Duck Confit Gyoza with Dried Cranberries

Welcome to summer everybody! For me, this week is a week off of work. What to do... well, besides a few loads of laundry, I feel like pumpin' some jams (currently Blues Traveler) and cooking some food. Sorry, honey, looks like the wedding diet has to wait another week. 


Look at these morsels of flavor.

Sunday Brunch: Dim Sum BBQ Pork "Bao" Buns

So, I made that pork shoulder the other day. Wow, what a lot of meat! I was in a serious crisis of what to do with the left-overs. And, after a failed attempt to go out to a brunch of dim sum in Sunset Park with a bunch of friends, I got to thinking. Maybe I could replicate the best part of dim sum: those fluffy, sweet steamed BBQ bao buns.

Summer Cocktail Series: The Classic Margarita

Say goodbye spring and hello summer! It's Memorial Day weekend, the official start to of summer, so fire up those grills, get out those flip-flops and get outside. It's going to be a beautiful weekend here in NYC for the holiday. Finally, respite from the water-logged spring that we had.

And.... Since, it's 5 o'clock, I figured that it would be the perfect time kick off summer with the first in a series paying tribute to all of the cocktails that make summer great. 

First up, the ultimate in summer time fun, the humble margarita.

Blueberry Yogurt Scones with Maple Glaze

Okay, so the world might end today. At 6pm.  I'm still trying to figure out if it's Eastern or Pacific. Either way, you'll probably be able to find me with a cocktail in my hands around 6pm on either time zone today.

And since, today could be the end of the world, I decided to prove to myself that I can actually bake something before the rapture happens.  But mostly, I just really wanted a scone. 

Sunday Brunch: Bacon Cheese Grits with a Fried Egg

Grits are something that I have recently fallen in love with. They are delicious and can be combined with so many flavors.

While traditionally grits might just be served with a pad of butter, they taste amazing when mixed with other things -- shrimp comes to mind. I thought, bacon makes everything taste better. So, why not bacon and cheese? Exactly. No good reason not to.

Rigatoni Pomodoro

A simple bowl of pasta can be amazing. Don't get me wrong, more complicated pasta has its place, but every now and again, I get this fantastic craving for a simple bowl of pasta with tomato sauce. 

No fear, pomodoro is just a fancy way of saying tomato sauce. 

Rigatoni is one of my favorite pastas. It has a delicious bite when cooked al dente and the ridges and the tube allow just the right amount of sauce to get trapped inside. 

5 tips for better pasta

Who doesn't love a good bowl of pasta. It's the very reason why Italian restaurants are the most popular in the country. 

Want to bring a fancy and expensive Italian restaurant directly to your own kitchen?

Sure you do, and it's really not that difficult. Cooking pasta isn't that difficult, most people just make a few simple mistakes when cooking pasta. If they would just make some small changes to how they cook it, their pasta would be elevated to the likes of Mario Batali.

Champions of Italian cuisine -- Batali included -- love to talk about these techniques because so many people just make pasta the wrong way. And, by wrong all I really mean is not they way its typically made in Italy. Since the Italians created it, I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing.

Here are the five biggest tips you can use to make your pasta just as good as they do in fancy Italian restaurants.