Corinna

We had a lovely experience at Jean Georges for lunch, and would recommend it. In the theatre district, I have a soft spot for Chez Josephine. For drinks, I like Therapy. Casellula, a wine and cheese bar, has been highly recommended by a friend, but haven't made it there yet.

I will be home (outside Baltimore) for Christmas, and may go out for a meal in addition to the festivities. Any updates would be appreciated. Happy to post a report. Thanks!

Looking forward to trying the other variations here too. Thank you!

I second the Elderflower. Plays so nicely with the gin.

I agree with the wine by the glass comment, but would also rather have a smaller selection of decent wine that will be fresh than a list of bottles that have been open for ??? days.

It's been several years since I've been there, but Lounge Lover is/was a great place to get interesting cocktails.

I bought some of these for a pre-Thanksgiving nibble, and have eaten most of them myself. They are delicious and addictive! I find them spicy, but less so than the wasabi peas (which I also like, but haven't had in a while.) I'm also a big Sriracha fan, and I'm so glad I found this great snack (and that I'm not alone!)

Today I made roasted pork stock with the leftovers from Thanksgiving. For dinner, we had hot & sour soup and pork & scallion dumplings. This used up some of the stock, some of the Napa cabbage from the crisper (I love them because they stay good forever and make tasty salads when I need some crunch!), plus about a pound of roasted pork meat between the two recipes. It also took advantage of my stock of Asian spices and condiments. Leftovers from this meal tomorrow for lunch!

The lamb bits could also be used to make Scotch Broth or a nice stew with lentils!

Tonight, fresh, local venison tenderloin (thanks to a friend) with horseradish mash and a drizzle of red wine pan sauce. Delicious!

I agree the subject is interesting, but the article is pretty shallow and insulting. I recently hosted a dinner. I took care in choosing local wines to pair with the meal. One guest arrived with a bottle, handed it to me and said "Put this in the chiller for another night." Sheer class. Another arrived with two bottles, which he proceeded to open and drink all himself, despite my offers to pour him a glass of what I was serving. (Maybe I unconsciously must have put BYOB on my invitation?!?) To each his own, I suppose!

Last week was a bit of a wash/break, as we were out of town a couple days and then Thanksgiving. I have been planning this meal for some time, so I had a set list, and did a good job of only buying what I needed for the holiday meal. (I thank this challenge for that!) I'm back on the wagon and now I have leftovers, plus all my previous store! I have taken leftovers to work for lunch every day since, and today I picked all the meat off the pig and set the bones aside to make a nice stock tomorrow. I put together a favorite meat sauce recipe in the crock pot using some of the Italian sausage patties in the fridge and all the canned tomatoes in my pantry (not as many as I usually have, but used them up!) I also put in some pork bones, which the recipe calls for but I haven't had up to now. This is currently simmering away. We ate a little for dinner over rice (there is a huge bag of it, and pasta is a precious commodity) along with some bread leftover from Thankgiving. I need ideas to use up the leftover pork, which will hopefully showcase that it's quite tender and flavorful. So far, I'm thinking: I have a package of wonton wrappers in the fridge, so I will probably make dumplings, as well as a stir fry or two. Gumbo sounds like it could be a good option too. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Yesterday for breakfast I made biscuits and sausage gravy, to use up the rest of the package of sausage patties I opened earlier this week. There's enough for this morning too. Yay! Lunch was a little of this and that: a couple leftover empanadas and leftover white bean, kale and chorizo soup. In the meantime, I went rummaging in our shed to get out the china for Thanksgiving. Our dishes all used to be Pat's mother's. There is a blue willow style pattern, which we use daily, and a pink one that has been packed away. Pat said the pink set would be appropriate for Thanksgiving, as it depicts scenes from American history. What a treasure! They are so charming, and there is such a great variety. I was thinking I might have to buy some serving dishes for the side dishes on Thanksgiving, but this give me an abundance to work with-- and all matching! Hurray for no shopping! For dinner we had a package of frozen mussels that I found hiding in the freezer. The flavor is nowhere good as fresh, but I bought them as an experiment so they had to get eaten! I steamed them with chorizo, onions and a splash of Gewurztraminer, and served with a biscuit to soak up the tasty juice. I'm making some basmati rice to take to work and have with some of the curried cauliflower, etc. soup. I also have made a salad from some fading Napa cabbage and leftover sesame/soy dressing.

I appreciate the solidarity. I just have to push myself, I guess. I also have a very kind boyfriend, who doubles as a dishwasher, especially when I work during the day. I don't want to abuse that, however. Thank you, David.

This thread is very useful to me. Thank you! Two questions: (a) What if you won't have a dishwasher? (Really, there is no room.) (b) What's the best way to wipe out and re-used? I have tried this technique, but haven't been successful. Thanks again!

Rough life, Oliver. I'd had a pound of lump crab mead from MD in my fridge since late August. I put it in the fridge to defrost since last night, and it still wasn't close to defrosted when I got home from work today. I was hesitant to defrost in the microwave, but determined to have the crab cakes tonight. I zapped it in 20 sec intervals and after a minute or so, it was thawed enough to squeeze out and mix with the seasonings (I used the Chesepeake Crab Cake recipe on the Old Bay website. It worked very well.) I served the cakes on a bed of romaine. The lemon vinaigrette used up a half of lemon in my fridge, but was a little too oily. Will work on the balance. I missed with the beautiful, buttery Chardonnay I paired with this dish. We would have been better off with a nice, crisp (dry) Riesling. That'll teach me to second guess Dornenburg & Page.

Very helpful. Thank you, Steve. Our plan is to put a pot rack above the sink, so they can be washed and hung to drip dry. That classic style pot rack looks great and very functional; I will have to keep an eye out for clearance sales (though I can't think where would sell them, Loews?) I am waiting on some recess lights to be installed before making any final decisions. Another pot rack above the fridge is now a definite possibility.

