October 31, 2011 | By Adam Roberts | 2 Comments
Many of my best food memories from childhood occurred at chain restaurants. It’s an old story by now–how my parents didn’t cook, yadda yadda yadda–and we ate most of our weeknight meals in Boca Raton at restaurants owned by athletes (Pete Rose’s, Wilt Chamberlain’s) or country-wide chains like Chili’s, Friday’s and The Cheesecake Factory. At the top of the chain restaurant hierarchy was a restaurant that’s still in business around the country, and still just as good as it was the first time we ate there; that would be Houston’s.
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May 27, 2011 | By Adam Roberts | 1 Comment
My first experience with guacamole was the one in The Barefoot Contessa book, a flavorful guacamole that has the requisite avocados, red onion and lemon juice, but departs from the norm with fresh garlic and a few hits of Tabasco. Up until last weekend, if I were sent to the store to shop for guacamole ingredients, I probably would’ve stuck to The Barefoot Contessa formula. But then my friend Mark entered the picture.
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October 7, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 1 Comment
Let me say right off the bat: this is not a great recipe.
It has the potential to be a great recipe–I really wanted it to be a great recipe–but as it stands right now, it’s in need of some serious tweaking. And that tweaking may just be the simple addition of a Tablespoon of olive oil, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
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April 14, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 35 Comments
Have you ever had a son or daughter who plays the piano like a real champ, such a champ that you invite all your friends over one night and set up a little concert–with fliers and cocktails and a video camera on a tripod–and when your son or daughter finally sits down to play they totally freeze up and won’t hit one note? That’s how I felt two weeks ago when I had friends over to eat not one but TWO dishes from a new favorite cookbook, David Tanis’s “A Platter of Figs.” My love for this book ran pretty deep for a variety of reasons: (a) it was a gift from Craig’s parents; (b) David Tanis is the chef at Chez Panisse, one of my favorite restaurants; and (c) the book is knock-you-out beautiful, with gorgeous pictures and recipes and writing that’s heartfelt and really, really smart. But when it came time to perform, I’m so sad to report that the two recipes I made from it–the Green Chile Stew & the Spicy Pickled Vegetables–were total duds.
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April 1, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 15 Comments
I’m getting a little rusty in my old age. In the early days of the blog, I was the one dragging my friends to obscure hole-in-the-wall joints in the East Village–now I’m perfectly happy to go to Grand Sichuan over and over again.
But Mark and Diana have my number, both literally and figuratively. We had plans for a double date on Saturday night and as I texted with Diana about what we would do, she ignored my suggestion to return to the home of Gui Zhou Chicken and Dry Sauteed String Beans and, instead, told us to meet her and Mark at Elvie’s Turo-Turo on 1st Ave. and 12th Street. “It’s a Filipino place,” wrote Diana. The old adventurer in me perked up: “See you there,” I wrote back as I grabbed my camera (or Craig’s camera, rather: mine’s been in repair for eternity), excited, once again, to try something new.
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February 19, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 37 Comments
My birthday always begins with the Angel of Food hovering over my bed and handing me a pass that says, “EAT FREELY,” which is not so much a mild suggestion, but an absolute imperative. There’s no “maybe I shouldn’t”s on my birthday–the word “shouldn’t” is verbotten, as is “mustn’t” and “oughtn’t” (is oughtn’t a word?)–my mission is a clear one: devour the city in 24 hours or less.
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December 30, 2008 | By Adam Roberts | 6 Comments
I take it most of you are familiar now with “The Wrestler,” the sensational new movie from Darren Aronofsky and starring the irascible Mickey Rourke?
What many of you might not know is that many of the characters who show up frequently on this blog had a hand in making the movie. First and foremost is my friend Mark, Diana’s betrothed; remember the engagement dinner I cooked for them? And our trip to Rhode Island? Well Mark co-produced “The Wrestler.” Many of our conversations over the past year were conversations about all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that went on making the movie. When we talked about it, we never knew it would be this big; and now it’s huge. And I’m very proud of Mark: we saw the movie with him on opening night, and it really blew me away. We applauded when his name showed up in the credits.
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