Caitlin Hartney

The Buffalo News • 27th September 2019

Biting Into the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies are as diverse as snowflakes, and what constitutes a perfect chocolate chip cookie is a matter of personal preference and, sometimes, impassioned debate. Where one person might praise the virtues of a thoroughly soft, even...

The Buffalo News • 26th April 2019

Deconstructing High Tea & Its Feminist Roots

When my editor asked me to write about afternoon tea in Western New York—the British-pedigreed sort taken leisurely between lunch and dinner with a light repast of sandwich points and dainty sweets—I was a little hesitant. “Why is afternoon tea worth...

The Buffalo News • 29th March 2019

Eggs, elevated, on local menus

We’re on the brink of spring, a period of floral regrowth and faunal fecundity. And that means the humble egg will once again bear its annual symbolic weight on seder plates and in Easter baskets worldwide. Eggs and all the potential for new life they...

The Buffalo News • 25th January 2019

The changing scene of French cuisine

In the 1960s, Rue Franklin was far removed from the premier French restaurant it would become. Back then, it served as a coffeehouse and folk music venue, catering to students who frequented the Grosvenor Reference Library, then at the corner of...

The Buffalo News • 26th October 2018

Get your stuffing fix, anytime

If you love Thanksgiving stuffing as much as I (and presumably millions of other Americans) do, it seems silly to confine your consumption to a holiday riddled with enjoyment-throttling potential—noisy relatives, contentious dinner table conversation,...

The Buffalo News • 22nd January 2018

Ashker's Black Rock invites you to linger over coffee, food

An ideal visit to Ashker’s Black Rock unfolds like this: arrive early or between meals to ensure your pick of seating. That might be the sumptuous slate-blue Victorian, the cozy fauteuil by the gas stove, a two- or four-top, or—if you’re feeling...

The Buffalo News • 12th January 2018

At Teacup Farm, Minimal Intervention is Key to Peerless Dairy

When her youngest child graduated high school, it effectively ended Liz Neadow’s tenure as home school teacher. Consequently, choices confronted the long-time stay-at-home mother. Among them, what would she do with her new-found freedom? And what...

The Buffalo News • 19th December 2017

At Oles Family Farm, great produce starts with sound roots

Asked to explain why his family’s Alden farm is held in such high esteem, Ben Oles pulled a dozen carrots from the earth he tends with his father, Dan, and mother, Jane. As the carrots dangled from his hand like jewel-toned stalactites, he gestured to...

The Buffalo News • 21st November 2017

Higher Standards of Care Beget Singular Lamb

Raising lamb for the table is the end game at Stillwater Farm in Boston, New York. But for owners Jay and Margaret Braymiller, respecting life is paramount. That includes maintaining the corporal integrity of the animals that call Stillwater home....

The Buffalo News • 6th November 2017

Starters: Build-your-own sushi burritos, bowls at Taichi Bubble Tea

If you’re a fan of sushi but have found yourself wishing your go-to order was a little, well, heftier, you’re in luck. Taichi Bubble Tea, the newest tenant of Sheridan Plaza in the Town of Tonawanda, is supersizing sushi for the Western New York...

Buffalo Rising • 11th October 2017

Sato Brewpub Invites You to Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

Sometimes, you eat all the tacos with your food soulmate and wax poetically about the ways in which the thoughtful, well prepared food you shared played an important accessory to a bittersweet memory. Other times, you go to Sato Brewpub only to...

15th August 2017

JT’s Serves Up a Mixed Bag

“So, what does urban Italian mean”? That was the question I posed to my very good-natured server at JT’s Urban Italian. I wasn’t being rhetorical. I was looking for an answer that might resolve what I perceived to be the restaurant’s glaring contradiction.

Buffalo Rising • 13th April 2017

Proper Shakshuka Is the Brunch Dish Buffalo Has Been Waiting For

Last Sunday, a taste of spring weather drove most of you to the city’s patio-fortunate brunch spots. I saw you there with your sunglasses suspended over Elmwood at Thin Man and spilling out of whatever the fuck was happening at MTK (the place was...

Buffalo Rising • 7th January 2017

Go to Casa Azul With Your Food Soulmate and Eat All the Tacos

Writing about food can be frustrating. Editors want the imperative information (Was it good? What did it look like? How much did it cost?), and they want it concisely. But in focusing so much on the superficial and the subjective, I worry that I am...

The Buffalo News • 22nd December 2016

A Fresh Concept for a New Colter Bay

To call the recently opened restaurant at the northeast corner of Allen Street and Delaware Avenue the “new” Colter Bay suggests that it has something in common with its predecessor beyond its name. But the truth is, Colter Bay as it stands today has...

The Buffalo News • 22nd June 2016

Starters: Thin Man Brewery on Elmwood

Former Tabree chef Bruce Wieszala recently traded in fine dining for gastropub food when he agreed to take the helm at Thin Man Brewery, the newest restaurant in Mike Shatzel’s family of beer-centric restaurants. Thin Man opened June 17, and while it...

The Buffalo News • 6th May 2016

Ellen Gedra's Work Anchors One of Buffalo's Best Restaurants

These are the components of The Elvis—a dessert so exceptional I can’t remember anything else I ate at the meal it capped. And that is saying a lot, considering it was served to me at The Black Sheep, which nightly turns out some of the most...

The Buffalo News • 12th November 2015

Farm Shop Brings Mission to Elmwood Village

At the Farm Shop, a brightly painted storefront sited at the crossroad of Buffalo’s Ashland and Lexington avenues, something novel is happening. It’s a food experiment of sorts, according to Patrick Lango, the dairy farmer who owns it. The Farm Shop,...

The Buffalo News • 9th October 2015

Lancaster Has Area's First Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Maker

An intoxicating aroma pervades Dark Forest Chocolate Makers’ quaint space at 11 West Main Street in Lancaster. The scent, at once familiar and novel, is reminiscent of scratch-made brownies but with a richer backbone and a curious savoriness evocative...

The Public • 18th March 2015

Bone Broth: A Home Guide

In 2008, when the New York Times first instructed me to age my chocolate chip cookie dough for 36-72 hours before baking, I complied. The results were revelatory, and my baking life has never been the same. So when the Times legitimized the bone broth...