Fab Friday — New York City Wine and Food Festival Edition

September 30, 2011 By 3 Comments

One thing I’m look­ing for­ward to is a day of R&R in one of my favorite cities – The Big Apple. This year’s Food Net­work New York City Wine & Food Fes­ti­val is set up a bit dif­fer­ently in that the demos are at the Grand Tast­ing Tents so the like­li­hood of me run­ning around the city like a chicken with my head cut off like last year is null and void. The tents are near one of my favorite happy places, Chelsea Mar­ket, and, if time allows, per­haps a quick jaunt to the store with a shoe floor that has its own zip code might be on the agenda.

x Fab Friday New York City Wine and Food Festival Edition

 

1. I’m on the fence between sassy flat and wedgy boot. How­ever, in a per­fect world, what I would LOVE to wear is this Tory Burch Law­son bootie. I’m a sucker for wool and lace up details.  I know I know – when it comes to shoes, I will never learn.

2. Well, I can say that I learned my les­son last time and, in addi­tion to NOT wear­ing 4″ stiletto boots, I will also not be lug­ging any­thing super heavy – whether it be cook­books, mag­a­zines, etc. until I’m head­ing home.   It’s bad enough that the dslr cam­eras are a bit hefty.   One must item to take is my lovely iPad to do some blog­ging and writ­ing in my trav­els and this Rebecca Minkoff Touch And Go iPad Case Fab Friday New York City Wine and Food Festival Edition has been a life­saver – chic and func­tional. I broke down and got the pink one but I will say that when I’m look­ing for my iPad among a slurry of books, binders and other items, I always can see the bright pink and smile.

Now – if only this gor­geous Jimmy Choo nude iPad case would be priced MUCH lower, I’d be a very happy stiletto wench. Sadly, it’s about the cost of a pair of stilet­tos *sigh* Oh well…

3. One of my must visit places is the Chelsea Mar­ket. Every time I head to the city, I drop by there to pick up a thing (or three) and I have def­i­nite plans on pick­ing up some seri­ously del­ish pump­kin seed brit­tle from Jacques Tor­res, perus­ing the cook­books at Pos­man Books, look­ing for intrigu­ing cook­ing finds at Bow­ery Kitchen Sup­ply and pick­ing up this lovely Pem­broke Salt Dish from Anthro­polo­gie for my Aleppo pepper.

4. One of the demos I’m excited about see­ing is the Beek­man Boys. They have a great cook­book, The Beek­man 1802 Heir­loom Cook­book: Heir­loom fruits and veg­eta­bles, and more than 100 her­itage recipes to inspire every gen­er­a­tion Fab Friday New York City Wine and Food Festival Edition, that is gar­ner­ing quite the buzz. Ama­zon has it but it was a bit of a wait time on deliv­ery.  Luck­ily for me this week­end, Barnes & Noble had copies promi­nently dis­played and a copy imme­di­ately went home for the cook­book arse­nal.  This is a cook­book that will be trea­sured – beau­ti­fully pho­tographed with vin­tage notepad touches and the recipes – oh the recipes. We’re talk­ing sea­sonal recipes that scream com­fort such as Beer Braised Beef with Onion Dumplings, Har­vest Beef Chili with Pump­kin and Beans, Orange Gin­ger­bread with Bour­bon Cus­tard and Jum­ble­berry Pie. Seri­ously – get this cook­book because I promise you will cook from it often. These are recipes that I’m sure are “Polka Spot The Llama Approved”.

5. Finally, after the chaos of the day to day and all that’s gone on with the Sous Pug recently, I reached my exas­per­a­tion point and made an exec­u­tive deci­sion – the hair needed to be chopped. I’m a ser­ial cheater when it comes to hair­styl­ists and always have been. When I went to SOBE, the ‘do was the result of last minute rush­ing to some­one I didn’t know and, when I saw the pho­tos, I winced. Also, know­ing that I was cut­ting off a ton of hair, I didn’t want my fab­u­lous friend Heather to be put into a posi­tion of deal­ing with my crazy “Cut. It. Off.” moments as I adore her too much. Look­ing at my packed sched­ule, I made a call to Manayunk’s own Salon L’Etoile and begged the gals to see if my favorite styl­ist there, Jeff, had an open­ing. Thank­fully there was one spot left and thanks to Jeff’s very skilled scis­sors, the hair is short (well for me) and sassy and will do fine in NYC. Jeff accepted me back with open arms and he’s aware of my styl­ist com­mit­ment issues but never judges.  Seri­ously, if you are in Philly and need a fab salon that will spoil you rot­ten, check them (and him) out.

