
When word spread that Nate Appleman, a chef anointed by the James Beard Foundation and Food & Wine for his San Francisco restaurant A16 (where I ate in 2007), was working at a Chipotle in Chelsea, the food world was incredulous. He’d left San Francisco to help open Pulino’s here in N.Y.C. and when that…

The best drink I’ve drunk in recent memory was the basil lime daiquiri I drank at ABC Kitchen, Jean-George’s highly praised farm-to-table restaurant attached to ABC Carpet. The drink positively glowed with its fluorescent green color and intense basil-y aroma. Here, let me show you a picture….

Following my coffee trials on this blog must be like having a petulant four year-old child who wants soup then wants pizza then wants soup again and so on. See, at first I told you not to worry about grinding your beans fresh in my post: “How To Make a Good Cup of Coffee.” Then…
I just wrote my first piece for Huffington Post—10 Things That You’re Doing Wrong At Restaurants—and you can read it by clicking here. If you like it, make sure to “like” it on Facebook and Twitter and all those other places that you can like something.

After that salmon dinner, we were still hungry. Isn’t that funny how that works? You spend an hour making an elaborate French dinner (ok, I said it was easy, but it still took about an hour) and after you’re done eating it, you’re still hungry! But this proved to be a blessing, because it gave…

Once upon a time, I bought Richard Olney’s “Simple French Food,” a classic text that’s required reading for many an aspiring chef. I remember reading it casually (I even cooked from it once: Squid & Leeks in Red Wine) and I remember making a mental note that if I ever found sorrel at the farmer’s…
Clear your caches and observe this month’s banner in which I present the royal wedding cake to a clearly unimpressed Queen, her hubby, Kate & Will. Thanks to Lindy Groening for another brilliant illustration and to Justin Dickinson for popping it up there. Long live cake!

Snooki may like to smoosh, but when it came to the root vegetables that I brought home from the farmer’s market last week, I was in the mood to smash. I was making roast chicken (my go-to weeknight dish) and my standard practice is to stick some root vegetables under or around the chicken, to…