Books

  • Booze You Can Use: Have a Corpse Reviver #2

    Photo courtesy of Liquor.com This drink seems to be popping up everywhere these days — likely due to our proximity to Halloween — although it has absolutely nothing do do with Halloween. It's a morning drink — a little hair of the dog to revive your corpse after a rough night. Back in the days

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  • Channeling Julia

    Julia Child's birthday was August 15th, and as I was walking home last night I passed a window display at Broadway Panhandler filled with pictures of her.  As you know, I adore her; she's one of my heroes. I admire the way she lived her live to the fullest, without being overindulgent,  it seems like she

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  • Sweet Blog o’ Mine Holiday Gift Guide!

    I've already done my holiday shopping, but if you're looking for some ideas, here's a list of books, food, and drinks that have crossed my path this year that would be suitable for any bon vivant in your life. Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl – this definitive book by cocktail historian David

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  • Birth of a Cookbook

    Last night, not only was I lucky enough to eat at the chef's counter at Hearth for their end-of-summer lobster dinner, but I had the good fortune to be sitting there when Chef Marco Canora saw a finished copy of his soon-to-be-released cookbook, Salt to Taste, for the very first time.  The pure joy and

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  • A Magical Machine

    It's kind of amazing what the human body can do with a little dedication.  My friend Heidi lent me Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, where he describes running an ultra-marathon — a sixty-two mile race — during which he literally feels that his body is a machine, just going

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  • Rain, Rain, Go Away

    You're making it very hard for me to focus here.  All I want to do is snuggle on the couch with my Netflix DVD's.  I most certainly do NOT want to swim tonight.  The view from my office window reminds me of this poem, Waiting at the Window, which popped into my mind from my

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  • Feed Your Mind

    I am very slowly making my way through the pile of books I have amassed as gifts, loans, and for potential Gothamist columns.  I wasn’t such a huge fan of Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt, I’m afraid, although it has gotten very high praise from others.  I finished Batali and Ramsay mentor Marco Pierre

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  • Just a Glimpse

    It’s interesting what you can learn about someone by taking a glance at the books on their nightstand: I swear that this is an unstaged photo. I will admit, however, that I’m not really reading the Robber Bride or The Whore’s Child at the moment, so they’re more like decoration, but the rest I’ve at

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  • Party Shuffle

    So I’m sitting here doing some work and I’ve got my iTunes on "party shuffle" mode, which, although it doesn’t really create the party-type atmosphere that might lift me out of the grey-day funk I seem to be in, makes me smile each time a new song comes up — I never know what’s going

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  • Let’s See How Quickly This is Taken Down

    Bill Clinton Book My Life — funny, but definitely lawsuit-inducing.

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