Although New York is on the Atlantic coastline, and I lived there for two years, somehow I couldn’t imagine a crustacean cruising around the major metropolis area. So I went two years without eating a lobster roll. And for anyone who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, like I did, the lobster roll is a thing of seafood lore, something only to be heard of and spoken about in hushed voices while picking up the latest line-caught seafood from Half Moon Bay.
But now that I have moved to Connecticut, lobster abounds in the summertime. Steamed, grilled, and of course rolled, these succulent babies are served up in a variety of different ways, at a variety of different establishments. But for my very first lobster roll, I went to Chick’s in West Haven. Chick’s is truly a relic from the past, not much has [...]

In this modern day and age, one where we can buy everything online, including our groceries, and it’s possible to never have to actually speak to another person again (that’s what email and IMing is for!), I think it’s very easy to idealize an agrarian lifestyle. Or at least I do. I dream of waking up from my restful slumber on the farm to the mournful mooing of fat cows, udders full , waiting to be milked. Or stopping by the hen house, gaggles of cluckers ready to be pushed aside in order to collect still-warm eggs. Yes, the smell of hay, the sweat of manual labor, and tons of steaming manure, can seem attractive.
When I was reading the Sunday NY Times a few weeks back, ignoring the salsa music coming from the street below, and sipping on a delicious cup of bodega/deli coffee, I spied Daniel [...]