Category

  • Vanilla Bean Oatmeal

    Vanilla Bean Oatmeal

    If you’ve never purchased a vanilla bean, sliced it open with a paring knife, scraped the seeds out and dropped them, with the pod, into a pot of milk or cream which you then heat for an ice cream base or a custard or a pudding, you’re missing out on a great food moment. The…

  • Chipotle Strata Brei

    Chipotle Strata Brei

    It was a Saturday morning and the stale bread sitting on top of my refrigerator was calling to me. It wasn’t saying, “French toast.” It wasn’t saying, “Toad-in-the-hole.” It was whispering, like the voice in “Field of Dreams,” “Something savory…something different…something new.” I grabbed a can of chipotles in Adobo. I grabbed six eggs out…

  • Park’s BBQ, Neptune’s Net & Marouch

    Park’s BBQ, Neptune’s Net & Marouch

    As I gear up to go to New York for three months, I’m starting to check things off my L.A. “first year” bucket list. Korean BBQ was pretty high up there, and in my browser where I have a folder called LaFood and subfolders like “Chinese,” “Ramen,” “Sushi,” “Thai,” there’s a folder that says “Korean”…

  • Sensational Summer Salads

    Sensational Summer Salads

    The farmer’s market can be an intimidating place, especially in summer when there’s just so much to choose from. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, buy a few peaches and tomatoes and leave quickly. Other times, I just buy everything in sight, a strategy that seems wasteful at first but which almost always pays off. When I…

  • A Return to Sitka & Spruce

    A Return to Sitka & Spruce

    The last time I wrote about Sitka & Spruce in Seattle, I praised the place but called the food “challenging.” That was in January. On this most recent trip to Seattle, we returned to Sitka and Spruce–this time for brunch–and the meal was so good, so beautiful, that “challenging” was suddenly the wrong word for…

  • The Oyster Bar (Bellingham, Washington)

    The Oyster Bar (Bellingham, Washington)

    For as long as I’ve been visiting Craig’s family in Bellingham, Washington, I’ve been hearing about the Oyster Bar. It’s where Craig went for his prom night dinner. It’s where Craig’s parents celebrated their most recent anniversary. It’s beautifully situated on Chuckanut Drive, the scenic route you take when getting off the I-5 from Seattle.…

  • The Northwest Washington Fair

    The Northwest Washington Fair

    In a town called Lynden, just a short drive from Bellingham, Washington, you’ll see lots of people sitting on their lawns offering you a parking spot for $5. That’s because, in the middle of August, it’s time for the Northwest Washington Fair, a celebration of community, agriculture, and rides that make you want to throw…

  • Surfacing on Eliza Island

    Surfacing on Eliza Island

    When Jesse Eisenberg “plugged in” as Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” headphones snug on his head, fingers fluttering away at his keyboard, I didn’t draw a line between what he was doing and what I do every day. He was in a world of numbers and codes, algorithms for Farmville animals and “poke” buttons…

  • Drunk Blondies

    Drunk Blondies

    Repeat after me: Butter. Chocolate. Pecans. Coconut. Bourbon. Again: Butter. Chocolate. Pecans. Coconut. Bourbon. On Saturday night, we joined our friends Brendan and Danny for a screening of “Sunset Blvd.” at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. (You can read all about that in this week’s newsletter.) I was assigned the task of bringing a salad and…

  • Two Days in the San Gabriel Valley: Lunches at Tasty Noodle House

    Two Days in the San Gabriel Valley: Lunches at Tasty Noodle House

    In the latest issue of Lucky Peach, Jonathan Gold talks about a Taiwanese restaurant that he really didn’t like at first. “I went and I really hated it…[But] I could tell that it wasn’t a bad restaurant. People were really dressed up and obviously they were there on purpose.” Gold ended up going back 17…

  1. For years, I struggled with both Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), two conditions that severely affected…

  2. For years, I struggled with both Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), two conditions that severely affected…

  3. For years, I struggled with both Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), two conditions that severely affected…