Do not be the dinner party host who realizes nobody brought a speaker at the last minute.. OXO Good Grips 9-Inch Stainless Steel Tongs.

Once you have smelled a truffle, you long to smell it again and again.(This, of course, isn't true of actual basements, especially the ones in the suburb where I grew up, which were filled with warped Burt Bacharach LPs and rusting lawn furniture.).

It amazed me that such a luxury food — a symbol of excess and wealth — could bring on such feelings of stinginess.. — Meg Wolitzer.Later, when my friends arrived and it was time to part with my truffle, I couldn't bear the thought.With a miserly hand, I shaved some fragments of blackness into the creamy arborio rice.

I knew I should have added a whole lot more, but I just couldn't do it.It amazed me that such a luxury food — a symbol of excess and wealth — could bring on such feelings of stinginess.. We sat in blissful silence throughout dinner.

None of us could bear to talk as we lifted our forks to our mouths, soaking in the fragrances of butter, onions and basement.

The truffle reminded me of an extremely complicated black olive — a black olive that's been psychoanalyzed..These shops have served their communities well for so long, when they could be doing something, anything else.

We celebrate their commitment and perseverance.. And so, from coast to coast, old and new, future-minded and hopelessly nostalgic, here are the most essential butcher shops across the country.. A & C Pork Store, Paterson, NJ.Peppery, from-scratch pancetta, veal crown roasts, all the.

, and dreamy braids of fresh mozzarella made on the hour—Aldo Iacovo and Antonio DeGennaro, both born in the old country, are serious about the fundamentals at this classic Italian market (try their sopressata, sweet, hot, or both), just a few blocks from the Great Falls..BEAST Butcher & Block, St. Louis, MO.