February is—for me—the most singular month of the year. It’s short, it’s unforgiving with its wicked weather and romantic overtures, and it’s spelled with one of the most baffling “r’s” in the English language. It’s bitterly cold, often snowing, and work is in shorter supply (at least for those of us whose idea of work is what other people call a party). With a little less cash, a little less sunlight and a little less warmth, I find myself a lot more inclined to stay in on February nights, maybe more than any other time of year. Mac used to find it maddening, but there is many a day, in February especially, when I don’t even leave my apartment. Why should I? I can work from home, eat from home, drink from home, and never have to change out of PJ’s. While I love my friends, I equally covet my downtime, passing an evening or two or three alone, practicing my well-honed version of R&R: Recipe development and developmental Reflection.

On one such night last week, I found myself perusing through old Market Reports, reflecting back to the sultry months of summer, when I first began posting them. I had just returned from my weekly jaunt up to Union Square, and a medley of root vegetables—turnips, potatoes and shallots, drizzled in olive oil and sea salt—were roasting away in the oven. The dreary sight of the Square with but a few farm stands surviving winter’s wrath, made me yearn for past posts about peaches and gooseberries; gooseberries! Tiny, frail little balls of sweetness so fragile that it’s hard to imagine New York was ever warm enough for them to grow. Flipping through the posts was like turning the pages of an old family album. From tomatoes to melons to figs to pumpkins, I watched the seasons turn, turn, turn and was reminded of Mother Nature’s motto, made famous by Pete Seeger, “A time to plant, a time to reap.”

It is with that in mind that I confess a dithering passion for winter produce and outdoor shopping excursions. I still visit the markets, but I’m less enthused about their offerings. I still support local farmers and spend my consumer dollars on plants and proteins that take the dinosaur kale’s approach to resilience, but I also find myself more attuned to my Aunt Susie’s recipe for surviving Buffalo winters. While others might preach, “Bundle up” or “Don’t forget a hat,” Susie’s expression resonates across kitchens and climates. She suggests, “Take it slow.”

From now until early April, I plan to slow down my market visits and beef up on veggies made from hardier stock: apples, pears, shell beans, cabbage, beets, carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes, parsnips, celery root, turnips, winter squash and shallots. These are the standard bunch of sturdy produce that can withstand cold storage and frosted afternoons in the open air, and these are the strapping stars of winter’s menus, suited to slow roasting, braising and one-pot meals. Farmers will be hawking little else till spring, so the food-forward among us have but little choice other than to seek out the joy in seasonal eating by squeaking out a meal that embraces the singular challenge that is February. If you get stuck, take it slow, find comfort in a quiet night at home and give stew a chance!

I’m a cat person. Taleggio and I bonded over shellfish and sleeping in on Sundays as soon as I brought him home from the shelter. As the consummate bedfellow in my life, we share secrets. He’s the only other set of eyes to witness the dirty dishes I leave in the sink or my midnight cravings for triple crème and chocolate, and only he gets to paw me in the shower. Adopting my Russian baby Blue was my first tangible step toward starting a family of my own creation. One day, when I have a home big enough for the three of us (or four if I can find him a Daddy), I hope to welcome into our lives his brother, Marmalade Smoosh. Smoosh will be a big, fat, fluffy, orange Persian who will join Gio in deserving the title, “my man.” Till then, I’ll have to settle for another type of marmalade, sans Smoosh…

In the darkest depths of winter, when I haven’t seen the sun in days, I sometimes have Raymond Chandler daydreams. In these dreams, ever-sunny Los Angeles (to which I have been magically transplanted) is populated exclusively by women in chic suits with boxy crocodile handbags, who wander aimlessly through gardens of bougainvillea while dashingly handsome men (who all look suspiciously like Don Draper, a.k.a. Humphrey Bogart) roll cigarettes and drink martinis in the shade. No one does any real work, and there’s nary a strip mall in sight—nor an In-And-Out burger, SUV or iPhone. In these dreams, when I reach through the window of my immaculately white California kitchen to break a fresh avocado off the branch, a warm breeze touched with the smell of winter’s citrus wafts in from my backyard grove, where Smoosh coos to be let in.