I hadn't heard about this yet. Thanks, Kim! Salt is probably my favorite book, and I look forward to reading Kurlansky's latest. This subject is especially timely, and should generate some fascinating discussion.

Great pictures, Steve! Some day I hope to be brave enough to expose my cupboards to the world. Slightly O/T, but in the spirit of efficiency in the kitchen, could you show us/explain how the pans and utensils are hung above your fridge? I'm currently struggling to come up with a similar system in my (also small, but not by NYC standards) kitchen. Thank you!

This challenge is already starting to effect the way I think. Today I decided to stop agonizing over what wine to serve at Thanksgiving. There are several choices amongst the collection of bottles that I hoard that will be splendid. After all, isn't this one of those special occasions I've been saving them for? I needed a greasy breakfast today: a hot italian sausage patty (must use them up now that I've defrosted the pack!) and a couple fried eggs. (Gosh the eggs are running low!) I took leftovers to work: kale & sausage pasta and some cauliflower, etc. soup. Crabcakes tonight!

If they do Jean Georges, we had the Albert Boxler (Alsace) Sparkling with our lunch this summer/early autumn and it was an ideal pairing that kind of diversity. I recommend it.

It is so much fun to read about how people cook and eat on a daily basis! I'm discovering that week will hardly put a dent in our stash. We could probably live on lentils for a week, if necessary (and we've only lived in the house since late June!) I will keep it going as long as I can, allowing for purchases of necessary perishables, as well as everything for Thanksgiving. I must confess, Reverend Mother, Patrick bought milk today (mainly for coffee, though I will use it for cooking as necessary,) and a Hershey bar that he had for lunch (despite there being delicious leftovers in the fridge.) We both had store brand Cheerios for breakfast today, which I later supplemented with cardomom glazed carrots & parsnips and gorgonzola polenta leftover from the Winemaker's Dinner I worked at last week. (These were side dishes to some amazing braised short ribs. Sam Izzo is a genius!) I may try to recreate the polenta for Christmas. It was beautiful. I found a dying cauliflower in the back of my fridge, which I had been meaning to roast. Unfortunately, no time for that today, so I made a big batch of Curried Cauilflower soup. I foolishly added too much water, but in a blaze of inspiration I added the pureed root veg leftover from Sunday's braised ribs. Both are good, so the combo shouldn't be bad. I'll have a bowl for dinner, topped with a dollop of yogurt, and pasta/sausage/kale leftover from last night. Pat is having the one remaining rib and maybe some soup as well. I am working all day tomorrow, so we'll see how I do under those circumstances. I am defrosting some lump crabmeat that my mum sent up from Maryland.

This morning, we ended up having to go into "the big city" (Ithaca), so breakfast out (again) and quite filling it was. Pat had a bowl of the white bean and chorizo soup as a snack in the afternoon. I simmered a stock of leftover beef bones (ribs, both short and long), along with some veg scraps from the freezer (chard stems and leek greens.) I hope to make some French Onion soup on Saturday night, as I will have had a very long day at work. Onions have become like gold. I am fairly stocked, but not as well as I thought. I don't think I realised how many onions I go through. Maybe I give some thought to sources. Dinner as inspired by Molly Wizenberg's article and recipe on kale in October's Bon Appetit. I followed the recipe-- braising half a bunch of kale left from this weekend's decor-fest with onion and plenty of garlic. It took much less than the suggested 20 minutes, despite having added watr. I deglazed with some Sauv Blanc that got left open last night, and crumbled in two Gianelli's hot Italian sausage patties (who have been languishing in our downstairs freezer from the grillin' days of summer.) In the meantime, I boiled water for the orphaned pastas in my lazy susan pantry: 1/3 box rotini, 1/3 box of ditalini, a handful of linguini (ok, I'm holding on to some of this for later this week.) The pasta was then tossed into the kale and sausage mixture, and served with some freshly grated parm and a squeeze of lemon. Really delicious, and will be repeated even when I can shop! (I'd like to experiment with frozen spinach, but suspect the texture won't be nearly as good.) We've learned: kale + starch (beans, pasta...) + sausage (Hot Italian, Chorizo...)= Success.

So far everyone's plans sound great. No one is stumped yet! For dinner tonight, we had a white bean, kale and chorizo soup. The chorizo is from an excellent local farm (Autumn's Harvest), and has been in my freezer since the farmer's market in September/October. I sauteed this with some garlic, then added some shredded kale (some was used this weekend for decoration at a Harvest Dinner I worked at) and two cans of cannellini beans from my pantry. No stock necessary, just filled up with some water and simmered for half an hour to glorious results. I love this sort of recipes, simple but so delicious. I shaved parmesean over the top to serve. So glad there are leftovers. I bet it will be even better tomorrow.

I'm in. I may make an exception to buy an ingredient or two to test recipes or make a something ahead for Thanksgiving. The freezer and pantry clear out is handy because we are going away for 2+ months starting at Christmas. I'm also worried about being low on eggs, but Pat is big on going out for breakfast so may not be an issue. Day One: Sunday Breakfast at the local Sportsman's club. Lunch/Dinner: Beef Back Ribs that were calling my name last week at the market. Half the rack baked/roasted in the oven, brushed with "Bayou Bourbon Glaze" (gift from my mum that has been in the pantry for months). The other half was braised, vaguely following the method for the braised short ribs in October's Bon Appetit. Served with braised root veg puree: sweet potato, red skinned potato, onions and garlic from the stock in my pantry. There were three ribs leftover which we will have for lunch today with a little salad of romaine lettuce, dressed with one of the mystery dressing bits in the fridge. Saving the bones for a batch of stock later on this week.