Easy, delicious duck paired with vibrant red wine
Today, my good friend Alex is receiving the Cartaví Internacional award for the Spanish selection of her wine list at Veritas, in New York. On many a night, Alex and I hosted impromptu…
Read moreA Chicken for Every Broken Heart
There’s only so much consoling one can do over Gchat. I decided to escalate my efforts to help my friend get over a recent breakup by preparing her Dolores’ Brokenhearted Chicken,…
Read moreCheese-pocalypse Now
“A highway tunnel in Norway will be shut down for several weeks after being damaged by blank.” The only fill-in I could think of was impossible. Whenever I think of Norwegian…
Read moreDon’t Stop Believing
Hold on to that feeling – the feeling that you can eat and drink what you want; the feeling that wine is meant to be savored; the feeling that you…
Read moreThere and Back Again
Hooray for The Hobbit! Today’s premiere is the cinematic event I’ve been waiting for since I saw the credits roll on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Like…
Read moreSparkler in the Raw
I’ve been thinking about home a lot. Thanksgiving certainly helped, as do the December holidays just around the corner. The home of Lot18 New York, as some of you may…
Read moreElegy With Julia
“I told you my Mom met Julia Child, right?” “No, you didn’t. I would have remembered.” “We were at that awesome food store in Cambridge with my parents and my…
Read moreTake Me to Your Liter
A chunky new kid shows up at school – what do you do? If that kid is a big 1L bottle of Grüner, you should throw an arm around its broad…
Read moreYou win some, you lose some.
Yesterday, I threw caution to the wind. I exuberantly unsheathed my fish-grilling pan, bought last weekend on Kappabashi-Dori, Tokyo’s half-mile-long mecca to kitchenware geeks and chefs. Searching for a sharkskin wasabi grater…
Read moreGot Acidity? Bring on the Funk.
Like many cooks with pantries full of spices, condiments, fancy oils and a dozen vinegars, I can’t stop myself from adding a pinch of this or a splash of that…
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