Monthly Archives: December 2009
December 15, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
As a Jew who grew up pretty Jewy (a Bar Mitzvah, Passover seders, an original last name of Rothenberg (changed by my grandparents)), I never got very excited about matzoh. Sure, come April, the inevitable boxes would show up at the store and my mom would by some and we’d spread it with butter (a memory I hadn’t remembered until I wrote this sentence, but now that I remember it, it is a nice taste memory). For those who’ve never experienced matzoh, imagine if cardboard and bread had a baby–that’s matzoh. It’s stiff, it’s crackery, it’s often pretty flavorless. Who gets excited about matzoh?
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Where To Have a Wedding Brunch in NYC? — My friend recently got engaged (woohoo!) and now she's trying to figure out where to have her wedding in New York. I actually get e-mails quite a bit from people getting married in New York looking for venue suggestions and I rarely know what to tell them. So what say you, married New Yorkers? Where's a good place for a wedding brunch that can seat 75 to 100 people and can close for a private event? If you use this advice yourself, I expect to be invited.
December 11, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
Today’s the second day of Hanukkah and as much as I wish I could tell you that I’m frying latkes and spinning dreidels and unwrapping Hanukkah gelt in celebration, I’m actually sitting here next to a pile of cookbooks trying to figure what constitutes the Best of 2009. You see, many of my food blogging contemporaries–David, Deb, Eat Me Daily–have already offered up their take on what you should buy for you and yours this holiday season and now it’s my turn to separate the wheat from the chaff or the sour cream from the apple sauce (latke joke!). Are you ready for some hardcore gift-buying ideas? Come along with me.
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December 10, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
December is a deceptive month. You have the Christmas songs and the decorations and the temperature goes up and down and hints, rather cruelly, that maybe, just maybe, it won’t be a bitter cold winter after all. Then January hits and you’re walking down the street with your nose falling off from frostbite and you curse yourself for ever trusting December in the first place.
On one of those bitter cold days, then, I have just the meal for you. I call it my Summer in Winter dinner and it does very little to warm you up, but it will conjure thoughts of hot summer days and will make you so happy with memories of warm summer fun you won’t notice the icicles dangling from your private parts.
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December 8, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
This season of Top Chef has been my favorite so far. The chefs are more talented than they’ve ever been, the focus has been on the food not chef antics (well, except for everyone’s conflict with Robin) and somehow the Vegas setting, which might’ve undermined the shows credibly, has allowed for some of the world’s great chefs–Joel Robuchon, Thomas Keller–to act as judges. Today, I join my blogging friend Mark Blankenship (check out his great blog, The Critical Condition) for a discussion about this season of Top Chef and our predictions for who will win.
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December 7, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
My friend Cole Escola had a birthday recently and to celebrate I decided to cook him and his friend Jeffery Self a birthday dinner. You may know Jeffery and Cole as stars of their own show on LOGO, “Jeffery & Cole Casserole.” To honor their show, I once made them a casserole; now, for his birthday, I decided to make Cole two more C dishes (ones that he requested): chiili & carrot cake.
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Gingerbread Rockettes — Thanks to A.G. reader Chris Monsos for the idea for this month's new banner, a festive foodie tribute to the great Radio City Music Hall spectacular (with me getting kicked in the butt by a piece of gingerbread). Also, of course, a hat tip to Justin for getting those Rockettes kicking and a big salute to Lindy Groening for another brilliant illustration. In fact, I'm now proud to announce something that's been a long time coming: a banner gallery where you can view all of Lindy's previous banners. It's quite an archive! And, finally, thanks to Ben Lim for creating the gallery and making it so fun and clickable.
December 4, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
This is not a theater blog, it’s a food blog. So why, on this Friday morning, am I writing a post about “Our Town”? Specifically, the production on Barrow Street in the West Village directed by David Cromer? All I will say, here in this first paragraph, is that if you live in New York and you want to see something beautiful and powerful, an emotionally-charged and totally un-cheesy interpretation of a classic American play, rush downtown and behold this lovely, surprising and deeply moving show. If, however, you don’t live in New York or you’re stubbornly anti-theater and don’t think you’ll ever see it but you’re curious why I’m writing about it here, keep reading. Everyone else, stop now.
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