Good Wednesday morning.
Anyone who has visited Europe – especially France – knows that it’s just a fact that food there, on the whole, tastes better.
I am not saying that I haven’t had bad meals when traveling abroad. I certainly have. But generally speaking, even the most basic staples – bread, most notably, but also chocolate, produce, and meat – are superior because of fewer additives and preservatives and an emphasis on eating what’s in season.
There is also a phenomenon that causes our senses to be heightened when we travel for vacation, when we tend to be more relaxed and open to new experiences – including all things culinary. This might be why I have intense and highly pleasurable memories about certain foods I consumed while living in France.
I distinctly recall the first time I ordered a crepe from a street vendor. I was still in high school and we were on a family vacation to Paris. It was a very simple thing – just a freshly made crepe, very light thin and crispy at the edges, spread with a thin layer of nutella, folded into thirds and tucked into a paper cone.
The result – a warm, sweet and indulgent but somehow light – was perfect eaten on a street corner and was gone far too quickly. I’ve been a crepe fan ever since, in theory. I have never mustered up the courage to make them myself, as they seem very labor intensive, and I usually don’t order them for fear of nothing being able to measure up to that ethereal first crepe eaten with my hands on a Paris street corner.
Which brings me to Crepes Suzette, one of the world’s most iconic crepe desserts, prepares table side with a simply sauce of sugar, orange juice, and liqueur (usually Grand Marnier). The piece de resistance is that the crepes are flambeed – the liquor lit on fire.
This last part is a critical element of the dish, but was – according to one popular Crepes Suzette origin story – the result of a mistake. This story appears to probably be a myth, and food historians agree on very little in terms of how, exactly, this dessert was created, though they do agree that its roots are indeed French.
Today is National Crepe Suzette Day, which is not to be confused with Crepe Day (KA La Chandeleur, AKA Candlemas), which falls on Feb. 2, and requires one to prepare one’s own crepes – not order them at a restaurant or, in my case, from a street vendor – flipping them with one hand while holding a coin in the other, in order to have good luck.
Today will be cloudy and wet, with periods of rain from morning until nightfall. High temperatures will reach into the low 60s.
In the headlines…
President Trump announced last night that he was pausing the day-old U.S. operation to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz “for a short period of time,” citing what he said was “great progress” toward an agreement with Iran.
This came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that the US had concluded the combat operations that started its war with Iran, arguing that the U.S. military’s efforts to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz were a wholly new operation.
More than two months into the Iran war, some 1,600 ships remain stranded in dangerous conditions in the Strait of Hormuz, with roughly 20,000 seafarers on board.
Officials at the FDA have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles in recent months, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed.
FBI Director Kash Patel is blaming Arizona police for botching the Nancy Guthrie investigation, claiming his agency was blocked from assisting the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for four days after she was reported missing from her Tucson home on Feb. 1.
Patel also faulted local police for sending possible DNA evidence to a Florida laboratory rather than letting the FBI quickly examine it at their world-class crime lab in Quantico, Va.
Just one of the seven Indiana GOP state senators who faced primary challengers backed by President Trump over their opposition to redistricting is projected to win their Republican primary.
The marks a major win for the president who threatened to oust the state lawmakers who bucked his wish for GOP-friendly changes to Indiana’s congressional map last year.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and former state Rep. Derek Merrin are projected to win their respective primaries, setting up a rematch in November after the longest-serving woman in Congress narrowly defeated Merrin in 2024.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican pharmaceutical entrepreneur, and Dr. Amy Acton, a Democrat who served as the Ohio health director under the current Republican governor, won their respective primaries for governor.
U.S. Senate Republicans proposed $1 billion to pay for new White House security measures, with lawmakers and White House officials disagreeing over whether the legislation would cover Trump’s planned ballroom.
A cruise ship struck by a deadly outbreak of the hantavirus is expected to sail to the Canary Islands, where the Spanish government will receive the vessel, the country’s health ministry said.
The WHO said that some of those who had fallen ill may have been infected through human-to-human transmission, cautioning nonetheless that a full investigation was still needed and that human-to-human transmission remained rare.
Rudy Giuliani received his last rites, a Catholic sacrament often administered to the dying, while hospitalized in Florida with pneumonia and placed on a ventilator, his doctor revealed.
“He’s a fighter — the way he was yesterday in such a critical condition, he did have a priest come anoint him,” Dr. Maria Ryan, his primary care provider, told Fox News, adding that the priest also performed last rites.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signaled she was open to “do more” to help New York City straighten out its finances through support for local public schools.
When asked if she expects education funding to be tied to tweaking a state law mandating smaller classrooms, Hochul said they are “looking closely at all of that,” adding: “I just spoke to the mayor again yesterday.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dispatched a top deputy to the state Capitol in Albany yesterday to discuss how Democrats in the state Legislature could begin the process of redrawing New York’s districts in Congress.
Rep. Joe Morelle, a former Democratic assembly member from Rochester, said he wants his former colleagues to authorize a mid-decade update to the state’s House map that could yield three new Democratic seats.
Republicans are firing warning shots at Hochul and other Democratic state lawmakers: If you pass new laws to protect immigrants across New York, there will be consequences.
The Trump administration threatened to flood New York with federal agents performing deportation roundups if the state passes a law that cuts off immigration enforcement cooperation, border czar Tom Homan said at a business conference.
New York’s iconic pizza and bagels may soon taste a little different as state lawmakers move to strip out additives that can cause cancer and other health problems.
New York state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told reporters yesterday that legislative leaders have made a lot of progress toward a deal on the state budget, which is now more than a month late.
