Daytime excursions for food and drink — be it a full-on diner breakfast, a sandwich, or a cup of coffee — act as exclamation points punctuating otherwise ordinary days. Today’s list of recommendations is a continuation of last month’s Brooklyn restaurant guide. What follows is a collection of my New York City daytime favorites: bakeries, coffee shops, lunch counters, and more.

New York City Daytime Spots

In no particular order besides when they popped into my head while writing this…

Little Egg
For a sit-down brunch in Brooklyn, you can’t do much better than Little Egg in Prospect Heights. As the name suggests, the menu features plenty of well-executed egg dishes, including the egg katsu sando, built around a panko-crusted steamed egg patty (!!), and the Eggs Rothko, a color-blocked take on the British classic toad-in-the-hole. Just as important, though, is ordering at least one pastry. The pastry program is led by Tanya Bush, and I’ve never had anything from it that missed the mark.

Barker Cafeteria
Barker is one of the new places in New York I’m most excited about, in any category — full stop. It’s a warm, casual lunch counter in Bed-Stuy serving exceptional food, like the herby chicken noodle soup, which comes with a ramekin of chili paste so you can make it as spicy as you like, and the sweet potato sandwich with roasted onion mayonnaise, bitter chicories, and fresh zhug. The oversized glazed apple fritter is wonderful, too, studded with soft chunks of apple throughout. Co-owner (who is also a beautiful writer) publishes a Substack with dispatches from Barker, menu updates, and other reflections. It’s worth reading for her prose alone.

Court Street Grocers
An outstanding sandwich shop that I’m lucky to have in the neighborhood. My local spot is the original Carroll Gardens location, though there are also outposts in Greenwich Village and Williamsburg. Everyone seems to have their go-to Court Street Grocers order, but the consensus favorite is probably the Vegetalian — the sandwich that Helen Rosner once declared New York’s finest.

S&P Lunch
S&P is a classic New York City luncheonette from the Court Street Grocers team, housed in the former Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop and retaining much of its original character. The menu is exactly what you’d hope to find in a place like this: pancakes, tuna melts, grilled cheeses, patty melts, and other staples. It’s fabulous.

Elbow Bread
My final mention of the Court Street Grocers empire is Elbow Bread, the Lower East Side bakery they opened in collaboration with baker Zoë Kanan. I’ve tried several pastries from Elbow — many with Jewish influences, including babka knots, challah buns, and rugelach — and have been impressed every time. My Big Night coworker Eva also recently raved about the EBBB, a sandwich on sourdough black bread with crispy walnut butter, cream cheese, and dates. Must try.

Poppy’s
A reliable, popular neighborhood café in Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights. I love their drip coffee, their egg sandwich with chili aioli and arugula, and their perfect corn muffin.

Un Posto Italiano
A slice of Italy in Park Slope. I like to get a cappuccino and a mortadella-and-artichoke sandwich on pizza bianca and pretend, for however long I’m there, that I’m in Rome.

Liz’s Book Bar
Liz’s Book Bar is a beloved community space in Carroll Gardens — part bookstore, part coffee shop, and part bar. My favorite time to visit is in the morning for a writing session. The coffee is strong, the Wi-Fi is fast, and the atmosphere is inclusive and friendly.

Brooklyn Granary & Mill
Teo and I are both regulars at Brooklyn Granary & Mill in Gowanus, which is dedicated to showcasing grains from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. There’s a mill upstairs and a bakery downstairs, where you can sample pastries made with the very grains milled above. The staff is welcoming and kind, which makes every visit a pleasure. Read more of my thoughts on Brooklyn Granary & Mill here.

L’Appartement 4F
L’Appartement 4F is a French bakery with locations in Brooklyn Heights and the West Village. As an Instagram darling (said with love!!), it can get a little mobbed, and the lines can be annoying. But the bread and pastries are divine, and I’m so glad it exists. I suggest starting with the classics: a baguette and a croissant.

Agi’s Counter
The owner of Agi’s Counter, Jeremy Salamon, recently announced that the restaurant will be closing soon (at least for now). To avoid confusing anyone, I won’t include it on the Google Map, but I have to mention it here for posterity — and in the hope that it reopens somewhere soon. Agi’s is a magical spot in Crown Heights, with a menu inspired by Jeremy’s Jewish and Eastern European heritage. It serves one of the city’s most memorable breakfasts and lunches (I never made it there for dinner, though I suspect it’s fantastic as well). I dream of the palacsinta (Hungarian crêpes) and the lemony New York–style cheesecake.

Breakfast by Salt’s Cure
I’m continually impressed by this dialed-in operation, which quietly does a tremendous amount of business with a streamlined menu anchored by its oatmeal griddle cakes. There are locations in the West Village, Carroll Gardens, and Prospect Heights, along with two outposts in California.

Bánh by Lauren
A Vietnamese-American bakery in Two Bridges with gorgeous, just-sweet-enough pastries and coffee drinks. You can also pre-order chiffon cakes with flavors like Vietnamese coffee and pandan coconut for birthdays and other celebrations!

Welcome Home
A newish bakery in Bed-Stuy from two L’Appartement 4F alums. I’ve only been once, but I found it cozy, welcoming (naturally), and unpretentious, with excellent pastries. Sara and I met there one morning, sat at a sun-drenched table, and shared a generously frosted cinnamon roll the size of my face. It rocked.

Radio Bakery
An always-busy, much-loved bakery with locations in Greenpoint and Prospect Heights. While the pastries are the main attraction, I’m often most excited about the sandwiches, especially the ham and rosemary butter on sesame stirato and the spicy tofu sandwich with sesame-scallion sauce, shaved cabbage, and chili crisp.

La Cabra
New York City is blessed to have three locations of this Danish bakery and coffee roastery: Bushwick (home to the actual roastery), SoHo, and the East Village. I most often find myself at the SoHo location when I’m running errands nearby. I’ve never had a bad pastry or coffee at any of the locations — in fact, they’re always excellent. My usual order is a cappuccino and a cardamom bun, if only for the Danish novelty of it all.

Otway Bakery
Dare I say that Otway Bakery has my favorite pastries in all of New York?? There, I said it. I love the ham and cheese croissant, which has a healthy spread of grainy mustard. I’m also a fan of the classic plain croissant, the pain au chocolat, and the sausage roll. I went a lot more often when I lived in Prospect Heights, but I still make my way there from time to time. Picking up a box of Otway pastries for a park hang with friends is my dream day.

ACQ Bread Co.
A quirky Carroll Gardens bakery that produces some of my favorite loaves in the city. The Clinton Street bakery is only open from 4-7 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, a schedule that somehow never sticks in my brain, so I usually find it easier to track down their bread at the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket on Sunday mornings.

Cafe Mado
An all-day café in Prospect Heights from the Place des Fêtes team, with an elegant, seasonal menu. It’s the perfect place to take your parents before or after a walk through Prospect Park.

Sey Coffee
A destination for coffee nerds and one of the city’s most respected coffee roasters, tucked away in East Williamsburg.

Bagel Bob’s
Bagel Bob’s is Teo’s childhood bagel shop on University Place in Greenwich Village, where he and his twin brother used to stop for breakfast on their way to school. It’s a classic, no-frills spot serving fresh New York City bagels. Nothing fancy — just consistently good.

Apollo Bagels
Apollo is my favorite of the new-wave New York bagel spots I’ve tried. The menu is streamlined and focused on only the good stuff (read: no birthday cake cream cheese at Apollo). The bagels have an airy sourdough crumb, a crisp crust, and are served open-faced. Apollo now has several locations throughout the city, but my go-to remains the original in the East Village.

Hani’s Bakery & Café
This East Village bakery specializes in comforting, modern American baked goods. Go with friends so you can sample as many pastries as possible. The malted cinnamon bun is a thing of beauty.

Buvette
A tiny, stylish French restaurant in the West Village. While it’s open for dinner as well, I like it best for brunch, and I think it’s one of the most inviting places in the city to dine alone. My order is a croque madame.

Thai Diner
For some reason, I’ve only ever been to Thai Diner in Nolita for lunch, but I think it’s such a perfect daytime spot that I don’t feel any urgency to make it there for dinner. I love the roti egg sandwich and the Thai tea French toast, which is served with salty condensed milk.

Barney Greengrass
Barney Greengrass is an Upper West Side Jewish deli and New York institution where I often took visitors when I was a student at Barnard. It’s essential to order some kind of smoked fish while you’re there — they rightfully take particular pride in their smoked sturgeon.

La Bicyclette
La Bicyclette is a French bakery that makes a near-perfect $2 baguette, which is my usual reason for stopping by, but the pastries and baguette sandwiches are lovely, too. In addition to my local bakery in Carroll Gardens, there are locations in Williamsburg, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill.

Smør | Smør Bakery
A Nordic-inspired restaurant and bakery in the East Village, with a second restaurant location in Clinton Hill. Both the restaurant and bakery are reliable destinations for fresh, Scandinavian-inspired fare, like seasonal toasts and open-faced sandwiches topped with smoked salmon and dill.

Daily Provisions
Daily Provisions, part of the Danny Meyer empire, has been a favorite of mine since I first moved to New York in 2017. Despite all the expansion it’s undergone, I think it’s maintained remarkably high standards, and I’m glad to have locations scattered across the city. The cruller remains a forever favorite, and I love that they brew Joe Coffee — another nostalgic touch that reminds me of my early days in New York, since Joe was my college coffee shop.

Villager
Beautifully executed coffee in Crown Heights — a must-stop whenever we’re in the area.

Win Son Bakery
A playful Taiwanese-American bakery with locations in East Williamsburg and the East Village. Come for the epic bacon, egg, and cheese on a scallion pancake; stay for the gloriously chewy mochi donut.

Cobble Hill Coffee Shop
After all these years, I’ve yet to fall madly in love with a classic New York City diner (in my experience, the best ones are in the suburbs). However, I frequent them anyway because I love what diners represent. I love the bottomless coffee that leaves you slightly jittery, the kitschy wall decor, the comfy, well-worn booths, and the fluffy, oversized pancakes. Cobble Hill Coffee Shop is my local diner, and I’m very fond of it. I love that every customer gets a complimentary shot of freshly squeezed orange juice, that the food is perfectly fine and not much better than that, and that it feels like the entire neighborhood eats there.

