I’ve just returned from the 2009 BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, the third such event I’ve been to and the fourth time I’ve been to Vegas. We left home at 4:00 am on Wednesday, October 14 and returned around 1:30 am on Monday, October 19. Five days away from home means an awful lot of eating out, and since we were sandwiching (no pun intended, I don’t think) our meals in between a lot of other things, we really didn’t pay that much attention to the quality of the cuisine. I’m sure there’s a lot of incredibly fine dining to be had in Las Vegas. We just haven’t had the time to go looking for it yet.

Having said that, here’s what I ate and drank while I was in town:

• Burgers at In-N-Out (my friend Josh ordered for me so I could get one done properly — the hot peppers just make the whole thing even better)
• Excellent draft beer and high quality bar food at The Pub in the Monte Carlo (the flatbread pizzas are excellent, as are the scrumptious onion rings)
• The usual more-food-than-anyone-can-eat breakfast at the Black Bear Diner (Jim and I managed to eat there a second time on our last day in town)
• A very good dinner at Garden of the Dragon in the Hilton (oh, and the house specialty drinks were quite good, too)
• Another very good dinner at the Yard House out in the ‘burbs, in a very Vegas-y shopping mall (the sliders that my friend Phillip ordered were quite possibly one of the best things I tasted the whole time I was there)
• Very nice cocktails at the Rhumbar at the Mirage
• A halfway decent burger at the Paradise Cafe in the Hilton — this was a meal of expedience
• Cold beer fresh from the bathtub in a suite at the Hilton

We were disappointed to discover that Hacienda Margarita in the Hilton no longer serves dinners. This has been one of our favorite meet-and-greet-and-drink-and-talk spots, and the food was cheap and pretty decent. The margaritas were good, too. They still serve those, but I never got one this year.

Dunkin Donuts does not exist on every street corner in Vegas. Jim drove 30 minutes one way to get 2 dozen donuts and a box of Joe while we were there. Some people got to go to A&W Root Beer and have a float. I wasn’t one of them.

It was really nice to have a home-cooked meal last night, I can tell you that.

We just got back from the Lobster Shack. We knew that they’d be closing after Columbus Day, so this was our window of opportunity.

Lobster rolls are a quintessential summer food. Sure, I could get a lobster roll in any of a dozen seafood shacks hereabouts any time of the year, but they’re just not the same thing. In much the same way that I like to cook turkey only at Thanksgiving, I like to eat lobster rolls only in the summer (okay, this is early autumn, but you get the point).

As is often the case with things that are truly sublime, simplicity is the key here. Lobster meat, butter, a toasted split-top hot dog bun. Perhaps the faintest splash of fresh lemon juice. That’s all there is.

And now that it’s over for the season, we’ll turn our appetites toward heartier fare. I’ll keep an eye on the calendar come spring, though.

In this day of declining print advertising revenues, it comes as no surprise when another publication closes its doors. This week, Condé Nast announced that Gourmet, the grande dame of food magazines, will cease publication with its November issue. The 68-year-old glossy has long been in the vanguard of magazines devoted to the pleasures of the table, achieving its reputation long before there were celebrity chefs on The Food Network to tell us what to eat. Its current editor-in-chief is renowned food writer Ruth Reichl, who left her post as restaurant critic at the New York Times in 1999 to take the position.

When I was a young woman just venturing into the world of cooking, Gourmet and Bon Appétit were the two “serious” food magazines on the market, and for a while I had subscriptions to both. Sure, there were recipes galore to be found in women’s magazines, the kind my mother would often pick up at the grocery store checkout, but that was everyday food aimed at the everyday cook who needed to get a reasonably tasty dinner on the table in a hurry. Gourmet and Bon Appétit were marketed toward upscale readers — women who entertained frequently and who had food budgets that allowed them to purchase only the finest of ingredients, and schedules that permitted them to hunt those same ingredients down. (As I look back at myself in my mid-20s, when I neither entertained nor had much of a food budget, it’s clear that my reach exceeded my grasp in more ways than one.) Bon Appétit (which is also published by Condé Nast and seems to be surviving in this current economic climate), with its more down-to-earth recipes and slightly less elite tone, was always my favorite of the two.

Of course the world has changed a great deal since then, and a good many home cooks, serious and otherwise, have found their way online. In spite of a bookcase full of cookbooks (which I sometimes like to read the way other people like to curl up with a mystery novel), I find myself opening my laptop more often than not when I’m looking for meal ideas.

