• From The Desk of The A.G. (A Day of Letters)

    From The Desk of The A.G. (A Day of Letters)

    Dear Craig Claiborne, I am greatly enjoying your somewhat notorious autobiography, “A Feast Made For Laughter.” Sure, it’s a little creepy when you talk about touching your dad’s erect penis while sharing a bed, but I appreciate your zeal for people and food. Case in point: early in the book, you tell a story involving…

  • Braised Pork Chops and Cabbage (A Poem)

    Braised Pork Chops and Cabbage (A Poem)

    An easy dinner, one two three Try it out: listen to me; Buy some pork chops, one for each Dry them off like your kid at the beach; Heat some oil and some butter Season the pork chops til you hear a sputter….

  • 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…

  • Diana’s Birthday Lamb

    Diana’s Birthday Lamb

    Cooking a big meal for a friend’s birthday is something that I enjoy, especially when that friend is Diana. But, inevitably, the party will end, the dishes will be stacked in the sink and, most devastating for a food blogger like me, there will 1,000 pictures of the meal in my camera and I’ll feel…

  • Anatomy of a Dish: Momofuku’s Sugar Snap Peas

    Anatomy of a Dish: Momofuku’s Sugar Snap Peas

    It’s difficult to improve upon a sugar snap pea. It’s nature’s candy: green, crunchy, juicy. It’s interactive: you peel away the thread and then throw it in your mouth. This spring, I became a sugar snap pea junkie–buying moundfuls at the farmer’s market and snacking on them all afternoon. The few times I cooked them,…

  • Hill Country

    Hill Country

    I swore off restaurant reviewing a while back, and yet I really like talking about restaurant experiences. Unfortunately, a singular experience can somehow morph into what seems like a review and that’s not my intention. With that in mind, here are simple facts about a meal I had last week with Craig and my friend…

  • Lunch at Lupa

    Lunch at Lupa

    The West 4th stop of the D train has two exits: one on Waverly Street and one on the actual West 4th, in front of the IFC movie theater. These two exits, for me, mark two very different moods, two very different frames of mind. To exit on Waverly is an act of self-denial, a…

  • Reader Query: Martha’s Vineyard Eats?

    Knowledgeable readers, we have a question from reader Brandy H. that I cannot answer. Please help her in the comments!We are going to Martha’s Vineyard in August (from Los Angeles), where we have rented a house so that I can cook. I am wondering if you have any culinary knowledge of the island? Do the…

  • Grand Sichuan

    Grand Sichuan

    Do you have a favorite restaurant where you go again and again and always order the same things? We do. That restaurant is Grand Sichuan on St. Mark’s and I can’t believe I’ve never written about it. Our meal always begins with the dish you see above: pork soup dumplings. “Can’t we try something else?”…

  • Tuesday Techniques: How To Make Jam

    Tuesday Techniques: How To Make Jam

    Craig’s cousin Matt came to stay with us this past week and he and his friend (who also stayed with us) had a wild time. Out every night, hitting up the town, they’d wake up bleary-eyed every morning and ask me what Craig and I did the night before. “We, ummm, bought a keg and…