as you may know, i just took a trip up north to my hometown. how i wish with all my might that i could be there more. i currently average about 3 weeks a year and well, it doesn’t feel like enough. so while i’m in nyc, and with every breath i take, i just soak it up with the understanding that when i win the lottery i will immediately buy a pied-a-terre – there. so i flew in and spent time with my mom, some old friends, some new friends (3 wonderful food bloggers that i can’t wait to tell you about) got a haircut, hit a few museums – and i dined and dined and then i dined some more. it was a veritable food frenzy, a bonafide eating extravaganza. i was in a food haze, side stepping my way into a food coma. i was running a food marathon and i was victorious.

i stayed where i often stay, at the boutique hotel ‘flatotel‘ which is a perfect location for me (6th and 52nd) and because of this location, everyday i was tempted to wake up early and go to rockefeller center so i could ogle matt lauer and hold up a sign like "it’s my birthday" or "hello nashville" or "i’m isaiah’s grandma" just to get al roker’s attention – but i never did. instead, i just hit the ground running every single day. and with all that i ate – and if you care to follow along with me, you will see that i am not exaggerating – i don’t think i gained more than a pound or two at the absolute most which i directly attribute to the large quantity of adrenaline pumping through my veins – a direct response to feeling more alive than usual… and i have a lot to tell you. so i thought that over the course of this week i’d write about 5 posts – a virtual mini-series of sorts – and then present you with the grand finale which was hands down above and beyond anything i’ve ever experienced on a culinary level. but first things first.

monday evening from the airport i went directly to my mom’s apartment on upper madison avenue. i hadn’t seen her since my last trip to nyc back in september and she greeted me with a late dinner of gravlox from zabar’s on an h&h bagel. it’s been a favorite of mine for at least 25 years and really, it was just perfect. the sweet dill mustard sauce that zabar’s doles out sparingly, along with the cream cheese and a slice of tomato with red onion – it’s heaven on a bagel. afterwards, i fixed her computer, showed her how to play a dvd for the 47th time, reset her FM stations on her bose radio so she could access them via the remote, made a pot of lentil soup (with her as my sous chef) to serve at the luncheon she had planned at her house for wednesday and then headed to midtown to unpack and settle in. tuesday yve has been my best friend since we’re 11 years old – and that’s 35 years of solid friendship and an estimated 5721 hours on the telephone. her 4 kids keep her pretty busy but with 2 now in college we actually got to spend a little quality time together this trip. she met me at the hotel and after checking each other for visible signs of aging and FRETing over our extra pounds, we hopped in a cab and headed for lunch to batali’s ‘otto‘, just as a few snowflakes started to fall.

we got there at noon and the place was really quiet. being that it was a batali joint, this was quite a pleasant surprise. the bread arrived wrapped in deli paper. how i have missed nyc bread. nyc bread i love youuuuu. truly i so very much dooooo… there is no bread in nashville that even comes close. but i mean, you are nyc and sure, we have provence bread and well, it doesn’t suck and i am fine with it – BUT… nyc bread you totally rock in the biggest of ways. you are crunchy and chewy and interesting. you even always smell good and if you were a perfume i would buy you and then dab some behind my ears with just a bit of butter. yes i would. (sigh)…

i ordered one of the pizza’s, being that it’s batali’s pizzeria and all. i chose a wild mushroom and taleggio pie, along with the penne con noci e zucca – hazelnuts, butternut squash and smoked ricotta. both were excellent but the salad was spectacular – escarole and sunchoke with some kind of crumbly white cheese and some kind of crunchy almonds all perfectly dressed with a very light vinaigrette of some kind. it was one of the best salads i have EVER had – period.

and the dessert… can we talk about the dessert? oh. my. god. this dessert was phenomenal. goats milk ricotta gelato with a syrup of reduced red wine and a mixture of figs, cherries and raisins stewed in the red wine with sugar (i’m guessing here) along with pignoli rosemary brittle. DID YOU HEAR ME? pignoli rosemary brittle with red wine and figs and cherries and goat milk ice cream? it was PERFECT I TELL YOU! ok, sorry, i don’t mean to yell, i just wasn’t sure if you were really listening. but if you live within a 2 hour drive of nyc and you don’t go to ‘otto‘ for this dessert, well then, you deserve your tiramisu from amerigo, carrabba’s or macaroni grill.

when we left otto’s it had begun to snow, cloaking ny in a thin veil of the palest shade of grey…

and we wandered up 8th street to 6th avenue and then took the bus to 38th street to check out the irving penn exhibit at the morgan library – a lesser known museum encompassing a beautiful complex of buildings that somehow has joined the italian renaissance style palazzo, built barely after the turn of the century – with a 75,000 square foot modern addition added in 2006 by the architect renzo piano. after spending 3 laid back and culture filled hours at the morgan, i got in a cab and headed back to the hotel. the snow had begun to pick up and i ran upstairs to change my clothes and to meet my friend bill for a dinner at ‘blt market‘ – laurent tourondel’s latest and greatest restaurant, celebrating the long overdue locavore movement. by now the weather was looking pretty dramatic – the snow was sticking and beginning to build up on the sidewalks. but our timing was good and the doorman was able to snag us a cab and we took the short ride to central park and entered through the doors of the ritz-carlton. we went through the lobby passing both peter greenberg at one table and larry king sitting at the bar. the restaurant was packed despite the cold, wet night and shortly after our first drink arrived our waiter brought us this:

now people, i’m going to have to ask you to be understanding. there’s no natural light and i’m shooting with a little cannon elph. the nikon SLR has been left at home and only at times do i get up the nerve to use the flash after first apologizing to my neighboring tables. the flash, which often blows everything out rendering it overly bright is only sometimes marginally better than no flash which result in dark and grainy pics. such are the hardships of a food blogger… BUT – regardless of any of this, please allow me to introduce to you quite the amuse bouche in the form of the infamous yet much adored ‘pig in a blanket’. but now this was laurent tourondel’s version and it was, as one would expect – mighty amazing. i know a certain ‘Mr. Pink’ that would have taken a bite and then perhaps called for a moment of silence to mark the reverence of the experience. and i challenge you to take the pig in a blanket and elevate it to its highest imaginable form. from the smooth pork and beef sausage to the perfect flaky pastry where a thin and crispy pork rind balances beneath a dollop of saurkraut – sporting a crown of mustard fit only for the king of pigs in a blanket. well, it was splendidly good enough to make me ask for seconds, if only because we ate ours so fast that i forgot to snap a picture. see what i do for you, dear readers? I ASK FOR SECONDS. and you think it’s just all about me… so it was snowing and we were drinking and talking to the table next to us where one of the guys grew up in forest hills, queens just like i did. and it was a beautiful room on a beautiful nyc winter’s night and i was with my very sweet friend bill and we were happy as could be. yes, all that – and then the bread… baked with a pretty green layer of olive oily herbs tucked inside and presented warm and in a baguette bag.

i had a mache salad with quail deviled eggs and black perigord truffles followed by the roasted amish chicken stuffed with meyer lemon provencal with porcini’s and pomme fondante crowned by a head of roasted garlic…

bill had the spiced orange glazed maple leaf duck with hudson valley foie gras and collards greens with bacon along with the roasted garlic mashed potatoes…

our dessert was the meyer lemon mille feuille. i forgot to take a picture but as one might expect, it was quite good. we finished our dinner and headed out into the messy night. the falling snow had turned a bit icey but by morning it’d all be gone, washed away by a light rain, held fast by our memory of the lovliest of dinners.

to be continued…