On the Table

Here’s something to gladden the hearts of my fellow food nerds: You can easily make smoked lamb bacon at home, and it’s delicious! Lamb is a local product from our own Humboldt fields of green, and in fact the local connection is the only way to get the required cut. Especially if you wish to […]

"The original bean of Europe, West Asia and North Africa, has been an important staple food for millennia," is how the Penguin Companion to Food introduces broad (or fava) beans. This historical perspective was unknown to me when, as a child, I watched my mother bring home a bag full of green pods with her […]

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 […]

Lei i libri li divora (she devours books) was the way in which, since I was a child, adults described my relationship with books. Regular bedtime for my brother and me was at 8:30 p.m. Of course, I did not go to sleep that early: I read under cover, literally. When the situation was right, […]

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 […]

Crêpes are a great cold weather dish. In Arcata, where a damp chill is the norm, they were a standard at the Brotman table. Impromptu dessert? Fast easy dinner? My father was at the stove, flipping away and turning out a buttery delivery of crispy-edged delights. I know it’s hardly a groundbreaking topic, but having […]

The first December I lived in Trinidad, I went into the local post office to buy stamps. The postmaster informed me that he had run out of the Hanukkah stamps displayed in the case. Now, if there had never been Hanukkah stamps offered in this distant outpost, I would have understood … but to run […]

“Non si dice: fa schifo. Si dice: non mi piace.” (Don’t say: It’s disgusting. Say: I don’t like it.) My mother had to repeat that fairly often to me. As a child, I had difficulty seeing the difference: To me, the fact that I did not like something implied that it was inedible. And the […]

Celebrity chefs are not new to television. Back in the day you had Julia Child, Jacques Pépin and Jeffrey Smith, aka The Frugal Gourmet. BBQ king Bobby Flay and the ragin’ Cajun Emeril Lagasse (from Massachusetts) have been around for a while. Same with the globetrotting New Yorker Anthony Bourdain with No Reservations (a favorite […]

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 […]