Early on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022, I drove to Crescent City. The ride on U.S. Highway 101 is one of my favorites — along Big Lagoon, then Stone Lagoon, through the redwoods and, finally, with the ocean rumbling on one side. It was a typical North Coast summer morning, foggy and chilly, but I didn’t […]
Simona Carini
Posted inEat + Drink
Add Another Squash to the Table
Winter squash is my comfort food this time of the year, helping me accept the irrefutable reality of winter. By the time December comes around, several dishes featuring them are on dinner rotation. Winter squashes work wonders on two levels: first with their colors and shapes, which brighten up the space where I store them, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Apples Center Stage
Cycling around the lush Slovenian countryside in late September and early October, I saw well-tended gardens everywhere. In them, the last tomatoes of the season were ripening, while cabbages and leeks appeared ready to be harvested. Fall flowers around the edges provided a colorful note. The branches of apple trees were laden with different varieties. […]
Posted inEat + Drink
End-of-Summer Joy and Goat Cheese
When I turn the wall calendar to the September page, I go into denial about the approaching end of summer. At the farmers market, I continue purchasing summer produce until the last day it’s available. Preserving produce also helps keep summer alive in the kitchen. For example, in the recipe I am sharing here, the […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Farmers Markets, Summer Produce and Joy
And like that, it’s summer: The hallmark vegetables of the season are rolling in and each week brings new delights to this avid consumer. Zucchini have been available for some time, more recently eggplant have appeared and, as I am writing this, I am snacking on the first locally grown cherry tomatoes I purchased at […]
Posted inArts + Scene
‘Gunman Kills 10 at Buffalo Supermarket in Racist Attack’
On May 14, cycling to Santa Cruz, I stopped at the park in Felton, tilted my face up to drink, at the edge of the grass. A car door shut, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a blue shirt, his skin polished bronze, black hair in a braid down his back, held a bulldog wearing a […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Eat Your (Radish) Greens
Food waste — uneaten food (raw or cooked) and food preparation scraps from households, restaurants and grocery stores — is a problem. As food production requires energy and water and draws nutrients from the land, when the food is wasted, all those resources are wasted, too. Preventing food waste is within our reach. Awareness is […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Cycling Along the Water
Driving south from Trinidad, I got off at the Crannell Road exit and parked at the north end of Clam Beach Road. As I set up the bicycle, my gaze glided over the dunes — still in the shadow at 9 a.m. in mid-January — and the ocean, then rose to take in the pale […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Get Out in Nature More in 2022
“However you decide to exercise, remember to make your moving joyful” was the recommendation with which I ended the article I wrote for this column in January of 2020. I stand behind those words. Joyful moving has helped my physical and mental health in the past two years while the pandemic changed our lives in […]
Posted inEat + Drink
What-if Cookies
In my first piece of the new year, one might expect me to urge readers to eat more vegetables and offer one of the recipes I seem to be constantly developing. In our household we consume plenty; I find them endlessly inspiring. Often, my last thought before falling asleep is some idea for a soup, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
It’s Cold Outside, Let’s Make Soup
Late fall at the farmers market makes me think of the fourth movement, Finale, of Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony (No. 45, dated 1772): During it, one by one the musicians leave the stage until at the end only two violins are left to play the final notes. One by one, the summer markets have […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Cooking While Traveling
I love summer in Humboldt County for a number of reasons, including the amazing produce our farmers bring to the markets and the fog that keeps us cool (“Get Out into the Fog,” Aug. 26). Hence, I usually enjoy my favorite season in my favorite place. This year, however, after almost two years of not […]