Category Archives: big city little kitchen

How To Be A Redhead- BCLB Style

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Once upon a time when I first discovered Instagram, I went a little crazy in an attempt to build a following. While participating in #selfieSunday I began hashtagging #redhead, #redHairDontCare, and other embarassing tween-like identifiers. I was the #HastagQueen! I started to notice a little avatar called How to be a Redhead liking my photos whenever I hashtagged a copperheaded phrase. Being a natural-born redhead and always on the hunt for new beauty secrets, I had to check it out.

how to be a redhead of the week fashion beauty style for redheads

Fast-forward to today, and I found out they’ve featured me as their Redhead of the Week! I couldn’t be more flattered.

how to be a redhead of the week jess feakins big city little blog

My favorite aspect of How to be a Redhead is the beauty section. As I mentioned, “I can’t tell you how many times I had to get my make-up done for a party and someone put no mascara, chalky foundation, and brown lipstick on me… so How to be a Redhead is very helpful!” It took me several years and countless YouTube tutorials to figure out a make-up regime that works for me. Unfortunately, finding tips for those with my coloring (strawberry hair, fair skin, dark brown eyes) is still a challenge. Most make-up enthusiasts think of redheads as having cool undertones with blue or green eyes, and for me that is not the case. It’s nice to have an entire website dedicated to girls just like me, as well as one that acknowledges all types of redheaded women.

Thank you again, How to be a Redhead. And if you haven’t already, check out the Redhead of the Week feature here.

Healthy Breakfast Recipe: Egg-white Vegetable Frittata with Turkey Sausage

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By now, you must know about my love for frittatas. I’ve posted about them several times before. My love-affair with this satisfying breakfast stems from two things. 1) You can put just about anything in it and it tastes like heaven. 2) When loaded with veggies, frittatas are a very healthy breakfast option.

This morning, I decided to make the frittata extra-healthy by using egg whites only and fat-free cheddar cheese. I’ve got a wedding to go to and after all the bagels from this past weekend, it’s necessary to drop a few before Saturday. (Yikes! Talk about procrastinating…)

This egg-white frittata with fat free cheddar and turkey sausage is about 200 calories per serving, virtually carb-free, and loaded with healthy vegetables. Please note, I don’t measure anything, so that number is approximate. Here’s the healthy breakfast recipe:

What You’ll Need For 1 Frittata (4-6 servings):

  • 1 handful of sundried tomatoes (about 5 pieces)
  • 1 cup of chopped broccoli
  • 1 handful of mushrooms (6-8)
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 handful of fat free cheddar cheese
  • spray oil (calorie free!)
  • cracked black pepper
  • 1/2 carton of all-natural egg whites. Check the label and make sure that’s the only ingredient!
  • 8×10 Pyrex or oven-safe dish. (preferably glass)
  • medium sized pan
  • sharp knife
  • wooden spoon or spatula

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry all of the vegetables, and get out your cutting board. Dice or rough chop your veggies as desired. Try to cut them up into similar shapes and sizes, so that they cook evenly.

Put a medium sized pan over medium heat and spray with the cooking oil. Cook down the pepper and broccoli. In a separate pan, cook down the mushrooms.

Step 2:

Spray the pyrex dish with cooking oil, and dump the veggies into the pan with the chopped sundried tomatoes. Cover them with egg whites and season as desired. I used dried oregano, basil and cracked black pepper.  Sprinkle with cheese and give it a stir.

Step 3:

Pop it into the oven on 350 for about 30 minutes. You’ll know it’s fully cooked when you wiggle the dish and it stays put in the middle. Allow to cool 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

 

Update: Celebrity chef and restauranteur, Donatella Arpaia, tried the frittata and offered 1 small piece of advice: whip the egg whites into soft peaks (like you’re making a merengue) before folding it all together. It makes the frittata extra fluffy and makes a world of difference!

