Exciting stuff! Before moving to Boston I shot an online commercial for a copper-bottom cookware company called Anolon. Hard at work at a studio loft space in Brooklyn, we transformed our Hasidic digs into a California kitchen replete with all the trappings of a romantic, organic, date night dinner for two. On the menu was a wilted spinach salad with a mustardy pancetta vinaigrette and citrus and fennel stuffed whole fish. Perfect as a warming winter recipe after that blanket of snow covered the Northeast last weekend, you can see my salad recipe by watching the video above; just don’t expect an Oscar-winning performance…my face flashes onto the screen for all of one fleeting second. Roll the tape and Eat it Up!

At the start of a new year, food critics far and wide simply cannot resist the urge to forecast our foodie futures. I count myself among the guilty. I’ve been asked to compile my predictions for this year’s top 12 culinary trends for Spice magazine, and I wanted to give you a sneak peek. Though you’ll have to wait for the article to publish before reading every last word, here’s a taste of what I foretell…

1) Going Green: The trend toward greener eating hasn’t died down one bit. In fact, it’s making even more of a splash with a push toward ultra local cuisine that is farmed, fished and foraged for within mere miles of being plated.

2) Comfort Food: Some are calling 2012 the year of the pretzel or meatballs or cake pops or fried chicken or grilled cheese. I’m predicting a year filled with local comfort foods of every stripe, in every corner of the globe.

3) Fast Casual: The economic downturn has begotten a new trend in fast casual dining. In an age when restaurants are struggling to stay afloat, fast food chains boasting big business have lured big names into the trade.

4) Moveable Feasts: A number of popular food trucks plan to open brick-and-mortar restaurants offering the same high-quality, low-cost street food in a dining room setting.

5) Barrel Aged: Have you ever tried brown gin? You very well may in 2012. Barrel-aged bourbon, Old Tom gin, small-batch bitters, entire cocktail concoctions like the negroni, and fortified wines like amaro and vermouth, are just some of the unsuspecting libations being aged in oak barrels for imbibing.

6) French Desserts: Cupcakes are out (finally) and French pastries are in (decidedly).

7) Underground Supper Clubs: Anywhere from $50-$150 a person, underground supper clubs prove there’s nothing sexier than a secret.

8) Size Matters: Portions are shrinking on plates across the country from $4 Happy Meals to $400 dinners. Whether thrift or diet is to blame the belt-tightening results are essentially the same.

9) Healing Potables: Herbal teas, mineral-infused waters, bottled aloe and cucumber drinks, acai protein shakes, pomegranate juices and fermented probiotics like kombucha will be touted as the next surefire superfoods to help control weight gain, fight disease and live longer.

10) Small Plates, Global Cuisines: Tapas bars no longer belong solely to the terrain of the Spanish. These days, restaurants and wine bars specializing in small plates come paired with every cuisine under the sun.

11) Digital Dining: Smart phones and tablets have introduced us to new ways of finding our favorite foods, and their tech-happy momentum shows no signs of slowing down.

12) Buzz Foods: These are the foods everyone’s buzzing about in kitchens across the country: kale, ghost peppers, yuzu, uni, handmade ricotta and burrata cheese, tamarind, new ways of preparing plain-old potatoes and naturally gluten-free coconut oil.

Everyone has their own traditional New Year’s foods. Some swear by black eyed peas, but as a devout Yankee, I never quite got the hang of them (though heaven knows we could all use a bit of luck at the start of a new year). Goose is ever-popular; if we’re going to get symbolic, I’d assume that the fat would represent a bounteous year ahead. Grapes, pork, collards, cod—none of them ever graced my table in any intentional way (except for the grapes present in champagne), but growing up the daughter of an Athenian always meant a heavy round of fragrant New Year’s bread on the table in the morning.

The making of Vasilopita, or Saint Basil’s Bread, is a Greek Orthodox tradition dating back centuries. In the center of a large, sweet loaf, a single coin is baked; the finder of the coin is said to have good luck throughout the coming year. The roots of the story are sweet; Saint Basil, having saved his people from oppressive taxation, was said to have returned their money to them by baking it into bread. Given the recent fiasco in the Greek economy, not to mention the mess here in Washington, I think the story is particularly apropos this season (though I tend to prefer that my refund checks come via direct deposit).

