Eat + Drink

I arrived in New York in the late summer of 1960. John Cage, theavant gardecomposer with whom I’d come to study, was already a legendary presence, attracting not just musicians but a dedicated following of painters, poets and what would come to be called “performance artists” (although none of us called ourselves that). Cage’s philosophical […]

In previous articles for the Journal I talked about my mother through her recipes. There is more to come from that quarter, but today I would like to introduce you to my father. He was born in the small village of Poggio Catino, located less than 40 miles north of Rome in a region called […]

I never truly realized what a Caesar Salad was until 1969. We were celebrating a special occasion, and my girlfriend insisted that we go to the legendary Paul’s Duck Press, then the most elegant and exotic restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. Don’t bother to Google — you’ll find only two references to Paul’s Duck Press; […]

Jacques Neukom doesn’t sleep well when there’s thunder and lightning over the mountains. Not in the summer, anyway, when the peach trees in his orchard are laden with sweet, juicy, luscious gems so ripe they would drop from the trees on their own if no one picked them. And he wasn’t exactly having the relaxed, […]

What foods do Americans miss when they are abroad? I never asked anybody, not even my husband. The only person whose food longings I can relate is Mark Twain. I recently read his autobiographical book, A Tramp Abroad , written in 1879 while on an extended stay in Europe. It includes a scathing assessment of […]

My first memory of food is the White Castle in Louisville, 20 miniature hamburgers for a dollar. I was 4, and the aroma — onions grilled in suet, then plopped with a tiny steamed beef patty inside a miniature square bun, in tiny white boxes, all bagged — was heavenly. At the age of 5, […]

If you visit Italy and decide to explore a grocery store (an expedition I highly recommend on both cultural and culinary grounds), you will notice the sign Biscotti at the top of an aisle. If you enter the aisle, you will probably be disappointed in not finding the array of biscotti you expect. I suffered […]

We are down to our last pint of Häagen-Dazs “Sticky Toffee Pudding” ice cream. I knew this would happen eventually, but I guess I was hoping for a reprieve. How, I thought, how could they possibly discontinue such a terrific product? Well, yes, it was one of their “contest” flavors, the ones they run for […]

Quick. What recipe is on the dirtiest, most dog-eared page of your favorite cookbook? And how old is that book? I’ve been thinking recently about cookbooks, old and new. A few weeks ago the San Francisco Chronicle published an article on the 25th anniversary of The Silver Palate Cookbook , a collection of recipes, menus […]

Risotto is an Italian dish that seems to have acquired, upon arrival in this country, an aura of mystique, as if its preparation entailed some kind of magical procedure. Is this true? Not that I am aware of. What risotto does require is the right kind of rice, a willingness to suspend multi-tasking for about […]

The town may be stretching things just a little bit by calling its big event Sunday "Trinidad’s 50th Annual Fish Festival," but we’ll forgive it. It was 1957, 50 years ago, when the little port town began celebrating its ties with the fishing and seafood business with an annual event, but it was not called […]

With the Farmers’ Market now in full glory, the North Coast community is blessed. How can we make the most of this bounty? When we opened our restaurant, Byrd House, over two decades ago, people warned us that there were "vegetarians" who would look askance at our omnivorous menu. I did not take them seriously. […]