• Kefi

    Kefi

    I knew I was going to love Kefi and I did. After signing books at Best Cellars on the Upper West Side on Friday night, my dear pal Lisa (who lives up there now) joined me for the two block walk over to Kefi. “This is supposed to be great,” I told her. “Really good…

  • Potato Puree

    Potato Puree

    Please ignore the short rib in the above photo and focus on the cloud of white beneath it. That, my friends, is what we in the cooking industry (or the food blogging industry) call a potato puree. It’s a blend of riced potato innards (Yukon Gold & russets), two sticks of butter, heated cream and…

  • Is Lisa a Supertaster?

    Many of you who’ve read my book have asked if Lisa, star of Chapter Three, is a Supertaster. You ask because Lisa abhors coffee and olives and her sensitivity to these foods makes her a likely candidate for Supertaster status. Since it was Lisa’s birthday recently, I contacted Doug Cress who administers The Supertaster Test…

  • Rachel Wharton’s Bodega Beans

    Rachel Wharton’s Bodega Beans

    Monday night I went to a friend’s play reading that let out at 9:30. I was starved. I considered grabbing a bite (I was in the No Man’s Land of 35th and 8th Ave.) but then I decided I’d head home and grab a can of chickpeas from the bodega and make bodega hummus. (See…

  • How To Make Latkes

    How To Make Latkes

    Hanukkah may be over today, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to make latkes. If you’ve never made latkes before, may I suggest you do so tonight? It’s pretty easy and pretty rewarding. Granted, it’s not guiltless food: eating a bunch of latkes is basically equivalent to eating a bunch of french fries, so…

  • High School Gastronomical (Battle Almond Cake)

    An enthusiastic high school senior named Jonny G. wrote me recently to say that he was going to make my beloved Almond Cake (well not mine, Amanda Hesser’s) for a class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Only one of his classmates, Tally, planned to make an almond cake of her own with the…

  • My First Pho

    My First Pho

    Leah, who designed my website, couldn’t believe it when I told her, back when I met her, that I’d never had pho (pronounced: F-uh). “Oh my God,” she said. “When it’s cold, I totally have to take you out for pho.” News flash: it’s cold. And Leah, ever the persistent pho-pusher, reminded me over e-mail…

  • People Who Eat In

    Yesterday on Grub Street, Josh Ozersky called Bon Appétit magazine “the most boring” of the food rags, “an ad-packed Nembutal calling to mind the ‘women’s pages’ where newspapers used to publish their party recipes.” It was his ultimate conclusion, though, that really caught my attention: “Once a magazine is a repository for recipes, it stops…

  • Let Her Eat Cake

    Let Her Eat Cake

    What I didn’t tell you at the end of the last post is that I had a secret weapon in my arsenal to impress Lauren. She who worships at the altar of chocolate, she who mocks me for my chocolate aversion: she would be the recipient of a two-tiered ganache covered chocolate creation from Martha…

  • Plastic Pork Shoulder

    Plastic Pork Shoulder

    Dear Suzanne Goin, I love you and your book Sunday Suppers at Lucques. It’s the book I go to when I want to dazzle, when I want to blow my guests out of the water. On Friday, my guest would be none other than Lauren, a great friend and former roommate who was there at…