Vasilopita isn’t the only treat to include a surprise in the center—it’s a cross-cultural tradition that spans everything from King Cake to Swedish rice pudding, not to mention Cracker Jacks and cereal boxes. Our collective unconscious seems to relish a hidden good luck charm. This year I’ve resurrected, and in some cases, reinvented many of the traditions of my childhood, from recipes to holiday decorations. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, perhaps it’s finally feeling as though New York is home, perhaps it’s the knowledge that I’ll be forming a family of my own next year, but the fact of the matter was that I needed a good recipe for Vasilopita, and quickly. Which turned out to be no easy feat—as with any memory-laden holiday recipe, the proper way to make Vasilopita turns out to be as contentious as tax law. There are those who treat it like a coffee cake, leaving out the yeast and studding the dough with almonds; others flavor the yeasted dough heavily with orange zest (these folks think, of course, that leaving out the yeast is a complete sacrilege). I chose to create my own recipe, taking cinnamon from one, mahlepi from another, and creating my own recipe to tweak in the coming years.

I have, in fact, tried to make Vasilopita before, as well as its close cousin, Tsoureki (an Easter bread), but was stumped by some of its more traditional and obscure ingredients. Many recipes for Greek sweets contain both mahlepi (or mahlab) and mastika (mastic), neither of which is commonly sold at C-Town—or at most gourmet grocers, for that matter. I did finally turn up mastic at Sahadi’s on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, on a bottom shelf, but elected to pass on it—mastic is an acquired taste that I frankly have not yet acquired. The resin of a small tree, produced almost entirely on the island of Chios, mastic is used extensively in the eastern Mediterranean in sweets, gum and as a food stabilizer, and has a strong and flowery flavor nearly impossible to relate to any other. Mahlepi, on the other hand, is the small pit of a sour cherry, with a bitter almond taste (one reason why so many recipes for vasilopita include almonds, with or without mahlepi). It’s this spice that stumped me almost for good; though I combed through grocers in New York for weeks, I couldn’t find it anywhere.

In the spring of last year I paid a long-overdue visit to relatives in Greece, this time toting my boyfriend, now fiancé, with me. We spent a week in Athens, then a week in Rhodes, a large island in the Dodecanese, close to the Turkish mainland. We ate our way heartily through both locations, but it was in Athens that we truly cut loose, shopping and browsing in the Athens meat and fish markets and the spice market on Evripidou Street. It was on Evripidou that I finally found mahlepi, of course (along with enormous cinnamon sticks, mountain tea, wildflower honey, tin wine jugs and bars of handmade olive oil soap to give as gifts). Nothing in Greece is ever done halfway, particularly when it comes to food, and by the time we left, my suitcase was hurting nearly as much as my very full stomach.

Now I know that spices are volatile, that keeping them around for a year and a half isn’t the best-case scenario, but I kept my mahlepi whole in the back of a cupboard and only ground it up before baking the vasilopita this year. True, I could probably have found a new batch in Astoria, but I come from a long line of cooks who kept their oregano near the stove in a clear container for years, and I’m not about to break their habits of frugality now. Despite the potential loss of complexity in one of its component parts, my Vasilopita was everything I’d remembered it to be—dense from the butter and eggs, floral from the spice and the almonds, and somewhat addictive (from the gambling chance of finding the hidden coin, of course). I won’t tell who came up the lucky winner this year, but as happens every January, the anticipation of a new year is enough to make me feel lucky, coin or no coin. I have a tremendous amount to look forward to in the next 12 months, and ever so much cooking to do.

Tis the season for baking cookies, flipping potato pancakes, mixing champagne cocktails and simmering pine potpourri!?!? Yep, you read that right…pine potpourri. This year Mr. Mix and I put up our very first Christmas tree; living in New York City these last 15 years, I didn’t ever have room for a full-fledged tree. But the many benefits of moving to Boston include space for an 8-foot tall tannenbaum with a 1950′s retro star on top. Even though we decorated our home to the hilt this holiday, I still found myself marinating a batch of pine potpourri to spread aromatic wafts of the classic Christmas tree scent all throughout our home. If you’re without a tree, hosting a holiday party or just plain in love with pine, may I suggest whipping up a simmering pot of potpourri that will perfume your home with the fragrance of a Fraser Fir.

