The cherry blossoms drifting around town are seen in Japan as a symbol of life’s impermanence, all the more beautiful for their brevity. Just like crab sandwiches and specialty doughnuts. Carpe Crab When crab season opens during the holidays, we go wild, cracking and picking till our shirtfronts are flecked with meat and our bellies […]
On the Table
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Sausage Party
Fat-free sausages are hideous, unnatural creations. They should be corralled and thrown on a pyre. I suspect that if burned, they would give off an eerie blue glow. They are not food. Don’t let one near your mouth. “Fat is what makes sausage wonderful,” says Jamie Bellerman. I’m watching him put pure pork fat through […]
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Bittersweet
Sure, everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, but that doesn’t mean everyone loves the food. Corned beef and cabbage is fine comfort food, briny and piping hot with soft potatoes, and my family didn’t wait for March to cook it. But the heart-slowing food of ancestors who got up in the dark and worked until […]
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Don’t Get All Mushy
Haven’t you had enough mixed spring salad from a tub? You need to see other vegetables. Winter cabbage is so sweet and crisp raw, but come St. Patrick’s Day we’ll be boiling the blarney out of it with corned beef. Even summer’s coleslaws, tasty as they are, tend to cover up the flavor of the […]
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Hum Plate Roundup
In a youth-obsessed society, it’s important to remember the many perks of being an adult. Here are a few meals worth putting away childish things for. Happy Hour Revival Pessimists hoisting crudely made signs would have you believe that our society is circling a wide cultural drain and that the end is nigh. I would […]
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Haggis Hankerings
Mourn now, ye true lovers of all things Scottish, for you cannot get an authentic haggis in the U.S. of A. This centuries old peasant’s dish, elevated to the fare of lairds and ladies, is made from ground lamb innards (heart, lungs and liver) mixed with oats, spices and suet, then boiled inside said lamb’s […]
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Valentine Boozing
Valentine’s Day is underrated as a drinking holiday, particularly if you’re single. It’s no New Year’s or St. Patrick’s, but everybody is either toasting or drowning their sorrows. Sometimes both. If you’re going out to celebrate/brood, Arcata’s Plaza Grill has a pretty enough bar for a date (you don’t want to do hipster-dive-slumming on Valentine’s), […]
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Chorizo: A Love Story
To set the record straight, I wasn’t trying to murder my ex per se. But he deserved it for cracking a joke with his Poblano buddies that American women only know how to take food out of the freezer and stick it in the microwave. What did he think he was getting when he chose […]
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Hum Plate
A brown bag lunch is a great idea. Very healthy, economical — but life is short. When you need to treat yourself (just once in a while, OK?), don’t go halfway. Break free from the tyranny of turkey on wheat and think outside the bag a little. Brunch for Lunch T’s Café has taken over […]
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A Little Kick
It’s not spring. I wish it was, food-wise, but it isn’t. My diet is suffocated by a robotic procession of root vegetables. British cookbooks extol the pleasures of cozy winter cooking, but I live in California, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and I can’t eat any more cottage pie. Plus, your name is ridiculous. No more mashed Swedes, […]
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What the Pho?
If we count the Toni’s Taste of Thai truck in front of Toni’s diner in Arcata (1901 Heindon Road), there are eight Southeast Asian restaurants in Humboldt. That’s only one fewer than the number of sushi restaurants, mathematically proving that Southeast Asian cuisine is pretty damn popular. If you doubt, ponder this: There is a […]
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Straight From the Farm
On a light-drenched afternoon back in October, the pumpkin patch at Organic Matters Ranch on Myrtle Avenue was thickly dotted with pumpkins of various shades of orange and some green Marina di Chioggia squashes, too. Chickens dressed in lustrous feathers tasted pumpkin in front of their coop. Two shiny black pigs enjoyed the sunny weather. […]