Short of putting on some high heels and Hoagy Carmichael while I roast root vegetables, reality suggests that there hasn’t been a lot of sunshine in my New York kitchen recently. But just as my West Coast fantasy was starting to fade, I got a surprise in the mail sent by an old friend in Phoenix—a brown box filled with Seville oranges and Meyer lemons. Now, Phoenix may not be vintage Hollywood, but for homegrown citrus, it hands down beats anything else I’ve tried. My friend grows his sour oranges as ornamentals in his backyard; the dark, glossy-leaved trees sprout and drop their bright fruit unbothered by any but birds. Maybe he meant for me to put the oranges in a nice bowl and leave it at that, let them brighten up my table with a ray of Arizona sunshine, but I have a feeling he knew I wouldn’t be able to leave them alone.

A (perhaps apocryphal) story of the beginnings of Keillor’s Dundee Marmalade served as inspiration—in 1700, the story goes, a grocer was offered the opportunity to buy pounds of Seville oranges at a severely discounted price, when a passing ship, hemmed in by a storm, needed to get rid of them quickly. Intensely sour and full of seeds, even by 18^th century tastes the oranges were far too bitter to sell. So the grocer’s wife (Mrs. Keillor) did what any smart woman of her day would have done; following the rule that the tartest of fruits—wild blueberries, rhubarb, green apples, raspberries—can make the best desserts, she turned them into a transcendent Seville orange marmalade. With a box of bitter citrus on my doorstep and a new set of canning tools in the cupboard (a thoughtful Christmas gift), I decided to follow her lead.

I’ve always been fascinated by the second life of food: pickles, preserves, even the conversion of leftover bits and bops into new, exciting dishes. Having the chance to break out my hot water canner mid-winter is a delicious treat, as well as pragmatic. How else can one safely bottle up a batch of distilled sunlight for the next few months? The process of washing and sterilizing, boiling, bottling, sealing and processing —so methodical and exact, yet so timeless—becomes meditative. Surely Mrs. Keillor arrived at a similar process 300 years ago, using her equivalent to my modern tongs, funnels, lid-lifters and Ball jars. After washing and lining up my tools on a clean cloth towel and sterilizing the jars in a hot water bath, I’m like a surgeon prepared for a major operation. Sleeves rolled up, apron on, ready to dig in!

The whole experience of canning is an aesthetic and sensory indulgence, one totally lost if you’ve never done more than open a jar of Smuckers. Strawberry jam on toast is decadent; a stockpot full of boiling strawberries, hot and thick and sweet, is immersive and divine. After squeezing and pitting the oranges (and one of the Meyer lemons, for a little extra zing), I carefully wrapped the pits in a cheesecloth pouch, sliced the rinds into thin strips, and added both to a pot of boiling water. Within minutes the air was heavy with orange oil. Making marmalade didn’t just bring the sunshine in; it saturated my entire apartment with a sweet, thick, spicy scent. After simmering for hours, pounds of white sugar were poured in, drowning and quickly dissolving in the glistening orange goo. Last but not least, a splash of Glenlivet (one in the pot and one on the rocks, with a sour orange twist)…because what goes better with oranges than scotch? It was all I could do to keep from taste-testing ladlefuls of marmalade as I waited for the full experience—cooled, set and on toast.

Long after I’d poured the marmalade into six clean pint jars, sealing and lowering them into boiling water for processing, the scent lingered—in curtains, in clothes and in my hair. It was the smell of lazy days and luxury, bitter rinds and (in my mind, anyway) the glamorous, seductive West. I poured myself a bit more single malt and plunked down in bed, still in my apron. A frisky Taleggio popped out from between the sheets. Squinting, I could almost see an avocado tree outside my window. And surely, those were footsteps coming up the stairs—Bogie? Smoosh?

While the cold winter weather and too many sugar cookies may have some of you in hibernation mode, The Dinner Belle has been burning up calories, adding many new and exciting logs to our growing fire this snowy season.

Kimberly and I were both fortunate to spend our New Year’s celebrations in Vermont, albeit at different ski chalets, where she cooked up a storm, slicing and dicing in the kitchen, while I practiced my “shredding” on the mountain. It was a wonderfully reflective time to look back on what we’ve accomplished over the course of this past season, and a prime environment to glance ahead to all we have to look forward to in 2010.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. When last you left us, leaves were falling and we had just wrapped our spectacular 2^nd Annual Macy’s dinner, cooked in a West Village townhouse that we can only hope is the mirror image of our future kitchen and work space. A girl can dream, can’t she?

While I spent three glorious weeks in Europe with my Man, Kimberly mended her broken heart back home in Buff, all the while, gearing up for our busiest November yet, as we tackled three enormous events that all together served more than 700 guests!

