Aerial View of Shelter Island Shelter Island, for those of you who don’t know, is a 5 minute ferryboat-only ride away from The Hamptons, or more properly Sag Harbor, or more specifically North Haven. On the other end of the island, there’s an 8 minute…

Eric Rippert Recently, Andrew and I went to hear Eric Rippert, Fish Chef Extraordinaire  and proprietor of the perennially four-starred Le Bernardin restaurant in New York.  Chef Rippert appeared at a food forum at the YMHA hosted by Adam Gopnick of The New Yorker magazine.  …

A Girl and Her Pig…literally I am a huge fan of April Bloomfield and I’ll follow her anywhere—to The Breslin in the Ace Hotel, next door at the John Dory or down in the Village where she practically invented the Gastropub at “The Spotted Pig”. (…

Cooking is often the most Zen activity of my day. Especially when I come across a recipe that is elegant in its simplicity, beautiful to look at as I am preparing it and finally, a wonderful experience when it is eaten.  This recipe, which came…

Marcella and Victor Hazan, as loving and giving a couple as one could ever hope to know. If I’d never been introduced to Marcella Hazan, my cooking would have been so much poorer for it.  Marcella died last week at her home in Naples, Florida…

         ROASTING A WHOLE STRIPED BASS IS A LOT EASIER THAN YOU’D THINK Long Island is surrounded by water and the East End, where we live, is particularly blessed.  Not two miles from our house is Peconic Bay, which feeds into the Long Island Sound…

Armani Ristorante hasn’t exactly barged its way into the New York culinary scene.  Some wags have even suggested that Giorgio Armani opened the place solely to be able to enjoy pasta his way. He’d made no effort to conceal his displeasure with the heavily sauced…

Sauteed Trout Photo Courtesy of Food and Wine Magazine Brook Trout I try to serve fish once a week.  Its health benefits are well known and even its fat content is healthy—it comes in the form of Omega-3 fatty acids which not only protect your…

          We should all eat more fish.  Further down the page you’ll find a list of eight reasons why. But there seem to be an equal number of reasons people do not.  I was talking to my friend Barbara, an Ohio native,…

         For the last few summers, one of our salads of choice has been the Watermelon and Tomato rendition first published here in July 2010: http://chewingthefat.us.com/2010/07/watermelon-and-tomato-salad.html.  Nothing says ‘cool off’ like watermelon and this salad combines the sweetness of the fruit with the tang of ripe…

         My friend, Eric Lemonides, owns Almond Restaurant in Brideghampton and a second Almond on 22nd Street in the City.  Last Monday, when I went to his Bridgehampton address for dinner, he told me that one of the great off-season successes he’s had is his  “Meatless…

Last summer, our great friend Michael came over to our house with a cookbook given to him by one of his favorite customers at the Bridgehampton Florist, which he co-owns with his husband, Jim. (Yes, that Bridgehampton Florist…viewers of the Barefoot Contessa take note).  “Plenty”(Ebury…

Chef Eric Ripert        The weeknights leading up to Christmas are a time challenge to any home cook.  We all want to minimize the time it takes to get dinner on the table so that we can take care of everything else that’s…

Mary Woltz of Bee’s Needs in Sag Harbor NY The East End of Long Island of Long Island is full of people doing wonderful things with food.  Among them is one my favorite people, Mary Woltz.  The North Carolina native has single-handedly invented “Bee’s Needs”,…