My New York Times debut...sort of.

My phone rang early this morning, while I was still in the shower. The excited voice mail, from my friend Hall, declared that he had seen a "huge" picture of me in the Times, and that I was to check on it immediately.

I opened my computer, started up Firefox, and clicked through to the Dining and Wine section. There, alongside Frank Bruni's Critic's Notebook piece on the trend of fat, fat, fat everywhere (pork belly, chicken livers, etc.), was a picture of me, along with a few other foodblogger/eGullet types, drooling over Momofuku Ssam's Bo Ssam (giant, slow-cooked pork butt).

The photo was taken back in February, when I went out to dinner with a group of foodies during my second eGullet foodblog.

It's not a flattering picture, and they don't mention my name, but, hey - I'm in the Times!

Make like the Greeks and squeeze a lemon over your orzo.

A few weekends ago, Manhattan experienced an early, unexpected heat wave. Windows were thrown open, AC's were hastily installed after their winter hibernations, and I found myself with a craving for chicken salad.

But it was too hot for something laden with mayonnaise (typically one of my more favorite things), and I decided to experiment a bit with the box of orzo that has been in my kitchen cupoboard for, oh, about a year now. Orzo always reminds of Greek and Sicilian cuisine, which leads me to think of lemons, and of cucumbers (though the latter are never far from my mind, admittedly).

I dressed a boneless chicken breast with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and grilled it on my well-seasoned grill pan (It's now about 1 1/2 years old and really coming into its own.). Then I seeded a plum tomato and half a cucumber, chopped a quarter of a red onion, and tossed it all with a little olive oil, lemon juice, and basil.

I added some cooked orzo, the finished chicken, cubed, and ate the salad at room temperature. I'm completely convinced that it would have been better had I let it hang out and allowed the flavors to meld a bit more, but it was still awfully good, and perfect for the weather we had that day.

I might just make it again this weekend - we've got a forecast for 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Queenie's Chicken and Orzo Salad

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 3/4 pound)
3 tbs. olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup orzo pasta
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 small red onion, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2 tbs. basil, cut crosswise into strips
2 tbs. freshly-squeezed lemon juice (about one lemon)

Pour 2 tbs. of the olive oil over the chicken breasts, and sprinkle with the salt and pepper to taste. Allow to sit for a few minutes while you pre-heat your grill or grill pan.

Grill the chicken breasts on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes on each side; cooking time will vary by grill/stove. Once cooked, set the chicken aside to rest for a few minutes while you prep the salad.

While the chicken cooks, prepare the orzo according to the directions on the package (making sure to salt the water in which it cooks). Once cooked to al dente, drain and set aside.

Toss together the tomato, onion and cucumber, adding the remaining olive oil, the lemon juice, and the salt and pepper to taste. Once that mixture is well combined, add half the basil and toss gently to incorporate evenly.

Add the chicken and orzo, and toss gently again to combine all ingredients evenly. Add the remaining basil, adjust seasonings, and serve.

Serves two as a main course

Girl gone wild.

Oh, wild asparagus...how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...thou art graceful, low in calroies, high in folic acid and Vitamin C, and oh-so-easy to cook. Thou art also fleeting of season and a bit dear to procure.

I went to brunch today (with my friend Cristin) at Eli's Vinegar Factory, up at 91st and York. The restaurant sits atop the store, which is owned by the same Eli Zabar of E.A.T. on Madison and Eli's on Third Avenue. So, of course, after stuffing ourselves with omelets and the bread basket, we had to browse through the store. I wasn't planning on buying anything (since most of the stock at Eli's, excepting the excellent bread, is overpriced), but then I saw the wild asparagus.

Wild asparagus, a slimmer, more delicate version of its domesticated cousin, is available only for a few short weeks at the beginning of June, and I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. I grabbed a bunch, then tossed some chives into my cart to go along with. Tonight for dinner, I combined those two with spaghetti (the perfect foil for the asparagus, since they're about the same size), a little garlic, and a touch of butter.

The result? Bliss.

Wild Aspargus with Spaghetti and Chives

Serves 2 as a main course

1/2 pound spaghetti
Kosher salt
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. butter
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced crosswise
1/4 pound wild asparagus
3 tbs. chives, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper

Cook the spaghetti in a pot of boiling, salted water. While it cooks, add the oil and butter to a 12-inch skillet and cook over medium-high heat until the butter melts. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and slightly golden.

