Ladies and gentlemen ... I've traveled over half of New York City's East Village slurping ramen noodles and broth. From Minca Ramen Factory to the city's first truly Japanese ramen-ya, Ramen Setagaya, to David Chang's self-professed "... crappy Pan-Asian ramen made for round-eyes," I have been on the front lines of New York City's so-called ramen wars. So ... ladies and gentlemen ... if I say I am a ramen man you will believe me.

As a ramen man I had been steadfastly waiting for the opening of the East Village outpost of Japan's Hakata Ippudo ever since reading about it on Rameniac. I longed to taste the much heralded soup of the Ramen King Shigemi Kawahara. Ladies and gentleman ... let me assure you it was worth the long wait for Ippudo NY to open. Upon my first visit I was so overcome by the springy noodles and the richness of the long-cooked pork-bone broth in the Shiromaru ramen that I was unable to take a photograph, lest I be separated from my first encounter with ramen ecstasy.

Cookbooks for children are hot, and they're not just about mac n' cheese either. We say great, just don't let the kiddies slice their fingers off dicing pancetta for that veal daube.

Vegetable and fruit carving, fallen out of vogue, is experiencing a renaissance. Check out the amazing watermelon blossoms and too-cute-for-words lemon bear.

The Minimalist shows us the easy way to stuff chicken breasts. We're a little bit in love with the Minimalist.

Olives and almonds go together like rainbows and unicorns. With a recipe for roastred bass with orange, olive and almond gremolata.

Eric Asimove defends the lowly Soave.

Florence Fabricant loves her Prepara Trio peeler. I want one too.

• Three breakfast treats using apricots.
• How to cook a whole fish.
• Bake Me A Wish is sending cakes to troops overseas.
• Kids learn how to cook in a South Boston kitchen.
• Restaurant reviews: Flapjacks, Grezzo, and Center House of Pizza.
• This week's recipes: Cheese Biscuits, Buttermilk Pancakes, Plumped Ginger-Caramel Shrimp, French Toast with Lemony Cream Cheese and Warm Rhubarb Jam, Seared Baby Artichokes, and Marinated Chicken with Spring Vegetables and Ginger-Garlic Sauce.

Meet the contenders for New York's best sandwich: the Moroccan merguez sausage on grilled bread; the cemita poblana with pork butt al pastor; the pressed potato knish; the braised beef-stuffed shao bing; the Benny Mac - a chicken cutlet sandwich with macaroni and cheese and bacon; chili mackerel on a fluffy bun; a cilantro-spiced falafel.

How to save endangered species? Start eating them.

Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller's new restaurant in Napa, features only one meal a night. Bet it's not sloppy Joes.

Eric Asimov breaks away from wine with an article on citrus vodka.

The Minimalist knows snow peas.

The Hudson River Shad Festival will be shad-free, due to dwindling populations. Salmon will substitute.

A recipe for pollo Papantla - chicken simmered with orange juice, vinegar, garlic, chilis and vanilla.

Now you can eat foie gras in the airport, if you really want to.

Interesting article in the New York Times this morning, about a subject we've all been hearing about a lot: the environmental effects of global food shipping. Not only are we eating food imported from far away places when it's unavailable or not in season here, but we're actually shipping lemons from Argentina to the citrus-rich south of Spain, sending Norwegian cod to China to be made into fillets and shipped back to Norway again. And we're starting to pay the cost in terms of global warming from the carbon emissions from all that shipping.

So maybe it's time to pay the financial cost as well, some economists say, in the form of taxes and carbon offsets for shippers and shoppers alike. While neither airplanes or ocean freighters are currently taxed for fuel used for international travel and transport of good, many people think it's time to end these tax breaks.

Well, that doesn't sound like a bad plan to me, but the question of imported foods and carbon emissions still present a conundrum for those of us who really love to eat (I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in any 100-mile diet that doesn't involve chocolate or coffee) and care about the environment. How do you green foodies out there deal with this issue?

• Philly girl turned actress returns to her neighborhood after years away, where she and her husband created just the cafe the neighborhood needed.
• Should cities require that fast food chains post their calorie information alongside the items on the menu?
  
• The Market Basket's got Bliss Chocolates, Eco-sponges and towels and an OXO corer that doesn't leave anything behind.
  
• Whether you cook only parts, or the whole darn thing, it's hard to argue that chicken is delicious.
  
• The Rush Hour Gourmet advises hurried meal makers to grab a pre-baked pizza crust and fill it with tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella and sliced almonds for a healthy and filling meatless meal.
  
• Beau Monde, Philly's Breton-style creperie, is celebrating their 10th anniversary and their offerings are as tasty as ever.
  
