Results matching “yogurt” from eat drink one woman

My co-workers know that second breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.  And yogurt with fruit and granola is my favorite second breakfast. 

I often wind up buying pots of yogurt from Pret downstairs from the office, but I have to eat it with the distaste I have for its price.  Granola is cheap and easy to make. 

This is a riff on the recipe The Amateur Gourmet posted for Baked's granola.  Adam's right, it's a wholesome, everyday granola with a good dose of salt to balance the brown sugar.  It's crunchy and just clumpy enough (thanks to the honey).  You can add whatever nuts and seeds you have on hand.  Just make sure you don't add the fruit until the granola has cooled completely -- the dried fruit turn into chewy dogbone bits if you bake them.  I also dialed the salt down by 1/4 tsp.

It's been a busy few weeks.  I had a setback in my writing schedule when I got ill with some flu-like thing again. Maybe next year, I get the flu shot.

I never feel more alone than when I am ill.  I hear that mothers always feel this way -- that there's no one to take care of them when they are sick.  Knowing I'd be in no state to cook when I got home, I picked up some cupcakes on the way to the train.  I like stocking up on crack snacks when I'm ill because they're easiest to get past the killed tastebuds.

So when day 1 of my illness turned into day 2 and I'd plowed through my two cupcakes, I needed more simple carb sustenance.  My neighborhood offers very few delivery options, and I was not about to walk more than a block from home in my state, so I figured I'd have to pull something together from the cupboard.

Everybody needs an arsenal of pantry-ready recipes.  I searched for something simple and found this Chocolate & Zucchini recipe for Yogurt Cake.  It's my favorite kind of recipe -- barely measured, simple to follow even when the flu has turned your brain to mush.

But in a feverish moment of inspiration, I decided to add those stewed apricots.

It still sucks to be alone when you're sick, but what am I going to do?  Sometimes it's enough to stuff my face with this cake and watch Jerry Springer for an afternoon.

 Apricot Cardamom Yogurt Cake

The pan pictured here is one of those floppy silicone jobs which La Doug got for Christmas one year.  Worked well for popping the cake out at the end, but you have to put the pan on a baking sheet or you won't be able to carry it into the oven.  Such a weird design.  I haven't figured out what they would be best for yet.

"My friends were poor, but honest; So's my love."
-- Helena, All's Well that Ends Well

We had an impromptu dinner party for 12 of our best friends at Sarah and Alex's palatial new flat in Fort Greene.  Sarah and Shannon's cinnamon-hued hound puppy made a few social appearances between naps while the rest of us pulled our chairs up around a rough-edged marble kitchen table, sipping prosecco from wide-mouthed champagne glasses, picking at a hunk of pecorino and peppery water crackers. 

Newcomers toured their epic backyard garden -- wet burgundy Japanese maple, slick pebble and white-painted wood, pre-blossom wisteria enveloping the walls, the dual hammocks dripping cool spring rain.  Even the indoor cacti were looking as succulent and lush as I've ever seen cacti look.

Really, it is heaven to be there with all of my beloveds.  My friends don't have a lot of money, and we're in varying states of employment, but many of us have lucked out on good New York apartments; on days like these, surrounded by my crew, I feel like a contessa. 

La Doug chose this recipe for the dinner party because it was easily doubled and can be made in one pot.  We all loved it. The ground cashews add a bit of texture, giving the curry zaftig body and meatiness, rounded out by the mellowing yogurt.

It went over like gangbusters with some sauteed spinach and rice cooker-prepped jasmine rice.  You absolutely MUST use a good curry powder -- we love S&B Oriental curry powder,
the blend of choice for Japanese curry.  It can be found at any Asian grocery store and a surprising number of delis in Manhattan.

Chicken Curry with Cashews

This recipe is from Epicurious. 

Heat 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter in a 7-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat until foam subsides.

Fry 3 chopped onions, 4 chopped garlic cloves, and 2 tbsp. minced ginger until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add 6 tbsp. S&B curry powder, 1 tbsp. salt, 2 tsp. ground cumin, and 1 tsp. cayenne and sauté for 2 minutes.

Add 6 lbs. chicken parts and cook, stirring to coat, 3 minutes.

Add 2 (14.5-oz.) cans tomatoes with juice and simmer gently, covered, stirring occasionally, until chicken is cooked through, about 40 minutes.

Grind 1 1/2 cups cashews until very fine, then add to curry along with 1 1/2 cups whole milk yogurt . Simmer gently, uncovered, stirring, until sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes.

Serves about 8 on a rainy Sunday.

--

After we got home from Sarah and Alex's:

DOUG: I really feel like the kitchen's not that bad at all.

[pause]

DOUG: That's why I'm going to wait 'til tomorrow to clean up.

Well, hello there.

I've been away.  My job has been really eating up a lot of time of late, so I'm sorry for the absence. 

This weekend, I went to see the Memento 10 year anniversary screening, followed by a panel with the actors, the filmmaker and a pair of neuroscientists.  Have you seen Memento?  I won't ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it, but the mystery starts with a man who has no short-term memory (actually, it's long-term memory said Dr. Corkin on the panel, but that's another story) so he completely forgets recent events, places he's been, people he's met.  His brain is a sieve, and only his camera and his pen can help him retain the facts of his own life.  He winds up writing knowledge down on index cards, taking Polaroids to remember faces.  Without memories he can trust, he realizes that he can only place trust in his own familiar scrawl.

Which, of course, is what this blog has always done for me.  Everyone's memory, by nature, will fail them, as the brain rebuilds every event anew -- the more often it is accessed, the better the chance of a creative rebuild.

And all of these unrecorded events of my life, I don't want to lose them in the vast and ever-expanding stacks of my hippocampus.  No moment of life is too inane.  Time feels more scarce in the new lines around my mouth, the white sprouts at my cowlick, the tightening hinge at the base of my spine.

So I return to the metaphor I love -- the consumption of Life, so simple and full of wonder, spoonful by spoonful.  I want to savor these moments in the years to come, and I want to give my brain all the help it needs.

I spend my work week chasing page views and search engines, and sometimes I felt like I had to put some of that effort into my personal web space.  But whenever I did that, it was easy to lose the joy of writing, of recording something that was only meaningful to me, not to an audience outside of myself.

But I have always been able to find comfort in the familiar angles and pressure of my own scrawl.  My mundane Sunday morning breakfast of stewed apricots and yogurt may not be what everyone is searching for, but it means something to me --  it's a memory of a late night after a long day at work, unwinding at my friend Sarah's old apartment in Murray Hill.  It's a snapshot of the slippery squish of a black leather couch, one that was inherited by Sarah's boyfriend Alex from my other friend Shannon's bachelor pad days.  There's even a chuckle over Sarah's observation about the graphically Sapphic nature of the soaking apricots.

That couch is gone -- Sarah and Alex have moved to another apartment without it.  Shannon is no longer a bachelor.  Now that Sarah is no longer in Murray Hill, I don't have the luxury of popping over for a late night snack-chat after work. But I have these apricots and a few words, like a Polaroid in full development.  




Stewed apricots with greek yogurt, raw honey and pistachios

This recipe was given to me by my friend Sarah, who adapted it from a much more involved Nigella recipe.

Soak 2 cups dried California apricots in enough water to cover overnight.

Coarsely grind 1/2 tsp. cardamom.  Add to apricots and simmer for half an hour until soft.

Cool to room temp.  Keeps about a week in the fridge.

Serve over Greek yogurt with 1 tsp. raw honey and some pistachios.

On the rarest of occasions, it is possible to take a bite of something and taste an entire lifetime in it.

Sometimes it's an animal's life, very straightforward.  Sometimes it is the chef's life you taste, his memory, her touch.  Sometimes it's your own life. 

I can count the number of times in this has happened to me.  The first time was when my whole clan went to visit my cousin when she was in college.  We ordered takeout from the Thai House on Market St. in San Francisco.  My father, whose brother did the electrician work for many of the Thai restaurants on that side of the bay, popped his head into the kitchen and asked to get our food extra Thai-style.  We ate sitting on the floor of my cousin's railroad apartment in the Mission.  What I remember was a tom yum goong, so pungent and tangy, topped with blistered chilies that singed and sang.  That night, I tasted my family's life, in a moment when we were all together, just a few years before we dispersed around the nation.  I'll never forget that meal.  We still talk about it to this day.

Another time was a meal I had with my then boyfriend at Nobu.  My boyfriend wanted to impress me.  I was mostly ungrateful and unimpressed.  Until, that is, the final course came out -- a small bowl of broth, all golden clarity and tasting of the sea.  It had a few small pieces of pink and white fish, poached to perfection, with just a few sprouts of mitsuba floating about.  It made my boyfriend cry.  It made me a little teary.  We looked at each other.  We looked at the chef.  The chef nodded knowingly.  I tasted the ocean in that bowl, the Pacific ocean, the history of kelp, the bright sun that warms the upper reaches of the water. 

And then there was Mathias Dahlgren's Matsalen.  Francis and I decided to go and treat ourselves one night when he was in Stockholm.  My appetite was ample.  The little teasers had been clever and delicious -- a seascape made of paper-thin, dehydrated cauliflower floating like coral in a glass of sesame seeds, a sail of soy-seaweed paper, a crisp sheet of beet.  And there it was -- a tiny bun warmed on a charred piece of wood.  The waitress gave some story about this bun being Mathias's first memory as a child.  Yeah, yeah, I thought.  Just lemme at it.

The smell -- coal, fire, dough.  Smooth, round bread against the wavy grain of the wood pedestal.  I popped it into my mouth and clamped down.  And -- was that a gob of butter?  A little salty, and then the dough was sweet.  Creamy.  Soft.  Oh god.  My blood vessels dilated up to the roots of my hair.  There it was -- recognition.  The chef's life in a bite.

The tasting menu at Mathias Dahlgren was one of the best meals of my life.  Seriously.  Moments of true bliss followed as Francis and I chuckled our way giddily through the seven-course dinner.  A little tile of ling, a cod-like fish, and the daintiest scallop, seared with just a smack of heat, was tender and sensual against a masculine garlic puree and palate-cleansing parsley sprouts.  It lit Francis's face up.  Bling!

Raw tongue lengths of coral-colored salmon folded over bright orange whitefish roe, nestling against a creamy bit of artichoke puree and emerald green Gotland asparagus tips, all moistened by a touch of browned butter and adorned with lilac chive flowers. This dish was absolutely feminine, encompassing the delicate complexity of spring, all fertility and sensuality.  It was my favorite dish that night.

Langoustine wrapped in -- was that pure pork fat? -- pork cheek, served with an astringent lovage-pea puree.  A pumpkin porridge topped with parmesan cheese, black truffles and pumpkin seeds -- simple and earthy.  Rich saddle of lamb with fried sweetbreads were decadent but played up the complex flavors of the meats themselves.   

But over the next few days, I realized that another dish was haunting me, continues to haunt me.  It was so deceptively simple, so audacious.  A rectangle of their crustless pillowy sourdough was stuffed with cow's milk cheese, pan fried on all sides in olive oil and touched with honey, sea salt and black pepper.  The grilled cheese (because, come on, it's a grilled cheese) came with a thin, long shot glass of fermented birch sap, a lightly fizzy, lightly alcoholic translucent white beverage.  Epic sagas could be written about the flavors that came forth with every alternating bite and sip.  Honey + salt. Milk + yeast.  Tree + animal.  Age + brew.  Is it too soon to taste that again?  Will I ever taste anything like that again?  I wonder.

A visitor I had recently made the observation that Swedes wear the same standard H&M clothes that we do in the States, but they style them much more interestingly.  The same could be said of food here -- the Swedish sense of style is in play here.  Matsalen doesn't have an infinite palette of flavors.  But what it has, it uses gracefully, bringing out nuance.

Matsalen, located in the Grand Hotel, looks out on the dock where Waxholmsbolaget ferries drop anchor when they're in the Stockholm harbor.  The boats come and go over the course of a dinner as the cloudy sky fades from gray to navy.  It's a really quintessentially Stockholm view.  Inside, the dining room is chalky but warm, done up in complementary shades of blue gray, beige and white, echoing the colors of the boats and their headlights against the changing evening backdrop.  It's elegant, not stuffy, mimicking the hushed reverence and charm of a seaside chapel.

Matbaren, the more casual restaurant next door, offers a few of the same dishes on Matsalen's a la carte menu, though the food a little less interesting.  The room is a lot more casual, with wood walls, tall stools, Poul Henningsen light fixtures and a long, curved dining bar.  The unmissable: the horseradish herring was fucking unbelievable -- a cream herring, pickled but not tart, with a row of adorable, halved boiled fresh potatoes and a rope of bleak roe.  A few purple rings of onion add color and zest; underneath the stole of cream and above the brown butter slip, the herring hides tiny segments of lemon which burst with the bleak roe at precisely the right moments.  Make sure to also order a frosty shot of Mathias Dahlgren's own double-biting horseradish snaps.

And check out this dessert: a chilled 50s martini glass is filled with plain yogurt, with a soft ball of peach sorbet plopped in the middle (had to be robot-couped, it was so fine and smooth).  Around the glass, a ring of toasted, skinned whole hazelnuts (which have become a regular staple in my diet) circle the sorbet, with a little honey and a halo of fruity olive oil, topped with a pinch of sea salt.  Two temperatures, several textures, and big, bouffanty flavors.  I have got to make it for a dinner party sometime.

I will say that it's a good place to take yourself on a date.  I wasn't the only solo diner in there tonight -- two guys on the other side of the bar were also eating alone, though I think I totally out-ate them both.   

I've been considering going to Matsalen one more time before I go home, but I'm not sure I want to.  The experience was so sublime, so moving in my mind that I dare not disturb the dream.  But you can bet that the next time I'm back in Stockholm, I'll have a reservation there.

Matsalen
Mathias Dahlgren
Södra Blasieholmshamnen 6
T-bana: Kungsträdgården
Matsalen tasting menu: 1500 SEK (about $200).  Reservations required.
Matbaren 3 courses with 3 drinks: about 1000 SEK (about $130).  Reservations recommended, but there's supposedly always room for a drop-in.

View 4 Days in Stockholm in a larger map

ITINERARY 2, DAY 2: FRIDAY

Breakfast: home
Okay, we're packing in a lot today, so keep up.  If you need breakfast, have something light at home.  I suggest the Vanilj hjortron äpple (vanilla cloudberry apple) yogurt from Valio with muesli.  Or you can pick up a little smörgås of bread, butter, cheese, cucumber and red pepper from any cafe.  Or just a little coffee and away we go!

Food halls
Stockholm has a couple of food halls worth exploring.  Östermalms Saluhall is the classic food hall in the fancy part of town.  I went there on my first week in Stockholm, and it's worth checking out if you're in the area.  The building is pretty, filled with wood stalls and lots of little ready-to-eat food shops and raw ingredients.  But I think it's also a bit touristy.

I prefer Hötorgetshallen, which happens to be close to my work.  This was traditionally more of a market for the people, but it is also expensive.  Still, expect to find stacks of smoked fish, cheeses, breads, reindeer loins, and a handy Systembolaget, as well as excellent takeout like my favorite, a Turkish meze stand where you can get three types of meze for 69 SEK.  (I always get a bit of parsley and coriander crusted salmon, a scoop of thick yogurt with zucchini and garlic, and a scoop of mashed, roasted eggplant and peppers.)  The produce stall is stupid expensive, but they do sell lots of frozen wild berries like smultron (alpine strawberries) and hjortron (cloudberries).

The outdoor market on Hötorget's square is actually just like the fruit carts on the street in New York -- not local, and the strawberries have probably been shipped in from Germany or Spain.

Farmer's markets here are really hard to come by, which is a shame because that's always my favorite part about a city.  If you're here for the three weekends in August and the six weekends from August to October that they're open, you can check out the Bondens egen Marknad site for details on where they set up.  I haven't seen them yet, so I can't say whether or not they're good; I'm always out of town when they're open. 

Stockholm, you need more farmer's markets!  You of the hälsotallrik and the färskpotatis obsession!  Seriously, it will change your life.

Lunch: Hötorgetshallen, Kajsas Fisk
Stand online and squeeze into a table in the dark, low-ceilinged Hötorgetshallen stand -- it's part of the experience.  I recommend a round of the fisksoppa, mystery mix fish soup, with a little bit of aioli and a healthy scoop of the harissa by the counter.  Filling and fortifying with some buttered knäckebröd.  Skip the fried calamari, which is heavy and greasy.

Post lunch: View from the water
Get a one-way ticket on the hop-on, hop-off sightseeing boat, which is 100 SEK.  This may sound cheesy, but it's really nice to stand at the front of the boat for an hour and see the city from the water.  You can also use this ticket to gain entry to Gröna Lund, where you should stop if you're into amusement parks.  I think there is also a cheaper price for one-way rides, with which you can see the entire loop.

Dinner: 2 options: Matsalen ($$$$) or Max ($)
If you've got a little cash to burn, go to Mathias Dahlgren's Matsalen.  It's one of only two Michelin 2-star restos in Stockholm, and it was one of the most giddy, tingle-inducing meals of my life.  It deserves its own post, so hang in there for the review.  But make your reservation now!

