Oh, the weather (and just about everything else) is frightful...but the table is set for a hopeful New Year just the same.
Here, I try to stick to what feeds my heart, whips up my consciousness, and stirs my soul: good food and books. As I’ve always maintained, reading is fundamental and a fella’s gotta eat. So let’s dig in!
OMG! Oyamel by José Andrés! This summer we swooned over the staggeringly fresh, icy cold ‘gaspacho’ salad of pineapple, orange, jicama root, cucumbers, mango, and queso fresco bathing in lime juice with a dusting of chile pequin.
Marsanne is a fairly new Mediterranean entry in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. We stopped in for the Veal Agnolotti, veal-stuffed dumplings in veal jus with potato puree, beech mushrooms and Parmesan—several times.
A dear friend took us to Osteria della Tre Panche tucked away in The Hermitage Hotel, a few steps away from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. She had raved about the Chicken with Truffled Cream Sauce and rightly so. The dish was done to perfection. And I mean, truffled cream sauce, right?
Making my way to visit the tiny British food shop Myers of Keswick in the West Village is annual tradition for me every December. I purchase a little pork pie and scuttle home to heat it up, then close my eyes and think of England with each savory bite. For a pork pie recipe (that probably trickled down from French Canada), click here.
I love vegan Planta Queen and have enjoyed the inventive fare (you won’t miss the meat!) on every visit to the NoMad location. The staff is super friendly and the atmosphere brims with festivity, making it the perfect venue to entertain out-of-towners, too. I was, however, unprepared for the absolutely delcious alcohol-free Not-A-Rita made with Seedlip notas de agave, cranberry, lime, agave, damiana flower, and antioxidants. Sip it slowly...
The Cider House Rules by John Irving. The book deliberately parallels David Copperfield (and Great Expectations) as we follow Homer Wells’s journey—and indeed wonder whether or not this particular orphan (our “Prince of Maine,” our “King of New England”) will become the hero of his own life. What a joy to read!
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. Florence, the 1550s. I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction, but...the story about the ill-fated Lucrezia di Cosimo de ’Medici marrying into the Ferrarese dynasty is absolutely riveting. Maggie O’Farrell is a spellbinder for sure, as evidenced by that other book you might have heard of, Hamnet! Gorgeous and tragic, the final twist is a stunner.
The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. Reading this dazzling novel felt like being plunged into a tub of Champagne—at once perilous, heady, and delicious. There’s a definite nod to The Great Gatsby, I think, as we follow Katey Kontent (Kontent) and her witty chums (particularly the seductive, mysterious Tinker Grey) around a glorious, fizzy Manhattan in 1938.
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. A sweet (and yes, diminutive) heroine struggles to free her father from the Marshalsea debtors’prison as a pair of suitors look after her heart in the midst of numerous Dickensian knots, while the master himself skewers British bureaucracy. “Five and twenty, Tatty. Five and twenty!”
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. Patrick Bateman, all misery amid the rustle of long black skirts? This spin on the Gothic novel is not exactly American Psycho either perhaps, but the peverse bloodletting is much the same. A wicked tale of revenge, so gorgeously written.
Venetian Vespers by John Banville. One of my all-time favorite authors, his latest transports us to Venice in 1899. A struggling writer’s wife disappears and as the floating city feels like it’s sinking under his feet, he begins to suspect that he might have killed his betrothed. Nothing is what it seems as we are swept away by Banville’s depiction of the haunting, ancient splendor that is Venice.
