Author: cia

  • I thought I would have more leftovers from Thanksgiving to make a week’s worth of lunch. But everyone in the house liked this sandwich so much, I was able to make them only two times before we ran out of leftover turkey. The sourdough and the porcini mushrooms were extra ingredients from the homemade stuffing…

  • I’ll take pig any time over a turkey but this year, I thought I’d tackle most of our Thanksgiving menu because it was the first time our family was complete since my brother permanently moved out of the States. My new sister-in-law and our favorite adoptee, Cameron, joined in the festivities. With the homemade stuffing…

  • This was a last-minute addition to my Thanksgiving menu this year. I’ve been cooking for three days but forgot to plan for a carb–I didn’t know Cameron was going to bring homemade biscuits–so I made my brother run an errand to buy buttermilk and corn at the grocery store in the morning. Cornbread is easy…

  • 178 Broadway, right under the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn 718/387-7400 about $350 for five, with a bottle of wine, with tip, cash only ♥ ♥ Our waiter spilled porterhouse juice all over my sister-in-law’s hat. She wasn’t wearing it at the time, but it still sucked when she realized it outside. It was windy and…

  • Since I’ve been mentioning gift ideas with sausage and cheese in the same post recently, I can’t ignore Di Palo’s new online store, Di Palo Selects, as another option for the holidays. New Yorkers and die-hard Italian tourists know that they can get the best of Italy from the Di Palo family on Grand Street,…

  • At my last job, I ate lunch with a big group of people almost everyday. You can imagine how difficult it was to agree on a place that everyone liked, so one of the developers wrote a quick script where we could sort out our list of lunch places downtown and picked one for us…

  • 212 Lafayette Street off Kenmare 212/925.9322 $40 for two, with 2 drinks, without tip ♥ ♥ Everything Serge Becker touches turns into the next place-to-be. (You’ve seen La Esquina and The Box in the news, right?) A 1pm lunch date with my friend at the bar started gloomy: we were meeting to drown our sorrows…

  • Dave drove the group to Dae Ga on Lemoine Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey where it was dark and, well, out of business. We didn’t have a Plan B even though the surrounding streets were peppered with Korean signs, so Dave called his brother-in-law who seemed to know all of the Korean bars and…

  • I broke the strap of my goggles so swimming after work was out. What does one do on a Friday night alone? If you’re me, then you’d also be on the 6 train to Grand Central Terminal to visit the new Murray’s Real Salami store. Rob Kaufelt, the owner of Murray’s Cheese, is now selling…

  • After a full week of craving salty foods, I woke up Sunday morning eager to bake something sweet. I’m not a big fan of too much sweet, though, so I opted for an easy apple cake recipe minus half a cup of sugar. When I took out the baking pans from the oven, I saw…

  • Funny how Korean food is my crutch cuisine after a night out of excessive drinking. If not a hot, spicy soup before going home, it’s kimchi fried rice topped with a fried egg when I wake up. Korean food can lead you to too much drinking, but it sure does help you recover from it.…

  • 12 East 22nd Street 212/228.7557 $90 for two, with 2 glasses of wine, with tip ♥ ♥ ♥ We’ve driven by Almoncello on Montauk Highway only to stop at Townline BBQ for lunch instead. This summer I told myself, okay, I’ll definitely eat there next year. But now that their Manhattan branch has opened, I…