First up was another successful soiree with our good friends over at The Society. Set in the home of famed fashion designer Naeem Khan (yes, he’s the man who dresses Michelle Obama!), The Dinner Belle revisited Andy Warhol’s glory days, providing some of our most artistic canapés to date. Celebrating the book launch of POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol, guests were invited to explore Naeem’s home, decorated with Warhol’s famed Diamond Dust series, and nosh on our own version of POP art, including Harvest Tomato Soup served in miniature Campbell’s cans, and hand crafted Banana’s Foster Bonbons, proudly displaying Warhol’s iconic banana art.

From there we moved on to a new and exciting transatlantic client from Spain, The Secret Sherry Society (how très international of us)! Kimberly pulled out all the stops on this one, creating seven elemental tasting stations that paired with seven of Spain’s top sherries, ranging from the driest Fino to the sweetest Cream. From Truffled Mushroom Tartlets to handcrafted Pedro Xiemenz Sherry-Spiked Raisin Bonbons, these stations were not only sublime to taste, but were also spectacular to see in the Altman Building, which was transformed into a fashion showcase with models wearing sherry inspired costumes down the catwalk.

Moving a bit north from Spain, The Dinner Belle continued to shine in the international relations department, and had the pleasure of catering another huge in-store event for our favorite Brits, Topshop. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to bake 7,000 assorted biscuits and Jammy Dodgers this time around, but rather, had the tasty task of serving a traditional British Breakfast to the first 300 customers who walked through the retail giant’s doors on Black Friday. Shoppers had their pick of a savory Irish Bacon Roll or a Scottish Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Bagel, with a warm cup of Cadbury Hot Chocolate or English Breakfast Tea (but of course!) to wash it all down.

From London, we headed east–way Far East, as we paired up with new client Opera Solutions, to help cater an internationally themed luncheon for 70 bankers in their Jersey City offices. The cuisine was Singaporian, something quite new to me, as someone a bit lacking in the adventurous palette department. Shopping in Chinatown for this event definitely succeeded in putting a worried look on my face as we encountered seafood that can only be described as “monstrous!” You can imagine my relief when I learned that Chef Belle was serving poultry as the main course, not some unknown sea urchin! I have to say, I learned a lot on this one, and was impressed by how well the homemade Bee Hoon (a tasty noodle stir fry dish) and Ong Choy (sautéed water spinach) came out. Clearly, the proof was in the pudding (or in this case, in the Agar Agar!), as well as in the never-ending line at the buffet table!

From Singapore, we journeyed back to the homeland, where another favorite repeat retail client, Journelle, hired us to provide drop off platters for two beautiful lingerie trunk shows at their Union Square location. Kimberly and I masterfully (if I do say so myself) created not only luscious, but beautifully crafted savory and sweet take-away trays, containing a wide variety of Mediterranean charcuterie and sweet treats. But don’t take my word for it…just check out the image (below) we captured of one of these puppies!

The holidays were a busy time for The Belles, as we answered well over a dozen party inquiries and had the extreme privilege to participate in two meaningful charity auctions. First up was the Chez Panisse Foundation, created by Alice Waters (only Kimberly’s goddess and role model in the real food movement!), which supports an educational initiative that uses food to nurture, educate, and empower youth through the advancement of school lunch and gardening programs. We also donated the same “Dine with The Dinner Belles” package to the Stephen Siller’s Children’s Foundation, a charity set up in honor of its namesake’s fallen 9/11 hero, with an aim to help the “forgotten” children of this world. It is a cause Kimberly and I both felt incredibly moved to join forces with, and we were awed to have our auction item raffled off by former Mayor Rudolf Giuliani this past December. Along with the auction item’s winning bidders, we’ll go shopping at Jeffery’s Essex Market Butcher and Whole Foods on the Bowery next week, before returning to our clients home for a hands-on cooking class and dinner party for six lucky invited guests.

With spring right around the corner and all of those weddings coming up (I’m sure you have at least one save the date for 2010!) I’d imagine, dear readers, that you might be in need of a clever wedding present idea? Well, why not “gift” the newlyweds a dinner party? That’s what one private client of ours did this past December. She purchased a pre-packaged, fully catered dinner from The Dinner Belle and had us send a beautiful gift card to her good friends who had just gotten married. It’s easy–you pay up front and then we get in touch with the lucky gift recipients and help them choose a date and menu items for their three course feast. Then they get to sit back, relax and let The Dinner Belle do the rest! Seriously folks, contact us if you’re just plain sick and tired of the same old registry crap. Gifting a dinner party is giving an experience; one I’m sure you’re friends and family will remember for a long time to come.