Just collect and cut up a few branches of pine needles (as many as will fit in your pot). If you have a pine tree, wreath or garland handy, you can simply snip a few branches from the backside. When I was tree-poor in NYC, I would go to a curbside dealer trading in trees and ask for a few derelict branches for free. To your pot of branches, add any or as many of the following: orange peels, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, cinnamon sticks, cranberries and juniper berries. Fill the pot of pine and spices 3/4 full of water and set uncovered over a low flame to simmer. I leave my pot under the heat all the live-long day, give it a stir each time I enter the kitchen, and add more water whenever the level starts getting low. I turn off and cover the pot overnight, then fire it up again in the morning with the peels from my breakfast clementines, a few new snips of needles, and a sprinkling of fresh spices to keep it fragrant. This pot just keeps going and going until it’s time to retire my tree.

Pine potpourri has become as much a part of my Christmas traditions as player pianos and homemade manicotti at Tony G’s, where the sounds, tastes and scents of the holidays remind me to savor the flavor of the season. Happy Holidays, Food Mavens. Eat ‘em Up!

Seafood City from Kimberly Belle on Vimeo.

I’m back! On the blog and on Yelp, and I have new Boston-based stories, reviews and star ratings to share with all y’all. Watch my latest video message above to get the full scoop on my two most-favored eateries in the North End. Boston’s Little Italy is cuter than New York’s, looks like the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome and tastes like seafood. Yep, that’s right; red sauce joints may populate the North End’s restaurant scene, but it’s shrimp, scallops, oysters, clams and grilled whole fish a la plancha that are the real stars. Press play to find out where to eat (and where not to eat), or read it here and Eat it Up!

Hello, readers! I’m happy to finally introduce myself to you, though I’ve been here for some time. For the last two years I’ve worked beside Kimberly, and today marks my debut as a guest blogger in my own right. I’m looking forward to writing about my life with food and what interest me—as a home cook and culinary nerd, I’m particularly interested in local foods and traditional recipes, obscure ingredients and the history of certain dishes. I’m a Brooklyn girl who loves barbecue but wouldn’t mind a craft cocktail on the side—which pretty much sums up my attitude towards food. From piranha to pimento cheese, I’ll eat almost anything you put in front of me, as long as it’s made from scratch. —Annabelle

I have few memories of my mother making dessert. She always cooked our meals from scratch, but she had her quirks: Not believing in salt was one; not believing in recipes was another. Substitution was an integral part of the preparation of any dish (applesauce and yogurt were frequently inserted in place of other ingredients deemed to be of questionable nutrition). A late phase involved showering everything with garam masala. Dessert, since it added nothing to my diet except calories (and couldn’t be doctored with wheat germ), was generally spurned.

Every year for my birthday I requested the same recipe: a single-layer chocolate cake dryly studded with Maraschino cherries and topped with (unsweetened) whipped cream, a dessert I’d found could be depended upon to emerge from the oven relatively unscathed. There was also a trifle that came out at Christmas: dense layers of store-bought pound cake, Bird’s custard and canned fruit salad in a crystal dish, liberally doused with sherry, a combination that still brings me to my knees. Both were formal, special-occasion desserts. During the other 363 days of the year, the only dessert I can remember was one that even as a child I was not sure that my mother had not come up with herself, out of some vague combination of leftover bits and pieces in the cupboard. In a suburban land of giant chocolate chip cookie cakes and Carvel ice cream, no one else I knew ever ate it, but Indian Pudding was–aside from that chocolate cake–the best thing that came out of my mother’s kitchen.

If I was skeptical about its provenance, I certainly didn’t ask my mother any questions. Since then I’ve learned that Indian Pudding is as American as apple pie, or perhaps more accurately, as American as my mother, whose ancestors first came to this country as colonists in the early 17th century. Though based on the traditional English Hasty Pudding, its main ingredients, cornmeal and molasses, are wholly New World. Its roots are not Native American at all; “Indian meal” was simply the colloquial name for cornmeal. The pudding grew popular during the 18th century as housewives recreated Hasty Pudding from what was available to them. Designed to cook or boil slowly in a hearth for long periods of time, it fell out of favor in the early part of the last century and is now mainly thought of as a regional New England holiday dessert. Now that Kimberly has moved to Massachusetts (officially the Boston Cream Pie state), she’s become reacquainted with Indian Pudding as well. A carefully tweaked recipe has been served for years at Durgin-Park—an old, storied Boston surf & turf restaurant, where Kimberly ordered it for dessert after Mr. Mix’s father urged them to visit and try the traditional New England menu.

