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If you’re up for eating great food, listening to great music, having a great time and doing some good while you’re at it, here’s a great idea: drop by the Dirty Drummer on 44th Street near Oak on Saturday, February 26 for a fundraiser benefiting The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation in Boston. “Huh?” you may be asking right about now. Hang on and I’ll give you the backstory in a minute,...

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Got a dream of opening your own restaurant? Start with a pop-up. That’s the savvy direction budding restaurateurs are taking these days, given that pop-ups offer an inexpensive way to test locations, menu items and concepts, generate buzz, build an audience, and gain credibility. Cassie Shortino is following that very path, having recently left her position as the executive chef at Tratto to start Shorty’s Charpit, a pop-up she will hold once or twice a...

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When Tony Andiario left Tratto four-ish years ago, I worried that the place would not be the same without him. Then Cassie Shortino, who had been working for Cullen Campbell at Crudo before it closed, stepped in and filled those shoes like a boss. I remember arguing back then with a food-loving pal of mine about the virtues of Andiario’s elegant chicken liver mousse versus Shortino’s far more rustic seared chicken livers with strawberry jam...