Some places at the top of my list to try…
Hellbender
Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Luncheonette
Vato
2788 Bagels (offshoot of my now-closed college bagel spot, Absolute Bagels)

As I said with my list of Brooklyn restaurants, I’m sure I’ll remember several favorites the moment I click “publish: — but here I go, clicking “publish” anyway. You can find the full list on Google Maps and Rec League, with descriptions included on both.

Cheersing you with my coffee,
Phoebs

I’m proud to consider myself a newly initiated member of the Knicks fan club. Sure, call me a bandwagoner. Yes, my understanding of the rules is hazy. My love for this team may be new, but it is TRUE! As of yesterday, I own a Knicks hat that says “2026 Finals” on it, and I’m acutely aware that it may one day be VERY VALUABLE. I’m meeting up with friends to watch the games, complaining about the refs, and developing increasingly irrational superstitions. Last night, I determined that blue shoes were lucky, and then OG won the game wearing blue shoes. A coincidence? I think not.

The best and most powerful times to live in New York are when it feels like everyone is rallying around something (one reason I love the NYC Marathon so much), and this Knicks fandom feels exactly like that. A couple of friends came over yesterday to eat roast chicken, drink beer, and watch the game. Later, we realized our livestream was a few seconds behind. As the game was winding down and we were still waiting to see the final possession, we heard shrieks erupt from the bar down the street. Bel and I locked eyes, “Those were good shrieks, right?”

Thankfully, they were.

How, you may ask, am I going to pivot from a recap of my Knicks-watching experience to a tofu recipe? Simple: life is feeling extraordinarily big and social right now, and I’m grateful for all of it, but sometimes you need to reel it back in and eat a vegetable or two. This is a recipe to make when your body wants vegetables but also comfort, when you’ve been running around the city and need to eat something grounding, and when it’s time to be practical and actually pack your work lunches for once.

Noodle salads are perfect for this purpose. There are two reasons why: first, I always want noodles; second, they’re an ideal vehicle for all kinds of vegetables and herbs. All you need is a flavorful sauce to tie everything together. It could be peanut sauce, sesame sauce, or something else entirely. This time, I went with a lemony miso-sesame dressing I adapted from a Samin Nosrat recipe that apparently inspired her latest cookbook, Good Things. I can understand why: it’s balanced and creamy, with a mouth-puckering lemony punch.

This saucy noodle salad is satisfying enough on its own, but if you want something alongside it, I recommend sesame-crusted tofu, pan-fried until golden brown and crisp. I’m often underwhelmed by tofu recipes that promise crispiness; unless you deep-fry it, tofu rarely gets as crunchy as I want it to. The secret here is a coating of sesame seeds and cornstarch, which creates an ultra-crispy crust without much fuss. No deep-frying required.

Bright, fresh, and endlessly adaptable, this is one of the easiest ways I know to turn tofu and vegetables into a meal I genuinely crave. As a bonus, it’s vegetarian — and can easily be made vegan by swapping the honey for maple syrup.

P.S. Knicks in five.

Lemony Sesame Noodles with Crispy Tofu

Read more

Claire and Pat also prioritized food at the wedding, choosing a venue with a stellar open-fire food program, which reminded me of ’s New York Times article about open-fire cooking at weddings. They also (conveniently for me) hosted the weekend in one of my favorite towns for food and drink. In between wedding events, I took advantage of being in Hudson and snuck in a meal at Doves Diner, bagels at Circles, drinks at the newly opened (and wonderfully weird) wine bar Merkin, and two stops at Mel the Bakery, one of the great bakeries in all of New York State.

Today I’m sharing a few sweet somethings: a new cookbook store I’m shouting about from the rooftops, details on the darling hotel where we stayed over the weekend, and a meal at Dean’s, fueled by Guinness on tap.

Sweet Somethings

Wild Sorrel Cookbooks

I first learned about Wild Sorrel in January from Teo’s brother Nico, who told me that Troy Chatterton — previously the manager of Three Lives in the West Village, where Nico once worked — was raising money on Kickstarter to open a cookbook shop. Between Nico’s glowing endorsement of Troy and my own love of cookbooks, I immediately chipped in and sent the link to food-loving friends I knew would be excited about the opening. It’s been really sweet to watch food people from all over New York (and beyond!) rally around Troy to support the shop. As my friend says, “Cookbook people are the best people.”

Fast forward to April, and Wild Sorrel now exists! It occupies a petite East Village space and is every bit as lovely as I imagined it would be. I’ve only been once so far, but I can’t wait to go back and make it a regular Manhattan stop. During my visit, Troy and I bonded over our shared obsession with Chez Panisse and the River Café, and the simple, ingredient-driven approach to cooking that both places champion. Fellow Chez Panisse enthusiasts will immediately recognize Alice Waters’s influence within the store, from the carefully chosen cookbook selection to the overall feeling of curiosity the space cultivates. I especially loved browsing the section devoted to British cookbooks, from which I brought home two treasures: the original River Café book and the Towpath cookbook.

My cookbook shelf overfloweth, but I can’t help continuing to add to it. I was also delighted to see Maira Kalman books at Wild Sorrel — I consider her my favorite artist and a huge inspiration.

I’ll stop there, but please: go! And tell me what you buy. Sign up for the newsletter here, if you’d like.

Rivertown Lodge

Over the wedding weekend in Hudson, we had the pleasure of staying at Rivertown Lodge, a renovated movie-theater-turned-hotel. Based on the website, I knew it would be charming, but I didn’t realize quite how much I’d love the design and overall sensibility of the place. I found myself taking lots of photos and mental notes of little details, bookmarking them for future design inspiration. (My research led me to discover that Brooklyn-based agency Workstead is behind the design, so I’m excited to look into more of their work.)

I loved the layering of different woods and textures throughout the space, as well as the thoughtful incorporation of color: deep yellow cupboards, leaf-green lounge chairs, faded red carpeting, matte black and earthy neutrals woven throughout. There were two working woodstoves in the lobby, and one morning when I went down for coffee, I became fixated on the contrast between the orangey blaze of the fire and a vase of airy pink blooms nearby — a combination that felt perfectly evocative of a chilly late-May weekend in the Hudson Valley.

The details throughout the hotel made it feel personal and considered: a gorgeous wraparound cherrywood front desk, an updated version of the old movie theater sign outside, a board of local recommendations in the entryway, and excellent Tandem coffee freshly brewed and available downstairs every morning. It managed to feel stylish but not self-conscious, which I imagine is a tricky balance to strike. I highly recommend staying there if you get the chance.

Dean’s

Dean’s is the latest opening from the King team: a Manhattan-style British pub, located right next door to King in SoHo. I managed to snag a table for myself and a couple friends thanks to my friend Megan — a former line cook colleague of mine who now cooks there — and it ended up being an unsurprisingly spot-hitting meal.

We ordered admirably well, if I do say so myself: oysters to start, quail Scotch eggs, curried coronation salad, fish and chips, and ginger pudding to finish. We each had a cocktail — two carrot margaritas and one cucumber gimlet — before switching to Guinness alongside dessert, which felt essential to the experience.

The pudding was particularly memorable: squidgy cake topped with sticky candied ginger syrup, sitting in a pool of warm vanilla custard. Brits really know how to nail the hot-cake-cold-cream dynamic. See also: Cafe Cecilia’s deep-fried bread-and-butter pudding with cold custard, a dessert I think about at least once a week.

What I loved most about Dean’s was the combination of comforting British pub food with the precision and care you’d expect from the King team. We ate there early in the evening before heading to the theater, and the space buzzed in that perfect downtown way: packed booths, ice-cold cocktails everywhere, people just happy to be there. I have no doubt it’s a place that people will fold naturally into their routines after the initial excitement settles.

An update to my recent post about spring/summer reads: I finished The Things We Never Say and loved loved loved it so much (even though it made me cry). My dad and my younger brother Malcolm are both reading it now, and I gave my sister-in-law my copy so she can read it too. Family book club!

As always, I welcome your comments, recommendations, and observations.

More soon,
Phoebs

My recommendations remain mostly Brooklyn- and Manhattan-centric — the two boroughs I’ve lived in over the course of my New York tenure — with a few outliers. These are places I can recommend with my full chest, whether I’ve visited them multiple times myself or been at least once and had trusted food friends vouch for.

People often ask me for New York City restaurant recommendations, and I’m always happy to share them, but it’s far easier to put together an updated list to send along whenever someone asks where they should eat.

Today we’re tackling a big one: Brooklyn restaurants. My favorite borough — for living, eating, and everything in between. This is a highly personal and not-at-all-exhaustive list — just the places I’ve dined at, loved, and would happily recommend to anyone.

Brooklyn Restaurants

In no particular order besides when they popped into my head while writing this…

Roman’s
Chic, understated Italian food in Fort Greene, equally well-suited to solo bar dinners and special occasions. Get a cocktail, at least one pasta, and the fava bean purée: velvety and mellow, topped with bitter greens and olive oil, served with She Wolf bread.

Hart’s
A perfect 30-seat restaurant in Bed-Stuy, inspired by the Mediterranean coast. (Completely unbiased, of course). Lots of seafood, olive oil, herbs, and natural wine. Fantastic staff. The clam toast is a must.

F&F Restaurant and Bar
The sit-down sister to F&F Pizzeria, a fantastic slice shop. The shared name is admittedly confusing, especially since they’re on the same block, but this F&F is all about seasonal wood-fired pizzas and vegetable dishes. It’s become our go-to neighborhood date night spot, and our typical order is a guanciale and leek pie plus something fresh and seasonal, like a puntarelle or snow pea salad.

Café Kestrel
An enchanting little bistro in Red Hook, where Teo and I had one of my favorite meals of the last few years, which I wrote about here. I love that the menu includes chic dishes like seafood terrine and farinata with olives, but also French fries and the best mac and cheese of my life. Come for date night, split a bottle of wine, and eat well.