What do you have planned for the weekend?

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Filed Under: Beekman Boys, Cookbook, Cookbooks 'N Stilettos, Culinary Events, Fab Friday, Fashion, Food Network, Philly, Traveling in Stilettos Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Anne Burrell To Show Fans How To Cook Like A Rock Star

September 28, 2011 By 1 Comment
AnneBurrell-CookLikeARockStar

If you watched the Food Network’s Secrets of a Restau­rant Chef, Worst Cooks in Amer­ica and Iron Chef Amer­ica, you already know that Chef Anne Bur­rell cooks like a rock star. For years she was Mario Batali’s right hand on Iron Chef, with recipes that would often secure the defeat of any chal­lenger and they got it done in under an hour.  Since her show’s debut, Secrets of a Restau­rant Chef  has taught view­ers tips and tech­niques to make any dish fab­u­lous and is a con­stant on my DVR.

Last year, dur­ing Food Network’s New York City Wine & Food Fes­ti­val, I caught her demo and I learned so much in that one hour that I will never for­get. One of Anne’s favorite take­aways is that black pep­per brings a whole other fla­vor to the party so think before you sea­son. Also, salt can be your friend, brown = fla­vor and so many tips and tech­niques that have vastly improved my cook­ing.  We won’t even get into the Louboutins that she was spot­ted wear­ing at events.  To quote Rachel Zoe – “I. Die.”

When Jen from One Curly Fry and I were vis­it­ing Sunny one day on set last spring, we had heard through the grapevine that Chef Anne Burrell’s first cook­book was in the test­ing stages and due to come out in the fall. I knew then that this was a book that had to be in my cook­book arse­nal and referred to often. If I learned so much in one chef demo, imag­ine the plethora of info in her cook­book, right?

Well, the tour sched­ule for Cook Like a Rock Star: 125 Recipes, Lessons, and Culi­nary Secrets Anne Burrell To Show Fans How To Cook Like A Rock Star has been released and I am thrilled to see Chef Bur­rell is set to visit Philadel­phia at, where else, my “happy place” – the Williams Sonoma in King of Prus­sia Mall on Octo­ber 6, 2011. She will be sign­ing copies of Cook Like a Rock Star Anne Burrell To Show Fans How To Cook Like A Rock Star begin­ning at noon.

Now, a gal has to won­der – will Chef Bur­rell be rock­ing the crocs or the Louboutins – we shall see.

Check out the sched­ule and see if she’s vis­it­ing a place near you!

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Anne Burrell, Celebrity Chefs, Cookbook, Culinary Events, Food Network, Philly, Williams-Sonoma Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Tried and True: Southern Meatballs

August 9, 2011 By 2 Comments
SouthernMeatballs-Final
There’s some­thing to be said about retro. Retro is com­fort­ing, brings warm and fuzzy mem­o­ries of sim­pler times where we weren’t freak­ing out about “Is my cell on? How many calo­ries are in that? What the heck – I have 20bizillion things on my to-do list! Where the heck is my Star­bucks?!?” and so on.

We’ve had a bit of an 80s revival here in Philly – with the Dancin’ On Air marathon and other things that are being buzzed about – and, let me tell you, the kids notice. My dear friend Heather (aka the ORIGINAL “Pick­les” – take that Snooki!) recently had a 12th birth­day party for her daugh­ter Felic­i­tie. Felic­i­tie is a great kid, super smart and def­i­nitely a mini-Pickles. Plus, she’s quite the chef in train­ing. I wouldn’t be sur­prised if she puts some of the Food Net­work peeps on notice and takes over their shows.  Well, Felic­i­tie isn’t one to just have any ol’ birth­day party – she wanted it “80′s Themed” and the kids were to be decked out in their 80s best. I saw more neon and high hair that imme­di­ately made us flash back to our days on set, Aquanet and all.