• If you're a local and you're still looking for a place to fill the gaping void left by the closing of the beloved Lakeside Chinese Deli, Inky restaurant critic Craig LaBan recommends that you check out Dim Sum Garden.

A search for the best chocolate pudding leads the author through dozens of cookbooks, calls to pastry chefs, and a multitude of cooking experiments. The pictures nearly led me to the grocery store at midnight to satisfy my suddenly awakened craving for bittersweet chocolate pot de crème. Included recipes look insanely delicious.

Tuscan vintners get in a battle over labeling laws, grape origins, and possible wine contamination - is a brunello di Montalcino by any other name as pleasing?

An Iraqi restaurant in midtown Manhattan is a gathering spot for Iraqi ex-pats, Iraqi-Americans, and journalists home from the Baghdad beat.

The Minimalist does tacos Yucatán-style, with poblano peppers, potatoes and corn.

After losing a lawsuit, Pinkberry is forced to reveal what's in its frozen yogurt, and the truth is less than "all natural."

Eric Asimov discusses German Rieslings.

Florence Fabricant explains the grains behind Whole Foods new multigrain sushi.

Our colleague Neil Goldstein works up a powerful hunger while he's trekking through the wilds of Upstate New York. Follow him as he forages for wild edibles.


I don't know how old I was when I started having a fascination with wild foods, but I can point to a few family activities that sparked it. As far back as I remember we used to go pick apples every year at an orchard near Stone Ridge, New York. Always fun, except of course for the inevitable case of poison ivy that followed a few days later. The apples weren't wild, but still the idea of picking something from a tree, and eating it right there got to me.

Another major influence were the wild strawberries and blueberries we picked as kids. The strawberries grew near our home in Woodstock.
There were several places where you could pick a dozen or two small wild strawberries quickly with little effort, but a short bike ride away was a meadow that my older brothers Lee and Paul called Sergeant's Field. You could pick a few quarts of the local delicacy there.

Pollsters are now looking at how consumer behavior, including eating, affects voter choice. Dr. Pepper is for Republicans, Sprite is for Democrats. Clinton supporters snack on Fig Newtons, McCain fans on stuffed-crust pizza. While some results are weird, others are predictable - Whole Foods is a dead giveaway of liberal orientation.

Cookbook author Susie Fishbein is providing observant Jews with gourmet Passover recipes, including turmeric, tomato and spinach matzoh balls.

**#!*@! souffle! *$*#*!* emulsification! Chefs like to curse in the kitchen. Really.

Eric Asimov talks kosher wine - you don't have to be Jewish to like them.

The Minimalist does Hangtown Fry - eggs, bacon and...oysters.

Cakes masquerading as muffins make breakfast less guilty. Includes a recipe for spicy ginger muffins with currants and toasted pecans.

Food, or lack thereof, in Holocaust concentrations camps is still a taboo subject for survivors, writes Jewish cooking maven Joan Nathan.

Cindy McCain shares her favorite family recipes. Except they were ripped off from the Food Network. A rogue intern is apparently to blame.

Wine bars are multiplying in New York like Starbucks circa 1997, and they've got good food too! Is this really new?

Increasingly discriminating undergrads are prompting college dining halls to revamp their menus, offering sophisticated choices like curried butternut squash soup and à la carte lobsters. I knew I should have deferred a couple years!

Everyone's going crazy for cachaça, a Brazilian sugar cane liquor.

Traditional French food is back at upscale New York restaurants. Hello again, pâté en croûte.

The Minimalist does poached fish in lettuce leaves. Looks a bit odd, but I trust the Minimalist, don't you?

Recipe: crispy tofu with shiitake mushrooms and chorizo. I'm trying this one.

And a one-pot recipe for Mediterranean fish soup.

In this week's Modern Love column in the New York Times, Suzanne Finnamore writes about how she and her husband fell in love - and out of love - over the course of many sumptuous homemade meals.

She seduces him by delivering tubs of her cabbage and rice soup with Gruyere croutons to his office. Even when she didn't have time to cook, would pass off fancy takeout as her own creations. He debones chickens for her, and brings her coffee and pastries in bed. Love. Sigh.

But before too long they're eating hurried family dinners, using bottle salad dressing (oh horrors!) and pre-cut chicken parts. By the end they're each eating Thai takeout alone over the computer and fighting over who gets to go to the store for more butter and who has to stay home with the baby. He whines about the ratio of vermouth to vodka in the martinis she still fixes for him. She stops buying his favorite cheese. Divorce. The End.

