Welcome to the latest edition of Food52 Founder Amanda Hesser’s weekly newsletter, Hey There, It’s Amanda, packed with food, travel, and shopping tips, Food52 doings, and other matters that catch her eye. Get inspired—sign up here for her emails.
Apologies: I didn’t quite finish my homework on pizza ovens, so my findings will make their way into a newsletter in the coming weeks. Today features a different follow-up: your NYC cultural recommendations (see below).
And on Saturday (Thursday for previous Dansk purchasers!), we’re coming out with these perfectly sculpted Dansk salad servers. Do they remind me of melon ballers or snowball throwers? Can’t decide. Either way they are awesome and I want them. Get in line…behind me!
We’ve got loads of new content coming your way, including a flurry of Instagram series in the coming weeks; follow us here. Last week, we debuted It’s Fine, a show from the soaring Toronto-based creator and fellow messer-upper Tess Gigone. On her show, Tess fumbles and charms as she makes famous dishes for the first time—the first episode captures her tackling crème brûlée. We did a fun interview with her here.
We also featured Lord’s chef Ed Szymanski on Yes, Chef—he made his celebrated quail toast!
Photo by James Ransom
I like a winter salad that embraces the season and doesn’t try to act like it’s summer. When it’s cold out, give me bitter greens, anchovy, and garlic to hover over!
When I recently made a Vietnamese dish that required a lot of bowls, I was reminded how much I love this handy set of nesters. The ubiquitous Duralex set is practical, but these are finer, made of a thinner (but just as sturdy) glass, and feature little beak-like pour spouts. They’re perfectly sized for prep work. Bonus: They’re made of borosilicate so you can put them in the microwave.
I asked you for ideas of things to do in NYC (part of a New Year’s resolution to get out and enjoy the city I live in)—and thought you’d like a short list of some non-obvious treats, shared by friends and fellow readers:
• Speakeasy Magick: A mix of magic experiences.
• The Wooster Group: Theater productions.
• Municipal Arts Society: Weekend walking tours with themes like Lower Broadway, 1850s, and Subway Art.
• The Bowery Boys: A Gilded-Age-mansions downtown walking tour.
From a longtime community member: “There’s some great classic architecture in lower Manhattan, e.g., the NY Supreme Court building and the Federal Courthouse (my old haunting grounds for work years ago, and awe-inspiring every time you enter), the Revolutionary War era churches, and the stock exchange, etc. I have a special place in my heart for the Stock Exchange building because it was built on land once owned by my sons’ 10 times great-grandfather, who came with the Dutch to New Holland in 1662—before he crossed the East River with some other brave souls to found Bushwick, which they called ‘Boswijck,’ which means ‘little town in the woods.’”
Photo by Amanda Hesser
Photo by Amanda Hesser
Hawksmoor: Go for their English Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding and all the fixings.
The Four Horsemen: Just get in, that’s the hardest part; the rest is a pleasure!
Aska: Precise cooking, dramatic lighting, exceptional wine pairings!
Quarters: On the second floor of a nondescript building in Tribeca is the most civilized cocktail lounge, and you get to sip a pretty drink amidst lighting and furnishings by In Common With.
And now I’m back in Portland on a photo shoot that was so cold, I stood on the heat registers to keep warm. Send in the woolens!
Amanda
