24 Comments
User's avatar
Jess's avatar

Long time reader and cookbook owner but didn't realize your family had a connection to Midd! I am an alum (celebrating my 20 year next year)! It is my happy place! Congrats to your family!

Expand full comment
teresa hill's avatar

You basically have me

ready to drive in my car and go to a bookstore and pick that book up immediately. It has come across my radar a lot but I have always felt like what do I care about NYC restaurant dude??? He sounds like a guy I would like to spend several hours with by reading his book! How did I deal with life changes? My youngest daughter was one month old at my oldest daughter' college graduation!!!

Expand full comment
Angela's avatar

Joining you in the college grad experience although I still have 2 more to go. Was up in NYC last week as she graduated from Barnard, stayed at the Beacon as it had a convenient subway line to get up to Columbia U, ate at Pisticci’s which is where we dined the night I drove her up there 4 years ago, so a fitting endcap. Also OF COURSE took her, her bf and her 2 sibs to FAO Schwartz for the Jellycat diner experience which was fun.

Ooh also did a lazy Sunday brunch at Alex Guarnaschelli’s new digs at Clara at the NY Historical Society and it was fantastic as was the museum itself. Highly recommend!

Expand full comment
Angela's avatar

Also I too have been around since my graduate was a toddler . Tempus fugit!

Expand full comment
My Loveliest Days's avatar

The picture of the dinner spread in your apartment is amazing and the blood orange cocktail looks beautiful! Congratulations to your daughter!

Expand full comment
R. Leicht's avatar

Try putting it over buckwheat noodles, it brought my tofu hating husband around.

Expand full comment
Melina Hammer's avatar

Those big life moments have a way of sneaking back up on us, don’t they? Poignant, beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

Expand full comment
Julie's avatar

Tofu is still a bridge too far in this household, but I am definitely going to serve that sauce with roasted vegetable & rice bowls!

Expand full comment
Jill Pardini Morse's avatar

Hi - i have been with you 20+ years and our daughter graduates this weekend. What a thing - this time warp thing.

You are much appreciated. !

Expand full comment
Jenny Rosenstrach's avatar

And so are you! Thanks for reading all this time, that actually makes me teary.

Expand full comment
Allison's avatar

I’ve read so many good memoirs lately I’m going to add this one to my list.

I’m feeling the same way you are about the NBA conference finals but am a Timberwolves fan. Not sure we can win out against OKC.

Expand full comment
Jenny Rosenstrach's avatar

what are the other memoirs?

Expand full comment
Jenny's avatar

Chiming in on good memoirs lately! I am loving “Manhattan, When I Was Young” by Mary Cantwell. I’d never heard of her or this book but it’s great! About her life as a young working mother and wife in the ‘50s and ‘60s, working at Mademoiselle and Vogue, and living in the West Village (where she lived all her life!, later becoming an editorial page writer for the NYT). It’s a pleasure to read.

Expand full comment
Chris S.'s avatar

Loving McNally’s book. Felt oddly teary/emotional at his description of Robert Hughes writing the intro to the Balthazar cookbook, which I now need to re-read. Also enjoyed Graydon Carter’s. And am going to read again Judith Jones’s memoir, “The Tenth Muse.”

Expand full comment
Jenny's avatar

I love the Tenth Muse and also just read a very well-researched biography of Judith Jones, by Sara Franklin, that adds more to her story!

Expand full comment
Chris S.'s avatar

Thanks, Jenny; I read it. I worked in publishing and at a food mag, so I found it interesting on multiple levels.

Expand full comment
Janet Boudreau's avatar

Good one!

Expand full comment
Allison's avatar

If You Were My Daughter: A Memoir of Healing an Unmothered Heart by Marianne Richmond. Friendly Fire: A Fractured Memoir by Paul Rousseau. Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten.

Expand full comment
Chris S.'s avatar

Good? I expected much more from Ina’s, sorry to say.

Expand full comment
Christine's avatar

Congrats to your girls and to you and your husband. As the mother of two 30 somethings I can tell you the next phases are much like the early ones. People will tell you the things to look forward to and the things to worry about and time marches on. I am about to be a grandma (!) and I now see the whole merry go round beginning again as I follow pediatricians and child behaviour experts on instagram. But this time I must keep my big mouth shut unless asked! Thanks for the great recipes and the book suggestion. Exited to try both.

Expand full comment
J-Bro's avatar

Your list of the things McNally detests as well as my need to know what he said about Patti Smith means I’m definitely buying that book!

Expand full comment
Karen J's avatar

I feel you on the Knicks!!

Expand full comment
Becka's avatar

The Bucks had to endure this too and we might lose our beloved Giannis because of it 😩

Expand full comment
Jenny Rosenstrach's avatar

I mean what the hell

Expand full comment