From Paris to New York, New Work
Here I am. New York City. Wow! I am so excited I don’t even know where to begin. Part of me feels like I just walked out of 1940’s Broadway musical where the leading lady shows up in NYC with two...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: One Cook For Sale
I got the job. I mean I got the job I really, really, really want. I should be clinking cosmopolitans. But instead, I am sitting here staring at this computer wondering how I’m going to make ends meet....
View ArticleLe Bernardin: It’s Just Food
“Amy stop freaking out. It’s just food.” “I’m not freaking out.” “It’s written all over your face. It’s just food.” “It’s not just food. It’s NOT just food. How can you say that? I have tons of mise en...
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Le Bernardin: How to Butcher Bluefin Tuna (Kindai)
How to butcher a whole enormous tuna fish flown over from Japan?!? Today was simply amazing. One of those experiences that I live for in the kitchen: fascinating, exciting, primeval, and humbling. I...
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Dumpling House: Insudstry Picks
You know you have truly made it in New York when you have no time to cook at home. Somehow I have time to party until 6AM in the morning, eat at fantastic underground restaurants, sleep for 3 hours and...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: Fish Pass Girl
I’m not sure whether I’m being tested or just given the opportunity to learn a new station: The Fish Pass. At the restaurant, all cooks when hired begin on the garde manger station and rotate through...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: Le Salon!
Oh yeah baby, I’m working in the Salon this week. Talk about sunshine after a long week of running fish back and forth, popping oysters open and stabbing lobsters between the eyes. The salon is a...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: For the First Time I Stand Alone
I didn’t think up the title of this post. It came to me indirectly from the executive chef. I don’t think he had any idea how meaningful it would be to me but, it’s a damn good title and I’ll attempt...
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Le Bernardin: Valentines Day Recovery & The Ravioli Station
“Did you check the schedule?!?!? Did you check the schedule?” “No, not yet, why?” “You’re ‘Back Monk’ next week girl!” “What the hell is ‘Back Monk’?” “It’s the ravioli station!!!” “Oh my God,...
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Beignets Filled with Meyer Lemon Curd
Not feeling the sunshine? Make some! What could be sunnier than beignets filled with tangy sweet meyer lemon curd? Meyer lemons are in peak and if you're not already stealing them from your neighbor's...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: Make It Nice or Make it Twice
“Make it nice or make it twice”… Nope, this isn’t my advice to lovers, one-night stands, and people about to get married. But maybe it should be? In every restaurant worth its salt are the old timers....
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Radegast Hall & Biergarten!
While most of you were enjoying a lazy Easter Sunday around a bountiful table of Spring delicacies I was drinking steins of beer and wolfing down pretzels, pickels, veal schnitzel, grilled brats, and...
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Le Bernardin: The Women in the Kitchen
Cooking is a competitive team sport. And NYC kitchen cultures are notorious for being like men's locker rooms: sweaty and filled with testosterone. Recently I was asked what's it's like to be a female...
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Le Bernardin: Sun Burned Chefs
Lobster red faces against starched white jackets… I came into work after our obligatory day off (Sunday, the restaurant is closed) only to look upon a sea of red. I know you're thinking: so what,...
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Le Bernardin: Duckathlon NYC Restaurant Industry Showdown!
I am not just a little bitter that we lost the annual d'Artagnan Duckathlon Industry Contest: I am OUTRAGED!!!! This competition is just for fun, organized by D'Artagnan, a food distributer who is...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: Veg Station A New Frontier
Changing stations in a kitchen can be like diving head on into an unfilled very deep, very cement pool. Perhaps tennis shoes in the dryer would be a better metaphor. Shoes clunking around bouncing off...
