I fly a lot! It is my happy place and my favorite time of the day. I crave being up in the air. The longer the flight the better. I never open my laptop. I do not connect to wireless. I think. I scribble. And I read. Inevitably, about food. What is it about the
I keep my Instagram feed chockfull of images from destinations abroad. The cyclists are out in Amsterdam. The table-side trattorias of Trastevere look sunny and inviting. And my French friends have my heart yearning for a cafe seat in the 15th, a glass of red and an order of steak tartare avec frites to complete
If you’ve been cooking all your life – even just a home-schooled hack – you think you probably know it all. And when it comes to breakfast, is there really anything new under the sun? It took my good friend Billy – director, film professor, fantastic cook – to throw me a tip that has
“What is more tedious for us than an early supper? It thrusts itself into the gathering speed of a day’s life like a stick into the spokes of a turning wheel.” –M.F.K. Fisher– I concur, and I keep on hand a mental stack of simple menus that call not for a recipe, but rather a
Growing up, grapefruit was a winter fixture at our family’s dinner table. My mother served it as an appetizer, chilled and halved and topped temptingly with a maraschino cherry. We ate it with a special grapefruit spoon, a curious sort of surgical implement with a serrated tip for pulling the segments of fruit—already loosened with
Life has softened Chef John DeLucie like buttah! Twenty years ago, he was a single man and journeyman chef, riding his bike through Greenwich Village on a spring afternoon. He stumbled upon a vacant restaurant property that captured his fancy. What has transpired since has seen the city, his place in it, and the way
I once calculated that I have made about 6,000 meals for my kids. I’m not a chef, I’m a writer. That means I am well-versed in making countless decisions on a daily basis. Therein lies the key to feeding children, while not driving yourself crazy. Variety, bravery and reckless abandon. So we’re making fish tonight,
There are certain go-to recipes that I return to again and again. And they frequently don’t make a lick of sense. You can go to any good deli or specialty store and pick up a pound of this luxurious fish for about twenty bucks. Why go to all the trouble to make it yourself? One?
Has this ever happened to you? You get your Chinese takeout home, open up all the packages, lay out the egg rolls and hot mustard and duck sauce, spread out the lo mein and Hunan pork and garlic shrimp and Happy Family special – and then you start with the wonton soup. And the broth
When I heard the news that iconic fashion figure Karl Lagerfeld had died, I bolted up in bed. I am hardly the fashion plate; I don’t run in those circles. But my friend Chef John DeLucie does and he had a story. Many years ago John and I wrote a book called THE HUNGER, about
