This past weekend I celebrated finishing my cookbook, Lucid Food: Cooking For An Eco-Conscious Life (no, this is not a shameless plug for the book, it’s really part of the story). Writing a book can be an all-encompassing endeavor that takes up most of your focus and energy, and never seems to end. Consequently, I did not see nearly enough of many people I care about over the past year. So, with the book sent off to the printer, it was the perfect time to celebrate and invite missed friends to one low-maintenance event, in the small...

I guess I must have though I was a real wiseguy, aping Rachael and trying to have a Burger Bash of my own. And for a while, it looked pretty good. 18 of the greatest burger men and women in the world were assembled in Summit New Jersey, this past weekend, all vying to be crowned King of Burgers. And what a sight they were to see! Arrayed geometrically out across the parking lot of the Grand Summit Hotel were all the great burgers from the gastronomic capital of the world: the Black Label burger from Minetta Tavern, redolent of...

You can check out what Evette is doing by joining her facebook page or following her on twitter! Its not often that you see a cute, clapboard house complete with crisp, white-painted trim in New York city, but a few weeks ago on the corner of 26th Street and 8th Avenue, I saw just that! I was invited to check out a new promotion, the “Be HomeGoods Happy,” Tour 2009 –  a house on wheels all decked out in HomeGoods goodies. And goodies they are, especially when you check out the price tags, which they cleverly left on, just so you can...

I had cause to get in my car recently, an ancient hamburger restaurant in Linden, New Jersey. This restaurant, I had been told, was a throwback, a practitioner of the lost art of the old-time flattop hamburger. A time machine! I live in a world where hamburgers are getting bigger and more complex all the time; I follow the art and science of burgerdom as closely as anybody in the country, I would bet, and I’ve seen hamburgers do everything except get smaller, cheaper, or simpler. But these three qualities are, really, the essence of what the hamburger is. And...

How I came to have a ten pound bag of the nation’s top burger meat in my refrigerator is easy enough to imagine. A) I am a nationally-recognized hamburger expert; B) I’m friends with the top butcher in New York, Pat La Frieda, who is especially famous for his hamburger. So when I stopped in Thursday night at the shop to say hello, Pat naturally said to me, “want some hamburger for the weekend?” The good man stood next to a giant grinder, where a worker in a white coat was feeding big pieces of brisket into the top. The...

The farmers’ market is becoming a worldwide pandemic and so it should.  I don’t know about you guys, but I am feeling less and less inclined to pay through the nose for food that we know is locally produced. Surely there should be something in the word “local” that suggests that its lack of transporting, its seasonality and its well local-ness should make it so it happily complies with our purse strings? Our biggest farmers’ market in London is phenomenal. Fantastic super fresh local produce, organic meat that is butchered the old fashioned way, fish that’s so fresh it glistens,...

Growing up in Chicago, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a number of authentic neighborhood-style Mexican restaurants. I then moved to Miami, where the restaurants were mostly Cuban, and then on to Manhattan, where there are many different styles of Latin/South American style cuisine: Spanish, Mexican, Cuban, Brazilian…you name it! I have a few places I frequent, but even though I happen to live around the corner from Zarela, I’d never been there before. I am familiar with Zarela Martinez’s son, Aaron Sanchez, and I’m a fan of his food. So I was excited to visit Zarela and enjoy...

My husband (wise man that he is) is a saver - one wonderful - and important - trait I hope he passes on to our kids. As for me? I am a spender. One way he saves money is by keeping a piggy bank. A grown man keeps a piggy bank, you may scoff, but it works. He has actually two “holding spots” as he says - he keeps a piggy bank in the car - a plastic cup in his cup holder that he throws all his change in - all - pennies included. He also has...

Di Fara’s… Yes, It Really Is One of THE BEST Slices of Pizza Ever! Being the food lover that I am, people are constantly talking about “THE BEST this” and “THE BEST that.” When the hype escalates to a certain point, one of two things happens: 1. I feel like it’s been hyped up so much that trying it will only lead to a let-down or 2. Okay, enough people have hyped it up and it’s about time for me to go! Number two set in for me this time around. I had heard about Di Fara’s multiple times – the amazing crust,...