If you're running low on cash, try Max, the classic burger chain from the north of Sweden.  Northerners are real union people (think Detroit), and the chain is famous for having shut McDonald's out of the market up North, where the locals refused to support it.  I'm not going to say the burgers are good -- the patties reminded me of White Castle burgers, without the slime -- but the fries with dipping sauce are excellent.  And then you can say you supported the local Goliath-tumbler.

If, you're on the Max option and your friends are on the Matsalen option, you'll have some time to kill, so it might be fun to check out a movie.  Cinemateket, which is currently closed for the summer until August 17, is the classic Stockholm arthouse movie theater.  You could also try Zita on Birger Jarlsgatan.  If you want to see something mainstream, check out SF Bio. [Disclaimer: They're owned by the people who pay my rent.]

Dancing: Cliff Barnes Restaurant

This place was described to me as "not classy by any means, but a good place for people of a certain age who are too old to go dancing all night."  Music starts promptly at 11pm and ends promptly at 1am.  We walked from Matsalen up to Norrtullsgatan, really not knowing what to expect.

From the outside, the place looks a little bit like a high school; the patrons outside could have been nicotine-addicted moms and dads discussing parent-teacher conferences inside.  But when we walked in, the bouncer asked us to wait for a moment until some patrons could clear out of the rowdy, overcrowded room.  You could feel the humidity and heat pulsating from inside.  And the best part was that every single person in the room was singing along at the top of their lungs to Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer".  When he unhooked the rope to let us in, here's what the bouncer said:

BOUNCER: Okay, there are only two rules.  No dancing on the tables, and no opening the windows.  You can dance in the window or on the chairs.  Have fun and be nice.

And sure enough, there was a lot of chair dancing, a lot of fun, and no air circulation.  Lots of radio hits from the 80s as well as a few Euro tunes we had never heard, but that everyone else knew the words to.  Also, there was very little rhythm to be found anywhere.  But plenty of people jumping on each other's backs and falling over.  In a very benign, clumsy way.  Seriously, nowhere in Stockholm are there more drunk-ass nerdz making total uncoordinated fools of themselves and not giving a rat's ass.  Francis and Raymond stared slack-jawed in disbelief for an hour.  It's really a slice of life spectacle you have to see to understand. 

RAYMOND: If you had told me what this was going to be like, I wouldn't have believed you.

Cliff Barnes
Norrtullsgatan 45
T-bana: Odenplan

And after the show, it's the after party
If you are STILL up for partying, you're going to have to go without grandma.  Everybody usually winds up at Berns or Spy Bar in Stureplan with the rest of the kids at the end of the night, because they stay open til 5am, at least on the weekends.  You ain't in Berlin, people.

I haven't been to Spy Bar, so I can't say what it's like.  But Berns is part of the Berns Hotel, and if it weren't filled with teenagers trying to get their liquor on, it would be quite a beautiful place.  I went there early in my stay in Stockholm and had a great time doing my early 90s booty grinds alongside kids who may very well have been half my age. The main ballroom is  huge, with high-ceilings, wood paneled walls and elegant lantern-shaped chandeliers.  During the winter, the second-floor terrace stays open while they blast the heat lamps.  Not very environmentally friendly.  The snow sparkles in the floodlights, and the crush of bodies and the lamps form a heat shield that melts the flurries of snow on contact.  It's pretty spectacular.

Tomorrow, we get some physical activity in, so drink a lot of water before you go to bed.

Sometimes, you go to a city for the first time and it clenches its sphincter, shines a flashlight in your face and tries its very best to kick you back to where you came from.  That's how I always felt about London, and my recent weekend trip just confirmed my suspicions.  Rome was no better -- I could feel the city trying to squeeze me out, and the feeling was mutual.

But sometimes, if you're lucky, you meet a city who leans back, makes eye contact, fans its hair out and parts its knees a teensy bit. 

I arrived in Paris on Saturday morning, dropped my bag off at the hostel (more on that later) near Republique, and walked south towards the Marais to begin one of the sweetest vacations of my life.

Paris was...Parisian to the Paris degree.  Pliant, enchanting and just gorgeous.  I fell in love almost immediately.  As someone I went to dinner with last night said:

STOCKHOLMER: There are only two cities in the world that look just like they look in the movies -- Paris and New York.

But that's not the only parallel.  I found that Parisians engage the way that New Yorkers do.  They joke with strangers, or they shrug their shoulders at you, or they yell things at you and they acknowledge your presence.  That famous Parisian rudeness they talk about -- I didn't experience it.  Maybe I was too busy gawking at the buildings and stuffing my face with delicious things.

.

Look at the sunlight!  Just pure and pearly, trickling softly through the leaves of aged trees lining les boulevards, les avenues, les rues.  The temperature hovered in the 70s for the whole of my stay, raining only once for the five minutes it took me to flip through a rack of clothing in a little boutique.  I didn't even notice it. 

I also didn't go to a single museum.  I didn't buy a single foodstuff to bring back to Stockholm.  I didn't go to a single bar.

I basically bicycled or walked until my feet hurt, looking at beautiful things and beautiful buildings and beautiful people.  I stopped to try on a pretty dress or two.  And every few hours, I ate something utterly scrumptious.  Sometimes I knew what I was eating and sometimes I didn't.  You can forgive me for my lack of details or not, but I don't care because it was my self-indulgent vacation and it made me happy.  It was only 3 days, but it was total perfection.

I took advice from David Lebovitz's site and packed pretty dresses to wear, and I'd encourage you to do the same.  But comfortable shoes are a must for all the walking.

I thought my Swedish lessons would hamper my French, but my one semester of francais came back pretty smoothly.  It was able to ask for water, say please, thank you, etc., and it was enough. 

What I'm saying is, if you've ever wanted to go to Paris, go now!  Go while the current mayor has cleaned up the Seine and made Paris beautiful.  Go while the Velib' bikeshare program is pretty new and well-kept, so it's easy to get around town without having to use the Metro.  Go because there has never been a good reason to keep Paris waiting.  I know that now.

With trips every weekend last month, including the one to Rome that bled my wallet dry, I think I put together an full but thrifty itinerary for myself.  I probably could have been perfectly happy to rent a bicycle for 30ish euros for three days, dawdle through the weekend street market of the Marais and sit on the Pont Neuf at sunset each evening with a hunk of cheese, a baguette and a bottle of wine. 

Scrimping in Paris
 
Breakfast at Le Comptoir des Archives -- about 13 euros 
It's not that the food was so spectacular at Le Comptoir des Archives.  The tartine with a thick trench of unsalted butter down the middle was as reliable as any tartine in Paris, the confiture of an unremarkable berry heritage.  The salade de fruits was a fine mix of apple, peach, mango, banana and grape (thank God they don't put awful melon in fruit salads).  And the cafe creme was perfectly good. (I know coffee is supposed to be terrible in Paris, but I thought all the coffee I had was better than all the coffee I had in Rome.  You don't have to believe me.  But that's what I think.)

But in Paris, it seems that the most popular spot at any given moment is the one that has the most attention from the sun.  And at 9am in the Marais, it feels like the sun is looking only at you in front of Le Comptoir des Archives.  13 euros is obvs. not that cheap for a small breakfast.  But Paris is stunning in the morning, before the tourists wake up, and it's worth it to get up and catch the sun and quiet while you can.  Think of it as 6.50 euros per hour. 

You're better off spending 13 euros and a few hours on this quiet corner of the Marais than you would be for a twice-as-expensive breakfast at Cafe de Flore on St. Germain, where the confiture is an extra 2.20 euros and the salade de fruits is a mushy mess of soggy kiwi and papaya.  Besides, a baguette with butter is pretty much a baguette with butter anywhere you go.

I sat next to the most elegant lovers.  I imagined they'd just rolled out of bed to take a post-coital coffee and cigarette.  Her strawberry blond, wavy hair was wild and thick, framing green bedroom eyes.  But her white linen pullover dress was crisply pleated, punctuated by slip-on black kitten heels.  Her head leaned into the crook of her young lover's arm.  He had tousled black hair, wire frame glasses, a t-shirt and jeans.  His jacket (a suit jacket, of course), was carefully folded in half on the wicker chair across from them.  He had a book on the table but was only paying attention to his girl.  Neither of them was particularly amazing looking, but together, they were irresistible.  
 



Le Comptoir des Archives
41, Rue des Archives
Métro: Hotel de Ville
01 42 72 13 56

Paris Opera -- 5 euros
I tried to see Tosca at the last minute on Saturday, which was playing at the Bastille Opera.  I'm glad I didn't get in, though, because it forced me to see another show the next night at the other venue, the magnificent Palais Garnier.  It's smaller than the Met, but about five times more glamorous, with crazy chandeliers, gold carvings, and a Chagall ceiling mural. 

The show was far from sold out, so the ushers encouraged me to move into the more expensive seating.  No matter that I fell asleep during the concert, quintets and sextets of Ligeti, Prokofiev, Janacek and Hindemeth.  It was totally worth the five euros to climb the marble staircase into Baroque heaven.


Palais Garnier
The corner of Rue Scribe and Rue Auber
Métro: Opéra lines 3, 7 and 8, RER Auber
Ticket prices vary depending on performance and your seat.

L'As du Fallafel -- 5 euros
It's a great falafel, maybe not a life-changing one, but a great one.  The hot, crunchy falafel themselves are a manageable size, a bit smaller than a ping pong ball.  The pickled veggies are great, the tender fried eggplant even better.  The thick pita could stand to be more interesting.  Don't worry, the guy asking you for your order and your money while you wait on the long line is legit.  The question is, where do you sit and eat it?  I wound up in one of the chairs in front of the place -- not ideal, and just okay for people watching.  If you figure out a better place to sit, let me know.  But it's a cheap filler up in the middle of the Marais on a beautiful, historic street.



L'As du Fallafel
34, Rue des Rosiers 
Métro: St. Paul
01-48-87-63-60

Caramella -- 3 euros
 Why does everything in continental Europe have to close on Sundays?  I had hoped to crowbar a meal at Rose Bakery in the Montmartre into my very full itinerary, but had no luck because the French don't like working like New Yorkers do.  I had to have dinner at Caramella instead. Wasn't such a bad option, though -- cooled down with a scoop of mojito sorbet, which was fresh and minty if a bit too sweet, and yogurt sorbet which was tangy, creamy heaven. Totally better than much of the Roman gelati I had.  Again, you don't have to believe me, I don't care.  I don't know how it rates compared to Berthillon ice cream, but it was pretty damn good and I didn't have to wait on line for it.  Worth a pit stop to Rue des Martyrs if only to pretend you are Chocolate & Zucchini for a minute.



Caramella
47, Rue des Martyrs
Métro: Notre Dame de Lorette
01-44-530956
3 euros

To be continued...

Daglivs is one of the biggest grocery stores in Stockholm.  Here's their full selection of peanut butter:

 

And here's just part of their selection of yogurt:


I bought rhubarb vanilla, but they've also got lingonberry apple, cloudberry, lychee, mangosteen, carrot orange, blood orange, and more flavors than I will have time to try while I'm here. They come with sugar, without sugar, lactose-free, Turkish, Greek, super high fat, almost no fat, light, drinkable, spoonable...

*They work!  Oh marvel of marvels.



Here's classic Kalles Kaviar, a tomato potato fish roe mixture that's supposedly good squeezed onto a boiled egg.  I will try it before I go.  I learned to love Marmite, so why not this?  I bet it's total umami.



Here's some salami cheese and crab cheese (that sounds dirty) in a tube.  I'm not sure what "ren" is.  But it comes with cheese.


These are a bunch of different kinds of cheese tubes, including mozzarella and olive cheese in a tube.  Very strange and exotic.

Name: Jenny Miller

Occupation: Freelance food and lifestyle journalist

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Single

What did you eat today?

I've had very graze-y eating schedule lately. Half a Trader Joe's muffin and some Total yogurt and half a grapefruit for breakfast; Dumplings (frozen ones I get from Vanessa's) as a mid-morning snack; Miso soup with veggie and an egg that I made for lunch; Seaweed and rice with Sriracha for a snack - basically a vehicle for spiciness - and now I'm hungry for dinner. I eat a lot of Asian food because I live near Chinatown and across the street from a great Chinese supermarket. 

What do you never eat?

I was a picky eater as a kid, but now I'm pretty omnivorous. I like most things if they're well prepared. That said, I don't care much for mayonnaise-y salads - potato salad, macaroni salad, etc. The slimy texture still gets me, I think.

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Eggs, butter, something to throw in an omelette, Alvarado Bakery sprouted bread, Sriracha, Amy's Goddess salad dressing, half and half for my coffee. 

What is your favorite kitchen item?

A big, sharp knife.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Mamoun's on St. Marks - I generally go there for a falafel after yoga class.

Also am lamentably addicted to the Vanessa's location on Eldridge (they bought Dumpling House), which is near my apartment. Though I fear for my sodium levels, I crave their boiled shrimp dumplings, fried pork dumplings, and hot and sour soup. Actually, the soup's not excellent - if I bring it home I usually add vinegar - but I love even mediocre hot and sour.

And when I get red-meat cravings, I head to Blue 9 Burger for a cheeseburger.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

Can we do a last day?

Breakfast: Chips and Salsa and  the migas from Curra's in Austin. I used to live in Austin, so there'd have to be some Tex-Mex involved!

Lunch: Pho with everything from Pho Tu Do

Crispy spring rolls

Thai iced tea

A dozen West Coast oysters on the half shell [West side! --Ed.]

Sushi - a bunch of those specialty rolls made with spicy aiolis and tempura batter and such

Greenmarket salad with that miso-vinegar dressing from Whole Foods

A grilled medium-rare steak

Good red wine

Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream

Shortbread cookies

Jenny's online portfolio can be found at JennyMiller.org. 

Follow the Berlin map as we go along!

Berlin is for (Solitary) Cyclists

So thrilling to go from a perfect cycling town like Copenhagen to another excellent cycling town like Berlin.  Lauren, the local who gave us the keys to our rental, pointed us towards Prenzlberger Orange Bikes at Kollwitzstrasse 35 for cheap rentals.  Their bikes are all upright orange comfort rides with rear baskets; at 6 Euros a day, they're an excellent deal, which makes the bikes very popular and kind of hard to come by.  Heej managed to snag one of the orange bikes later in the day, but they were still closed when I woke up. I decided to try my luck at the Fahrradstation at Kollwitzstrasse 77 instead.

It was only 10:30am, but I was already the fourth person in line for a rental.  I was a little worried about not being able to get a bike.  

ME: Hi, I'd like to rent a bike for four days.

BIKE SHOP KID: [in halting English] Four days...Let me see what we have for you.

He came trudging back up the steps from the basement.  And that's when I fell in love.

BIKE SHOP KID: I think this should work for you?

ME: YES!  Ahem...yes, that should work.



Could it be any cuter?  It's sprightly and kind of butch, which is how I like to think of myself, and it was a way smoother ride than my Copenhagen utilitarian bike.  In my mind, I looked super tough on it.  Made me feel like a BMX badass even though I was probably still riding like a grandma.  I love it.  I want it. 

Compared to the little postage stamp that is Copenhagen, Berlin is huge, sprawling. It's a muddled mix of old and new, communist and capitalist, grass and stone, water and glass, and you can pretty much see it all if you've got a bike.  Even the really big and busy streets feel safe because of all the really well-trafficked bike lanes.  I am a total bicycle newbie, but I really got around -- I'd ride from Prenzlauer Berg down through Mitte, through the lush Tiergarten out to the west side, lock up and putz around the museums, ride to a cafe and meet friends for lunch, strap all my goodies onto the wheel-mounted rack and head home, wind in my hair.  The streets are well-paved, the air is clean, it's not too hilly...such sweet freedom!   Zip zip zip!

Okay, I almost got hit by a tram near Unter den Linden (those German-engineered trams are too quiet for their own good).  And I really only had one tiny spill, which happened at a stoplight by Wittenbergplatz while I was trying to climb up onto the curb without enough velocity.  No scrapes, just a little embarrassment.

I was so sad when I had to return my baby at the end of the trip.  Saturday was our last night together.  The shop was going to close at 6pm, so I dropped it off at 5:45pm. 

ME: Thanks... [Bike shop kid inspects the bike.  I loiter for a minute and watch, reluctant to go.]  I loved this bike.   LOVED it.  I'm sorry to leave it.

BIKE SHOP KID: Yes, it's a good bike. We call this one our "little green frog".

My favorite cycling snapshot: Handsome guy with a pompadour, popped collar and dress shorts, riding upright on his bicycle with his Jack Russell terrier tucked under one arm like a loaf of bread.

Berlin is for Treehuggers

Berlin is so green.  Like crazy lush Bavarian forest green.  I had no idea.  It seems like there's a little park on every corner.  In the east, every park has a playground, and most parks have outdoor ping pong tables.  Sometimes I'd see young people strolling through town with a liter bottle of beer in one hand and a ping pong paddle in the other -- now that's living! 

Cycling through Tiergarten felt so Little Red Riding Hood -- the greenery is tall, dense and hushed, the soft sunlight patchy.  It doesn't feel like you're in the middle of a major metropolis at all.  I guess that's what it's like in Central Park, too, but Central Park is more open, sunnier.