I’ve always been fascinated by historic recipes, those that due to changing tastes, cooking methods or the simple passage of time have been all but erased from our collective culinary repertoire. A few weeks ago I had lunch at the America Eats Tavern in Washington, DC—a pop-up restaurant created by chef José Andrés and the National Archives in honor of the latter’s current special exhibit. “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?” explores the effect of the US government on our national diet, from research to regulation. Andrés is serving a traditional menu (fried chicken and biscuits, johnnycakes and phosphates) with a modern twist, and with a special emphasis on oysters, formerly more prevalent in American cuisine. When New York harbor’s oyster beds were still booming in the 19th century, Andrés savory oyster ice cream, an apparent favorite of Mark Twain, might not have seemed so bizarre. Indian pudding doesn’t feature, but maple syrup candy, hardened on snow, does; another simple treat that I always associate fondly with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House in the Big Woods.

Despite my love of Indian Pudding, I had never made it myself until this fall, when I found myself the recipient of 15 pounds of apples. The trouble with going apple-picking is that you end up with all those apples; the remedy for this trouble is to gift them to unsuspecting friends. Browsing the index of the 1946 edition of the Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book, I came upon a recipe for Indian Pudding with baked apples, which I whipped up in just under four hours (instant Jell-O this is not.) But a good pudding is worth the wait, and there isn’t much to the dish: scalded milk, thickened cornmeal, ginger, some molasses and sometimes brown sugar. It’s what happens in the oven that’s magical, the conversion of this mixture into a deep, rich, caramelized gruel that, when served hot with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream, tastes to me like distilled autumn leaves. Recipes can vary quite a bit, and though I make my pudding without eggs, Durgin-Park’s recipe is equally delicious (note that theirs takes 5-7 hours to bake!)

Of course, my Puritan forebears didn’t eat their pudding with ice cream, and even heavy cream would have been a luxury in those early days. Indian pudding was often served for breakfast, which I took as license to have my own leftovers cold with coffee the next day. Though I apparently missed National Indian Pudding Day on November 13th, and neglected to serve the homely brown mush for my Thanksgiving guests, I did bake a whole pot for myself after they left. To me, there is no more comforting food at this time of year. My mother had this one right, and she didn’t substitute a thing.

I never thought I’d say it. I thought I’d rue the day. It surprises no one more than me, but it is true. I do not miss New York City.

It’s been four months since I moved, and no, I haven’t really stayed away. I’ve been back to NYC for weeks at a time each and every month to cater and cavort with my Tribe. I miss my friends, and I really miss the food, but each time I get back on that bus to Boston, I’m happy to be headed… home?

Home is as much a concept as a construct; as malleable as clay but made from bricks and mortar, my home seems always to follow my heart. My heart followed me to Boston and the historic townhouse Mr. Mix and I have snuggly settled into over these past four months since last I wrote. On a tiny little block in a podunk little neighborhood lit by gaslight and featuring no more than five mediocre restaurants, Charlestown is where this Food Maven has come to hang her hat; if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime these last four months. Splitting my time between New York and New England, I somehow managed to squeeze in a father-daughter trip to the Arizona desert, spent a week in wine country where we caught the crush at the very instant the grapes gave way to raisins, toasted Thanksgiving round Mr. Mix’s family table in Chicago, hosted my Mamma and friends who road-tripped it to Charlestown to help warm our home, published my very first magazine article, and celebrated my 4-year anniversary as a blogging chef. Oh, and did I mention my bestie got engaged!

Somewhere in there I made time to take a breath, stop and think about all I’ve learned since moving. After 15 years in New York City, it was harder to leave and easier to leave behind than I had ever imagined it could be. I don’t love Boston, but I love my man—and like the non-Romney republicans (and let me be crystal clear here…this is surely the only quality we share), I’m learning to appreciate what there is to love about non-New York.

New York City may house my hunger and the best restaurants the world over, but my heart now calls Boston home.

10 Things I’ve learned about life since moving to Boston

1) I’m not as scared of the suburbs as I thought. Don’t get me wrong, I still live in a city and I’m not ready to be desperate or a housewife, but…

2) I’m an even bigger food snob than I thought, and the Boston restaurant scene leaves me aching for my favorite New York City late-night haunts.

3) My kitchen makes it all okay—even after another mediocre meal, I can always come home and cook. Sneak a photo peek of my garden kitchen and cookbook collection here.

4) Quiet is calming, and without the constant rush of Manhattan’s mania, I have more time to refocus, revitalize, rejoice.

