Category: You Are What You Eat

Name: Marysella Castillo

Occupation: Looking for something with some benefits...

Borough: Harlem for now, but have lived in Queens, and Brooklyn. Raised in Miami.

Relationship status: Single

What did you eat today?

Started the day off late with a sandwich-toasted rye, Calabrese ham, Genoa salami, American cheese, Prosciutto, mayo and mustard with some diet green tea. Lunch- my homemade chicken noodle soup-leftover. Dinner- 2 chicken tacos from The Great Burrito on Amsterdam. Dessert – Ben & Jerry's Strawberry Kiwi Swirl, ironically enough as I watched WORKOUT on Bravo…

What do you never eat? Bananas and milk (straight up)- I am all about texture, and both of these make me gag…

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

garlic, cilantro, lemon, lime, and parmigiano reggiano.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My Kitchenaid Garlic Press, my mom tries to take it with her to Miami every time she visits. She bought one, but we can't seem to find another Kitchenaid one.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Yama, on Irving, there is usually a wait and I eat there so often the host brings a chair from downstairs and adds it to the sushi bar. Shake Shack, I can't believe I worked right next to this place for 4 months and thought it was some wack park food place. Thanks to my friends at Chikalicious, and my friend, Andre, they have shown me the light. Now, I take all my out of town friends. Chikalicious. I have been going there since they opened. I love this place. It makes me feel like a little girl at a tea party (ok, an upscale tea party…). Must try the iced coffee (light with their simple syrup). Lastly, Di Fara's another place, I discovered after I moved out of Brooklyn. I get my nails done in Brooklyn (will travel for a good manicure…) and now I go visit Dom Demarco, it is so worth the wait, just not when its 101 degrees outside. It is also a great place to practice patience…….If you've never been look at it as art and not as your typical pizza place. In Miami, Steve's Pizza. Their sauce is sweeter than most. Di Piazza Pizzeria in Hialeah. Not only is their food great but they have the best garlic knots you will ever taste. Many special moments have been celebrated at this restaurant. It is typical Sicilian Italian, in the middle of a predominantly Cuban neighborhood.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
My mom's coconut rice, potato salad, and stuffed beef. She is a great cook, and this is her special occasion typical Colombian meal. Many flock to her house on Christmas to enjoy this meal.

Name: Adam Levy

Occupation: musician

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: happily dating a truthmonger from Poughkeepsie

What did you eat today?

Breakfast was iced coffee, black (made from last night’s leftover pot) and an onion bagel with egg salad (sold separately) from Kossar’s. Lunch was mi xao chay (mixed vegetables with tofu, over soft noodles) from Pho Grand. It’s early evening now, and I haven’t had dinner yet, but did have a slice of banana-walnut-date bread with a cup of peppermint tea. I have a gig tonight, and don’t like to eat a large meal before I sing. Afterwards — who knows?

What do you never eat?

Sweetbreads, never! And I recently stopped eating any kind of blue cheese, because it has penicillium bacteria and I’ve discovered that I’m allergic to penicillin. Maybe I’m just paranoid about this – no doctor has advised me to stop eating blue cheese. I think that’s about it. I don’t understand how people can have a long list of foods they hate. Wait, one more thing: necks! At Thanksgiving in my house, there was always a fight over who would get the turkey neck. My stepfather also considered the other end a delicacy.

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

Sriracha hot sauce (“rooster sauce”), unsalted butter, at least one container of Guss’ pickles, assorted cheeses, butter lettuce, a can of ground Illy coffee (even though I think it says not to refrigerate it).

What is your favorite kitchen item?

OXO hand-held grater, which I sometimes use for cheese – but more often use to mince garlic.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Dumpling House on Eldridge Street. Their simple, cheap menu never fails to satisfy. Have you tried their kimchi? It’s got some tart apples and dried shrimp in the mix. Not a lot. Just enough to make your mouth ask, “What the fuck!?”

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

My Aunt Susan’s duck – glazed with fresh orange juice, reduced red wine, and raspberry preserves, served over braised sauerkraut. If the world was ending, I’d eat the whole duck! That, along with a simple salad, and mashed turnips. I’d wash it all down with a hearty Italian red. Bananas foster for dessert. Repeat as desired, until everything dissolves to black.

Adam Levy's Nice Place to Visit (not a place but a music thing) is in residency at Pete's Candy Store (not a candy store but a bar/venue) for the month of August. If you can't make it to PCS, there are plenty of gigs listed here. Posted early because I'm leaving for New Orleans tomorrow.

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!