I've got a thing for farmer's markets, and one of my favorite haunts was the market at Winterfeldplatz in Schöneberg. Oh, the baskets of berries -- bay berries, tiny wild blueberries, strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries, red currants!

 

Bucket after bucket of pfifferlinge, aka chanterelles!



The clusters of perfect cherry tomatoes on stiff branches!



Fresh flaxseed oil, ground on site!  They even sold the ground flax seed -- they're the dookie twigs you can see in the basket in the picture below; the girl at the stand encouraged me to try one.  I guess you can put it in your yogurt or muesli or something, but it was a little too hardcore for me.  It tasted like waxy kibble, and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to pick it out of my teeth with my tongue.



The card table-sized wheels of Berg käse!  Herring sandwiches!  The smoked fish that look like shoes, as Sarah R. pointed out!



I've heard Berliners are almost fanatical about seasonal eating -- some locals told us that when pfifferlinge are in season, they're on every menu, prepared a million ways. Berliners are also profoundly good at taking advantage of outdoor and green space in the summer, weaving nature into everyday life.  Maybe it's the hard winters, and maybe things would be different in New York if we had more space.  Whatever it is, it's really inspiring.

On our third day in Berlin, Sarah R.'s mom invited us to take a three-hour cruise around the canals and onto the river Spree.  I know it sounds kind of cheesy and touristy, but I'd heard from several people that this was a great way to see Berlin.  We met near the Markisches Museum U-Bahn stop on Inselstrasse, where we all boarded the top deck of a packed tour boat.  The boat tour is kind of like It's a Small Ent World -- the lushness along the city's canals is unreal.  Tons of weeping willows pour their hair into the water.  City residents come and sit out on the benches all along the canals, or dangle their legs over the river's ledge to enjoy the breeze over the water and watch the boats drift lazily by.



For three hours, we ducked down under low bridges, drank beer and sekt, and ate sausages and ice cream, all while the sun made its slow descent below the horizon.  The weather was perfect -- high 70s cooling into the breezy low-70s.  As the colorful graffiti of Friedrichshain introduced us to the canal-side beerhouses of Kreuzberg, which became hidden by the bosomy trees of pretty Schöneberg, which gave way to the bricks and mortar of the city center, the sky went from magic hour light to rainbow sherbet to blue velvet.  The merman statues in Nikolaiviertel threw dominating shadows against spotlights onto the buildings on the opposite side of the river.  While passing Museum Island, you could see straight into the Bode Museum, the marble sculptures waving from within their well-lit home.  Totally magical.
 

To be continued...

Follow the map!

Tuesday, August 4

After a cheap, quick dinner at Wagamama, the British noodle shop (mmm, shrimp curry noodles), we file into Tivoli, located in Copenhagen's city center.  It's such a pretty Lite-Brite diorama of someone's oriental dreamscape.

 

Apparently, it's become a gourmet destination, too, with lots of high end restaurants of renown setting up shop here.  Sarah says that Nimb has been getting rave reviews for their housemade yogurt and chocolate.

But we are there to ride the roller coasters.   At 285 Kroners (about $57) for entry and unlimited rides, it's not cheap, but hey, how often are we at Europe's oldest amusement park?  Because it's raining and pretty close to closing time, there are no lines at any of the rides.  We hop on the Demon, a loop-de-loop roller coaster, twice -- once from the front where you can see the tracks, once at the back to experience the most Gs.  I love the Golden Tower, which affords us a gorgeous nighttime panoramic view of the entire city before dropping us into freefall.  It's now drizzling insistently, and we try to wipe as much of the pooled rainwater off the seats as we can. 

And then we get on the Dragon.  Doug straps himself in next to me.  While we wait for the ride to begin:

ME: So what's this thing do?  [I pull the harness down over my head and lock myself in.]

DOUG:  I have no idea.

The ride is like a ten-armed ferris wheel in 3-D, laid down on an angle.  Each arm gingerly holds a car at its fingertips.  As the wheel spins quickly counter-clockwise, each car begins to swing back and forth violently, until finally the car gives in to centrifugal force and spins upside down.  I am screaming.  Doug is laughing.  My brain is coming unmoored, the capillaries in my skull lose their grip en masse.  Just when I think I can't take it, the ride slows, thank God.  I can't wait to get off this torture device.  But then the ride starts up all over again.  It's like gray matter pinball up in my head.  The rain is needling us so hard I feel like I'm getting a Maori face tattoo.  I am cold and wet and miserable I want off this ride.

When it's finally over, I stumble down the slippery ramp and try to get my gummy worm legs to keep me up.  Doug wants to find another roller coaster.  We run into Emily and Mo, who are carrying concessions from a booze stand.  I get a whiff of Emily's vomit-scented Gammel Dansk and I want to puke.  I splinter off and join the warm, dry folks in a cafe near the entrance. 

ME: I don't know if I can ride home on the bike.  I might have to take the train.

HELEN: Why don't you get a cup of tea?  It might help.

ME: How long is the ride home going to be?

HELEN: Mmm...maybe 20 minutes?

LOUISE: Depends on the wind.  If it's behind you, you'll get there in 10 minutes. 

I warm up with some elderflower tea to mentally prepare myself for the ride home.  Shortly afterwards, Sarah storms into the cafe with Shannon in tow, her hoodie up over her head, her brow furrowed.

SARAH: Did you guys go on that spinning thing?  That made me so angry!  I feel like I need to take it out on someone. 

The revelers slowly trickle in.  The rain lets up a bit and I'm ready to climb back on my bike and get in bed.  Helen's been having trouble sleeping, so someone gives her half an Ambien, which she takes right away.  I'm feeling paranoid that she's going to pass out on her bike halfway home, so I try and cheerlead everyone out the door.  We ride north through the rain.  The wind is howling, but it doesn't seem to be pushing against us.  We're all exhausted.

Helen's got an old-school Danish apartment where the shower is in the kitchen and her personal toilet is out in the fire stairwell.  We come home to discover that the wind has blown in so hard that the door is latched shut, and the only way to unlatch it is from the inside.  And, unfortunately, there's no alternative way for us to get in the bathroom.  I suppose if one of us were Spiderman, we could climb up the 5-story building and swing ourselves into the skinny, open window by a cobweb filament.  5 people + no access to the toilet = disaster.  Heej tries slamming her body against the door to no avail.

HELEN: I don't know what to do.  This has never happened before.  Is Ambien supposed to make you feel dizzy?

ME: Wait, I'll get my skeleton key!

FRANCIS:  What, you just happen to have a skeleton key?

ME: Yeah, for my bedroom at home.

I stick the key in the lock as everyone looks on.  I feel the key catch the latch, turn it once to the right and pop the door open.

HELEN: How did you do that?!

HEEJ: Wow. I have to admit, I did not think that was going to work.

I wasn't sure if it would work either, but I'm pretty pleased with myself.  Despite my Dragon-addled brain, I go to bed feeling very puffed up and useful. 

Wednesday, August 5

Hej -- Hello and goodbye


We're off to Berlin today!  I'm not feeling too wistful because I'm sure that I'll be back in Copenhagen.  I'm fantasizing about moving here to live among the beautiful people, eat gigantic breakfasts and ride my bike everyday.  Helen makes us one last Copenhagen brunch with her amazing tuna salad.  I write down the recipe so I can bring a little bit of Copenhagen into my Brooklyn life.

Helen's Tuna Salad


Canned tuna
Cottage cheese
Yogurt
A bit of fresh squeezed lime juice
Sliced scallions
Sliced green olives with pimentos
Capers
Chopped hazelnuts
Chopped red pepper (not pictured)

Mix and serve with fresh bread, sliced cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.

Stay tuned for Berlin...

Name: Sasha Davies

Occupation: I sling cheese at a small shop and also do sales for a specialty cheese paper company.

Borough: No borough anymore. I moved to Portland, OR two months ago.

Relationship status: Married.

What did you eat today?

Breakfast- Homemade yogurt & granola, coffee. Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich (strawberry preserves), hazelnuts, blueberries, prosciutto di parma. Dinner: egg-cheese-guacamole tostada, strawberry ice cream with blueberries.

What do you never eat?

Wet cake, oysters, cooked carrots. [There's a definite throughline there.  I don't know what it is, but it's there. --Ed.]

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Cheese, peanut butter and butter.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

I think you mean item as in tool... I would have to say my oval French oven by Le Creuset. I use it for braising and roasting, soups, and making preserves. It is the best thing to cross my stovetop since I learned to use it.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

In NYC it was Marlow & Sons (partly b/c I worked there but also it's just so good).
Here in Portland it is this rad little taqueria called Por que no? I think I could eat there every single day.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

Oh geez. If I had to pick right now I would want perfect bread with cultured butter, a fava bean salad with shaved pecorino and some roasted hazelnuts followed by spaetzle and pork from Tamarack Hollow Farm (best pork ever) [and available at the Union Square Greenmarket --Ed.] combined in some perfect way and then salted caramel ice cream... then there would need to be wine, espresso, and probably some cheese from a few of my favorite cheesemakers- Meadow Creek Dairy, Jasper Hill, Twig Farm [whose website has an awesome favicon, for you web nerdz --Ed.], 3 Corner Field Farm [also available at the Union Square Greenmarket, people.  --Ed.]. And I would definitely have sparkling water too.

Sasha may not physically live in New York anymore, but the fact that she helped put together the Unfancy Food Show for us makes her a New Yorker in my eyes.  She and her husband are also the wizards behind Cheese by Hand, an incredible multimedia documentary about artisanal cheesemaking in America.

97 degrees, 80% humidity.  If I had cleavage, you'd be able to poach an egg in it.  

I thought about buying some Weck jars today -- Winnie was excited about purchasing hers, and as I am totally unoriginal, I thought I would follow suit.  But why is it that all the good stuff worth preserving is only around when the weather is oppressive?  I'm getting heat stroke just thinking about turning the stove on.



This week's Greenmarket purchases:
from left to right: 1 1/3 lbs. of ground pork from Flying Pigs, French breakfast radishes, baby scallions, spinach, black Tuscan kale, cranberry pecan sourdough bread, biscotti, shiitake mushrooms, vanilla yogurt, ricotta cheese, drinkable blueberry yogurt, one pint strawberries, 5/6 lb. sugar snap peas.




Still leftover from last week's Greenmarket run:
2 red onions, 1 cucumber, one ripe, ripe greenhouse tomato, half a dozen Flying Pigs eggs, 1/4 block of Colby cheese, some strawberries, about 1/3 of a loaf of bread, a bunch of dill, a bunch of cilantro, a bunch of chives.

Still also have 1/4 of a ball of Tonjes Farms' mozzarella, which I think will be nibbled through by Wednesday.

I did clear out some stuff with today's breakfast of French toast with strawberries.  It's nice to actually save "pain perdu".  I'm using the cucumber, dill, onion and half the tomato for my lunch salad tomorrow.  All in all, I would say that only the cilantro and chives will turn before I have time to use them up.  I'm pretty pleased with how I've done so far.

I also used some leftover tomato and some of the onion and cilantro above to make guac for a party:



My friend Nancy had given me four ripe avocados last Sunday.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat them, so I stuck them in the fridge as soon as I got home.  Refrigeration works quite well if you want to halt the avo ripening process.  A little chopped cilantro, onion, garlic, tomato, and a repurposed cupcake clamshell for transporting the avocados and I had the perfect hors d'oeuvre.  All I had to do was pick up some chips; the hosts of the party already had jalapenos, salt, and limes on hand for my friend Shannon's knockout kiwi-chili margaritas (cribbed from the Modern):


Don't you feel refreshed just looking at that?  Muddled kiwis and seeded jalapenos, Herradura silver, triple sec, lime juice, shaken with lots of ice...I think that's it.  Viva el verano!

****
That Lysol in the background of my food pictures is incriminating, isn't it?  It's actually sitting on the window ledge behind the butcher block, far enough away from the food that I'm not going to give myself a health code violation.  Don't judge me!

Related: my friend Julie reminded me today that when I first moved to New York with no job and no money, I used to go hang out in the downstairs dining room at the Wendy's on Broadway and Bleecker.  It smelled like ammonia and cheap frying grease down there, and the company was usually less than savory, but their air conditioning was deliciously Frosty.

Name: John Dylan Keith

Occupation: Musician/Sound Designer/Writer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: In one.

What did you eat today?

Muesli and greek yogurt with a banana. Coffee. Chocolate chip peanut butter Clif Bar. 1/2 a bottle of Cairnbrae Sauvignon Blanc and lobster served Aussie style: grilled w/Australian spices ("Whativah thet mins" my native guide said the first time I hit the Tuesday night $12 Lobster special at Wombat.) Side of fried potatoes, and a pistachio and goat cheese salad, with mixed greens, red grapes, shaved fennel and raspberry vinaigrette. Just inside the kitchen they were prepping the salads- there was one of those giant restaurant baking sheets full of toasted pistachios 2" deep just asking for a face-plant. As it happened I had pistachio ice cream at home, so that's gone now.

What do you never eat?

Not so into insects, though I guess I had a big one for dinner. I'll try just about anything. I don't like raw celery for some reason. There was a childhood incident with a Waldorf Salad, but that usually doesn't affect my tastebuds, though I don't love red 'delicious' apples or mayo either.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Fruit, veggies, cheese, but you can't count on them being there like the coffee beans, half-and-half, butter, several kinds of mustards and hot sauces, bitters. They will probably all be outlasted by the giant bottle of Frank's Red Hot Sauce pushed on me by a Costcoholic relative who had a case of four. Tastes ok, but thinking of using it to scrub the sink just to get through it.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Antique seltzer bottle. Good for slapstick, whiskey and soda, or just soda with a whole lime, or five-ten shakes of bitters.It's kind of like a citrus Christmas tree in a glass, only good.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Carmine's, Yola's, Bliss, Oasis, Nha Trang, Rai Rai Ken, Little D's Eatery

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Funny, the pistachio ice cream kind of kept a chain of coincidence going. With it, I watched Kind Hearts and Coronets, which opens with a murderer awaiting execution giving his order for his last meal: "Just a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. Oh, and perhaps a few grapes. I hate to disappoint the newspaper-reading public, but it will be too early for the conventional "hearty breakfast". The appointment is at 8, is it not?" I'm not British enough for that kind of resignation, but it did get me thinking if it was really the end of the world, I might go for something with some practical value like a handful of certain species of mushrooms or cactus. But that might contraindicate my first thought which was Porterhouse steak, cucumber and avocado salad, sliced tomatoes garlic-lemon sauteed spinach, a bottle of Barolo. Kind of want a spicy Indian fruit salad but that seems out of place. Cappuccino, and it would be good to have a bottle of Woodford Reserve on hand.

Best place to brunch? Most romantic restaurant? Best Italian? Those other best of guides are way too general. Eat Me! is a guide to dining out in real life situations. Many of these are actual situations I have been asked to advise on. I'll let you figure out which ones are real and which ones I made up.

Need advice on your situation? Email me at ganda [at] eatdrinkonewoman [dot] com. I'll be happy to put your ass on parade too.

You're going to dump your boyfriend/girlfriend: You don't want a scene. But you do want an easy exit. You can go ahead and use one of your regular joints -- your partner certainly won't want to return to the scene of their heartbreak. Go to Employees Only. It'll be packed, and hopefully your partner won't kick up such a fuss in front of so many strangers. Maybe you can get it over with while you're still in the front room with all the yuppies who are most likely paying too much attention to themselves to notice your violin scene. After your newly ex-ed partner storms out, you can call your friends to come join you for a round of commiseratory cocktails. (Did I just make a word up?)

You think you're about to get dumped by your boyfriend/girlfriend. Chances are, your lover's feeling a little guilty for having led you on for as long as s/he has. Avoid your favorite restaurants or you'll have to relive your devastation every time you eat there. Also, you know you're going to make a scene so you better not embarrass yourself in front of people you have to see regularly. I say milk the situation and go swanky. Gramercy Tavern front room - not too romantic, but nice and pricy, and no reservations required. Make your lover buy you an expensive bottle of champs, drink it all yourself and make a scene. That copper bathroom has already caught some of my tears.

You want to tell your friend that you've been secretly dating his ex- for the last three months: You need a place where the people at the table next to you won't be listening in on your conversation. You need a nice long wine list, maybe some strong cocktails. And you want a public place where your buddy will have to suffer a modicum of embarrassment in the event that he decides to punch you in the face as you so deserve. You're in New York. You're not going to get four feet between each table. Your best strategy for nixing the eavesdroppers? A really loud restaurant. Mario Batali's Otto on 8th and 5th Ave. has a stupidly novel-like wine list to help you loosen up your tongue and build up the nerve to tell your friend about the affair you've been having. And there'll be plenty of people around to call the ambulance in case your buddy tries to beat the living crap out of you.

Your parents are coming to town. For some people, that might mean rolling into Jean-Georges in Trump Tower and taking advantage of daddy's black Amex. For a lot of us, though, that means suburban immigrants who think $8.95 all you can eat salad bar at Claim Jumper is a big splurge. Where do you go so you don't have to call the paramedics to resuscitate your 'rents from sticker shock? New York Noodletown. It's an honest to goodness New York institution, you can show your parents how cosmopolitan you are by ordering soft shell crabs, and the bill will be reasonable enough that you can treat your hard-working folks for the same amount you might normally pay your local bartender on a Friday night.

