Joseph Byrd

Last summer I submitted some articles to Gourmet and Saveur magazines. They weren’t accepted, but as a kind of consolation prize, it would seem, I got free subscriptions. Every month, a thick issue arrived, full of glorious food photography, accompanied by rich prose and richer recipes. I have nothing against slick food magazines — I […]

Regular readers of this column know by now that I’m a cantankerous omnivore. The fact is, I’m worse than that: I’m a bigot. I have rarely had vegetarian (much less vegan) food that was better than a three on a scale of 10, at least in terms of flavor. I try to compensate for my […]

In Bradenton, Florida, there is a popular restaurant with a "roadkill" menu; entrees vary with season and availability. A mediocre Chinese restaurant in Paris charges $110 for soup with broccoli and tofu, and is nearly impossible to get into, being the favorite hangout of haute couture models and designers. In Nanning, China, The Red Guard […]

Editor’s note: This column/confession, submitted some months ago, was supposed to run in our Mother’s Day edition, but unfortunately was mislaid. We think it’s fine for a week later, and hope you agree. In the early summer of 1998, my brother called from Tucson. Our mother, who was in her mid-90s, had gotten worse. For […]

I know I’m presumptuous in thinking I know a lot about beef. I’ve come a long way since I fell in love with White Castle’s tiny onion-infused steamed "sliders." Now, at the opposite end of the spectrum, I want not a generic filler, but the wonderful flavor of beef in its purest state. Is that […]

Even in sleepy Tucson of the 1950s, I knew there was more to food than I had experienced. Tantalizing smells and tastes were embedded in my reptile brain: White Castle hamburgers, for instance — the scent of onions steaming in beef suet. Chess pie, from a Tennessee roadhouse. Asparagus plucked from the ground, thin and […]

I wrote previously about Al’s Diner, the story of an outlaw cook in Rio Dell a decade ago. The term “Outlaw Cook” I stole from the eponymous book by John Thorne, in which he goes against the grain of all the “rules” of the culinary establishment, with chapter headings like “The Discovery of Slowness” and […]

With our real national holiday approaching, let’s talk about food for a Superbowl party. Here’s an idea for a substantial meal you can set out and leave on the kitchen stove or table for people drifting in during commercials and at half-time. It’s kind of the same idea as wandering down a street, with vendors […]

When I was a teenager in Tucson in the ’50s, one of the few places to play or hear live jazz was a dive on the south side of town called "The Hula Hut." It was there I was called to play vibes in a small pickup band backing jazz legend Anita O’Day (the best […]

In 1990, two years after we moved to McKinleyville, a deli opened across from Cal’s Unocal station. Cal’s wife Ann had alerted us. "They make their own sausage!" So we were almost their first customers. And there were indeed sausages, fascinating ones like a Northern Italian-style with fennel, garlic and red wine, Moroccan lamb sausage, […]