This was a week of small wins. A vintage Swatch from 1996 made its way to the doorstep, Eataly hit twice with two different kinds of pasta hitting two different moods, an evening at The Sinclair in Fairfield turned into one of the better steak dinners of the year, and the weekend was spent shaping the yard into something a little closer to the Italian garden we keep imagining. Some weeks the food carries the headline. This week, the food sat beautifully alongside everything else.
Monday: A 1996 Swatch and a Giada Repeat
Monday brought a small kind of joy that has nothing to do with food.
I’ve been getting into collecting watches lately. A few nice ones for the wrist, but the real fun is in the hunt for the unique pieces — and on Monday, one of them arrived. A 1996 Swatch from the Italian Olympic Team collection. Apparently Swatch was one of the sponsors that year, and they released a special team-branded watch to mark it. It’s exactly the kind of piece I love.
Tied to a moment, tied to a place, tied to Italy. The condition is great, the colors still pop, and the whole thing feels like a tiny artifact of ’90s Italian sport culture sitting on the desk. I got mine from eBay in excellent new in box condition.
For dinner I went back to a meal I’d cooked before and posted on the blog — the One-Pan Chicken with Artichokes & Arborio Rice (Giada-Inspired + Gluten-Free). This dish has earned its repeat status. One pan, real depth, briny artichokes against tender chicken, and that arborio rice that absorbs everything around it without ever turning to mush. It’s the kind of meal that feels like a proper Italian home dinner but takes about as much effort as a weeknight should.
Watches in the morning, Giada by the evening. A very on-brand way to start the week.
Tuesday: Cotto e Pomodoro at Eataly, Steak Frites at The Chelsea
Tuesday meant back into New York City, which always means a stop at Eataly.
I went with the Cotto e Pomodoro panino from one of the food stations, and it was excellent. Prosciutto Cotto, heirloom tomatoes, aioli, and dijon mustard, all pressed into a Baguettina — Eataly’s slim, crackly-crusted little baguette that has just enough chew to push back against the fillings without overwhelming them. That bread is honestly half the reason the sandwich works. The cotto is silky and just savory enough, the heirloom tomatoes bring that sweet acidity that you only get from a tomato that hasn’t been refrigerated to death, the aioli adds richness, and the dijon brings that sharp little bite that ties the whole thing together. It’s simple, balanced, and exactly the kind of Italian sandwich math that makes you wonder why every panino in the city isn’t built this way.
Eataly’s food stations are one of those quiet New York gifts. You can step in for ten minutes, eat something that genuinely satisfies, and walk back out into the day. No production, just real food made well.
That evening, my wife and I went to The Chelsea in Fairfield. I went with the steak frites — which, at this point, I’d argue is one of the most reliably good orders in Fairfield County. The hanger steak was beautifully cooked, the parm bistro fries crispy and salty in exactly the right ratio, and that grilled ciabatta with the Calabrian chili honey butter is still doing the kind of work that bread shouldn’t be allowed to do this well.
My wife went with the salmon sammy with avocado, pickled slaw, and yuzu aioli, and it landed exactly as expected. Fresh, bright, balanced, and the kind of thing that feels like a smart move without ever feeling like a compromise.
📍 The Chelsea | 12 Unquowa Pl, Fairfield, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wednesday: Bacon, Egg & Cappuccino at Massimo’s
Wednesday was a work-from-home day, which meant the morning had a little more room to breathe — and that meant breakfast at Italian Corner Deli by Massimo’s in Trumbull.
I went with a bacon and egg sandwich and a cappuccino, and this was the trip that won me back on Massimo’s. The breakfast sandwich was great. Properly cooked eggs, good bacon, the whole thing held together in a roll that I genuinely couldn’t stop thinking about. It had this slight brioche-like quality — soft, a little sweet, with enough structure to handle the egg yolks — but it wasn’t quite brioche either. Something in between. Whatever it was, it worked.
The cappuccino was the right move too. Properly steamed, properly pulled, served in a real ceramic cup. There’s a noticeable difference between a place that takes its espresso program seriously and one that just owns a machine, and Massimo’s is in the first camp.
A solid reset after my underwhelming sandwich there a couple weeks ago. Different time of day, different order, very different result.
