Terroir, a wine bar that first opened in the East Village, has a newish outpost in Murray Hill. Owner Paul Grieco, wine geek extraordinaire, is known for his passion — but also his crazy-good wine lists with encyclopedic descriptions and fun storytelling.
We didn’t get much of a chance to peruse the list like a good book, but we did choose a good wine (not hard to do; we found a nice Bordeaux) and ordered some delicious small plates to go along with it. The meatballs were especially good.
Another visit to the Museum of Modern Art? Sure, we’re members, so why not. As Greg points out, MoMA is a convenient way to spend time waiting for cocktail hour to begin. While I was spending my time, I enjoyed this piece. I wouldn’t mind emulating its layout in my rogue’s gallery on the wall of the staircase, too!
And taking Greg’s advice, after the viewing of art, the drinking of cocktails began. These are at The Modern, the Danny Meyer restaurant at the museum.
A martini, left; and The Heights, a special on the cocktail list, right. More art, and a few snacks at the Modern, after the jump.
On the way to the city, we stopped to get a coffee — oh, all right, I got an ice cream, too — at Lighthouse, a new-ish coffee bar near the Tarrytown train station.
It’s pretty cute: a couple of marble tables and wicker bistro-style chairs; a gas fireplace; lots of wood. And a nice coffee bar with a couple of impressive espresso machines:
Ice cream, and a gorgeous photo of srimp, after the jump.
It had been way to long since we caught up with Matt and Vanessa. Things get in the way, but the great thing about a new baby is that she can often help bring friends back together, too.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art just reopened its renovated American Wing, which displays, according to the Met, “one of the finest and most comprehensive” American art collections in the world. It has George Washington Crossing the Delaware, for one, and two galleries dedicated to the Hudson River School. The wing is organized chronologically, so you can watch the development of our nation as you move through the galleries, starting with European-style portraiture and moving on to the Hudson River School and Western art and then on to Impressionism and Modern. It’s a lot of fun — and a lot to take in. We’ll be back.
I got so many comments and “likes” when I posted this photo on Facebook, so I’m just gonna throw it out there before the jump. After the jump you’ll find a few more photos of art. We also have a few more photos of Sam, but here’s one of our favorites:
Yes, she started laughing! Not a belly laugh — I can’t wait for that! — but a nice cute little giggle. She’s also been playing with her hands, and putting them in her mouth a lot. Other accomplishments so far: rolling to one side; holding her head up straight and high; and making vowel sounds like ah and ooh. She also has the cutest little sigh you’ve ever heard.
And here’s a little video of her laughing:
More photos, after the jump.
Apparently there’s a new chef at the Hudson House. I haven’t called to get the scoop on his name or credentials, but from the few things Irene and I tasted, I’d say we’re in for a treat with his cooking!
This was the Green Goddess salad, which was a little like a greek salad, but more sophisticated. Olives, endive, arugula, onion… all delishy!
The Hudson House is undergoing renovations, so we ate in the upstairs dining room, which is really quite cozy and comfortable. There’s a cute little bar in the back, and a raised area that has served as a stage during performances there (and also was used to seat the wedding party at Sarah and Wilson’s rehearsal dinner!).
Henry’s at Buttermilk Falls is a super-chic resort in farm country in Ulster County. Right near Milton, N.Y. — almost adjacent to Locust Ridge Farm, where we once purchased 30 pounds of sour cherries to make preserves for our wedding favors — and along the bank of the Hudson River, Henry’s is a restored old inn with a spa, restaurant and hair salon on the property. There are also several private cabins that can be rented for overnights.
We met our friends Janet and Jerry, the publishers of The Valley Table magazine, there for lunch Friday. The drive, the property and the company were terrific. The food, unfortunately, was just average. But there’s a new chef in the kitchen, so our fingers are crossed the menu will get better as he settles in.
That’s the seared shrimp over braised red cabbage. The cabbage was quite tasty, but the menu promised a combination of cabbage and fennel, and the fennel was missing. At least we couldn’t find it.
Gastropub? Sounds great. Korean? Sounds great. Small plates? Yes, sounds great. All three, in the same restaurant? Sounds really great. And it was — sometimes. Like now:
Spicy yellowtail sashimi, cho jang, jalapeno
And now:
Bo ssam: braised pork belly, scallion, dehydrated daikon, kimchi cabbage wrap
And now:
Bulgogi beef sliders
Samantha’s first trip to MoMA was to see the Diego Rivera exhibit. Six of his murals were on display; they were ones for which he was brought here to the museum in 1931 to create. He ended up created portable frescos on a lime-enhanced cement, which is pretty cool. It was only the museum’s second exhibition ever. I think Sam really enjoyed it. I know we did.