As The Dinner Belle traveled the global table this season, we’ve taken pleasure in every inspired dish and every new client. Until next time…I wish you all warming winter recipes, including Kimberly’s Hot Toddies and Cold Pudding Cups. Eat it Up!

Differences of taste are tricky ameliorate, let alone legislate. Take for example, The Breadcrumb Debacle.

Last week, with a renewed vigor for dishing out the best a food-forward life has to offer, Erin and I decided to cook dinner together in lieu of hitting up a neighborhood hotspot. I made vegetables and dessert; she was responsible for planning the entrée: meatloaf. As we shopped together for ingredients, we reached a point of reckoning when we realized I had filled the cart with a baguette, garlic and onion, while she had collected a tub of processed breadcrumbs and a packet of powdered onion dip flavoring. Now either option can produce a tasty meatloaf, and in this case, the real foods option was actually less expensive, but we were at an impasse.

She wanted to replicate the recipe from her youth; I all but demanded we jump ship and venture forth on a real foods version of her Mamma’s meatloaf, made instead, from freshly toasted breadcrumbs seasoned with caramelized garlic, onion, sea salt and fennel. Dizzied but undaunted, Erin asked what I would do if I had been invited to her house and served processed meatloaf. Would I refuse her hospitality? “Of course not,” I clamored, “but in this moment we have a choice, and it’s small choices like these that add up to big consequences for our bodies, our economy and our shared ecology. I do not want to eat that.”

On the verge of tears, Erin gave in, and we made meatloaf my way, but not before I made her cry. In an effort to advocate for real foods I made my best friend cry. Shame on me! If this was living a food life to be proud of, where’s the joy in that?

Later that night, after a scrumptious meal and plenty of best friend banter about boys and Vermont vacas, business and Hollywood Oscar buzz, I got to thinking about shame and its role in shaping our society. A Google search lead me to a recent Thomas Friedman column in The New York Times, wherein he quotes Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures. Speaking to the problem of jihadists (not imitation meatloaf, mind you!) Seidman states, “When you want to foster more responsible behavior in people, you can’t just legislate more rules and regulations. You have to enlist and inspire people in a set of values. People need to be governed both from the outside, through compliance with rules, and from the inside, inspired by shared values. That is why shame is so important. When we call a banker ‘a fat cat’ for taking too big a bonus, we’re actually being inspirational leaders because we are telling them, ‘You are behaving beneath how a responsible human being should behave.’ We need to inspire the village to shame those who betray our common values.”

Powerful stuff. Seidman seems to be suggesting that we must shame our friends, and foes alike, into compliance. He might applaud my supermarket showdown as an example of how to use shame as a tool for cultural change. He might defend my choice to shame Erin into making breadcrumbs from scratch, believing that small acts like these can add up to a profound movement for progress that may not only be more effective than legislative food reform, but may prove the most persuasive tool at our disposal for initiating the sort of cultural changes that are necessary before a voting majority could ever find itself in a position to not only advocate but legislate progressive food policy. Shame as sugar! Turns out the cook’s best tool for sweetening up anything, even heritage breed roast chicken, may help the medicine go down as easily in Washington as it did in my local Gourmet Garage last week. Sweet Vidalia, garlic and baguette in hand, I made Erbear cry, but Seidman might argue that you can’t make meatloaf without cutting a few onions, and as any good cook knows, onion tears are an inevitable part of the feasting process.

Michelle Obama hints at this societal sweetening of American food policy when she talks about using her political capital to advocate against the childhood obesity epidemic that plagues this country. Planting a green garden on the White House lawn, inviting culinary students into the White House kitchen, feeding the homeless in Washington’s soup kitchens and talking about the importance of eating locally and sustainably raised real foods, could be but a start for this First Lady who has launched an anti-obesity initiative that aims to debunk the false options that parents and principals face when examining school lunch programs. Choosing between books or carrots is a reductive attitude that Mrs. Obama hopes to dismantle as she tries to do more to connect the dots between student nutrition an academic performance. As the most influential, can-do component of health and healthcare, The Chicago Sun-Times reported that diet may be the key to unlocking childhood obesity rates that threaten “one-third of U.S. children, with a much higher rate in African-American and Hispanic communities…and is also one of the biggest threats to the American economy.” To obtain an optimal education for America’s youth, I’m guessing Michelle Obama will need to shame communities and families into action before politicians will be shamed into following our lead.

