• Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote and the Minetta Tavern Black Label Burger

    Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote and the Minetta Tavern Black Label Burger

    Pull up a chair, I’m going to tell you a funny, though slightly depressing, story. See, on Valentine’s Day, I was alone in New York. Craig would be coming a few days later and, in the meantime, I decided to spend the night seeing a play I’d always wanted to see: David Ives’ “All In…

  • You Really Ought To See Babette’s Feast

    You Really Ought To See Babette’s Feast

    Watching a movie is tricky business when you’re dating a filmmaker. It’s never just a casual, “Let’s just throw something in the DVD player” kind of deal; it’s usually a: “Would you rather watch Wild Strawberries or Piranha 3-D?” Luckily, my resident filmmaker is in New York editing his own movie and I have total…

  • Beets of the Southern Wild with Candied Quvenzhané Walnuts

    Beets of the Southern Wild with Candied Quvenzhané Walnuts

    Last year, I suffered the greatest humiliation of my life–well, except for that time I got pantsed while roller skating on a Jewish teen tour–when my Glenn Cous Cous Salad with Albert Knobs of Feta lost the Best Oscar Dish contest to Tinker Tailor Shepherd’s Pie. This was at a party hosted by my friends…

  • I Love My New Pot Rack (PLUS: A Kitchen Makeover)

    I Love My New Pot Rack (PLUS: A Kitchen Makeover)

    Is it possible to love an inanimate object? Was Johnny 5 really alive? These are questions for philosophers, not food bloggers. All I know is that I love my new pot rack. It all came about because Craig had been complaining about how disorganized our kitchen was and so, for his birthday, I decided to…

  • Roquefort Cheese and Green Onion Tart

    Roquefort Cheese and Green Onion Tart

    The ladies who lunch really exist. I saw them on the Upper East Side, where I stayed for several months recently, and they don’t necessarily wear hats anymore (“Does anyone still wear a hat?”) but they know how to command a room. Two women I sat next to at Maison Kayser completely ignored their bread…

  • Cooking on T.V.

    Cooking on T.V.

    The green room was filled with male models who do construction, the actor Alden Ehrenreich (star of “Beautiful Creatures”), a mob of make-up people, hair people, managers and agents all hovering around a plate of half-doughnuts, half-bagels and half-muffins. I hovered on the sidelines with my book publicist, Molly, and didn’t allow myself to feel…

  • Roasted Butternut Squash and Red Onion with Tahini and Za’atar

    Roasted Butternut Squash and Red Onion with Tahini and Za’atar

    One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Or, to put it another way, I lost my round of The Piglet. Granted, there was no way I could ever have triumphed over Naomi Duguid’s brilliant Burma. She totally deserved her win. But I have to confess, I took great comfort the next day when Yotam Ottolenghi’s…

  • Chicken Gets Frisky When You Give It Whiskey

    Chicken Gets Frisky When You Give It Whiskey

    The other day I Tweeted a recipe and people really dug it. It’s not so much a recipe as it is an idea: “Next time you take a roast chicken out of the pan, pour in a glug of Maker’s Mark and whisk in 3 Tbs butter on high heat. You’re welcome.” The truth was…

  • Salad on the Same Plate as Dinner

    Salad on the Same Plate as Dinner

    There are three kinds of people in this world: people who eat salad before dinner, people who eat salad after dinner (aka: the French) and the strangest group of all, people who eat salad on the same plate as dinner. I grew up in a “salad before dinner” family. On those rare occasions when we’d…

  • Cocoa Puffed Chocolate Mousse

    Cocoa Puffed Chocolate Mousse

    In my first book, I told the story of the chocolate rose. In case you missed it: my mom once gave me a chocolate rose to give the girl across the street for Valentine’s Day. I nervously carried it over, rang the doorbell, and ended up giving the rose to her sister to pass on…