Blind dating. Speed dating. Online dating. You’ve tried everything in your shameless quest to find the perfect man.
So you’ll totally relate to When in Rome. The new film stars Kristen Bell as an ambitious, relationship-challenged New Yorker who takes a whirlwind trip to Rome. There she defiantly steals coins from a fountain of love, inexplicably igniting the passion of the men who threw them in.
Her new suitors include a sausage magnate (Danny DeVito), a street magician (Jon Heder), an adoring painter (Will Arnett), and a self-admiring model (Dax Shepard). But when a charming reporter (Josh Duhamel) pursues her with equal zest, she’ll have to determine if it’s the work of the coins or the real thing.
Which is still easier than online dating.
When in Rome opens this Friday. Check local listings for showtimes.
We’re not sure if oysters are aphrodisiacs, but (in the name of science) we’re willing to eat hundreds to find out.
The fruits of our labor: an In the Kitchen video with Lisa Giffen, executive chef at Maison Premiere in Williamsburg, who shows us how to choose, shuck, and eat (slurp or fork?) an oyster.
The restaurant is our favorite place in the city for bivalves, especially once its paradise of an outdoor space opens (which will be in two to three weeks or “as soon as everything’s in bloom”).
Even our editor who swore off oysters fifteen years ago came away wanting more.
That’s what he said.
Maison Premiere, 298 Bedford Avenue, between Grand and South 1st Streets (347-335-0446 or maisonpremiere.com). Hungry for more? Check out our videos on drinking Scotch, making fish tacos, and cooking a juicy burger. And, by all means, vote for us to win a Webby.
Photo: Stephania Stanley / DailyCandy
In life, it’s the simple things that count. But not if you’re messing them up royally — especially in the kitchen.
Thank goodness for Michael Chernow and Daniel Holzman, owners of New York’s Meatball Shop restaurants. In today’s videos, Chernow shows us how to cook Campbell’s tomato soup (above), and Holzman shares his method for making ice in an ice tray.
Chances are, unless you went to chef school, you’ve been doing both wrong for years.
For pictures of Chernow and Holzman in their skivvies, click here.
So you think you know how to use an ice tray? You don’t. In this video, The Meatball Shop’s handsome chef Daniel Holzman teaches you the right way to freeze water.
To learn the proper way to boil water, click here. Still want more? Here’s The Meatball Shop’s Michael Chernow making canned soup.
Juices or shakes? Carbs or Atkins? Stevia or agave? When it comes to healthy eating, sometimes it’s just easier to say, “Pass the Oreos.”
In today’s 5 Questions with SuChin Pak, nutritionist Kimberly Snyder answers our burning foodie FAQs, from her feelings on juice cleanses to the items she would add and subtract from everyone’s diets.
We took advantage of Snyder’s know-how (her latest book, The Beauty Detox Foods, came out yesterday) and snagged a hair-thickening Caesar salad recipe and a roundup of foods that combat cellulite, too.
It’s evident the health guru practices what she preaches: She’s flawless in person.
We’re lucky she sandwiched us in.
The Beauty Detox Foods is available at amazon.com, $11. For more about Snyder, go to kimberlysnyder.net and check out her five beauty must-haves.
The adage “we all want what we don’t have” likely originated from women talking about their hair. But for those of us who want to thicken our tresses, the task can feel especially difficult. In this video, nutritionist Kimberly Snyder shows us a Caesar salad recipe that has ingredients proven to improve growth.
For more about Snyder, go to kimberlysnyder.net.
Don’t walk backward into the ocean. Curb the lumpiness with leafy greens, fruit, a smoothie, and a grain, all recommended by our health guru.
For more information on Snyder, go to kimberlysnyder.net.
We like to fashion our lives after the characters on Downton Abbey (minus getting jilted at the altar, going to war, death during childbirth, and that weird Mr. Pamuk scenario).
The first step: baking a rhubarb fool (a dessert resembling a trifle) like a Brit. In today’s video, chef Karen Hatfield (from L.A.’s The Sycamore Kitchen and Hatfield’s) shows us how to make a version with ginger sabayon.
Not only is it bloody simple, you can substitute any kind of berry if rhubarb isn’t your thing.
Just send Daisy to pick some up.
For more information on Hatfield’s restaurants, go to hatfieldsrestaurant.com or thesycamorekitchen.com. Still hungry? Check out Daniel Boulud’s burger, Sam Talbot’s fish tacos, and Eddie Huang’s pork bao.
Love: You can take it or leave it.
