Month: December 2016

The Hamburger I Crave

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Chilibomb makes one of the best hamburgers in Fairfield County.  I order it medium rare, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, raw onions, pickles and a little mayo. See that meat? It has a nice sear. It’s juicy. Juices run from every bite.  The bun is griddled, see the brown crusty parts on the top bun?  The soft bun embraces all the ingredients; the hamburger doesn’t fall apart. Each bite brings forth the flavor of the whole.  It’s not a burger to linger over, but to lean over. Chilibomb’s fries are also on my one-of-the-best lists. They look and taste like potatoes. They’re cut in-house, and skins add to the potato flavor. The only challenge with Chilibomb’s burger is those juices that catch in the paper dish make the bun soggy when you put the burger down to attend to the fries.  My solution is to place a bed of French fries in the paper dish. The burger can be propped sideways on the bed of fries, reducing possible sogginess, and the fries absorb the juices. My husband prefers his fries crisp from the …

Surprising Baking Tips from Dorie Greenspan

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Dorie Greenspan doesn’t know why people tell her that baking is difficult. After all, she already created the recipe. “I did the work,” she laughs, “Just follow the recipe.” Greenspan has created 300 cookie recipes and they are in her new book “Dorie’s Cookies.” The cookbook author and baking guru came to Sherry B’s Dessert Studio in Chappaqua, N.Y., recently to talk about her new book and share tips for making her favorite cookies. The woman who once measured ten cups of flour in metric to come up with an average of 136 grams per cup, says precision is not so important. “There’s a margin of error,” Greenspan says. “It’s not as precise as we all thought.” Recently she discovered that she and her recipe testers had been using different methods of measurement for the same recipe. And all the cookies tasted great. It’s a thought that helps Greenspan “sleep better at night.” She firmly believes in the metric system. As she spoke, members of Sherry B’s studio passed around plates of adorable little cookies – jam thumbprint, …

Where to Have a Cocktail in SoNo

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Room 112 in SoNo is a clubby place for a cocktail. With a black-and-red color scheme, a pool table, and lots of sofas, it has a dark and decadent feel. Open to the public Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to closing, it’s also a private event space. Downstairs, there’s a smaller bar and a game room, featuring pool and darts. We were invited to sample some cocktails on a quiet Wednesday evening. The cocktails other guests were drinking were layered and garnished with fresh fruit and herbs. My friend cast a needed light upon the cocktail menu (the room is dark). Overwhelmed by the lists of ingredients, we chose an old favorite,  caipirinha.  At Room 112, the Brazilian drink traditionally made of sugar-cane rum, limes and sugar, gets a mixologists list: cachaça, lemon bitters, muddled lemons, limes and sugar. The Tom Old Fashioned is an aromatic blend of gin, vermouth, muddled tangerines, sugar and bitters. It’s garnished with a slice of orange and cherry. The Magic Mule is served in a coppery pineapple vessel. The Magic Mule shakes up lemon-grass-infused vodka, ginger liqueur, fresh …