5) My appetite is a moveable feast, and watching the season’s change in New England gives me renewed ambition to eat as seasonally, locally and organically as possible.

6) Fame follows fortune. As soon as I stopped blogging I had the great fortune of being featured on two other blogs known for their “wicked smart” stories. Check me out on Epicurious and Patrick McMullen.

7) Nature nourishes, and all the sailing, kayaking, hiking, biking, horseback riding, corn maize traipsing and pumpkin picking in and around Boston has inspired me to learn how to ski come snowfall.

8) Hosting makes me happy. I always suspected, but never really knew how much I’d love to fill my house with friends, family and feasts.

9) MBA’s are no joke and Mr. Mix is killing it—but it’s not easy (on either of us). Remember exams? All-nighters? Presentations? Grades!

10) I miss blogging. It’s taken me awhile to put the proverbial pen to paper, but now that I am back you can expect new posts on this page each and every week.

It’s no secret, as past posts will attest, autumn is my favorite season. The changing leaves and abundance of apples at the Union Square Farmers’ Market make me yearn for trips home to Connecticut to bake pies with my Mother, where we trade in our chilled chardonnay for spicier cabernets. Not only are autumnal foods among my most beloved, but fall is when I first fell in love, so how could I not blush each and every time green trees turn crisp and crimson? My Man and I had our very first date on 11/11/05, and have celebrated our anniversary in style for the past six years, always with a delicious tasting menu from our cozy West Village favorite—Po, Mario Batali’s Greenwich Village gem.

This year I had a feeling something special was in store, as the actual date of our 6^th Anniversary was falling on 11/11/11. Instead of celebrating in the city, we opted for an out-of-town adventure, and My Man went out of his way to make it a surprise. Knowing virtually nothing about where we were headed, on 11/11/11 I was instructed to meet at Grand Central for a train ride out to our first destination. As we cracked open some icy cold beers (always a perk on Metro North), I immediately turned to him with a smirk, thinking I had figured out the surprise. He was taking me to Blue Hill Stone Barns! Wasn’t it obvious by the Tarrytown train ticket? But once we had landed in this quaint Westchester town, a cab driver drove us past Stone Barns and further up a windy road, upon which it was made clear that we were headed somewhere even more magical.

As we approached the metal gates, I saw before me a glorious castle with stonewalls and robust Medieval charm. It felt like he had swept me all the way back to Europe to the tiny town of San Gimignano we loved so much in Tuscany. We had arrived—not in Italy, but at The Castle on Hudson. I had never heard of this opulent palace, but was wowed on every level: our antique-filled guest room, the sprawling country grounds, and the 5-star dining experience at their in-house restaurant Equis. Everything just oozed romance.

As if the night could not get any better, after our 5-course tasting menu and the perfect bottle of Sonoma zinfandel, My Man revealed to me in the dim glow of candlelight, that we were leaving on an early flight the very next morning for wine country. That’s right! We were headed for five glorious days and nights in Napa. While I’ll leave some of the details private (a lady never tells all!), I can ecstatically exclaim that by the time we got on that plane the next morning, I was staring down at the most beautiful diamond ring I have ever laid eyes on, and I was holding the hand of my newly minted fiancée! Yup, I’m engaged.

And I must admit, this proposal and engagement-moon could not have come at a better time. Kimberly and I were running on empty after expediting some of our largest scale Dinner Belle events to date. October had us quietly working on a few intimate parties, including a film screening at the Gershwin Hotel and a private 30^th Birthday party in a chic Soho loft. I also made it up to Beantown to visit Kimberly and Mr. Mix with his besties in tow. We had a blast exploring their new digs (and my first ever corn maze!), but the real headline story came in November, when we prepared 2,000 lunches over the course of just six days!

First up, we catered The Future of Web Design Conference for 1,000 hungry techies over the course of a 2-day event held at New World Stages. Attendees from all over the globe gathered to take a sneak peak at the latest web technology and were treated to bagged lunches featuring sandwiches such as Roast Beef with Caramelized Onions on a pretzel bun garnished with horseradish crème fraiche, and homemade Tuna Salad & Swiss with crisp red leaf lettuce on Zabar’s hearty rye bread. Side dishes included Autumnal Fruit & Nut Salad, House-Popped Kettle Corn, Chocolate Goddess Brownies and Red Velvet Whoopee Pies for dessert. While our client was thrilled with our level of service, I have to say, whipping out those lunches brought back some intense memories of our first ever event at Topshop some 7,000 cookies later.