You have a secret date with your ex-, unbeknownst to your current partner. You'd love to make out with him, but you really can't afford to get caught by your friends and co-workers, your ex's friends and co-workers, or your partner's friends and co-workers. It's hard to hide in this city. Your best best bet would probably be a Latino bar in Sunnyside or anywhere in the Bronx. But I say go to Angel's Share on 9th St. Okay, the place isn't entirely unknown. But it is on the second floor, behind a restaurant, and it is not currently on the hipster radar. And if you ask for the room behind the bar, behind the closed curtain, you might just get the whole room to yourself. It's fun to order old-school cocktails like the Diablo and the Mai Tai, expertly made with the proper glasses and enormous ice cubes. I bet those inscrutable vest-wearing Japanese bartenders can keep your secret.

You're meeting a bunch of friends for dinner. One's a vegetarian, one's allergic to shellfish, one only eats red meat, one only eats foods that are white. Wow, your friends are a mess. You can't please everyone, but you can try and give them lots of options. Dressler's consistently delicious take on Modern American features dishes suited for many kinds of palates. It's especially good for the pescatarians, as there are three or four different fish options on the menu. And your white food friend is in luck - the pale smoked sturgeon on potato galette is one of the best dishes on the menu.

You're meeting your friend for brunch on Sunday morning but he's a lazy bum who can't get up before 11 on the weekend. Don't bother with the insane, rage-inducing lines at your normal coffee and mimosa joints. The brunch at City Bakery is always delicious - you can get savories or sweets, coffee or iced tea, or all of the above, any time before 4 p.m. And two levels of serve yourself seating means you won't have to leave your name with a harried maitre d' to get a table. When your friend calls again to say he'll be half an hour late, you can order a cappuccino and make a fruit and granola parfait from the yogurt bar while you wait.

Your foodie friends are coming in from San Francisco. You think New Yorkers are narcissistic? S.F. foodies are the most difficult to impress motherfuckers on earth. Where do you take them? Lombardi's. Cali may have plenty of wood-fired ovens, sprightly organic produce and lovingly nursed poultry, but you still can't get good New York style pizza in the Bay Area. Added points in the foodies' minds for taking them to the oldest pizzeria in the nation. If they still prefer deep-dish from the East Bay's Zachary's, kick them out of your apartment and send them back to touchy feely land.

Your fashiony friend is coming in from L.A. She could give a shit about food -- what she wants is style and status. But you don't want to waste your money on some overpriced celeb joint just so she can be seen. Your compromise? Balthazar, bien sur. Their chicken liver foie gras mousse with grilled bread is one of the most delicious dishes in the city. You can pick off your friend's salad with roasted beets, perfectly cooked haricots verts and fourme d'ambert while she cranes her neck for a glimpse at that lanky Brazilian model from the Victoria's Secret catalog. Slurp down fine Kumamotos and a few glasses of Veuve together and bask in a little New York glamour for once in your life, you shlub.

You're meeting up with a guy you used to know in college. Maybe you made out with him during college under the influence of alcohol at an Alice in Wonderland party on Greek Row before you puked three Dixie cups of Bud Light on his Air Maxes. He's trying to be flirty over email but you want to make sure he knows that this is NOT a date. Try Da Andrea. The homey Italian food is filling and delicious, the place is brightly lit, and tabletops are nice and roomy so if he tries to grab your hand from across the way, you'll have plenty of time to jerk it back and get the check.

You're broke. Not $10 worth of sashimi broke. I mean really broke. Like almost at the overdraft limit and won't get paid for three days broke. You already dipped into your Thailand trip fund and rolled all your change because you'll be damned if you're giving Coinstar 9 cents on the dollar. Buy a pupusa and a tamale jarocho from Ines Bakery in Sunset Park. This new neighborhood gem is one of my latest discoveries. Pupusas are each hand-patted masa patties and filled with either cheese, beans or chicharron (fried pork bits). Each are the size of a small corn tortilla and the thickness of a Shake Shack hamburger patty, and they come served with tub of hot sauce and a cup of piquant sauerkraut for only $1.50. Tamales jarochos are huge, filled with spicy chicken and steamed in plantain leaves with hoja santa, a fragrant shiso-like dried herb for only $1. Eat it at the counter or take it home in a foam container. Even better, Ines Bakery is the only place in my hood that I know of that stays open 24 hours. Another great option is the carts in Chinatown by the East Broadway stop, where $1 can get you a foam box of steamed rice noodles doused in sesame sauce, soy, and hot sauce, sprinkled with a few sesame seeds and topped with a couple of fish balls. This is the breakfast of champions, but it makes a pretty good poor man's dinner too. And if you've still got a dollar left, you can walk up Essex a bit and buy 5 dumplings for $1 while you watch the experts roll each circle of dough out with a Lilliputian rolling pin. You can't buy entertainment like that. No tipping necessary.

You got a little raise and you want to celebrate. Alone. Do yourself a favor and take yourself to Sushi of Gari. Sit at the bar and order omakase in front of the master. Shabu shabu toro swished in garlicky soy, pristine mackerel, tiny, inky amaebi (sweet shrimp), hamachi with jalapeno - it's Nobu without the attitude, and you can get full with sushi and kitchen dishes for about $100. Just don't go too early or the Upper East Side kids stopping at the sushi bar with their nannies for an afternoon snack will depress you.

Your friend is in town with her kids for the weekend. At the crack of dawn, they'll jump out of bed, engines blazing, while you know you'll be nursing a bad hangover. Alright, maybe you'll still be drunk. You want to send them to breakfast while you get a few more hours of sleep, but the place has to be open early, kid friendly, and not have a long wait for a table. Send them to Sarabeth's, Central Park South. The menu is plain enough to satisfy the pickiest tyro palate but interesting enough that the adults will enjoy the few bites they shovel into their maws between refereeing the tots. The buttery bran muffins with soaked raisins are especially dreamy. If your ass is still drunk by the time they finish breakfast, send them into Central Park to play so you can buy enough time to find your sunglasses and wait for the Advil to kick in, you terrible, terrible role model.

Sarabeth's Central Park South
Between 5th and 6th Ave.

See also: Eat Me! archives

Name: Sarah Raymont

Occupation: Spanish teacher. I also work at The Sweet Life, which is a candy store in my neighborhood.

Borough: Manhattan, Lower East Side.

Relationship status: In a relationship

What did you eat today?

For breakfast I had orange + lemon juice, tea, and a giant bowl of fruit with yogurt and muesli, flax & sunflower seeds and some honey. For lunch I had mettwurst, which I think is a German spreading sausage, brown bread, and quartered tomatoes with olive oil and Maldon salt. Which you crumble with your fingers. I don't normally eat so completely, but I'm visiting a friend in London. She's 97 and zooms around like a Smart Car. When I'm with her I eat as
she does, whenever I leave, I do my best to replicate and it's a terrible, oil burning minivan.

What do you never eat?

Tongue

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Things which were purchased with better intentions. I wish I could do my friend's here, how about that? She's always got salad, cheese and leftovers. Berries and fruit. Mine might have candles in it, I'm not sure.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Tongs

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I pretty much keep to a three block radius. I like Barrio Chino, on Broome Street, mostly for lunch or breakfast since it's quieter. I wouldn't say I eat out at The Pickle Guys, on Essex + Grand, but I eat waiting in line, so I wonder if that counts. What I like most is their pickled celery. Sometimes I go to The Good World, on Orchard + Canal, but there you wait for an hour for your food which I don't mind, because they really don't care or even pretend to, and it's people who pretend who are the worst. Their burger has beets in it and the building it's in will be demolished, I think, this coming year. The Grotto, on Forsyth + Grand, especially when it's warm, because you can sit outside, in the middle of the block, and look up.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

My father's scrambled eggs, with onions. I'd like to say I'd eat my necklace or something like that, or my enemies, but probably just a Softy Pop, from The Sweet Life. It's a dark chocolate covered marshmallow on a stick. We make them. [I love that Softy Pop.  --Ed.]

Name: Steven Kotok

Occupation: Magazine guy

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Looking again . . .

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: Sheep's milk yogurt & bowl of cheerios
Lunch: Ma Po Tofu
Dinner: Leftover poached trout, pasta made with all my about-to-go-bad fresh herbs, yellow tomatoes, onions, garlic, and cream.

What do you never eat?

I eat everything but peanut butter

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Chumus, schug [I have to admit that I had to look that one up. --Ed.], parmigiano-reggiano, butter, mustard, and about a dozen implusively purchased Mexican, Jamaican, and Asian condiments and sauces that I will never, ever use.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Battered dutch oven-sized metal pot from a garage sale

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Sakagura, Szechuan Gourmet, Degustation, Eleven Madison Park, & (in a perfect world) street tacos in Mexico

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

Feast for my 100 closest friends:

Good champagne, scallop sashimi, sweet oysters, briny oysters
Wild mushroom salad with poached egg, heirloom tomatoes
Perfectly roasted halibut; "wing & mac snack" from Country Sweet, Rochester, NY; rare, charred porterhouse
Chopped liver, cheese plate (surprise me)
Bread pudding, New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream

[And we're back! -- Ed.]

Name: Trevor Dunn

Occupation: Musician

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status:  whipped

What did you eat today? 

Water,  maple granola with yogurt and a banana and Earl Grey tea, a slice of watermelon, fusilli with a homemade sauce of oil, onion, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and pecorino-romano cheese, a glass of Sicilian white wine, lapsang souchong tea, three olives, an Amy's organic country vegetable pot pie, some French red wine.
 
What do you never eat? 

Pineapple.  Can't even stand the smell of it.  I love most fruits and tropical ones especially.  Mango, papaya, kiwi, passion fruit....yum.  Pineapple, however, makes me want to vomit.  I also don't do oysters.  I admit this with a bit of shame because oyster culture seems sexy and high class to me.  I think it's a texture thing.  Again, I love most seafood and shellfish.  Clams, mussels, crab....yum.  Sushi.....yum.   Oysters taste like nothing and feel like someone else's phlegm in my throat.
 
Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find: 

Yogurt, guava juice, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, swiss chard, parsley.
 
What is your favorite kitchen item?

The Knife.
 
Where do you eat out most frequently?

Sushi Mura, Nono Kitchen, Little Dishes (all in the Slope)

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal? 

An entire suckling pig, butternut squash ravioli with sage, chard sauteed with tons of garlic, a caprese salad with extra basil and olive oil from Sardinia, Concord grapes, the stinkiest  French cheese plate in the world, my mom's blackberry pie (she picks the berries herself),  the most expensive bottle of red wine in the world and limoncello.

Among the many reasons I love Trevor: he taught me to refer to the upright bass as "the doghouse" and the electric as "the pork chop". You can follow Trevor's gigs, learn the secret of the dead bass goon, or read some of his kick ass answers to fan questions at trevordunn.net.
 

I like the Rain Man-style review in the middle of this Pinkberry lawsuit article:

In a class-action lawsuit filed last year, Pinkberry -- which operates roughly 50 stores in California and New York -- was accused of misrepresenting its product as "frozen yogurt" and making bogus health claims, including that the dessert (which comes in three flavors: plain, which is very sour; green tea, which is chalky; and coffee, uncommonly delicious) was "all-natural."

Name: Molly Osmond

Occupation: Merchandise Analyst at a women’s sportswear company

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: Married

What did you eat today?

Cappuccino, cinnamon raisin bagel toasted with butter, tuna salad on wheat bread, leftover grilled pizza with sweet sausage and ricotta (a lazy, no cooking day!)

What do you never eat?

Peanut butter, anything with coconut milk, whipped cream, marshmallows, fast food, potato chips

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

mustard, expired yogurt, fizzy water, champagne, assorted jams, baby carrots

What is your favorite kitchen item?

8” Wusthof chef’s knife, by far! Microplane zester is a close second, followed by my 4 qt All-Clad saucepan

Where do you eat out most frequently?

‘ino, on Bedford Street, Bocca Lupo, in Cobble Hill, Lunetta, on Smith Street, Blue Ribbon (all their locations)

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Pizza! Always pizza. Preferably from Otto, with a fantastic bottle of red alongside.

Molly blogs at mk-cadeaux.com.

Name: Lucas Benjaminh Krech

Occupation: Lighting Designer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status:In a Relationship

What did you eat today?

Shade Grown Organic Honduran Coffee, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, yogurt and raisins for breakfast. Falafel for lunch. Rice and cheese with hot sauce for dinner. I just got back into town from working in California for two weeks and the food shopping has been slight.

What do you never eat?

Animals.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Soy Milk (For Coffee). To be perfectly honest, it's coffee more than food per se that I find necessary. When I travel for work I often bring my small stovetop espresso or Vietnamese coffee maker with me depending upon what the lodging situation is. Those hotel coffee makers are really only good for heating up water to make Vietnamese style coffee.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My large stove top espresso maker.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Mud

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

A steak from Peter Luger. If the world is ending, no need to keep up the vegetarianism.

Name: Katherine Tasheff

Occupation: Web content person, wanna-be photographer

Borough: Park Slope Brooklyn

Relationship status: Singleton

What did you eat today?

Ronnybrook Mango drinkable yogurt, GoLean crunch, coffee with milk and brown sugar.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich - Skippy Super Chunk and Phillips Farms’ Strawberry-Rhubarb spread.

Blue corn tortilla chips and fresh tomato salsa from the 5th avenue farmers market.

Buttermilk pancakes with fresh peach compote. (Yes, for dinner. When the going gets tough, the tough eat breakfast for dinner.)

What do you never eat?

Any obvious animal parts. Sweetbreads and brains scare me (even after Comfort Me with Apples, I can’t do brains). Oh, and overcooked eggplant gives me the creeps.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

organic milk, lemons and limes, beer (usually Stella), leftover pasta of some variety, at least one unfinished drinkable yogurt. Something that’s gone fuzzy in the vegetable drawer.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My stovetop espresso coffee pot. Although I really need a new one.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Hmmm. I’m realizing that I’ve been getting into cooking at home more than going out (bought a grill this summer). But, my friend Lisa and I have a semi-monthly tradition of Monday Night Margaritas at El Centro; I have a soft spot for the burgers at Johnny Mack’s; You can’t exactly call it eating out, but Russo’s in my neighborhood has great fresh pasta, sauce, and prepared Italian food -- and I’m a complete fool for Italian food. (Plus, they have Ciao Bella gelato and sorbetto. Mmmmm.)

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Start with aged gouda, sharp Vermont cheddar, gruyere, some salami and bresaola, olives and peppadews – serve with baguette toasts, and a nice appetizer-y wine. (I’ll ask my friend Kerry for a recommendation.) Then, for the main event -- Chicken and Noodles the way my mom makes it – it’s like a thick chicken and pasta stew with lots of cracked pepper. A giant green salad with tomatoes, roasted beets, herbs, and just a little bit of goat cheese. Warm and crusty sourdough bread. Multiple glasses of a big, friendly red wine (see Kerry again). And finally, after a little break, homemade vanilla ice cream with my very own chocolate-chip cookies for dessert . Or maybe my apple and cranberry pie.

And if the world is really ending the next day, I’d like to follow it up by watching a movie with my friends and family -- something like The Princess Bride.

Name: Jerusha Klemperer

Occupation: Slow Food Minion

Borough: Manhattan (but I left my heart in Brooklyn)

Relationship status: Single, uh-huh yeah

What did you eat today?

Oh jeez. Some days are good days and some days are bad days. Breakfast was a Luna Bar, lunch was Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken Salad from Rice, and dinner was Stonyfield Frozen Yogurt. A fairly bad day, foodwise.

What do you never eat?

Fast food—no way, no how.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Dijon mustard, organic eggs, butter, vanilla soymilk, chocolate soy milk, frozen bananas. [Interesting. For banana bread? --Ed.]

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My 6 inch kick ass chef’s knife.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Lately, Ditch Plains.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

First I’d like to thank the world for ending during peak growing season. I’d like a farmers’ market smorgasbord: a last-of-summer’s-beautiful-tomatoes salad, an ear of fresh corn, some handmade pasta with fresh basil pesto, finished off with a slice of rich, moist chocolate layer cake and a tall cool glass of milk.

Visit Jerusha's blog, eat here 2.

Remember how I was like, Pinkberry's great? After three visits to the Park Slope competitor, I am now an Oko convert. Their original "Greek-style yogurt" flavor is excellent with berries -- icier and more substantial than Pinkberry, without that powdered milk flavor that Pinkberry can have. No mochi, but it doesn't need it. Me likey. I know, I'm a total yogurt flooz.

I bought some Ricera rice yogurt to try the other night. I don't know about the other flavors, but the peach one tasted like peach cough syrup. Peach cough syrup flavored khaki goop. I think it's those "natural flavors". Why does peach flavoring taste nothing like peaches? I should just stick to real peaches while I can. I also got vanilla -- I'll let you know how it goes. If you must try it, it's $1.29 per cup at Whole Foods.

Name: Katherine Steinberg

Occupation: Programming Manager at AOL Body

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: I’ve been tamed.

What did you eat today?

Stonyfield farms plain yogurt, Amy’s stir fried rice noodles with vegetables and tofu, a smores Luna bar, a couple of California rolls and a Wonka bar.

What do you never eat?

