March is a difficult month. No longer winter and not yet spring, it is a kind of limbo in which the promise of spring may be curbed suddenly by bites of cold. The memory of cherry tomatoes exploding juicily in my teeth is as faint as Big Bang’s echo. Counting the months that separate me […]
On the Table
Posted inEat + Drink
Mama Stew
The summer of youth is full of unappreciated freedom and spontaneity — road trips, river days, talking for hours with your friends in the back yard as cicadas sing. And then the babies arrive like the start of a rainy season, first with the gentle pitter-patter as a few young couples become young parents, then […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Hum Plate Round-up
Big Dipper It’s not your fault you skip over something like bean dip on a menu. For one thing, bowls of the pasty business show up a lot (there’s likely still an iffy container of the stuff in your fridge from the Super Bowl), and for another, if it’s your one evening out with babysitting, […]
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Sticky Fingers
I was a puffy-faced cliché, freshly dumped and lurching around the apartment I’d shared with my boyfriend of four years, stuffing my things into a duffle bag under the bored gaze of our unsympathetic cat. As I scanned the rooms for the bulky sweaters and sad books I’d need to really nail the self-pity, the […]
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Funky Cold Medina
We’re all adults here. We know what we like and we know what we want. Often, what we want is sex. We look around and see it permeating every aspect of our lives, so it should come as no surprise that there’s an overabundance of drinks with names that go from the merely flirty to […]
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Apples by the Pint
What goes into making hard cider? “Apples and yeast — and love,” according to Humboldt Cider Company’s Darren Cartledge. Well, that and some cash. He and wife Michelle Cartledge, along with fellow co-founder Jamie Ashdon, launched a Kickstarter campaign last fall. In 45 days, supporters donated more than $37,000 and set the fledgling company on […]
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Fritter Nation
Deep-fried dough and fruit glazed with sugar sounds like a recipe impossible to flub. But Humboldt County has an abundance of goodies, and we can afford to be discerning. This was the philosophy, anyway, when my research partner-in-crime proposed finding our region’s premiere pastry via a Fritter Bracket. Loosely modeled after statistician Nate Silver’s national […]
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A Good Start
If we think of January as the morning of the year, then breakfast is a perfect topic to consider now. I can see the words “New Year’s resolutions” blinking bright red in your mind, but that’s not where I meant to go: I am thinking more in terms of “New Year’s suggestions.” Step into my […]
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Hot Wheels
After her camping gear was stolen at the World of Music, Arts and Dance Festival in England, Jennifer Thompson found herself regrouping with friends in the medical tent. As Brits are wont to do in a crisis, someone kindly brought her a cup of tea. “That cup of tea stuck with me,” she says. Later, […]
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Matsutake Madness
Matsutake mushrooms are the truffles of Japan. The fall arrival of the dusky fungi, artfully displayed in wooden boxes on sprigs of pine, like high-end shadow boxes, is marked by a frenzy and the abandoning of fiscal reason: A small handful of premium matsutake can run you over 8,000 yen, or $100. This is a lot […]
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Hum Plate Roundup
How was your New Year’s Eve? Good? Too good? Here, this will make you feel better. Behind the Eight-Ball So this is not actually “the hair of the dog that bit you.” Which is disgusting if literal and really just about staying drunk if figurative. This is better. The Eight-Ball Stout Chocolate Cheesecake at Lost […]
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Secrets of Holiday Bartending
All this week, somebody, somewhere, is throwing a party. They will plan the menu and music to the letter, but when it comes to the bar … things fall apart. Short of following a bartending guide to stock up on dozens of ingredients you will likely never use, most people have no idea how to […]