The holidays are a great time to make Meatballs! If you want to entertain royally this year, consider the meatball. Made well ahead of time, these bite-sized hors d’oeuvres are a perfect addition to your repertoire.  As a center of the plate item for dinner…

You can adapt this one-pot dinner recipe to Chicken, Pork, or Turkey. The ground meat of your choice is combined with fennel seed, Pecorino Romano, and onion and made into meatballs. The meatballs then cook in a flavor-filled Chicken broth together with orzo pasta, lemon…

These are the most tender meatballs I have ever tasted. The meatball is made all over the world. There are literally hundreds of recipes for them. The Italians, however, make what may be the world’s best-loved meatballs. Originally, the meatball was made to be able…

Cover Photo from “Ripe Figs” Credit: Matt Russell We’ve just returned from Greece with some great new recipes In case you don’t follow us on Instagram* or have wondered when our next post was coming, we’re back from one of the most wonderful trips we’ve…

Today, March 9th, the gods of whoever invents National Fill-In-the-Blank Days has declared in favor of the Meatball.  Who could think of a better day for Chewing The Fat to present our most popular meatballs ever?  In the past ten years, meatballs have been a…

Rao’s, the Iconic Italian Restaurant in East Harlem, is Working To Keep New York’s Partnership Schools Open and Thriving. Fifteen years ago, Frank Pellegrino Sr. of Rao’s Restaurant helped save a nearby small elementary school in Harlem – Mt. Carmel-Holy Rosary – from the brink…

Open up your Asian pantry and make great meatballs in 20 minutes flat. When I saw this recipe in the New York Times, I had misfired with meatballs all too recently. I’ll spare the ugly details, but that recipe used un-cooked rice in a meatball…

Two countries create a dinner dish worthy of at least two stars. I love a great meatball which is really what Kofte are.  I am always on the lookout for new flavors to try.  This recipe is from two different sources: A Turkish recipe from…

As some of our readers know, we recently moved out of the apartment we’d lived in for 23 years and moved down one floor to an apartment where we plan to live the next 23 years.  But all the Marie Kondo-ing in the world hasn’t…

I have to admit being completely charmed by my visit to Scandinavia.  In the interests of full disclosure, I went to Denmark and Norway side-stepping Sweden, Finland and far distant Iceland on my 7 day Viking Homeland itinerary.  But I felt completely immersed in Scandinavia…

Andrew’s sister Lauren and I have an ongoing contest to find people who comment on a recipe they’ve so radically altered it bears no resemblance to the original. Despite having tinkered with the ingredients, the quantities, the cooking time until the recipe is unrecognizable, you’d…

         New York loves its meatballs.  There are now no less than 6 Meatball Shops alone and on the Upper West Side, if you can’t get into the one there, Nicky Meatball’s “Polpette” (that’s meatball in Italian) is a couple of doors away.  The meatball…

“Meatball Mike” Chernow (left)  and Chef Daniel Holzman             Chef Daniel Holzman and his partner, Michael Chernow, AKA “Meatball Mike” are New York’s Kings of the Meatball.  With the opening of their 5th location, on the Far East side of Manhattan, at 1462 Second Avenue, they are…

A few years ago, I witnessed the arrival of Bison or Buffalo in my local supermarket.  At the time, a Day-Glo printed sign heralded its arrival in the meat case.  Not only had it arrived but also it was billed as ‘the meat of the…