After the conference wrapped, we went into prep for our new high-profile media client—CBS Interactive, who opened a holiday pop-up shop in Soho and needed an assortment of gourmet lunchboxes for their Adobe Photo Walk events and Mommy Tech panels. Filled with Green Goddess Wraps and Buttermilk Biscuit BLT’s, along with Truffle-Infused Kettle Corn, miniature Mediterranean Charcuterie boxes, and Chocolate Chubbies for dessert, the boxes proved a tasty and creative complement to the modern aesthetic of the pop-up space.

Looking ahead to December, The Dinne Belles will be ringing as we cater a variety of corporate and private soirees that will bring Kimberly back to New York. Our kitchens will be bustling as we gear up for the grand opening of Journelle’s 3^rd NYC boutique on the Upper East Side, a huge office bash for a midtown marketing firm and merrymaking with a secret celebrity fashionista in a Soho shop. We’ll of course make room for some down time to celebrate my birthday and host holiday parties with our Tribe, which always brings back fond memories of the Friends Thanksgiving feasts Kimberly used to host in her West Village apartment before she traded in her Metro Card for a Massachusetts address.

Speaking of Turkey Time, having just returned from a wonderful and rustic Missouri holiday, I realize just how much I have to be grateful for: a wonderful family and a soon-to-be set of in-laws who I simply adore; a quirky Brooklyn pad I get to share with my love and our new, feisty feline—Wellington; all my dear friends, especially my bestie Belle and the many blessings The Dinner Belle has brought us both; but truth be told, I am most grateful that this Event Coordinator finally gets to plan herself the wedding bash of her dreams!

Spill The Beans from Kimberly Belle on Vimeo.

It’s not just string beans that are spilling over onto menus this season; I’m bursting at the seams with news of my own. As the August sun starts to sizzle and the summer harvest begins to bloom, it’s time for me to come clean and spill the beans…I’m moving! To Boston (sort of). Mr. Mixologist is relocating to do an MBA in Beantown, and I’m going with him. I’ll be back and back and forth to my West Village pad each and every month to cook, cater and cavort with My Tribe, but my man and I have just rented a three-story townhouse with a true chef’s kitchen (!) in Charlestown, and the prospect of living together leaves me as happy as a Cherrystone clam. It’s business as usual for The Dinner Belle as we gear up for our busiest fall season yet, and I gear up for the monthly commute back and forth to my beloved Big Apple. In the meantime, I must take a little time away from blogging so I can settle in to my new Boston digs. I’m gonna a miss writing, eating and living in NYC, but I’ll be back…and I promise to tell you all about my new food life when I return. Till then, stay in touch with me on Yelp, Twitter and Facebook, where I’ll track my every Food Maven move so you can Eat it Up!

Well friends, there’s no doubt it’s been a hot summer so far. If you’re like me, you’ve been running up your Con Edison bill, doubling your daily iced coffee quota, and finding any excuse in the book to get the hell out of Brooklyn and onto the beach! It’s usually right around this time of year that I take off for a week to join my family in Spring Lake for 7 days of nothing but sunbathing, sublime wine, and divine seafood dinners, but alas, with everyone’s schedules so difficult to coordinate (and the debt from our Germany trip still to pay off!) we decided to nix the vaca and keep it local this year. Thankfully, The Dinner Belle booked an event in the Hamptons a few weeks ago that brought me to the beach, and I’m heading to The Cape for a wedding in late August…there’s hope for me still. In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for gazing at the East River from Brooklyn Bridge Park and eating Blue Marble ice cream; the tough life of a city gal!

Before Kimberly and I packed our bags, our chef’s knives, and our men and set forth on our Hamptons Holiday, The Dinner Belle was capping off our busiest spring season ever! Launch Parties were the hot ticket on the catering lineup in May, as we worked the openings for several of our beloved retail clients’ new summer lines. Downtown at Topshop, we provided an elegant breakfast buffet to celebrate the launch of their new “Secret Store” and treated guests of the press to fresh squeezed juices, miniature quiche and over-sized muffins. Over at Sky West in Chelsea, we catered the launch of Forever 21’s new Summer Fashion Line, featuring what else but fabulous food complimenting the funky threads. From Parisian macaroons to “The Forever French 21” specialty champagne cocktail, guests marveled at both the haute duds and the hot dishes as they partied the night away.