Hochul celebrated what she said has been the fastest year of residential unit production in her administration, with the state is on pace to complete and exceed a 100,000-unit housing plan ahead of schedule.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman took a break from criticizing Hochul, whom he’s trying to unseat, to take credit for resolving a controversy in Brighton Beach over a planned concert by one of Uzbekistan’s most famous pop singers.
Democrats in the state Senate are again advancing legislation meant to strengthen animal protections in New York, ranging from banning harmful surgical procedures to cracking down on animal fighting rings.
The names of fallen New York police officers were read during the state’s annual remembrance ceremony of officers yesterday at the New York State Police Officers Memorial at Empire State Plaza in Albany.
Real estate magnate Steve Roth is standing strong with fellow billionaire Ken Griffin in his spat with Mayor Zohran Mamdani. saying the ultra-rich should be thanked, not taxed more, and compared the phrase “tax the rich” to a racial slur.
Roth said “tax the rich” suggests that the wealthy are evil and should be made targets, and he criticized the mayor for singling out Griffin, a fellow tycoon, in his campaign to force rich New Yorkers to pay more to support the city’s programs.
“What really upset me about the video was the fact that he put me in harm’s way,” Griffin said on CNBC. “You know, he seems to have forgotten that the CEO of another American company was assassinated just blocks from where I live in New York.”
Griffin amplified his criticism of Mamdani at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California, and suggested his investing firm Citadel would “double down” on Miami’s being the place for growth instead of Manhattan.
Griffin said he plans to make Citadel’s Miami tower even bigger after Mamdani name-checked the billionaire in his pledge to charge more taxes on second homes.
A roving real-estate expo for land sales in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories held an event at a New York synagogue on yesterday, drawing a rebuke from Mamdani over the potential for land sales that violate international law.
Ahead of a planned pro-Palestinian protest at the land sale event at Park East Synagogue, the Mamdani administration said the NYPD would work to ensure both protestors and those attending are safe while also voicing displeasure with the event itself.
Dueling crowds of protesters rallied outside a pro-Israel event at one of New York’s most prominent Modern Orthodox synagogues for the second time in six months, sending the city down a familiar and acrimonious path.
More New Yorkers and Americans who outwardly identify as Jewish are being violently attacked or threatened, according to an unsettling new report released today.
An NYPD captain has been transferred after he was caught in uniform on video while policing a protest calling Mayor Zohran Mamdani “an embarrassment,” officials said.
Cpt. James G. Wilson, 51, was moved to the communications division from his position as the executive officer of the 94th Precinct a day after a video began circulating that showed him calling Mamdani “expendable” and “an embarrassment and total nonsense.”
The Mamdani administration should embrace expanding the city’s half-priced fare program instead of pursuing his signature campaign proposal for free buses, as the latter would do little to make transit more affordable, a new CBC report found.
The CBC published its report ahead of today’s City Council hearing on the existing program, Fair Fares, and a bill that requires development of a system for automatically enrolling eligible individuals who qualify for other city-administered benefits.
Mamdani appointed Dr. Ayesha Delany-Brumsey, a de Blasio administration alum, as commissioner of his Office of Community Safety.
Amazon labor organizer Chris Smalls, who was famously fired after being arrested for protesting his company in 2020, was busted for trying to storm the Met Gala on the Upper East Side, cops said.
Three Staten Island men have pleaded guilty to trying to bribe a juror with up to $100,000 in a federal cocaine trafficking trial of a former Montenegrin heavyweight boxer, prosecutors said.
A Columbia University study, relying on data from 19 sensors across the South Bronx, shows that overall fine particulate matter — tiny, toxic particles produced by burning fossil fuels — has increased since the start of congestion pricing in Manhattan.
The abrupt shutdown of Spirit Airlines over the weekend has turned an entire terminal at LaGuardia Airport into a ghost town.
An airliner approaching John F. Kennedy Airport and a small propeller plane came within 500 feet of each other on Monday — at least the second close call near the Queens travel hub in two weeks.
A fashion writer for People magazine and her mother were among the three people killed in a fast-moving fire early Monday morning in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, the publication confirmed.
Class will be in session at five new NYC public schools that will open in September for the 2026-2027 academic year, Mamdani and Public Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels announced.
The state this month will begin planning its redevelopment of Queens’ Aqueduct Racetrack, which is set to be one of the largest empty plots of state-owned land when the horse racing complex closes its tracks for good in June.
MidHudson Regional Hospital will expand its inpatient behavioral health unit by adding beds to treat patients with psychiatric conditions, one year after a state investigation found the hospital system had put those patients at risk.
The Martin Group, a full scale communications firm based in Buffalo with offices in Troy, Rochester and New York City, is acquiring Mr. Smith Agency, a Buffalo-based brand-strategy and content studio.
A former Rensselaer firefighter has been charged with stealing about $62,000 from a local fire company while serving as an official with the organization.
Two Capital Region students attending SUNY Buffalo are among the recipients of the Goldwater Scholarship Awards, which support college sophomores and juniors who show exceptional potential in their pursuit of STEM-based doctorates and careers in research.
A hot button sign calling for President Trump to be “neutralized” was damaged this weekend in North Creek, launching a police investigation.
A shed at Bethlehem’s Jericho Drive-In and ice cream stand caught fire Monday, but the movie theater’s operators were planning to be back in business yesterday afternoon.
After a Guilderand High School teacher admitted in a deposition to accidentally hitting a student, the student could alter her lawsuit to reflect that, an appeals court ruled.
RIP Peter R. Kermani, a leader in business and politics whose impact on regional classical music began when he rescued the Albany Symphony in the 1970s. He was battling terminal cancer and died Sunday at his Delmar home just short of his 86th birthday.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