Add the asparagus to the skillet, reduce heat to medium, and saute, tossing frequently, until tender. Add half the chives and salt and pepper to taste, and toss the asparagus with the chives to mix evenly. If the spaghetti is not yet ready, turn the heat off under the skillet, and turn it back on when ready to add the pasta.

Otherwise, add the spaghetti and a bit of its cooking water to the skillet, and cook the pasta and sauce together for a minute or two. Taste to adjust seasonings, divide between two bowls, top with the remaining chives, and serve immediately.

Goodburger earns its name; fails to surpass it.

A couple of weeks ago, my officemate Liz and I took a walk down to 54th and Lexington to try the burgers at Goodburger - Liz's husband Josh works in the neighborhood, too, and his coworkers had been buzzing about this relatively new burger joint.

It's right on the corner, with windows that fold back, allowing the outside in. Remember, however, that this is 54th and Lex, so the outside is not so much idyllic as loud and choked with bus exhaust. Still, it was nice to sit with my back to the spring sunshine and feel the breeze a bit as we waited for our orders: a fries and a burger, medium-rare, with all the fixins (me), fries and a burger, medium, with no pickles or onions or mustard (Liz).

You place your order, and you then have the option of either claiming a seat in the crowded space or huddling near the counter, the better to hear your number called - since there's no loudspeaker, and the place is deafeningly loud, thanks mainly to the aforementioned buses. We're still in our twenties and blessed with good ears, so we chose the former option to await our food's arrival.

When it came, it was good. Solid. But not great. The fries are tasty and crisp, and well-salted. The burgers are cooked to order, and as someone who loves lots of stuff on mine, I was pleased with the pile of onions, tomatoes, lettuce and pickles that graced my patty. But the meat is a bit greasy, and we each had significant pools of congealing fat left in the bottom of our translucent burger bag thingies.

The price is right - about $10 for burger, fries and soda - particularly when you factor in that, no matter its faults, this burger is far better than one from McDonald's or Burger King. If you're in the neighborhood, it's worth a visit (indeed, Goodburgers are popping up all over Manhattan, so you might be in another neighborhood), but certainly nothing to go out of your way to visit.

Everything tastes better pickled.

I love pickles - refrigerator pickles, half-sours, cornichons, pickled peppers, pickled onions - you stick it in a brine, I'll eat it.

You know the pickled beets I put on my salad tonight? They are super-good - lemony with just a hint of rosemary, they're tart, tender and fabulous. They're pickled by Rick's Picks, a New York-based shop opened in 2004 on the Lower East Side. I mainly buy mine at the Union Square Greenmarket, where they have a stand, but the pickles (which include green beans and curry-flavored tomatoes - I have the latter in my fridge right now, and they're awesome in potato salad and on burgers) are also available by mail-order.

So, really - you need to get them NOW. Go on, you know you want to.

When in doubt, compose a salad.

It's hot in New York today. Awfully hot. And what do you have for dinner when it's hot? Salad, of course! But not just any salad...composed salad. Why? Because it's just so pretty! So tonight I fired up the grill (ok, the grill pan), cooked up some chicken, boiled a new potato, and chopped up some veggies. The result:

Clockwise from the top, we've got pickled beets (more about those in a moment), new potato, red onion, cucumber (food of the gods), plum tomatoes, and grilled chicken breast, all atop chopped romaine. Seriously good, affordable, healthy food.

Even when you eat a macaron afterward.

A most excellent feast.

In October 2005, two of my very best friends in the world married one another, picked up, and moved to a ridiculously affordable house in Ohio. Sad as this makes me, it means that their visits to New York are super-special times for me, and their most recent visit, about three weeks back, was a blur of good times, wonderful company, and fabulous food.

On Friday night, Nick and Louisa (For those are their names!) visited Ouest (you can read Louisa's thoughts about their former neighborhood haunt here), and on Saturday night, we met up for a 9:45 reservation at Per Se. After hugs and kisses over fizzy water in the lounge (not the bar, ahem), we were seated promptly (a few minutes early, to tell the truth) at a table next to the window.

I'll start by telling you about the service, which was really quite fantastic. Gracious, attentive, and good-humored, they became more familiar (one server, a woman, saw me grinning at my foie gras and said, "I know! Isn't it exciting?") as they sensed our openness to it, and chatted with us about the wine, the petit fours, and the copies of the menu I requested toward the end of the night. The room itself is subdued, all earth tones and widely spaced tables, with the emphasis on the view of the Columbus Circle fountain four stories below, and the twinkling lamplights of Central Park beyond.

