Category

NYC

  • Spaghetti with Ramps at Franny’s

    Spaghetti with Ramps at Franny’s

    The “r” word made its first appearance on Twitter last week when one of the many food people I follow announced that they spotted ramps at the Union Square Greenmarket. “Ramps are here!” another cheered and, as happens every year, the ramp-lovers went on a rampage. I’m a ramp liker, not a ramp lover. What…

  • Elvie’s Turo-Turo & Butter Lane

    Elvie’s Turo-Turo & Butter Lane

    I’m getting a little rusty in my old age. In the early days of the blog, I was the one dragging my friends to obscure hole-in-the-wall joints in the East Village–now I’m perfectly happy to go to Grand Sichuan over and over again. But Mark and Diana have my number, both literally and figuratively. We…

  • Brunch at Irving Mill

    Brunch at Irving Mill

    I love brunch but I’m always a bit perplexed when I arrive at a celebrated brunch spot–Prune, for example–and see crowds of people huddled outside, waiting desperately for eggs and pancakes and coffee, foods they can easily and much more cheaply prepare at home. Don’t get me wrong: a place like Prune can dazzle you…

  • The Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake at Stand

    The Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake at Stand

    Friends don’t let friends go to Stand–the burger place on E. 12th Street–without ordering the toasted marshmallow milkshake. It fell upon me yesterday, after seeing “Synecdoche, NY” with Craig and his filmmaker friend David Russo (whose own movie, “The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle”, premiered at Sundance this year) to shepherd them both to Stand…

  • What I Ate On My 30th Birthday

    What I Ate On My 30th Birthday

    My birthday always begins with the Angel of Food hovering over my bed and handing me a pass that says, “EAT FREELY,” which is not so much a mild suggestion, but an absolute imperative. There’s no “maybe I shouldn’t”s on my birthday–the word “shouldn’t” is verbotten, as is “mustn’t” and “oughtn’t” (is oughtn’t a word?)–my…

  • The Radicchio Salad at Franny’s

    The Radicchio Salad at Franny’s

    We all get hammered over the head so often about fresh ingredients and using the best ingredients (“Use a really good olive oil,” says The Barefoot Contessa; “I make my own toothpaste,” says Alice Waters) that sometimes it’s easy to dismiss it all as snobby nonsense. Then you go to Franny’s, which is quickly becoming…

  • Momofuku Ko

    Momofuku Ko

    If you live in New York and you’re a food blogger who writes about restaurants, it’s inevitable that, at some point, you must visit and write about Momofuku Ko, David Chang’s most celebrated and impossible-to-get-into restaurant. So many food bloggers, in fact, have visited Ko–among them, The Wandering Eater, Food in Mouth, The Girl Who…

  • Cold Weather Lunches in N.Y.C. (Setagaya & Pearl)

    Cold Weather Lunches in N.Y.C. (Setagaya & Pearl)

    There are cold days and then there are really cold days and on those really cold days you probably want to stay at home, under the covers, and never get out of bed. But then you have to get out of bed and, more importantly, you have to eat and if you’re in Manhattan running…

  • Cacciucco at The Union Square Cafe

    Cacciucco at The Union Square Cafe

    Some people are haunted by ghosts, others are haunted by a sense of meaninglessness in a vast, expanding universe; but me? I’m haunted by food. Restaurant dishes, dishes I make I home: it doesn’t matter. I crave them, I want them. Lately, I’ve been haunted by a dish I ate two weeks ago with my…