It’s just around the corner, can you feel it?! I know some of you are starting to compile grocery lists, gather recipes and maybe even freaking out a little. I can assure you that even trained chefs experience the somewhat panickly pre-holiday feeling when planning a Christmas dinner. This year,...

As we enter the final wave of our busy season here at the tasting room, I find myself ordering takeout with much more frequency. With very little physical energy left at the end of a long work weekend, there’s nothing better than picking up a delicious meal all wrapped up...

So I’m going to come clean about something right off the bat –  I’ve been on a diet all winter. Surprisingly, it has been pretty smooth sailing because I have chosen to do the most basic, easy diet which is literally just EAT LESS CRAP. On this “diet” I can...

It’s not *quite* here yet, officially, but we can all sense it. Autumn on the North Fork is something I get really, really excited about. Tomatoes aside, all of my favorite vegetables start appearing again at farmstands, and comfort foods start popping up on menus. Roasted squash, root veggies, hearty...

American cuisine as we know it today, a mélange of international flavor influences, has not always been so creative. In fact, it kind of suffered from what I refer to as a “Flavor Depression” for most of its lifetime (except the Mexican-Americans’ cooking in the South and the well-seasoned creole...

Friends and customers often ask me, “If you’re a trained chef, why don’t you work in a restaurant kitchen?” It’s hard to fetch a response to that question that won’t lead them to believe that I have somehow “given up” on the restaurant world. I haven’t. (I still daydream about...

It’s happening! The return of the local tomato is upon us here on the North Fork and I am PSYCHED. I eat tomatoes like apples. Well, not really because that would be really messy and creepy. What I mean is, I eat as many as I can while they’re around....

Cheese is one of my favorite things to shop for. The main difference between choosing a great wine (from a wine shop) and choosing a great cheese is that a good cheese shop will actually let you try anything before buying, and this is the sort of opportunity I always...

There is a universal assumption that chefs always eat like gourmands, and for the most part that is not the case. Although most chefs like myself love indulging in a meal worthy of being deemed “over the top”, there is a bigger and more real spot in our hearts for...

Dessert wines are often misunderstood, and don’t get the appreciation they deserve when they are consumed out of context. What is often mistaken for a regular drinking wine that is “too sweet” or “syrupy”, should actually be praised for those exact qualities. The complexity and depth of a great dessert...