This week was less about big meals and more about big moments. We said goodbye to our Florida friends, lost a day to a migraine, and found a new FiDi lunch favorite at Springbone Kitchen. Then came the biggest milestone: moving my youngest daughter into her new home in NYC, celebrated with a chicken sandwich at The Flying Cock. The week ended quietly with Maione’s pizza, an old photo of my great-grandfather Vincenzo found while cleaning up, Shaggy Coos burgers, and a house that suddenly feels a lot bigger.
Monday: Goodbyes and a Leftover Steak Sandwich
After an action-packed weekend, we sent our Florida friends off with plenty of memories and laughs. Hosting friends you don’t get to see often is its own kind of joy: the long dinners, the late-night conversations, the inside jokes that pick up right where they left off. Next time it’s our turn to visit them. Let’s say some cold weekend in February?
Food on Monday was all about leftovers from Sunday’s massive cook. And when the leftovers include tomahawk and sirloin, you make a steak sandwich. It hit the spot.
There’s a lesson in that sandwich. When you cook big on Sunday, you’re also cooking for Monday, and Monday-you is always grateful.
Tuesday: A Day Lost to a Migraine
Tuesday, a migraine hit and wiped me out. I called in sick, ate whatever was easy, and did nothing all day.
That’s all there is to say about Tuesday, and that’s okay. This series is a record of real weeks, and real weeks sometimes include a day where the only goal is getting through it. Rest is part of the rhythm too.
Wednesday: Back in NYC and a New Favorite at Springbone Kitchen
By Wednesday I was back in the city and feeling much better. For lunch I headed to Brookfield Place and tried Springbone Kitchen for the first time. It’s an excellent little spot.
Springbone is built around bone broth. The idea started with two friends looking for healthier takeout that still felt like a home-cooked meal, and it has grown into locations across the city. The bone broth isn’t just something you sip here. It’s woven into the dishes themselves.
I ordered the Mexican bowl: chicken thigh, bone broth rice, black beans, corn salad, guacamole, and a spicy verde sauce. Excellent. The chicken thigh was juicy and flavorful, the bone broth gave the rice real depth, and the corn salad, guac, and verde sauce added brightness and a little heat. You can taste the quality of the ingredients.
Coming off a sick day, it was the perfect kind of lunch: comforting but not heavy, nourishing without feeling like health food. I’ll be back.
📍 Springbone Kitchen | Brookfield Place, 225 Liberty St, New York, NY ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thursday: Chicken, Broccoli, and Rice
Thursday’s dinner was as straightforward as it gets: chicken, broccoli, and rice.
There’s something honest about a plate like that. No sauce to perfect, no recipe to follow, just the basics done right. In a week full of transitions, a simple dinner at home was its own kind of grounding. Not every meal needs to be memorable. Some just need to be there when you need them.
Friday: Move-In Day and The Flying Cock
Friday was the day the whole week had been building toward: move-in day for my youngest daughter. She’s officially joining her sister in New York City.
Our focus was entirely on her. Carrying boxes, building furniture, figuring out where everything goes, and making a new apartment start to feel like home. It’s exhausting and emotional in equal measure. You’re proud, you’re excited for them, and somewhere in the back of your mind you’re realizing this is a real chapter change.
Once the heavy lifting was done, we walked over to Target for the inevitable list of things you only realize you need after you move in. On the way, we stopped at The Flying Cock on 3rd Avenue in Murray Hill. It’s a lively neighborhood bar best known for its bottomless brunch and a playful menu of bar food.
I ordered their famous chicken sandwich, and it was excellent. Crispy, juicy, and exactly what you want after a day of hauling boxes up stairs. Sometimes the best meals aren’t planned. They’re the ones you find on the walk between one errand and the next, on the day your kid starts her life in the city.
📍 The Flying Cock | 497 3rd Ave, New York, NY ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Saturday: Cleaning Up, a Photo of Vincenzo, and Maione’s Pizza
Saturday was for catching up at home: work around the house, cleaning up and organizing inside, and football on TV.
Then, in the middle of sorting through boxes, I found something I wasn’t expecting: an old photo of my great-grandfather Vincenzo with his old-school Italian friends. The photo is classic and totally cool. It’s the kind of picture that stops you in your tracks and makes you put the box down for a while.
I wrote about Vincenzo in A Journey from Nicastro: My Great Grandfather’s Legacy. He was born in Nicastro in Calabria, now part of Lamezia Terme. At just 17, he left his family behind and sailed from Naples to Ellis Island in 1909. He built a life in the coal mines of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the family later made its way to Norwalk, Connecticut. He was a quiet man with old-school dignity, the kind who wore slacks and a collared shirt even to do yard work.
Finding this photo in the same week my youngest daughter moved to New York felt more than a little fitting. More than a century ago, a 17-year-old Vincenzo stepped off a ship into New York with no family beside him and no roadmap, just purpose. This week, the next generation carried boxes into a new apartment in that same city, with a lot more help and a lot less uncertainty, but with some of that same spirit. His story keeps finding its way back to us. This photo is going somewhere it can be seen, not back in a box.
Days like that call for easy meals, so we ordered pizza from Maione’s on Stratfield Road in Fairfield. Maione’s has been a Fairfield brick oven pizza spot since the late 1990s, and it has become one of our go-to calls when nobody wants to cook. A box of pizza on the counter, a game on, and a to-do list that’s finally getting shorter make for a pretty good Saturday.
Sunday: A Quieter House and Shaggy Coos Burgers
Sunday is usually the big cooking day in our house. It’s when I pull out the smoker, simmer the sauce, and set the table for a crowd.
But this Sunday felt different. With two of our three kids now living in the city, the house is a lot quieter, and Sunday dinner just isn’t the same. So I decided not to cook. I took a break.
Instead we had Shaggy Coos burgers. Good local beef from the farm in Easton, simple and satisfying. Then it was feet up and NFL on TV. Exactly what was needed.
I think that’s part of adjusting to this new chapter. The big Sunday dinners will come back, especially when the kids come home for a weekend. But it’s okay for some Sundays to be small. Burgers on the couch can be just as meaningful as a feast, as long as you’re taking care of yourself and the people still at the table.
Closing Reflection: Smaller Table, Same Heart
This week was light on food and heavy on life. A leftover steak sandwich to send off our friends. A lost day. A bone broth bowl at Springbone that made me feel human again. Chicken, broccoli, and rice. A chicken sandwich at The Flying Cock on the day my youngest moved to New York. An old photo of Vincenzo and his friends turning up on a cleaning day, a reminder of where it all started. Maione’s pizza with football, and Shaggy Coos burgers on a quiet Sunday.
The table is getting smaller, at least for now. But the reason I write this series hasn’t changed. It’s never really been about the food. It’s about what life feels like around it, and about the family stories that carry from Nicastro to Scranton to Norwalk to New York. This week, life felt full in a whole new way.
Grazie, Vincenzo. Next up: maybe that cold weekend in Florida in February. I’m already thinking about where we’ll eat.