Café Brume
An Alpine restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. We’ve somehow been seated at the same little window table every time we’ve gone, so now it feels spiritually assigned to us. Perfect in winter or on a rainy day when all you want is a crispy schnitzel and a glass of wine. For more on Café Brume, read my write-up for , linked here.

Bar Bête
The definition of a classy neighborhood spot, with minimalist design, smooth service, and a French-inspired menu that changes frequently. I’ve had and loved the oysters with chili oil, tuna toast, and leeks vinaigrette. The yellow cake is worth ordering, both for the nostalgic birthday-cake flavor and the dramatic swoosh of chocolate frosting.

La Vara
Elegant, understated Spanish food in one of my favorite parts of Brooklyn, right along Cobble Hill Park. I love the octopus carpaccio and the slow-roasted suckling pig with chimichurri, and if you’re an anchovy fan, start with the Cantabrian anchovies and butter.

The Fly
Sister restaurant/bar of Hart’s. They serve rotisserie chicken and natural wine, and that’s pretty much it. My go-to spot for a last-minute, affordable group dinner. Also great for birthdays.

Frankies 457 Spuntino
A Court Street institution with a spacious backyard, cozy Italian food, and welcoming neighborhood vibes. Whatever you do, don’t skip the cavatelli with hot sausage and browned sage butter, one of the most delightful dishes to ever grace Brooklyn.

Bernie’s
American comfort food in Greenpoint. I avoided it for a while because it felt less exciting than trying a new cuisine, but eventually I accepted the truth: when you’re in the right mood, mozzarella sticks, shrimp cocktail, burgers, and martinis with friends is an unbeatable formula.

Cozy Royale
Another ideal place to hunker down with friends over stiff drinks and cheeseburgers. If you can get the dry-aged burger with raclette and arugula, do it.

Chez Ma Tante
Simple, well-executed bistro food in Greenpoint. Think chicken milanese, pork shoulder with salsa verde and lentils, fries (excuse me, “chips”) and aioli, and a crisp little gem salad.

Leo
Tried-and-true sourdough pizzeria in Williamsburg. I’ve never had the soft serve, but it looks phenomenal, so maybe order that after you’ve had your fill of pizza.

The Four Horsemen
An intimate, much-acclaimed wine bar and restaurant that’s worth the reservation struggle. You’re basically guaranteed to have a perfect meal. On my first visit, my friend Bel and I walked in right when they opened at 11 a.m. and gleefully ate tartare and boudin blanc before noon.

Sawa
A Park Slope gem with an elegant but easygoing atmosphere and beautiful Lebanese food. Order whatever is seasonal, plus plenty of dips with fresh pita, and spend some time with the Lebanese wine list. Read more about my experience at Sawa here.

Sofreh
A stylish, elevated restaurant in Prospect Heights serving Persian food. A very worthy destination for special occasions. The team will take beautiful care of you.

Eyval
Sofreh’s sister restaurant in Bushwick, with a similar style and spirit, though maybe a bit younger and less serious in vibe.

Ops
Natural wine and sourdough pizza in Bushwick (now with an East Village location as well). Beloved by the restaurant industry for good reason. Get the Cicero, charmingly described as “with many onions,” and ask the servers to help you pick a bottle.

Untable
Absurdly delicious, creative Thai dishes on a quiet block in Carroll Gardens. The crab croquettes topped with crispy lemongrass are a particular favorite, and their kao-soi is the best I’ve ever had.

Hungry Thirsty
When Ugly Baby closed in 2023, former staff took over the Carroll Gardens space and opened Hungry Thirsty. While different in some ways, it still satisfies the craving for fiery Thai food. Prepare to sweat, cry, and surprise yourself by continuing to eat (and enjoy!) incomprehensibly spicy dishes. Wash it all down with a cold beer. Come here on a first date only if you’re comfortable dissolving into puddles together.

Mariscos El Submarino
Mexican seafood, beer, and a casual, happy atmosphere. There are a few locations across the city, but the one I’ve been to is in Clinton Hill, which has a big back patio that’s ideal for large groups and warm weather dinners.

Fradei
This petite subterranean restaurant in Fort Greene occupies a similar place in my heart as Cafe Kestrel does: intimate, romantic, and perfect for a quiet date night with sophisticated food and wine. While the menu leans French, I’ve had some extraordinary pastas here.

Strange Delight
New Orleans-inspired seafood restaurant in Fort Greene. On my last visit, the chargrilled oysters and the hush puppies rocked my world, and trusted sources swear that the cocktails are on another plane.

Sailor
I’m struggling to write this description because all I really want to say is: IT’S GOOD, AND YOU SHOULD GO. This Fort Greene bistro serves inventive dishes alongside classics like Caesar salad and roast chicken, all executed at the highest level. The vaguely maritime theme means plenty of seafood, but more than anything, it’s just an excellent restaurant.

Đi Ăn Đi
One of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants in the city, tucked away in Greenpoint. The food is fresh, herbaceous, modern, and consistently excellent.

Diner
Founded on New Year’s Eve, 1998, Diner is older than I am — a Brooklyn establishment at the forefront of farm-to-table cuisine in New York City. It’s a Williamsburg classic in a refurbished dining car, and the food is reliably satisfying, whether you’re trying something new to the menu or sticking with the classic burger with white cheddar and pickled red onions.

Some places at the top of my list to try…
Theodora
Lucali (mostly out of curiosity — and proximity)
Bong
Border Town
I Cavallini

I’m sure I’ll think of 10 more places immediately after publishing this article. But these are the Brooklyn restaurants I love: the ones I return to often and that I recommend without hesitation. For your convenience, I compiled the above list here on Google Maps, with descriptions included.

I also added the list to Rec League, an extremely fun app for sharing and cataloging recommendations that I discovered through .

More lists coming soon: non-Brooklyn restaurants, bars, and daytime spots.

Thank you for reading and happy eating,
x Phoebs

Today, I’m sharing recipes for my favorite pasta: spaghetti with clams, two ways. One version uses fresh clams, and the other relies on canned clams, which deserve far more respect than they usually get. Both are surprisingly easy, especially considering the elegance of the result.

Spaghetti with Clams, 2 Ways

If I were hard-pressed to choose a favorite food, it would be spaghetti with clams. And if I were really pressed for details, it would be eaten in Rome, at a sunny outdoor table with a glass of white wine nearby. I think it’s the most beautiful dish: the tangle of noodles, the ridged clam shells interspersed, the glossy sauce. That’s not to mention the taste: the oceanic brine of the clams themselves, the sautéed, mellowed garlic, the suggestion of heat from chili flakes, the silky, starchy noodles. Food writer Nigel Slater once wrote that “nothing is as glam as a clam,” and I have to agree.

It’s funny, though, because clams don’t exactly have a glamorous origin story. They’re buried in mud and wet sand, harvested with rakes or shovels from the ocean floor. They’re mollusks (not the sexiest word in the English language), and they live very simple lives, quietly filtering water and minding their own business. And yet spaghetti with clams somehow has the effortless glamour of an off-duty model on an Amalfi holiday. Go figure.

Conveniently, I love cooking spaghetti with clams almost as much as I love eating it — warming garlic in olive oil, hitting the pan with a splash of wine, watching and listening as the clams begin to open one by one with gentle clicks and muffled pops. Tasting the broth is also a highlight, noticing as the clam liquor, white wine, and garlic-infused olive oil gradually merge into their own thing altogether: briny and rich.

I’m writing this on a hot day, which is the best sort of day for spaghetti with clams, despite the fact that it requires standing over a stove. It’s a beachy dish, meant for beachy heat. You may not be at a sunny outdoor table in Rome, but you can embrace the warmth wherever you are. Go out to buy some littleneck clams, and come home to make something special.

The exception to the hot-weather rule, in my book, is spaghetti with canned clams. Fresh clams belong to vacations, seaside restaurants, and long, warm evenings. The canned stuff, on the other hand, belongs to any old Tuesday throughout the year when you’re craving the feeling of summer. Canned clams are a practical pantry product, less tied to a coastal fantasy; after all, it’s a lot less elegant to open a tin than it is to tumble a pile of fresh clams into a skillet. In the context of spaghetti, though, canned clams absolutely do the trick, still delivering the oceanic brine you’re after.

Since both versions have their place on my plate and in my heart, I’m sharing two recipes today.

The Recipes

Read more

The other day, I was feeling particularly uninspired about what to read when I received the best possible news: my favorite author, Elizabeth Strout, had released a new book. It was like not knowing what you want to eat, then being handed exactly what you didn’t know you desperately wanted.

Startled by my own ignorance (if I didn’t know that THE Elizabeth Strout had come out with a book, what else don’t I know?!), I started a list of new (or new-ish) books I’m excited to read this season. While oldies, of course, have their place, it’s fun to read the books of the moment, when everyone else is reading them as well. I feel like I’m in an unofficial nationwide book club when I can gab about the New York Times bestsellers with just about anyone.

So here’s that list of books, along with a few notes about why they’re calling my name.

My Spring/Summer 2026 Reading List

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Release Date: May 5, 2026

Strout’s writing is observant, quiet, and emotionally precise, and I always finish her books feeling like I really understand the characters — a quality I treasure in a book. I’m really looking forward to getting to know the new cast of characters she introduces in The Things We Never Say.

On Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward

Release Date: May 19, 2026

Ward’s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing is one of the all-time great novels, as far as I’m concerned, so I was excited to see that she has a new release coming soon. This one is a collection of personal essays, and I already know I’ll be reading it with a pencil in hand.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Release Date: April 7, 2026

A novel about a “tradwife” influencer suddenly confronted with the realities of the past she romanticizes online? Consider me intrigued.

Whistler by Ann Patchett

Release Date: June 2, 2026

Ann Patchett is a national treasure, and her upcoming novel follows a woman reconnecting with her former stepfather decades later. It sounds intimate, reflective, and exactly like the kind of emotionally layered book I’m drawn to.