You can hardly swing a spatula without hitting a food-related site, regardless of whether you’re looking to get restaurant recommendations from the hometown crowd, argue about what really goes into a proper minestrone, or settle on what kind of cookware to buy. As with everything else online, readers need to assess for themselves whether any given site is a good fit for their particular interests. Here are a few places I visit regularly:

Epicurious is Condé Nast’s digital presence in the world of food. It collects, as their press page says, “more than 25,000 professionally tested recipes from the premier brands in food journalism, 50,000 member-submitted recipes, and web-exclusive original content from Epicurious.com editors and leading food authorities around the world.” Free registration gives you the opportunity to save recipes in your own recipe box, annotate recipes (only you can see the notes), and participate in the online community. I probably grab a recipe or at least an idea from this site on an average of once a week.

Chow is a good place to catch up on news and trends and has a nice selection of recipes and entertaining ideas. Free registration allows you to contribute to their online community Chowhound, where you can swap ideas and recipes and get restaurant recommendations from locals no matter where you’re traveling.

Cook’s Illustrated is the Consumer Reports of the food world and is the only — yes, only — web content I pay for. And I pay for it gladly. The site is free of advertising (just like their print publication), which allows them to offer readers unbiased reviews of products ranging from canned tomatoes to cookware sets, from microwaves to olive oil, and everything in between. Run by Christopher Kimball, who is the anti-celebrity chef host of PBS’s America’s Test Kitchen, the site is heavily oriented toward testing and data analysis, which appeals to the empiricist in me. When the folks at Cooks want to make a beef stew, they make 50 beef stews and then tell you exactly what combination of ingredients and cooking techniques makes it perfect. Their recipes are clearly explained, unfailingly successful, and even an experienced cook like me can pick up tips here. Their search engine leaves a great deal to be desired, but that’s one minor quibble in a sea of goodness. A yearly subscription currently costs $34.95, and I consider it to be money well spent.

Last but not least, Wednesday always brings a smile to my face in the form of the New York Times’ Dining & Wine section. There’s always at least one recipe worth trying, regular contributor Mark Bittman is always well worth reading, and the pictures are nice, too.

I don’t think I’m going to be missing those magazines at all.

Yesterday, Jim and I trekked to the swamps of New Jersey to watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band blow down the old Giants Stadium (a new one is being constructed adjacent to the old one). Going to a Bruce concert at Giants Stadium is kind of a special thing — y’all know he’s a Jersey boy, so the audience tends to be filled with the hometown crowd and kindred spirits from the Tri-State area (like us). One of the most appealing facets of a warm weather Springsteen show is the parking lot tailgate, and at Giants Stadium shows it’s always marked by a pretty festive atmosphere. Yesterday’s was only slightly dampened by the weather (which was rainy on and off, and therefore dampening); there were people playing football, people grilling burgers and dogs, and Springsteen music blaring from all directions.

After we stunned ourselves by actually securing the wristbands that would guarantee us entry into the pit, we retired to the back of the van, where we partook of a very nice picnic lunch that consisted of the following:

• Tortellini and Pesto with Grape Tomatoes
• Pepper/Herb Encrusted Dry Salami
• Fresh Mozzarella
• Concord Grapes

The salad was really easy — fresh tortellini from the supermarket mixed with about 3/4 pint of grape tomatoes and a container of store-bought pesto. The dry salami has become a favorite around here for antipasto. I sliced that thinly, and sliced the fresh mozzarella. The grapes we ate straight out of the container — like eating grape jelly!

For dessert, we cracked open a box of cinnamon cookies. Beverage was sparkling water (we don’t do beer at concerts as a rule, mostly because we need to drive long distances afterward).

I also bought some Greek olive hummus and pita chips to dip, but we found the rest of it so satisfying that we never even cracked that open.

The show, by the way, was fantastic.

Today for lunch I’m heating up some leftover butternut squash soup. I love this soup for several reasons: it’s a great way to use butternut squash and it always makes me feel autumnal; it’s visually appealing; and it tastes good. If that’s not enough for you,  it’s absurdly easy to make. In fact, it’s easy and quick enough for a weeknight.

Butternut Squash Soup

• Approx. 2 lbs. butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks
• 1 32-oz. carton Swanson Natural Goodness chicken broth (or an equivalent amount of homemade stock, or vegetable stock if you’re a vegetarian)
• 1 large onion, chopped roughly
• 2 tbs. butter
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Cream (optional)

Melt the butter over medium heat in a stockpot or very large sauce pan. When it bubbles, toss in the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until they’ve softened and are just beginning to turn golden. Add in the squash, pour in the stock, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a medium-low (you want it at a lively simmer), cover, and cook until the squash is very soft, approximately 20-30 minutes.

