Big Apple Life

A collection of posts on Life in the Big Apple along with interviews with foodie friends

Darra Goldstein

I ran into Darra Goldstein recently at the James Beard Foundation Media awards; I was a judge and her latest book was nominated. Funny, as we first connected long, long ago when I — as a newspaper food editor — judged the then Tastemaker Awards and her first cookbook A Taste of Russia, was nominated for that award. Darra and I later met at a Stolichnaya vodka event at The Russian Tea room when she was consulting for the restaurant and a spokesperson for the vodka. I recall her teaching us how to chug that libation while keeping a clear head. Be sure to first have some bread slathered in butter!  [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:50:19-04:00May 22nd, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Ruth Reichl: What Everyone’s Talking About on April 20

Join food critic, editor, and best-selling author Ruth Reichl on Wednesday, April 20, 2016 from 7:30 - 9:00PM at the JCC Manhattan (334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th) as she describes her recent journey away from Gourmet magazine and back into her own kitchen. This journey resulted in her  book, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life. A six-time James Beard Award honoree, Reichl captures not only her zeal for the great meal, but the joy to be found in small culinary encounters and how what we eat can animate our lives.  For tickets ($25 the public, $20 members) to "What Everyone's Talking About: Ruth Reichl," click here. For more [...]

By |2017-09-02T09:28:19-04:00April 12th, 2016|Other happenings|0 Comments
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Kerry Heffernan

I first met Kerry Heffernan when he was the executive chef of South Gate, which at that time was at the Jumeirah Essex House; today it's a Marriott. Sadly, I missed him cooking at Eleven Madison, where he had opened that restaurant as Executive Chef and eventually become a partner before heading to South Gate. Kerry is currently chef at Grand Banks, the seasonal oyster bar and galley on the deck of the Sherman Zwicker, an historic cod fishing schooner moored at Pier 25 New York. The floating "oyster barges" that lined Manhattan's waterfront in the 18th and 19th centuries inspired this restaurant that serves up sustainably harvested oysters, ingredient-driven [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:50:24-04:00April 10th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Dana Jacobi

Like many of us in the food business, Dana Jacobi has followed her passions and has been doing what she loves for decades. She started her food career as an unpaid kitchen worker in France; Dana says that she’s “the first woman to apprentice in several French 3-star restaurants.” I met Dana a bit further along in her career when she was working at Prodigy  — one of the first online consumer services. That's were her writing career began, with one of first food blogs. Beginning in the late 80s, she penned  The Bytable Feast, an online only food column. Since then she’s written 15 cookbooks, including the most recent The [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:53:26-04:00March 27th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|1 Comment
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Charlie Marshal

I met Charlie Marshal last fall at a holiday event where he was sampling root beer popcorn balls, ones that ended up on the pages of In Style magazine. Soon after that, I visited his farm-to-table eponymous restaurant in Hell's Kitchen and became impressed with his emphasis on cooking locally, seasonally, and sustainably. He is passionate about all this as he grew up in the business — on his family's farm and in their restaurant on Lummi Island, WA. The Marshal was just received three stars from the Green Restaurant Association and was awarded NY Wine & Grape Foundation’s Restaurant Award. Charlie's currently working on opening a yet-unnamed wine bar [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:53:49-04:00March 13th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|1 Comment
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David Ransom

David Ransom's career in the wine business began when his parents and brothers collectively decided to buy the Rivendell Winery in the Hudson Valley. That was the mid-80s. Today he's a wine and spirits writer, speaker and educator, whose work can be seen in print (Tasting Panel Magazine, SOMMjournal) and on the web (The Connected Table, InsideFandB), and heard — along with his wife Melanie Young — on radio (The Connected Table, Live!). When we spoke recently, he was preparing to fly to Houston for a TV spot on wine. I had to ask, what he likes best about his current career. He chuckled, “When someone says, ‘I’ve read you [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:55:45-04:00February 28th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Eric Kayser

Eric Kayser was in town to promote the opening of his first Maison Kayser in Brooklyn (57 Court Street). Luckily for him, that visit coincided with a contest for NYC's best baguette that was held late last month at the Sofitel hotel. I was at that contest, sampling crusty baquettes and specialty breads from more than a bakers' dozen bakeries, who were the finalists of French Morning’s readers’ poll. The bakers' breads were pitted against each other in a blind juried tasting to win the title of Best Baguette in NYC. Eric Kayser's baguette was crowned best — both the public's and jury’s choice. So when I posed our Guest [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:55:52-04:00February 14th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Brian Lewis

I first met chef Brian Lewis when I was invited to dine at the elm, his former restaurant in New Canaan, though I had sampled his cooking prior to that. He was the executive chef at actor Richard Gere’s The Bedford Post Inn, a Relais & Chateaux property. I had been impressed with his unusual blend of flavors and textures and gladly followed him to his newly opened The Cottage in Westport. (A review of that meal will post later this month.) Brian was raised in New York (Westchester) and studied at the Culinary Institute of America and Johnson and Wales University. He, his wife Dana and their twin boys [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:59:38-04:00January 31st, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Marci Izard

I first met Marci Izard when she was a traffic reporter for WTNH in New Haven. She's come a long way since then with stops anchoring in Springfield (MA) and reporting and hosting cooking and mindfulness segments in Houston (TX). Marci currently writes her blog (Marci's Table) for the Houston Chronicle's chron.com, launched her own site (marciizard.com) and published her first cookbook, "Nourishing Your Whole Self: A Cookbook with Feelings" encouraging her readers to become more aware of how food makes them feel. We spoke to Marci recently, and asked her to respond to our Guest Foodie questions. - bonnie BonnieBOTB Follow @BonnieBOTB Which food product or gadget would you [...]

