Maison Kayser has opened three more locations in Manhattan–Bryant Park, Columbus Circle and the Flatiron District.

Bread, pastries and more.

Don’t sleep.

Happy Chopsticks. This looks like a place to check out. Nu?

It’s all about pie this week at the always-impressive Food 52.

Everything you need to make the perfect pie. 

Cook’s Illustrated’s Foolproof Pie Crust. 

Four & Twenty Blackbird’s All-Butter Pie Crust.

Cranberry Sage Pie.

Lemon Chess Pie. 

Oatmeal and Chocolate Pie.

Five links to read before baking a pie. 

Six ways to fancy up your pie. 

Get the Four & Twenty Blackbird new cookbook. 

Coming soon to my old neighborhood. Looks like I’ll have a reason to make a pitstop on the way home to the BX.

[Photo Credit: Dan Nguyen]

Twenty-two hours in Balthazar. 

[Photo Credit: Raul Gutierrez]

Dig Heather Smith’s 2012 history of bagels and lox.

[Photo Credit: Michael Shindler]

Over at the New York Review of Books, Charles Simic gives us Spaghetti Lessons:

Italian restaurants produce not only epicures but also aspiring cooks. I bought cold cuts, cheeses, and olives for years in Italian groceries on Bleecker Street until one day I started cooking pasta, grilling sausages, and inviting friends over to my place on East 13th Street. In the 1950s and 1960s almost no one in literary circles knew how to cook, so these modest efforts of mine received extravagant praise. From then on, each time I tasted something in a restaurant, I’d wonder how it was made, what spices were used, and recollected other occasions when the same dish had come out differently. Now that I live in a village in New Hampshire, cooking Italian is a way of carrying on that comparative study. This may be a tautology, but a meal that does not cause an outpouring of memories is not a memorable meal. I don’t know how other poets imagine their muses, but mine is an Italian cookbook.

It is their unhurried air that makes most Italian restaurants congenial to everything from flirting to a rambling philosophical discussion. You linger over a glass of red wine and a plate of cheese at the meal’s end, alone or in the company of friends, while the place empties. Outside, there may be the lights of Manhattan or the tugboats in Portsmouth harbor. The waiter or the owner may bring a grappa eventually to remind you of the lateness of the hour, but he does not rush you. When you finally get up and leave, it’s out of consideration for him, but also out of genuine panic that you might be crazy enough to ask for another bowl of pasta or some of that grilled squid on a bed of white beans you enjoyed so much.

Hell, I didn’t know that Shishito Peppers were still in season. But I can tell you that they are a simple, beautiful thing. Dig this recipe from Food 52. 

This is dope: The Serious Eats Guide to Ramen Styles.

Looks like a place worth visiting. 

From A Continuous Lean: smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Sushi Bytes makes Cronuts at home.

The New York Historical Society drops science on Mr. Pickle.

Gothamist gives the 7 best milkshakes in New York.

Appetite for China gives Kung Pao Bacon: Sure!

Serious Eats gives 17 Greatt Cold Noodles in NYC for hot summer days. 

The dumbass–but delicious-looking–food craze in NYC at this moment? Cronuts. Wait in line for two hours? Nah. But I wouldn’t turn one down it it was offered to me.

[Photo Credit: New York Observer]

The most-talented Andrew Whitney (center) and his crew at Dell’Anima.

Serious Eats gives Bacon and Kimchi Steamed Buns with Carrot and Cucumber Slaw…why, heck yeah.

The Wife and I schlepped down to Union Square late Saturday morning and were happy we made the trip.

The market was gorgeous, flowers selling like hotcakes on the count of Mother’s Day.

And ramps! I found a guy, that’s all he was selling. I figured I’d buy a bunch and pickle the suckers. Which is what I did yesterday.