Welcome to the latest edition of Food52 Founder Amanda Hesser’s weekly newsletter, Hey There, It’s Amanda, packed with food, travel, and shopping tips, Food52 doings, and other matters that catch her eye. Get inspired—sign up here for her emails.
We are nearing peak Sabre, the French flatware that modernized the old riveted, bone-handled cutlery by giving it sleeker lines, acrylic handles in pretty hues, and a variety of metal finishes. We use them in our team kitchen. Chloe Warner uses them in her design firm’s office kitchen. Alison Roman has them in her home. But no one has what we’ve got: two-toned handles, tortoise shell on one side, fir green on the other. Business on the front. Leisure on the back.
Sometimes it’s fun to go out for an expensive Valentine’s Day dinner, to embrace the fact that you’re participating in something both primal and obscenely commercial. There’s good people-watching and character-studying to be done. But one of the sweetest Valentine’s Days I can remember is when our kids, then tweens, cooked us dinner (pasta, ofc) and then disappeared into the living room to watch a movie while we had a “date” in the kitchen.
If you’re staying in and you don’t have tween servants, our Test Kitchen really did it up for you this year. Together, César, Nea, and Noah put together a menu that gives me ’90s vibes in the best way—not that they will understand what I mean by this, but I appreciate their reverence for the days of the wedge salad and steaks with a balsamic pan sauce.
Here’s their No-Res Valentine’s Day menu:
A Filthy Martini by Noah
Steakhouse Wedge Salad by Noah
Steak au Poivre With a Chocolate Balsamic Pan Sauce by César
Eight-Layer Chocolate Cake by Nea (inspired by Claud in NYC)
One of my pet peeves is when people design a thoughtful, well-appointed kitchen and table and then don’t treat their kitchenware and tableware decisions with the same care. It makes no sense! So I thought we’d try a new game where you choose a space and I’ll outfit it with some apt wares. Some will be from Food52, duh, and the rest from other sources. Above is a sample that I grabbed from Pinterest (a country home designed by Nina Farmer)—and then it’s your turn to send me photos of kitchens or tables that you want me to style. Email your photos and requests here.
The people who live here already have many handsome ceramics, baskets, and bowls. It’s all a little, well, consistent. I’m going to do a little zhuzh to an imagined table setting for them:
• With these placemats in honey.
• And these fringed napkins in olive.
• And this elegantly striated flatware to shake up the rustic environment.
• They can use the neutral plates that they have on their shelves.
• But then I want to flick in a little minimalism with these stackable Japanese tumblers.
• And something unexpected. Like a pitcher with a giant ring for a handle. Or a latticed ceramic platter as a bread basket.
From Our Shop
Finally, if you like almonds and you like Luxardo cherries, you must make Victoria Granof’s almond cherry cookies from her book Sicily, My Sweet. I did a video of the recipe here. And you can find the recipe here, and her book here.
Next week: what I learned from you all about pizza ovens!
Amanda
English (US) · 