Writing about food since 2004.
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Belated Book Review: “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”
The soup dumpling was balanced cautiously on my spoon, the twisted top bitten off and, as I stared into the murky, steamy depths of broth, I was struck by the gray lumpy brain-like matter in the middle. Struck, not because it was unfamiliar—soup dumplings at Grand Sichuan are almost monthly staples of our diet—but because,…
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A Funny Thing I Do (A Tip & A Recipe for Vanilla Bean Pudding)
What you see here is documentation of a very strange practice, a funny thing I do each time I pull a recipe from the internet. What I do is: instead of printing the recipe out with my printer (which is totally hooked up and ready to use), I grab a piece of paper and write…
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The Seven Stages of Dining at Per Se (Craig’s Birthday Lunch)
The First Stage: Shock The original plan was to take Craig to see the play “Speech & Debate,” which he’s been eager to see, and then to dinner at Soto–a Japanese place in the West Village, praised as the second best new restaurant of the year by Frank Bruni in The New York Times. And…
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Orangette’s Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad with Tahini
Going through old pictures, just now, I found the picture you see above and smacked my lips at the memory: “Hey!” my brain sang out. “That’s that delicious butternut squash and chickpea salad with tahini you made from Orangette’s website.” According to the picture, I made this on December 19th. So please follow this link…
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About That Query
I’d like to thank everyone who responded to my query the other day, asking if I had any readers who wanted to go to culinary school but couldn’t afford it. The responses were quite touching and compelling and made me eager to put my idea into action. What’s my idea? It’s quite simple, really. As…
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The Gourmet.com Launch Party at Bar Boulud
Here are the people we saw last night at the Gourmet.com launch party at Bar Boulud: – Calvin Trillin – Mark Bittman – Eric Ripert – David Chang – Jonathan Waxman – Aaron Sanchez – Michael Psilakis – Rebecca Charles – April Bloomfield – Alfred Portale – Joey Campanaro – Daniel Boulud (it was his…
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Crispy Dough
I am bad with secrets. I’ve always been bad with secrets. You shouldn’t tell me any secrets, secret holders, because I will give them away. Case in point: the brunch you see above. What is it? Where can you get it? Why do I love it so? If I were a good secret keeper, I’d…
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Winter Time is Prime Time for New York Dining
I have made a discovery, dear reader, and it may not be much of a discovery–I’m sure big city eaters have known this for some time–but I’ve come to the conclusion that winter time is prime time for New York dining. The above picture was taken at The Spotted Pig where I took Patty to…
