Chef Jonathan Waxman is known for many things, but the benchmark of his cooking over the years has arguably always been his roast chicken. The cover of his new cookbook A Great American Cook depicts Waxman slyly drawing a Lavazza espresso cup to his mouth, wood-burning oven full flame in the background and a sliced open cheese pumpkin in front. The book also features the chef’s roast chicken recipe. “My culinary anthem,” Waxman waxes in......

Here's to hoping that your last cigarette break is your last ever. Today's the day of the Great American Smokeout and the city Health Department has joined forces with hospitals, clinics, and community organizations to hand out FREE nicotine patches all day. The Smokeout has been around for over 30 years and is a day where about a third of the 46 million American smokers out there try to abstain from puffing. While there are......

In 2006, at age 19, musician Zach Condon and his band Beirut exploded onto the indie-rock scene with a dramatic collection of Balkan-inspired arrangements for horn, ukulele, keyboards and strings. The bloggers raved, the venues got bigger, the haters left comments. But less than a year later, the teen’s too-sudden indie-rock apotheosis landed him in the hospital for “extreme exhaustion” and forced the cancellation of a tour that included sold-out dates at Bowery Ballroom. Condon......

Yankees 12, Mariners 3: Chien-Ming Wang doesn't deserve the American League Cy Young award, but he should get some lower votes. In a game the Yankees needed to win to keep their wild-card lead, Wang pitched 7 1/3 innings and kept the Mariners under wraps. That came as a welcome development after the Yankees learned that Roger Clemens will need a cortisone shot in his pitching elbow. Why was he out there Monday anyway? Horacio......

A fact for you: the average American lives within ten miles of a craft brewery. That’s right, only ten itsy, bitsy miles separate us from the artistry and craftsmanship of fermentation. As New Yorkers we are particularly lucky, with about 20 breweries in the city and surrounding neighborhoods. That basically means that there is no excuse for downing Coors Light, unless beer pong is involved, of course. This little nugget of information is particularly relevant......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Grease: You're the One That I Want (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNBC 4) This fakeality show finally ends tonight. Masterpiece Theatre - Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13) Helen Mirren stars in one of her best roles – Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. Despite being on PBS, the Prime Suspect series do tend to be a bit bowlderized from the British original thanks......

The Rockefeller Foundation, which played a role in funding Jane Jacobs's pioneering research and writing 50 years ago, will now support her legacy by issuing two annual award grants in her honor. According to the NY Sun, one recipient will have made a lifetime contribution to urban design or theory, specifically in New York City, and the other will be on the cusp of a promising career. Each award is worth $200,000. The prize appears......

The hullabaloo surrounding the Park Slope Barnes & Noble's request for parents to park strollers upstairs in a designated area is exactly the kind of tempest in a neighborhood that brings out the haves (having children) and have nots (having no children). But what's fascinating is the dialog created on both the part of the parents who want to wield their strollers and those who want to be free of strollers while writing their......

Tower Records has finally shut its doors. "The 46-year-old music retailer was sold to Los Angeles-based liquidator Great American Group for $134.3 million after a federal bankruptcy judge approved the sale in October." Tower.com is still up and running. At the store, they still had a few good things left over, including Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic. Check out more photos at Triborough's flickr set.......

THEATER: Pot-au-Noir (The Black Hole) is a retelling of the story of Cain & Abel "through the lens of the Great American Myth -- combining images of Hollywood Film Noir, the Gold Rush, the Dust Bowl, and Manifest Destiny with a story that is at the core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and, therefore, America." Jake Hooker’s new production promises lyrical text, contemporary dance and live music to tell a story of lies, deceit, jealousy,......

Plans are in the works to name all or part of Bleecker Playground after the steely activist and mother of three who helped lay the groundwork for New Urbanism. Earlier this week, Community Board 2 discussed the tribute to Jane Jacobs, who died last April at 89. It's unclear whether the naming will cover the playground, the sitting area and the pathway from Hudson to Bleecker, or just the sitting area and pathway. Some......

Jane Jacobs, the urban activist whose influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities reshaped thinking about urban communities, died overnight in Toronto. Jacobs, who lived in Canada since 1968, faced down NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, arguably the most powerful man in the city at the time, in the 1960s, most famously stopping an expressway from being constructed downtown. Wikipedia on Jacobs. A 2004 Talk of the Town New Yorker piece about......

Kate Wood, executive director, LANDMARK WEST!...

The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock (Knopf, 2003) Gothamist is convinced that when it comes to birthday cake, taste trumps appearance. Sure, you want a cake that's attractive, but it doesn't need to be fancy. And with those candles blazing on top, who's cares if there's flowers or birthday wishes scrolled on top? So when we needed to make a birthday cake......

Yo, Blacken This!: Hell's Kitchen Meets the French Quarter at the Delta Grill, by M.B. Roberts (Willow Creek, 1999). When Gothamist thinks comfort food, we want something warm and spicy, kind of like an internal blanky. Lately we've been drawn to Cajun and Creole food, which satisfies our hunger like no other cuisine. In our neighborhood alone, we have Mara's Homemade, Natchez, and Raga's soul food Tuesdays to choose from. But when one of our......