And now for the food.

Nick and I ordered the Chef's Tasting Menu, and Louisa opted for the Tasting of Vegetables. Our amuses were the trademark tuile cones; mine was filled with red onion crème fraiche and topped with a scoop of smoked salmon, and Louisa's was beets with eggplant caviar. The salmon was chopped so fine that it was almost a paste - but still made up of separate, luscious bits - and the rich, tangy crème fraiche set it off marvelously, helped along by the delicate crunch of the tuile.

Next up, another of Keller's famous dishes, "Oysters and Pearls," a sabayon of pearl tapioca with oysters and white sturgeon caviar. This dish, which I've heard described as tasting like "salty butter," was wonderful. The different textures contrasted nicely (the tapioca here is larger, similar to the bubbles in bubble tea), and the caviar was subtly salty and rich. It's a soup course, though in reality it's more a puddingy chowder.

The "salad" course was a terrine of foie gras served with a peach gelee and some other little goodies, including almonds, pickled ramps, piquillo peppers, and a beautiful slice of toasted brioche, eggy and fragrant. The texture of this terrine was, as expected of any Keller dish, refined and silky smooth. The flavor, intense, was nicely offset by the accompaniments, the ramps (I do love pickled onions) and peppers (ditto) in particular.

I was not looking forward to the first fish course, since I really just am not a big fish eater. I love my shellfish and crustaceans, but the scaly guys have never done it for me, particularly when cooked. This one, Pacific orange marlin served a la plancha (simply seared on a flat grill) with a curry-infused oil, sounded particularly icky to me (I'm not a big curry fan, either). I was soooo wrong. The fish, meaty and tender, was like a mild (I know, MILD?) tuna, and the tiniest hint of curry was actually light and refreshing. Big thumbs up.

Second fish course: butter poached lobster paired with two of the best things springtime has to offer - asparagus and morels. There's not a lot to say about this other than that butter-poached lobster is succulent, sinful, and right up my alley.

The poultry course was poussin served with turnips, kohlrabi and apples. Very good, every ingredient shining through, and very much a chicken dish - not dull - I do love chicken - but not as standout as the others.

For our meat course, Nick and I both chose the degustation of lamb (poor planning on our part, I suppose), which was very interesting. A little tour of the lamb, it featured, among other cuts, belly, shoulder (my favorite), chop, and rillettes. The peas and radishes alongside (again, the bounty of spring was everywhere) were sharp, crisp contrasts to the ever-so-slightly gamey meat.

Next, the cheese course. I feel about cheese the way I feel about fish - I love some cheeses, but I can leave about 75% of them. This one was no exception. It was a Chabichou (soft, rindless unpasteurized goat cheese), served with tapenade and artichokes (another two things I could really do without). If you love salty, olive-y things, this is for you. It was not for me. Louisa's cheese, a double-cream cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy, was. It came with pickled strawberries, and the sweet, slightly sour strawberries blended marvelously with the sinfully rich cheese.

Finally, dessert. The first of the two dessert courses (not counting the truffles, petit fours and macarons that came after) was where Nick and I found our strawberries. We had strawberry sorbet with balsamic vinegar and black pepper - wonderful, cool, and refreshing, especially after the cheese. Second, a chocolate brownie (this is, before anything, a very American restaurant) with ganache, coffee cream, and coffee ice cream. The coffee ice cream was bitter, so much so that it tasted like a skunk smells (Nick and Lou concurred, so I'm not crazy), but not in a bad way (really).

In the end, I was thrilled at the meal we had (and I didn't even talk about the wines, which were wonderful - Nick chose, so perhaps he will log on and enlighten us). The parade of food never felt like too much, and came slowly but steadily enough to keep us entertained but not straining to get the bites down. Treated with the kid gloves of classic French techniques, the flavors of every ingredient sang, creating a symphony of fresh, pure American food music. It absolutely ranked among the best meals I've had in my life, at any price point, and I am so glad we went.

After dessert, it was a double espresso, truffles, petit fours, and a package of macarons from Bouchon Bakery (vanilla, carrot cake, and pistachio) for the road. We toddled out, retrieved my menus, and had a bit of trouble with the sliding glass doors - turns out, we weren't befuddled by our excellent feast so much as we were the last people in a locked restaurant.

Per Se
Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle
Broadway and 60th Street

Photos courtesy of Kiplog.com.