Fruit pie. I can’t handle the texture of baked fruit.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Amy’s frozen bean and cheese burritos, and that’s about all. I’m a grab-and-go kind of gal.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

The corkscrew. Sometimes a girl just needs a glass of wine.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Ginger for sushi, Saigon Grill for their yummy Curry Ga and Old Devil Moon for brunch.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

I would start with the baked eggs and goat cheese skillet and a biscuit at Clinton Street bakery. I’d also probably get a burger from there. And I know this is against the foodie grain, but I’d get a four cheese deep dish pizza from Pizza Unos. There, I said it.

Name: Charlotte Druckman

Occupation: Freelance journalist

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: free as a bird

What did you eat today?

Sesame-banana cake from Birdbath bakery; Greek yogurt with honey from Honey Gardens Apiaries in Vermont (so very good) and blueberry granola; two glasses of rosé at Village; two crawfish dumplings, edamame & jicama salad, gai lan, miso-glazed salmon over mesclun and one diet Boylan’s rootbeer at Mooncake Foods; half of a coconut cookie from Birdbath.

What do you never eat?

pecans, walnuts and EYEBALLS

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Homemade Greek yogurt and fig confiture from The Yogurt Place II; Ronnybrook Farms yogurt (vanilla and/or maple vanilla); a hunk of Ewephoria and whatever other cheese struck my fancy at Murray’s; an assortment of mustards; a bottle of prosecco, champers and/or rosé; diet peach Snapple; lemons; garlic; unsalted French butter; white miso paste; mango salsa from Citarella; Moroccan olives; soy sauce; ketchup; brownies and fat-free Reddi Wip

What is your favorite kitchen item?

wooden spoon

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Blue Ribbon Bakery, City Bakery, Momofuku Ssam, Mooncake Foods, Peasant, Supper, Village

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

A NYC restaurant crawl accompanied by bubbly and friends with forks at every turn:

Gusto’s octopus (and, if it’s tomato season, the panzanella salad)

Bavette cacio & pepe at Lupa

Momofuku Ssam pork buns, two please + a few glasses of The Black Chook

Bone Marrow at Blue Ribbon Bakery

Bacon-cheeseburger with sauteed onions, rare & cottage fries, well done + a bullshot at J.G. Melon

Joel Robuchon’s beef-and-foie-gras sliders

Uni sushi & toro sashimi at Sushi Yasuda

BOOT & RALLY

[HA! --Ed.]

A flight of desserts:

Balthazar’s tarte tatin

Trio of bread pudding:

- Peasant’s white-chocolate-and-fig bread pudding

- Blue Ribbon Bakery’s chocolate chip bread pudding

- Café Colonial’s chocolate croissant bread pudding

Mrs. Grossinger’s coffee ice cream & praline cake

And, if at all possible, a trough of rice pudding from La Régalade in Paris

(Do you think if I procured a palmier from Carette along with the pudding and saved it until the next morning, right before the execution, that’d be ok? Or, would that count as breakfast, ergo, another meal?)

[It's your fantasy. Besides, a palmier hardly counts as a meal. --Ed.]

Name: Winnie Yang [Not to be confused with Winnie Chang. --Ed.]

Occupation: Food, obviously. But also: editor, PR monkey

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: Possibly on to something; time will tell.

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: A pint each of blueberries and cherries and four plums, all from the Greenmarket.

Lunch: Roasted beets and carrots and a radish, mizuna, and arugula salad with lemon juice, pumpkinseed oil, and Maldon sea salt. All the produce is either from my Hearty Roots CSA share or the Union Square Greenmarket. The pumpkinseed oil is one of my current obsessions. Great with scrambled eggs. And the Maldon is one of those life-changing ingredients I proselytize to everyone who doesn’t already use it. (And yeah, I’m a name-dropper when it comes to my food. If you’re not down with that, I wouldn’t recommend scrolling down any further. Credit where credit’s due.) [I love me some Maldon too. --Ed.]

Dinner: I made succotash with fresh corn, dried limas, bacon, and Evans Farm milk; sautéed some sugar snap peas from the Greenmarket; and baked off a sformato (with Alleva Dairy ricotta) and topped it with some caramelized scallions. Washed down with Dolianova Vermentino di Sardegna. Dessert: Twig Farm Square Cheese (which, along with the ricotta, came from Saxelby Cheesemongers) and Nevat (from Despaña), which might very well be my new favorite cheese.

What do you never eat?

A wise man once said, “If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow.” I’ll eat anything as long as it was made with love. That said, there is one dish that I just can’t abide – nervetti, which is this Italian dish of chewy boiled strips of calf’s foot and shin served cold and with onions. Tendon is one of my favorite offal cuts, but really, this is akin to eating onion-flavored snot. Not to gross you out or anything. Truth be told, I ate that once. Never again.

I’m also not a big fan of sun-dried tomatoes. But I’ll eat them.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Sriracha, Dijon mustard, beer, wine (right now: Prosecco and Lambrusco), whatever’s peaking at the Greenmarket, heaps of CSA veg, sourdough starter, ice cream custard base chilling for imminent churning, Ronnybrook whole milk and cream (hanging around until they become custard base) and also their whole-milk yogurt, Tello or Knoll Krest eggs, capers, pickles, kimchi, six pounds of Tamarack Hollow slab bacon, and the best butter in the world, salted La Baratte des Gourmets. A lot of fermentation going on in there. [Where do you get that butter? I must try it! -- Ed.]

What is your favorite kitchen item?

The Cadillac of home ice-cream makers, the Cuisinart ICE-50BC. Well, until I can afford the Musso 4080 Lussino. Which would be the, what, Maserati of ice-cream makers? [Winnie's Guinness ice cream with chocolate stout cake is the stuff that dreams are made of. --Ed.]

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Flushing (J&L food court, Nan Bei He, and the lamb-on-a-stick street cart), Momofuku Ssam, Prune, Marlow & Sons.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

A couple dozen oysters right at the water’s edge somewhere in the Cote d’Azur or Brittany.

A taste each of:
country ham (a sampling from Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and definitely some from Allan Benton), prosciutto di San Daniele, jamón iberico, jambon de Bayonne, culatello, porchetta, lechón, cochon de lait, cochinita pibil, the suckling pig and Middle White at St. John, my mom’s spare ribs, Peking duck, a thigh piece of the fried chicken from Bon Ton Mini Mart, a perfectly roasted Bresse chicken.

A perfect, ripe peach, just picked and still warm from the sun.

Mangosteen.

My mom’s potstickers.

And definitely a random leftover from my fridge that I didn’t even know was there. That’s sometimes the best stuff, and since the world is ending, a pleasant surprise might be nice before, you know, annihilation.

Visit Winnie's blog, thatswhatyouthink.wordpress.com.

Name: Jenni Ferrari-Adler

Occupation: Writer and Editor

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: Married

What did you eat today?

Scrambled eggs with scallions. Sautéed shishito peppers and grape tomatoes in olive oli with sea salt. Stonyfield mint chocolate chip frozen yogurt with almonds.

What do you never eat?

Peanuts.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Sriracha hot sauce. Mustard. Capers. Lemons. Plain yogurt.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

The chef’s knife.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

The Boerum Hill Café for brunch.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

I’ve been at Diner thought it would be a nice place to be if the world was ending tomorrow. And if the world was ending I’d definitely get the chocolate cake for dessert.

Jenni Ferrari-Adler is the editor of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, a collection of short-attention span essays on dining alone. It's the perfect beach read for people like you and me. I especially love the essays from Jeremy Jackson, on the glory of the lowly black bean, and Rattawut Lapcharoensap, who wrote a hilarious food memory about "idiot" ramen.

Name: Michael Harlan Turkell

Occupation: Photographer, BACK OF THE HOUSE Project (www.harlanturk.com)

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: Domesticated

What did you eat today?

For breakfast, some homemade fennel seed sourdough toast, with a little bit of butter and the best damn greek honey, given to me by Karen Waltuck of Chanterelle. My friends over at Marlow & Sons in Williamsburg sell the heather and pine varietals, "must trys". A cup of Leelanau's Yrgacheffe, and snuck a bit of coconut chocolate birthday cake from Betty Bakery in Brooklyn.

Lunch, just some of the same bread with Zaytoons hummus, and a glass of iced Avalanche Rooibos tea made by Portsmouth Tea Company.

My girfriend's real birthday, so we went for drinks at Freeman's. Had two blackberry brambles, she had a mint julep and a Manhattan, while splitting a hot artichoke dip. Dinner at Prune in the East Village. Fried chickpeas on the table to start. She had the pasta kerchief with poached egg and brown butter, I had the fried sweetbreads with bacon and capers (some of the best in the city). Sides of broccolini with yellow wax beans and artichokes with brown butter vinaigrette. Dessert was greek yogurt with stewed rhubarb and sugar "hay". Nice bottle of Routas, Rouviere Rose 2006 to boot.

What do you never eat?

Raw white onions (thinly sliced red onions are okay) and shrimp (allergic).

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

A plethora of beverages from tea/coffee to wine/beer. Try to keep a growler of Sixpoint Bengali Tiger in the spring/summer, and their Brownstone Ale in the fall/winter, and almost always...seltzer. Many a trial batch recipes, my latest, homemade bitters (way too peppery, but am convincing myself of otherwise). Just made some tristar strawberry and rhubarb vinegar. Have dark, sweet, and sour cherries ready for inspiration. Greenmarket fruit, veggies, fish, and meat when in season. I go to Saxelby Cheese in the Essex Market for whatever Anne suggests, and Stinky on Smith Street for their fresh sheep's ricotta.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Take-out tupperware, for my array of mise en place. And my Super Benriner Japanese Mandoline.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Good question. This is the season I love to cook, but like going to restaurants for little snacks rather than meals. The Monday Room -- Brad Farmerie of Public Restaurant uses this space to test his amuse bouches. The confit duck, foie gras and vanilla ballotine is amazing and only $2.50 for a taste. The "old school pig's head terrine" is awesome. I go to this place El Nuevo Portal on Smith Street in Brooklyn for my BLT's (favorite sandwich). Love sitting outside at Frankies 457 for their fennel, celery root & parsley salad, oh, and all things pork.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

I'll go to Boston for pasta by Chef Barbara Lynch of No 9 Park. Have dreams about her Prune Stuffed Gnocchi with seared foie gras, vin santo glaze. My girlfriend can cook her famous peach cake (which I've instituted as my birthday cake), but would have to have it ready two days before the world ends, because I love it so much the day after for leftovers.

Visit Michael Harlan Turkell's plog.

Name: Priya George

Occupation: Radio Producer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: Scrambled

What did you eat today?

For breakfast I had a ham and cheese croissant from the Victory, and Raspberry Yogurt by Emmi. For lunch, leftover Cuban food (fried fish, rice and beans). For dinner I intend to have a nice salad with tuna and capers. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

What do you never eat?

Heavy cream.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Condiments from mustard (at least three kinds) and a variety of chutneys.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Tongs and my teapot.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Bar Tabac, it's the closest restaurant to me.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

My mother's lamb biriyani.

Name: Daniel Hobbs

Occupation: In sharply descending order of material gain: paralegal; classical pianist; Editor-in-Chief, Board of Directors, and Janitor of The Hobbs Digest

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Paired off

What did you eat today?

I started out with a cup of good coffee at home, then had some mediocre sludge at the office. I enjoyed a handful of cashews in the morning, had a so-so bacon, tomato and cheddar sandwich for lunch, and had some very empty calories in the form of cookies left over from a meeting and set out for the scavengers mid-afternoon. After work, I met up with my friend Gabrielle and we had an impromptu picnic in Central Park, with some syrupy sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, some lackluster eggplant/goat cheese terrine, rice crackers, olives and bocconcini. The food, sadly, didn't match the brilliance of the weather and the company, but there's no such thing as a bad picnic. Now I'm at home and am not very hungry, but I may have a tangelo. Blah. Not my proudest food day, but it's a true account.

What do you never eat?

I can't profess to having even a perverse, delinquent appetite for franchise fast food, even when extremely hungover, so I never go to McDonald's and the like. Also, I'm not very adventurous when it comes to offal. The appeal of raw meat is generally lost on me as well, so I'll pass on that steak tartare. Find me the best example of anything, though, and I'll try it.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

A baffling range of condiments, prosecco, Indian pickles, wilting herbs, capers, anchovies, yogurt, maple syrup, Branston pickle, seltzer, and various other odds and ends from which it would be impossible to create a meal.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

I'd be hard pressed to have to choose between the most complex and the simplest: my non-human dishwasher and my trusty Lodge cast iron skillet. The two don't get along, but I love them both. [A dishwasher?! In Manhattan?!]

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Unfortunately, I have to say Pret a Manger, since I buy my lunch there at least 3 times a week, but here are some of the restaurants I go to most often, when I have a say in the matter: Sripraphai, Haandi, Saravanaas, Paprika, XO Kitchen.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

I would like to be seated in the middle of a buffet of poulet de Bresse à la crème et aux morilles, bacon, cashews, Sichuan green beans, rivers of great wine, a stupefyingly hot lamb curry, custards of all sorts, a damn good taco truck taco or two, roasted fennel, foie gras, pollo a la brasa with ridiculously caramelized plantains, a cheese plate, perfectly made pasta... Oh, just bring it all on! I wouldn't be too happy if I had to eat in any particular order; it would have to be there to eat as I please. And since I'm creating my own terrestrial paradise before I go, let me stuff my ears with Bach's B Minor Mass.

I love the idea of going into that good night with a soundtrack. You can read Daniel's food jottings at The Hobbs Digest.

La Doug has a subscription to Cook's Country and we love it -- heirloom recipes for things we've never heard of like Runsas, little sweet buns stuffed with meat and cabbage, or a potluck mac and cheese that unabashedly uses evaporated milk and American cheese. I think the magazine really supports the idea that this country's culinary identity goes beyond McDonald's, and that we can take pride in regional foods made with real ingredients. But probably my favorite feature is the weekly "Find the Rooster" challenge. In every issue, they've hidden their little rooster logo somewhere in the magazine. You'd think it would be really easy, considering that there aren't that many photos in the magazine, but it's pretty tough. Or maybe my eyes are getting worse. I was totally late to work the other day because I was trying to find the rooster over my morning yogurt.

Name: Tanya Wenman Steel

Occupation: Editor-in-Chief, Epicurious.com

Borough: Westchester, NY [The sixth borough? --Ed.]

Relationship status: Married with identical twin boys

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, sunflower seeds and cinnamon and three caffe lattes; lunch: curried chicken salad on whole wheat wrap with mixed greens; afternoon snack: Kit Kat bar; dinner: vegetable dumplings, creamed spinach, strawberries and red grapes; late-night snack: big bowl of Ben & Jerry’s peanut butter cup ice cream.

What do you never eat?

Brussels sprouts [If you ever change your mind, which I’m sure you won’t, I recommend the fried Brussels sprouts with fish sauce vinaigrette at Momofuku Ssam. --Ed.]

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

All manner of chocolates and coffees, Portuguese muffins, gallons and gallons of organic milk, plus healthy snacks for the boys like yogurt, mini carrots, sugar snap peas, strawberries and red grapes.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Without question, tongs.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Nha Trang in Chinatown. I love their beef pho, spring rolls, soft-shall crab, and beef rolls.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

At home with my family, eating a spread that would include barbecued flank steak, raw sashimi-grade tuna, creamy mashed potatoes, creamy spinach, crusty sourdough, chocolate layer cake, and several bottles of Clos des Papes Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2004.

Tanya's blog is the epilog, over at the shiny and new Epicurious.

Old Chatham Sheepherding Company Maple Yogurt, $2.19 at Whole Foods

This one is really thick and fatty. You can practically spread it. It's kind of like eating that strained Greek yogurt, or a tub of sour cream. No thickeners, just pasteurized sheep's milk, 4 cultures, and maple syrup. Even with the maple syrup, there isn't much by way of sweetness in this guy. It tastes like it would be a dream in savory dishes -- maybe marinating some chicken, or served with mint and cucumber with lamb for a thoroughly trayf dish. One small cup provides 25% of your daily sat fat intake. Not that you care. Price is a bit steep, but it's locally made in the Hudson Valley. RATING: 9 out of 10 for savory dishes, 7 out of 10 for eating plain/sweet.

Redwood Hill Farm Yogurt, I think this was $1.99 per 6 oz. cup at Whole Foods

Less goaty than the Liberté, but more tart, very aggressively alive. This one is thickened with pectin and tapioca. It's too tart for me. It tastes like exercise -- I didn't really enjoy eating it, but I felt good about myself when I was done with it. Nice gloppy consistency, but the flavor's just not for me. Also, it's kinda expensive. This is probably good for people who absolutely abhor sugar, jog 10 miles every day and meditate on their moon days. I didn't finish it. RATING: 5 out of 10. Actually, last time I had it, I enjoyed it a lot more. Maybe because last time, it was colder. 5 doesn't quite seem fair, since I like it a little better than the O'Soy. I'll say RATING: 6.5 out of 10.

Liberté Goat Yogurt, $1.39 at Whole Foods

This yogurt is unapologetically goaty. It's like liquid chevre, with a pronounced creaminess and a squeaky tang. I like the light vanilla sweetness, and it's white like snow which is pretty. If you don't like goat cheese, you're not going to like this yogurt. At $1.39 per cup, though, it's a little expensive for everyday snacking. I bet it would be lovely with figs. Or crumbled bacon. I'm serious. It's so rich, it really invites more robust add-ins. RATING: 7 out of 10.