Against Breaking by Ada Limón

Release Date: April 7, 2026

A book about the power of poetry, written by one of our country’s most adored poets, Ada Limón. I love poetry and believe in its ability to sustain us, so I already know this one will resonate.

The Keeper by Tana French

Release Date: March 31, 2026

I’ve read every Tana French book except this one, so it’s time to close the loop. She writes sharp, psychologically complex mysteries set in Ireland, and The Keeper is the third and final installment in the Cal Hooper series.

American Fantasy by Emma Straub

Release Date: April 7, 2026

is the co-owner of my local bookstore, Books Are Magic, and a fantastic novelist in her own right. Her latest is about a middle-aged woman on a boy-band cruise, and it sounds like PURE FUN to me.

Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser

Release Date: March 3, 2026

A Cinderella retelling from the stepmother’s perspective, portraying her as a struggling mother. Such a clever and compelling idea. I’ve been meaning to read this ever since it came out in March, and I’m excited to finally get to it.

The Kitchen Book by Ella Risbridger

Release Date: May 21, 2026

This is a U.K. release, so I’m not quite sure when I’ll be able to get my hands on it, but trust me: I will. ’s voice is warm and funny, and I love the way she writes about home cooking as part of the larger experience of being alive.

Have you read any of these yet? Anything I should add? I welcome your comments and responses.

Much love,
Phoebe

P.S. I’m really enjoying ’s series on Substack Notes celebrating book cover designers. A great book cover is a powerful thing!

A Love Letter to Ricotta

When I studied abroad in Bologna, I lived in an apartment directly across from a small bakery that specialized in southern Italian pastries. Early into the semester, I stopped in and ordered a pasticciotto alla ricotta, a Puglian pastry I’d never heard of, with a buttery, flaky crust and creamy center. It was oval-shaped, with a domed top and tapered edge — and just the right size for breakfast. Above all, what I loved about this pasticciotto was its ricotta filling, which wasn’t overly masked by other flavors besides a tinge of citrus zest (lemon, maybe, or orange). It just tasted like ricotta — the good kind — milky-sweet and rich. This is what I craved, morning after morning after morning. I wish I kept a count of how many times I had that exact breakfast, with a cappuccino, gradually becoming less nervous to place my order in Italian as the semester progressed, and as the staff committed it to memory.

Ricotta (meaning “re-cooked” in Italian) is traditionally made from the whey left over after producing other cheeses, though modern versions are often made with whole milk and cream as well. The mixture is heated and combined with an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar, which coagulates the proteins and forms a soft cheese with delicate curds. Unlike aged cheeses, ricotta is fresh, mild, and subtly sweet.

Its origins are unclear, but early versions are thought to have been made in Sicily during the centuries when the island was part of Magna Graecia, the network of Greek colonies spread across southern Italy. Sicily’s long tradition of raising sheep and goats, especially in its rugged mountain regions, made it a natural center for early cheesemaking, and historians believe Greek settlers may have introduced or improved upon techniques for preserving milk and reheating leftover whey.

In Book 9 of The Odyssey, Homer describes Odysseus encountering the Cyclops Polyphemus in a cave filled with baskets of cheese, curdled milk set aside in pails, and pens of sheep and goats. Some modern culinary historians speculate that the cheese described may have resembled fresh ricotta or another early whey cheese. While there’s no direct evidence linking Homer’s account to ricotta itself, the passage suggests that the practice of reheating whey to create a fresh, soft cheese dates back thousands of years.

Today, southern Italy remains famous for its ricotta, used in both savory and sweet dishes alike. It’s folded into pasta, stuffed into ravioli, arancini, and cannoli, or (and this is the version I’d most like to try) served ultra-fresh and still warm in a bowl with crusty bread. It’s a breakfast soup of sorts: somewhere between savory and sweet. This Sicilian tradition is known as zabbina, the hot whey-rich ricotta served immediately after production, before it fully sets, and sopped up with bread.

While Sicilian shepherding culture is not my own, I did grow up with some familiarity of East Coast Italian Americana. Throughout my youth, I visited an Italian American bakery, Mike’s Pastry, in Boston’s North End on the occasional family trip into the city. Mike’s is a goldmine of ricotta-based desserts, but I always went straight for the classic chocolate chip cannoli — shells bursting with smooth, luscious ricotta and dipped in mini chocolate chips at both ends. Inspired by this memory, I attempted homemade chocolate chip cannoli last year, with a little orange zest and vanilla whipped into the ricotta. It was a great success.

Now, I’m lucky to live in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, a neighborhood with a strong (though sadly diminishing) Italian-American identity, and a great food scene. I never take for granted the luxury of being able to stop into Caputo’s Fine Foods on a whim and walk out with a container of fresh ricotta.

It was at Hart’s, the Bed-Stuy restaurant where I once worked as a line cook, where I really fell in love with fresh ricotta. At Hart’s, they make ricotta every day and serve it with pizza bianca and whatever seasonal produce the chef feels inspired to serve it with — confit garlic, marinated mushrooms, braised green onions. There, in the basement kitchen, I stood over many a pot of bubbling milk, gradually heating, eventually curdling, and releasing a milky-sweet aroma. My central revelation about ricotta was that it’s not just a filler ingredient but something fresh, with its own distinct flavor, and worth appreciating on its own.

But lest you think otherwise, I don’t turn my nose at a tub of supermarket ricotta either. In fact, this is the ricotta I live with most often — Calabro, when I can find it. I buy it with no particular plan in mind, which isn’t a problem because it nearly always finds one for itself. Ricotta (supermarket or fresh) can be dolloped onto pasta, folded into pancake batter, mixed into meatballs, whipped and layered onto toast or crostini, and on and on. It’s a useful ingredient, improving whatever it touches and seamlessly threading itself into a week of meals. A few of my favorite ricotta recipes are Julia Turshen’s turkey and ricotta meatballs, Genevieve Ko’s lemon ricotta pancakes, and Deb Perelman’s zucchini and ricotta galette, if you’re seeking inspiration.

I also love supermarket ricotta in cakes. For a forgiving everyday cake, ricotta is the answer, yielding a soft, hydrated cake with a tender crumb. So for paid subscribers today, I’m sharing a ricotta chocolate chip cake. There’s a little orange zest in the batter — which makes it reminiscent of my homemade cannoli. I like it best for breakfast with coffee.

Ricotta-Chocolate Chip Cake

Read more

An April Menu

I bought lamb rib chops for the first time the other day at our local butcher shop, The Meat Hook. I hadn’t gone in looking for lamb, or for anything in particular, but they caught my eye right away — small and tidy, with ruby-red meat and pearly, opaque rims of fat. I bought four without much of a plan besides knowing that I had salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic at home — which is all lamb really needs.

Back in my kitchen, I unwrapped the chops and did a little reading, standing at the counter with my phone propped up against the pepper grinder. Rib chops, it turns out, are just slices from a rack of lamb, each one with its own little bone. “Lamb lollipops,” some people call them, which I don’t love; something about equating lamb’s deep, savory flavor with candy feels off-putting. But name aside, the appeal of the cut remained.

I kept it simple. First, I seasoned the chops with salt and pepper and let them sit while I stripped rosemary leaves from their stems, rubbing them between my fingers to release their sharp, green scent before finely chopping them. I grated a few cloves of garlic on a Microplane until they were almost a paste, sticky and strong.

Then I rubbed the rosemary and garlic all over the chops, working it in with my hands, and slipped everything into a plastic bag with a glug of olive oil. I pressed out the air, sealed it, and turned it over a few times — nothing elegant, just a bit of shifting and squelching — until the meat was well-coated. It went into the refrigerator for an hour or so, just long enough for the flavors to settle in.

At that point, I had time to clean up and start a side dish — preserved lemon roast potatoes, inspired by a recipe I found by the brilliant Diana Henry. I halved a couple pounds of baby yellow potatoes, tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a pinch of chili flakes, then slid them into a hot oven. While they roasted, I prepped the rest: preserved lemon, the flesh scraped away and the peel sliced thinly; a little more garlic, finely grated; and a handful of soft herbs (mint, dill, cilantro), roughly picked.

Read more

Today I have a few appreciations to share from an April mostly spent in New York, with a quick Vermont jaunt last week. Mostly food, as you won’t be surprised to know.

1. Oatmeal Pancakes

While in Vermont last week, I riffed on an oatmeal pancake recipe that uses old-fashioned rolled oats soaked in milk as the base of the batter. The soaking softens the oats and gives the pancakes a pleasantly chewy texture — denser than average, but in a way I found satisfying. I folded a bit of vanilla bean paste into the batter and swirled extra butter into the skillet before frying to coax out those crispy golden edges. And, because we were in Vermont, there was plenty of local maple syrup to drizzle (read: pour) over the top. If we’d had any leftovers (we didn’t), I would’ve saved them to toast later — just pop them straight into the toaster — and spread with butter and jam for an easy breakfast in the days that followed.

2. Visiting My Mom’s Classroom

Also while in Vermont, Teo and I made sure to visit my mom’s second-grade classroom to meet her students and colleagues. For as long as she’s been an elementary school teacher, I’ve loved visiting her at work, watching her lead with confidence, and feeling a kinship with her students, knowing we’ve all been lucky enough to be guided by her.

My mom, new to full-time Vermont life, had told me about the Vermont-y things the kids get to experience at their public school, but it was still a wonder to witness firsthand. Snap peas for afternoon snack one day, dragon fruit another. A P.E. program where kids learn to bike and then safely ride around town, many wearing ski helmets instead of bike-specific ones. All of this set against a backdrop of violet mountains.

My mom had me and Teo do a little Q&A, and the kids came up with questions (curiously, mostly sports-related) like, “Do you like the Texas Rangers?” to which I replied, “The Texas what?” This led us to the subject of Teo’s allegiance to the Yankees, which drew a wide range of reactions from a class split down the middle between Red Sox and Yankees fans. More amusement came later in the school library, where the kids buzzed around, eager for me and Teo to browse the shelves with them. One student asked me to sit on the floor with her and read a picture book about dogs. “Ooooh, that one’s cute.” she said at every page, finding a way to connect to each breed: “My friend’s cousin has one that kinda looks like that!” and so on.

