STEPHEN LYLE

This blog will attempt to share with you what especially turns me on when eating in New York City, where I live and work, and anywhere else I may go. I will also write about things I make that I think are worthy of mention. I will always try to pass along what makes it so good, if I can figure it out. My aim is to make you want to eat it, to cause you to go find it or cook it yourself, rather than just sit there and read about it. My current preference is for food that is powerful - y...

Bites of Brooklyn

A visit to the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, New York -- the prize for being married for 25 years -- turned out a little bland. My wife and I stayed at a nearby inn, and had our anniversary dinner at The Culinary Institute of America’s Caterina di Medici restaurant, the final training ground of the best and the brightest of America’s culinary academe. The huge, cathedral ceiling’d trattoria, paid for by Colavita olive oil, is very yellow. I agree with the...

In early April I traveled to Paris and then took the train down South with my sister to visit my father, who still lives there. In Salernes, a village near where I grew up down south, a very nice butcher made some more merguez to order for us because he had run out. He then gave a long disquisition on head cheese. He is one of two butchers in town -- there used to be six, but the rest were put out of business by the new supermarkets and dwindling populations. His was less beefy than the Par...

In early April I traveled to Paris and then took the train down South with my sister to visit my father, who still lives there. The red-faced, fifth generation maker and seller of Brie de Meaux cheese at the Richard Lenoir market told us that since the new European Union rules have been enforced, he doesn’t make butter any more. They won’t let him touch it, even with gloves. He has waged legal battles over the right to make raw milk brie for export, but said he was tired, that ...

In early April I traveled to Paris and then took the train down South with my sister to visit my father, who still lives there. Many Sunday mornings, when my dear brother-in-law Jean is not out at his ancestral hall in Normandie, you can find him at the Richard Lenoir Market near Place de la Bastille. It was totally overwhelming, as always to me, and it was only April. Our favorite thing to look at is the fish at “Lorenzo”. Lorenzo is, by Jean’s account, a tyrant who can...