Jen has already posted her Top Stories for 2007-- but here's the list according to you, the readers: By Comments* 1. Pet Food Recall After Cat and Dog Deaths, by Jen Chung (614) 2. Rev. John Carmichael, Church of Scientology, by Jen Carlson (312) 3. Wild Wednesday Weather, by Jen Chung (255) 4. Maple Syrup Was Better: Smell of Gas Covers NYC by Jen Chung (191) 5. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninites Don't Scare......

If you like the sandy, gritty texture of cornmeal and the intense burst of flavor of dried strawberries, these biscuits are the breakfast treat for you. The recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, and our only adaptation was the addition of the strawberries for extra richness. Strawberry Maple Cornmeal Biscuits 1 C all-purpose flour 1 C yellow cornmeal 1 tbsp baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 6......

Are you playing host this year and still trying to decide what to make for Thanksgiving? We've pulled together some of our old and new favorite recipes for traditional, and not so traditional, Thanksging fare. First, the turkey. We firmly believe that brining is best. This cider-brined and glazed turkey is a simple brining recipe -- you just need to make sure you've got a big enough vessel for the turkey and plenty of room......

While the maple syrup smell remains a two-year-old mystery to us, 30 Rock entered the fray with a hypothesis. On last night's episode, Liz Lemon, who smells waffles from her Upper West Side apartment, calls Tracy Jordan to remind him to practice his Re-Run dance for the What's Happening! sketch. But Tracy, in his NJ home, says that the smell of waffles is distracting him. Then Liz gets another call - it's Jack Donaghy,......

A few readers let us know that they smelled the sickly sweet smell of a maple syrup-like substance last evening. Now, this brings back a flood of memories from 2005, when a maple syrup smell blanketed much of Manhattan. The smell, which has made return visits in early December 2005 aJanuary 2006, March 2006 and November 2006, leading us to believe this is a cold weather phenomena. One reader noted that it was detected around......

Michael Dory is expanding the definition of graffiti, with his non-visual sonic street art (presented last month at Conflux). His inconspicuous concrete crickets (pictured) recently got some NPR and Boing Boing love, and his own site explains:Graffiti is one of the most powerful and most personal displays in the urban experience, and can be used to make statements, tag territory, spread messages — urban markup language in practice. However, the output is nearly always visual......

These days, using seasonal, local, and organic ingredients are old tricks for New York's top caliber restaurants. Rose Water, the Park Slope neighborhood spot opened in 2000 by John Tucker, formerly of Savoy, is no exception to this market rule. Champions of the earth's bounty and offering a perpetually changing menu, Rose Water is celebrating its seventh anniversary this year as a neighborhood fixture in its Union Street (between 5th & 6th Avenue) location.......

Gothamist is just recovering from the food coma that followed Wednesday night's preopening party at Borough Food & Drink. By the time we got there the room was jammed with all manner of food bloggers, writers and restaurant industry insiders all gleefully sampling items from the menu of the new Chodorow-Pelaccio venture. It's good to know that our time trolling the mean streets of Queens and Brooklyn hasn't been spent in vain. As soon as......

This week in the Times, Bruni goes to Esca, calls chef Dave Pasternack a "fish whisperer" (um, OK Frank) and awards the restaurant three stars. "In an era when too many restaurants try to be everything to everyone," he says, "Esca has a specific agenda: show what the sea can yield." The restaurant was previously awarded two stars by William Grimes in 2000. In $25 and Under, Peter Meehan checks out the cafes at the......

No, not the maple syrup smell weather, but warm days and cool nights –the ideal weather to get the sap running in maple trees. You may have noticed a few clouds earlier this morning. They heralded the passage of a week cold front. The front didn't bring much in the way of cold air but it is much drier. The dew point temperature has plunged from the mid-40s this morning to 20 degrees this afternoon.......

Gothamist has a thing for cook-offs. There’s something about the sincerity of it all—just a bunch of honest folk sharing their love for chili, casseroles or, in the case of Sunday’s event, winter squash. This weekend’s Great Squash Cook-Off drew twenty amateur cooks to Park Slope’s V-Spot restaurant to compete before a panel of local food authorities (among them KalaLea of organic café and wine bar Smooch, Vikas Khanna of Tamarind and Isa Chandra......

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly discussed the scourge that are LED devices with Aqua Teen Hunger Force characters on them yesterday. Kelly said, "In hindsight, [Interference Marketing] should have thought a little more about this, certainly in a post-9/11 world. They had wires hanging out of some of them. It's reasonable to look a little askance at these things." Also: "We get about 6,000 suspicious-package calls a year in New York, but we got no calls......

Brooklyn newcomer Brooklyn Label serves breakfast, lunch, and brunch in the spaciously remodeled ground floor of the historic Astral Apartments building in Greenpoint. Maintaining original ceilings and floors (where possible), bright sunlight pours in in windows on the South and West sides illuminating bright orange walls and a steadily crowded room. Open six days a week (except Mondays), Brooklyn Label's hearty menu offers generously sized servings of creative variations on all-American favorites with breakfast......

The cocktails at Death and Co., a new watering hole in the East Village, are as serious as a heart attack. Here they are not just pushed out in sweatshop fashion to the herds of thirsty folks that crowd the bar. At Death and Co., the cocktail is treated with respect. From the two inch double-freeze ice cubes to the highest quality spirits and ingredients, it's carefully crafted with that perfect balance of skill and......

The Big Apple Mystery of the Week: Why did NYC have bad CO (city odor) of natural gas with mercaptan yesterday? The malodorous bouquet freaked out people from all over Manhattan (even parts of Brooklyn) and parts of eastern New Jersey. The city's various agencies determined it was not a terrorist attack and that the odor was "not dangerous." So most of the blame fell to our neighbor, New Jersey. The city's Department of......