Erin forgives me. She wasn’t the first person I love who I’ve offended on this journey to joy through my passion for food, and I’m sure she won’t be the last. As I reconsider the role that shame will play in my life as a blogger, chef, friend and FOOD Maven, it feels apropos that I might have to start weeding out my dates with a simple test to see who has the culinary chops to tackle my shame sugar! I’ll prepare a home cooked meal, set the coffee table and cuddle up next to him on my couch before quizzing him on the last time he ate at McDonald’s or bought a frozen dinner. If he answers, “Not since high school,” I’ll sit back and relax, settle into the evening, and once the wine has set in and dinner’s done, I’ll reward him with a sweet treat.

Get your mind out of the gutter. I meant chocolate, of course—Shame on you!

To read Part I of this story click here.

I’m dating again. And I’m struck by how quickly I was able to repair my heart after how badly it was broken some months ago. I wouldn’t have thought I could feel so open, so ready for love and lust, quite so soon, but I guess that’s a tribute to time’s ability to heal hearts and my own tendencies toward insisting on personal growth. I’m a doer. I’m also a quick study and a committed student, and I suppose I simply refused to be stuck in sorrow for any longer than was necessary to really feel my own pain, convince myself I deserve better, and get on with the process of seeking better. Better men, better career moves, and indeed, better menus.

Today, Mac is but a distant, bittersweet memory, and being single, a reminder that I enjoy a truly unadulterated freedom that most of my married friends and the 9 to 5’ers I know envy. I am quite literally responsible for no one but myself, by which I believe I have only to focus on contributing something to this world and protecting my own standards of decency, and my baby Blue, in the process. I’m unencumbered and unbound by anything but my constitutionally protected pursuit of joy. And for a FOOD Maven such as myself, finding joy means living a food life I can be proud of. Sans guilt, con triple crème, I’m committed to making valiant food choices.

This is an attitude I take with me, on dates, in the kitchen, and even, down supermarket aisles. And this is an attitude that can get me into trouble when I encounter an audience, man or friend or foe, who doesn’t share my particular pursuit for the joy and responsibility that comes with advocating for real foods. Even my best friend Erin and I have found ourselves down slippery supermarket slopes where questions of consumption and consequence are concerned.

The Dinner Belle offers us endless fodder for debate when it comes to making real choices about real foods and the very real recession budgets we are often working with. How many times have I begged for heritage bred, grain-fed birds only to be told by Erin that our budget cannot accommodate these more expensive, more delicious breeds, and instead, I’d have to settle for their organic eggs? I can make preverbal lemonade with these eggs—quail egg toasts, garlicky mayo, poached egg salads and bleu cheese soufflés, but sometimes, because I’m not willing to throw my consumer vote behind cage-bound Tyson fowl or processed Perdue poultry, it means we can’t serve chicken. Now where’s the joy in that?

In fact, there’s plenty of joy in choosing real foods and their resulting homegrown, comfort-chic recipes. They always taste better than the alternative and boast boatloads of pride that comes from engaging in inconspicuous consumption. Whole Foods C.E.O. John Mackey had it right when he told Nick Paumgarten in a recent New Yorker article that, “conscious capitalism” is in and of itself a progressive act that helps spread goodness. He continued, “business should have a higher purpose—that, just as doctors heal and teachers educate, business-people should be after something besides money.” For caterers, chefs, and Whole Foods C.E.O.’s that naturally means cooking and eating by example.

Mackey’s is not unlike the Alice Waters example, which insists that choosing good food remains in itself a progressive act that can lead to further progress. Nor is it very different from my own mantra that suggests, consumers have a choice, and those of us who are in a position to choose (i.e. have money and access to real foods) have an equal obligation to choose ethically—between real foods that make a substantial impact on global health or fast, processed, unnatural food products that are causing the slow death of so many among us.

It’s nothing more than supply and demand. Small changes and choices for progress can have big consequences. It’s only when a majority begins to act on those choices that something as small as buying organic eggs becomes as big as passing progressive legislation for food change and subsidizing small-scale farmers who grow the heritage breed birds that bring us joy. Once that happens, quality food products like free-range, grain-fed, organic chickens become more affordable, more available, and more accessible to all. But even these small acts for progress come up against giant stumbling blocks when we’re dealing with choices as personal as taste.

To be continued…

Photo Courtesy of The Daily Green

One afternoon last week, I ventured north to visit an old friend on the Upper West Side. The day was bright and beautiful, and from the 7th floor, it looked inviting. So, at her suggestion, we bundled up and headed for a walk along picturesque Riverside Park.