The Dinner Belle was also pleased to welcome a new client to our fashion-forward foodie family–Moleskine Notebooks. When we catered our inaugural event with this eco-friendly Italian company, they served up a 500-person guest list for their 2011 technology convention at Eyebeam. We poured countless flutes of sparkling Prosecco and passed a trio of early summer seasonal canapés, including: White Bean & Asparagus Crostini, eye-catching Rainbow Carrots served alongside our homemade Green Goddess Dressing, and bite-size Big Apple Sandwiches, featuring smokehouse bacon, triple crème brie, red grapes and crisp granny smith apples, all layered atop freshly baked focaccia.

Of course it wouldn’t be a true Dinner Belle season without at least one event dedicated solely to sweets, and the lucky client this summer was none other than our good friends over at Laser Cosmetica! Oh the sweet irony of serving an all dessert menu for a client who specializes in cellulite reduction procedures…I love it!!! In all fairness, we kept the sweets light and bite-size, and featured a menu of fruit-filled macaroons, miniature berry tarts, and a trio of mini cupcakes including Orange Dream, Red Velvet and Double Chocolate Decadence. Simply delish! To make the night event sweeter, Kimberly was being honored as one of their newest Brand Ambassadors, so I made sure to dress up and raise a glass to toast my Partner and Bestie. Well…in between expediting all those desserts, of course!

The best event of the season (so far) would have to be the 25^th Birthday Bash we catered in The Hamptons a few weeks ago. After convincing Mr. Mix and my man to join us on holiday (a.k.a our out of town work trip), the 4 of us packed up the car to excess–oh yes, everything but the kitchen sink was coming with us to pull off this event!–and drove to Sag Harbor, where a darling cottage awaited us (compliments of a culinary friend and colleague). While the boys took in the town and The Bay, Kimberly and I got to work baking cupcakes, chopping herbs, marinating seafood, and setting the table at our clients’ palatial North Haven summer home.

On event day, we dressed in our Hamptons best and fueled up at brunch from Estias Little Kitchen, a local Mexican favorite featuring a menu grown from their backyard garden. As party guests started to arrive in North Haven, we set up the grounds and cooked up a marvelous feast, beginning with a cocktail hour featuring a raw bar of Blue Point oysters, Cherrystone clams, and shrimp cocktail served in gelato glasses filled with Tequila Spiked Mango Guacamole. With one of our seasoned bartenders in tow, guests were poured a duet of craft cocktails, including: Blushing Bellinis and El Spicy Pepinos. For the main course, party guests were treated to a luxurious dinner buffet featuring Kimberly’s now famous Roast Side of Salmon, which was featured on America’s Test Kitchen’s website just last week! Complimented with sides of garlic crème polenta cakes, butter poached asparagus and grilled peach and heirloom tomato caprese, we also built a chocolate peanut butter cupcake tower to gather round and sing “Happy Birthday” to the lady of the hour. As we packed up, it was nice knowing our men would be at the cottage waiting for us, ready to pop open a bottle of vino and sneak down to the pebble-stone beach to toast the success of another job well done.

With the event behind us, we four headed to the tip of The Hamptons to get down on some serious Maine lobsters and explore the Montauk culinary gems I’d been dying to try. With brunch at Surf Lodge, lobsters beach-side, and dinner at Rushmeyer’s—the latest spot from our catering colleagues, Ben and Phil—it was a record-breaking day of heat and eat-ing! Billed as a summer camp for adults, the grounds of Rushmeyer’s were as fun and delicious as the fresh garden pesto and white clam brick oven pizza I devoured, but my favorite moment of the long weekend has to be the food-coma induced catnap I caught as the lull of the waves crashing against the shore soothed my weary catering crazed mind to sleep.

Kimberly and I are looking forward to a relaxing August respite, as we gear up for a busy fall season. After Labor Day, we’re sure to be catering NYC’s 3^rd Annual Fashions’ Night Out (which lucky client we will be working for this year?), are crossing our fingers for another dinner party with Macy’s in October, and for the first time, we’re excited to be catering the Future of Web Design Conference at New World Stages come November; we’ll provide daily boxed lunches for 1,000 guests, but after those 7,000 cookies at Topshop some years back, this should be nothing! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to lazy August afternoons and will be back in touch to update you with everything Dinner Belle after the last of the summer heirlooms have been picked. Until then…stay cool and be sure to keep sending your catering inquiries my way!