Restaurants that are institutions don’t have to be good. Before it closed, Tavern on the Green in New York was like that. You didn’t go for the food–no, you definitely didn’t go for the food–you went for the chandeliers, for the topiary, for the chintzy souvenirs you could buy in the gift shop.
Sunday Morning Oatmeal is not your average, every day oatmeal. It’s an oatmeal that, if you ate it every day, might kill you. But on Sunday morning, death is the furthest thing from your mind; you’ve got the Sunday Times Magazine crossword puzzle open on the table next to you (you look for all the food clues first, naturally) and Bon Iver playing on iTunes (well, Craig does, I just liked it and asked “What is this?” and he said “Bon Iver.”) There’s no set formula for this Sunday Morning Oatmeal, you just wing it as you go. But it’s best if you start the night before, right before you go to bed.
This is a highly unnecessary post, especially if you’ve seen my post “Easy French Toast.” That’s my go-to French Toast recipe and the only difference between that recipe and this recipe is the bread. So why write this post at all? Because the difference between making French Toast with white sandwich bread (as I did in that old post) and making it with challah bread (as I do in this post) is like the difference between building a fort with pillows and blankets vs. building a fort with bricks, mortar and cannons. This French Toast blasts the other French Toast apart.
On a drowsy Saturday morning, you stumble out of bed and look at what you have in the kitchen. You don’t have much. There are hot dog buns, there’s cream, there are eggs (hopefully untainted by salmonella) and slivered almonds. You scratch your chin, you lift your eyebrow, you hold your monocle closer to your eye. Might you? Might it be possible? Why perhaps it might!
A dish is born: Hot Dog Bun French Toast.
If you want to know the best thing about Cafe Gitane in The Jane Hotel, you’re looking at it. It’s an utterly charming space; big, bright, airy. There’s even an alligator on the wall.
When Craig’s Uncle Chris, Aunt Liz and Cousin Katie came through New York a few weeks ago, they wanted to take us out to brunch. At the time, I had a copy of New York Magazine’s Best of New York in my hand and under the category of “Best Brunch” they chose Cafe Gitane for “an ambience that feels airlifted from the Left Bank with a detour to Cuba.”
Last weekend, I decided to make a very ambitious breakfast of poached eggs on roasted potatoes with Hollandaise sauce. It took a whole carton of eggs (three for the Hollandaise, four for poaching and the rest for throwing away after the yolks bled into the whites) but the resulting dish, as you can see, was pretty dazzling. It’s the kind of breakfast that makes you, the chef, feel proud and triumphant, roaring with the might of a culinary lion. “I made that!” you keep saying to yourself, reluctant to disturb the plate with a fork. “I really made that.”
“Yes,” says your companion, digging in.
“I’m a culinary lion!” you continue. “Rawwwwwwwwr!!”
April Bloomfield–the chef of The Spotted Pig, the late John Dory and now The Breslin–cooks bold food. That’s what everyone loves about her; her food is never, ever boring. It’s the metaphysical opposite of the boiled peas and carrots you remember from your middle school cafeteria. Her peas and carrots, if she ran a middle school cafeteria, would be browned and salted and spiced and acidified. Kids would be so energized by them they’d stop beating each other up, earn straight As and all go on to win Noble Peace Prizes. That’s the power of food cooked by April Bloomfield.
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.
