Writing about food since 2004.

SUBSCRIBE

Category

Stories and Rants

  • Single Occupancy Restaurant Bathroom Pet Peeves #1 & #2

    |

    #1: You are in a single-occupancy bathroom and you lock the door. You begin to do your business and someone comes along and jiggles the handle. This someone–we’ll use the name Hank–doesn’t stop there. Even though Hank can tell that the door is locked, he must persist. He jiggles harder, he shakes the door, he…

  • Waiter, There’s a Bug in My Arugula

    Waiter, There’s a Bug in My Arugula

    |

    The other night, I made this mac and cheese out of Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating:It’s a fine mac and cheese, if not the best I’ve ever had. I used aged American Cheddar, as the book’s author recommends, but the application of onions, garlic and wine didn’t really have a big payoff. The first bite…

  • Alice Waters on The View

    |

    Sharing your guilty pleasure is like describing what you just did in the bathroom: most people don’t want to hear it. But today my guilty pleasure intersects with my career and so I have no choice but to share, yet again, the sad but very true fact that every day, late in the afternoon, I…

  • Asian Penicillin

    |

    I have a stripper cold. I caught the cold from a friend who caught it from her boyfriend who caught it from a stripper. In addition to the night sweats and post-nasal drip, the pole-dancing is exhausting and if Annie Lennox’s “Little Bird” plays one more time I’m going to scream. At least the tips…

  • The Secret To A Successful Dinner Party Is A Big Pot of Food and Dessert

    The Secret To A Successful Dinner Party Is A Big Pot of Food and Dessert

    |

    Friends, I’ve made a discovery. If you want a fun evening of food, camaraderie, and drinking, you needn’t fuss over a really lavish dinner. You need only do two things: (1) make a nifty, crowd-pleasing dessert; and (2) prepare a big, simmering pot of something delicious.

  • Let’s Make Our Cookies Bigger

    Let’s Make Our Cookies Bigger

    |

    People of the world, aren’t you tired of tiny cookies? You know the kind I’m talking about. They’re the kind that you end up making when a recipe says, “Drop cookie batter by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.” That’s what the recipe says for Nestle’s Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies, which I made again tonight (here’s…

  • In Praise Of Simple Syrup

    |

    Coffee drinkers in summer do well to ice their drinks–an iced latte is my summer coffee drink of choice. Smart coffee shops (Joe in New York, Victrola and Vivace here in Seattle) understand that raw sugar doesn’t dissolve in a cold drink. So iced latte drinkers are normally left with two unpleasant options: grainy sugar…

  • Planning Ahead

    |

    Even though it was beautiful today, I spent the early part of the afternoon making the “batter” for David Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream. I made the caramel for the praline; then I made the actual ice cream “batter” with more caramel (I achieved a nice deep dark color), salted butter, and cream. It…

  • Fooled By Fat (The Buttery Contessa)

    Fooled By Fat (The Buttery Contessa)

    |

    You who are wise and who read this blog will know whose recipe requires the following ingredients: That’s six sticks of butter and two packets of cream cheese. Who else could it be? There was a profile about her last week in the New York Times. Yes, it’s everyone’s favorite Contessa–the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten–and…

  • The Dessert Menu Drop

    |

    You’re done with your entrees, they’re cleared away. A busboy wipes the table clean. And then the waiter or waitress approaches, carrying dessert menus. He or she places them on the table without asking, “Dessert?” You’re forced to say, “We’re actually not having dessert tonight.” He lifts the dessert menus up, disappointed. And that’s the…