Egg

Egg, a fabulous brunch spot, has a weekend routine of placing complimentary sugar-and-cinnamon-dusted doughnut holes on each table. I thought this was marvelous - so marvelous that I got up from my table, went to the back of the restaurant and raved about the practice. "Oh, we have a lot of extra today," a server remarked, and she packed me a whole paper bag full of them!

Not that I needed anything else! I'd just torn through a flaky buttermilk biscuit with raspberry jam, a velvety soft omelette with sharp, tangy cheddar mixing with the slightly runny interior and oozing out, a fried ball of potato, and broiled tomatoes with a faint kick to them. But that's the way it is at Egg. Even after you've finished your novel-thick French toast, your caramelized grapefruit with mint, your rasher of Dine's Farm bacon, or your Anson Mills cheese grits, you always have room for more. So don't be intimidated by the line out the door; the wait is worth it!

Egg: 135 North 5th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 302-5151.

Wine, And A Trip To Paris

I'm getting ready to go to Paris, so I have wine on the brain. Serendipitously, these two wine-related items just showed up in my inbox:

• Italian Wine Merchants (108 East 16th St., 212-473-2323) is hosting a tasting event Saturday, July 21, from 1-3 PM which will feature the wines of Italian female winemakers. Regional foods will be included! Call for reservations, or register online at www.italianwinemerchantstore.com/tastings.


• In other wine news, here's a free, online tool which offers 360,000 (gasp!) food and wine pairings. Check out sommelier Natalie MacLean's Website.

I'll be back soon! And if I can tear myself away from my pain au chocolat, there will be updates on my Paris trip at Salli Vates' Traveling Food Page.

Ronnybrook Milk Bar

I half expected to see a cow lumber into Ronnybrook Milk Bar - that's how fresh the milk is. And it's not just milk; it's ice cream, baked macaroni and cheese, milkshakes, yogurt, and sandwiches made with fresh dill farmer's cheese. Not for the lactose intolerant, but an indescribable pleasure for everyone else!

Today was the milk bar's eighth day of operation, and the place was already swarmed with people hellbent on ice cream. Ronnybrook serves cones, sundaes, and ice cream stuffed into cookie sandwiches and doughnut bowls. Ice cream is just about the only thing I didn't try today.

I sprung for the macaroni and cheese, asparagus soup, chocolate-covered strawberry milkshake and warm cookies. I also got to try the lavender milk and the "apple pie a la mode" drink, which was a milkshake of homemade apple compote, milk, vanilla ice cream and apple cider, dusted with cinnamon.

The macaroni and cheese was a ramekin of little elbows smothered in cheddar and topped with ultra-buttery, crisp breadcrumbs. Cheese melted and pooled in the bottom of the dish and I scraped it off with my fork. I looked at my bowl of soup with guilt; how on earth would I finish this bright green puree, its dollop of creme fraiche sporting a sprinkling of chives?

I decided to have it packed up so I could concentrate on my chocolate strawberry drink, a thick shake of fresh strawberries, chocolate milk and strawberry yogurt. It truly tasted like a chocolate-covered strawberry. And then there were the warm chocolate-chip cookies! "Where do you get the chocolate?" I asked, a helpless mess by this point. "It's a secret," the owner replied, cryptically.

Oh well. I guess the important thing is that all the dairy products come from Ronnybrook Farm!

Ronnybrook Milk Bar: Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Ave., (212) 741-6455.

The 53rd Summer Fancy Food Show

It's very difficult not to drown in the sea of cheese, olive oil, packaged pasta and chocolate that is the Fancy Food Show. After a couple of hours of walking around the Javits Center, the products tend to blur together. Nevertheless, I did come away strongly impressed by a few items today:

• La Rustichella Black Truffle Pate was a knockout. The company also makes white truffle pate, Pecorino with ribbons of black truffle, arugula cream with white truffle, truffled olive oil, and even truffle vinegar.


• Black truffles also found their way into Divine Pasta's truffled Pizza Romana. Also of note was Divine's new Cube line of "artisan foods" such as four-cheese macaroni and kabocha soup.


• Chalmers Ganache. This wonderfully versatile, gooey dark chocolate ganache is completely devoid of high fructose corn syrup, and can be used in everything from chocolatinis to cake to fondue. In flavors like luxe dark, ultra mint and "Mucho Mayan."


• Trois Petit Cochons, which bills itself as the first domestic producer of artisanal charcuterie in the U.S., had a great selection of pates, terrines, and sausages.


• Baldor's "Tondo" Balsamic Vinegar, aged for 12 years, is great on strawberries.


• La Paila, from Argentina, makes a to-die-for dulce de leche. At the Fancy Food Show, they were spooning it onto hot waffles. Mmm...


• New York's own Sarabeth Levine, (who baked my wedding cake), is branching out into Parisian-style hot chocolate! Each tin contains 16 oz. of pure Dutch cocoa.


• Cruscana makes great seafood spreads, and Chilean Geomar produces surprisingly tasty tinned sea conch.


• Bel Gioioso, the Wisconsin purveyor of ciliegini and other Italian-style cheeses, now offers wonderfully spreadable stracchino. (I first sampled this rich treat at Quartino and was instantly hooked.)


• I'd never seen these flowery French macarons before: Mag'M bakes them up in lilac, rose, poppy and jasmine flavors!


• Chalet des Fromages, based out of Boulder (303-494-8000), is an importer of fine French cheese. I couldn't get enough of their garlic fondue "Cancoillotte." Also, I loved the Rocamadour... a simply delicious, pungent goat cheese.


• This year, there was an intriguing selection of African products. Home Food Ghana offered grated, fried cassava root, palm oil, and sweet pepper jelly. There were breadfruit chips, and baobab juice from Mon Petit Benin, wild red hibiscus flower juice from Malian Mam's Cocktail Juices, and of course swoon-worthy chocolate from Divine Chocolate, a pioneering fair trade chocolate company owned in part by Ghanaian farmers.


• I washed all of this down with Ito En's latest offering, an extremely refreshing cold mint green tea.

(I guess I won't be eating dinner tonight.)

Mojo Coffee

Are you feeling dehydrated after a sunny day spent biking along the West Side Highway? Then stop into the 3-month old Mojo Coffee, where Patrick will fill you a glass of homemade limeade or ginger lemonade. He can also offer you organic blueberry scones and apple turnovers, fair-trade Guatemalan coffee, and his special northern Italian espresso. Patrick has plans for a more extensive menu by the end of the summer, but his quiet little cafe with its treetrunk tables is definitely still worth a visit. Oh, and I forgot, there's freshly baked banana bread!

Mojo Coffee: 128 Charles St., (212) 691-MOJO.