Silk Live! Vanilla Soy Yogurt -- $2.69 for a 32 oz. family size tub. Is it Live! like Live! from New York, it's Saturday Night Live! or Live! like We're livin on the edge!? Whatever. It's tasty. Nice, smooth texture, no curds. Thickened with rice starch, pectin and locust bean gum, really light vanilla flavor and sweetness. Me likey. Especially with thawed frozen organic raspberries and peaches. Yum. I could wake up to this every day. It feels healthy, but not in a masochistic way. Okay, it's not like full fat cow yogurt really, but this beggar ain't choosy. RATING: 9 of 10.

Whole Soy Peach Yogurt, $.99/cup. Actually, this one's pretty good too. Are my standards getting lower? I like the peach chunks. The yogurt is white, with a good goopiness, thickened with corn and rice starch. Okay, maybe it's a tiny bit starchy/chalky. But it comes in plenty of soy-masking flavors, like lemon, apricot mango, and mixed berry. RATING: 8 of 10.

Coming soon: Alterna-animal yogurts

Trader Joe's Soy Yogurt, $.99/cup at Trader Joe's

This one definitely tastes regurgitated. It's got two kinds of starch as thickeners which gives it this gloppy, curdy texture. And you might be able to taste the starch if the yogurt didn't taste so pukey. Vomity pukey. I can't eat this yogurt with my penitent Go Lean kibble cereal -- it's just double punishment. I am a regular Trader Joe's shopper, but the soy yogurt is kind of nars-ty. I still finished it, though. I am disgusting. RATING: 3 out of 10.

I have a dirty little secret I probably shouldn't reveal, since I make some of my living as a restaurant reviewer. But here it is: I'm lactose intolerant. Well, more like lactose low-tolerant. Or milk allergy. I'm also alcohol low-tolerant. This probably means I will never rise to the ranks of big time reviewer, but I can live with that.

My body will put up with a small amount of lactose, it seems, but certain things will really set me off. I once had Thai iced tea with half and half that sent me running off the train at Grand Central. (TMI?) Straight up milk is a no-no. But ice cream seems to be okay in small amounts. I miss cottage cheese.

The worst offender, however, is yogurt. Yogurt! Benign, creamy, calcium-rich yogurt! Yogurt which anoints my balls de falafel! Strained and thick, dotted with cucumbers in tsatsiki! Full of friendly fauna, crimefighting bacteria to police my intestines!

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to suffer the consequences of eating lactose when I'm in my own home. And one of these days I'll probably try that Lactaid pill.

In the meantime, I've been exploring the world of dairy alternative yogurts. Flavor and texture vary wildly in non-cow's milk yogurts. Here's my take on the brands I got my hands on at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

Stonyfield O'Soy, $0.99 for 6 oz. cup, $2.69 (I think) for a pack of 6 4 oz. cups

This is the soy yogurt for people who don't like yogurt. It's completely devoid of that spoiled milk tang that makes yogurt distinctive. There's also quite a pronounced soy milk flavor to it. The strawberry and peach varieties in the six pack don't have any fruit pieces in them -- they're just flavored and colored with fruit juice (and beet juice, I believe). The vanilla O'Soy has a very mild vanilla flavor and a gentle sweetness. Creamy texture, like pudding. Thickened with pectin, not starch, which is nice. But no fruity pieces in the fruit flavors.

RATING: 6 out of 10

***

This piece will be...pieced together slowly. Hey, I can only eat one carton of yogurt at a time, and I'm not just going to eat a teaspoonful of each and chuck the rest. This blog has a budget of bupkis. Also, I've been adjusting to the rigors of a new job.

Name: Eugene Edele

Occupation: Private cook

Borough: Brookers

Relationship status: Bachelor

What did you eat today?

Jelly donut hole, bacon egg and cheese roll, turkey on a roll, penne with buffala mozz, Green and Black's Maya Gold

What do you never eat?

Greek food [Is it the yogurt? The lamb? The garlic? The sheep's cheese? The eggplant? What's not to love? --Ed.]

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Sambal olek

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Tongs

Where do you eat out most frequently? Recently at the bodega across Nostrand

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Green papaya salad, duck and fries, Coke and Phish food.

Name: Chris(tine) Cruz

Occupation: Ski Bum, former slave to the music

Borough: Formerly of Manhattan, now temporarily residing in Vail,CO for the
winter

Relationship status: Attached

What did you eat today? Quaker’s Maple Brown Sugar oatmeal for breakfast. Homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch. A piece of chocolate chip banana bread and a chocolate chip pecan cookie (baked by someone at work). Peach yogurt and grapes for snack. Thai beef stir-fry from Blu’s Restaurant (Vail).

What do you never eat?

Ice cream [GASP! --Ed.], exotic animal parts.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Bacon, Miller Lite, baba ganoush or hummous, pasta sauce & cheese of some sort.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My bodum French press to go. And my new found love, my roommate’s crock pot – meals that cook while you’re at work!

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Up until 2 months ago before I moved to Vail, I could be seen at Bao Noodles on the regular – I love love love the Pho Bo Kho. I always order it. I can’t bring myself to order anything else. Best damn pho
ever. I could eat it every night. And the other spot I always roll to is Duke’s Café in Soho for their spicy chicken udon. Duke’s is the best reason to work in SoHo.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

How exciting, all my favorite foods in the world in one whole sitting. I envision an enormous circular table complete with lazy susan so all these dishes are at my fingertips:
Pho bo kho from Bao Noodles
Spicy chicken udon from Duke's
Tagliolini al sugo toscano AND the Fettuccine Ai porcini con tartufo
bianco from Za Za
A Wild roll from Mizu
Spicy scallop roll from Pongal
Drunken noodles w tofu and vegetables from Sea
My dad’s spaghetti and meat ragu
My mom’s pancit shanghai and chicken adobo and chocolate molten cake
Beef pan fried noodles with from China Fun
The veggie dumplings from Panda
2 scoops of cookies and cream Tasti-D dipped in extra crunchies
2 plates of bacon from Peter Luger
My boyfriend’s mom’s sausage casserole
Betty Crocker’s beef stroganoff
Morning Glory, Tom Yum Goong, Shrimp fried rice, rad nar from Ruen Pair (LA)
Falafel from Mamoun's
A slice or pepperoni pizza from Rosario’s
Chimichanga from Tres Aztecas (RIP)
Big Mack Daddy from Tiny’s
Tater tots from Rush Hour
BLT from Grey Dog’s
Mac & Cheese with bacon (you have to ask) from Schiller’s
3 chocolate chip cookies from Magnolia
Veggie #6 Sandwich from Jimmy John's
Chitarrucci con Salsa Aurora AND Capellini Con Polpette from Lamarca

Name: Luisa Weiss

Occupation: Literary scout and Wednesday Chef

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Yes, in one.

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: Hot apple cider and a whole-wheat roll from Bread Alone. Lunch: fennel taralli from Caputo Brothers, a plate of steamed broccoli with lemon juice and olive oil, a slice of Cacio di Roma and a Suncrisp apple. Dinner: half a calamari-citrus salad and half a plate of red-chile braised pork with mashed plantains and collard greens at Rocking Horse Café (a girlfriend and I shared).

What do you never eat?

Cilantro, dill, mayonnaise, raw spinach. [Interesting...it's hard for me to imagine a life without cilantro. I'm sure it must taste different to people who don't like it. --Ed.]

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

mustard, butter, cherry jam, maple syrup, multivitamins, light soymilk, carrots, orange juice, eggs, Parmigiano, peanut butter, tomato paste in a tube, Liberte plain yogurt and Sherry.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My All-Clad stainless steel pan. Oh, and the Wüsthof chef’s knife that my father gave me to in college and is still the best knife I own.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

At lunchtime, I usually vary between the soba noodles in broth at Ennju near Union Square and the Indian lentil soup at City Bakery (to make up for the occasional inside-out chocolate cookie I have for dessert). And if I’m at neither of those places, you can find me choking down leftovers at my desk from some newspaper recipe dish that’s STILL sitting in my fridge. As for dinner, I’m not really a creature of habit. If I’m not cooking (which, let’s face it, isn’t that often), we’ll head down to Moustache in the West Village or I’ll try to convince my boyfriend to go to Grand Sichuan on 52nd Street with me (I rarely succeed and we end up at Spice on 8th Avenue).

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

I don’t know that I’d have much of an appetite. I’d like my mother to make me spaghetti with cherry tomato sauce. And I’d like a bowlful of ripe apricots picked from the tree behind my aunt’s old summer house in Italy.

Luisa is the Wednesday Chef. At her web home, she tries out a staggering number of Wednesday food section recipe clippings. Her kitchen stamina is super impressive and her photography's delicious.

Name: Cathy Erway

Occupation: Copy Editor, occasional freelance writer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: In a relationship

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: instant oatmeal and a clementine. Lunch: tuna salad with diced red pepper and shredded carrot on multigrain toast and a romaine salad with balsamic vinaigrette. Then some yogurt. Dinner: my friend Lindsay made some angel hair with pesto, vegetarian chili and some sides like green beans and kale for a bunch of people at her place. I should explain that I recently moved apartments and my gas stove doesn’t work yet.

What do you never eat?

I don’t think I’d favor well with Stilton cheese. I recently tried to swallow a bit of goat cheese again and sort of gagged—it’s like my Achilles heel. Other than that, commonly domesticated animals and bushmeat.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Decaying herbs, leftovers, eggs, milk, carrots.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

I just got a red Le Creuset dutch oven as a birthday gift and it may just be my favorite item period. [Me too! Me too! --Ed.] Definitely trumps the silicone muffin pan I’ve been toying with.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Well, that’s a funny question. I stopped eating out (albeit not when traveling out of the state of New York) in August of this year. So I would have to say at airports (not that I’m a jet-setter).

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Mom’s soy sauce chicken stew with lots of hard boiled eggs in it, black mushroom caps, chicken falling off the bone, rice wine, scallions, and a five-spice packet immersed in it, stewed forever, and served with rice. Then to be fair, my dad’s apple pie.

Cathy is Not Eating Out in New York, which can't be easy without gas.

Special On The Road edition of You Are What You Eat!

Name: Matthew Costa

Occupation: Troubadour

Tour stop: Motor City

Relationship status: Yes

What did you eat today?

Cracker Barrel, home cookin’!

What do you never eat?

Escargots

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Something old

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Peeler

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Curry

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Mocha milk shake, FIESTA GRILL taco plate, gummi snacks, tuna sashimi, mattar paneer, large pizza, turkey sandwich, broccoli and cheddar cheese soup (to keep me warm in my cabin), Jameson’s whiskey (lots), A fishin pole to catch some CATFISH!, catfish, fried okra, lo mein, I feel guilty so I would like a salad, granola and yogurt, cheesecake, more gummi snacks, baklava, fried ice cream!

Matt and his band totally charmed us. It's too bad Detroit was their last stop with the Hotel Cafe tour. We were totally ready to adopt him and his red flannel shirt and his harmonica holder. I guess we'll have to settle for myspace friendship. We got a copy of his new record, but it doesn't have that darned "Na na na na" song on it. How are we going to get it out of our heads now?!

Name: Jeff Gramm

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: plain yogurt, lemon guava and mango. Lunch: Leftover bulgoki on bread. Dinner: I don't know what I'll get, but we're going to Rainbow Drive-In, best plate-lunch on Oahu. [You're in Hawaii? --Ed.]

What do you never eat?

I'm not all that into organ meat, although there are some exceptions. I like most types of liver, for example. I don't drink soda. I never go out of my way to eat potatoes or brown rice, I guess.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

My housemate's tofu-dogs. What's the half-life of those things?

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Fred Kovey, obviously. Sadly, my kitchen houses neither Fred nor more traditional kitchen items. Right now it has Annie Hayden's keyboard, a tent and a huge stack of my unopened mail. Maybe I can trade in that keyboard for one of those combination hot dog maker / bun-toaster devices?

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I would like to say I eat out most frequently at my favorite restaurants, but surely my most common destinations are local: Pakistani food on Coney Island Ave, Veggie Castle, the Avenue U corridor, DiFara's, Cinco de Mayo on Cortelyou.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Hmmm, I've never really been too picky about food combinations. . . I'm in the subset of people that gets both the chicken and the tacos (and meximelts!) at those KFC/Taco Bells (I guess that also puts me in the slightly larger subset of people who would actually enter a KFC/Taco Bell). So I would opt for a huge selection of my favorite foods rather than my favorite meal. Perhaps I will do you a favor and restrict my list to ten.

1) Maryland Blue Crabs 1 steamed hardshell, 1 fried softshell and half a crab-cake.
2) One small piece of spam musubi
3) Papaji's hawaiian style-kalbi with kimchi and with a taste of kalbi jim on the side
4) One-half Ben's Chili Bowl chili-cheeseburger with mayonnaise
5) One quarter-dark Peruvian chicken from El Pollo Rico in Arlington
6) One spicy-tuna handroll and maybe a few ounces of toro
7) One bite of fatty brisket (Cooper's maybe?) and a forkload of Vietnamese porkchop with fried egg over crushed rice.
8) One Sichuan wonton in red oil chased by Jerusalem style lamb-fat kabob.
9) One small plate of roasties from Canton: duck and goose only.
10) 6 shots of Rye followed by one jalapeno slider, some Katz's pastrami, one fresh sausage and cheese kolache, one roti canai, one-half Chicago pork-chop sandwich.

Hmm, banh mi, dipped sandwiches, burgers and tortas did not make the list. No curries, chilidogs or pizza either. I also really love a good BLT with a lot of mayo. And no dumplings or veggies of any kind. Maybe I can get a few days of advance warning for this whole world ending thing?

Name: Josh Friedland

Occupation: Director of Communications/writer/blogger

Relationship status: Married

Borough: Queens

What did you eat today?

Two slices of cinnamon/raisin swirl bread with natural peanut butter, two cups Peet’s Coffee (Maduro Blend), Liberte yogurt (awesome French Canadian brand), cup of Genmai Cha (brown rice) tea, fried pork dumplings, Peking duck, e-fu noodles with mushrooms, two Tsingtao beers.

What do you never eat?

Snails.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Baking soda, eggs, mayonnaise, Sriracha, fish sauce, soy sauce, anchovies, capers, half-consumed and rapidly wilting container of pre-washed salad greens, beer, unsalted butter, sparkling mineral water, dijon mustard, horseradish mustard, ketchup, preserves, partially-consumed container of organic baby food, organic milk.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Toss up: French Press coffee maker/tongs

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Nick’s Pizza, which happens to be nearby and makes one of the best pizzas in New York City. Plus, they’re fast (pizzas are always ready in five minutes).

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

That should give me enough time to fly to Liguria and have a slice of focaccia col formaggio, a plate of insalata di mare, a bowl of trofie al pesto, and then move on to alternating cones of nocciola and stracciatella gelato until armageddon comes. Arrivederci!

Josh Friedland runs The Food Section, one of the best places on the internets for food news and views.

Name: C. Andrew Bauer

Occupation: Video Editor/Motion Graphic Design/Theater Design

Relationship status: Dating a lovely woman

Borough: Brooklyn (Fort Greene)

What did you eat today?

I'm at a bed and breakfast in Maine, right now, so I had mueslix with wild blueberries, strawberries, mango, peaches and yogurt; homemade multigrain, sourdough and chocolate breads and a raspberry muffin; one slice of bacon and a soft-boiled egg; coffee, tea and blueberry juice. Who in God's name am I?

What do you never eat?

Brie Cheese. I have tried for several years on the insistence of many, but it always tastes to me like aluminum foil.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Whatever my brother bought for the week.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Tool: Bodum Coffee Press
Foodish Item: Sea Salt and Olive Oil are in a dead heat.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Ici and Maggie Brown's. Both are Fort Greene restaurants, but I think they're delicious regardless. You know where I'd love to eat more frequently? Prune. That place is amazing.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Christmas dinner, 2004. It was Mom at the top of her game.

Posted early because I'm never going to figure out how to get the cron job to work and I'm off to Belgium tomorrow, where it's 65 degrees and raining. I'll be performing with Charming Hostess again for the Dranouter Folk Festival. Expect pictures of frites and Euro hippies on Monday!

Name: Lynn Rogan

Occupation: graphic designer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: In a relationship

What did you eat today?

Well this morning was a bit out of the ordinary because I discovered some leftover corncake batter in my frig that had to be eaten right away. So hot corncakes it was (this batch even had FRESH corn—yummm!) and they were a delicious way to start a Wednesday, with coffee and cantaloupe. For lunch I am eating a salad from SoHomade Soups with greens, tomatoes, portabellas and green pepper (why didn’t I ask for cheese?) and the world’s tiniest piece of cornbread. Yesterday’s lunch was much better: penne lunch special from Pepe Rosso on Sullivan St.

What do you never eat?