Our visit was a good reminder of how much energy and patience it takes to lead a classroom — fielding questions, keeping things moving, making every kid feel seen. It’s a lot to hold at once, and teachers do it every day!

3. Hot Cross Buns

I made the Stissing House hot cross buns, shared on Clare de Boer’s newsletter, to great success — only tweaking a few things, like swapping the candied orange peel for zingy candied ginger (highly recommend). I brought a few buns into work to share with coworkers, along with some salted butter, and can confirm this is a reliable way to make friends.

4. Post-Dinner Cheese

One of my resolutions for 2026 was to serve and consume more post-dinner cheese plates. Yup, we’re aiming high this year.

There’s something about passing around a curated plate of cheeses after a meal that feels delectably French, and as far as I’m concerned, we could all use more of that energy. Salad, then cheese, then dessert, until you look up and realize you’ve been sitting at the table for four hours, still talking and enjoying yourself.

My dad’s birthday felt like the perfect occasion for this kind of dinner. He’s a man of many joys, but near the top of the list is a leisurely meal with a proper cheese course, so that’s exactly what we had. (More notes on our meal to come!)

I picked out three Vermont cheeses with the help of a cheesemonger at the Middlebury Food Co-Op: Woodlawn Creamery’s Pawlet, Blue Ledge Farm’s Lake’s Edge, and Parish Hill Creamery’s Lillian. A mix of textures and styles that played off each other nicely. My favorite might have been the Lake’s Edge, an ash-veined goat cheese with a bright tang and a melt-in-your-mouth quality. I’ll be going back for that one.

5. Doves Diner Pit Stop

On our way home from Vermont, we made a pit stop at Doves Diner (formerly West Taghkanic) in Ancram, New York. I love a classic diner, as I’ve expressed many times on The Dish, and I appreciate that this revamp isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel — just elevate the classics with thoughtful touches. The pancakes are squidgy and sweet, the scrambled eggs are velvety, the coffee is strong, and the check comes with a peppermint (which brought me outsized delight). I suspect Doves will become a regular stop for me and Teo on our way to and from the Green Mountains.

6. Crevette

Sometimes, when I dine with fellow cooks, the table turns into a kind of symposium, everyone leaning in, dissecting the dishes, and marveling at technique. Other times, though, the best move is to surrender: to stop analyzing and offer nothing more articulate than, “Oh my god, yum.” This was one of those nights.

At Crevette, a seafood-focused restaurant in the West Village, I sat with Teo, my parents, and two friends, and we let the food wash over us until we left in a happy daze. There were plump shrimp served with aioli and Calabrian chile, their sweetness sharpened by heat; Swiss chard, braised down to lush softness; grilled wild mushrooms cradling a golden egg yolk; and crispy cod cheeks topped with ribbons of silky Iberian ham. Oh, and more and more and more.

Seafood is my favorite, and Crevette serves some of the best I’ve had.

Thank you for reading (and sorry if this made you hungry).

More soon,
x Phoebe

Subscribe now

However, on the occasions when I’ve made everything ahead of time, leaving only a few scraps of prep for the day of, two things tend to happen:

1. I’m exhausted by the time dinner rolls around, precisely when I’m supposed to be having fun, and

2. things go…almost too smoothly. Everything’s ready when people arrive, we eat, and then suddenly the night is over and guests feel like it’s time to go home.

Lest we forget: it’s not that serious. I tend to prep as if we’re about to sit down, Downton Abbey-style, to a three-course meal at an immaculately set table, silver polished, crystal gleaming. But in reality, I’m usually entertaining in our Brooklyn apartment, with mismatched plates and not enough wine glasses, cooking for friends and family. And I should mention, I’m spoiled: most of the people I cook for also love to cook. They’re the kind of people who jump in without hesitation and often feel more comfortable helping with the food than sitting back and being served.

I’m thinking about this today because Teo made mole1 (!) the other night — a much-discussed labor of love. We sourced ingredients from several different shops, including ancho chiles from Kalustyan’s and lard and animal crackers (yes, really) from Fairway. The night before, we did a few bits of prep, like mixing the flour tortilla dough2, wrapping it tightly in plastic, and refrigerating it overnight. But I was working the following day, and Teo was deep in mole (and a dozen other non-food-related things), so the rest of the prep had to wait until right before dinner.

When I got home around 6:30 on Mole Day, a couple of friends were already there, pinching off golf balls of dough and rolling them out with wine bottles until thin and ready to fry. Teo was finishing the mole, the apartment smelled divine, and everything felt right — even though we still had work to do. I quickly defrosted frozen corn under warm water and broiled it until charred — a clever off-season elote hack I picked up online. We poached chicken thighs in water scented with ancho chiles, garlic, and spices, which gave us both tender meat to smother in mole and a flavorful chicken broth. Meanwhile, our friends took over tortilla duty, frying them one by one until puffed and blistered, then stacking them under a clean dish towel to keep warm. In the meantime, there were store-bought chips and tomatillo salsa (this brand is great) to snack on.

By the time we finally sat down to eat, sprawled across the couch and carpet around the coffee table, we were ready. Everything tasted ten times better because of the softer, looser energy, and because we’d all had a hand in it, in one way or another. The night stretched naturally into something that felt less like a traditional dinner party and more like its own thing.

If you’re stressed about a dinner party or trying to make a particular impression, sure: make everything ahead. But if you’re trying to have a good time with your people, leave a little room for friction — for tortillas to be rolled with wine bottles and for things to come together in real time.

More soon,
x Phoebe

P.S. I love you, Ina.

Subscribe now

I’ve been adjusting to new routines lately, having started a part-time job at Big Night, a charming shop with three locations across the city that sells homeware and gifts — and which carried my valentines this winter (there are still a handful of cards floating around the shops!). Only a few weeks in, working there feels like a step in the right direction: an anchor in my freelancing week and a source of stability and connection. My coworkers are so much fun to spend time with, and I’m finding satisfaction in selling lovely things and sharing in customers’ delight over what they take home, from chocolate sardines to vintage glassware to enormous tins of Spanish potato chips. I’m also learning that chatting with my coworkers, all of whom are interested in design or food (or both), has been an excellent source of ideas for The Dish and Frying Pan Paper Co. The other day, my coworker Eva helped me think through a new Frying Pan product, which I’m so excited to design and share with you.

I’m also in the final weeks of two introductory graphic design classes, which I’ve been taking (virtually) through Pratt, and wrapping up a few recipe testing gigs and custom design projects. Life is busy! Life is good!

Alongside all the newness and low-level chaos, I’ve been carving out more time with friends, with everyone emerging from winter hibernation as the weather warms. There was a leisurely dinner at Keens Steakhouse, a Midtown institution, to celebrate my (belated) birthday, complete with East Coast oysters, creamed spinach, boiled baby potatoes, Caesar salad, and a sirloin steak with all the sauces (béarnaise is my favorite), followed by a classic hot fudge sundae.

Other recent celebrations have included a neon-lit roller rink extravaganza at Xanadu in Bushwick for one friend’s birthday, and for another, a cozy group hang at a Lower East Side wine bar, where we passed around a dense slice of chocolate cake at the end of the night. Somewhere in between, I met up with a new friend at Sunn’s — also on the Lower East Side — which remains one of my favorite places to eat in the city. If you go, don’t miss the banchan or the Sunn’s salad.

I also found myself at Town Hall twice in one week: first to see Mae Martin, a comedian I love and one of the hosts of the Handsome podcast, and then Madison Cunningham, a masterful guitarist and singer-songwriter, who is among the most talented musicians I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live.

Work hard, play hard, and all that. I want to look back on this era of my life in New York and feel like I really did it all.

After a recent shop day, I made my way to Teo’s parents’ apartment for a very important reason: a butter tasting. Teo’s mom, Mary, and I had been scheming about organizing one for a while, just for the fun of it, and we finally got around to it. She hosted and gathered a range of butters, from standard supermarket fare to fancy French varieties, and I brought a gold-wrapped round of my favorite, Rodolphe le Meunier Beurre de Baratte, which is conveniently sold at Big Night. It’s gloriously salty, and I eat it like cheese.

While we didn’t approach our tasting in the most scientific or unbiased way, we did take our time with each one, layering butter onto crackers or thin slices of baguettes, discussing the tasting notes, and jotting our thoughts down. With my apologies to Ireland, France took the butter crown this time — though I’m eager to know what specialty Irish butters I might be missing out on. Isigny Saint-Mère, a butter brand from Normandy, was a clear winner for both unsalted and salted: creamy, milky-sweet, and almost whipped in texture. That said, I remain devoted to Beurre de Baratte, which is velvety, salty, and a dream on toast. My former roommate Meili once (kindly) commented that I go through a remarkable amount of butter, to which I said, thank you. Toast is the culprit.

My friend Cathy recently sent me a t-shirt with a picture of butter on it. My brand is strong!

There’s been a real shift into spring lately, with tulips and daffodils everywhere and cherry blossom trees bursting into bloom. I always intend to go to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to see the cherry blossoms at their peak, but until now, I’ve missed the window every year. They arrive sooner than you expect and disappear just as quickly. So when I realized Teo and I had a free Saturday together recently, I made a plan, and it finally happened. The garden was busy with fellow blossom-peepers, but the trees are abundant enough there that it never felt overcrowded. And there’s something so sweet about watching a diverse cross-section of New Yorkers and tourists gather under the cherry blossoms, inhale the scent, and take photos.

To bring some of that spring feeling back into our apartment, we picked up an assortment of flowers, greenery, and cherry blossom branches from the bodega and greenmarket. Lately, I’ve been taking one or two stems from a larger bouquet and putting them in a small bud vase on our bedside table. It’s a minor thing, but it changes the space, making it feel more considered, like a room carefully prepared for a guest.

Of all the flowers (maybe in the entire world?), white tulips are my favorite. I like their simplicity: their clean elegant lines and almost cartoon-like shape. They also make me think of Lucy Barton, an Elizabeth Strout character who loves them, too. I’m drawn to the combination of white and green, which reminds me of my paternal grandmother, whose home was full of soft whites and sagey greens. And I love that I can pick up a bunch at a bodega for relatively little money. It’s a small price for something I find so beautiful!