But a good pie? Consider it taken. Which is why today’s In the Kitchen video will tug on even the blackest heartstrings: a Valentine’s Day recipe from Bang Bang Pie Shop.
Inside the cozy Logan Square storefront, head baker Megan Miller whips up the kinds of delicacies dreams are made of. Her chocolate-raspberry pie is easy enough to replicate at home.
With just seven ingredients — most of which you have in your pantry — it’s nearly foolproof. We suggest picking up a ball of Bang Bang’s butter-flecked dough for top-notch results (it’s for sale at the shop).
Serve it to someone special. Then eat your heart out.
Bang Bang Pie Shop, 2051 North California Avenue, at McLean Avenue (773-276-8888 or bangbangpies.com).
Usually, when we film an In the Kitchen video, the purpose is to teach viewers to re-create a recipe.
But during our shoot with Eddie Huang, chef at Baohaus in Manhattan, five minutes into making his pork bao he said, “Honestly, people can’t do this. If you want to do that, try Momofuku.”
Which sums up what drew us to Huang in the first place: His memoir, Fresh Off the Boat, out now. Huang, whose parents are Taiwanese, grew up in Orlando, moved to NYC, and became a lawyer, a hustler, a stand-up, and a restaurateur.
The book’s appeal is Huang’s honest, funny description of his experience growing up Asian-American, and finding both solace and strife in his Chinese heritage. We promise it’s like nothing you’ve ever read.
Like his baos, he’s inimitable.
Fresh Off the Boat is available at amazon.com, $14.
Your fridge is kind of like a graveyard: smelly and riddled with ghosts of meals past.
Resuscitate it (and your well-being) with today’s video: a peek into plant-based expert Heather Crosby’s fridge.
When not creating healthy recipes for her website, YumUniverse, Crosby can be found planting, sprouting, and engaging in otherwise enviable activities.
What she stores in the old icebox? Plenty of kale and homemade almond milk, to start.
It’s incentive enough to change your habits.
So you can R.I.P.
For more recipes and tips on plant-based nutrition, go to yumuniverse.com. Save up to 50 percent on YumUniverse meal plans at deals.dailycandy.com.
Does life get any better than fried starch?
The answer is no, which is why we asked author and Top Chef judge Gail Simmons to make her mom’s latkes for today’s In the Kitchen video.
Simmons uses everything you’d expect (shredded potatoes, eggs, oil), but there’s a secret ingredient (hint: Marcus Samuelsson also loves it) that’ll make you ask, “Why do we make these only at Hanukkah?”
Even if you don’t celebrate the Festival of Lights, we recommend mixing a batch immediately, since the gentile editors at our shoot pounded them.
No miracle there.
Want to taste them straight from Simmons’s pan? Head to the Latke Sizzle (vodka tastings included), tomorrow at 8:15 p.m., at 92Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, at 92nd Street (212-415-5500 or 92y.org). Enter code DCANDY at checkout for 20 percent off tickets. For more Hanukkah recipes, decorations, and menorahs, check out our flipbook.
Don’t get us wrong: We love melted butter and gravy mixed with a spoonful of mashed potatoes and toasted marshmallows garnished with a bit of yams as much as the next American.
But this Thanksgiving we have healthier options, thanks to brothers Eli and Max Sussman, New York-based chefs and authors of the recently published This Is a Cookbook.
In today’s videos, they show us two easy, inexpensive, no-stretchy-pants-necessary recipes: sauteed kale with almonds and raisins (above) and roasted cauliflower with caramelized onions.
It’s possible we ate enough of the vegan-friendly dishes during the shoot to constitute three meals.
But that still beats French’s fried onion rings plus or minus the green beans.
This Is a Cookbook is available at amazon.com or itunes.com (iPad version), $13.
So you think cauliflower is broccoli’s ugly stepsister? This side dish from brothers Eli and Max Sussman will prove you wrong. The NYC-based chefs and authors of This Is a Cookbook serve the white florets alongside caramelized onions and tahini — and there’s no going back.
This Is a Cookbook is available at amazon.com or itunes.com (iPad version), $13.
If you’re single in New York, there’s a good chance you’re constantly reminded that the ratio of women to men favors the latter.
Unless you go to The Flatiron Room, a new music lounge and cocktail bar with more than 500 types of whiskey.
To celebrate its soft opening, we asked bartender Nick Patton (two words: British accent) to share a few of his favorite drink recipes. He gave us a tried-and-true Gold Rush (above, great to make in big batches should you be partying or tailgating) and the bar’s knock-you-over 1920s cocktail.