Ignoring the rather desperate-seeming act of bringing a new boyfriend soup at work, and the bald fakery of pretending you made the deli takeout, it's kind of a cute article. Kind of. I'm not quite sure if the author is trying to show that bad food helped end the relationship (surely even the most gourmet of busy new parents resort to quick frozen chicken dinners) or that bad food was simply a sign that neither of them cared anymore.

Have you ever gone over the top trying to seduce someone with your culinary skills? What kind of dishes did you make? Did you regret not being able to keep up the high level cookery after your relationship settled into a routine? Or do you and your significant other still enjoy osso bucco and chocolate-hazelnut tarts every Saturday night?

The Minimalist suggest new ways to use your microwave - chocolate pudding, parboiling vegetables, baked apples.

The Curious Cook, Harold McGee, follows, explaining the science behind the microwave. You can put aluminum foil in the microwave! Hear that, mom?

Why higher food prices could be a good thing (less cheap junk food; better for small farmers, etc.).

Chatham cod have disappeared from off the coast of Massachusetts. But not from menus.

Wine critic Eric Asimov taste-tests California Pinot Noir.

What to do with tough old birds? Stew! Braise! Slow-cooked rooster with mushrooms and scallions, anyone?

The Minimalist is back, with a video on cooking clams.

Eating cheap in Manhattan by buying food exclusively from 99-cent stores. Doable? Yes. Advisable? Perhaps not.

The New York Times then brings chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin in on the skinflint action, challenging him to cook a meal entirely of products from Jack's 99-Cent Store. See what he does with a 99-cent frozen salmon fillet .

Wine critic Eric Asimov asks whether it's possible to teach teenagers the pleasures of moderate drinking with a little wine at the table. It works for the Europeans, right? Or does it?

A kreplach face-off in Brooklyn. Oy gevalt!

The Minimalist suggests we try a stir-fry with fermented black beans.

Then, he takes us on a photo tour of the Campo de' Fiori market in Rome. Serious vegetable porn.

In Tokyo, Japanese takes on Western food continue to grow in popularity. They seem to involve a lot of ketchup.

Starbucks buys $11,000 coffee machines in ongoing efforts to revitalize their image.

After years of appreciative eating, culinary writers, chefs and other professional foodies get...fat. How do you lose 50 pounds when eating (pork belly, crème brûlée, Camembert) is your job?

Frank Bruni wraps up his tour of his favorite new American restaurants with Ubuntu in Napa and O Ya in Boston.

A roundup of European Easter baked goods: Swiss custard tarts, Finnish rye and wheat bread, current-studded English cakes, Italian pizza al formaggio and more.

Leftover tom yum soup inspires the invention of a coconut fish stew.

Wine critic Eric Asimov discusses Chinon reds from the Loire Valley.

The Minimalist does apple cake soaked in bourbon.

Cow, sheep, goat...camel? Try Caravane, a Brie-like camel milk cheese made in Mauritania

Looking for holiday dinner ideas? A selection of Easter recipes, new and old.

For a long time I have held a steadfast belief in a scientific principle called the Law of Culinary Equilibrium. It derives from Newton's Third Law, which states, "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

I'm not sure where or when I first heard of the Law of Culinary Equilibrium. It's entirely possible that I made it up, er, discovered it. Origins aside, here's how it works: If I eat a horrible taco al pastor, one that is so bad as to be undeserving of the name and that should require the chef's compulsory deportation back to Puebla if that is in fact where the offending cook hails from, I must within 24 hours consume an exquisite taco al pastor. Bad Cubano, one that's not absolutely shatteringly thin, garlicky and filled with delicious roast pork and ham? Same deal. You get the idea. I've found that practicing the Law of Culinary Equilibrium not only restores order to the gastronomic universe, it restores my faith in humankind. That and it greatly reduces my urge to hurl a cinderblock through the window of the offending establishment.

Of course some might wonder how a veteran eater like me encounters a bad meal. To this I answer that since I often write about food in New York City I'm charged with a Star Trek-like mission: "To boldly eat where no man has eaten before." As much I'd like to stick to my favorite taquerias and dim sum joints, I simply can't, if only because the next great discovery often lies behind a new storefront.

Sometimes though, a bad meal stems from my own equally bad judgment. The other day I decided to check out a place in my neighborhood of Rego Park, Queens. I shall refer to it as Crunchy Earth Mother Café, if only because it's been open a scant three weeks and I wish the management no ill will. I truly don't what I was expecting when I ordered what the earth-toned menu refers to as "a falafel panini." After all I know what a falafel is and I know what paninis are. Perhaps, I hoped it would turn out to be something far greater than the sum of its parts.