Some weeks are just weeks. And then there are stretches of life that feel like an entire chapter compressed into a few frantic, beautiful, overwhelming pages. The last five weeks have been the latter — and honestly, that’s why you haven’t heard from me.
Between a dog recovering from a spinal injury, a last-minute house closing, a down-county move, and a brand new job commuting into New York City for the first time in two decades, the kitchen went quiet and the restaurant tabs went long. But food — as it always does — told the whole story. Every meal was a moment: a celebration, a breath, a comfort, a new beginning.
This is the What I Ate This Week edition I couldn’t publish until now. Consider it a field report from the most chaotic and exciting chapter of my life to date. Welcome to eating through a life transition in Fairfield County, Connecticut — and a little beyond.
Why This Post Is Late (And Why That’s Okay)
Let me be upfront: this is not a normal “What I Ate This Week.” This covers five weeks — December 29 through February 1 — and I owe you a real explanation for the silence.
Our dog Barney suffered a serious spinal injury. That alone would have been enough to throw everything off. But it happened while we were simultaneously navigating a house purchase on an accelerated mortgage timeline, trying to close by December 31st. Then we found out — last minute — the closing was pushed to January 7th. Which meant I couldn’t give notice at a job I’d held for 13 years until January 4th, even though my new employer was already asking me to commit to trips and meetings. The guilt of that was real.
Then we closed. We moved. We unpacked six months of storage and asked ourselves what do we even own? We landed in Easton, CT — a town of 8,000 people, Christmas trees, and a general store that stocks Heady Topper IPA from The Alchemist in Vermont. And on January 20th, I took the train to New York City for the first day of a new job — my first office commute in twenty years.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we ate really well.
New Year’s Eve: Filets at Home, then Spotted Horse Tavern in Westport
We stayed in for New Year’s Eve and I kept it classic: filets on the grill, roasted potatoes, and asparagus. There is something deeply satisfying about standing over a grill in the cold, a glass of red in hand, knowing that even in chaos, you can still produce a perfect medium-rare. That meal was a reset. A quiet toast to whatever was coming.
Then we met the kids in Westport at the Spotted Horse Tavern (26 Church Ln). If you haven’t been, it sits right in the heart of downtown Westport — warm, lively, and exactly the kind of place you want when you need the energy of a crowd but also want to actually hear each other at the table. I ordered the burger, which had been calling my name before I even walked in the door. It did not disappoint. Great food, great atmosphere, great company. A proper start to a new year.
📍 Spotted Horse Tavern | 26 Church Ln, Westport, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Antiquing in Norwalk, then BanC House for Brisket
We had new house energy — that specific mania that hits when you suddenly need to fill rooms — so we headed to the Fairfield County Antique & Design Center in Norwalk to hunt for pieces with character. Hours later, appropriately tired and carrying more than we probably should have, we landed at BanC House (16 River St, Norwalk) for lunch.
The brisket was the move, and it was excellent. Deeply smoked, tender without falling apart, with that bark that only comes from real low-and-slow technique. BanC House sits right in the heart of and has a warm, laid-back energy that’s perfect for a post-antiques decompression. A genuinely good BBQ and seafood spot that deserves more attention than it gets. The old Norwalk Savings Society Bank was next door where I opened my first savings account for my profitable paper route, that is another story.
📍 BanC House | 16 River St, Norwalk, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Quick Bites on the Go: Cosetta and Romanacci
The days leading up to closing were a blur of logistics, calls, and emails. Food became functional. An early morning stop at Cosetta in Fairfield kept me moving — good coffee, reliable food, exactly what a chaotic morning calls for. And of course, a quick lunch run to Romanacci was inevitable. Even under pressure, those Roman-style pies are still one of the best fast-casual meals in the county. Sometimes you need something familiar that you know will be great. Romanacci is always that.
We Closed. Fish & Chips at Old Post Tavern to Celebrate.
January 7th. We finally closed on the house.
I wanted comfort food. Not a fancy celebration dinner — I wanted something warm, crispy, and uncomplicated. Old Post Tavern (1418 Post Rd, Fairfield) was the answer. The Fish & Chips were exactly right: golden, flaky, satisfying in that deeply British, pub-style way. There’s something poetic about celebrating a new chapter with a plate of food that asks nothing of you except to slow down and enjoy it. Old Post is one of those reliable Fairfield fixtures that earns its place on the Post Road again and again.
📍 Old Post Tavern | 1418 Post Rd, Fairfield, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Move-In Weeks: J Bagel, Gourmet United & Sitting Duck Tavern
The weeks that followed closing were all about getting organized. Storage units. Mystery boxes. Finding out you own five wooden spoons and no ladle. During this stretch, three spots carried us through:
J Bagel Company in Trumbull became the morning anchor. There is no better way to start a moving day than with a proper bagel, and this place delivers every time. Simple, unpretentious, and exactly what the moment requires.
Gourmet United in Easton (440 Sport Hill Rd) was a genuine discovery. A small, fusion takeout spot doing Indian and Mexican with real conviction — the spices are bold, the food is fresh, and the carne asada tacos were a legitimate revelation. For a town of 8,000, Easton is hiding something special here.
Sitting Duck Tavern in Trumbull (4244 Madison Ave) gave us a proper sit-down dinner during the madness of move-in week. Reliable, warm, good food — exactly the kind of neighborhood restaurant that sustains you when your own kitchen is still a work in progress.