After making our Applejack Old Fashioned this fall, we decided to see how maple would play with bourbon. Of course it plays well. What did you think?
Greg is working on an article for The Valley Table magazine about maple syrup, so it was especially cool to be able to use a maple syrup from the Hudson Valley: Crown. Recipe after the jump. Click to continue »
Greg is working on an article for The Valle y Table magazine about maple syrup in the Hudson Valley. So we took an afternoon and went to visit Bri Hart at his White Oak Farm in Yorktown Heights. He has 10 acres and last year produced between 400 and 500 gallons of maple syrup. He grew up on a farm in Northeast Connecticut and has been farming the land here in Westchester for about 35 years. We got a little tour of his sugar shack and Greg also took at look at the saw mill he has on his property. Great fun. Here’s a little slideshow of our visit.
I want to start off this post by saying that these “Shit that” whoever “says” videos flying around YouTube are hilarious. “Shit New Yorkers Say” is especially funny (“Where’s the train?” “All I had to eat today was a bagel.” “Queens?”).
“Shit Bartenders Say” is so good, I’ll embed it here. Please, take the time to watch. I’ll wait.
This is a long way of saying that when my friend Kara Newman posted a link to this video and decided to note the quote “I’m really into Amaro lately,” I was laughing — at myself, especially. I just got “into” Amaro — Kris and Irene have been talking about it lots lately — and this was the first cocktail I tried with it. Irene found this cocktail — the Criterium — in the current issue of La Cucina Italiana, where another friend, Mindy Fox, is food editor. (By the way, Mindy’s book, “A Bird in the Oven,” is excellent. We’ve made two recipes here at Sour Cherry Farm, and Irene has made tons more. They’re all amazing. But I digress.)
Back to the cocktail. It’s got the lovely bitter flavor of Amaro, along with some sweetness from the grapefruit and tart from the lemon. It tastes sort of like a grown-up Coca Cola, without the cloy. We loved it. And yes. I’m really into Amaro lately.
The recipe, after the jump.
Sam and I will be spending lots of time together over the weekends from now on. Greg got a great new job copy editing at The Daily, and his hours are Saturday and Sunday nights. It’s so terrific for Srimp. No day care once I have to go back to work on Feb. 1. It’s not so terrific for spending quality family time together around the Farm. So we’re a little sad about that. But the good far outweighs the bad, and Srimp and I had quite a few laughs this first weekend. I held her and we practiced smiling and making talking noises, and then she went to bed and I sewed some vintage buttons on my coat.
On Sunday, we walked down to the farewell potluck supper at church for our Rector, Richard Gressle, who has retired after 16 years. He will be missed!
I’m sure we’ll find plenty to keep us busy these weekend nights. But we will miss Hunna lots!
Sam and I joined Kelli, Sarah and Hugh for an early Friday supper at the OVI. The kids had cheeseburgers and grilled cheese. Kelli and I had pizza and wings. Sam had milk.
My favorite part of the evening was when Hugh asked me whether I was going to take a picture of his food. Of course Hughie! His grilled cheese, after the jump.
In search of a good backpack, we headed to the new Ridge Hill shopping center in Yonkers, which has not only and REI and an L.L. Bean but also a Dick’s Sporting Goods. If you can’t find a backpack in those stores, there’s something wrong with you. (We did.) Since this is (ostensibly) a food blog, I will note that we had lunch at the Whole Foods there. The store, by the way, beats the White Plains one by a mile. So much more spacious, fewer people and lots more stuff. Bravo.
Greg made his own tacos from the “salad” bar. I got a panino. Srimp had milk.
While I’m off work, I’ve been attending a Wednesday morning Mom group that focuses on breastfeeding. (See, this is a food blog, after all, right?) Breastfeeding Arts, a group run by my lactation consultant (and now friend), the incomparable Deirdre, and her partner, Lenore, have organized what’s called the Breastfeeding Cafe and New Mother Support Group. It’s a laid-back, cool place to talk about breastfeeding and other new mom things — and also a nice place to meet other moms. The group meets at a studio in Nyack Yoga @ 42 Main. I’ve loved to just hang for an hour and realize that I’m not alone in this whole new mom thing! Here’s Sam with Alon, whose birthday is just three days before Sam’s.
A few cute photos of the babies, after the jump.
No, I’m sorry SCF fans, we don’t have a new episode of Today at the Mall, with Gregory! Instead, we have a few old college friends getting together for some lunch and shopping. We don’t even really have a good place to show you where we ate lunch. It was, in fact, a chain (the horrors!). Melanie, Marissa, George, Sam and I had lunch at (dum, dum dum!) Chili’s. I know. The shame. What has gotten into me since this Mom thing? I hope it changes soon!
