The Wednesday Tipple – cold shandy and hot potato wedges with lemon mayo

Shandy, lemon and the brooklyn flea for Bank Holiday recipesDid you have a good long weekend? It’s such a lovely feeling to be at Wednesday already, gearing up for mid-week drinks. If only all Mondays could be spent sitting on the balcony reading Marie Claire and planting out the rosemary.

When I was a teenager, bank holidays were the Greatest Thing Ever. Hordes of adolescents would descend on Kingston and sit around outside pubs on the river drinking shandies. After a drink or two people would get brave and admit their secret crushes, then their friends would gossip about the secret crushes, and soon, everyone including the secret crush would know. Oh the drama. He knows I like him. So if he comes over to sit by me does that mean he likes me to or is he just sitting? Such are the complexities of teenage romance.

Here’s one thing that I didn’t know when I was a teenager, and I wish I had; if a boy sends you a letter with “love” at the end that’s not an accident; he Likes you.

Hope that clears things up a bit. Continue reading

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The Monday Treat – Justin Bieber and truffle butter popcorn

Popcorn illustration for Bieber fest recipesPeople mocked me when I told them I was going to a Justin Bieber movie viewing with Champagne. And I’ll tell you what I told them; honestly, if you haven’t seen the movie, you simply don’t know what you’re missing. Continue reading

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This Dinner Will Get You Laid – The Weekend That Was! Wilderness Roast Chicken

Chicken recipes and summer trips upstateLast weekend we had a redo of the weekend that never was, where a group of New Yorkers drove 3 hours into the countryside to hang out for the weekend in a rented house, only to be thwarted by sheet ice, and forced to turn back at the bottom of the drive way.

Now the owner of the house was so mortified when she was told of this epic adventure that she refunded the money that John’s parents had coughed up for his 30th birthday party, and offered him a free weekend in the spring. Pretty classy. This was that free weekend. Continue reading

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The Wednesday Tipple – JD and Ginger (which is currently Very Cool Indeed) and Grilled Brie

Cash Money Content party with JD and Ginger illustration for cocktail recipe

I’ve been to a marvelous party.

It was in honor of Cash Money Content, held at a glamorous yet still edgy Chelsea gallery, and I was there primarily to help my friend Molly hand out books at the book table. If you’ve never read a book with a title like Every Thug Needs A Lady or Payback is a Mutha, you know, you really should.

The room was packed with high flying agents, hot shot publishers, wheeler dealer tv executives, talented writers, famous rappers, Jon (husband – physicist) and me.

Luckily there were also cocktails. Continue reading

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The Monday Treat – Spiced Apple Cake

Spiced Apple Cake recipe for the Memorial Day weekend

The long weekend is approaching, and that might mean picnicking in Central Park (my plan) or adventuring out of the city for a weekend of country-side fun (my plan last weekend).

After a long drive out of the city, and, for example after scaling the 30 degree incline of a drive covered in loose gravel with a drop through a forest into a pond 100 feet below on either side, while coyotes howl and monstrous raccoons menace somewhere out there in the darkness, it’s good to know that there will be a slice of cake in the near future.

This spiced apple cake is just the thing and I am prepared to vouch for it from hard won experience. Continue reading

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This Dinner Will Get You Laid – Steak Bearnaise At The End Of The World

Steak And The Rapture - last suppers for the end of the worldApparently the world will be ending on the 21st. It’s not a dead cert by any means, but it’s probably worth eating steak for dinner with someone you adore, just in case.

The last time the world almost ended, a few years ago, my husband was indirectly involved. Continue reading

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The Wednesday Tipple – Blue Pina Coladas and Mango Wonton Bites

Pirate Gold And Pina Coladas for pirate recipesThe weather in New York is hardly the semi tropical heat wave of last year, where my family celebrated my sister’s birthday at an out-door table in Pastis and walked along the Highline in our sandals. Nevertheless, circumstances have conspired to put me in a tropical frame of mind.

Pirates of the Caribbean Sequel Something is coming to a cinema near you, and – and this is what makes it really exciting – to a cinema near me and my husband.

What can I say? We like pirates. We like to use the word “swashbuckle” in conversations. And, dangerously into the territory of theme dressing here, I have a parrot broach that I like to wear on a jacket with my Breton stripe top underneath. Stealth pirating in fact. Continue reading

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The Monday Treat – Margherita-inspired Puff Pastry tarts

Heirloom tomato illustration for savoury puff pastry pizza recipeSomething that Never Happens totally Happened this weekend.

People have been talking about 900 Degrees, (the new pizza restaurant to hit the Village) all last week, and that led me to assume that it was open. So Jon and I turned up on Saturday brunch time ready for our margherita fix.

The ladders outside were the first clue. And the fact that the sign was hanging half off the wall. All was dark inside, but the door was ajar. I nudged Jon towards it; “Go and ask them if they’re open.”

“They’re obviously not open” Jon hissed back. “There’s a guy messing around with wires in the ceiling. That’s not an Open thing.”

At which point Bruno noticed us dithering around the door and greeted us like long lost friends. Continue reading

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This Dinner Will Get You Laid – homemade pesto with spaghetti

basil and ducklings illustration for spring recipesIt really feels as though spring has finally, joyfully, arrived in New York.

Baby ducklings are waddling through the park, a bird has made its nest in the back of my friend Keith’s air conditioner, which leaves him with something of a moral dilemma, and the seedlings that only a few weeks ago looked as fragile as Bambi are thrusting out of the pots on my balcony in a virile fashion.

All around: fertility in action. Nature is heating up, and, even in the midst of the city, the primal pull is hard for people to ignore. Continue reading

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The Wednesday Tipple – Cucumber Collins and Raita

Cucumber Collins illustration for cocktail recipeBack in New York and back on the balcony where there are now distinct winners, notably the peas and the herbs, and losers – yes, you, strawberries and asparagus and cucumbers. I have no idea why. What can I tell you? I’m just grateful not everything died. Props to Jon for keeping up with the watering. Continue reading

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