I wouldn’t knowingly eat an insect.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Yogurt

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Salad spinner, but that’s just because I don’t own a melon baller

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Pearl Oyster Bar is my most favorite place, but most frequent would have to be the Italian restaurant on my corner in Brooklyn.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Raw oysters. Wine. Standing rib roast. Yorkshire pudding. Gravy. Corn on the cob slathered in butter. Tomatoes right off the vine and still warm from the sun. Macadamia Nut cream pie. If I had to pick only one of those things, I think it would be the tomatoes.

Name: Bill Pearis

Occupation: Editor / part-time video store clerk

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today? 

Breakfast: Goat's milk yogurt with honey and granola.   Lunch: Combination Platter from the Dil-E Punjab -- three choices over rice for $4.50. Half the time I have no idea what I'm ordering; it's all vaguely yellowish-brown and almost always good. Today it was some kind of yellow curry, eggplant and a curried vegetable medley. If you ask for it, you also get "salad" (wedge of iceberg lettuce and chunks of red onion). Dinner: tacos (two bistek, one carne enchilada) from Matamoros Puebla on Bedford. In-between: a lime cornmeal cookie from Amy's Bread in Chelsea Market and some Cheddar Beer Kettle Chips.

What do you never eat?

I've basically given up all fast food though I have a weakness for KFC and White Castle.  [I've got one of each two blocks from my house.  I'd trade both as well as the Subway, Taco Bell, and McDonald's down the streets to get Pollo Campero back.  Or an In-N-Out.  --Ed.] Intestines aren't high on my list. Neither is Taiwanese stinky tofu -- the only thing I've spit into my napkin in the last ten years.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Eggs, frozen chicken stock, beer, a box of baking soda, mayonnaise, mustard, and a bottle of unopened Heinz Green Ketchup I bought for a cookout in 1999 and never used. I will never throw it out.

What is your favorite kitchen item? 

My digital probe thermometer, which I rely on way too much.  [Probe...heh heh... --Ed.]

Where do you eat out most frequently? 

In Williamsburg, where I live, it's Matamoros Puebla (soon to close), Dumont (and Dumont Burger), and Snacky on Grand Street. In Manhattan, the various branches of Grand Sichuan International. My go-to splurge used to be Jewel Bako but I'm afraid I've been priced out.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal? 

Probably sushi from somewhere awesome, like Yasuda or Jewel Bako. For dessert,,, some of my mom's chicken and dumplings.

Visit Bill at Soundbites for his take on music, food, film, culture, and ephemera.

Name: Justin Chen

Occupation: Ad geek

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

I’ll go with yesterday, because it’s more interesting. For lunch, I went Wendy’s. (My first time in over 3 years.)  Ate a spicy chicken sandwich and a junior cheeseburger deluxe. Very yummy. For dinner, I went with my girlfriend to Jonez on Greenwich. We had a bottle of the Bear Boat Pinot Noir (smooth, juicy). Started with a chopped salad, then for the main course we shared two things: macaroni and cheese with lobster chunks, and a whole roasted red snapper served with a parmesan risotto and spinach on the side. Also had some of their delicious homemade potato chips. Good restaurant. Will go back for brunch to try their monkey bread.

What do you never eat?

If the question refers to foods I’ve had before, but have no desire to eat again, then I’d have to say bull’s testicles, blood sausage, chicken feet, and live goldfish.  [I didn't know you were in a frat in college.  --Ed.] But, if the question refers to stuff I’ve never eaten and have no desire to try, then the answer is dog, monkey’s brains, maggots, and insects. And yet, if I take the question as hyperbole, as in, stuff I rarely eat, but really love eating, then the answer is Reuben sandwiches, lobster, chicken/veal parmesan, chocolate cheesecake, pasta agli olio, pasta carbonara, General Gau’s chicken, movie popcorn, foie gras, fried chicken, McDonald’s breakfast, sour patch kids, Eggs Benedict, pad thai, Cobb salads, raw oysters, and oxtail stew. [I dig the details, holla.  --Ed.]

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Stonyfield Farms yogurt.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My chef’s knife.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Right now, I’d have to say New Green Bo Restaurant in Chinatown. Near Bayard and Mott. Great dumplings.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

Oh boy.  Here goes:

One lobster tail with a ramekin of ginger-soy-vinegar for dipping.

4 Pan-fried Chinese pork and leek dumplings.

A scallion pancake.

One small bowl of Cheerios with 2% milk.

One toasted everything bagel with nova lox, capers, thinly sliced onion and tomato.

5 jumbo shrimp cocktail with cocktail sauce.

3 raw Blue Point Oysters.

A plate of sliced Spanish tomatoes, topped with sherry vinegar and extra virgin.

One Spanish croquetta, made with ham.

A dish of gambas al ajillo.

A plate of pulpo gallega, topped with sea salt and extra paprika.

A homemade breakfast sandwich made with sausage. On a biscuit.

A bowl of New England clam Chowder. With a bottle of tabasco.

A bowl of hot and sour soup.

A bowl of homemade chili con carne. Freshly sliced jalapenos on the side.

A fried seafood basket consisting of fried Ipswich whole-belly clams, fried calamari (Rhode Island style), and one fishstick. Tartar on the side.

Sliced Peking Duck with 2 pancakes. Side of fresly sliced scallion and hoisin sauce.

Five pieces of General Gau’s chicken.

One big fat bowl of white rice. Basmati or jasmine.

Small plate of Ma-Po tofu, extra spicy

One plate of sticky rice noodles, cooked with mustard greens and shredded pork.

One grilled rib eye steak, 6 ounces, cooked rare.

One grilled lambchop, 6 ounces, cooked rare.

One grilled Basque sausage.

One plate of freshly cut steak fries. Mayo and ketchup on the side.

One whole steamed tilapia, cooked in a ginger-scallion sauce.

One sautéed dish of pea pod stems with garlic.

One dish of dry sautéed Chinese string beans, with minced pork.

One slice of pate served with a warm French baguette.

One greek salad from Bill’s Pizza in Newton. Extra dressing on the side.

One Greek grape leaf, with meat.

Four anchovies, two of them white.

One cheesesteak, with American cheese and mayo.

One imported Italian sub, made with good prosciutto, everything on it, including extra hot peppers.

One small piece of meat lasagna.

Four pieces of nigiri sushi. 2 sake, 1 hamachi, 1 toro.

One spicy shrimp tempura roll, with avocado.

One small bowl of penne arrabbiata. One meatball and extra parmesan on the side.

One bowl of Annie’s macaroni and cheese.

A peanut butter sandwich on toasted wheat.

One baked potato with sour cream and chives.

Two eggs over easy, five strips of bacon (two cooked soft, two cooked firm, one cooked crispy), homefries.

One Stonyfield Farms Raspberry yogurt.

A Santarpio’s pizza. Half cheese, half mushroom and pepperoni.

Five buffalo wings, spicy. Blue cheese dressing on the side.

One mozzarella stick. Marinara sauce on the side.

Cedar’s Hummus and a warm wheat pita.

One blueberry pancake with maple syrup.

One pastrami sandwich from 2nd Avenue Deli on light rye with extra mustard.

One piece of extra sharp cheddar cheese.

A homemade oatmeal raisin cookie.

A bowl of freshly cut Costa Rican pineapple.

One piece of cheesecake with berries.

A honey-glazed donut.

One piece of warm chocolate cake drizzled with dark chocolate and served with a side of French vanilla ice cream.

One blood orange.

A banana.

Three Fig Newmans.

One chocolate croissant.

One bloody mary, made with wasabi. Thick.

One glass of Pinot Noir.

One Sierra Nevada pale ale.

One bottle of Panna water.

(Last night, he said he forgot to mention some gazpacho and grilled sardines.  But Justin, by this time your guts have exploded on your deathbed already. --Ed.)

Name: Chris Hampton

Occupation: nonprofit pr flack, freelance copy editor, blogger, knitter, curator and emcee of the WYSIWYG Talent Show, and partially-reformed Southerner.

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: Coffee, an egg sandwich, and more coffee

Lunch: Leftover chicken makhani from the Indian joint near my office, Diet Pepsi.

Dinner: as soon as I send this off to you I'm going to be slapping together some grilled shrimp and a big salad with lots of cilantro, avocado lemon juice, and olive oil.  And another Diet Pepsi.  Caffeine, baby.

What do you never eat?

Raw onions, liver, Republicans.

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Cilantro, Diet Pepsi, lemons, tamari, at least one container of dangerously-expired yogurt, and milk for my coffee. And there's always a big bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer for popping into salads.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

That would be a toss-up between my mom's old crockpot and my George Forman grill thingy.  I use that stupid thing at least three times a week.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I don't eat out nearly as much as I'd like due to the whole broke-ass nonprofit worker thing, but I adore El Gran Castillo de Jagua.  It's this Dominican carnivore's paradise on Flatbush where the pork chops are bigger than your head, you can get any kind of plantain dish imaginable, the rice and beans are plentiful, and you can stuff yourself silly for less than ten bucks. 

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

I'd raise my mama from the dead so I could have her fried chicken with biscuits and gravy one last time, and top it off with some form – ANY form – of dark chocolate.

Put on your roomiest trench coat, cuz it's getting hot and heavy over at Uffish. 

"You have to take exit 7A."

"Are we trying to get to the Taconic?  Because I used to take it to Vassar all the time."

"I think we missed the exit.  You should turn around."

"Do we get XM Radio in this thing?"

"It's something like Pocahontas Hills or something."

Five adults, one compact Mazda Zipcar, and some scribbled Mapquest directions and we were off to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, fifty minutes from Manhattan, just past Tarrytown.  At least, Mapquest said it was supposed to take fifty minutes.  Mapquest is, of course, not advanced enough to remind us public transportation whores that thousands of Manhattan workers are also trying to make it in time for dinner.  Which meant an extra...hour...stuck...in...traffic.  We also took a brief tour of the charming roads just outside Yonkers searching for a phantom exit during a navigation miscommunication which I, being a completely incompetent driver, could not participate in.

Our reason for leaving the confines of our fine city?  My friends Winnie and Chris are deep in the weeds of wedding planning and Blue Hill at Stone Barns was a contender.  I'd probably never get a ride (much less one with a designated driver -- Winnie is allergic to alcohol) to Pocantico otherwise, so Doug and I joined the lovebirds and Winnie's sister for a 7:30 p.m. reservation at the end of 2005.

We couldn't see much in the dark as we took the exit off the I 87.  The sparse lampposts reflected orange light off the little ear-shaped lake the car skirted on the way to the main road.   Finally, we mozied up the long driveway to the Stone Barns estate.  But we were half an hour late.  We figured it would be fine -- they must get tardy travelers all the time.  Besides, how many people could possibly want to drive all the way out to the boonies for dinner besides us nutters anyway?

As it turns out, plenty of people do.  A valet parked Beemers and Benzes up the hill; taxicabs made Uies after dropping off their sharp-dressed cargo.  We passed a conspicuous garden to the left of the paved walkway until the passage opened up onto an enormous, hushed square courtyard.  The stone barns loomed high on all four sides, and the cement underfoot was dark and shiny from the evening's showers.  We could see chefs in their whites milling around the enormous kitchen in the distance.  Trees wrapped in Christmas lights twinkled flirtatiously in the wet dark. 

We were awakened from our starry-eyed reverie by a hostess who beckoned us into the warm restaurant.  Fifteen people stood comfortably at the bar and in the waiting area, cozying up to the flickering fireplace and sipping cocktails on the shabby chic loveseats.  The lofty ceilings and walls of the converted barn were painted in J. Crew neutrals -- chino, ecru, and dove gray set off dark hardwood beams.  Every accent was picture postcard perfect, from the chest high Christmas tree made of pinecones to the pine garlands framing the windowpanes.  I was under the place's spell.  But would the food live up to the warmth and precision of its home?

Our waiter came over to explain the options: You can order two, three, or four courses, or the seven course farmer's feast.  The menu is fashionably divided not into courses but categories: the greenhouse, ocean, handmade pasta, and the pasture; you can choose your courses from any of the sections, and the kitchen sends the dishes out in the appropriate portion sizes and order.  In the interest of doing a broad survey of what the kitchen can do (and not just because I am a gluttonous whore), we decided on the farmer's feast. 

Blue Hill, both the one in Manhattan and the one at Stone Barns, puts the focus on fresh ingredients from small-scale local purveyors who support sustainable agriculture/livestock.  This, of course, poses a challenge for any cook in the dead of winter.  How much could those sunless greenhouses possibly churn out in the cold?

Brussels sprouts, for one.  Turnips.  Carrots.  Apples.  Fennel.  Winter squash.  Aromatic emerald flags of tarragon were suspended in chic parmesan cracker lollipops.  An earthy jewel red roasted beet mash simulated an iron-rich meat tartare between the tiniest sesame-crusted buns in the fanciful "beet burger" amuse bouche.  A focus on seasonal ingredients is great not only because the ingredients are the least fussed over, but also because the palate takes comfort in sweet roots and heartier fare when it hunkers down for the winter, just as it revels in the ephemera of young lettuces in the spring.  Eating seasonally feels and tastes right as rain.

Lightly curried cauliflower soup matched the warm creamy tones of the room.  It felt as velvety and fortifying going down as a good eggnog.  The ruby shrimp lolling in the center were cooked so gently that they seemed to retain a sweet ignorance of their imminent consumption.  This first course soup was much better executed than the first amuse bouche, a shot glass of warm chick pea soup which Doug said was like "liquid hummus."

The appetizer course was a knock out -- the gentlemen in our party received a flat cylindrical pile of Maine crab swimming in a vibrant green pool of edamame vinaigrette and topped with a beautiful quenelle of sweet-tart white yogurt sorbet, while the ladies received a crisp scallop on a bed of slivered fennel and apple, surrounded by pearls of saffron tapioca that mimicked the look of golden caviar.  The flavors were fresh and bright, but the element that elevated the dishes even further was the sensual play of textures -- creamy icy sorbet with the lump meat crab, the slippery tapioca beads against the crisp salad.

I am the kind of person that likes my raw fish raw and my cooked fish cooked; this business of seared, half-raw fish is not for me.  So I thought the fish courses were impeccable.  I loved the impossibly tender, arctic white poached cod luxuriating in a green lobster turnip sauce freckled with black herring roe.  The tropical-hued but delicately moist Atlantic char was also incredible, with crisp skin, crushed fingerling potatoes and an intriguingly fruity almond caper sauce.

For the pasta course, the chef sent us farro with pureed squash, turnips, and beets, topped with a 120-minute egg gathered in the morning.  Or maybe it was a 120 degree egg.  Whatever it was, it was barely cooked, so the albumen was translucent white and the yolk was golden and oozy.  This was probably my least favorite dish; I found the candy sweetness of the squash puree a bit overwhelming with the barely warmed runny egg.  It was almost like eating a bowl of sweet, earthy oatmeal.  But Doug pointed out that it was a nice respite before our imminent meat course.

By this time I'd had a nice tall flute of cava and a glass and a half of a deliciously smoky syrah, so when five runners descended upon our table at once from each person's right side with five radiating, heavy glass plates, I pretty much squealed at my plate of Berkshire pork.  There was a tender and mild sausage half moon, a judicious cube of pork belly, and several petal pink, melting medallions of pork loin, with shooter marble sized brussels sprouts and a creamy stripe of parsnip puree.  Even better was the silky, simple seared venison loin, as dark and red as sin, with a beautiful hunk of mahogany venison sausage and sugary batons of glazed carrots.  Chris just about put the walls up around his plate.

I could have stopped at the palate cleanser -- a glass of apple cider gelee, painted with a grainy white apple mousse and topped by a quenelle of green apple sorbet in a celebration of the local fruit.  It was a perfect encapsulation of late fall in the Hudson Valley, cool against cold, tart against sweet, ice against gel, green against white against tawny.  After something so crisp and awakening, it was a little harder to enjoy working through the dense, sleepy "tiramisu" -- coffee gelee layered with light ice milks, espresso chocolate biscotti crumble and praline hazelnuts.

Service was wonderful -- warm and easy without being presumptuously chummy.  And it's such a luxury to be in a place roomy enough so that you aren't eavesdropping by default on the conversation at the nearest table.  One note to the house: Dan Barber's cooking deserves better coffee.

The private dining room was cozy and classy, with plenty of sparkly crystal and a grassy perch any bride would be happy to swoon in.  Prices for private events are actually reasonable, though not quite as reasonable as we originally thought, so Winnie and Chris are still exploring other options.  I'm thinking it'd be a lovely place to have an "I'm not getting married so I might as well blow the money on a fancy dinner party" party.  You know, when I finally find that lottery I've been meaning to win.

In any case, we all agreed that it was one of the best meals we'd had in years, and we're not an easy crowd to please.  I, for one, was completely seduced.  Look, Blue Hill at Stone Barns is not the kind of place you'd go to for exotic preparations and obscure ingredients.  But it's important to be reminded of how good and whole an apple is, or how interesting a sparingly adorned piece of fish can be.  Blue Hill at Stone Barns celebrates what is near and dear, and its execution is as direct and effective as a simple declaration of love.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns
630 Bedford Rd.
Pocantico Hills
Just past Tarrytown
914-366-9600

RED ROSES, SARAJEVO BLUES
Charming Hostess at the Sarajevo Jazz Festival, November 4-8
A montage of vignettes in two parts

Part 1 of 2

THE PLAYAS:

JEWLIA, Charming Hostess leader, born and raised in East New York to communist parents, now resides in San Francisco, CA.
ANMARIE, Charming Hostess sign language interpreter, born and raised in the corn fields of Iowa, climbs to the top of the grain silo to use her cell phone when visiting mom, now resides in San Francisco, CA.  JEWLIA's partner.
CYNTHIA, Charming Hostess member, born and raised granola-style in the Santa Cruz mountains, now resides in the Bay Area.
GANDA, Charming Hostess substitute/East Coast rep, born and raised in east L.A. county, now resides in Brooklyn, NY.  Flown in to keep ChoHo MARIKA's seat warm while MARIKA tours with Vienna Teng.