I’m cutting myself off with the tulips! Hope you’re soaking up the beginning of spring as much as I am, chaos and all.

x Phoebe

P.S. This is the new sign at the Manhattan entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge.

A Love Letter to Radishes

A couple of autumns ago, we helped our friend Michael propose to our other friend Tessa in Vermont. The plan was simple: reach the summit, he proposes, and then we celebrate with a picnic. I packed ham-and-rosemary-butter baguette sandwiches, potato chips, and some radishes for snacking. Teo tucked a mini bottle of Champagne and a few plastic cups into the bottom of his hiking backpack. By the time we reached the top, we were gleeful and ready, quietly opening our phone cameras and trying to give Michael and Tessa space.

That’s when Tessa announced she was hungry and would like to start the picnic.

Not wanting to ruin the surprise, we all agreed that yes, we should definitely start the picnic. So we sat down, unwrapped the sandwiches, and started crunching on chips and radishes like this had been the plan all along. It turned out Tessa had never had a radish before. After taking her first bite, she paused — what is this? — and then kept reaching for more, pleasantly surprised by it. We were all trying not to laugh as she unknowingly delayed her own proposal over a radish.

Meanwhile, Michael understandably managed only a few bites as he waited for his moment, while the rest of us enabled this extended radish interlude.

Eventually, we finished eating, stood up to take some photos, and everything unfolded beautifully from there. But I’ll never forget the radish detour. Who can blame her? It was a good radish.

Radishes look unassuming — small, smooth, often pink or red with that soft ombré fade into white. But when you bite into one, it snaps back. A juicy crunch, a distinctively peppery bite.

The crunch and the bite are exactly what make radishes such a natural match for creamy, mild butter — always with a pinch of flaky salt to bring everything into focus. The butter softens the edge just enough, without taking away what makes a radish a radish. Of course it was the French who figured this out, and I only wish I could’ve seen them take the first bite and realize they’d struck gold.

You don’t need a fancy type of radish to enjoy them. The red globe radishes you find at most grocery stores will do just fine. That said, if you ever come across some oblong breakfast radishes, or weighty watermelon radishes — true to their name, with pink flesh and green skin — they’re well worth picking up. I’m lucky to live near the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket, which has an outpost of Lani’s Farm on Sundays — the supplier of my radishes and greens and lots of other lovely things. When I buy radishes from Lani’s, I know they’ll be crisp and firm, with vibrant, well-kept leafy green tops.

Radishes and butter grace one of my 2026 calendar pages (May, if you were wondering) and one of my card designs. What continues to surprise me is how many people are surprised by it. But I suppose it’s one of those combinations that seems unusual until you try it, and then it just makes sense.

Even better than a radish slicked with butter is a slice of bread spread with butter, topped with thinly sliced radish and a sprinkle of salt. A baguette sandwich? Better still. If you want to go a step further, mix room-temperature butter with finely chopped tender herbs — dill, chives, basil, or any combination of the three. Spread it generously on a fresh baguette, layer on plenty of thinly sliced radishes, add a good pinch of salt and a handful of arugula, then close it up with the top half and eat.

Of course, there are many ways to enjoy radishes without a buttery companion. Slice them thinly and scatter them into salads, where they add a clean, peppery crunch. They have a similar effect as a topping for tacos, adding crisp, refreshing contrast to a rich filling like carnitas or refried beans. Shave them on a mandoline into delicate coins and pile them onto sandwiches or grain bowls to bring texture and brightness.

Pickling radishes is another easy shift. With a quick soak in vinegar, salt, and sugar, they lose some of their sharpness and take on a gentle tang. Daikon, in particular, transforms beautifully this way, becoming mellow and juicy while still maintaining its structure.

Roasting pushes them in a completely different direction. Heat softens their bite and draws out a subtle sweetness, turning something crisp and assertive into something tender and mild. Tossed with olive oil and salt and left in the oven for long enough, they become a new version of themselves. To that end, you can also sauté them, letting them blister slightly in a hot pan, or braise them so they absorb whatever broth they’re cooked in. Even the greens, often overlooked, can be used, sautéed like other tender leafy vegetables, stirred into soups, or even whizzed into pesto.

However you use them, radishes rarely fade into the background. They adjust, soften, or sharpen depending on what you do to them, but always keep a bit of their character intact. And they don’t ask for much. A rinse, a slice, a little salt. You don’t even need to cook them. They show up, do their job well, and make everything else taste a little more alive. Bright, bracing, indispensable.

Thank you for reading!

More soon,
x Phoebe

You might know phyllo best from spanakopita, the classic Greek spinach-feta pie, but it’s as versatile as puff pastry, lending itself nobly to both savory and sweet dishes. Lately, I’ve been fixated on the idea of a phyllo-topped pot pie — something inspired by spanakopita’s bright, herbaceous flavors but heartier and worthy of center stage. I’ve seen many variations on this idea, but here’s my take: a creamy chicken pie with spinach, dill, and lemon zest, finished with a gloriously crisp, feather-light phyllo topping.

Chicken Spanakopita Pie

Read more

One of the best parts of traveling is returning with a renewed appreciation for the comforts of home: sleeping in your own bed, walking around your neighborhood and spotting familiar faces (both human and canine), and, of course, reuniting with your kitchen and cooking for yourself. So I thought it’d be fun to share a list of sweet somethings related to my home and neighborhood — things and places that make me happy to be back in town.

As it turns out, the themes are fancy fats (lol), coffee, carbohydrates, and cookbooks. Which feels about right.

Sweet Somethings

1. The Good Butter

Home is where the good French butter is. Beurre de Baratte is rich, creamy, and perfectly salted, and comes wrapped in glimmering gold.

2. Our Moka Pot Morning Routine

For our morning coffee routine, Teo and I are currently devoted to the moka pot, though we dream of having enough counter space for a real espresso machine. Still, I love the ritual, whether Teo is making coffee and I hear the gentle clinks, clanks, and whistles from bed, or I’m the one preparing it, taking care with each step. Alessi makes some of the most beautiful moka pots, including this one, which we have with a red handle and use every day, as well as this version with a mesmerizing rippled effect. Of course, you don’t need to spend a lot on a moka pot; even the simplest ones make great coffee.

3. La Bicyclette’s $2 Baguette

Another perk of living in Carroll Gardens is the outpost of La Bicyclette, a bakery that sells $2 baguettes, a practically unheard-of price in New York City. Not only are they affordable, they’re also high-quality: crusty, airy, freshly baked. I love stopping by after picking up the rest of my groceries to grab one, and sometimes a few more for the freezer. With a baguette poking out of my bag, it’s hard not to feel like the chicest, most French girl in the world.

4. My Cookbook Collection | Six Seasons of Pasta

Unfortunately, I can’t travel with my cookbooks, a steadily growing and extremely heavy collection that was a nightmare to move into the apartment. I love coming home to them, opening one at least once a day for a quick flip-through, often over breakfast, or a longer read at night. My current fixation is Six Seasons of Pasta by Joshua McFadden. I put off buying it for a while, even though his first cookbook, Six Seasons, is one of my all-time favorites. I wasn’t sure I needed an entire book devoted to pasta, but it turns out I did.

I recently made the chicken ragu bianco, which tastes like chicken noodle soup in ragu form: comforting and mellow, with chicken, carrots, celery, and thyme. He suggests freezing portions that you can reheat straight from frozen and toss with pasta, which is exactly what I did for a solo dinner last night.

5. Partanna 3-Liter Olive Oil Tin

Caputo’s Fine Foods is a family-owned Italian grocer in our neighborhood where I buy all the lovely Italian things: sweet, fresh mozzarella, briny olives, and our new household favorite: Spicy Bomba, a fiery chili condiment they make in-house.

Teo and I had been eyeing the enormous 3-liter tin of Partanna olive oil on the bottom shelf for a while, but hesitated at the $80 price tag. I finally took the plunge and lugged it home, thankfully not a long walk, after realizing it was a better deal than buying liters of California Olive Ranch for $30 each (don’t worry, I still love you, California Olive Ranch).

I’m delighted with the decision. I love that I can buy it locally, and there’s something a little silly and satisfying about decanting olive oil from a tin I can barely carry into a squeezy bottle. The quality is excellent: mild, buttery, and perfect for cooking.

6. F&F Restaurant

F&F Restaurant (the sit-down sister to F&F Pizzeria, a fantastic slice shop) quickly became Teo’s and my go-to date night spot after we moved to Carroll Gardens in September. It’s just as lovely for a leisurely weekend dinner as it is for a casual, roll-downstairs weeknight meal when we haven’t made plans.

It’s spacious enough, and in a relaxed enough area, that we can usually grab seats at the bar, if not a table, without a reservation. And we’ve got our order down: a guanciale and leek pie, plus something fresh and seasonal, like a recent puntarelle dish.

Thank you for reading this appreciation of home, and of our sweet corner of Brooklyn.

More soon,
x Phoebe

Recent Sweet Somethings:

The Long Way to Zuni

Restaurant cookbooks have a reputation for being fussy or not especially cookable. After all, a great chef does not necessarily make a great writer — and often does not. Even with the support of a wordsmith, translating the intuition of a chef’s movements onto the page is a challenge.

I’m glad they exist, though, because when they’re done well (and they can be done well), they connect readers to restaurants they may never dine at. Maybe you live across the country or across the world, or maybe the meal is too expensive to justify. Maybe the busyness of life keeps you away, or maybe the restaurant closed long ago and is only a memory now. Whether you treat the cookbook as a coffee-table dreamscape or cook from it every week, you still form a relationship with the restaurant through its pages.

