simply cary’s favorite. give the guy a quart of this, set the tv to msnbc and he’d be a happy man. except much to his dismay, i went and tainted this batch with some of my italian candied orange peel. so for him it was ever so slightly substandard and for me it was a [...]

[Read more →]

oh salad of arugula, pancetta, roasted grapes, fried capers and parmigiano chips… oh how i love thee. with a smattering of great olive oil, finely chopped garlic and guerande salt with a few twists of freshly ground black pepper… you were a dream dinner for me. nothing flash. just an absolutely delectable melange of flavors [...]

[Read more →]

or tarte tatin. but say it 3x fast after a bottle of cabernet using an affected bad accent – and it’s totally ‘ta tata’… so this is a very, very good thing to have in your repertoire. an old french standby – circa 1889. have cast iron pan, will tarte tatin make. it’s 3 ingredients [...]

[Read more →]

3 hours? who the hell has 3 hours to make polenta? ummm, me? you see, i’m reading "heat" by bill buford. he’s the guy who was senior editor at ‘new yorker magazine‘ and left his job to work in batali’s kitchen at ‘babbo‘. there is a chapter in the book about a fund raising dinner [...]

[Read more →]

i could just say "thank you heidi" and then give you the link… because anything else is really superfluous here – but since we haven’t chatted in awhile i thought i’d hang around and shoot the breeze. ’08 has had a rough start. one of my cats, chet – a sable burmese – got injured [...]

[Read more →]

you know, if you read the ny times dining section, about 147 blogs, a couple of cooking magazines and watch a few tv shows on well, food… you’re bound to pick up a thing or two. and you may notice that on occasion one certain dish may get a lot of attention in a relatively [...]

[Read more →]

a can of jumbo lump crap had been impatiently sitting in the fridge until the expiration date finally started to glare at me. and the pasta, this exquisite squid ink pasta called "calamarata nero di seppia" had been taunting me from my pantry for a couple of months. so one night while poking around in [...]

[Read more →]