Now, I know that a few weeks ago I proclaimed the following facts: every New Yorker is either a dinosaur kale or a Meyer lemon; either you’re a big-coat-wearing winter-weather creature who grabs a pair of gloves and acts like the cold doesn’t matter, or you’re a tropical import that spends the whole season huddling around a space heater and dreaming of spring. And I proudly identified as the latter – robust, wintery kale.

To those facts, I would like to add a few more: devoid of skyscrapers or any shielding structures of the sort, I submit that the corner of 116^th Street and Broadway is actually the windiest street corner in Manhattan. Except for when you start walking down the hill towards the Hudson, and then it’s even windier. Oh, and on that particular afternoon last week, the temperature was eleven degrees, without wind-chill. With wind-chill, it was negative four degrees. Negative!

Now, kale or lemon, big puffy coat and fur-lined mittens or no big-puffy coat and fur-lined mittens, that is fucking cold. Not brisk, crisp or chilly. No sir. Cold. So cold that those gusts of wind don’t just hurt, they feel like they’ve got a personal vendetta against you, like that bitchy girl in seventh grade who just wanted to make you cry. So cold it feels mean. Which is why we made it about three teeth-chattering blocks before ditching her suggestion for my own: hightail it to the closest indoor market and head back to her place to cook something deliciously hardy and soul-warming.

Photo Courtesy of Squidoo

Five minutes later, we were warmly inside her local Garden of Eden. As the culinista between the two of us, I was given responsibility for picking a menu, while she warmed herself by the rotisserie chicken counter. Now, just because you’re in a grocery store, the rules and benefits of seasonality still apply, but at a store, unlike a farmers’ market, the shelves are likely stocked with lemons from Florida and tomatoes from…outer space (or wherever it is that January tomatoes actually come from). In these recession times, a great rule of thumb for spotting seasonal produce is price. Fruit and vegetables are cheaper when they’re in season than when they’re not. And, of course, they taste better too! However, I have to admit, that in a month this cold, it’s always hard to imagine what could possibly be in season. My friend and I could barely make it three blocks (wrapped in layers and layers of fleece and fur). What poor little vegetable could actually grow in these conditions? The answer of course, is that nothing grows on a winter farm in the northeast unless it’s hiding safely underground.

That’s right, root vegetables: beets and turnips and carrots and potatoes galore. The big bruisers of the vegetable world who hardly notice it’s freezing, since they’re hiding deep down in the soil. And, not only are these bad boys wonderfully in season right about now, they’re also the perfect winter food, a great way to make the hot, hardy dishes you want to be eating when it’s this cold outside. I filled a basket, pulled my friend away from the warm rotisserie stand (nabbing a roast chicken for good measure) and then ran home to cook up a small seasonal feast of carrot and celery root puree, truffle smashed potatoes with bourbon braised mushroom caps, salt and pepper roast beets finished with goat cheese, lemon, and watercress, and tender ready-to-eat roast chicken.

As a Buffalo gal, I’ll always love winter, but sometimes, it’s best to stay rooted and enjoy the fruits of the season behind a big-picture window with a view.

For the past four years in a row, my Man and I have been ringing in our “anniversary” at Po. No we’re not married (yet!), but we are staunch sentimentalists and love celebrating the anniversary of our first date, and if you must know, our very first kiss, which we shared over dim candlelight and a large order of French fries and toffee bread pudding, compliments of Schiller’s Liquor Bar. Kimberly was there too (acting as my preferred wing-woman). The date was 11.11.05.

The following year, in search of the ideal romantic spot to commemorate that wonderfully dizzy evening, we stumbled across Po, a true gem of an Italian bistro in the heart of the West Village. Five years later, we still go out of our way to eat there on 11.11 every year without fail. In the weeks leading up to my favorite date, I dream about the five-course tasting menu, beginning with Chef Lee McGrath’s spectacular white bean bruschetta and fresh-baked bread dipped in the most sublime olive oil these lips have ever tasted. I find myself salivating over the pumpkin stuffed tortolloni drenched in brown butter (an inspiration for Chef Belle’s ravioli recipe) and the perfectly smooth yet spicy Amarone della Valpolicella poured and paired to order.

Since 11.11 always falls in the middle of autumn, my guy and I have come to expect a very recognizable tasting menu year after year. We start with an amuse bouche that leaves our mouths eager for more, and just then (perfectly timed), our salads are served. Though the salads are the one course that tends to change from year to year, whether the dish boasts beets or endive, figs or pear, the produce is always seasonal and seasoned to perfection. After salad comes the first of two pasta courses, and then the Italian in me really begins to get excited. The pumpkin tortolloni is always our favorite, though I certainly can’t forget to give a shout-out to the beefy and hearty gnocchi bolognese. Forget feeling full at that point, because the main course it just about to be served: succulent guinea hen with a sweet scallion and orzo hash. Once we’ve had our fill of savory bites, the seasoned waiter (almost always the same kindly gent from the previous year!) brings two different desserts for us to taste: one dark, rich and chocolate, the other a lighter, fluffier panna cotta type dish. And as we finish off the last of our well-balanced bottle of red, we settle in to enjoy the cheese course, served as the very last dish, in true Italian style.

