Eating local sucks during NYC winters. Potatoes, turnips and onions. Sounds like a Russian winter in a Siberian work camp. I guess what Alice Waters really meant when she suggested we eat locally and seasonally was Costa Rica. Ok, and, I suppose,...

The NYTimes recently ran a feature on the crusty punks of Tomkins Square Park, lamenting their no-show because apparently they are a harbinger of spring like, say, sunshine and rainbows. I can’t say I completely agree but who’s to say. Though,...

What makes New York so uniquely awesome, among many, many things, is its abundance of mom & pop shops, especially in north Brooklyn where we can easily buy our veggies from the farmer’s market, our cheese from our local cheese shop, our meat...

When the Jewish denizens of New York City head down to Chinatown every Christmas, we count on warm tea, dumplings, duck, Tsingtao and noodles from our Asian friends.  While this is not a tenet in the Torah, we do expect speedy service and consistent...

In Russian, we call eggplant spread “eggplant caviar” because real caviar is expensive and brilliant and eggplant caviar is cheap and brilliant. I’ve tried tons of recipes. Some were closer to ratatouille, others were spreadable and extremely...

I don’t know what you do on Sundays in LA (walk the red carpet?), but I went to a secret dinner at Public Fiction in the Highland Park neighborhood. The spacious gallery sits in a storefront on a tilted hill.  

Opening its doors and kitchen...

Good news! Your "to do" list just got shorter. You can certainly cross off  "get Hep A vaccine" because the Health Department and NYU are offering it for free!

Why such largesse? Oh, you know, just a standard outbreak in the community.  Some...