It was 2 weeks before Thanksgiving when Tyler, my good friend and techie-guru behind Shared Appetite, emailed me a link of a recipe he found for an adaptation of Crack Pie, with the addition of Nutella. If you've never heard of Crack Pie, made famous byNYC’s Momofuku Milk Bar, well... I’ll get to that in a minute. Just know for now that you have been missing out, big time, if you never had the chance to try it.
Crack Pie in itself is absolutely amazing. Add nutella into the mix, and I could barely hold my excitement. I immediately knew what I was going to make for Thanksgiving dessert this year. Oh heck yea.
But then fast forward to a day or two before Thanksgiving. I was watching my wife eat her daily dose of animal crackers, which she enthusiastically dips into our jar of Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter (their version of the Speculoos). And it hit me... Crack Pie... with... you might want to sit down... Speculoos!
Following the consumption of said pie on Thanksgiving and the subsequent days of leftover gluttony, friends and family have been asking for this recipe more than any other. And I ask, who am I to disappoint?
Sometimes you are in the mood for that fancy, elusive dinner at the newest trendy restaurant that every blog and social media outlet are buzzing about. But then there are those times when you want some cheap, filling, totally satisfying, down-to-earth, honest-to-goodness comfort food. It still has to be really tasty, but the chefs don't need tweezers to plate the food and you don't need a reservation several months ahead of time (or, like the newest "trendy" restaurants, hope for a table because they don't even take reservations).
That familiar 
In the weeks following my return to New York, I thought I was destined to never again have another taste of the amazing French baguette I was so accustomed to enjoying daily while in Paris. I visited several self-named "French" bakeries in my area, but let's face it. They were all impostors.
After being good tourists and doing touristy things: taking a strol through the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens, viewing the Paris panoramic from atop Montparnasse Tower, and visiting the crypts within the Pantheon, we were absolutely starving for some lunch. Luckily not too far away and within walking distance were two places I wanted to check out: Franck Kestener Chocolatier (which you can read about in my post 
One look at the Faicco's storefront sign and you immediately think pork. Rightfully so, as Faicco's is known for their various homemade sausages as well as the numerous cuts of great looking meats they sell.... but pork is absolutely not on my mind when I walk up to Faicco's. When I'm passing by that glorious sign on Bleeker Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, I think of one thing and one thing only: rice balls.