Nettie’s Cre­ations made an amaz­ing Blue Vel­vet Zebra cake, and, as I had told Heather I would be more than happy to put my cook­ing stilet­tos to work, I was stumped as to what to make. I already planned on mak­ing my fave Spicy Smoky S’mores Bars  as well as Sunny Anderson’s Fire­cracker Cole Slaw (which, btw – HUGE hit – HUGE!).  Since this was going to be a retro themed party, I decided to throw cau­tion to the wind and break out one of the recipes that I learned in Florida which is always a crowd pleaser – South­ern Meat­balls or, as some peo­ple call them in hush tones, “Grape Jelly Meat­balls“. Yes, you heard that right – Grape Jelly is the secret ingre­di­ent. How­ever, I have to say, I’ve made it with my fave Williams Sonoma Cran­berry rel­ish and it comes out just as fabu. You can also jazz it up with spices to suit your palate.  It’s pretty much one of those dump, stir and set the slow cooker recipes and, yes I cheat – I used FROZEN meat­balls and peo­ple were none the wiser. Just don’t divulge the meat­ball secret and peo­ple will think you slaved for hours.

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Busy Busy Bee — Philly Is Dancin On Air

July 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment
DPUSA-AMC-OnTheSet-1988-GDC-2

DPUSA AMC OnTheSet 1988 GDC 2 150x150 Busy Busy Bee Philly Is Dancin On AirLife has taken quite the turn – moreso than usual. Of course I have the daily 9to9, but have been wrapped up with Wigg’s new med­ical devel­op­ments (they found a growth they need to biopsy – fun fun! He’s going to be a surgery reg­u­lar at his vet hos­pi­tal at this rate) and cook­ing for me hasn’t been as much of a pri­or­ity as it has been cook­ing for him. The dog goes through about 5 pounds of chicken a week – let’s not even cal­cu­late the amount of rice that has to be made. Any­whoo, as I was say­ing, it’s been a busy sum­mer here for this gal. Any cook­ing I have done, it’s either been recipes I have already spot­lighted here that I can whip up in a jiffy or items for friends’ par­ties and BBQs.

I do have a bit of an off-topic event that has been con­sum­ing my atten­tion for the past few weeks. For many Philly peeps, the town has been all abuzz about the Dancin’ on Air Marathon that is set to run on PHL17. For those of you not famil­iar with Dancin’ on Air, well, it was a regional show that was filmed locally in Philly dur­ing the 80s which even­tu­ally went national under the name Dance Party USA. Pretty much, Dancin’ on Air (and, in turn, Dance Party USA) is looked upon fondly in this part of the woods. I can’t tell you how many peo­ple tell me that they had a cousin, brother, sis­ter, mother, neigh­bor dance on the show. As I often joke that my days on the set of Dance Party helped hone my PR skills (I hated being on cam­era), my days on set gave me a fam­ily of friends that I trea­sure to this day.

A (huge) group of for­mer dancers headed to PHL17′s stu­dios a cou­ple weeks ago to tape ret­ro­spec­tives of their mem­o­ries and time on the set, lessons learned, funny sto­ries and it was like one huge catch-up fest. Granted many of us get together for birth­days, wed­dings, home again par­ties, cock­tails, etc. but this time we saw faces that I can say I haven’t seen in 20+ years. It was so good to catch up in those hall­ways and on the stu­dio stage of PHL17 – so many mem­o­ries from being “pulled” (when we weren’t allowed to dance on set because of some infrac­tion of some sort – talk­ing, gum chew­ing, atti­tude, look­ing at the cam­era too much), “roll call” and just get­ting reac­quainted with the cam­era (and for those that know me KNOW I detest that dag­gone cam­era! *LOL*)

So, with PHL17 air­ing 4 vin­tage eps of Dancin’ on Air from their vaults, you know we had to pull out the stops. The Piazza at Schmidts with the Dancin’ on Air and Dance Party USA Alumni is host­ing a “View­ing Party” in North­ern Lib­er­ties on Sat­ur­day, July 23, 2011 from 8 – 10 and there will be so many famil­iar faces from shows past. It’s going to be a GREAT time and we’ve been basi­cally run­ning our­selves ragged plan­ning it. I have to give major kudos to Romeo, Annette, Liz, “Princess” and Niecy for giv­ing this their all icon smile Busy Busy Bee Philly Is Dancin On Air They are a dream team I’m thrilled to work with and I’m seri­ously look­ing for­ward to tomorrow’s fes­tiv­i­ties. I’m hear­ing its the “talk of the town”.

So – those in Philly – c’mon on down and watch some vin­tage eps with us!   I’m hear­ing there might even be a lit­tle Madonna in the mix (and some Duran Duran – who knew.  I won­der – was The Rov­ing Stove’s Julie Anne on the Dancin’ on Air set way back then?  Small. World!)

