On the Table

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 […]

Italians abruptly awaken to the fundamental otherness of the rest of the world the first time they drink coffee abroad. All right, that was a big generalization, so I will narrow my scope: That’s what happened to me the first time I left Italy on my own, taking a trip to London some 20 years […]

I wrote previously about Al’s Diner, the story of an outlaw cook in Rio Dell a decade ago. The term “Outlaw Cook” I stole from the eponymous book by John Thorne, in which he goes against the grain of all the “rules” of the culinary establishment, with chapter headings like “The Discovery of Slowness” and […]

With our real national holiday approaching, let’s talk about food for a Superbowl party. Here’s an idea for a substantial meal you can set out and leave on the kitchen stove or table for people drifting in during commercials and at half-time. It’s kind of the same idea as wandering down a street, with vendors […]

When I was a teenager in Tucson in the ’50s, one of the few places to play or hear live jazz was a dive on the south side of town called "The Hula Hut." It was there I was called to play vibes in a small pickup band backing jazz legend Anita O’Day (the best […]

In the refrigerator Montalbano found a plate of cold pasta with tomatoes, basil, and black passuluna olives that gave off an aroma to wake the dead, and a second course of fresh anchovies with onions and vinegar. Montalbano was in the habit of trusting entirely in the simple but zestful culinary imagination of Adelina, the […]

I take a small bite and I hear the light crackle of the crisp thin outer layer. My teeth sink into finely chopped walnuts supported by a framework of egg white and sugar. In the morsel that now takes center stage in my mouth, the sugar dissolves and creates a substrate over which the walnut […]