Both are dangerously easy and satisfying, whether you fancy yourself a whiskey drinker or not (though one visit to Flatiron and you will be).
Just remember a little liquid courage goes a long way.
The Flatiron Room, 37 West 26th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues (212-725-3860 or theflatironroom.com).
What happens when you mix absinthe, vermouth, rye, and bitters? Trouble, that’s what. But also the 1920s cocktail created by bartenders at The Flatiron Room, the new music lounge and bar stocked with more than 500 types of whiskey. See how to make it in this video starring bartender Nick Patton.
The Flatiron Room, 37 West 26th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues (212-725-3860 or theflatironroom.com).
Forget sexting. We’re big on Mexting (i.e., sending your friends random shots of Mexican food).
For a picture worth a thousand characters, whip up the best guacamole this side of the border with help from Alex Stupak, mastermind chef behind Empellón Taqueria and Empellón Cocina.
In addition to divulging his easy recipe (hint: It calls for pistachios), Stupak dishes on what to look for when you cut into an avocado and how much to mash.
Pair the green goodness with chips, sliced veggies, or a spoon — and call it a Labor Day party.
Just Instagram us the invite.
Try it straight from the master at Empellón Cocina, 105 First Avenue, between East 6th and 7th Streets (212-780-0999 or empellon.com). For more foodie fun, learn to make Thiago Silva’s frozen peanut butter pops, Daniel Boulud’s stove-top burger, and Daniel Holzman’s squash salad.
When we were kids, we ate spoonfuls of peanut butter between meals. And by “when we were kids,” we mean yesterday.
Here to make shoveling heaps of spread into your face socially acceptable is Thiago Silva, executive pastry chef at Catch. In today’s video, he creates his renowned frozen peanut butter pops.
The dessert is easy to make (it requires no heat, and Silva actually prefers to use Skippy) and great for adult and kid parties alike. Plus, it keeps for a month in the freezer (or leave it unfrozen and use as cake filler).
If you’re not the DIY type, he serves it every night at Catch alongside the peanut butter cup souffle. (While you’re there, the s’mores pizza is also the shiz.)
It’ll bring out your not-so inner child.
Catch, 21 Ninth Avenue, at West 13th Street (212-392-5978 or catchnewyorkcity.com). Think you missed something in the video? Here’s the full recipe. For more sweet treats, watch how to make a mojito sundae and Manhattan float with Jeni Britton Bauer from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.
You know you’ve made it when your autobiography is so hotly anticipated there’s a drink named after it. In this video, Red Rooster Harlem’s mixologist Lonn Coupel-Coward shows us how to shake up the cocktail in honor of his boss Marcus Samuelsson’s Yes, Chef. Full credit goes to Ginny’s Supper Club’s head bartender David Powell for inventing the cocktail.
Yes, Chef is available at amazon.com, $16.
We love a good rags-to-riches story, especially when it’s true, well deserved, and recounted by the convivial and talented Marcus Samuelsson.
His autobiography, Yes, Chef (out yesterday), starts with the journey to live with adoptive parents in Sweden after losing his birth mother to tuberculosis in Ethiopia and ends with the opening of Red Rooster Harlem, the restaurant where Obama digs the cornbread.
In honor of the moving tale, we asked Samuelsson to make his favorite childhood dish: the tastiest gravlax (cured salmon) sandwich this side of Scandinavia, just like his adoptive grandma used to make.
It’s a lunchtime treat.
And ensures your afternoon has a happily ever after.
Yes, Chef is available at amazon.com, $16.
Do you like fun? Enjoy smiling? Take pleasure in things that are universally wonderful? (And have the ability to digest lactose?)
If so, watch as we make boozy ice cream creations — a mojito sundae (above) and a Manhattan float — with Jeni Britton Bauer, the deity behind Columbus, Ohio-based gourmet pint-maker Jeni’s. (If you don’t know Jeni’s, you don’t know jack.)
Aside from the fact they involve dessert, we’re excited about today’s videos because Bauer’s cookbook, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, won a James Beard Foundation Award a few weeks ago. So you know the recipes are going to be good.
Plus, both require only a few easy-to-find ingredients and minimal kitchen know-how. And they’re ideal for Memorial Day barbecues.
That is, if you value success.
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home is available at amazon.com, $13. For more information or to order pints, go to jenis.com. To keep cooking, check out our video recipes for a stove-top burger with Daniel Boulud, ginger cookies with Michael Chernow, and breakfast tacos with Elizabeth Karmel.