Last week we asked readers to share some of their favorite apple varieties as well as ways to use them. After reviewing the responses, it seems that Macintosh, Pink Lady’s and Fuji apples were your favorites and baked dessert applications were certainly the most popular uses for apples. Apples go well with a number of foods and flavor profiles. Here are some things we like to do with apples when cooking: - Put rough chopped......

Sometimes you have to leave the city to realize how impatient we can be. Don’t have your breakfast order at the tip of your tongue? Expect to be passed over. Fumbling for your Metrocard at the turnstile with a train approaching, you’ll get dirty looks. Walking three-abreast at leisurely pace down Lexington Avenue during rush hour might get you stabbed. Our little conveniences of efficiency have led us to expect things quickly. It’s not......

If you have been reading along you know that last week the column covered tips to successfully producing a moist turkey and the week prior it was about how to select a turkey. This week the topic is what you can to serve with the Thanksgiving turkey. Gravy is mandatory, but everything else is up for grabs. We are going to leave stuffing and cranberry sauce up to other people, try looking at Kiri......

Is the maple syrup smell back? We've gotten some emails and notes on Contribute:I know that last year you reported on the mystery maple syrup smell of the city and I think it is back! At 4:30am this morning I was walking from the crosstown M96 to my apartment on 102nd & 1st when I got the hugest sensation to have pancakes (I thought it was from have a few glasses of wine last evening).......

THEATER: Harold Pinter’s taught two-hander, Ashes to Ashes, is running through Wednesday at the intimate Paradise Theatre in the East Village. The cryptic 45 minute one-act examines a refined couple’s quiet life at home, with the usual brutality menacing just beneath the surface. In a previous interview, Pinter blamed the male gender for the cruelty dramatized in his work, insisting that “God was in much better trim when He created women.” - John Del Signore......

Ack! Some crazy, noxious smell seeped into Staten Island yesterday and made people so sick that the city's Hazmat team was brought in! People were made nauseous, anxious (where is that gas leak? I can't find it!), and nervous. Then the smell headed to the Rockaways, but it was less disgusting there and no one needed hospital attention as the Staten Island smell victims did (air conditioners sucked in the smell and concentrated it in......

Aurora--with an open, airy dining room, exposed brick walls, wooden tables, and a large, plant-filled garden--is named after one of owner and Roman native Gaspare Villa's favorites places in Italy. "Rustic" is the best word to describe both the food and atmosphere--like an urban farmhouse where chef Riccardo Buitoni makes sure you are both cozy and well-fed. Pastas, breads, and desserts are all made on premises with a special emphasis on seasonal ingredients, reflected......

Even though that strange maple syrup scent that pervaded the air a few months back has left, our fair city’s less-than-fair air may be making our kids dumber. A new Columbia University study, which tracked 183 3-year-olds from Harlem, Washington Heights, and the South Bronx, finds that kiddies exposed to high levels of air pollution in the womb have higher rates of mental deficiencies. Women in the study were asked to wear air pollution monitors......

It was such a nice night that Gothamist decided to open our windows and air out our Upper West Side office/domicile as we tried to spring clean (as in, spring clean for 2005 - we're very, very behind). And then, during a gust of wind, it started to smell...weird. Like yucky, icky, gross...like really burnt maple syrup. Yes, the maple syrup is back, even though it is Monday. How else can you explain the email......

- Man is killed in Crown Heights alternate-side-of-the-street parking his car - The MTA says it will drop arrest charges against a transgender woman who used the women's bathroom at Grand Central; the transgender woman claims the transit police harrassed her repeatedly - which we can believe - This makes it seem like arbitration is close - the MTA is going to approve the transit workers contract that the union rejected - How might......

CELEBRATION: There's nothing like flowers to cheer you up in the dreary month of January. The Museum of Chinese in the Americas presents Arts in Full Bloom at 3rd Annual Lunar New Year Flower Market. The Flower Market reinvents tradition by incorporating performers and artists as the colors and fragrances of auspicious plants and blossoms linger in the air and atmosphere. The flowers are widely used decoratively as symbols of prosperity, fortune and abundance. Friday......

When Gothamist was a little kid we always looked forward to our Upstate vacations. Sure, helping Grandpa milk the cows was fun, and visiting our older cousins was always a treat, but the real treat came at night. Our cousins lived a mile or two north of a Nestle's Chocolate plant. On nights with a southerly breeze the whole town would fill with the smell of chocolate. It was as if we had moved to......

According to our trusty informants at Gothamist Contribute, the maple sugar smell returned for a fourth time last night:The maple syrup smell is a Canadian conspiracy to get us to buy more maple syrup! January 27, 2006 12:31 AM i smell it on 118th street!! January 27, 2006 12:22 AM The syrup smell is very strong near La Guardia as well. This is really freaking me out. January 26, 2006 11:26 PM cpw at 88th-check......

While it's not completely official (a vote needs to take place), the City Council has selected Christine Quinn, the Democratic Manhattan member who represents Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and Clinton, to be the new speaker. She secured her bid when the powerful Queens city council bloc decided to support her instead of Brooklyn member Bill deBlasio. Quinn will be the first female city council speaker, as well the first openly gay speaker, and Gothamist enjoyed news......

The sweet, cloying smell of a maple syrup-like substance hits the newspapers today. Most of the reported smell-incidents occured above 96th Street (does uptown have clearer air, therefore more opportunity to smell smells?): Newsday found out that most calls to 311 just described something sweet in the air. One of our readers was directed by 311 to call 911, and later saw firetrucks around a smell-point! The Department of Environmental Protection even used hazmat equipment......