Deenso
Location:
NYC
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.'