Once the squash has cooked, you’ll want to either puree this in batches in your blender, or use an immersion blender to blend it in the pot.

Add just a little bit of cream if desired, and season to taste with salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick for your liking, you can thin it to the desired consistency with more stock or a bit of water. Taste for seasoning again.

Notes: If you really don’t have the time to peel and cut the squash (it’s really not all that hard, in spite of the squash’s appearance), you can use two bags of frozen butternut squash (I’ve done this in a pinch), in which case you’ll want to cut down a tad on the stock (just use enough to barely cover the squash in the pot), or you can find pre-peeled butternut squash at the supermarket (these can be kind of dry, so buyer beware).

You can vary the seasoning however your imagination allows. This is very nice with a bit of thyme in it (fresh or dried), and I also like mine seasoned with a bit of curry powder. Alternatively, you can sweeten it a bit and add just a little bit of brown sugar, and a pinch of cinammon and/or nutmeg. I would probably season it that way if I were serving very small portions as an appetizer, but not if I were using the soup as the main part of my dinner.

Obviously, it’s soup, which means there are very few rules. Let your imagination and your taste be your guide.

There’s a little bit of a chill in the air today. It’s not jacket weather yet by any stretch, but it’s just cool enough that you can sense the change of seasons, feel it on your skin and smell it when the breeze blows. We’ve been seeing lots of geese flying overhead, and here and there a few maples are starting to turn orange. It gets dark much earlier in the evening so that lights are necessary almost immediately upon returning home from work.

We’re winding up the vegetable garden — the peppers are racing the first frost to the finish line, and I picked our first eggplant this past weekend. There’s one more about ready for picking, and if we’re lucky, we’ll have a few more zucchini before that plant, too, gives up the ghost. The tomatoes have been over and done with for a couple of weeks now, the last harvest being green ones we picked before the blight got them.

Inevitably, the end of summer and the first scent of crisp air makes me think of cold weather cooking. Instead of a quick pasta dish, I’m thinking of a pot of beautiful butternut squash soup. Instead of tossing a steak on the grill, I’m thinking of a slow-roasted chicken, perhaps accompanied by some equally slow-roasted root vegetables. I’m thinking pot roast instead of hamburgers, stews instead of salads. As the days get shorter, the pleasures of the kitchen and the dinner table beckon us indoors.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll mention it now: October is my favorite month of the year. One of the pleasures of living in New England is the change in pace wrought by each passing season. I can’t wait to switch gears.

Sometimes the best meals are the ones you’re not expecting.

Jim and I had lunch downtown today with friends we haven’t seen in a while. We ate at Anna Liffey’s, an Irish pub in a dim downstairs room with a good selection on tap and a dart board. We all had fairly substantial lunch fare — I enjoyed an open-face steak sandwich with some fine onion rings, washed down with a pint of Smithwick’s.

Since we’re accustomed to very light (and beerless) lunches, dinner on those rare occasions when we lunch out is usually a pretty meager affair. And right around the time we were wondering what we might be in the mood for, I decided I had a hankering for breakfast. I asked Jim if he felt like cooking, and blueberry pancakes were not out of the question.

We just finished mopping up our plates — they were good and just the right thing. It’s a rainy night, there’s some good TV on, and I have a tequila sunrise to finish.

Here’s to brinner. And to Friday.

I blame The Lobster Shack.

The presence of The Cupcake Truck made the Lobster Shack pretty crowded last weekend, and Jim had to go park the car way out in back, by the marina. When he got back from parking, he mentioned that Nellie Green’s was back there. I think I knew this somewhere in the back of my mind, but it’s such an off-the-beaten-path location that I never really gave it much thought. And unless you’re on a boat, the place is completely hidden from view, so out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

A little background: Nellie Green was a rum-runner of some repute during the days of Prohibition. The original Nellie Green’s was an historic tavern right on the Branford/East Haven town line, right on the river (and apparently the bootleggers used to load up their boats right underneath the building). The building was pretty dilapidated and has since (unfortunately) been turned into condos. This incarnation of Nellie Green’s is apparently unrelated save for the name.

