As we open the calendar to the January page, we may wish to pay more attention to the food we eat and how we nourish our bodies. Then, as the month goes on, our daily to-do lists get longer and such wishes are pushed aside. When life gets complicated, sometimes summoning the energy to plan […]
On the Table
The Ivanhoe’s Next Chapter
It was Hospitality Night in Ferndale in 1997 when the last incarnation of the Ivanhoe opened on Main Street. Barb and Dave Mogni would run the iconic restaurant and bar for more than two decades until Dave’s death in 2020. But the Ivanhoe Hotel, Restaurant and Saloon has been a landmark in the town since […]
What’s Good: Pubs and Pots
Gallagher’s Headed Back to the Eagle House Amid the rise and fall and relocation of Old Town restaurants, one spot is returning to how it used to be. Gallagher’s Irish Restaurant and Pub is headed back to its digs in the Eagle House (139 Second St., Eureka) in early 2025. As Jessica Silva reported […]
What’s Good: Warming up and Heading Home
Rooftop’s Ramen Warm-up All summer, which includes October here, tables at Rooftop (148 E St., Eureka) were packed with those starved for vitamin D and hungry for sushi. But during the damp cold of winter, the indoor tables and counter (at last, comfy bar chairs) offer a view out of the chill and hot, hot […]
A Classic Cookie Gets Spicy
Years ago, I made a batch of double ginger cookies with powdered and candied in the dough. Then I immediately remade them as triple ginger, spiking them with a couple teaspoons of freshly grated ginger root. Then came the Mexican hot chocolate cookies barely warmed by a couple pinches of cayenne pepper. Then a couple […]
Turkey Lurkey, Baby
The Thanksgiving leftover sandwich is a creation of our collective imagination executed in wildly different ways according to our individual aesthetics. We all think we mean the same sandwich, layered with the remnants of the holiday meal, but we don’t. Turkey, of course, but only carved breast meat? How thick should it be? Are you […]
Food Will Not Bring Us Together
Some basic tips for Thanksgiving: Never put mashed potatoes in a food processor or blender because they’ll get gummy; make more gravy even if you think you have enough; do not break bread with people who vote and work against your safety. Since 2016, November bins of frozen turkeys have arrived alongside a crop of […]
What’s Good? Back to Summer and Fieldbrook
Fieldbrook Country Kitchen When the Fieldbrook Market (4636 Fieldbrook Road) closed, Paddy O’Dwyer was among those who grieved. “We used to come here a lot on the weekends,” he says. “It was pretty sad when it closed — it kinda’ preyed on me. Every time I’d drive by, I’d think what it would take to […]
Humboldt Apple Chutney
It’s fall in Humboldt County and apples and pears are in abundance. What to do with the excess (as in, what’s left over after the deer and bears eat their fill)? When I first tried preserving my fruit harvest in the 1980s, the American cookbooks I found did not address fermentation and fruit pickling very […]
Sara Calvosa Olson’s Indigenous Abundance
Amid the gleam of stainless steel in the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab, a pair of women sort huckleberries and place them on a tray. Sara Calvosa Olson (Karuk) flicks her eyes over to them and says they’re doing all the hard work, while tomorrow she’ll turn the berries into smoothie bowls for a faculty […]
Taste of Main Street Returns
In what felt like a shrewd tactical move, my companions and I started with dessert. Once we’d picked up our Taste of Main Street passes, it was only a block’s walk to Living the Dream Ice Cream, where miniature scoops spiked with shards of waffle cone were on offer and the line hadn’t yet extended […]
Watercress Dumplings for Homesickness
I grew up in Southern China, where watercress was a familiar vegetable in my youth. My mom often used them when making soup with herbs. According to Chinese folk remedies, the soup helps cool one in the heat and detoxify. Watercress soup was a staple in many Cantonese households when the weather was hot and […]