Vedran, the medical student

We arrive in the afternoon on the 4th, after three planes and numerous metal detectors.  As soon as we get off the plane, I realize with dismay that I am wearing my most American jacket, the SUV of outerwear -- a bright blue Gore-Tex ski jacket.  (I have never skied.)  Sarajevo customs official stamps our passports without questions or second glances.  He nods at me with heavy eyelids when I say thank you. 

Our driver is holding up a sign that says SARAJEVO JAZZ FESTIVAL.  His name is Vedran.  He's blond, young, masculine and handsome.  He leads us out to the van in the small airport parking lot.  We are surrounded on all sides by perfectly geometric mountains.  The autumn afternoon sunshine shines beyond low, wispy clouds, and the air smells faintly sweet and charred, like burning firewood and plastic. 

Jewlia riffles through Vedran's CD collection.  His CDs are labeled Nervous System, Respiratory System, etc.  Vedran gets in the driver's seat after stowing the luggage in the back of the van. 

JEWLIA: Are you a medical student?

VEDRAN: How did you know?

JEWLIA: I can just tell by looking at you.

VEDRAN:  Okay. 

JEWLIA: I looked at your CDs.  Why do you have them in English?

VEDRAN:  They don't have any CDs like that in Bosnian.  They have anatomy, but not systems.  So what do you want to do?   We can drive through the town center or we can have a panoramic drive.

ALL: Panoramic.

We wind around the city's edge.  Vedran points out the 1984 Olympic Village, torn apart by gunshots.  Clotheslines hang over bullet-ridden balconies and pockmarked edifices, the glass shattered in cobweb shapes.  Jewlia asks if we're going to pass Grbavica; Vedran wants to know why we want to know about Grbavica, the neighborhood he lives in.  We drive around the lip of the bowl of Sarajevo, dense with houses like lichen, before swirling down into the town center.

VEDRAN:  Excuse me, over there is the Children's Village.  That's where the children who lost their parents in the war live.

JEWLIA:  Who takes care of them?

VEDRAN:  The mothers without children.

Restaurant Jez (pronounced Yezh)

Restaurant Jez is the kind of place I would normally take one glance at and turn right back out of.  There's nobody in the place.  Its fancily folded cloth napkins and leather bound menus in English signal tourist pandering, but since the festival is paying for us to eat here, we eat here.  The restaurant is filled with grandmother and grandfather clocks that chime out of time.  The walls also are mounted with hand grenades, rifles and other strange old war relics.  A blue gas fire burns behind faux wood logs in a little grate. 

We order a vegetable plate with buttery, well-salted slivers of summer squash and eggplant, a sad caprese that must include those sad ethylene gassed Holland tomatoes, and little ice cream scoops of al dente (read: undercooked) rice.  For my entree, I choose the Jez Plate, a mystery mix of grilled meats which is perfectly sufficient, if not terribly exciting.  The other diners' steaks come with intensely heavy, cheesy sauces.  I'm not entirely sure if it is representative of Bosnian cuisine.  If it is, I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy Bosnian cuisine.

Restaurant Jez
Zelenih beretki 14
Sarajevo
++387 33 650 312

Asian Persuasion

I wake up in time for continental breakfast.  I still can't do the whole Euro fleisch mit kase for breakfast thing.  Since I have to sing in the evening, I opt out of the yogurt and muesli.  I also shy away from the chicken paste and fish paste, which look like miniature tins of Fancy Sheba cat food. 

I take a brisk morning walk through the old town center, which seems remarkably well preserved.  I pass the set up giant chess game, where the old men will congregate later, wearing berets and newscaps, pondering the game en masse. 

People look at me with curiosity, but without hostility.  I know I look different, but I don't look that different.  They have dark hair and fair skin, I have dark hair and fair skin.  But I'm different.  A woman I'm walking next to looks at me and smiles.

WOMAN: Japan?  Korea?

GANDA: [I lie.]  Thailand.

WOMAN:  Very nice, very nice.

I assume she's going to try and swindle me out of something and walk in a different direction.  I don't know what's worse -- that tourists get swindled everywhere, or that I immediately assume that someone who strikes up a friendly conversation is going to try and rob me.

Make sure you get some burek

Lonesome Hero says I should get some burek.  We choose a storefront at random and order up the burek.  A hose of filo dough is wrapped around a filling of meat, spinach and cheese, or potato, then swirled like a snail shell onto a pizza pan.  The lady cuts us each a large wedge and weighs it on her scale before sliding the wedge onto stainless steel plates.

BUREK LADY:  Yogurt?

ALL:  Da.

The pastry is thin and well browned, the meat filling is divine, savory and oniony like a good Swedish meatball.  The spinach and (goat?) cheese filling is light and delish.  We pour our yogurt over the pie, which adds the right touch of moisture and tart creaminess to cut the richness of the meat.  We later realize that the yogurt was probably meant for drinking, not as a condiment.

I have got a crush, my baby, on you

I request a mug of hot water from the hotel restaurant so I can have a cup of PG Tips from my personal stash in my room.  Once I get up to the fourth floor, though, I realize that I have left my room key at the reception desk.  I get back in the elevator and stare down at the floor, where earlier that morning, someone had hocked a lugey and someone else had cleaned it up.  The doors open and I start to step out only to realize that we are not yet on the ground floor.  Instead, I stare like a deer in headlights at a handsome man.  He smiles at me.

MAN:  [Scrumptious English accent] Going down? 

GANDA:  [Pause.  Pause.  It's your turn, you idiot.]  Yes. 

He drags his large black duffel and smaller black bag into the telephone booth-sized elevator. 

MAN:  What are you here for?

GANDA:  The Sarajevo Jazz Festival?  [Not a question but a valley girl inflection.]

MAN:  Ah.  You're a jazz musician?

GANDA: [Smiling.] Of sorts.

MAN:  Of sorts?

                                    GANDA:  I'm a singer.
[Simultaneously]
                                      MAN:  A singer?

MAN:  Where are you from?

GANDA:   New York.

MAN:  Whereabout?

GANDA:  Brooklyn.

MAN:  Whereabout?

GANDA: Park Slope.  [Liar.]

MAN:  Whereabout?

GANDA:  [Laughing.]  Actually, it's south of Park Slope in Sunset Park.

The doors open into the lobby.

GANDA:  Are you here for the jazz festival?  [A total possibility as all of the participating artists are in one of two hotels.]

MAN: No, I'm a writer for the New York Times. 

GANDA: [That is so hot.] Ah, do you live in New York then?

MAN: No, I live in Slovenia, but I'm in New York from time to time.

GANDA:  Ah.  [To the receptionist.]  I forgot my key. 

[She hands me my key.  Say something.  Ask the dreamy New York Times writer who lives in Slovenia what his name is.  Ask him what he's covering.  Ask him why he has to be checking out of the hotel right at this moment.  Invite him to the gig.  Say something!  Your tea is getting cold!]

GANDA: See ya. 

[I can't believe I just said "See ya!"  Who am I?  Fucking Frances McDormand in Fargo?  I just closed the fucking door on the super crushable New York Times writer who lives in Slovenia.]

MAN: [After a pause in which I feel like I'm being mocked.]  See ya.

I go up to my room alone and drink my tea alone.  Later I try to google him without much success given my limited amount of information ("new york times" + "slovenia").  Even later I leave him a Sarajevo Jazz Fest postcard with his luggage, which he's left in the receptionist area.  I circle our performance info and write, "Please come if you're free.  Brooklyn girl in the elevator, Ganda Suthivarakom."  But he was checking out of the hotel, and he's probably going home to Slovenia.  To a hot Balkan wife.  Or a hot Balkan boyfriend. 

No Guns, No Photography

The Round Midnight shows happen at the Coloseum Club, which is half casino, half music venue.  Signs posted by the revolving glass doors have pictures of a crossed out gun and a crossed out camera -- no guns, no photography.  We have to go through metal detectors to get into the club.  The performance area is quite chic, with tiered seating, plenty of red velvet, and a grand piano which ChoHo does not need.  The chiming and ringing of the slot machines is far enough from the stage that it doesn't interfere with the music.  The cigarette smoke is overwhelming, but the audience is attentive and listening.  More and more folks wander away from the slot machines to listen to three American ladies sing a cappella in Bosnian, Ladino and English.  It's a good show, especially considering my eleventh hour involvement.

Anmarie tries to take a picture of the three singers after soundcheck, pretending to play the slot machines.  A burly bouncer in a gray, shoulder-padded, double-breasted suit strides over.

BOUNCER: NO PICTURES.  Let me see camera.

ANMARIE:  Here, we didn't even get the picture, we got the carpet, see.

The bouncer scrolls through the pictures distrustfully, then hands the camera back to Anmarie.  I take a picture later outside the club instead.  I don't plan on making trouble with big Bosnian bouncers.

Motor City Roots, Jazz Jamaica (UK)

After our gig, we head over to a much larger venue to see the late night headliners, Jazz Jamaica (from the UK).  Their poster says, "Jazz Jamaica Motor City Roots."  The Hammerstein Ballroom sized venue is packed with a swaying, sing-along crowd.  The air is thick and white with cigarette smoke.  We follow Jewlia down to the pit, where I listen to four bars of, "I'm eeeeeeeaaaaaasyyyyy, I'm easy like Sunday moooooooorninnnn."  I see Anmarie. 

GANDA: This is not for me.

I turn around and walk back to the hotel.  It's about 2:30 a.m., and it's just me, the nippy fog and the click of a woman's heels on cobblestones.

to be continued...

Read part 2 here.

Name: Jenny Feddersen

Occupation: Web designer

Borough: Manhattan

What did you eat today?

A bowl of kashi go lean crunch for breakfast, a glass of fresh squeezed (by someone else) orange juice, and a coffee from out of the kitchen with milk and an accidental pump of hazelnut coffee that wasn't so good.

Lunch: snap peas! carrots, yogurt, choc chip cookies, turkey sandwich, diet coke

Dinner: chicken tagine with prunes and apricots from Cafe Mogador, choc chip cookies [I love Mogador's chicken tagine -- I always get it with preserved lemon and olives.  YUM!  As a lunch special, it comes with a huge fresh mesclun salad with lemony vinaigrette, making it one of the best deals in town at only $7.50.  Take that, Rachael Ray! -- Ed.]

What do you never eat?

Liver

Complete this sentence:   In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Milk, leftover Thai, cheese and tortillas

What is your favorite kitchen item?

The garlic press




Where do you eat out most frequently?

SEA Thai
Saigon Grill
Esashi
Blue 9 Burger

World ends tomorrow.   What would you like for your last meal?

A big juicy cheeseburger grilled by my dad with onions, etc., corn on the cob, a flourless chocolate cake, and a tall glass of milk.

Name: Robyn Lee

Occupation: Student

Borough: Manhattan (but I'm from NJ, damn)

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: a banana, a few figs
Lunch: Japanese eel rice, some figs, pluots, frozen pudding (I was curious to find out what frozen pudding tasted like...because I have no life), water (I don't drink much else)
Dinner: Haven't had it yet but I'm planning to have more fruit, some yogurt, and more frozen pudding

What do you never eat?

Most fast food chains.  Beef tendon.  Bacon and sausages.  Insects (not that I've had the opportunity, but I'll pass.)

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Fruit.  Although that's more like in the kitchen, not the fridge.  Strangely perhaps, I can't think of something you'll always find in my refrigerator.  You can bet that my kitchen will at least have fruit and olive oil (not that I eat them together!).

What is your favorite kitchen item?

Not really a favorite as much as a necessity: a small knife for cutting fruit. :)

Where do you eat out most frequently?

In NJ, the Ridgewood Country Pancake House.  In NYC, around Chinatown but not one place in particular (yet).  bakeries get my most repeat business, such as Sugar Sweet Sunshine.

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

ICE CREAM SUNDAE!  With nuts and hot fudge.  And fuyu persimmons (not on the sundae).  And chocolate chip cookies.  (I hope those three things count as a meal.)

Robyn is The Girl Who Ate Everything.  You can visit her at one of several luxurious internet homes:
--> poofy.net/shop - back in business, kind of
--> diskobox.net - not very disko-esque
--> roboppy.net - it's RAHboppy, get it right, kids

*****

Special shout out to Adam Kuban for pointing me to recently featured YAWYE P.Y.T.s Allen and Robyn.  Know a New Yorker who wants to tell the world (or at least my five friends who read this blog) what they eat?  E-mail me.  Foodies, food-phobes, and everyone inbetween accepted.

Name:  Jon Lyon

Occupation:  Food publicity

Borough:  Manhattan

What did you eat today?

1 Stonyfield Farms Blueberry Yogurt
Chicken with broccoli and brown rice for lunch
½ a pecan square leftover from a meeting in my office
Asparagus and parmesan soup
A double-cut pork chop with apricot rhubarb chutney and herbed cornbread

What do you never eat?

I don’t eat offal.  I won’t eat flaky white fishes, like the snappers, the flounders, the dorades; it’s the texture.  I won’t eat anchovies, EVER.  I’ll eat squid but I won’t eat octopus.

[DOUG:  Yeah, octopus is always tough, isn't it? 

GANDA:  I once had octopus tostadas that were unbelievable.  The octopus was as soft as a baby's ass.]

I’ll never eat baby ass either, while you’re on the topic.

Complete this sentence:  In my refrigerator, you can always find:

Four B squared caffeinated Budweisers because someone brought them over and I’ll never drink them.  It’s like Red Bull meets beer.  The only other thing you will always find is Stonyfield Farms yogurt and apple juice.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My tongs.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

1.    The Grey Dog, in terms of sheer volume.
2.    August
3.    Westville
4.    Blue Ribbon Bakery
5.    Sammy’s
6.    Tabla Bread Bar -- It’s right next door to my office, it’s like my cafeteria.
7.    and Joe’s Pizza

World ends tomorrow.  What would you like for your last meal?

That’s a tough question, because those things change from day to day.  But today, I'd like:
A standing rib roast with Yorkshire pudding.  And we always take the blood from the rib roast and everyone drinks a shot of the blood.  It's not just fatty drippings.  It's extra blood from the roast that's cooked in the pan.

For you Cobble Hill kids, from my friend Winnie:

Taku:  It's a Japanese restaurant that doesn't serve sushi, so more like an izakaya.  The two main cooks met at Bond street and neither of them are Japanese, but they have been making Japanese food for a long time.

They have a full bar, where you can sit and hang out, and an assortment of snacks, appetizers, noodles (ramen and soba), main courses and desserts. Main courses run about $15-28 and include steak, roasted chicken, pan seared scallops and a seafood nabe being the head chef's self-proclaimed best bang for the buck. It looked good - packed with all sorts of yummy things like beautiful shrimp, different kinds of clams, mussels, etc. The wings are also an excellent snack, marinated in a yuzu brine with a cucumber yogurt type of dipping sauce.

Taku
116 Smith Street
b/n Pacific and Dean

While I toil away in obscurity, the Manhattan User's Guide has written up a bunch of New York-centric food blogs -- and I am NOT included.  Sadly. And my friend Donna alerted me to this month's issue of Bon Appetit which also included a reference to the exciting, tumescent food blogosphere -- with no mention of me and my carpal-tunnel/myopia inducing efforts. 

*Sigh*

Who do I have to whore myself out to for a little recognition? 

I am reminded of a story a friend told of randomly running into a fellow musician in a convenience store in Germany:

My friend: Hey, So-and-so!

So-and-so: Where are the yogurt peanuts?

My friend:  I don't know.

So-and-so:  (Bottom lip curled up) They don't care.

On Wednesdays at the Union Square Greenmarket, there's a sheep farmer who sells lamb bits, sheepskins, yarn, yogurt, cheese, and Araucana chicken eggs. She's on the north side of the square. BUY THESE EGGS. Morris of Windfall Farms sells the same kind of eggs for $5/half dozen and they are worth it. But this nice lady sells them for $2.25/half dozen and they are just as delicious!!

The Araucana chicken egg often comes in a green, brown, and sometimes pale pink shell. The yolk is a bright orange-yellow and, because the eggs are so impeccably fresh, the yolk floats high above the white. They are rich and delicate and flavorful and everything an egg dreams of being. These eggs are worthy of a nice truffle shaving, but they are incredible on their own. Most of the time I fry eggs and don't eat the yolk but I've finally found an egg I can love wholly. Don't waste these eggs in cake batter or meatloaf. Savor them over-easy, or scrambled, or soft boiled with a little toast to sop up the gold.

One of my favorite things to do is to medium-boil an egg and mash it up roughly into a bowl of hot rice with Maggi sauce, a sort of variation on soy sauce. Dreamy...