When it comes to bread, I’m not all that picky. Even gross ol’ white bread is pretty darn good in grilled cheese form. But when I serve Italian food, which is my go-to for special occasions, I’ll admit that I can get in a bread rut sometimes. I usually just [...]
It was several years ago now, but I still remember it so fondly. Will and I were having dinner at an Italian joint (big shock, right?) in West Hollywood called IL Piccolino. We’d shared a plate of Fritto Misto (Italian for delicious fried goodies like calamari, zucchini and shrimp). Spotted [...]
While I’m pretty sure it was perpetually stuck in the crayon box when I was a kid because it always seemed a little less interesting than all the other colors, I’m a big, big fan of all things yellow these days. It’s the color of sunshine, lemons, my favorite new [...]
It’s been well documented on my blog that I’m a big fan of Thanksgiving. So it probably comes as no surprise that I like to make a second Turkey Day-inspired meal just in case some of my favorite dishes were left off the menu on the big day. So I [...]
Today is one of my favorite days of the year, let’s just call it Thanksgiving Eve, shall we? While Christmas probably has Thanksgiving beat in the decorations department, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, hands down. You get the great comfort food and wonderful family time without all the [...]
Ever go to a place so stunning, so positively otherworldly, that you can’t even believe you’re there? That’s precisely how I felt 11 years ago when Will and I drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco for our honeymoon. And during last year’s anniversary celebration [...]
It was the perfect Fall day, crisp but not cold, an abundance of red and yellow leaves everywhere, and the boy and me were brunchin’ in Amsterdam. And unlike many of the other European cities we visited over the course of a month, we totally skipped the restaurant research for [...]
October is a month of big celebrations in the Banister house. On October 8, we celebrated our 11th anniversary with a killer French meal in Dallas (I’ll be writing about that restaurant soon, I promise), and five days later, October 13, it’s Will’s birthday, so cue the chocolate ganache. While [...]
While it would’ve been much cooler to say that I first heard about Harry’s Bar because of Ernest Hemingway’s unabashed devotion (I’d discover later, of course, that it was one of his favorite places to write), I learned about the birthplace of the peach bellini (woah, just typing that makes [...]
On the list of places I’ve always romanticized, Venice was always right up there with Paris. So after checking the beloved City of Light off my must-travel list and even returning for round two, Venice quickly moved up to my top spot. Now considering that I’ve read numerous accounts from [...]
