Belle at the Learning Annex

Champagne at Balthazar to follow. Y’all know this is how you want to spend a Wednesday evening…

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Belle in The New York Times

Right now I’m on vacation with my family, trying to explain where my money goes.

I haven’t seen you in a new dress in ages… Chinatown for a haircut?… Honey, mind your cuticles… That shade of lipstick is very Alicia Silverstone circa 1995… You still have a VCR?!

I buy cheese, family. I buy 180 minutes with a lawyer. I buy myself an LLC. And then, y’all know what I do? I buy more cheese and pounds upon pounds of red bell peppers. With my spare money and time, I run up to Union Square and splurge on an heirloom tomato or two and then come back down to Sullivan for a ball of mozzarella from Joe’s. I’ll slip in a glass of wine and call it luxury.

But I do feel like an entrepreneur and I do feel like I’m taking a risk. My products are tucked away on Bleeker Street and stacked on the cooled shelves at Grand Central.That makes me happy. That keeps me going…

Dressing Up Pimento Cheese

In some parts of the country, pride is taken in homemade pimento cheese; self-respecting Southerners would never buy the commercial kind to fill a sandwich or to top a canapé. And why would they? At its simplest, pimento cheese calls for shredded sharp Cheddar, minced jarred pimentos and mayonnaise. Variations include cream cheese, onion, pickles and hot sauce.


Brooke Parkhurst, far left, a native of Pensacola, Fla., now living in New York, likes hers sharp and spicy, suitable to nibble with a martini at 5 p.m. or to use as an omelet filling for Sunday brunch. Tweaking her grandmother’s recipe, she roasts red peppers in olive oil, uses sharp Irish Cheddar, Ben’s cream cheese, mayonnaise and, for the kick, sriracha hot sauce. Her Belle’s Southern Comforts pimento cheese is $6.99 for seven ounces at Murray’s Cheese stores.

[via NY Times]