If you have ever needed a reason to break out of the mid-week slump, Great Life Brewing in West Park has one for you. Actually, they have several: wood-fired pizza, an oversized Chicken Parmies, cold pints, and an open mic that welcomes musicians, poets, comedians, and anyone else brave enough to grab the microphone. Wednesday nights launched this June, and already they are giving people something to look forward to in the middle of the week.

Every June, the Menus of Change Leadership Summit becomes a think tank, gathering the chefs, scientists, entrepreneurs, and policy makers who are actively reshaping how the world grows, cooks, and eats. Now in its fourteenth year, the summit has called the Culinary Institute of America’s Hudson Valley campus home for the past twelve. This year, I was in that room. What I heard was too important not to bring you into the conversation too.

I was driving up Halstead Ave. in Mamaroneck when I noticed the lights on at a new spot called Osteria Sardegna. It turns out to be a second coming for veteran restaurateur Vittorio Scarpa and his family who had operated a restaurant featuring the rustic dishes of Sardinia back in 2007 in Larchmont.

Recently cited by Forbes Magazine, Chef-owner and personable host Dean Vivolo serves his robust regional Italian cuisine out of a vintage diner just across from Harrison's Metro-North station. Sit at the counter, tuck into a booth,

Say hello to American Dim Sum—a ten-course, choose-your-own-adventure-style brunch where carts roll through the dining room and church baskets swing by with snack-sized bites that are anything but ordinary.