• Saravanaa Bhavan & Joe’s Shanghai

    I have the good fortune to be friends with a guy named Dan Fortune, a DJ with an incredible knack for hunting down obscure tracks–mostly show tune oriented–performed by unexpected artists (Stevie Wonder singing “Hello Young Lovers” from “The King & I,” Nina Simone singing a medley of songs from “Hair,” James Brown singing “September…

  • How To Make Risotto

    Here’s our latest video from Food2, featuring beloved Italian chef Cesare Casella (of Salumeria Rosi). Chef Casella (who’s also the dean of Italian studies at the French Culinary Institute) teaches us a technique so effective, I’ll never make risotto any other way again: For those of you who can’t watch the video, here’s the recipe…

  • The Elvis Dog

    Inspiration strikes at the strangest moments. Like Newton under the apple tree, you might be daydreaming about “The Golden Girls” episode where Dorothy’s friend has a lesbian crush on Rose and BOOM–you’ve invented gravity! Such was the case for me, last week, while grading student work in my Gotham Food Writing class: I had the…

  • Easy Apple Crumb Cake

    Easy Apple Crumb Cake

    A lot of people want to know: “Does Craig ever cook for you?” Normally the answer is “no, never, he just likes eating,” but last week the answer became: “Yes, but only when I slice my finger.”

  • Weekend Brunch: Poached Eggs on Roasted Potatoes with Hollandaise Sauce

    Weekend Brunch: Poached Eggs on Roasted Potatoes with Hollandaise Sauce

    Last weekend, I decided to make a very ambitious breakfast of poached eggs on roasted potatoes with Hollandaise sauce. It took a whole carton of eggs (three for the Hollandaise, four for poaching and the rest for throwing away after the yolks bled into the whites) but the resulting dish, as you can see, was…

  • The Recipe Tweaker

    The Recipe Tweaker

    This morning I tweaked a recipe and I wasn’t even cooking. I was reading Twitter (as I do every morning after reading The New York Times, Google Reader, and checking Facebook) and I saw my friend Elise Tweet about her beet hummus. I clicked to the recipe (see here) and then I Tweeted to her:…

  • Brunch at The Breslin

    Brunch at The Breslin

    April Bloomfield–the chef of The Spotted Pig, the late John Dory and now The Breslin–cooks bold food. That’s what everyone loves about her; her food is never, ever boring. It’s the metaphysical opposite of the boiled peas and carrots you remember from your middle school cafeteria. Her peas and carrots, if she ran a middle…

  • Momofuku Milk Bar’s Compost Cookie Recipe

    Momofuku Milk Bar’s Compost Cookie Recipe

    My mom loves Regis Philbin. Growing up, she’d watch Regis & Kathie Lee religiously; she even once went to a shopping mall, somewhere on Long Island, to get Kathie Lee Gifford to sign a copy of her book. These days, she and my dad Tivo Regis and Kelly in the morning and watch it at…

  • Ten Rules for Food Blogging

    Ten Rules for Food Blogging

    Inspired by this piece in the Guardian, in which several successful fiction writers (including Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, and Jonathan Franzen) give their ten rules for writing fiction, here are my ten rules for food blogging. (I hope my other senior food blogging colleagues write their own ten rules too.) 1. Have a hook. That…

  • Café Sabarsky, Company (Pizza) & Billy’s Bakery

    Café Sabarsky, Company (Pizza) & Billy’s Bakery

    I don’t have a fast answer to the question “what’s your favorite restaurant?” (it’s a tie, at this point, between Blue Hill Stone Barns & Prune) but I do have an immediate suggestion when someone is coming to New York for the first time and wants to know where to go: “Cafe Sabarasky,” I almost…