12/08/11 • BACON ONION BONANZA From the Nov., 2011 Saveur (click here to view the recipe) Since sitting down to write this week’s posting I’ve been slammed with “urgent” emails relating to everything from a mysterious leak that’s appeared in my downstairs neighbors’ closet; a busted basin in my bathroom that’s rendered the sink unusable; a variety of issues relating to my upcoming office move (insurance certificates,

12/01/11 • ARTICHOKE CHEESE SPREAD With Thanksgiving still in the rearview mirror and the double header of Christmas/New Year’s looming on the horizon, food has been on my mind a lot lately. Actually, since food is pretty much always on my mind, perhaps I should say that it’s been on my mind more urgently lately. “Urgently” both because this is the time of year when I feel compelled to turn out somewhat more elaborat

11/24/11 • TURKEY POT PIE As featured in Vanity Fair • 11/23/2011 • www.vf.com Everyone has at least one favorite Thanksgiving recipe. I can think of about ten that immediately spring to mind, and over time I hope to bring all of them to you (as Dorie Greenspan once said to me, food is ultimately about sharing, a concept that effectively kills the idea of the “secret recipe”). But this year, for my first Thanksgiving

11/17/11 • THE BIG PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE From the Nov., 1990 Gourmet (click here to view the recipe) As featured in Vanity Fair • 11/18/2011 • www.vf.com Once in a while you clip a recipe, put it into play, and are so delighted with the results that you swear it will become one of your standards. And once in a while that actually ends up happening. This, for me, is one of those. Since first stumbling on this recipe eigh

11/10/11 • SAUSAGE STEW From the Oct., 2011 Food & Wine I tend to think of stew as a uniquely American creation. This may have something to do with the fact that one of the first stews I ever knew and loved was a classic beef variety that the housekeeper at my dad and step-mother’s house used to make for us when I was a kid. Her name was Helen and while I can’t claim to ever having been one of her favorites (she

11/03/11  • PORK AND SWEET POTATO HASH From the Sept., 2011 Bon Appetit On a normal weekday morning, breakfast for me tends to go in one of two directions: the healthy option, consisting of some sort of whole grain cereal (Grape Nuts if I can find them) topped with a handful of berries and dampened with a little milk or yogurt, or the less healthy option, featuring a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel and a thick smear of

10/26/11  • REIGNING MEATBALLS From the Oct., 2011 Esquire (click here to view the recipe) In the last week I’ve eaten pork braciola at Frankie’s 570 (the new West Village outpost of Frankie’s Spuntino); a big bowl of papardelle with a braised rabbit ragu at a newly resurgent Morandi; a large marinara and cheese pizza at Tappo in Chelsea; and, from the Sunday Gravy stand located at Smorgasburg — the open air food mar

10/20/11  • BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD From the Oct., 2005 Gourmet (click here to view the recipe) I’ve probably walked through the Union Square farmer’s market a thousand times by this point in my life. That’s not all that surprising; I’ve lived in the vicinity for most of the past 23 years. What is surprising, though, is that it was only last spring that I actually slowed down enough to really take in what was piled on

10/13/11 • PEAR GINGERBREAD CAKE From the Feb., 2002 Gourmet (click here to view the recipe) I’m sitting here thinking about cake. Sitting, not writing, because in-and-of-itself, cake does not tend to inspire in me particularly strong feelings. But here’s the thing about cake: even if you’re not a cake person per se, chances are you’ve encountered one or two in your life that stayed with you and that function as a ki

10/06/11 • MOROCCAN CHICKEN From the July, 2007 Cooks Illustrated Here in the northeast we’ve been mired in what meteorologists like to call “a trough of low pressure.” For those of us who live here that simply means it’s been raining, off and on, for weeks. If you haven’t been drenched you’re one of the few. Last Thursday, fed up with hauling my umbrella and raincoat around, I decided to give them the day off, and s