This was a week with a lot of moving parts — farm runs, work days in the city, a bathroom renovation gone sideways, and a dinner that made everything feel better. There were home-cooked risottos and pasta spreads, a happy hour with my daughter in midtown, tapas and bourbon in Westport, and a Saturday morning that started with a great omelette and ended with Swiss Coffee covering up someone’s mistake. Some weeks teach you to slow down. This one just kept you moving — and eating well along the way.
Monday: Shaggy Coos, Sherwood Farm & A Risotto Worth Making Again
Monday started the way a lot of good weeks should — not at a grocery store, but at the source.
I ran back to Shaggy Coos Farm in Easton to pick up some chicken thighs and, while I was there, grabbed some gelato too. That’s the thing about going to a farm — you always leave with more than you came for, and that’s never a bad thing. From there I stopped at Sherwood Farm to pick up broccoli. Freshly grown, locally sourced, exactly what it should be.
There’s something deeply satisfying about eating this way. It’s honestly not that different from how Italians have always approached food — you eat what’s in season, you buy from people you know, and the meal is better for it. After the Driscoll Strawberries recall earlier this year, my trust in large-scale commercial grocers took a serious hit. I try to stick with smaller markets and local farms as much as possible, and weeks like this remind me why.
That evening, everything came together in a chicken thigh and broccoli risotto that was exactly the kind of dinner I’d been craving. Parmigiano Reggiano stirred in at the end, a pour of Pinot Grigio both into the pan and into my glass, and a loaf from Wave Bakery on the side. Simple, seasonal, and deeply good.
📍 Shaggy Coos Farm | 53 Center Rd, Easton, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📍 Sherwood Farm | Sherwood Farm, Easton, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tuesday: A Perfect Walk Through the Financial District & Siena Pizza
Tuesday was one of those gorgeous early June days in the city where you’d be a fool not to walk.
I spent some time wandering around the World Trade Center and Wall Street — that whole stretch of Lower Manhattan has an energy that’s hard to explain until you’re standing in it. The scale of it, the history, the way old stone buildings sit next to glass towers. It always puts me in a good mood.
For lunch I made my way to Siena Pizza & Cannoli at 14 Rector Street. Last week I had tried their Bakehouse, so this felt like a natural next step — same name, different concept, and I wanted to compare. I’ve been trying to keep my pizza evaluations consistent by ordering plain cheese wherever I go, but they were twenty minutes out from having plain ready. I went with the margherita instead.
The crust and sauce? Genuinely excellent. Light char, good structure, bright tomato flavor. But there was a pesto drizzle on it that just didn’t work for me — it muddied the whole thing. The margherita doesn’t need help. A great one stands on its own. I’d go back and try the plain when they have it ready, because the foundation is clearly there. This one just wasn’t the full picture.
📍 Siena Pizza & Cannoli | 14 Rector St, New York, NY ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wednesday: A Shaggy Coos Burger at Lunch & a Build-Your-Own Pasta Dinner
Working from home always opens the door to eating better in the middle of the day, and Wednesday delivered.
Lunch was a burger made from Shaggy Coos ground beef — cooked simply, just letting the quality of the meat do what it naturally does. There’s no trick to a burger like that. You just get out of the way.
Dinner, though, was a whole production — and exactly the kind of cooking I love most. I started by grilling a chicken breast rubbed with Italian seasoning. Classic, clean, unfussy. Then I put together two separate pasta sauces: one with pancetta, pecorino, heavy cream, and frozen peas — rich and silky; and one with the shredded grilled chicken, butter, garlic, Pinot Grigio, and chicken stock — lighter but deeply fragrant.
Then came the pastas. Rummo’s gluten-free fusilli for whoever needed it, and frozen cavatelli from Italian Village for everyone else. Two sauces, two pastas — and everyone builds their own plate. It’s one of those dinner formats that feels casual but requires real thought to pull off. The table liked it. That’s all that matters.
Thursday: One Last Pizza Stop & Happy Hour With My Daughter in Midtown
I’ve been on a downtown pizza tour lately, and Thursday I told myself it would probably be the last stop for a while. Honestly, I’ve reached my limit — I’m a little pizzaed out, which I never thought I’d say.