And, for those that wanted to know about the “Rules” check out this “reflec­tion” cour­tesy of PHL17!

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Filed Under: Memories, Philly, TV, Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Fab Friday — Cooking In Stilettos Edition

April 22, 2011 By 1 Comment

Yes, I’m still hot under the col­lar about the All My Chil­dren can­cel­la­tion last week but, in the spirit of Fab Fri­days – I will sol­dier on.  So, let us get in the mood for a relax­ing week­end with some fab finds includ­ing, of course, some fan­tas­tic shoes!

1.  These Dolce Vita Car­rie Multi-Strap Fringe San­dals almost gave me heart pal­pi­ta­tions – they are unique, chic and just have that *wow* fac­tor.  Plus, the price isn’t so bad either.  I swear – nude shoes have totally out­ranked the num­ber of black shoes in my shoe arsenal.

2.  For you gals that adore all things pink, did you see this Kitchen Aid Arti­san Susan G. Komen Stand Mixer in Rasp­berry Ice?  Now this is a gor­geous mixer that will gar­ner all the right attention!

3.  I am DETERMINED to get my deck gar­den to flour­ish this year and one of my must have pur­chases is a Meyer Lemon Tree.  I’m so annoyed to buy Meyer Lemons at the store to only have them go moldy in a day or two – who knows how long those Meyer Lemons are on the truck to the store, right?  At least if I can cure my black thumb, per­haps I can only go a few paces out the back door to get the per­fect ingre­di­ent to brighten most any dish.

4. I have to con­fess, being a recov­er­ing pub­li­cist has me a bit jaded.  When I hear of a celebrity cook­book, I tend to see right through it.  It’s all about mar­ket­ing and brand­ing nowa­days.  I remem­ber one “celeb” who released a cook­book and on one of their appear­ances, they didn’t even know their own recipes.  C’mon now – if you are going to pro­mote some­thing as your own and swear YOU wrote the book – well then, KNOW the recipes.  I pur­chased a copy of  Eva’s Kitchen: Cook­ing with Love for Fam­ily and Friends Fab Friday Cooking In Stilettos Edition and I have to say, out of the flood of celeb cook­books on the mar­ket, Eva Longoria’s cook­book seemed to be the most authen­tic.  She has some fab sim­ple recipes in there along with some from her fam­ily and it’s a cook­book I will be using this spring & sum­mer.  Well done!

5.  Finally – have you heard about the Philadel­phia Sci­ence Fes­ti­val?  Now, before you whap me upside the head ala NCIS Gibbs’ style, hear me out.  It’s got some seri­ously fas­ci­nat­ing events at this fes­ti­val that are geared to the curi­ous foodie.  I mean, we’re talk­ing about events cen­tered around healthy eat­ing, the sci­ence of beer and cheese, and a host of other fas­ci­nat­ing events.  Check out their cal­en­dar – it looks intriguing!

I’m curi­ous – what are you guys obsessed with this week?  Tell me in the comments!

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Filed Under: Appliances, Cookbook, Events, Fab Friday, Gardening In Stilettos, Kitchen-Aid, Obsessed With, Philly, Shopping Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Stonyfield Organic Family Love Fest Tour To Hit Philly

April 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
stonyfield-love-fest

stonyfield love fest 150x150 Stonyfield Organic Family Love Fest Tour To Hit PhillyAre you as obsessed with all things Stony­field as I am? If you visit my house, you will see that my fridge is stocked. SL got me hooked on Organic Milk when I lived in Alta­monte and I tend to stick with brands I adore. Con­fes­sion – Stony­field was the very first brand of organic milk that I pur­chased and they hooked me from the get go. So, if I see Stony­field on my weekly gro­cery run, well you know what’s going in my cart, right?

Well, this Sat­ur­day, April 16th from 7 a.m. to noon, the Stony­field Organic Fam­ily Love Fest Tour will be in Philly at the Clean Air Council’s 5K Run for Clean Air and Earth Day Cel­e­bra­tion on Mar­tin Luther King Drive. And, get this – it’s FREE!