*Gasp*! Frank Bruni has a new Q&A with chefs. It's not that I think I'm the first/only person to ever do a questionnaire. But...there are some familiar questions:

Which three cooking tools or gadgets are your favorites?

Is there a food you can’t bring yourself to like?

and the final question:

You did something awful and are sentenced to die. Dead Chef Walking! What’s your final meal — and we’re not talking five or six courses, though you can have dessert — before you go?

I wanna know if he's ever seen YAWYE. That's all I want to know. I know I'm small fry.

Name: Mr. Cutlets

Occupation: New York's Most Conspicuous Carnivore

Relationship status: Single

Borough: Brooklyn

What did you eat today?

Thick, irregular slices of Hebrew National salami uneasily arranged on a soft onion roll; coffee; Chinese jerky treats; water; wild cherry Diet Pepsi; Malaysian sliders at 230 Fifth Avenue; Robbie Richter's leftover deckle brisket from Grill Kings, grossly undervalued by its judges, slowly reheated in a toaster oven. And, at the time of writing, a Heath bar.

What do you never eat?

Vegetables.

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

Diet soda; bacon; a container of something I can't identify; good butter; a tub of parkay margarine; a can of evaporated milk (for coffee); a well-intentioned, decaying piece of fruit; sliced American cheese; air bread; a Kossar's bialy; chow mein noodles. No wonder Ruth Reichl gets more house guests than I do.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My cast-iron skillet, beaten and bent, the closest thing I have to a "life partner."

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I actually bought an apartment just a few blocks from Di Fara so that I could go there every day, but once a week in this heat is about all I can take. I receive frequent deliveries from the Newkirk Plaza Restaurant, which makes good pancakes and adequate club sandwiches. Veselka....All this is me eating out as a civilian. In my professional capacity, I'm called upon to constantly eat in different places, and rare is the day when I can settle in on a familar counter stool like everybody else.

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

I actually think about this very frequently. I suspect that indecisiveness, rather than fear, would kill my appetite. But assuming that I had Ricky Ray Rector's blissful presence of mind, I would certainly include large portions of all of the following: Waffle House hash browns, smothered, doubly oily;
a white nectarine from The Orchard;
thick slices of Benton's bacon;
a slice of Katz's pastrami;
pork ribs and prime rib from Kreuz market in Texas;
a slice each of Dom DeMarco's plain pie, round pepperoni pie, square pepperoni pie, and square artichoke pie, all inspected to avoid burn spots;
four Old English Garlic Rounds with corresponding squares of American cheese;
a glass of whole organic milk with plenty of Fox's U-Bet carefully mixed in, with no blotting;
Michel Rostang's epigram of lamb;
french fries from Lila's of Miami;
a tub of Kozy Shack pudding;
a good chilean sea bass;
one of Charles Gabriel's chicken thighs;
a briny Cape May oyster;
a limousin rib steak, cut from rib number 5, browned in my cast iron pan, and then finished in the oven.
Maybe another grape.

At that point I would welcome death.

Visit Mr. Cutlets at his web home, where he has his own fancy theme song. Soon you will also be able to visit him at New York magazine, where he'll be the new online food guru.

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: Kathy Tsina

Occupation: fashion designer

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Dating

What did you eat today?

Breakfast:

Oatmeal with raspberries, Iced soy latte

Lunch:

Pomegranate iced tea, lobster roll with french fries

Iced green tea, Blueberries

Dinner:

Fennel salad with parmesan and lemon dressing. Sancerre, Sullivan St. bakery bread with Humboldt Fog cheese.

Fat Witch Caramel brownie

What do you never eat?

Carrots, anchovies, and I never drink beer or eat hamburgers.

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

champagne
sparkling and flat water
fresh iced tea
limes
berries
soy milk
leftovers
eggs
cheese
vitamins
strawberry jam
maple syrup
Butter

Freezer:
Ice cream
frozen Peet's coffee [I love me some Peet's! --Ed.]
frozen chocolate
Gauloises

What is your favorite kitchen item?

I really like my old fashioned juicer these days

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I would be lying and teased if I didn't say Mama Buddha on Hudson. It’s just so close to my apt., and I love the ladies, they remind me of my mum. I have a theory that they are all sisters and secret, struggling actresses. They make excellent orange chicken, pickled vegetables, and hot and sour soup.

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

Salad with endive, spinach, Roquefort, beets. walnuts.

Fresh grilled ahi tuna and halibut, with marinated grilled vegetables.

Sea salt and pepper pasta, with meyer lemon and aged parmesan.

Freshly baked wheat bread with organic butter.

Vanilla Gelato with fresh blueberries strawberries and my mom’s orange strawberry short cake

Dry White, Pouilly Fume or Sancerre, Pellegrino, and my friends of course.