📍 Italian Corner Deli by Massimo’s | 6374 Main St, Trumbull, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thursday: Little Italy Pizza Slices and a Wagyu Ribeye at The Sinclair
Thursday was another NYC day, and lunch was at Little Italy Pizza on Park Place in the Financial District.
This place has been slinging classic New York slices for decades. The shop is full of pies all day long, twenty-plus varieties at any given time, and the slices come out hot, fast, and exactly the way a downtown lunch slice should. I grabbed a couple of slices and they delivered. Solid crust with that proper bottom-crisp, good ratio of sauce to cheese, no fuss. The kind of slice that reminds you why New York pizza became New York pizza in the first place.
That evening turned into one of the best meals of the week. My wife and daughter met me off the train at The Sinclair in Fairfield, the kitchen-and-bar overlooking the Brick Walk that has quietly become one of my favorite Fairfield dinner rooms.
I started with a half-dozen oysters and a Paper Plane to drink — Aperol, bourbon, Amaro Nonino, and lemon, that beautifully balanced bittersweet cocktail that I think might actually be a perfect aperitif. The oysters were cold, briny, fresh, and exactly what I wanted to start the night.
Then the main event. I ordered the Wagyu ribeye, and wow. The marbling alone was a thing of beauty, but the cook was what put it over the top. A proper hard sear on the outside, that beautiful pink core, and a richness that you only get from Wagyu — that deep, almost buttery quality where every bite seems to dissolve a little. I could write another paragraph about that steak and still feel like I hadn’t given it enough credit.
My wife and daughter both went with the salmon, and both came back happy. The Sinclair has always done a clean job with salmon — that proper crispy skin, the flesh just barely set in the center, vegetables that actually taste like vegetables.
The whole evening had that quiet, polished energy that The Sinclair does so well. Good service, real cocktails, food that you’d happily order again. It’s one of those places that earns the regulars it has.
📍 The Sinclair | 1229 Post Rd, Fairfield, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Friday: Plants from Seven Maples, and Maione’s for Dinner
Friday had a different rhythm. Mulch was being delivered the next morning from Maple Row Farm right here in Easton, so we used the afternoon to drive over to Seven Maples Nursery in Monroe to pick up plants and trees.
Seven Maples turned out to be exactly the kind of nursery you hope to find when you’re trying to actually do this right. They’ve been at it since 1979, and you can feel it the second you walk in. The yard is full of beautiful plant material — every kind of flowering shrub, broadleaf evergreens, specimen trees, ground cover, ornamental grasses — and the staff actually knows what they’re talking about. They walked us through what would work for what we were trying to build. Connected to a real landscape-design operation too, so the depth of knowledge runs deeper than your average garden center. A great little spot, and one I have a feeling we’ll be coming back to a lot.
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Now that we’re settled into Easton, the next phase is making the house feel like ours — and the look we keep coming back to is villa. Italian gardens. Tuscan romance. Olive-toned greens, soft stone, that slightly wild but intentional Mediterranean feel where everything looks both timeless and warm. We’re nowhere near there yet, but every plant we put in the ground gets us a little closer.
📍 Seven Maples Nursery | 84 Main St, Monroe, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
For dinner, we picked up takeout from Maione’s Pizza Kitchen in Fairfield’s Stratfield Village. I hadn’t been to Maione’s in years, but it turns out the place is exactly as good as I remembered. They’ve reinvented themselves a bit — no more sit-down dining, now operating as a New York–style pizza kitchen and prepared food market — but the pies are still excellent, and the neighborhood loyalty is real (they’ve been a Stratfield Village staple since 1998).
We picked up two small pies. The Fiorentina — ricotta, mozzarella, spinach, and bacon — was beautifully balanced. The ricotta gave the slice a little richness, the spinach kept it bright, and the bacon brought the savory backbone. If I had to nitpick, I’d ask for a little more bacon next time. But the pie itself was excellent.
The Buffalo Chicken pie was the other half of the order, and honestly, I think I might prefer it. The chicken was tender, the buffalo sauce had real flavor without going overboard on heat, and the cheese held everything together. Both pies disappeared quickly.
