggestions for the Sophisticated Snacker​, by food writer—and a former Team Bittman employee, one of the OGs!—Suzanne Lenzer.

Since before I was old enough to actually cook, I was besotted with a fantasy of my grown-up life, one that would include throwing elaborate dinner parties in candlelit rooms, endless lunches on pretty plaid blankets by the sea, and long, leisurely breakfasts on terraces that were yet to be revealed to me. As a teenager, when the Los Angeles Times Magazine would show up at our house on Sundays, I’d flip straight to the food column to see which dishes sounded worthy of my mental menus. Then when the Martha Stewart Living magazine and Lee Bailey’s Country Weekends came on the scene, they beckoned with their glossy photos of elegant parlor parties and dreamy lakeside soirees, and I was further smitten.