Maybe If You Cross Your Eyes a Little…

I thought it was time to shed my blogger training wheels and move away from using the default header image that came with the template I use for my blog. You know the one, the photo looking down Mulberry Street in NYC that catches a glimpses of the restaurant awnings and umbrellas that line the street? It was [...]

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Office Lunchtime Blues: How to Avoid Committing Suicide in the Face of Yet Another Turkey Sandwich

In my office, at approximately 12:11pm everyday you will notice an interesting phenomenon. Every cubicle’s Outlook will begin magically lighting up, bolded subject titles filling mailboxes, new mail notification boxes slowly creeping forth from the bottom righthand corner of people’s computer screens in a sinister, yet alluring crawl.
The subject titles of these emails are usually [...]

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Post-Thanksgiving Coma and Pies

Yes, I have been in a Thanksgiving coma for the past four days; not only a food/tryptophan-induced coma, but also an exhaustive coma from cooking Wednesday night through to 4:30pm Thursday.
I use this coma as an excuse for my inexcusable dropping-of-the-Thanksgiving-ball, so to speak, on this blog. I missed the opportunity to fully share my [...]

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(Dinner) Party of Five – Scott Wolf not Included

I had a dinner party recently with four friends of mine and while I typically like to impress guests with fancy, “gourmet” recipes, I decided instead to stick to dishes I could make: 1) with my eyes closed and 2) a little bit ahead of time. I’m notorious for greeting my guests in a bath [...]

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“Gourmet Shops of New York” by Susan Meisel & Nathalie Sann – A Book Review

A kind colleague recently lent me Gourmet Shops of New York, a book by Susan Meisel and Nathalie Sann, which lists many of NYC’s best gourmet food shops, bakeries, and markets by neighborhood along with a selection of recipes from some of them. These shops range from the more famous (Junior’s Restaurant, Zabar’s, Magnolia Bakery) to lesser [...]

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L’Impero – Una “Domenica Rustica”

L’Impero – 45 Tudor City Place (bet. 42nd and 41st St.), (212) 599-5045
Yesterday one of my favorite dining companions, Zack, and I went to L’Impero for its “Domenica Rustica” (translation: “Rustic Sunday”) Prix Fixe 4-course dinner for $42: a deal that we felt we had to investigate following Frank Bruni’s recent re-review of L’Impero and [...]

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Bodeguita Cubana

Bodeguita Cubana – 271 East 10th Street (bet. 1st Ave and Ave A), (212) 533-5600
A good friend of mine recently recommended/insisted/texted me endlessly that I try out Bodeguita Cubana. Despite the mixed reviews I’ve read on sites such as menupages.com, chow.com, and nymag.com, I decided that the possibility of finding a cheap cuban place far outweighed [...]

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Your Basic-10,001-Uses Tomato Sauce

I’ve been wanting to post this for awhile now, realizing that the pseudo-recipe I described in my first post “The Chewy, the Cheesy, and the Saucy” was a cruel tease when a co-worker of mine told me he was very excited to try that recipe. I had to tell him, “No, don’t! The whole point [...]

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Thanksgiving at the AfterTaste* Household

*Real household withheld for obvious purposes.
With Halloween behind us, my thoughts dwell not on ghouls, frightening little children dressed as Spongebob Squarepants hopped up on artificial sweeteners, my dog Moo Shu dressed as a pumpkin, and bucket loads of chocolate, but rather, they fast forward to the Superbowl of culinary holidays…Thanksgiving. 
Ahhh, Thanksgiving in the AfterTaste household, it’ll be upon us [...]

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