📍 Maione’s Pizza Kitchen | 1244 Stratfield Rd, Fairfield, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Saturday: Mulch Day from Maple Row, Leftover Pizza, Shaggy Coos Burgers
Saturday was an outside day from start to finish. The Maple Row Farm truck rolled up with our Grower’s Choice Mulch delivery, and the day became about putting it down, getting plants in, and starting to actually shape the yard.
Maple Row is a real Easton institution — over 200 years of farming history on that land, with the Edwards family running it for generations. Most people around here know Maple Row for cut-your-own Christmas trees, and we’ve absolutely done that ourselves in the past. Walking out into those fields in late November, finding the tree, cutting it yourself, then heading down for hot cider and donuts — it’s one of those Connecticut family traditions that genuinely earns its keep.
What I hadn’t fully appreciated until this week was just how dialed-in their mulch operation is. Their Grower’s Choice line is some of the best in the area, available in multiple colors, with delivery so smooth that the whole thing was scheduled, confirmed, and dropped exactly where we needed it. Easton-grown, Easton-delivered. That’s a beautiful little local loop.
📍 Maple Row Farm | 229 Stepney Rd (mulch/office) + 555 N Park Ave (trees), Easton, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lunch on Saturday was simple — leftover Maione’s pizza, which is one of those quietly perfect afternoon snacks when you’re working outside and just need fuel.
We got our picnic tables back from storage, which means al fresco dinners are officially on the horizon. There’s nothing quite like that first proper dinner of the season eaten outside — wine in real glasses, light fading slowly, food tasting somehow better just because of the air. It’s coming. I can feel it.
And speaking of summer arriving — Saturday was also the day I mixed up what I’m now officially calling my drink of the summer: The Sicilian Palmer. Picture an Arnold Palmer that took a long vacation through Sicily and came back changed. Half iced tea, half lemonade, and a generous pour of Averna — the legendary Sicilian amaro from Caltanissetta with its dark, bittersweet, herbal, slightly caramel-and-orange character. Over a big rock of ice, it turns this beautiful deep amber color, and the flavor is exactly the right contradiction. Refreshing and complex. Sweet and bitter. Easy and grown-up. The lemonade brings the brightness, the iced tea brings the depth, and the Averna pulls the whole thing into Italy. I sat on the picnic table covered in mulch dust and sipped one, and I knew immediately this is going to be the drink I make all summer long.
Dinner was the easy call: Shaggy Coos burgers on the grill, after a long day of yard work. There’s a real satisfaction in burning calories in the dirt all day and then standing over a grill with a cold drink, watching the patties hit the fire. That whole sequence is the unofficial start of summer for me.
📍 Shaggy Coos Farm | 281 N Park Ave, Easton, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sunday: A Mulch Lesson and Skirt Steaks
Sunday was about closing the loop on the outside work. More mulch, more planting, more arranging.
Side note for anyone with a new house: there is a real difference between mulching the property you used to have and the one you have now. At the old house in Newtown, I used to get 14 yards of mulch every spring. Here in Easton, I ordered 5 yards from Maple Row — and I’m pretty sure I may have ordered 2 too many. Smaller lot, smaller beds, but a real adjustment. Lesson learned, and one I’ll remember for next year.
Dinner was early and easy. I fired up some skirt steaks from Shaggy Coos — leftover from the previous week’s haul — and we ate while the sun was still up. Skirt steak is one of those cuts that rewards good fire and a sharp knife. A quick hard sear over high heat, three or four minutes a side, a proper rest, and a clean slice against the grain. That’s it. That’s the whole play.
There’s something about ending a weekend of yard work with skirt steak on the picnic table that feels like a preview of what summer is about to be in this house.
Closing Reflection
This was a week of layered small joys.
A vintage Italian Swatch from 1996 on Monday. A bowl of Cotto e Pomodoro at Eataly on Tuesday. A bacon, egg, and cappuccino moment at Massimo’s. Wagyu ribeye at The Sinclair on a Thursday night that had no business being that good. A trip to Seven Maples for plants and trees. Two pies from Maione’s on Friday. Mulch from Maple Row Farm. Cold leftover pizza on Saturday between coats of mulch. Skirt steak on the picnic table to close it out.
And in the background, the slow build of something bigger. The yard taking shape. The picnic tables back out. Plants in the ground. The villa-feel future of this house getting a little more real with each shovel.
Some weeks are about the meals.
This one was about everything growing alongside them.