• Michael Voltaggio’s ink.

    Michael Voltaggio’s ink.

    There was a moment at Michael Voltaggio’s ink.–where Craig and I went to celebrate our six year anniversary this weekend–when I washed down a bite of my egg yolk gnocchi (the first course on the tasting menu) with a cocktail made of mezcal and smoked salt and thought to myself: “I’ve never tasted anything like…

  • Everything Bagel Bombs

    Everything Bagel Bombs

    If you live in a great bagel city–and by that, I mean New York–this post will not be important to you. Feel free to skip it. Everyone else: this is the most important post on a food blog you will ever read. In fact, if I were you, I’d stop whatever you’re doing, shut the…

  • Chanterelle Risotto with White Truffle Salt

    Chanterelle Risotto with White Truffle Salt

    Here’s a friendly tip: make yourself buy an exotic ingredient even if you’re not sure what you’re going to do with it. For example, a few weeks ago I was at the Spice Station in Silverlake and I bought a little bag of white truffle salt. I bought it because after sniffing from the giant…

  • Let’s Bring Back The “Thank You” Note

    Let’s Bring Back The “Thank You” Note

    The worst moment of my 13 year-old life was when my mom pointed to a stack of cardboard cards featuring my name written in glitter and told me that I had to write “thank you” notes for all of my Bar Mitzvah gifts. This was weeks after having been hospitalized for dehydration (my Bar Mitzvah…

  • How To Prep A Dinner Party A Day Ahead

    How To Prep A Dinner Party A Day Ahead

    When I first started cooking, I resented the idea of making food ahead for a dinner party. I wanted my food to be fresh! Cooked in the moment! Assembled minutes before the guests arrive! It’s only recently, though, that I’ve started to see the virtue in prepping the food ahead. One: if you’re making a…

  • Musso & Frank

    Musso & Frank

    Some restaurants are like living museums. Musso and Frank is one of those restaurants: it’s a memorial to and a celebration of Hollywood’s rich cultural history. The Musso & Frank website explains it best: “In the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, the golden years in Hollywood, almost everyone in the entertainment business dined or drank at…

  • Things To Stir Into Your Oatmeal

    Things To Stir Into Your Oatmeal

    It’s hard to follow up a post about pushing the genre of food blogging forward without feeling self-conscious. So let’s talk about oatmeal. Do you like oatmeal? I love it. On Sunday mornings, sometimes I’ll make my Sunday Morning Oatmeal where I cook the oatmeal in milk, stir in butter, and top it with nuts,…

  • Are Food Blogs Over?

    Are Food Blogs Over?

    [Image from Roboppy’s Flickr via Slashfood.] In this week’s New York Magazine, there’s a story about a 27-year old who spends most of her life and her money eating out at trendy, of-the-moment restaurants. To be honest, I didn’t read the article—that’s the side of the food world I have zero interest in (fad-following)—but one…

  • Lemon Butter Chicken with White Beans

    Lemon Butter Chicken with White Beans

    What you see above is one of my favorite meals I’ve ever made at home. It came about rather organically: after raving about Rancho Gordo beans in this post from last week, I went back to Cookbook (the store where I bought that first bag) and stocked up on more.

  • A Thin Mint Milkshake Recipe

    A Thin Mint Milkshake Recipe

    When I heard that Doug and Bryan of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop were making a Thin Mint Milkshake, a part of me thought: “Whoah, I wonder how they make that?” I also thought: “I wish I lived in New York still so I could taste that.”…