These long and twisted Asian cucumbers are covered with ridges and bumps, but the sign said that the skin is thin and soft and therefore the cucumbers don’t need peeling. I’d still slice it thinly if I were you, before tossing with a little rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper, maybe a touch of chili sauce.

If you have a lot of heavy cream and need to use it up, what will you do? I have already used some of the cream to make whipped cream for ice cream and I was in the mood for some pasta. But I can only use so much cream in a pasta dish. Then I came up with this idea. Just like cooking chicken or pork in milk what if I cooked the vegetables in heavy cream and let it cooked till most of the cream evaporated away. I really wanted to make a broccoli pasta dish but I was kind of lazy to have to deal with chopping the broccoli and having little bits of broccoli flying everywhere. So….what about carrots? I never had carrots in my pasta before and I thought I was being a GENIUS until I googled carrots in pasta and found a bunch. Anyways here’s what I made.

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Enough has been said about Shake Shack and their ever growing empire. I have not been to their UWS location nor their newly opened spot in Times Square, why? First, I’m a bit too lazy to trek all the way up to UWS and I hate the Times Square area. Second, wouldn’t you rather eat your tasty burger in this lovely Madison Square Park? On my most recent trip (last time I was at Shake Shack was back in November) there was a concert going on plus the weather was actually nice, also Robyn came along, super!

All you need to know is that I fully enjoyed my burger and fries and iced tea. I wanted a 2nd burger after that.

- Shake Shack 11 Madison Avenue, New York inside Madison Square Park

My sister came into town a few weeks ago, and before she arrived the one thing she told me she wanted to do while visiting Brooklyn was to eat at Paulie Gee’s. I was happy to oblige. Paulie Gee’s is quickly becoming my favorite special occasion destination, due in equal parts to the excellent pizza and the graciousness of Paulie Gee himself. On this most recent visit, I realized that I had already made my way through most of the vegetarian options on the regular menu and so I went for one of the specials, the Honey Jones (Fior di Latte, Gorgonzola Cheese, and Megan the Bee Keeper’s Local Honey — usually served with Prosciutto di Parma but I asked for the meatless version). It was a great mix of salty, tangy, and sweet, all atop Paulie Gee’s chewy, crispy crust. Paulie is a bit persnickety when it comes to his crust — he sent us over a Bacon Marmalade pizza that he thought was too charred to send to the people who had actually ordered it, on the condition that we not photograph it — but when the result is as good as it is, who can complain?

Update on our backyard. Somehow if you leave your radishes growing, they eventually sprout flowers. Cool!

Top-left: WHOOPS! Top-right: Bell pepper prefers hot weather Bottom-left: We have lots of basil! Bottom-right: Lots of mint also.

Regular Market Watch readers know that I get excited when I see something that I haven’t seen before, let alone never heard of. Callaloo is also known as amaranth, which I have heard of. Callaloo is also the name of a dish made with this leafy green and is very popular in the Caribbean. It’s similar to spinach, the man at Bradley Farms told me, though when you cook it the color will leach out and stain the rest of the food. I’m looking forward to finding out.