“Dirt Candy: A Cookbook” Reviewed

All art by Ryan Dunlavey

Although I’ve only eaten at Dirt Candy twice, I feel a real affection for the restaurant. I fell in love with their stone ground grits on my first visit, and I have kept up with all of the doings related to the restaurant. After we wrote about the restaurant in 2009 we got an email from Chef/Owner Amanda Cohen, and we wrote back and forth a few times. All these years later I got an email from Cohen asking if I wanted an advance copy of their new cookbook, due out this week from Clarkson Potter. I knew the cookbook was coming, and I knew that it was in graphic novel form with art by Ryan Dunlavey (illustrator of The Comic Book History of Comics and others), and of course I gratefully accepted my free advance copy.

Perbacco

I used to live on the corner of E 3rd St and Avenue A, and I loved the neighborhood. This was before this blog existed, but I still was excited about the many food options available to me: Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches, Mama’s, and a 24-hour Key Food, among others. I was not, however, aware of the existence of Perbacco, an Italian restaurant that blends tradition and the avant-garde. Lucky for me my friends Jess & Garrett knew about it, and the three of us met there for dinner last week. Lucky for you also, because their photos came out much better than mine (click the link to their blog if you don’t believe me).

A Night At Pó

Sometimes you get so caught up in going to the newest, hippest, most happening restaurants in town — What’s got great buzz? What’s been reviewed recently? What’s the newest trend? — that you forget that there are plenty of restaurants that have been around for a while. It takes a visit to a real veteran restaurant to make you realize what it takes to run a successful restaurant in New York City. At a recent dinner at Po (after a few drinks at Vol de Nuit) with my friends Jeff & Eva, we had just such a revelation.

Edward’s Cincinnati Night

I have seen photos of how the citizens of Cincinnati eat their chili. I have seen it on the Anthony Bourdain show and I have had friends described it to me when they went to Cincinnati for a long weekend but it wasn’t until last Monday that I finally came face-to-face with it.

Every last Monday of each month, Edward’s in Tribeca does a Cincinnati Night where you’ll get to eat some of the popular Cincinnati food items. Of course the one thing everybody goes for is chili from Skyline Chili. Chili from Cincinnati isn’t as thick as regular chili and they add cocoa powder into it to give it a bit of sweetness. Besides Skyline you can also get ribs from Montgomery Inn, pizza from Larosa and ice cream from Graeter’s.