Eat + Drink

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 […]

In 1990, two years after we moved to McKinleyville, a deli opened across from Cal’s Unocal station. Cal’s wife Ann had alerted us. "They make their own sausage!" So we were almost their first customers. And there were indeed sausages, fascinating ones like a Northern Italian-style with fennel, garlic and red wine, Moroccan lamb sausage, […]

If I were to give to each season its own smell, fall would get the smell of chestnuts. Not only the better-known smell of roasted chestnuts (called caldarroste in Italian), but also that of boiled chestnuts. A big case of freshly picked chestnuts was one of the items my parents would get during our fall […]

It all started with my locavore-restaurant concept, a whimsy that became a column. But readers took it seriously: “When are you opening, what’s the name going to be, who are the chefs?” As though some millionaire had just presented me with a check for $875,000. Of course, folks in the food business know that restaurant […]

Have you ever wondered about the origin of Italian food words that have gained common currency in this country? Even if your answer is no, you may find the following linguistic morsels appetizing. carpaccio I love Venice, I love everything about Venice and being in Venice in any season. And I like the painter Vittore […]

When you leave quaint Ferndale behind for the curves of the rugged Wildcat, the Mattole Valley unfolds against the backdrop of a vast cerulean sea. Home to sufficiency-minded renegades, devoid of restaurants and geographically isolated, the Mattole Valley offers a recipe for creative, home-cooked, local cuisine borne equally out of necessity, political intention, environmental ardor, […]