It’s oh so quiet–shhh, shhh;

My apologies for my silence here–I’ve been hard at work over at Take Back Your Kitchen, but I promise I’ll be back here!  In the meantime, please feel free to check out the new site!
Cin cin!

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Louie Louie, oh no, I said we gotta go. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I said Louie, Louie, oh baby, I said we gotta go;

In the five years I’ve either lived or visited New Haven, I had never found an opportunity to visit Louis’ Lunch, the famous, teeny joint whose claim to fame is having served the first hamburger.  It’s right across the street from BAR, which is one of my favorite restaurants thanks to its delicious, cheap pizza [...]

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L’illusionista;

Since we decided to go to a party on Valentine’s Day to mix things up a bit, Saturday will be our designated night of staying in and making dinner, our normal way of marking the holiday.
I proposed to add a twist to the festivities, however–using a rewards certificate from Amazon.com, I managed to get a [...]

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Top Chef New York: let’s hack up some fish!

Due to the ridiculousness of last week’s episode, rife with gimmicks, product placements and misnomers of “all-stars,” I have chosen not to recap it.  I will wax a little on Jeff’s exit, however; while likely not the Top Chef in this group, he is extremely talented–I just wish he could focus his ideas more and [...]

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Top Chef New York: restaurant wars!

From the first season of Top Chef, the challenge now affectionately known as Restaurant Wars has always been entertaining, from Stephen in season 1 babbling ad nauseum about the wine selection for his restaurant, to the do-over required in season 3, and this go-around was no different.
Appropriately enough the guest judge for both rounds this [...]

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Orzo in salsa di limone, parmigiano e prezzemolo;

I tend to use orzo often when making pasta dishes because it’s just so versatile–it works well in soups, pasta salads and even in faux-risotto dishes–and it also doesn’t necessarily need the giant pasta pot that long noodles require if you’re only making pasta for one or two people.  The original recipe that this is an [...]

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Top Chef New York: country chefs, city chefs;

Dio mio!  This week’s episode was one that got this household fired up, for oh so many reasons, so let’s just dig in and honor this episode, shall we?

Image, as always, from Bravotv.com, but for some reason it won’t let me link directly  to it. 

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Top Chef New York: Gail? Gail?

The title of this week’s episode, “Focus Group,” naturally has me incredibly intrigued–especially after last week’s total letdown with a non-elimination.  That, along with the promise of a double knifing and a new judge meant that we were going to have quite a good episode in store for us, and happily, we weren’t disappointed:

(photo from [...]

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When the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine, that’s amore;

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Or:  Loving Darden and Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants
I consider myself extremely lucky:  when I want to go out to eat, I have an amazing variety of local restaurants to visit here in good old New Haven.  If I want wings, I go to Archie Moores; great pizza and beer, I [...]

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Top Chef New York: happy holidays?

I know I’ve dragged my feet on writing this recap–it was actually one of my least favorite episodes of the season, and the conclusion didn’t provide a satisfying end for the show going on a holiday hiatus, so I didn’t have a deep desire to write about it.  While it was a supersized episode, it [...]

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