Damn. I knew I forgot something. Be back next week with YAWYE. Sorry for the brain fart.

photo by Brigitte LacombeName: Ruth Reichl

Occupation: Editor-in-chief, Gourmet Magazine

Borough: Manhattan

Relationship status: Married

What did you eat today?

Breakfast: roasted apricots (leftover from dessert last night) with sliced organic strawberries and heavy cream

All Day (in the Gourmet Test Kitchens):
Grilled grass-fed beef from a new producer (for an article that Deborah Madison is doing for us).
Oysters in artichoke hearts with spinach in a champagne-cream sauce (for a winter issue)
Cheese-potato crepes with red cabbage and apple salad (another winter issue)
Steak with anchovy butter (late fall)
Almond cake with blackberries (next Spring)
Beef stew (a reader recipe)
Hamburgers (more of that grass fed beef)
Bitter greens salad with feta (next summer)
Chocolate truffles (sent into the magazine by the producer)
A handful of cherries (brought from home)

Dinner at home with the family:
Roast chicken (organic, free-range, from a local farmer) with roasted potatoes, onions and garlic
Local Asparagus with balsamic vinegar
Sautéed mushrooms with sherry
Sautéed lacinata kale with onions
Vanilla ice cream with sliced strawberries

What do you never eat?

Honey. Loathe the stuff. Don’t have much love for sweet wines either.

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

Butter
Free-range eggs
Parmesan cheese
Lemons
Sriracha sauce
3 or 4 other kinds of hot sauce
Hoisin sauce
Oyster sauce
Good maple syrup
Tortillas
Cold water
Tiptree’s Little Scarlet jam
Milk
Sour cream
White wine

And in the freezer:
Homemade chicken stock
Vanilla ice cream
Spicy pork sausages
Wild blueberries
Frozen dumplings from the 5 for $1 dumpling place in Chinatown
Schapira’s Viennese roast coffee

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My new black granite mortar and pestle – perfect for making salad dressing (among other things).

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Pearl Oyster Bar. I could happily eat steamed clams every day. And their little boiled lobsters are perfect. And I love the way it feels in there.

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

A loaf of great crusty bread with cold sweet butter
2 dozen little neck clams on the half shell
a well-aged, rare Porterhouse steak bone to gnaw on
just-picked Silver Queen corn on the cob
sliced home-grown tomatoes with great olive oil and good sherry vinegar
a bottle of 1982 Petrus
1 perfectly ripe peach

[Let's hope the world ends during the month of August. -- Ed.]

My Pau always got the L.A. Times on Thursdays and Sundays because that was when it came with the food sections -- and all of his precious coupons and flyers. Often, the food articles that really made my mouth water had Ruth Reichl's byline. Then I'd read the Sunday magazine and in the back, there'd be a great recipe article, again with Ruth Reichl's byline. She was the first journalist I ever learned to look for by name. Who is this Ruth Reichl, and how does she know so much about food? I thought. I imagined she looked like Dr. Ruth, because Dr. Ruth was the only other Ruth I'd ever heard of, and I wasn't very imaginative.

I love her books (the most recent being Garlic and Sapphires, again published by my employer) and I'm totally in awe of her body of work. Honest to goodness, she's one of my rock stars. To quote my friend Robert, "You don't understand! I'm like a 50 year-old gay man meeting Liza Minnelli!"

Name: Ricardo Bracho

Occupation: Playwright, grantwriter, manny

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: In a relationship

What did you eat today?

For breakfast/lunch: Chilaquiles in a lime-tomatillo-jalapeno-cilantro salsa verde I blended up yesterday. And a large coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, half n half no sugar. For dinner, three courses: 1) Mussels, octopus and venison pate from contraband conserva my bro smuggled in from Basque Country; 2) Wild red snapper fillets and a green on green salad (green leaf lettuce, watercress, cilantro and mint) and cucumber slaw (cucumber, onion, celery); 3) guava paste and fresh mexican cheese on french bread

What do you never eat?

Broccoli, mayonnaise, fast food

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

Leftovers from last night's meal, jalapenos, nopales, tortillas (flour, corn and these days blue corn as well)

What is your favorite kitchen item?

The oven - I'm a roaster and a baker. I covet a hand mixer.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

La Orquidea (the carniceria where I buy my meat daily) on Knickerbocker in Bushwick with great Oaxacan tamales, carne enchilada and tostadas y sopes de pollo de tinga.

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

A combo of Carib n Mexican delights that I made: Pernil, mole, arroz, frijoles, platanos y tembleque.