You see, aside from the ambiance, impeccable service, and more than reasonable price points ($52/pp for a five course Chef’s tasting menu!)…the beauty of Po, to me, is it’s familiarity. While I like to consider myself adventurous in some walks of life, I am also very much a creature of habit. Familiar tastes offer me comfort and are washed down with a heavy dose of nostalgia, as I am literally transported to the last time I tasted that very same dish. Every time I bite into that hen, buttery, moist and cooked to perfection, I think back to our first anniversary, and how new and wonderful a discovery it was. It’s kind of like my relationship. As exciting, fresh and unexpected as that first “taste” seemed some four years ago, nothing can beat the flavor of something familiar that has beautifully marinated over time; the taste of something I have truly come to fall in love with.

It’s not just a new year; it’s a new decade. A new start. A chance for a fresh proclamation. And with all this “new” comes the inevitable reflections of old…

Snotty McSnobster held his annual holiday hijinks soiree right before I skipped town for Buff last month. Celest was my +1. In attendance at the party were James Beard award winning chefs, cookbook authors, restaurant critics, PR guys, restaurant managers, bloggers, food advocates, wine distributors, master sommeliers, bartenders, foodies, a cardiologist (check out the menu below and you’ll understand why) and one unassuming, cookie-carrying FOOD Maven. Moi.

On the menu was a host of imported holiday treats: a master tin of Spanish Osetra caviar, blinis made to order, duck rillette, baked raclette, foie gras laced charcuterie, a cheese plate laden with freshly shaved black truffle vacherin mont d’or, and my very own recipe for bacon-chocolate-oatmeal cookies.

After a couple stints at the stove flipping blinis, I returned to find Celest three champagne coupes deep in conversation with the former Feedbag aficionado and self-titled “Mr. Bacon”, Josh Ozersky. I say former, because Josh just announced his intention to walk away from The Feedbag in pursuit of a new writing gig and webseries tied to Eater co-founder, Ben Leventhal. If you follow these foodie trailblazers this news is surely notable, but it’s essentially beside the point.

The point is that when I stepped out of the kitchen and back into the fray of Snotty’s foretold fête, I found Celest fielding a question from Josh about my bacon cookies. We all got to talking, and I got to exclaiming the virtues of the new butcher shop in Chelsea Markets, Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, which serves up animal proteins from small-scale, sustainable farms, including the goddamn best bacon I’ve ever tasted (smoked in-house, of course). More to the point, it was only upon reflection that I realized in that perfect moment, surrounded by friends and food luminaries left and right, I was living the food life I set out to create for myself.

Mission accomplished. Or so I thought.

Later that night I got to thinking about the food personalities in that room and what it means that I now get to stand there among them. I wondered if I’ve earned my place beside them. I thought about past attempts at failed recipes and those critics who question my legitimacy as a chef. I thought even harder about my adventures in catering and squeaking out a high-end business in the midst of a lowly recession. I reminisced about my past life as a writing professor in the ghetto and the chocolate-peanut butter brownies I used to bake to seduce attendance, wondering what my students would think of me now that I make my money cooking food for rich people. I questioned whether I’m doing enough to advocate and celebrate real foods. I asked myself, “Am I doing it right?”

In a few days time I’d be home, sipping this year’s Christmas cocktail with the fam, slinging another type of pancake over the stove, and cherishing every moment I get to cook for pleasure rather than profit. I’d then take off for Vermont with the self-assigned duty to prepare feasts of biblical proportions for new friends I hope to grow old with. Returning to New York, I’d cook for a 9/11 charity auction and try my hand at a Singaporean luncheon for investment bankers with a penchant for the exotic. Along the way, I’d write about food, I’d shop for food, I’d photograph food, I’d talk about food, and surely, I’d eat food aplenty. There’s no shortage of food adventures or misadventures in my life, rather, there are but moments in which I recognize the joy their journey brings.

Schooling Mr. Bacon on the new butcher in town was one such moment. Realizing I deserve to be there, another. Doing it “right” is almost beside point. Doing it at all means welcoming a new decade with open arms and a hungry spirit. It means my mission is ongoing but that now is where I need to be. It definitely means doing it with a cinnamon-straw Hot Toddy in hand!

