Book Ends & End Tables - The Best of 2025

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...

And of course, I read, finding sustenance in the following books that topped my list for the year out of the 60-some that I finished:

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.

BOOK/A TABLE - Tomato Flan in Florence

I brought E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View with me to Florence as the first part of the novel takes place there. What a thrill to read this upon waking, my first morning in town...

“It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room...it was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in the unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite...”

And fling wide the windows I did as well that morning, breathing in all the gorgeous Florentine air, ripe with spring jasmine!

We knew we had to return to Florence’s celebrated Cibreo, one of my favorite restaurants in the world that I know. In particular, I was really looking forward to the simple, luxurious tomato flan (a savory spread similar in consistency to the Spanish dessert flan) meant to be slathered on toasted country bread. Alas, I discovered they only serve it during the summertime, when tomatoes are at their best. 

However, fate intervened when a dear friend took us to Osteria della Tre Panche tucked away in The Hermitage Hotel, a few steps away from the Ponte Vecchio. There I spied Il Budino di Pomodoro on the menu, which translates to “tomato pudding.” Served as an accompaniment to sumptuous chicken with truffled cream sauce, mozzarella in corrozza, and pappardelle with boar ragu, the budino turned out to be more than an ample subsitute for the flan. It was terrific!     

A Room with a View asks a question of its young heroine Lucy Honeychurch, who arrives home to England with a greatly changed perspective—what did you bring back from Italy? 

For me, I returned feeling the sunshine over the Piazza di Signorina still streaming on my face and the lingering scent of jasmine everywhere...I snipped a fragrant blossom and pressed it between the pages of Forster’s beautful novel. 

And oh yes, I brought back a recipe for tomato flan!

Tomato Flan
Ingredients
1 8-ounce can Del Monte or other tomato sauce
12 large basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for garnish
4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (about 1 1/3 envelopes)
Salt and fresh black pepper to taste
Vegetable oil
12 slices country bread

Method

In a blender or food processor, combine tomato sauce, 6 leaves basil, garlic, ¼ cup olive oil, gelatin and salt and pepper to taste. Blend at high speed for 2 minutes.
Lightly oil 6 small cappuccino or other cups. Divide tomato mixture among cups. Refrigerate 20 minutes.
To serve, dip bottom of each cup in hot water to loosen flan. Unmold onto 6 plates. Garnish with a basil leaf and a drop of olive oil. Place 2 slices bread on each plate.

Yield: 6 servings.