That’s What Friends Are For

By Katie Barreira

In this burgeoning, melting pot of a nation, most of us have cross-cultural buddies who, if prompted, are at least conversant in a foreign cuisine. My friend Graciel, for example, spent only the first four years of her life in the Philippines, but as the granddaughter of an established Filipino restaurateur, her ancestral fare remained salient across the Pacific…lucky us!

Cooking an unfamiliar cuisine is like speaking a new language; the ingredients, a vocabulary of tastes that when strung, tossed or whipped together, create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. And, as with language, the best way to learn is immersion. So, enlist a pal who’s fluent in anything from a single heirloom recipe to an entire gastronomy and dive in.

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How to Cook Perfect Bacon – It’s Easy!

By Katie Barreira

Boiled or smoked, dried or fresh, it’s mighty hard to come across a bad slice of bacon. But there is such a thing as the best bacon and it’s all in the preparation.

Don’t get me wrong; starting with a quality product is always the way to go, on both sensory and ethical grounds. But I’ve happily chomped on some decidedly mediocre bacon in my day and the lowest common denominator is that cured pork belly = gooood.

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Here’s to Worker Bees

From Katie Barreira

As our nation breaks on Monday to celebrate the achievements of working people, let’s take a moment to honor the eponymous laborer of the natural world: the worker bee.

The National Honey Board reports that, “honey is made in one of the world’s most efficient facilities. The 60,000 or so bees in a beehive may collectively travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey.”

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Have a Blast at a Wine Tasting

By Katie Barreira

Nothing brings people together like knowledge and booze. So convening in Long Island’s North Fork for a weekend of wine tasting provided the perfect combination of style and debauchery for a late twenty-something’s bachelorette party.

The sister of the bride engaged a wine guide from North Fork Wine Tours to escort our cohort among three of the region’s vineyards, where we sipped, socialized and stumbled through a lovely mid-day outing.

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It’s a Grilled Pizza Party!

By Katie Barreira

One of the great injustices of apartment living is not having a grill. I’ve tried a few questionable substitutions, including a tailgating-esque fiasco on the fire escape. Beyond the obvious safety concerns, it’s just not fun to negotiate a window entrance with a platter of juicy burgers.

It simply is not summer without a real backyard ‘cue, so this past weekend I ventured to Jersey, usurped a friend’s grill and threw a make-your-own grilled pizza party.

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