i8tonite: New Zealand’s Annabel Langbein’s Chicken and Leek Gratin
Several weeks ago, I was sent a cookbook The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures by a lovely celebrity cook, Annabel Langbein, from New Zealand. From the onset, Ms. Langbein seems to be the country’s answer to Martha Stewart – prettier, younger, and from a whole different continent. She has a line of cookbooks – […]
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I8tonite with Food Person: Sasha Martin, Author of “Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family and Forgiveness
“Most people who have had a rough background will admit there’s something unsettling about finding happiness after difficulty – that even after we unwrap this gift, we don’t know how to stop searching, rummaging, pilfering for something else. We walk haltingly through life, ready for the other shoe to drop. The question is not if, […]
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I8tonite: Gratineed Cauliflower with Parmigiana -Reggiano
I was in a yet to be opened LA restaurant at a friends and family tryout. It’s a common practice among well-financed restaurants – a testing of the waters before media reviews and the paying patrons type of thing. Invited along with some media, local chefs, restaurant bon vivants and a few Los Angeles gadflies […]
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i8tonite: Late Summer Corn Hash
I saw this corn hash recipe from Alice Waters’ cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. She deemed it a “hash” and I thought it sounded like a fresh take on the dense potato and onion variety. With a few of my own tweaks here and there — I made it and of course, it was […]
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i8tonite: Rajas con Crema
I’m living in Phoenix and yes…it’s very strange seeing that in black and white. My first touch of it, besides driving through it with my mother at the age of seven and a highway Stuckey’s, was Mesa Grill, celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s first restaurant on Manhattan’s lower 5th Avenue. Housed in a large store-front with […]
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i8tonite: Questionnaire with Chef Mat Schuster of San Francisco’s Canela Bistro & Bar
Chef Mat Schuster is a master of Spanish cuisine. He is the executive chef and co-owner, along with his partner, Paco, of the four year-old Canela Bistro & Bar located in San Francisco’s Castro. With Schuster’s creative hands, diners will eat a phenomenal Croquettas con Jamon, a fried small egg shelled shaped tapa, crunchy on […]
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I8tonite: A Chef’s Questionnaire with Oakland, California’s Chef Roland Robles, Handlebar and FiveTenBurger.
Chef Roland Robles first came to prominence with FiveTenBurger, a food truck that cooked up delicious burgers throughout the Bay Area garnering amazing notices from such publications as Oakland Magazine and San Francisco Chronicle. Last year, he opened Handlebar, a brick-and-mortar with partner, Jennifer Seidman who also owns the area’s Acme Bar & Company. Handlebar is a neighborhood restaurant […]
Read MorePenny’s Broiled Swordfish and Cilantro Pesto
I was a very naïve eater before I moved to New York. (Actually, I was just naïve but that’s a different matter…and I still can be.) As I’ve said before, my mother with whom I spent most of my upbringing, just wasn’t a cook. From her, it was “here’s the Kraft Macaroni” or being handed […]
Read MoreThe International or “Auntie Mame” of the Cookie World
Making holiday cookies is really not that complicated to understand or do. It might seem difficult because there might be a food processor or a stove but making cookies, a small nugget of sugary goodness, is so simple. So divinely simple…and fun. Simply simple. I’ve been invited annually to a cookie exchange party for the […]
Read MoreNo Cook Thanksgiving But If I Were…..
I stopped cooking Thanksgiving meals about 5 years ago. I know, I know. It’s one of the big days that all caliber of cooks want to shine showcasing their adeptness in the kitchen, commercial or home. If you know anything about me, cooking is one my favorite of the things. Therefore, you would think that […]
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