The Best Food Blog

So for a very long time I have done my best to stay away from eating pigs!! It all started when I first watched the movie "Babe". I fell in love with him, and decided to stop eating his friends! Over time I ended up becoming a " pescatarian ". That is a person who only eats vegetables and ocean creatures. That lasted about 8 years. Once I decided to wanted to go to culinary school I knew I would have to eat everything!!! And I did. But... I could never really get back to eating babes friends. Here and there, sure, but not full time! For some reason I like the bacon in Mexico, so if I find myself there.... it's all over! Last night I threw caution to the wind! I sucked it up in the name of the season, and I pan roasted the sickest pork chop ever!!! IT WAS SOOOO GOOD!!! I will tell you all about it: First I cubed about 3 sweet potatoes and baked them at 400 for about an hour. Salt, pepper, 2 tablespoons of canola oil and a secret splash of vanilla extract! Then...

The picture above was taken at the Raphael vineyards on the North Fork of Long Island. That's were I spent the day yesterday celebrating P2's Aunt Pat's birthday! It was so much fun. I have never been wine tasting before! If you haven't either I recommend it. Especially this time of year! It is gorgeous out here! I'm a city boy so I forget sometimes how amazing the trees in the Northeast get in the fall. Anyway... back to the vino! Raphael Vineyards was the biggest of the wineries that we went to.. and had the biggest pour! :) In all we went to 4, which I thought was the perfect amount. After that I think the silly buzz that incurs might develop into actually being drunk! For those of you that have not done this I will explain. Basically what happens is that you go from winery to winery trying the different wines they make. Each winery seems to offer 2 or 3 different tasting menus. Each menu consisting of 4 or 5 wines. Once you pic the tasting menu you like they gi...

In case you were wondering what my favorite thing in the whole world to eat is... Well You guessed it! I LOVE SWEET POTATOES!!! There really is nothing bad about this thing! It's flavor, texture and color lend itself to so many uses, and they are one of the best foods you can eat! So here are the nerdy facts: The sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas ) is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae . Amongst the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of this family, only 1, batatas is a crop plant whose large, starchy , sweet tasting tuberous roots are an important root vegetable ( Purseglove , 1991; Woolfe , 1992). The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens . The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato ( Solanum tuberosum ). The softer, orange variety is commonly marketed as a yam in parts of North America, a practice intended to differentiate it from the firmer, white variety. The sweet potato is very distinct from ...

So I left work a bit early tonight. Around 10 p.m. and then went and had a martini with my friend Justin Law at a new place called Bar Tini . It is where the old 10 th Ave Lounge used to be. They did a really cute job remodeling it and I wish then luck! But I got home and I was starving! The fridge was sparse so I did a quick inventory and assessed the situation. Seemed like I would be able to do something yummy after all! I have baby portobello mushrooms left over, parsley, garlic, olive oil, thyme and egg noodles. Sounds like dinner!!!!!! So I put a pot of hot water on! Then I thick cut about 7 of the baby bellos , one clove of garlic, and threw them in a heated saute pan with a few pinches of salt and a few turns of olive oil around the pan. Next the water was boiling so I added about a cup of the egg noodles and lots of salt. So my noodles were boiling and the mushrooms were sauteing, I added a teaspoon of thyme and a huge pinch of parsley to the mushroom pan, and turned it off....

So here is the first go at my video blogs. It might be a little rough, but remember I'm new at this. I see the room for improvement, but I think I did a good enough job that you might like it! I hope you do! If you try the chicken please let me know what you think! XOXO -P

So this Sunday my cousin Tina and her husband John came to The City from Connecticut to have brunch at our new apartment. It had been so long since we had seen them and we wanted to make it special for them so I enlisted the help of the guy who kills breakfast and brunch every time... Sirpaul !! After we spent about half an hour in Whole Foods , I knew we were leaving with a great plan!! We decided to make French Toast out of challah rolls served with a pear compote, and fresh mascarpone whipped cream! AND a side of scrambled eggs with Gouda! It was AMAZING! There were so many ingredients for this dish, I don't want to go into all the details or this will be the longest blog ever. So I will give you a quick gist! The French toast was pretty traditional. We cut the rolls down the middle and soaked them in the traditional egg bath. However P2 added sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk to the mix!! Now we made a lot, so the egg bath was 6 eggs which took 1/2 a small can of...

OK, I know this is going to sound very Rachel Ray, but it is the truth. Having people over for a "theme" dinner is fun, and our friends Kristen and Anthony proved it to us this Sunday night. They had been trying to plan a Fondue night with us for a while, but my schedule is so all over the place it was always being pushed back. Well this Sunday was the night, and we had a such a good time! I will be very honest here... I was nervous. I have had fondue a handful of times before, and I have been disappointed about 50% of the time. I am not sure what the "real" way of making fondue is. I always thought it was a strong cheese, like Swiss , wine, and seasonings. It sounded good, but think about all the room for disaster there. If someone throws some nasty chardonnay in with a really sharp Swiss ..... No thanks! So, anyway.. I was nervous. But the way Kristen and Anthony do it was so different. I will stay honest and tell you that I was still a bit nervous all the way u...