Anyway, we decided to give it a try in the interest of a) adding to our list of places, and b) supporting local businesses. Saturday was absurdly hot and humid, but by the time we headed out for dinner at 8:00, the darkness was imparting a bit of coolness to the evening, so we opted, when given the choice, to eat out on their beautiful deck, which sits right on the Branford River. It turned out to be the right choice. Our dinner was accompanied by a jazz duo (guitar and saxophone) and the stars came out, so the atmosphere was just about perfect.

We started out by sharing a bowl of clam chowder (quite tasty) and a dozen very fresh clams on the half-shell (accompanied by three different sauces). They also brought us a basket of warm bread and a dish of deliciously flavored olive oil (and offered to bring butter if we preferred; we did not). Jim ordered grilled swordfish for his entree and I opted for the plank-roasted salmon. Both entrees were fantastic. The swordfish was topped with a delicious salsa. The salmon was accompanied by a risotto with roasted corn and peas, and both came with a side of fresh green beans.

For dessert, Jim ordered the ice cream “sandwich” (which wasn’t really a sandwich at all, but was topped with chocolate cookie crumbs) and I got the amaretto creme brulee.

While dinner wasn’t cheap (our total bill came to $110), neither was it exorbitant given the quality of the food. That’s with two appetizers, two entrees, two desserts, three beers, and a coffee. Nope, not bad by shoreline standards, and the food was very good. The service is friendly. The ambience is unbeatable. We will very likely go back soon.

As I feared they would, the tomatoes are beginning to ripen all at once. I’ve already got some beautiful, ripe plum tomatoes waiting in the kitchen, and I just came in from the garden with a colander full of Romas, a couple of regular-style tomatoes (the vines are so entangled amongst themselves right now I have no idea what’s coming from what plant, except for the heirlooms, which have a distinctive look but haven’t ripened enough to pick yet), and two more flawless zucchini.

This morning I made two loaves of zucchini bread (from the Morning Glory Farm cookbook — their breads are just heavenly) from one of our big, gorgeous squash, and the Romas are likely going into a good pasta and fresh mozzarella salad for lunches next week.

I spent the last couple of weeks straying from my plan to chart my weekly menus out ahead of time, and I regretted it for the most part. Having a plan is better than not having a plan, and I like to be flexible with my plans, but I still like having some kind of a guideline. Last week I found myself running out of food (and therefore hitting the store more often than I would have liked) and feeling at loose ends when I came home from work.

Here’s this week’s game plan:

Sunday

• Grilled Vegetable Antipasto
• Rigatoni with Sunday Sauce - Braciole and Sausage
• Bread

Monday

• Breaded Chicken Cutlets
• Zucchini and Tomato Casserole

Tuesday

• Pasta with Leftover Sauce from Sunday’s Dinner

Wednesday

• Pork Tenderloin with Banana-Date Chutney
• Green Beans with Garlic and Ginger
• Naan

Thursday

• White Chicken Chili
• Salad with Jicama and Oranges
• Spicy Jalapeno-Cheddar Cornbread

Friday

• Maybe we’ll have fish. Maybe we’ll eat out. We’ll see.

There. I feel better just for having written it all down.

Anyone who’s ever been to a Bruce Springsteen concert knows that the pre-show tailgate is a time-honored tradition. While this is difficult to do in urban venues that don’t have acres of parking lots, stadium and arena shows out in the ‘burbs are very amenable to this kind of fun. People sit around and eat and drink, some people dance, some people reminisce about shows past, and everyone has their own favorite Boss music blaring from their car stereo. It’s Springsteen Nation at its most communal. Think of it as a pre-football game tailgate party, but without having to endure the agony of watching a football game afterward.

Some people go all out for these things, toting along grills, massive coolers, and all manner of folding tables and beach chairs. We tend to keep ours way simpler — we pack a cooler with some food and some drink and eat out of the back of the van — you know, the tailgate. We haven’t done this in a while, actually — our last Hartford concert was at the XL Center, which is smack in the middle of the city and lacks those acres of parking (and this is something you can’t pull off in a parking garage).

But we’ve taken the afternoon off work today so that we can get pit lottery wristbands on time and so we’re going to do a little tailgating. And right now I’m contemplating what to bring for dinner. Given the heat, I’m leaning toward sandwiches, but what kind? I’ve made some very decent Italian subs with cold cuts, cheese, roasted peppers, and other good things. Or maybe we want something different, like roast beef. Or maybe I should just pick up a rotisserie chicken and some sides. Dessert has to be something very simple, like cookies. And since it’s hot, there will be plenty of something cold (and non-alcoholic) to drink.

Sometimes eating is more about the atmosphere than it is about the food. I’m excited to be going tonight.