We just meant to stop by for a drink. But Samantha was sleeping all snug as a bug in rug, and the new menu just looked so darn good. So after a Manhattan and a martini, well, we ordered dinner. Delicious as always.
What a sweet winter treat. With all the Red Cooper grapefruit we’ve been eating — and drinking — I took a cue from Irene and candied some of the peel.
What a way to make the citrus season last even longer!
Irene’s recipe is to boil the peels in water, changing the water several times until they’re moist and no longer bitter.
Then you add two to three cups sugar to the pot with the peels, and fill with water to cover the peels. Cook that on low for several hours until you get something like a cross between crystalized ginger and a jelly bean. Fab!
Most years on this first Saturday in January, we are heading to Kelli and Patrick’s for their annual Wild Card Saturday party. Unfortunately, this year, they took a hiatus. So in order to make up for missing such culinary delights as queso, wings, chili, and other delicious but not so good for you stuff, we decided to make some football food on Saturday night. Ladies and gents, I present: Wild Card Saturday Potato Skins.
These are mostly a riff on the recipe you’ll find over at Epicurious.com. But though the ingredient ratios are the same, the quality of the ingredients is much higher (Benton’s Bacon! Ronnybrook Creme Fraiche!) and the cooking method is a little different.
They are ridiculously easy to make. Come see.
Maybe it was the rice and beans from Maura’s the night before, but I had a hankering for Harry’s. And the weather was so gorgeous that we decided to make an afternoon of it. We walked down the long way, stopped for lunch, walked a bit more, stopped for coffee, and then headed home. Come along and share our outing!
Harry’s chilaquiles, which are top-notch.
A Peruvian place with terrific roast chicken opened in Nyack recently, and we’ve had a few meals now and loved every one. So when Kelli and Patrick came over — and no one wanted to do the cooking — we called for two chickens, rice and beans. We’ve could hardly have been more pleased.
I don’t have to tell SCF fans how often we go to the Olde Village Inne in Nyack. A ridiculous amount. But since Sam came along, we hadn’t been once. We had to remedy that situation — and fast.
We both had wings. A bad photo of them — and a nice one of Caroline, the owner — after the jump.
Riviera Bakehouse in Ardsley is known for its “whimsical cakes. That’s even the name of their cookbook, “The Whimsical Bakehouse.” So when there was a possibility that we might be going to a pot-luck New Year’s Ever party, and I happened to be passing by the bakery after driving Chris to the airport on the 31rst, well, I thought it would be quite festive indeed to bring along a Riviera cake. (And not to mention super easy on the cooking front.) Unfortunately for the folks at the New Year’s pot luck, we did not go. So we had to eat the cake all by ourselves. Such a shame.
It was called “The Tipsy Cake,” and was chocolate with Bailey’s Irish Cream mousse. Yum.
We’d heard the chicken pot pie from The Market in Palisades was killer. The guy behind the counter told Greg people get pissed if they come and he’s run out. So while we were at The Filling Station for burgers, we picked one up for our New Year’s Eve supper.
We ate our pot pie and salad while watching a movie. We barely made it to midnight. Happy New Year!
For our New Year’s celebration, we headed out to Palisades to buy some Weleda cream for the baby and have a hamburger at The Filling Station on Route 9W. Then we went home to hang out with Sam and watch a movie. Oh, if the club kids could see us now!
Seriously, though, the food was excellent. Really top-notch. The burgers are made from natural Black Angus beef with no hormones or antibiotics, and it’s a special blend of brisket, short ribs and hanger steak. Best of all, they’re cooked perfectly. The Filling Station is now my new favorite burger joint in Rockland, hands down. Maybe Westchester and the city, too. You know what it reminds me of? Taylors Refresher (now known as Gott’s Roaside) in Napa!
Christmas 2011 came to a close with a pork tenderloin dinner and a delicious chocolate dessert from Didier Dumas. Chris was truly in love.
I must have walked past the main branch of the New York Public Library a hundred times, but I’ve never been inside. Today, that all changed. We took in the sites, including those famous lions, a Gutenberg Bible that was on display inside, and, of course, the Rose Reading Room.
Yes, we’re back. We thought it would be a fun spot to take Sarah and Chris and the kids. Indeed, it was! We got a table by the ice rink and sat under the heat lamps, enjoying burgers and soups. We even got to see Boo, who was able to join us last minute. What fun!
Jane stayed home, and Mae was beside herself about being alone with her Mommy in the city. “I don’t even have to share my hot dog!” she exclaimed. What’s better than that?
