Spinach and White Bean Tart

So there I was with a day off on a rainy Friday... Brian at work...  me snuggled in bed with my furry sous chef... watching an Animal Cops marathon on TV... watching people starving their horses and abusing their puppies while I'm hugging the stuffing out of my own pup. I gotta stop watching this because it's making me so mad.

Grace's Trattoria

201 East 71st Street, New York, NY 10021, 212-452-2323 www.gracestrattoria.net

We've shopped at Grace's Market for years but only recently stopped in to the trattoria for Sunday brunch.  The menu is fairly extensive and features far more than standard brunch fare.

Creamy Pumpkin Martini

I'll pause a moment to mourn the official passing of summer on this, the first day of fall. In reality, we pretty much say goodbye to summer after Labor Day and the past week or so has brought some delightfully autumnal weather to New York. Summer may be my favorite season but fall comes a close second and the appearance of pumpkins in the market makes me happy.

The Goddess Goes Light

Green Goddess salad dressing is an old classic recipe, thick and creamy and reminiscent of the great salads you'd get at a steakhouse. Most of the time, I'd be just as happy to skip the steak in favor of a giant portion of salad with extra creamy dressing and thick buttery bread.

The (Belated) Hurricane...... aka The Natural Disaster Cocktail

As you may have heard, New York, usually blissfully free of natural disaster (unless you count political scandals) recently got a double whammy. We were treated to a little earthquake mid-week and then spent the weekend in a hurricane.

Noah's Restaurant

136 Front Street, Greenport, NY 11944, 631-477-6720 www.chefnoahschwartz.com

After strolling around the town of Greenport for a few hours on a lovely warm day, we came to Noah's Restaurant. Hungry, we quickly scanned the menu outside and saw lots of tasty sounding offerings plus the outdoor seating looked quite inviting.  An excellent waiter appeared immediately, showed us to a comfortable table and brought a big carafe of cool water.

Greenport on the North Fork

We spent one of the last warm days of summer strolling around the town of Greenport on the North Fork of Long Island.

The area is known for it's many wineries, farm stands and delightful little towns.  At it's tip is Orient Point where you can catch the ferry to New England.

Frozen Key Lime Daiquiri

We left for our Labor Day weekend getaway thinking we'd be drinking our beloved frozen peach daiquiris. But, we still had a full bottle of Midori on hand and were still freshly enamored with our recent key lime martini recipe, so we were in the mood to experiment. It took a few tries to come up with this delicious and cool blend of lime and melon but the result was well worth it. Cheers!