Hello, Easton — and Greiser’s Coffee & Market
We are now Easton residents, and I say this with full awareness of what that means: we have traded suburban Newtown for something that feels genuinely, wonderfully rural. Easton has about 8,000 people. It is the Christmas Tree Capital of Connecticut. There is more farmland than streetlight. My wife and I joke that we’ve moved to Vermont.
And then we walked into Greiser’s Coffee & Market (299 Center Rd) — a tiny, community-rooted café that feels like it was built specifically for people who moved here from somewhere louder — and opened the cooler. There, sitting next to the local milk and craft sodas, was Heady Topper IPA from The Alchemist in Vermont. If you don’t know Heady Topper: it’s widely considered one of the best IPAs in the country. It is almost never sold outside of Vermont. Its presence at a small market in Easton, CT confirmed everything. We have, in fact, moved to Vermont.
Greiser’s is more than a coffee stop. It’s the soul of the town. The regulars have their own mugs on the wall. The baristas know everyone’s order. The food is fresh and genuinely good. If you find yourself in Easton — and you should — start here.
📍 Greiser’s Coffee & Market | 299 Center Rd, Easton, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Colony Grill: The Commuter’s Reward
With the new job came a new routine: the train from Fairfield to Grand Central and then a Subway ride to World Trade. After twenty years of working from home, stepping onto a Metro-North platform in the dark was a genuine culture shift. But on the way home? Colony Grill (1520 Post Rd, Fairfield) became the ritual.
Colony’s thin-crust pizza — specifically the hot oil pie — is one of those CT originals that needs no introduction to locals and no further qualification to visitors. It’s the kind of pizza you crave specifically. After a long day in the city, stepping off the train and knowing a Colony pizza is two minutes away felt like a reward I had quietly earned. Fairfield’s best commuter therapy.
📍 Colony Grill Fairfield | 1520 Post Rd, Fairfield, CT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Back in the Kitchen: Spaghetti alla Nerano, Chicken Cutlets & Ribollita
The new house came with something I have been dreaming about: a proper chef’s kitchen. Bosch cooktop. Jenn-Air double ovens. A kitchen designed for someone who actually wants to cook in it.
The first real meal I made in it felt ceremonial. Spaghetti alla Nerano — that beautiful Neapolitan dish of zucchini, basil, and Provolone del Monaco that Chef Francesco Sposito made famous — felt like the right way to christen a kitchen like this. Silky, simple, and impossibly good. Followed later in the week by chicken cutlets with a side salad: golden, thin, pan-fried in olive oil, with a lemon squeeze at the end. The kind of meal that doesn’t need a story because it tells its own.
And when the first real snowstorm hit Easton and the world outside looked genuinely Vermont-level quiet, I made Tuscan Ribollita — the thick, bread-thickened Florentine bean and vegetable soup that seems invented specifically for watching snow fall through a kitchen window. Cannellini beans, cavolo nero, stale bread, and patience. There is no better snow day food in the Italian canon.
Cavatelli e Salsiccia at Trattoria A’Vuchella: A Proper Celebration
The month deserved a real dinner. A sit-down-with-the-kids, order-a-bottle, this-actually-happened dinner. We chose Trattoria A’Vuchella (272 Fairfield Ave, Bridgeport) — and if you haven’t been, this is the one I want you to write down right now.
A’Vuchella has that rare quality of feeling authentically Italian without trying too hard. The vibe recalls a small trattoria in Sorrento — warm lighting, handmade pasta, a staff that treats every table like a regular. I ordered the Cavatelli e Salsiccia — cavatelli with sausage, a dish that belongs in the canon of great pasta — and it was, as it always is, outstanding. Everyone at the table loved their meals. The wine was good. The conversation was even better.
This was the dinner that marked the end of the chaos. A threshold crossed, properly celebrated with pasta and people we love.
📍 Trattoria A’Vuchella | 272 Fairfield Ave, Bridgeport, CT
The Grand Finale: Hosting the Newtown Crew
The last Saturday of January, we had our old Newtown friends over to the new house. And for the first time in the new kitchen, I cooked for a crowd.
The menu was non-negotiable: homemade meatballs, Penne alla Vodka, chicken cutlets, and garlic bread. The kind of Italian-American spread that has no single recipe because it lives in muscle memory. Meatballs that start with good meat, good breadcrumbs, and a long time in the sauce. A vodka sauce made from scratch with San Marzanos, heavy cream, and a proper pour of good vodka. Cutlets pounded thin, breaded, fried golden.
The house smelled like a Sunday. Old friends around a new table, in a new town, with a kitchen finally being used the way it was meant to be. This is what The Amore Life is built on.
Final Thoughts: Easton, New Chapters & a Kitchen Worth Cooking In
Five weeks. One spinal injury, one delayed closing, one job change, one train platform, one new town, one new kitchen, and more meals than I can fully account for. What I know is this: food marked every moment. The New Year’s Eve filets were a quiet toast. The Fish & Chips were a celebration. The Ribollita was a storm-day ritual. The Cavatelli was a milestone.
We are settled now. The kitchen is set up. The pans are where they belong. Barney is recovering. The commute is becoming routine. And Easton, CT — this tiny, Christmas-tree-growing, Heady-Topper-selling, genuinely Vermont-feeling town — feels, for the first time, like home.
More cooking is coming. More posts. More recipes from a kitchen I am deeply in love with.
Grazie for your patience. — The Amore Life