The Hot Toddy

(serves as many as you pour)

• 2 parts Bourbon

• 1 part Maple Syrup

• 2 Lemon Slices

• 5-6 Whole Cloves

• ¼ cup boiling Hot Water or Hot Tea

• 1 Cinnamon Stick

Pour bourbon, maple syrup, and the juice of 1 lemon slice in a 6-ounce brandy snifter. Top off your mixture with hot water or tea (I recommend orange spice or vanilla spice teas) and stir until the syrup is dissolved. Stick the cloves inside the remaining lemon wedge, and place the clove-spiked wedge in the glass along with a cinnamon stick “straw” for sipping. Drink it Up!

Uncle Tony is not my real uncle. He’s my cousins’ great uncle, but we celebrate Christmas Eve together as one big not quite Italian-American family every year in his brother’s (my cousins’ grandfather’s) basement. Phew, got that? It’s quite a mouthful.

Tony’s pushing 90, but by all appearances he is a classic bull, or better yet, Italian Stallion, in a china shop. You don’t mess with Tony G. The man still rises every morning at 5:30 AM and dresses in a suit and tie to take off for the law office that bears his name; he gets a kick out of locking up bad guys and an even bigger kick bragging about it. This is why both he and I were shocked and awed when this past Christmas Eve I slapped Tony’s hand, demanding that he, “Put down that cookie!”

I was a naughty little culinary elf last December upon being a gifted a couple ounces of the greatest, greenest homegrown pot butter on the planet. Before heading over to the Buffalo basement I’ve come to equate with the sort of nostalgic holiday cheer reserved for Bing Crosby Christmas albums and eggnog that comes straight from the carton into my frosted (read: freezer burned) Sabre’s hockey mug, I whipped up a batch of “herb” infused Hello Dollies and slipped them onto my Mamma’s Christmas cookie tray.

My thinking? No one ever eats the Hello Dollies. Of course, I had forgotten about The Stallion’s appetite for all things chocolate. Such a sickly sweet, indulgent combo of condensed milk, chocolate chips and coconut flakes never there was, and hitherto on Christmases past, never had been devoured. After stuffing oneself silly with Grandma G’s annual menu of Buffalo chicken wing dip and hand-rolled, oven-baked manicotti, there’s no room left for cookies. This is an unbutton or un-belt your pants kinda meal. God help us! It’s delicious, but not so nutritious.

The plan was to treat my cousins to an early, edible Christmas pressie and “stone” ourselves for a night of family sing-alongs. Uncle Tony’s plan to cap the evening with a Hello Dolly and sit at the player piano miming Bing’s greatest hits for an audience for near-def elderly and the infants squirming in their arms, could’ve got a hell of a lot funnier had I let him indulge. As I write this, I still giggle at the prospect of a potted Uncle Tony settling in to a not so silent night back at the old folks home, struck with an insatiable case of the munchies. Memorable a scene as this may have seemed, my conscience couldn’t let it happen. Uncle Tony has a big heart, and I couldn’t risk endangering it. So slap his hand I did, and I got a taste of his big mouth in return.

“Now what’s got into you, missy? Goddamn kids these days don’t have no manners. When I was your age…”

Later that night, donning my white mink and red Santa hat in the back seat of my cousin’s car, we recounted the story while passing the pipe and reimagining all the trouble a stoned Tony G. could have gotten himself into. It wasn’t exactly a Hallmark Christmas scene, but hey, I’m a Cashew who’s never claimed to be a saint, though that night I did save Uncle Tony from hopped-up holidaze hijinks.

So you tell me. Was saving Uncle Tony naughty or nice? Should I have expected coal in my stocking or presents under the tree the next morning?

I’m happy to report that when I eventually woke up on Christmas day, I was treated to a six-pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Santa had left with my name on it…the perfect hangover cure, or penance, depending upon your persuasion.

Click on the video screen above to watch the final webisode in a series documenting The Dinner Belle’s A Feast Fit for a Queen soiree. In this webisode, we take you behind the scenes of Queen Latifah’s lavish fragrance launch event to give you a sneak peek of life in our catering kitchen. If you missed the first three video webisodes in this series, click here to watch Erin and I traipse around the Union Square Greenmarket, here to catch a glimpse of us returning to the prep kitchen with our market treasure in tow, or here to listen to us gossip about past events, current heartbreak and our furry foodie friends. Eat it Up!