MaggieRSN

Real Name:

Maggie B

Location:

New England

Best meal I ever ate:

Impossible to choose one "best": An authentic, gluttonous Sunday dinner at the home of a Greek family in Athens...burgers at some waterside joint in Seattle ("Cafe 218-1/2" ??? or something like that)...Lespinasse at the St. Regis and a cheap little creperie I used to frequent in Midtown...L'Absinthe, Honfleur, France...an omelette the Quebecoise proprietess of a roadside inn, miles from anywhere, made for me one Christmas Eve afternoon...a ham I once braised in Madeira and Montmorency cherries...wish I could replicate it...late-night college visits to IHOP.

My current drink of choice:

Hot, black coffee

I really wish I could:

Eat without consequence all the brioche France contains.

My "Go-to" dinner party dish:

I hardly ever make the same thing twice, but...definitely not a baked good. Not my strong suit.

My favorite comfort food:

Soups, rice pudding.

My top 5 favorite restaurants:

I spent too many years traveling far too much and eating in too many restaurants. I'd much rather cook at home or, even better, be invited to the homes of friends who like to cook. However, some restaurants I've especially enjoyed through the years are Bernard's (now closed, alas) at The Biltmore in LA; Stonehenge, Ridgefield, CT; The Black Pearl, Newport, RI (bleu cheese burgers and onion soup); Fife and Drum, Kent, CT; my local Chinese place, which is in fact pretty darned good for a backwater New England town.

My most tattered cookbooks:

Betty Crocker (1950 edition, my father's gift to my mother on their first Christmas and passed down to me); The Making of a Cook, Madeleine Kamman; and Damariscotta Kitchens, published 35 years ago by a ladies' hospital guild in Maine (that's some goood, honest cookin'!)