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Kelley & Ping, A Shanghai Noodle Bar, And a Summer Long Gone
I’ve been coming to Kelley & Ping’s, a stylish Shanghai noodle bar for fifteen years. I discovered it the summer I graduated from from college while visiting my college girl friend who had, at...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: Chef’s Whites and New Dishes
I don’t look my age. At least I didn’t think I looked my age until I caught my reflection in the bathroom on my only ‘sit down’ break during the day. There it was, staring back at me in the mirror, an...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: End of Hot Appetizers
The executive chef pulls me into his office Friday before dinner service, tells me to get comfortable, and asks me to take off my hat. I’m sitting there staring at him wondering if I’m going to get...
View ArticleLe Bernardin: All Burnt Out! (Help me plan Family Meal)
I have no idea how I'm going to work tomorrow. No idea. I burned myself so badly on Friday night that I just don't think my foot will rebound in time. My foot! Can you believe it? The handle of an...
View ArticleHave fun, Accept the challenge, Conquer the fears
My mother gave me sage advice years ago while heading off to a remote part of Southern India to teach at a Hindu High school. She said, “Amy, have fun. If you’re not having fun teaching, the students...
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Le Bernardin: The Monk Station
No I’m not throwing in my whites, shaving my head, and attempting to infiltrate a religious sect of men, although that might make a better story. I’m changing stations once again at the restaurant I...
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Le Bernardin: Superstitions & Kitchen Witches
I have become ridiculously superstitious. And I don’t mean in the traditional sense like if you see a penny face up and you leave it there (because New York City sidewalks are dirty) that you will get...
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Le Bernardin: Monk Station at Night
Switching from cooking the lunch service to cooking the dinner service on the line is like switching from Coca Cola to cocaine. Both are stimulating, one slightly more than the other… I arrive Friday...
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Le Bernardin: A Kitchen Winter Wonderland
I leave my heated cozy apartment this crisp Saturday morning and head for work in what I think is an appropriate outfit. But no. I’m stopped at the front door by the conceirge: “Amy, Amy, Amy – you...
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Le Bernardin: A Thousand Kitchen Years Ago
There are dog years, cat years, human years, and then there are kitchen years… Saturday morning, my last Saturday morning, I hop in a taxi and take the FDR freeway from Lower Manhattan to Midtown. I...
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Goodbye New York hello San Francisco!
Have you heard of the ‘saying goodbye curse’? It goes like this: you live in a city for two years and think it’s kinda cool and suddenly it becomes magnificent. And then you run around snapping...
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Fried Bologna is Back: From New York to North Carolina
It’s Saturday and Nico a friend from work who has been given a full weekend away from the hot line, comes to help me pack up my NYC apartment. No small feat considering I have just spent the previous...
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Citizen Cake Clam Chowder
It seems that I am the last to find out that both Orson and Citizen Cake will be closing their doors in SF. As the Chef de Cuisine who opened the last reincarnation of Citizen Cake I find this...
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Septime in Paris
Hon, hon, hon! I have not written a restaurant review for Paris for years now. But I receive requests daily about where to go and eat. I want to politely defer to Paris by Mouth and David Lebovitz...
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Caviar Egg Cups
Here’s a New Years Eve appetizer that is sure to impress: a caviar topped Gruyère & Pancetta flan cooked in a beautiful brown farm egg with micro broccoli and a Parmesan crisp spoon. Ramin...
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Pan Seared Fluke with Warm Wild Mushroom & Lentil Salad, Sunchoke Smear & Lardon
Oh how I WISH that I had stayed current with my blog over the last 8 months, but alas I’ve been so busy with 5 restaurants that weekly fish specials have come and gone! Here is one for Winter; I love...
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Truffled Celeriac Soup with Dungeness Crab & Romanesco
For a root that looks like a large baseball dusted with dirt, celeriac sure is rich tasting. Celeriac’s flavor is reminiscent of cream-of-celery soup straight out of a Campbell’s can and yet, this...
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Pomegranate Swordfish with Romanesco Couscous & Labneh Dill Sauce
I create recipes for five Mediterranean restaurants that are Persian inspired so it only makes sense that our cuisine reflects that influence. The flavors of Iran are exciting and the colors vibrant. I...
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