Ina Garten’s Pastitsio
I’ve waited all summer for the first cool day to arrive. Not that I don’t love every minute of summer, it’s just that I have been dying to try this gorgeous dish ever since I saw it in House Beautiful. With yet another dire…
I’ve waited all summer for the first cool day to arrive. Not that I don’t love every minute of summer, it’s just that I have been dying to try this gorgeous dish ever since I saw it in House Beautiful. With yet another dire…
David Falkowski’s Oyster Mushrooms are beyond compare Leeks from the Foster Family Farm One of the joys of being part of the Farmer’s Markets this fall has been getting first dibs on some incredible produce. The market opens at 9 but everyone is generally…
Carrot Orzo–what a discovery! This is one of those times when the photograph of the dish simply doesn’t do justice to the incredible taste of this easy-to-prepare meal. But here it’s not just the presence of the prosciutto that packs the wallop, or the…
In my family, the only person who could express any food dislikes was my Father. He had a couple of them. But as children, any misgivings we had about what to eat were not paid any attention to. You…
I just left Montreal, where I was born and where my family had roots going back three generations before we all left at the height of the Separatist movement. This ‘revolution’ scared the bejesus out of the Anglos in the province…
Out on Long Island, the apples are coming into play as we head into Fall and go back to wanting to eat something more substantial than summer fare. Right near us, there’s a tremendous Pick-Your-Own Orchard run by the Halsey Family on Mecox Road…
View from The Beacon. Photo by Beth and Peter Whiteley There’s no shortage of great places to eat on the East End. Although you would never think so on a Summer weekend when you can’t get a table anywhere without advance reservations. There is,…
It may look innocuous…but watch out, it’s addictive! Today, we go back to Christina Tosi, the wizard behind David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar, one of New York’s must stops for any dessert lover. Christina, as you may remember, was behind the Blueberry and Cream cookies…
For some bizarre reason, we have not one but two almost completely full bottles of Pernod in our liquor cabinet. Pernod is that close cousin of Pastis, that liquid licorice that you drink quantities of whenever you’re in Provence and then never drink again…
In the picture above, today’s cookie gets short shrift. It’s overwhelmed in size by the massive 4 inch Blueberry and Cream and it’s well off to the side. However, in voting for what cookie recipe our readers wanted to see next, Andrew’s masterful…
Nobody does it better than the Bridgehampton Florists, Michael and Jim Nobody bakes better than Andrew The Hampton Classic Horseshow brackets the summer season here. It’s the last big blast that signals the end of summer. We love to go for the horses, the hats,…
The summer of the Burger is fast coming to an end. Out here on the East end of Long Island, the burger buzz has centered around a new entry onto the local dining scene, LT Burger, on Main Street in Sag Harbor. The LT…
Our friends Beth and Peter are with us from California for a few days and we’re anxious to share some of Long Island’s best with them. This will include the spectacular weather we’re experiencing, our glorious beaches—less crowded now that a lot of…
I know I’ve mentioned Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito before. They’re two of my heros because they fled the Advertising business for a bakery in Red Hook, Brooklyn and haven’t looked back. Instead, they’re the authors of one of Andrew’s go-to sources for…
Join Chewing The Fat for memorable recipes, delicious discoveries and stylish ways to see the world.

My name is Monte Mathews (at right). My partner, Andrew Phillips (at left) and I started this blog because we both share a lifelong interest in food and travel. We decided to put everything together in a blog called “Chewing the Fat”. To ‘chew the fat’ is a phrase that means ‘to talk or discuss informally, to talk at length about a variety of subjects.’ There’s some debate over what ‘fat’ was being chewed but here we use it to mean food and travel talk that delves a little deeper into what we eat, where it came from and to tell the stories that surround almost every recipe we share. You’ll find everything here from appetizers through to dessert...lots of desserts because Andrew is now a world-class home baker when he's not selling residential Real Estate in the city we love, New York. Andrew can be reached at [email protected]
Product News You Can Use
Wendy Brovetto turns New York orchard apples into four warmly spiced jams: Fall Harvest Blend, Ginger Pear Fusion, Chai, and Brown Sugar. We put Ginger Pear to work in skillet apple pork chops, a one-pan supper made for cooler evenings.
Serves 4. You will need 1½ tablespoons olive oil, divided; four 6-ounce bone-in pork chops; ¾ teaspoon kosher salt and ¾ teaspoon black pepper, each divided; ½ cup unsalted chicken stock; 1 cup Croton Trading Rustic Apple Jam (Ginger Pear works well); 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage; 1½ teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary; 1 small red onion, thinly sliced; and chopped parsley to finish.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat with 1½ teaspoons oil. Season the chops with ⅜ teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Brown for about 5 minutes per side, then remove. Whisk the stock and jam together. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the skillet with the onion, sage, rosemary, and remaining salt and pepper; cook about 4 minutes, stirring. Add the jam mixture, return the chops, and cook about 3 minutes more, until the sauce reduces by half and the pork is cooked through. Finish with parsley and serve with extra jam on the side.
FERNET, FIRE, AND A PERFECT CHICKEN IN BUENOS AIRES