I confess to being an elitist regarding food. I have been a professional cook and restaurant manager, and my wife and I enjoy cooking, eating and talking about food, so I have acquired definite prejudices and preferences. I also want my columns to entertain, rather than be purely practical. Thus, some of my more adventurous […]
food
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Potato Gnocchi
"The district is called Bengodi … and on a mountain, all of grated Parmigiano cheese, dwell folk that do naught else but make maccheroni and raviuoli, and boil them in capon’s broth, and then throw them down to be scrambled for." Giovanni Boccaccio, Decamerone With the term "maccheroni," Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) described something similar to […]
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Home Cooking
The actors, the characters and the plot are all long forgotten, but there’s one scene of a movie that has stuck with me. A man – a chef, or at least a good cook – is world-weary and physically exhausted, but hungry. He goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a steak. He takes out […]
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Dream cafe
I don’t really consider myself a coffee connoisseur, but I’d have to say it was the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had. My old friend Arno Holschuh made it for me at a new place in town. If you’ve been reading the Journal for a while you’ll remember Arno. He and I were the […]
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Extreme Dining and Copyrighted Food
Three years ago we dined at the legendary Roxanne’s, the nation’s most talked – about vegan shrine, in Larkspur. The creation of a dot-com millionaire and his new wife, a glamorous and innovative chef, it was the first elegant "raw foods" restaurant. Nothing at Roxanne’s was heated to more than 118 degrees F. This meant […]
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Spaghetti col Tonno
As you drive towards Trinidad harbor you can’t miss the sign for Katy’s Smokehouse, and on my first visit to Humboldt County nine years ago, I didn’t. Nowadays a pleasant two-mile walk along shady Stagecoach Road brings me from our house to town, and I have become a regular customer at Katy’s. Initially I would […]
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Roasting chicken and a Taste
While shopping at Wildberries not long ago, I saw Phil Ricord staring, lost in thought, in the general direction of the deli section, aka Wildplatters Café. If you shop at the store, or listen to the radio or watch TV, I don’t have to explain who Phil is – in short, he owns Wildberries. In […]
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Can We Survive The Syndrome?
If somehow I’ve conveyed to readers that I disrespect restaurants, I’ve expressed myself badly. When we go to a new restaurant, we do so with optimism. True, we do not eat out often, as we are ourselves cooks, but when we discover a place we like, we tell everyone – because we know all about […]
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Love Times Three
Somewhere in this space a few weeks ago I mentioned that a new restaurant, 3 Foods Café, had finally opened behind the Arcata Co-op. I had not yet eaten there, and as I noted, I had no idea what the three foods in the name might be. At this point I’ve been there three times […]
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Polenta: Variations on a Theme
Polenta is one of those ageless culinary lords, like bread. It has sprung from the hunger of mankind, and without apparent effort has always carried with it a feeling of strength and dignity and well-being. M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf Polenta is an ancient Mediterranean dish. The Greeks, Romans and others who lived […]
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In the Night Kitchen
It’s hard to miss the Community Kitchen at the new Eureka Co-op – just look at the back of the store for the giant capital letters spelling KITCHEN, and the slightly smaller "cooking demonstrations." So far the room has mostly been used for meetings, everything from dental hygienists and Boy Scouts to the Co-op board […]
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The Future of GMO, Cloning and Other Controversies: Part II
In last week’s column, I bemoaned the "religious" zeal in opposition to GMO, which seeks to end any discussion by withdrawing funds for research. I said that such efforts reminded me of the Bush administration’s refusal to fund stem-cell research. In that context, here are two inventions nearing production: 1) Introduction into the rice plant […]