About once a week, the Glutton and consort abandon their coveralls and shit-kickers, their nature walks and woodpiles, for the hustle and bustle of the big city. How else can we keep up with all the important goings-on and connect with the clients who make this rural existence possible? A mere two-hour drive southeast and we enter another world, far removed from our daily existence and yet deeply familiar—after 25 years of living in Manhattan, it's in my blood. My life is utterly changed from when I used to inhabit those mean streets, and I truly do prefer our little country cottage, but I can still appreciate all the city has to offer. It's actually been hard for me to relinquish that sense of being so plugged in to the latest restaurants, the new boutiques, the exhibits and plays that are the cultutral currency of a true New Yorker. I can't help imagining myself as both country mouse and city mouse.

You remember that children's story, right? Beguiled by his sophisticated city cousin’s amazing tales, the country mouse ventures into town. But his cousin has neglected to mention the deafening noise, the frighteningly tall buildings and those dangerous dogs! The city presents a spectacle at once gorgeous and disturbing. In the end, the reader comes to understand why the city mouse loves his exciting life and why the country mouse is content with his peaceful home. With a foot in each camp, I try to make the best of both worlds.
Read More...

It was a sweltering day in the city yesterday but I had a bee in my bonnet about getting down to Chinatown to score some young ginger. I was so inspired by this post but I despaired of getting my hands on the right ginger, and then a Japanese friend told me the Chinatown street vendors had it. Having lived in close proximity to New York City's Chinatown in my time, I'm quite familiar with how the heat ratchets up its already heady perfume and by midday it was quite ripe. But so were the beautiful tropical fruits!

It's been two years since I was in Asia (remember?) and I yearn to traipse through sultry streets to foreign markets where unknown produce is piled high and the sweet scent of tuberose mingles with those of smoke, sweat and cooking. How amazing it is to feel like a visitor in an exotic land just walking up and down Canal Street. If you've never shopped for mangoes, yellow chives or fresh lychees down there, you must treat yourself to the experience.
Read More...

I was in the city yesterday and had the pleasure of two wonderful meals in two very different restaurants. Both experiences served to remind me of how unique restaurant food can be—and should be—when compared to what we make at home. The amount of technique and the sheer painstaking labor that went into the dishes I ordered are simply not feasible for the home cook. It was humbling, inspiring and satisfying.

Lunch was at The Nomad, Daniel Humm's sophomore endeavor which you can read about in greater detail here. The ambiance was surprising, as though we'd stepped into a Viennese supper club, or at least somewhere on Madison Avenue, rather than a small hotel on Broadway and 28th Street. There are passementerie-adorned red velvet chairs, chandeliers and gorgeous framed botanical prints.
Read More...

Our flight to Mexico was totally cancelled—not delayed, not postponed, CANCELLED! 10 years ago exactly, trying to make my way from LA to Tulum to celebrate Scott's 40th, the same exact thing happened. In the end, I never made it down there at all, but this time G pulled a rabbit out of a hat and got us a flight to Mexico CIty on Thursday. We'll make it to Todos Santos late that night, missing just a day and a half of our vacation. By the 31st, we'll have our day in the sun.In the meantime, we'll make the most of another 2 days tromping around the snowy city, and another couple of nights at the Ace. Yesterday we saw Black Swan and True Grit; the former a hot mess, the latter a beautifully shot and rather compelling film, though not the Coen brothers' best. There followed another flawless dinner at Momofuku Ssam. The duck with plum and cashew was divine, as were the pickled Prince Edward Island mussels. Today, we're headed out to see The Fighter and The King's Speech, then Co. for pizza—G will fall off the gluten wagon for that! Bottom line: it could be worse. Hope you're tucked up somewhere warm...
Read More...

Have you been to Peels yet? It's the new restaurant from the people behind Freemans, that early proponent of old-timey-taxidermy-comfort-foody hipness, where downtowners still go for their mac 'n' cheese and hot artichoke dip. Owner Tavo Somer has described his new venture as "kind of supposed to be Freemans' girlfriend. He's all old New England, and she's like a feminine, Southern girl.” Hmmm. Not sure if that really comes across since I haven't had a proper meal there, but I did pop in early one morning for a cup of tea and really liked the cozy atmosphere downstairs in this 2-story restaurant. Nowness, LVMH's über-coolness blog, featured the place on Thanksgiving; check out their photos. It turns out that pastry chef Shuna Lydon, whose blog rants are as amusing as her desserts are divine, has taken up residency here and is overseeing a baking extravaganza of homey treats that elevates Peels way above your average downtown cafe. I had a buckwheat muffin flavored with rosemary and lemon marmalade that was truly delicious.
Read More...