The strongest example of this relationship in my life is The Zuni Café Cookbook from San Francisco, written by Judy Rodgers and published in 2002. I bought it in a used-books store in upstate New York after hearing fellow cookbook lovers gush over it. It didn’t take long for me to read it cover to cover and join the gushers. In fact, I consider myself a disciple of the book — and I’m not alone in this devotion. My friend Giorgia, a chef with the Rome Sustainable Food Project, shares my affection for the cookbook and was the one who introduced me to its faultless anchovy dressing. Another chef I met in Rome, Georgia, feels the same adoration for the cookbook (and for the dressing, for that matter!). Giorgia is Italian, Georgia is Australian, and I am American, yet we are united by The Zuni Café Cookbook.

Other than the recipes, what makes the book sparkle is Judy Rodgers’s wisdom, delivered in her elegant, direct voice. For those who don’t know, Rodgers was Zuni’s defining chef-owner, who also happened to be an extraordinary writer — and who died far too young. A pioneer in what people like to call Californian cuisine, she’s known for her ingredient-driven cooking, backed by technical rigor and European influences. On Zuni’s menu, you’ll find something as sensationally simple as a bowl of polenta with mascarpone, and something as sophisticated as saffron fettuccine with soft-shell crab.

Rodgers didn’t hold back with this book; it’s long, ambitious, hugely generous, and gimmick-free. Before the recipes commence, she sets the scene, describing her path to Zuni’s “unlikely triangular space” and the culinary influences that contributed to her (and Zuni’s) style. This introduction leads into a set of essays on culinary fundamentals, covering topics like choosing what to cook, how to pick your ingredients, and selecting the right pan for the job. Only then, once you’re fully steeped in context, do the recipes begin. I love this about the book — the acknowledgement of the context behind a delicious plate of food. Before the plate, there was a kitchen, a farm, a skillet, an onion, a choice to cook that thing.

Lest you think you’ve learned all you need to know, most of the recipe chapters include their own essay, and each headnote is a literary jewel unto itself. A favorite example is the salad section’s thorough introduction, which urges readers not to think of the salad as an afterthought but as something deserving of care. She describes the nuances of lettuce in a way I find completely charming: Belgian endive is “satiny,” frisée is “tendrily,” arugula is “nutty” and “radishy,” and watercross is “refreshingly ‘icy-hot.’” Reading it, you understand how much there is to delight in (and attend to) in a single ingredient.

Just the other night, while visiting friends in San Francisco, I crossed the line from admirer of The Zuni Café Cookbook to someone who’d actually dined at Zuni Café. My hopes were high, but I tried to keep my expectations low. Keeping a restaurant open for a single year is a feat, let alone forty-seven — thirty-nine if you consider Judy Rodgers’s arrival the beginning. Maintaining its quality for all those years is even harder.

I don’t know what it was like to dine there with Judy Rodgers at the helm — by all accounts, it was wonderful — but I’m glad to report that it remains a special restaurant all these decades later. Everything we ate was classic, fresh, and consistent. Rodgers’s influences of Italian and French country cooking were there, as was glorious California produce, present even in early March. The beloved made-to-order Caesar salad was there, carried over from Billy West and Vince Calcagno’s original Zuni. As was the famous roast chicken with bread salad, which you order as soon as you sit down so it has time to cook. It’s in the same triangular space at the corner of Rose Alley and Market Street. And it remains a gathering place with, in Rodgers’s own words, “a sense of romance.”

I appreciated the attentive service, and that the clientele seemed to have a genuine respect for the food (I noted the middle-aged man behind us enjoying a three-course meal by himself, phone- and book-free). I also appreciated the range of people inhabiting the space — different ages and races, gathered for different reasons to celebrate.

Food-wise, I especially loved the aforementioned roast chicken, with schmaltzy-crisp bread and bitter greens, as well as the mountain of shoestring fries. The bavette steak was lovely as well, served with sweet, tender carrots, spinach, and olive oil-mashed rutabaga. To me it tasted like a Californian Sunday roast, comforting yet light and seasonal. For dessert: espresso granita and flourless chocolate cake, each with a birthday candle for me and my friend Taylor, the February birthday girls at the table.

We dined upstairs in the lofted space, and at one point, an operatic voice floated up through the room, singing happy birthday to someone. Her voice was so gorgeous and full that everyone hushed to listen. Another of my favorite moments came when a diner at the same table as the opera singer slid onto the bench at the grand piano downstairs and began playing for everyone with the grace and deftness of a professional. It was exactly the sort of thing I imagined would happen at Zuni while poring over the cookbook, so when it did, it felt almost dreamlike.

If I lived in San Francisco, I could easily see myself going to Zuni not only for a celebratory dinner, but also for an ice-cold drink and a plate of fries with a friend after work. But since I live in New York, my relationship to the place will return to the cookbook, which is where it began.

A few years back, my family’s dog, Remy, tore off the spine of my copy of The Zuni Café Cookbook with her teeth and ate it. I was sad at first, but eventually I couldn’t help but respect her choice. I decided to believe she chose the book with the most fingerprints — the one I cared about the most. Or maybe she takes after her sister and is just a huge Judy Rodgers fan. Either way: great taste, Remy.

For further reading, I highly recommend acquiring your own copy of The Zuni Café Cookbook. I also loved this article by for Taste. He cooked at Zuni himself, and thus writes about the cookbook with the perspective of someone who knows and loves the place. This piece by Genevieve Yam for Serious Eats is fun, too, breaking down a few key lessons from the book.

Discourse is a beautiful thing, and it’s a sign of a great cookbook that so many of us are still talking about it all these years later.

Thank you for reading!
x Phoebe

26 Things I’ve Learned Over 26 Years

1. You’re allowed to make things and share them (more on that here).

2. You’re allowed to take your creative work seriously — it’s the only way other people will take it seriously, too.

3. Keep writing your newsletter. I love this quote:

“A blog is the ideal machine for turning flow into stock: One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it turns into your life’s work.” - , Show Your Work!

4. On that note: read Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon if you share creative work online (or aspire to).

5. You are what you do, so don’t be afraid to call yourself a writer, an illustrator, a cook — whatever it is that you do. It’s just the truth!

6. No matter how self-aware you feel, an outside perspective from someone you trust can be invaluable.

7. Forgive, but also acknowledge that forgiveness takes time. Sometimes a lot of time.

8. There’s room for everyone to succeed. Celebrate people as such.

9. Your brothers are your forever friends.

10. Ask questions — everyone has something to teach you.

11. Recognize that there’s no way to know exactly how your career will unfold. All you can do is pursue your interests, connect with people, and take it one step at a time. (I’m still learning this one.)

12. When you’re feeling low, plan something to look forward to: a trip, an outfit, a menu for an event, or a birthday gift for someone you love.

13. Sleep. If you’re feeling sensitive or sad, make sure you’re getting enough of it.

14. Whether or not you have a dog, take yourself for a walk first thing in the morning — especially if you’ll be spending most of the day inside in front of the computer. It’s good for your circadian rhythm, and it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

15. Drink a glass of water between every alcoholic drink.

16. Most skincare products are a scam, and some might actually be negatively impacting your skin. Streamline, streamline, streamline.

17. Even though it feels truly silly to buy another product to curb phone addiction, owning a Brick really does help.

18. Writing a more/less list at the start of a new year is a beautiful exercise. Check in throughout the year to see how you’re doing — and how you might incorporate more mores.

19. Life always feels better and brighter when you’re reading a good book. I’m LOVING Buckeye by Patrick Ryan right now.

20. To always have a good book on deck, find people who love the same kinds of books you do and follow their recommendations.

21. Send people snail mail. It’s a lost art, and people love receiving it.

22. When visiting a new place, go to the botanical garden.

23. Rent before you buy. I’ve started renting clothing from Nuuly, particularly during months with lots of events, and it not only saves me money, but has also helped me develop a better sense of my style.

24. Say yes to live music.

25. Listen to Handsome anytime you need a good cackle.

26. Don’t forget to sing!

Thank you for reading, and I welcome any wisdom you might have for me in the comments or my inbox.

More soon!
x Phoebe

A Love Letter to Cabbage

I was amused to read this Vogue headline last month: “2026 is the Year of the Cabbage: Meet the Most Underrated Leafy Green.” Could it be true that cabbage — steadfast, affordable, sulfurous cabbage — has reached Vogue-worthy trendiness?

The comments on Vogue’s Instagram post delighted me just as much as the headline. Chef Jeremy Lee wrote, “Devoted to the brassica x x x” in his signature style. Cookbook author Carla Lalli Music chimed in, “RECESSION INDICATOR” and “cruciferous hive rise up.” And the photograph, shot by none other than Annie Leibovitz, features a green-clad model sitting in a field of cabbage, staring pensively into the camera (see below).

Side note: why does an Annie Leibovitz cabbage field photo exist?

The entire package struck me as both hilarious and wonderful. I don’t know how it came about, but I do know that I’d happily welcome more vegetable appreciation from Vogue and less exclusive sartorial content.

As for my personal relationship with cabbage, it is a close one. Thank you for asking!

The vegetable you will most reliably find in my crisper drawer is cabbage. It may be green or purple, crinkly-leaved Savoy or pale, oblong Napa, but it will almost always be there, waiting patiently. While some vegetables demand urgency — threatening to wilt the one night you get takeout — cabbage is respectful, slow, tortoise-like. It understands that you have a life.

I love that I can leave for a week-long trip and not worry about it going bad. I love that when I return home, I can pull together a meal without running to the grocery store. Rice and beans with a limey cabbage slaw. Risotto folded with slow-cooked cabbage, sweet and silky as caramelized onions. Pasta with that same preparation, which Marcella Hazan calls “smothered” or “sofegato” — a Venetian method involving a long, gentle braise and a splash of vinegar for brightness. Impossible to photograph attractively, profoundly pleasurable to eat. While writing this, I learned that there’s also a Cajun version of smothered cabbage, using the same language as the Venetians, but with smoked meat (bacon, andouille, etc.) and Cajun seasoning. Different flavor profile, same surrender to sweetness.