But I committed. Tradita’s Pizza on Maiden Lane had a 4.8 on Google, which is hard to ignore. The crust was solid — good texture, good flavor — but the cheese was excessive. Buried everything underneath it. I also tried a pepperoni and bacon slice, and the bacon was chewy in a way that suggested it hadn’t been fully cooked through. It was not the experience the rating had promised. Sometimes the algorithm gets it wrong.
The evening, however, made up for it entirely.
My daughter just started a new job in the Garment District, so we met up for happy hour — her first proper post-work New York drink. We ended up at Ragtrader on 36th and 6th, which turned out to be a genuinely cool spot. I ordered a Manhattan with Woodford Reserve; she went with a sangria. We split some apps — arancini, spinach artichoke dip, and salmon crispy bites — all of them landing well. But more than the food, it was just a nice moment. She’s building something. You can see it. A happy hour that doubles as a milestone.
📍 Ragtrader | 350 W 36th St, New York, NY ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Friday: Paint Problems, Bad Luck & Barcelona to the Rescue
Friday was a half day, and I had ambitious plans: get a jump on the bathroom renovation. We picked up Benjamin Moore First Light — a color that looked like a soft, pale blush on the swatch. What went on the wall was something closer to orange. No natural light in that bathroom, and it showed.
I painted the whole room hoping it would grow on me. It did not.
Then — bonus — the vanity I’d ordered turned out to be the wrong size. A full Friday of home improvement that improved nothing.
There was only one reasonable response to this.
Barcelona Wine Bar in Fairfield was the cure, and it worked immediately. The night opened with the Bourbon Spice Rack — Four Roses Bourbon, Cardamaro, maple syrup, lemon, cardamom, and lavender bitters. It was exactly as good as it sounds. Warm, complex, with just enough sweetness to soften the edges of a frustrating day.
Then the table filled up in the best possible way. A charcuterie board with Jamón Serrano, Drunken Goat, and Aged Manchego. Then tapas, one after another: burrata with truffled peas and crispy Serrano, mussels al diablo, grilled chicken thigh with aji verde, skirt steak with green chimichurri, pork belly with plum mustarda, spiced beef empanadas with red pepper sauce, and albondigas — spiced meatballs in a jamón-tomato sauce. It was a full table. A long, easy, very necessary evening.
Some dinners exist to celebrate something. This one existed to recover from something. It was equally deserved.
📍 Barcelona Wine Bar – Fairfield | 4180 Black Rock Turnpike, Fairfield CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Saturday: Fixing the Paint & Breakfast at Trumbull Breakfast Cafe
Saturday started with a decision: Swiss Coffee. We should have gone there from the beginning. The bathroom got repainted, the orange disappeared, and things started looking the way they were supposed to.
But before any of that, we stopped at the Trumbull Breakfast Cafe in their new location, and it was exactly the right way to begin a day that needed to go better than the one before it. The place still has everything that made the original worth going back to — a comfortable, easy energy and food that takes breakfast seriously.
I ordered the Spinach & Gruyère omelette: three eggs, fresh baby spinach, imported Gruyère, crispy bacon, and orange slices on the side. It was very good. The Gruyère brought that subtle nuttiness that makes a spinach omelette feel complete rather than just virtuous. Solid start to a redemptive Saturday.
📍 Trumbull Breakfast Cafe | Trumbull, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sunday: House Projects & Burgers Off the Grill
Sunday was quiet by design.
Everyone had their own plans, the house needed attention, and cooking a full meal wasn’t in the cards. Burgers from Fresh Market on the grill — simple, no ceremony, just dinner at the end of a long weekend. Sometimes the best Sunday meal is the one that asks the least of you.
Closing Reflection
This week moved fast and asked a lot — farm runs and city walks, a pasta spread the whole family could customize, happy hour with a daughter starting her next chapter, a bathroom that fought back, tapas and bourbon that made everything feel better, and a Saturday morning omelette that set the day right.
Not every week has a single defining meal. Sometimes the week is the meal — course after course, mood after mood, each day adding something to the table.
This one tasted like June.