Chris Nordquist
Earlier this week when Julia (who’s now two and a half) came home from her dance class, this dish was bubbling away on the stove. After my hug and kiss, she went straight to the kitchen and asked, “What are you cooking, Papa? Is it for me?” The aroma from this dish beckons everyone to […]
Which flavors are appropriate to sweet dishes and which to savory sometimes seems to be more a matter of culture or habit than any innate preference of the human palate. For example, when a Brazilian-American friend served us a beautiful green salad with avocado last week he told us that the first time he tasted […]
Things are moving very quickly now — which is a very good thing since our move-in date is just a few short weeks away. It seems impossible, but we’ve been assured that we’re actually running slightly ahead of schedule, and I’ve chosen to believe it. While I’ve been scrambling to finalize and source the last […]
Inspired by trips to India, I used to make elaborate Indian dinners — back in my single, childless days. I would research recipes and shop for ingredients during the week and spend a full Saturday cooking a series of elaborate dishes for my dinner guests. It was great fun, and I learned a lot, but […]
Julia had gone to bed, and I was tidying up the apartment before I settled down to a quiet “me-vening” at home. David was coming home from a long trip to Asia the next day, and I realized that the apartment didn’t look particularly welcoming. I had been spending so much time on the renovation […]
The floors are done. Construction is going quickly and well, but it sure feels nice to have one major task completed. As I mentioned in my “before” post, the spray-tan orange floors were one of the things about our new Chelsea loft that we most wanted to change. We loved their lived-in (well, actually, beat-up) […]
This is a drink for Manhattan lovers — the cocktail, that is, not necessarily the island. But on the island a couple of weeks ago, at a restaurant called Lyon in the West Village, I had a particularly delicious version of this drink, and a little chat with the bartender revealed his secret. Ordinarily a […]
Yikes. That used to be our kitchen. And that used to be a bedroom and a coat closet. The change is dramatic and exciting, but it’s also a little unsettling to see how quickly the things that make a building seem like a home can be swept away, like striking the set after a play […]
In a post a couple of weeks ago I asked for your help in meeting an everyday challenge: how to make something special out of the less-than-inspiring flowers that are usually available at the supermarket. The parameters were simple: everything (except the vessel) had to come from a genuine supermarket or bodega (no farmers’ markets […]