At Ballymaloe, where I attended cooking school, a signature dish is red cabbage gently cooked with quartered apples in vinegar, water, salt, and sugar. The final result is tangy, soft, jewel-toned — a bright counterpoint to roast pork and crackling. We also learned about (and ate lots of) colcannon, Ireland’s buttery mash of potatoes and greens, often cabbage, folded together. I still love to make colcannon and serve it with sausages or smoked salmon or fried eggs. Unpretentious, affordable comfort food. Beyond their deliciousness, these dishes are reminders of cabbage’s practical importance in Ireland: this hardy vegetable sustained families through lean times. During periods of poverty and crop failure, cabbage could be stored through the winter, boiled or braised to feed many mouths with minimal cost. Reliably nourishing when little else was available.

For a hotter, faster approach, Sichuan-style cabbage is a particular favorite of mine — stir-fried with garlic and tingling Sichuan peppercorns. I like how the leaves wilt and tenderize but retain their juicy snap. Sichuan-style cabbage is delicious on its own, with hot white rice, or tossed into spicy cumin lamb noodles a la Xi’an Famous Foods, where cabbage and hand-pulled noodles tangle together so you never quite know what your chopsticks will grab next. Another hot-and-fast method for cooking cabbage is high-heat roasting. Wedges of cabbage roasted at high heat can be revelatory: tender at the core, crisp at the edges. Finish with olive oil, lemon, and a snowfall of Parmesan, and you will be very pleased with yourself.

And then there’s fermented cabbage — like kimchi, sauerkraut, and curtido — which prove the magic of salt and time. In Korea, kimchi is daily sustenance, each jar an embodiment of tradition and patience. My friend Hannah made a big batch of kimchi at home recently, and it’s a gift that’s kept on giving — a bite here, a spoonful there, incorporated into all manner of meals. Her version contains fish sauce, gochugaru, pear purée, and generous amounts of garlic and scallions, hitting that dreamy salty-sour-sweet balance in every bite. We tucked it into frilly lettuce leaves with pieces of bo ssam — the rich, tender Korean pork dish — plus various accoutrements, and the whole thing blended beautifully.

Now we must turn to stuffed cabbage, a topic that could easily warrant its own essay. I was overjoyed to discover, via Clare de Boer’s newsletter, that a stuffed championship exists: the Championnat du Monde du Chou Farci. Of course it does. Chefs gather to celebrate parcels of cabbage wrapped lovingly around a savory meat mixture and slowly braised to perfection. And that’s just for the French version! Imagine if every culture with a celebrated stuffed cabbage recipe had its own championship. The world would be a better place, I think. If you love to cook, you will love the tactile process of preparing stuffed cabbage — gently removing the leaves of a Savoy cabbage, blanching them until tender enough to roll and fold without tearing, filling them with a flavorful mixture of your choosing — one after another. I love repetitive kitchen tasks like these.

If you spend time on the internet as a food lover, I trust that you’ve seen photos of Gerald Stratford, a seventy-something British gardener with a passion for growing large, competition-worthy vegetables like red cabbage. He’s found particular success through sharing photos and videos of himself in a red cabbage-patterned sweater and hat, proudly displaying his gargantuan homegrown red cabbages. He often slices them open to reveal the wondrous interior — tightly spiraled, densely layered, and surprisingly intricate — belying their humble exterior.

This tableau has earned him hundreds of thousands of followers, and it’s easy to see why: we are captivated by his delight, and by the reminder that something earthly and ordinary can inspire awe. So here’s to cabbage: patient, versatile, beautiful. Devoted to the brassica, indeed.

Thank you for reading this love letter! See below for a few past editions:

And for even more cabbage content, I recommend checking out my friend ’s report on Substack Notes, detailing how she cooked through an entire cabbage so large it could’ve been grown by Gerald Stratford himself.

Teo and I are leaving for an exciting trip on Thursday, and I’ll be sharing updates along the way, so stay tuned for more from me soon.

x Phoebe

We spent this past weekend in Vermont with family friends, Teo’s family, and my parents all together, battling the cold with ping pong competitions, a blazing woodstove, nightly singalongs, Rummikub marathons, and many forms of potatoes, pork, and cheese. Please enjoy a few photos from the weekend, including one of my dad’s prep list for Friday night dinner. It was perfect.

And now, I have a date night menu for paid subscribers — designed for Valentine’s Day or any day you want dinner to feel a little special.

A Date Night Menu

While Teo and I have enjoyed some lovely Valentine’s Day dinners out on the town, they can also be a bit overstimulating. The restaurant is packed, the staff is doing their absolute best to provide great service while also trying to turn tables for the next seating, and, as a result, the experience can tip into feeling a little stressful.

If you’re opting for dinner at home this year, I have the menu for you. It’s straightforward but elegant, requires minimal ingredients, isn’t too heavy, and comes together without much fuss. For maximum ease, I recommend grocery shopping the day before and prepping two things ahead: the vinaigrette and the cake. Everything else will come together easily on the day of. It’s also nice to buy bread the day of rather than the day before, just so it’s fresher. I bought fougasse from a neighborhood bakery, infused with rosemary and sprinkled with salt, and it paired beautifully with everything.

Read more

Thank you for the kindness about my new card designs, which are perfect for Valentine’s Day or anytime you want to tell someone you love them. If you missed the news, I designed a set of cards celebrating some of my favorite culinary pairings. You can buy the cards individually or as a set of four on my website (here), and fellow New Yorkers can find them in-store at all three locations of Big Night (Greenpoint, West Village, and Upper East Side). Seeing my stationery sold in a store is a longtime dream come true, and I’m excited to keep things rolling with Frying Pan Paper Co. in 2026.

Today, I’m sharing some sweet somethings for deep winter: a cackle-inducing podcast, a comforting book, homemade refried beans, and my new sheepskin hot water bottle cover.

Sweet Somethings

1. A Cackle-Inducing Podcast

My friends (and Teo) are all tired of hearing me talk about Handsome, a podcast hosted by comedians Tig Notaro, Fortune Feimster, and Mae Martin, so I must now subject you to the gushing.

I was first turned onto Handsome by Anna Sale, creator of Death, Sex, & Money (another of my favorite shows), who interviewed Tig Notaro and admitted how much she loves the podcast — and how connected she feels to Tig after hours of listening. I trust Anna’s taste, so I gave it a try, starting from the very first episode, and was promptly hooked. I’m still not caught up, mostly because I don’t want to miss a single minute and insist on listening in chronological order. I think I’m somewhere in 2024 now.

What I love most is the balance between complete tomfoolery and genuinely thoughtful conversation — about relationships, queerness, family, health, and more. Mae is in their thirties, Fortune in her forties, and Tig in her fifties, so each brings a distinct life stage and perspective to the podcast and to each other. Each episode includes a question from a friend (often a famous one), which they use as a jumping-off point — but really, the heart of the show is the banter.

If you see me walking around Brooklyn smirking (or flat-out giggling) to myself and wearing headphones, there’s a 100% chance I’m listening to Handsome. To further emphasize my fandom, I’ve had this tab open for ages, and it’s only a matter of time before I buy myself a ridiculous metal tee with the trio printed on the front.

2. A Comforting Book

My friend gave me a signed copy of Feast on Your Life, the latest release from — one of my all-time favorite food writers — and I devoured it in just a couple of days. The book follows Tamar through a year, with reflective entries of varying lengths for each day, documenting the delight she finds in cooking, in ingredients, and in the natural world. It’s reminiscent of Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, which she cites as an inspiration: a practice of confronting depression by deliberately noticing everyday joys.

My favorite part of the whole book is the February 20 entry, when Tamar shares a list of 65 reasons why people cook.

A few of my favorites:

“It’s basically the only way to spend time with cabbage.”

“To write menus”

“For clams”

“Out of love for people”

“To taste good things”

I’ve heard Tamar describe her genre as “culinary self-help,” which I love and deeply relate to. Whenever I write about food, I’m really just trying to share the way cooking, again and again, helps keep me afloat.

3. Homemade Refried Beans

Teo bought some beautiful borlotti beans recently, which he soaked and boiled before turning them into refried beans using Rick Martinez’s recipe. I love refried beans but never make them myself, so it was fun to observe the process — and to reap the benefits of a generous supply lingering in the fridge. In Rick’s recipe, the beans are added to a skillet of rendered bacon, onion, and garlic, then seasoned with salt and chipotle pepper in adobo. Teo added smoked paprika to bump up the smokiness, and the result was so satisfying.

On the first night, we ate the beans with homemade pico de gallo, cilantro-lime rice, and cabbage slaw, with ripe avocado on the side. After that, they transformed into various burritos, bowls, and tacos — a gift that kept on giving, sustaining us affordably and deliciously through several meals.

4. Sheepskin Hot Water Bottle Cover

A hot water bottle is my winter lifeline, and I recently upgraded the experience by purchasing a sheepskin cover from Etsy that keeps it warm through the night. I’m spending most evenings lately watching something funny with my fluffy hot water bottle on my lap. Winter survival mode, activated. Mine is from Etsy (here), but I also love this one from Donna Wilson and this one from Toast.

Thank you for reading! I’ll be back soon with a Valentine’s Day menu for paid subscribers, featuring a recipe for my favorite-ever chocolate cake and an easy, lovely dinner idea for two.

Stay warm,
Phoebe

Recent Sweet Somethings:

I’m happy to share the second-ever Frying Pan Paper Co. release: four valentines, each featuring one of my favorite culinary pairings. The four designs are:

1. Radishes & Butter

2. Oysters & Champagne

3. Strawberries & Cream

4. Tea & Honey

Each card is printed on sturdy cream paper (4.25” x 5.5”) and comes with a kraft envelope. The insides are blank, ready for your personal notes. You can buy them individually for $5.50 each on my website (click here), or as a set of four for $20.

The cards will also be sold at one of my favorite stores in New York City (!) — stay tuned for more details very soon.

I’m so pleased with how they turned out, and I loved the entire process — from sketching the original idea years ago, to translating it into a digital design, laying out each card just so, getting them printed, and finally folding and packaging the final product.

Valentine’s Day is swiftly approaching, so please place your order soon if you’d like delivery in time. But these cards aren’t just for February. They’re love cards! Compatibility cards! Appreciation cards! Evergreen.

Thank you so much for supporting me as I bring my stationery dreams to life.

With love,
Phoebe