Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I made this for Thanksgiving and then again for company the other night. It is a great recipe and everyone, including those I never expected to care, has loved it. The only real trick is to put in enough nutmeg to taste, but not to overwhelm. Otherwise, it is a dish that can be expanded (or shrunk) to fit any number of portions.

I was there Thursday night after catching an early movie with my wife as we tried, somehow, to beat the heat. I had been to the sandwich shop several times and had seen that they were planning a restaurant. The design was not anything I would have imagined based on the very modest shop. The design is not offensive - it was clearly someone's vision and not tackily done so I do not object to it. We were told by our waitress (it was her first day), that the owner's wife had designed the place and had acted as contractor after firing the first contractor. The charcuterie plate was very good and generous - prosciuto, chorizo, salamis (French and Italian) and aged provolone. My wife had a salad with duck breast that she liked very much and I had the Chicken cous-cous, which was a piece of chicken along with the vegetable Casablanca cous-cous. The texture of the cous-cous was spot on and the vegetables and chicken were done well. It is definitely a dish I keep thinking about - my own cous-cous is just never that delicate and flavorful. We did not have dessert because I remembered that I had left a bag in the movie theatre and was anxious to go back and get it (I had already confirmed [to the great relief to the knot in my stomach) that the theatre had found it and was holding it. I will certainly eat here again and, h

In the summer of 1972, while meeting my then girlfriend and now long-time wife, with some friends at the University of Maryland, we had some thin crust pizza that I thought was pretty good and unexpectedly so. After all, I am a native New Yorker and I was pretty skeptical of pizza outside NY, and certainly in those days. I suspect that this was the place we went to then. It is a nice memory and I assume the place we went to was Ledo's. Our friends left Maryland in 1973 so we never went back and I had no idea of the name.

I made this for dinner tonight. My family liked it alot and everything tasted very good (I did not use harissa but we felt the heat was sufficient, probably from the merguez). The dish fit what we wanted for the night. I did not, however, blow us away. I will make this again, but I cannot say that I will be dreaning about this dish until I make it again.

I like Area Bagels in North Park Slope on 5th Avenue, which makes a very respectable bagel - not too big, some crunch to the crust and soft inside. The owner learned bagel making from a place out in Little Neck on Horace Harding Parkway that dates back to the late 1940's when the bagel baking union controlled the business and its quality. I will have to re-try Bagel Hole although I remember not being too impressed years ago.

Maybe my preference of getting a plain buttered (not toasted bagel) let me enjoy a fresher bagel in the store, rather than taking it home, missing out on the short freshness life.

I did not see (or pay attention to the cinnamon muffin) because I bought a blueberry muffin. I thought the blueberry muffin was terrific. They are small, which is good because too many muffins are over sized. I would certainly try the cinnamon.

The scones there are also terrific.