Diner’s Journal Blog: Milk Thistle Farm Has Closed

I HAD the thought that chicken wings would be nice to make in honor of the Chinese New Year, so I pitched the idea to my editor. If wings are too banal or plebeian, it could always be thighs, I offered. The editor replied: wings absolutely, everyone loves wings! But, he said, why not something for the Super Bowl? Perhaps, I ventured, these wings could be multipurpose.

Off I

RESOLUTIONS to eat more vegetables may wilt in the cold of January, when heartier foods beckon and Greenmarket offerings dwindle. But don’t give up: quick winter pickles can satisfy the desire for crunch and put a new, fresh taste on your plate. 

Year round, Chicagoans embrace giardiniera, a satisfying mix of cauliflower, carrots and peppers that are brined, then marinated in a zesty dressing. Giardiniera (pronounced jar-deen-YAIR-uh and Italian

THE gratinéed onion soup at Benoit, the French bistro in Midtown Manhattan, was everything you’d imagine it to be: golden crusted and bubbling, gooey and rich, beefy and fragrant. It was also exceedingly messy to eat.

My friend, dressed to the nines, wondered aloud as the strings of cheese and onion broth sloshed onto her scarf, “How do people eat this when they’re wearing nice clothes?”

Clockwise from top left: At Restaurant Tim Raue, venison with venison offal dumpling; at Horvath, suckling pig with stuffed potato dumpling; at Noto, poached trout; at Hartmanns, a bottle to go with dinner. More Photos »

BAD reputations outlive the circumstances that gave rise to them. My recent meals in Berlin were a reminder of that.

Before I went, everyone told me I’d be disappointed, wished me

Alison Price Becker with her chef, Robert Gurvich, at Alison Eighteen, which is to open next week.

Opening

ALISON EIGHTEEN Alison Price Becker’s return to the Manhattan restaurant scene after an absence of almost 10 years conjures memories of her previous restaurant, Alison on Dominick Street. The same chef, Robert Gurvich, is back, and the same designers, Asfour Guzy, have created the new Alison. But here,

Dale Talde inspects a mid-20th-century hand-painted Italian ironstone tureen at Circa Antiques in Brooklyn; $185, (718) 596-1866, circaantiquesltd.com.  

DALE TALDE might be known to many people as one of the more memorable contestants on the Bravo show “Top Chef.”

But Mr. Talde, a Chicago native, has also worked for Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Vong-Chicago, for Masaharu Morimoto at Morimoto and as the chef de cuisine at