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Enjoy Arts and Tastes at the Eat St. Pete Festival, FL

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Miami has a food festival and New York has several too. There’s the Taste of Chicago, the LA Food & Wine Festival, and now there’s Eat. St Pete. Mark your calendars for November 15-17th: celebrity chefs Donatella Arpaia, Duff Goldman, Ingrid Hoffmann, Lorena Garcia, Masaharu Morimoto, Ming Tsai, Scott Conant and Todd English are coming to St. Petersburg, Florida.
eat st pete festival
What’s unique about Eat St. Pete is the collaboration between local artists, celebrity chefs, and local restauranteurs. It seems so natural, yet it’s never been done. After all, is a chef not a culinary artists? Does a painter not need a good meal?
eat st pete donatella arpaia scott conant ingrid hoffmann

I was fortunate enough to fly down to St. Petersburg, FL for the Eat. St Pete press conference. I hopped on a (private!) plane with Donatella Arpaia, Scott Conant, and Herb Karlitz to meet with Mayor Bill Foster and entrepreneur Bill Edwards for the official announcement.

blogger jess feakins big city little blog
Donatella was kind enough to bring some of her signature cupcakes, which were a huge hit all around. They will soon be featured on HSN, so stay tuned.
scott conant donatella arpaia herb karlitz celebrity chef donatella arpaia and cupcakes
After an awesome and exciting long and tedious day of networking, schmoozing, cupcake-eating, champagne-drinking, and “meetings,” we headed back to New York. All I can say is, I think I hit the jack-pot with this new job. Oh, and I can’t wait for the festival in November. I’m sure it will be a huge hit!
For more information, check out their website at www.eatstpetefestival.com and stay connected via Facebook and Twitter.

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Girl, you need a timeout? Come to Timeout Tuesday at Donatella’s Dbar!

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Sometimes a girl just needs a timeout. She needs a strong drink, a handsome bartender, and some girl talk. Enter: Timeout Tuesdays at Donatella Restaurant and DBar. It’s a grown-up girls night void of men, motherhood, and meetings and it takes place every Tuesday at 5:30pm.

TimeoutTuesdayPoster

Long-time girlfriends Donatella Arpaia (Iron Chef judge, restauranteur, and author) and Malena Belafonte (international fashion model, performer, and TV personality) launched the event in early May of 2013 to provide a weekly oasis for women to mingle with old friends and make new ones.

Malena Belafonte and Donatella Arpaia Girls Night Event

Between power-points and playdates, it was near impossible to coordinate schedules. After many attempts they realized that it had to go in the calendar. Hence- weekly timeouts! Now,  they attend almost every week to greet their guests and knock down a few of the signature Timeout Tuesday cocktails.

Whether you’re new to New York City or have been living here for years, this is a great opportunity to meet some fun, successful women of all ages. Many women come alone, while others attend in pairs or in a group. Regardless, everyone is there with a smile on their faces and arms wide open.

We hope to see you there with a pineapple and vodka-based martini in hand!

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Donatella Restaurant Review

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DONATELLA logo 7530U★★★★★

As the new Executive Assistant and Marketing Director for celebrity chef, Donatella Arpaia, you may think I’m bias. Maybe I am. I’m still gonna write this though, so listen up. If I’m going to promote something, I need to understand it completely. Wrap my head around it, so to speak. Naturally, Phil and I leapt at the chance to dine at Donatella and check out the food.

donatella chelsea celebrity chef retaurant NYCOverall, we had a fabulous experience. Our server was fantastic– very friendly, helpful, and treated us like we were long lost friends. We sat outside and enjoyed a lovely spring evening. After a long day’s work, it was necessary! At the back of the restaurant, Donatella has “speak-easy-esque” Dbar: Just the right combination of swanky and casual! The bartenders are crazy-nice, the martinis are strong, and the happy hour prices get two thumbs up.  It’s a small, intimate bar. Perfect for a “grown and sexy” night.

best bar in chelsea nyc

Okay, back to the food….we were being indecisive, so our server made some great suggestions and pretty much ordered our entire meal. We started with the signature award-winning meatballs (we got 2 regular and 2 spicy.) Sooo juicy! Spicy were… very spicy. Just a heads up! We also indulged in the weekly special- a fried squash blosson stuffed with ricotta cheese, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and sprinkled with roasted golden raisons and pine-nuts.

meatballs

Squash blossom Donatella NYC celebrity chef restaurant

Then we moved on and split the “Carciofe” pizza: (Crème fraiche, artichokes, preserved lemon & truffle oil) and the gnudi (ricota gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce.)

best neopolitan pizza chelsea donatella nyc

I never would have tried that pizza had the waitress not suggested it, and I’m glad she did. It was delicious!! Splitting 1 pizza and 1 pasta was just enough to leave room for dessert…

pastry chef andrea jarosh donatella arpaia restaurant nyc

We finished with the chocolate cake with salted caramel, peanut brittle, and banana gelato. It was beyond! I love a little salty with my sweet, so this really hit the spot. We also tried the famous rainbow cookie ice cream sandwich, which is to die for.

