Making Breaky

How pretty is this! Mike made a veggie hash to go along with my scrambled eggs and cheese on onion rolls.



Thinly sliced butternut squash, yukon gold potatoes, and red onions with garlic, rosemary, s+p, butter, and extra virgin olive oil.

Friday at Swiss Institute

Swiss Institute is one of my favorite art spaces in New York. Their programming is unique, eclectic, and many artists they present are working outside the white box. I also love their soup lunches, which happen a few Fridays throughout the year and include a curator-led tour of the current show. Last Friday, the soup was forgettable, but the installations were great. My favorite was Serge Becker's Reading Room. As they describe him, Becker is more of a downtown legend than a practicing artist, but SI Director Gianni Jetzer commissioned him to make a work, and he chose to create this highly interactive bookshelf. Instead of being in a room surrounded by books on shelves, the bookshelf sits in the center of the gallery and you surround it. Additionally, the interior is straight out of a fun-house, meant to quench a child's curiosity but also fun for adults. Gianni mentioned that they will be donating the bookshelf to a school when the show comes down - a perfect continuation.

Eating at Eat Records

My most recent and favorite discovery in Greenpoint is Eat Records. (I have to thank Gareth for being so persistent about our visit.) A few blocks off the main drag of Manhattan Avenue, on Meserole Avenue, is Eat Records. It is now under the oversight of Jordan Colom who has taken great care to make this a special place. Even the tiny details, like linens and silverware do not go unnoticed. The furniture is hand-crafted in Pennsylvania by Jordan's brother and it is stunning, like something you might find in a Unitarian church. The lighting, created from interlocking colanders, was designed by a friend. All ingredients are locally sourced, directly from farms, except for the salt and the olive oil. (The olive oil, we were told, comes from the most recent pressing of Sagittario and it is emerald green.) Finally, the meal. Every night for dinner, there is a price fix, $20 for 3 courses - 3 choices for appetizers, 3 choices for entrees, and 1 dessert. For brunch there is similarly digestible pricing. The menus are seasonal and change daily. The food is refreshingly simple - for dinner, the lightest gnocchi made from purple potatoes over a bed of wilted hearty greens. For brunch, a fried egg with the brightest orange yolk I have ever seen over black beans with hot sauce. And the creamy root vegetable soup is like velvet, so light, but so creamy.

Here are some highlights from a recent brunch...

2nd Place Pie!

On Saturday, after years of perfecting my filling and my crust, I won 2nd place in the Enid's 7th Annual Apple Pie Bake-Off out of 50 pies! I won't lie, it was a sweet victory. Special thanks to Team Pie (you know who you are) for seeing it through until the very end. After judging, Mike snagged my winning pie off the table and eight of us devoured it with only six forks in about four minutes.


#29 = #2

I've entered this Bake-Off three times before, but this year was different. I picked the apples myself the previous week at Bushy Hill Orchard in Granby, CT. I made a test pie as part of an early autumn feast. And I relied heavily on Martha for inspiration, combining elements from two of her apple pie recipes, deepest dish and spiced with a top crust of fluted round cut-outs, with my own twists here and there. Some secrets: A little bit of cardamom goes a long way. So do a few extra tablespoons of butter in the crust. Grating your own cinnamon and nutmeg is key. And adding some brandy can never hurt.

I don't enter food contests as a hobby (though I did participate in friend Meat Yourself's Mac and Cheese off this weekend too!), but I love Enid's Bake-Off because it takes advantage of the season: Apples are peaking in the North East, and it's cold enough outside to crave warm apple pie.


Signing in...


The prizes


The party


My pie on the judges' table, a very exciting moment



Nervously awaiting the final announcements with Team Pie


2nd Place Winners!


The trophy

An Autumn Feast

Our friend Paul is moving to LA so to bid him farewell, I cooked an autumn feast. The menu started with a salad of mixed greens, dried cranberries, crumbled danish blue cheese, and chopped walnuts with a mustard vinaigrette. Salad was followed by the main course, a fluffy and delicious Lasagne in Bianco, recipe recommended by Henry Quinn. Vegetables on the side included roasted butternut squash and Ina Garten's parmesan roasted broccoli, a truly inspired dish. By the way adding sliced garlic, lemon zest, and basil to roasted broccoli is genius. Last but not least, dessert. I was testing my recipe for the upcoming Enid's Apple Pie Bake-Off, so we ended the night with homemade apple pie. Paul also brought his delectable chocolate chip cookies, for which he is in the process of developing a new and complex recipe. I took the day to make this dinner and there is really nothing I love doing more.

Picking Apples, Eating Doughnuts

We were in Hartford for the marathon (which Mike ran in 3 hours and 36 minutes!) and it happens to be prime time for apples, and apple cider doughnuts down the road at Bushy Hill Orchard in Granby. By the time we got on the truck to "pick-our-own," I had already eaten three doughnuts, deliciously crisp on the outside, soft on the inside and covered with cinnamon and sugar. They actually often sell out before noon, they are that good.









We picked 10 pounds of apples with pies in mind, on a beautiful day, among the turning leaves.

Autumn Is Upon Us

Here is some proof...


Gourds and the tiniest pumpkin in my hand-crafted vintage batter bowl from the consignment shop in Somesville Harbor, ME


Fall foliage in Woodstock, NY