Category

Friends & Family

  • The Great Crab Debate

    For as long as I’ve known him, Craig has waxed lyrical about the Dungeness crabs he and his family eat when they go to their cabin on the San Juan Islands, pull the crabs right out of the water, boil them and eat them right on the spot. Diana, however, who comes from Virginia is…

  • Lunch with Jon Robin Baitz at Brooklyn Fish Camp

    Lunch with Jon Robin Baitz at Brooklyn Fish Camp

    Jon Robin Baitz is the Pulitzer-prize nominated playwright of such plays as “The Substance of Fire (which starred a young Sarah Jessica Parker), “The Film Society” (which starred a young Nathan Lane), “Three Hotels,” “A Fair Country,” and, most recently, “The Paris Letter.” You may know him better, though, as the creator of the hit…

  • Lunch with Regina Schrambling at The New French

    Lunch with Regina Schrambling at The New French

    “I think people are afraid of me,” said Regina Schrambling, creator of the web site Gastropoda, a site where she skewers food world personalities with loving names like “The Porcine Pantload,” “The Human Scratch n’ Match,” and “The Drivelist.” (I’m lucky I got away with “The Tyro” and now “The-Not-So-Tyro-Anymore.”) To say that she writes…

  • Batch

    Batch

    Reunions require cupcakes. Lauren Gunderson, an old friend from college, is now a supersonic playwright on the rise. She’s about to start her second year of the grad playwriting program I went to at NYU, but we haven’t seen each other since our Atlanta days. If it weren’t for Facebook friend finder, who knows where…

  • The Best Butter in America (Beurre Pim)

    The Best Butter in America (Beurre Pim)

    “Walk me home,” said Pim after dinner. “I have something for you in the freezer.” We were at Franny’s, my beloved Park Slope pizzeria, sharing pasta and pizza and a decadent panna cotta for dessert. What could Pim have for me in her freezer? Not even her freezer, but the freezer of the person with…

  • Siggi’s Skyr

    Siggi’s Skyr

    Let’s end the week with yogurt. Not just any yogurt, though; let’s talk about Icelandic yogurt, otherwise known as skyr. Now I’d never heard of skyr until I heard about Siggi. Who’s Siggi? He’s a friend of my friend Sasie, one of Craig’s film school classmates. When I first met Sasie and told her that…

  • Rena Made Us Dinner

    Rena Made Us Dinner

    A belated thanks to Rena, Craig’s friend (and now my friend) from Seattle who stayed with us a few weeks ago and made us a delicious dinner of Otsu from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. I made Heidi Swanson’s Otsu last May (click here) and really enjoyed my first Otsu experience. Deborah Madison’s otsu…

  • A Modest Proposal

    A Modest Proposal

    We approached The River Cafe with trepidation. “Shhhh,” I told Craig. “They could be outside.” “They won’t hear us,” he said. “You’re being ridiculous.” Was I? You see my parents arrived at The River Cafe at 8 pm with Michael, my brother, and his girlfriend Tali in the same car. The plan was that Michael…

  • A New Year’s Feast

    A New Year’s Feast

    If Molly Orangette invites you over for New Year’s dinner, you don’t say no. You say “yes” as fast as you can and hope she doesn’t change her mind. I had to explain this to Craig who wanted to go but had “plans” with “friends” he’s known “forever” and he “promised” them he’d spend “New…

  • My First Christmas

    My First Christmas

    For the longest time, as a young Jew, I was convinced that all of Christianity hinged on a deep, profound belief in Santa Claus. Jesus baffled me; I presumed he was just a supporting player in the epic, inspiring story of Santa. And as much as I was supposed to be impressed with an oil…