On the Table

In a previous column, I wrote of New York’s newest culinary destination, David Chang’s Momofuku Ko, a restaurant at the forefront of a new American cuisine, making eating out an exciting yet relatively affordable adventure ("Table Talk," Aug 21). But there is another kind of culinary adventure, one presaged by Michael Pollan, whose books (most […]

I have always loved crostata alla crema (tart with pastry cream). My mother, however, did not bake desserts of any kind. My aunt Lucia baked tarts with her homemade jam and made excellent pastry cream, but in her kitchen never the twain would meet. I feasted on her pastry cream and nibbled at her jam […]

In a faraway city, a Korean-American chef is changing the way restaurants work. David Chang is a top young restaurateur in New York, and the darling of the Eastern culinary sophisticates; in fact, he just won the James Beard Award for Best New York Chef. Of course, right there, that’s enough to damn him as […]

I’m drawn to folk recipes — the kind that aren’t actually written down, or if they are call for things like “some sugar” or “enough salt.” Recipes that make use of leftovers in your refrigerator. Take Shepherd’s Pie. for example. Even better take a dish that was introduced to me by my British husband — […]

I have food prejudices like most people, but I have always felt uncomfortable with them. A half century ago, I watched with envy as patrons of the Grand Central Oyster Bar indulged in what looked like having sex in public; it would be decades later that I enjoyed my first oyster, and years more before […]

Last year, as part of my first attempt at vegetable gardening at home, I planted a couple of seedlings of zucchini, hoping for a bountiful reward. To my dismay, the flood of zucchini that I was expecting never materialized. I know that such flooding happens — to other people:   I was still cheerful two […]

“We’ve never had such a breakfast: heaping cuts of wild pig, some with skin, some with crust-crunchy bones, and a smoky tenderloin chop….” Photo courtesy of flickr.com user drazz. This is a memoir of a Humboldt County legend, a restaurant that broke all the rules, sold incredible food cheap and, like a meteor, came and […]

This week’s Table Talk is not about what’s on the table, it’s about what’s not on the table. There are no elegant grilled oysters on the table. There’s no gourmet Japanese sushi topped with simply delightful Unagi sauce. There are no chocolate bon-bons. There’s a can of string beans and a can of refried beans. […]

People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do? … The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems […]

So what I want to know is, in terms of food writing at large, what’s this burning obsession with restaurants? I mean, obviously we all like food — have you been to Florida? Those people are huge! My problem with most food writing I’m finding online is it seems so heavily weighted on the side […]