Accord­ing to Stony­field, an Organic Fam­ily Love Fest is:

Inter­ac­tive, out­door fun that’s all about healthy food, healthy peo­ple and a healthy planet. Eat lots of YoB­aby, YoKids, Oikos and Stony­field organic yogurt. Gar­den at our organic seed-planting table. Watch a local chef pre­pare sim­ple and deli­cious dishes fea­tur­ing Greek yogurt. Inter­act with Gurt—our exhibit cow that teaches kids about the organic life­cy­cle and makes them laugh. Learn about organic farm­ing and nutri­tion. Make a mini motion pic­ture flip­book fea­tur­ing you and your fam­ily as the stars. Enter to win a fam­ily get­away to a Ver­mont organic farm. And more!

So, for a fun, free event that is good for the whole fam­ily, head down to MLK Drive this Sat­ur­day and visit with the folks from Stony­field Farm.

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Fab Friday Returns to Cooking In Stilettos

April 8, 2011 By 2 Comments

Ahh – we’re FINALLY back on sched­ule and the Fab Fri­day has returned… This is going to be quite the week­end as I have some really inter­est­ing culi­nary projects ahead, a friend’s 40th b’day cel­e­bra­tion that is sure to bring back LOTS of 80s mem­o­ries, great food, convo and cock­tails, and some work to do on Cook­ing In Stilet­tos. What do they say – when you love what you do, then it’s not work at all icon smile Fab Friday Returns to Cooking In Stilettos

Here are a few things that have cap­ti­vated me this week.

1. Speak­ing of the 80s, I swear, I should have whapped Kelly Ripa over the head YEARS ago because when she has a killer shoe, I’m like a wench on a mis­sion. Way back when, she was one of the gals on the set of a cer­tain show who always wore 3″ heels and of course, like typ­i­cal teen gals, many fol­lowed suit, myself included. When peo­ple ask how I can wear heels so high, I par­tially blame Kelly since I’ve been wear­ing tee-tottering heights since I was 15. Now that I think about it – she wasn’t the only gal on the set who had some killer shoes – so did Princess aka Heather. Heather was wear­ing fab over the knee boots WELL before Kim Kar­dashian rocked that trend. Any­how – let me stop flash­ing back to mem­ory lane and deal with the shoes at hand. A cou­ple weeks ago, Kel was rockin’ this seri­ously gor­geous Char­lotte Olympia espadrille pump and, while it was cute, I don’t think I could EVER jus­tify pay­ing over $800 for a cot­ton shoe. How­ever, when I saw these DV by Dolce Vita Flo­rence San­dals in Nude, well – it was a win win. The nude ankle strap wouldn’t cut off the leg line and it was chic and per­fect for this spring/summer 2011. Sorry Kelly – you can keep your Char­lotte Olympias – I’ll stick with these lovelies – and I’ll even have some funds left over for per­haps a Le Creuset or three.

2. Ok – this Emile Henry can­is­ter set is gor­geous. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my glass and sil­ver topped set that I’ve had since I was in Orlando but this has such a stream­lined look that would be per­fect for my one day cop­per and teal kitchen.

3. I am really enjoy­ing this quinoa kick that I am on – and when I saw this Zur­sun Black Quinoa at Williams Sonoma, well, I’m intrigued. Has any­one ever tried Black Quinoa?

4. I have been flip­ping through Aaron McCargo Jr.’s book Sim­ply Done, Well Done Fab Friday Returns to Cooking In Stilettos for a hot minute now and have flagged some recipes to try here on Cook­ing In Stilet­tos. I can’t com­mend Aaron enough – not many peeps know this but back when he had a resto in Cam­den – I hap­pened to be in town for a meet­ing and our for­mer pro­ducer took us there for lunch and the food was slam­min’! When he won NFNS – I was thrilled because the man can cook and, quite hon­estly, he’s a really really nice guy! So, if you see this out and about, pick up a copy – it’s well worth it! Con­grats Chef!

5. Jen at One Curly Fry sent me a link to COOK by Audrey Claire and I almost fell out of my chair this morn­ing. It is open­ing this sum­mer at the cor­ner of Rit­ten­house and 20th St. and it’s going to offer classes, a bou­tique, a book­store and more. Plus – the kitchen is sup­posed to be state of the art. Ummm – where do I sigh up? Look­ing for­ward to great things com­ing from COOK!

 

[Flash­back Photo cour­tesy of Chris Kelly]

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Filed Under: Aaron McCargo Jr, Cookbook, Cooking Classes, Cool Products, Emile Henry, Fab Friday, Fashion, Food Network, Next Food Network Star, Obsessed With, Pantry, Philly, Williams-Sonoma Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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