Deenso

Location:

NYC, Phoenix

Best meal I ever ate:

I can't cut it down to just one. Lunch at La Colombe d'Or in St. Paul de Vence; lunch at Da Gigetto in Rome; dinner at Jean Bardet in Tours (now closed); dinner at The French Laundry in Yountville, CA; my first taste of Dungeness crab on the wharf in San Francisco. You could have made this a list of the top ten and I probably still couldn't have managed to restrict myself to that number.

My current drink of choice:

unsweetened iced tea

I really wish I could:

Get my timing right when preparing a large dinner party so that I can be more a part of the party and less a last-minute, slightly frantic cook.

My "Go-to" dinner party dish:

In winter: Braised short-ribs; Rest of the year: roast pork shoulder; arroz con pollo

My favorite comfort food:

Can't choose just one: Grilled American cheese sandwich (with the bread buttered on both sides); cream cheese mixed with sliced green olives and crumbled bacon on any bread you can name; almost any pasta; classic tuna noodle casserole

My top 5 favorite restaurants:

Top 4 Gone but not forgotten: Lutece and the original Grotta Azzurra, La Gaulois, all in NYC, Napolitano's in Pittsburgh, Places currently operating: Daniel, Benito II, Gotham Bar & Grill, all in NYC, Jean Bardet in France, La Pergola in Rome.

My most tattered cookbooks:

Pierre Franey's 60-Minute Gourmet series; Jacques Pepin's books; Julia Child's 'The Way to Cook'; an early version of 'The Settlement Cookbook.'