To top it all off- Donatella is almost always at the restaurant greeting guests and hanging out. She’s so sweet and down-to-earth, it’s no wonder Zagaat named her the “Hostess with the Mostess.”

Would definitely recommend this restaurant and have gone back several times. Probably the best feature is that it’s one of the few celebrity chef restaurants in New York City that’s unpretentious, laid-back, and family-friendly. There’s so many more pizzas to try, and we’ve only knocked a few off the list. So many pizzas… so little time… ::sigh::..

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New Job, New Scene

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Welp, yours truly just got a cool new job. So cool, in fact, that I may or may be invited to lots of food-related events throughout New York City and beyond. That means that you may or may not get lots of Big City Little Adventure posts. While I feel slight guilt and disappointment that I’ve neglected Big City Little Blog these events are chock-full of delicious food, interesting people, and an exciting new scene.

So what’s the job you ask? Executive Assistant and Marketing Strategist for Donatella Arpaia- Iron Chef Judge, Celebrity Chef, Restauranteur, Working Mom, native New Yorker, and all around Bad-ass Boss Lady. In order to assist and direct the marketing, this girl needs to tag along and attend the fabulous parties and appearances. Ugh, what a terrible life.

 Donatella Arpaia Iron Chef Judge

The first event was the PS11 Spring Auction and Gala held at Chelsea Piers Sunset Terrace with Donatella and a couple of her restaurant managers, Stefan and Daniely.  The event was benefitting the school, and Donatella was kind enough to donate her famous meatballs. Other restaurants in attendance were Dos Caminos, The Darby (as well as celebrity chef/owner, Alex Guarnaschelli), Cupcakes By Melissa, Jack Sliders and Sushi, Habana Tapas, and more.

 ps11springauctionandgala

Maybe I’m bias, but Donatella’s meatballs were definitely the star that night. They are unbelievable moist, juicy, and flavorful. They came in a choice of regular or spicy sauce, which was so delicious that people were stealing bread and tortillas to dip into at the end of the night! I also munched on curry sushi, vegetable crostini, cookies, cakes, and tacos.

Another star was Chef Alex Guarnaschelli’s bruschetta. It was the perfect finger-food for the night. They were light yet satisfying, and every bite was bursting with flavor.

 

Overall, it was a great gala and tons of money was raised for the school. Even “at work” I had a wonderful time, ending the night sipping Proseco on the deck with a sunset backdrop.

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Boat Basin Café: An Afternoon on the UWS

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It was about 1pm on Saturday when I reached for my iPhone to get the girls together. I’d been über-lazy so far: just potato-couching it through the morning in my PJs and indulging in my latest obsession. (I just got HBO. Hence, no real life.) As I started to draft a group text, Greer’s call came in to organize a late lunch. It’s as if I had used my super powers of ESP to summon her. We debated a few restaurants near her apartment (Sutton Place) and mine (Yorkville,) before deciding on the Boat Basin Café. In all honesty we were trying to avoid a hike, however on a day like Saturday it was well worth it.

 


lunch at the boat basin cafe 79th riverside

 

For those of you who haven’t been, you should check it out. Not for the food (average bar food such as burgers and hot dogs) or for the service (irritatingly laid-back at times. Read: slow) but for the ambiance. When the sun is shining and the weather is sweet, there’s no place in New York City like the boat basin.

 

boat basin cafe riverside park nyc

 

The Boat Basin Café is located on 79th St. and Riverside Blvd. It’s an enormous space that’s divided up into 3 seating areas. We started in the main dining area where the bar is located and grabbed a few drinks. There’s no reservations at the Boat Basin, and when the weather is nice it can be quite the wait. We waited over an hour to be seated with a view of the Hudson River. Had we been less patient, we could have grabbed a shaded table in about 30 mins, but who wants shade after being cooped up all winter? Patience is a virtue, they say. So are the margaritas at Boat Basin. Just sayin’. The largest seating area is a circular arena in the middle of a round-about. It’s an interesting balance of the hustlin’ bustlin’ city and a peaceful meal with the cars and buses circling above you.

