World Cup of Yum

Otium Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #60 Otium is a downtown establishment that regularly sits pretty high on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list. It is a gorgeous glassed-in space that opens into the kitchen (you actually walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom), and an outdoor patio with lovely landscaping, a view of the rooftop herb…

Kobawoo House Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #59 Kobawoo House is one of the many Koreatown restaurants on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list. It is super helpful to refer to his list when deciding where to eat in this area… there are so many restaurants that it’s hard to know where to begin or imagine that you’d ever be…

Kimchi Beef Dumplings

Cookbook Club – Hey There, Dumpling! For March’s Cookbook Club, we used Hey There, Dumpling! by Kenny Lao. I made the Kimchi Beef Dumplings. You can see the whole dumpling and dipping sauce mix and match extravaganza on my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish! The kimchi beef dumplings caught my eye because…

Republique Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #58 Republique is the French bistro on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list that he says “could turn just about anyone into a gibbering, gluttonous fool”. He is not wrong. From the moment I walked up to the outside of Republique, I fell in love with this adorable spot. You walk in and…

Honey Lime Yogurt Dressing

A friend of mine recommended a restaurant to me, raving in particular about a salad she had with an incredible yogurt dressing. I was skeptical that said salad could really have been the star of the show, but the rest of the food she described also sounded quite good, so I decided to give the…

Salazar Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #57 I think Salazar might be the only spot on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list that he specifically notes for its website, which might seem odd until you check it out for yourself. I won’t even try to describe it, as it’s best if you just experience the awesomeness yourself. My first…

3.14 Pi(e) Day II

March 14 was almost upon us, and since last year’s Pi(e) Day party was such a raging success, I decided to rally the troops for another celebration of my favorite food. My fellow pie fanatics answered the call, helping me to celebrate what is fast becoming my favorite holiday of the year. Rules were the…

Vietnamese Iced Coffee Pie

It’s that time of year again… March 14… in other words, my favorite holiday – Pi(e) Day!! My Pi(e) Day party has now become an annual event, which I’m delighted that people are excited to celebrate with me no matter what random day of the week 3.14 might fall on. Since I require everyone to…

Champagne Brunch

The weather is warming up, and what better way to celebrate than to have an outdoor champagne brunch! It was a wonderful way to enjoy the sunshine and do some cooking and drinking with these lovely ladies. Of course, no champagne brunch is complete without… champagne! We had plenty flowing, with options to drink it…

Mustard Batons

Cookbook Club – doriegreenspan.com For February’s Cookbook Club, we used a blog instead of a cookbook – https://doriegreenspan.com. I made the Mustard Batons. You can check out our whole Dorie dinner on my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish! I had an event to go to before the Cookbook Club party, so I will…

A Traditional Yannukah Stew

This story begins with a holiday called Dirktoberfest – an annual celebration thrown around the time of Oktoberfest by my cousin Yan’s German roommate, Dirk. The highlight of Dirktoberfest was a contest to present Dirk with a beer he’d never had before, the winner of which would receive a specially reserved piece of Dirk’s homemade…

Savory Watermelon and Pickled Rinds

Any of you who know me must have thought you were seeing things when you read the title. Yes, for the most part, watermelon is still one of the few foods that I could happily live without. But I have been converted by the wonder that is the pickled watermelon rind – a crunchy, tangy…