On Purim, Jews celebrate Persians trying (but not succeeding) to kill us, on Channukah, we commemorate how the Greeks tried (and failed) to kill us, and on Passover, we celebrate escaping being killed by the Egyptians. All this, Shalom Auslander points out in his novel, Foreskin's Lament. And all Continue Reading
Like the bad Jew that I am, I LOVE bacon. I can't help it. It has all the things I crave: fat, salt, crunch. Yum. So I was super excited to be invited to the Perfect Bacon Bowl Breakfast at the super fun Ellen's StarDust Diner only a few train stops away. (full disclosure: while there, I ate a Continue Reading
Last week, I got an email from a company that I'm sure was well intentioned. But boy, was it ill-conceived. For every pair of pink headphones sold during the month of October, it said, they would donate a portion of the proceeds to Breast Cancer research. Here was the pitch: "We here at (company) Continue Reading
A few weeks back, my fridge died. It was old. It was battered. It was time. My oven, too, had been acting up. So after much deliberation and research, I bought a new fridge and range. Both, as it turns out, from Samsung. One day later -- really - the very next day - I was invited to Samsung Continue Reading
True confession: Sbarro has always seemed to me to be kinda...well, kinda NOT the kind of place I'd like to eat. Here in NY, the Sbarros are mostly in super-high-traffic areas, like Times Square and Penn Station. Not places I hang out, and certainly not places I'd go to eat. Plus, this is NYC. Continue Reading
At a recent Blogging Angels podcast, we talked to Jennifer Perillo, she of In Jennie's Kitchen fame. And sadly, made even more well-known, by the sudden death of her husband (and, in a weird coincidence my longtime co-worker/editor at Lifetime) Michael. The night before Jennifer arrived for the Continue Reading
Well, that's not entirely true. I mean, I did meet Bobby Flay and Marcella Valladolid -- both of them real honest-to-goodness Food Network Stars - but I'm pretty certain that the preternaturally fit and handsome Bobby Flay didn't eat ANY of the food he had us try at the Hellmann's/Share Our Continue Reading
So I made this really really good meatball dish for dinner. Not that labor intensive (despite the long ingredient list). Needless to say - the hubby forgot to tell me he had a business dinner, my son took one look at it and said he didn't like it, and my daughter and I were left with two dozen Continue Reading
Seems like we like everything big in this country. Big cars, big hair, big portions in big fast food restaurant chains. And now, big handheld games. With a screen that's 93% bigger than a DSLite, the new DSiXL, releasing today, is poised to be the - if you'll excuse the expression - next Continue Reading
I have 67 cookbooks. 67! Julia Child, James Beard, Jim Fobel, Patricia Wells, Barbara Kafka, The Silver Palate gals...to name a few. And those are only the ones in active rotation. There are other "collectible" cookbooks around the house too - my 1950's Happy Housewife book, for instance. . I Continue Reading