 

boat basin cafe uws nyc

 

While the food and service leave something to be desired, the view is spectacular. It overlooks the boats on the Hudson River and onto New Jersey. It’s also located in the middle of Riverside Park, which lends a relaxed and suburban atmosphere.

 

boat basin cafe upper west side nyc

 

If you’re looking for a fun place to day-drink in the spring/summer, this could be the place. The clientele ranges from mid 20-somethings to young families. Even though everyone is relatively young, they tend to keep it pretty classy. Dogs and young children are welcome, (is it weird I grouped them together?) but you’re more than welcome to get tipsy with a bucket of brews. 

riverside park upper west side nycWe did. ;)

Fun is Free

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Circa 2002 I had a shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch that claimed “fun is free!” I thought it was pretty cool, but I also wore it because I didn’t have any money and had to find free fun. Nowadays, I still don’t have any money. So I need to find free fun. See how things change as you get older? Wait… that’s not right…

taxis and tulips park avenue new york

Anyway, Sunday Fundays typically consist of AYCD Drunches full of mimosas, eggs benedict, and an inevitably headache. They also cost upwards of $30, which for “all you can drink,” is a good deal, but it’s still a lot of money. So while they are one of my favorite past-times, we decided to switch it up today and head to the Central Park. Phil and I have been longing to use this great little picnic basket that was gifted to us from his brother, Marco, and today seemed like the perfect day. We’d just fill it with a couple of sandwiches and hit the road!

picnic in central park nyc

We headed over to H&H Bagels to pick up our brunch before the picnic. Phil decided on a turkey sandwich, while I went with bagel and lox. Luckily, we’re only a short scenic walk from Central Park. Just a hop down 79th, a skip over Park, and a jump over 5th!

spring flowers ues nyc
nyc the picnic of the century picnic in central park nyc

the picnic of the century

Phil set up the blanket and unpacked the goods while I snapped some photos. I live for spring- the colors, the smell, the weather.The cherry blossoms have arrived, and they’re breathtaking! Loads of families graced the grassy hills with their little kids and puppies. You can hardly believe that this oasis sits in the middle of our concrete jungle.dogs playing in central park nyc

best nyc lifestyle blog

 

picnicing in central park new york

 

cherry blossoms picnic in central park nyc

After we settled in, we attacked our meal. Believe it or not- I had never tried bagel and lox until I met Phil. The thought of smoked fish for breakfast wasn’t exactly appealing to me, but Phil gets them often. He always tried to make me eat it, so one day I gave in. I have never been happier. I’m talking: best decision ever. Today I got my usual combo for bagel and lox: whole wheat scooped bagel, fresh unsalted lox, and scallion cream cheese. Are you drooling yet? I am…

best bagels nyc H&H bagels and lox

 

Hope you enjoyed your Sunday Funday as much as we did! You can check out the rest of the photos here:

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What I Wore: Happy Hour at Bar Coastal

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Can you believe this weather? I can’t! After such a long winter, I’m totally hooked on the warm sunshine we’ve been blessed with this week. It’s such a simple joy to wear maxi skirts and sandals.

Spring is finally here!

Spring is finally here! by jfeakins86 featuring a wire bracelet

After a day chock-full of errands, an incredible run in the park, and some weightlifting at Equinox, I decided we were due for a humpday happy hour at Bar Coastal. I threw on my favorite drawstring maxi skirt (Michael by Michael Kors,)  an old grey tank from Express, cropped leatherette jacket from Casual Couture, and some Steve Madden T-Strap sandals (similar here.) I completed my look with silver jewelry, my Goshwara amethyst pendant (similar available at Betteridge)  and IBD Just Gel nail polish in Jupiter Blue.

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Bar Coastal, by the way, is a great little bar on 79th and 1st. They have amazing drink specials- $3 beer and well drinks from 4-7pm every day and- get this- $2 drinks for ladies on Thursday. Not only is it beyond affordable, but the food is outrageously delicious. Steering clear from processed ingredients, Bar Coastal raises the bar on your typical pub food. They also boast the best wings in NYC. Personal fave? Get the chicken littles tossed in buffalo sauce with a side of waffle fries. Yum!