Here are some photos of recent meals enjoyed at home and out and about. I’d gotten an email from One 53 in Rocky Hill that they had a lobster roll special at lunch. Twenty bucks for this fabulous half lobster gently mixed with mayo and cucumber on a proper toasted top-split New England roll, their fantastic French fries, and a beer or iced tea. I took it home with the iced tea, and added my own First Fields ketchup – you can add that at One 53, too, for a small surcharge.
Since good NJ tomatoes are out, I made my first BLT of the season, and another evening roasted some short ribs with a Korean sauce I had on hand, and plopped it on some of that Trader Joe’s Kimchi Fried Rice I like so much. (I always add peas, too.)
The beautiful bowls were a gift from a departing faculty member in my department at PU (sob!), and just last night I shared a lovely dinner at Antimo’s Italian Kitchen in Hopewell with my friend Marie, whose husband, Nino is their resident pasta maker.
I also enjoyed a dinner at The Pass in Rosemont (reviewed by Antoinette Buckley here), at the end of an unbearably hot week. There was a fantastical quality to that long drive past shimmering fields (and home again in the blue dusk), entering the cool room (although eventually I was too hot, even there), and eating dreamy foods like octopus in rich red wine bordelaise sauce with delicately blistered shishito peppers. My friends’ appetizer (both chose the chanterelles) were lovely, too, and my entrée of crispy soft shell crab over fennel slaw was delicious. The restaurant is a new venture of chef and charcutier, Matthew Ridgway (PorcSalt), and showcases his vision of French-inspired cuisine (as the website says), in a casual country setting. There is a meat counter in the restaurant, so I took home some of his red wine bacon, and it was AMAZING!
Last, couldn’t resist stopping at Dessert Boutique in Skillman recently for a cupcake.
One 53 Lobster Roll
Season’s first BLT
Korean Short Ribs on Kimchi Fried Rice
A gift of beautiful bowls
Scallops with capers at Antimo’s Italian Kitchen, Hopewell
Nino’s fresh linguine with sausage, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes
Nino Galastro, Antimo’s pasta maker
Salmon with crab and clams at Antimo’s
Octopus Bordelaise w/Shishito peppers at The Pass
Chanterelles at The Pass
Soft shell crab at The Pass
Banana Split cupcake from Dessert Boutique
NJ SPICE 