Something unspeakable happened last week in Bridgehampton.  An extraordinary woman was taken from us as she crossed Main Street in a crosswalk.  A driver, whose license had been suspended, hurtled through town in the dark and struck a local hero. An immensely…

         Who doesn’t love a great pot pie?  Meat and vegetables and gravy under a blanket of pastry, these pies are American Classics.  But they go back in culinary history considerably longer. In the Roman Empire, the pastry was banquet fare.  Sometimes the crust revealed…

The Pool was tented for the occasion. What makes a dish perfect for a dinner party?  I’d suggest something that keeps the cook out of the kitchen so that he or she can really enjoy their dinner guests’  company as much as possible.  Last weekend,…

L. to R. Eric and Adam  One night last week, Andrew, our friend Kathy and I all went to see Eric Rippert, the Chef Extraordinaire at New York’s Le Bernardin. Chef Rippert was appearing at the YMHA as part of the “Conversations with Chevaliers” series.  The…

                  This is one of Ina Garten’s most beloved recipes.  It dates all the way back to 1999 when it appeared in Ina’s first cookbook “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter 1999).  Since I can’t think of  a better time for luxury foods like…

         Jane, Jason and John About a month ago, my friends, Jane Maguire and John Quigley of Long Island Mushroom Inc., invited me to attend a special event.  It was a dinner held at the EECO Farm in Easthampton.  It was hosted by a group…

The genuine article as seen in Spain BRING THE TASTE OF SPAIN TO THE TABLE WITH THIS OVEN-ROASTED SHRIMP AND SAUSAGE PAELLA. Paella is, hands down, the dish most associated with Spain.  Prior to the emergence of tapas on tables everywhere and Ferran Adria’s molecular…

This great rustic Italian recipe hails from Los Angeles If you’re looking for a great dinner party Chicken recipe, you can’t do much better than this.  The combination of lemon, garlic and rosemary gives the dish great depth of flavor.  The chicken is crispy on…

         When I started cooking Osso Buco, it was a sumptuous meal on a beer budget.  The Veal Shanks at the center of the dish were afterthoughts at the butcher’s counter.  It’s hard to imagine but I think they ran about $4.99 a lb. at…

         We were having a group to dinner over the President’s Day weekend.  I saw it as a great opportunity to cook something substantial.  I hit upon making a paella for a couple of reasons. I’d read an article in Saveur written by David Rosengarten. …

         I love a good Osso Buco.  It’s a wonderful weeknight dinner party dish because you can make it one night and serve it the next and it will only improve with its overnight rest.  But I had never heard of a lamb version of…

Center this dish on your dining table and stand back.         Chinese New Year is upon us.  This Sunday, February 10th is the start of the Year of the Snake. Despite all the negative connotations of snakes and snake-like behavior,  according to…

         Duck a l’Orange lives in our memory as one of our first introductions to restaurant food.  In Montreal, where we lived, it was fairly ubiquitous on the city’s better menus.  We loved it for its sweetness and its crunch.  For the dark duck meat…