sometimes i wish i actually cooked
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You Can Keep Your Home-Cooked Food
As a general rule, I don’t cook. Not only do I live in the food capital of the U.S. (and arguably the world), but my boyfriend weirdly doesn’t like to eat food not cooked by either his mom or some complete stranger in a restaurant. There are 343 restaurants that deliver to his apartment for free and 87 that deliver to mine on Seamless.com alone, so we have no shortage of new and interesting, non-home-cooked foods to try. Except bánh mì. There is no bánh mì. But I bought a slow-cooker recently. As a person who has an inkling of desire to cook but is supremely lazy, the appeal of…
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How Interesterfying
I mean, nobody likes boring ingredients, but I didn’t know that my tortilla company was specifically interesterfying my soybean oil: Freaky.
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Look Hotter and Get a Better Table
I saw a great Q&A on Chow.com today entitled “Too Frumpy for the Good Seats?” in which a woman asked if she and her friend were relegated to the old people’s section of a restaurant’s dining room because she wasn’t dressed like a tramp. This is something I wonder to myself allllllllllllll of the time, because while my boyfriend always pairs snazzy blazers with cute t-shirts and sweater vests and looks better than anyone else everywhere we go, you’ll never see me in a cocktail dress and stilettos. I would hope I still look nice, but my style trends more toward granny-in-pearls than hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. So when we got seated in…
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Proud to Be Part of the Food Paparazzi
A couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a journalist who was working on a piece for NPR about food bloggers–or “food paparazzi”–and whether their photos and reviews were helpful or hurtful to restaurants, if their shots are “sleek and beautiful” or “harmful and amateur”. And then she asked if she could use some of my pictures from Colicchio & Sons. I wrote back and said, “I have to laugh, knowing that you’re asking because those photos in particular are the exact opposite of sleek and beautiful.” She replied, “We do want to show a range of photos, of all qualities, so I’m glad that my request seems…
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Enjoying a Diet Coke After a Meal Does Not Make Me Lowbrow
My boyfriend and I had just finished a 3-hour, 9-course meal at Seäsonal. He had ordered a coffee, and I had ordered a Diet Coke, and our food was quietly digesting as we discussed what I should do with my life. The table next to us, which was approximately six inches from ours in true NYC fashion, had been mostly well-behaved all night. Two of the four people seemed to be dating, and the guy had brought along a British friend who was new to the city, so the girl had brought along a friend for him. One of the girls had graduated from culinary school, but she wasn’t being…
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Ahhhh, the Age-Old Tipping Debate
I noticed on Facebook the other day that one of my friends joined a group called If you can’t afford a 20% tip, don’t go out to eat. I think I’m going to start my own Facebook group, and I’m going to call it If You Expect Me to Tip You 20%, Don’t Take 20 Minutes to Bring Me My Bill Because You’re Too Busy Flirting with the Old Rich Dude at the Table Next to Me. Or, better yet, I’ll call it If You Actually Expect a $55 Tip on a $275 Meal, You Sure as Hell Better Not Scowl When I Decline to Order Another of Your $17…
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Douchebags at Dinner
Let me make it clear that I’ve only been eating at gourmet, celebrity-cheffed, critically-beloved restaurants for a couple of years now. Before I met my boyfriend, I enjoyed a lot of macaroni and cheese at home, and the most extravagant restaurant item I allowed myself to splurge on was the $14 guacamole at Rosa Mexicano. So what I’m saying is–I don’t think I’m better than anyone else, really. But on Saturday night, my boyfriend and I were at Colicchio & Sons enjoying a lavish dinner when the table next to us was seated with douchebags. We were able to immediately recognize them as douchebags by the way two of them…