By |2017-09-03T11:58:37-04:00January 18th, 2016|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Sara Jenkins

I've known about Sara Jenkins since she was quite young, as her mom Nancy Harmon Jenkins — a noted food writer/authority and professional colleague — had boasted about her daughter as all mom's do. Following in Nancy's love of Italian food, Sara opened two restaurants in Manhattan. Porchetta, a storefront in the East Village focusing on the Italian roasted pork, typically sold as street food, and Porsena, a sit-down casual-style restaurant with a changing menu focusing on authentic Italian pastas. Sara grew up all over the Mediterranean — as her dad was a foreign correspondent — spending much of her time in Tuscany where her family still has a home. [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:01:09-04:00December 7th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Joanne Lamb Hayes

My two sons — Bryan and Eric — know how famous Joanne Lamb Hayes is for her gingerbread houses. When they were quite young, this dear friend — and cookbook co-author — orchestrated a workshop for one of each of their birthday parties. Their friends still talk about it. Joanne teaches these “Gingerbread House Workshops for Children" annually during the holiday season at the James Beard House and has for 22 years. At the class, the children go from dough to a completely constructed, frosted, decorated, candy-covered and cellophane-wrapped gingerbread house ready to travel in just 3 hours. This year she will be teaching her workshop twice on Saturday, December [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:02:59-04:00November 9th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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François Payard

François Payard has baking in his blood. He's third generation, as his maternal grandfather owned a pâtisserie, his dad took that over and both he and his brother are pastry chefs. François is the owner of FP Patisserie and François Bakery in NYC and a former pastry chef at Le Bernardin, Restaurant Daniel and Le Cirque. In 1995, he was named The James Beard Foundation “Pastry Chef of the Year.” Two years later, he opened his own bistro on Lexington Avenue, which is where I first met him. He closed that place after 12 years when the landlord doubled his rent when his lease ended. Speaking with him recently on the eve of [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:03:11-04:00October 26th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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Karen MacNeil

I first met Karen MacNeil more than a decade ago when she was part of the teaching team at the Brown-Forman Center for Global Wine Education that I attended in Mendocino County, California. During the seminar, we learned to taste, building our own wine-tasting memory while understanding the subtleties of terroir, vineyard, and vintner. After tasting well over 100 different wines, we could identify wines by grape, country of origin and more. Karen had warned me that to continue to be able to do so, I needed to constantly train all the time, educating my palate by tasting a variety of wines all the time, as she does. Karen, who [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:05:14-04:00October 14th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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SHARE Raises ~$500K at the Annual Benefit

Last Monday's event at Pier 60 brought together leading women of stove, stage, screen and publishing to help raise money for SHARE, a non-profit organization that offers free peer support to women with breast or ovarian cancer, their families and friends. All of SHARE’s services are free of charge and include helplines, educational programs, support groups, and public-health initiatives. According to Beth Kling, SHARE’s communications director, the fundraiser raised close to half a million dollars — $496K to be more exact — enabling this organization to continue to support those affected by breast or ovarian cancer. Below is the list of the chefs, their sous chefs and the foods attendees [...]

By |2017-09-03T08:05:39-04:00September 29th, 2015|Other happenings|0 Comments
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Abigail Kirsch

When researching the first sous chef awards that Michael Anthony won in 2001, I discovered that that's where I met the amazing Abigail Kirsch. We were both judges along with Alain Sailhac, who was at the French Culinary Institute (now International Culinary Center) and Paul Barrett, who was Bertolli's communications manager. I knew of Abigail's eponymous catering company, but wasn't aware of how it began. She shared the story of her beginning by teaching cooking in her Chappaqua kitchen. Her neighbor complained about too many cars in her driveway, he told the town board and they told her to stop. Abigail took it to the New York Supreme Court who [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:06:21-04:00September 13th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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The 12th Annual Second Helping of Life September Tasting Event

Twenty-eight of NYC’s top women chefs cook their signature dishes for “A Second Helping of Life” to benefit SHARE's work to fight breast and ovarian cancers. This event will be held on Monday, September 21, 6 PM at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers. This year’s roster includes Food Network favorite Alex Guarnaschelli (Butter), Anita Lo (Annisa), Rebecca Charles (Pearl Oyster Bar), Chopped Grill Masters Grand Champion Angie Mar (The Beatrice Inn), Amanda Cohen (Dirt Candy), Patti Jackson (Delaware and Hudson), and many more. Breast cancer survivor Pat Battle — co-anchor NBC4’s “Weekend Today in New York” — will serve as host. Over two dozen female celebrities will serve as sous chefs. “Women [...]

By |2017-09-03T08:10:23-04:00August 30th, 2015|Other happenings|0 Comments
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Michael Anthony

When dining recently at Untitled at the new Whitney Museum of American Art, executive-chef and director Michael Anthony stopped by the table to say hi. I had met Mike long ago at the now defunct Bertolli Sous Chef awards. It was in 2001.  I was a judge; he was the first winner with his roulade of chicken stuffed with Swiss chard and mushrooms. That same year he was named one the “Best New Chefs” by Food & Wine magazine. From then on his awards and accolades haven't stopped! In 2003 under his leadership, Blue Hill at Stone Barns received a three-star review in The New York Times, and in 2005 [...]

By |2017-09-03T12:07:35-04:00August 17th, 2015|Foodie Interviews|0 Comments
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