Today was one of those days when I was filled with a great love for New York City. The energy is always particularly high around the holidays, the streets filled with tourists, the shops crowded and a bracing chill in the air. I was walking up Central Park South, watching dogs chasing squirrels in the park, enjoying the lovely vistas, when I came upon the sweetest sight: a couple of chefs from the Ritz-Carlton feeding the carriage horses fresh carrots (greens and all) from a big market basket. So delightful, especially since I always get a pang of sadness when I see those horses gussied up in that cheesy frippery they really don't deserve. (I think I read Black Beauty just a few too many times as a girl.) Anyway, it was an especially New York-y moment—unexpected, extravagant, poignant. And it was the perfect set-up for an exceptional day that included lunch at A Voce, a facial from the incomparable Claudia Colombo, dinner at Nougatine, A Free Man of Color at Lincoln Center, and a night at The Jane.
Read More...

Saw The Social Network last night. I think Fincher's best movie thus far. He really got out of his own way for a change, and Aaron Sorkin's screenplay will probably win the Oscar. It's a great portrait of tortured soul and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose stupefying mix of arrogant brilliance and crippling insecurity reminded me of half the people I encountered at Harvard, especially the genius-geeks whose shameless misogyny stemmed from never being able to get a date. The film is  less about the phenomenon of social networking than it is about the irony that the dude who creates it is a social outsider. Jesse Eisenberg gives a flawless performance, his face a motionless enigma that rarely jerks into a grimace we come to recognize as a smile. Movie night was preceded by yet another trip to Eataly, this time at the sub-prime hour of 4pm. The place was buzzing but  not overcrowded, and G and I slipped right into a couple of seats at the counter of Pesce. An appetizer of razor clams bathed in olive oil, parsley, garlic and hot pepper was delicious, a harbinger of things to come. Both G's whole branzino, infused with lemon and roasted on a thin crust of half-crispy-half-velvety potatoes, and my smoked black cod with a crackling skin and salad of watercress were fresh off the boat and perfectly executed. A quick trip to the gelato stand (chocolate for G, equally smooth and unctuous pear-vanilla sorbetto for me) and we were off to the races. I love a dose of the city on an unseasonably warm fall day.
Read More...

This cast iron casserole by Timo Sarpaneva is one of the many gorgeous and intriguing pieces in the exhibition, Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen, which is at MoMA through March 14, 2011. As the museum describes it, the show "explores the 20th-century transformation of the kitchen and highlights MoMA’s recent acquisition of an unusually complete example of the iconic 'Frankfurt Kitchen,' designed in 1926–27 by the architect Grete Schütte-Lihotzky...Prominence is given to the contribution of women, not only as the primary consumers and users of the domestic kitchen, but also as reformers, architects, designers, and as artists who have critically addressed kitchen culture and myths."But back to the cast iron pot, an award-winning cult object of Finnish design that is much sought after by collectors and is now back in production. It has a detachable wooden handle that allows you to lift and move both the pot and its lid. As we say in our house, "I wish it."
Read More...

I've now made two trips to Eataly, New York City's new temple of Italian gastronomy, and although I haven't actually eaten anything on premises, I'm able to give you my initial impressions. On my first visit, shortly after it opened in late August, I muscled my way through the throngs of gaping tourists and irritated locals in what looked a lot like an Italian airport, barely able to check it all out before fleeing to the relative calm of 23rd Street. Porca miseria, I texted G. What a mob scene! And for what? A small, bedraggled-looking produce section (and alleged "produce butcher" Jennifer Rubell nowhere in sight); aisle after aisle of dried pasta; very pricey imported salume (culatello for $65 a pound!); walls cluttered with the kind of boxed biscotti and candies you find at most corner delis...well, you can see I was underwhelmed. (And the thought of the carbon footprint on much of this stuff gives me pause.) Still, I did get a glimpse of what looked like a very impressive selection of fresh pasta. Pat La Frieda's meats caught my eye, as did whole fresh duck, sweetbreads and tripe—not a common sight in most butcher shops. And the seafood counter, curated by the master David Pasternak, was flawless. La Verdura, a counter serving vegetable-based dishes and the only menu I eyeballed, seemed very promising. Now if all those people would just fuck off...
Read More...

Still haven't made it to Momofuku Ko (can't seem to perform that Pavlovian task of logging on every day at 10am and frantically pecking at the keyboard in hope of getting a reservation) but finally dined at David Chang's latest outpost in midtown, Mà Pêche. It's what you might expect from an uptown version: roomier, sleeker and slightly more soulless. As chef, Chang has installed Tien Ho, formerly the boss of the kitchen at Momofuku Ssam Bar, which still remains my favorite of the empire. As Sam Sifton put it in in his review in the Times, "The food is not quite as precise and magical as it often is in the downtown restaurants, but it is recognizably Changish and strong: big flavors tied together with herbs and acids." I killed some time in the dimly-lit bar first and things started off with a bang. There was a bar snack of what looked like pork rinds and turned out to be large, crunchy cassava chips dusted with salt and spicy shichimi togarashi, a favorite spice blend of mine that was also used to spike a yuzu-infused sake "sour." Needless to say, I was very happy to sit there devouring Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" and the entire bowl of chips along with my cocktail.
Read More...