If you want to know New York, get to know its street cuisine. I learned it early. Growing up in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, I would get a lunch of two hot dogs in steam-soft rolls from the guy who set up his stainless-steel pushcart on the corner of 17th Street every morning, rain or shine, Saturdays and holidays, summer-fall-winter-spring.

Unless you are a professional chef, or have had some kind of culinary training, your meals will probably never turn out quite as pretty as the ones that are brought to you at a fancy restaurant. But this trick for peeling onions is a good place to start!