It must be a bumper-crop year for chanterelle mushrooms here in the Northwest. My local grocery store, the wonderful West Seattle Thriftway, has had a consistent supply of lovely chanterelles for $8.99 per pound, one of the lowest prices I recall seeing for the beauties in recent years. And I've [...]
Round or flat? It's a debate that dates back centuries. Or at least had, until folks realized that those schooners didn't slip off the edge of the Earth when adventurers went exploring. But it's a debate that came back to life as I was brainstorming recipes for this book. I [...]
Home again, home again jiggity jog...... What a trip that was, three weeks so full and enriching and reviving that it felt like we were gone for two months. So I suppose we got our money's worth. And our time's worth. But it's great to be home. Another sign of [...]
Or, as I like to think of it, "Showdown at O-Cluck Corral!" Over the past 15 years or so I've been called on to judge a great range of foods. From critiquing prototypes of seafood dishes being considered for commercial production at the Symphony of Seafood, which I judged this year and [...]
I'm so thrilled that Crate & Barrel is carrying Gourmet Game Night! Not only carrying the book, but as I understand things the book is due to be part of a special display during the fall months building up to the holidays. Woo-hoo! What a great match for the book. [...]
I've been on a granola spree lately. And it kind of took me by surprise. Well, to be true, I do remember this moment: on a business trip a few months back, I was on deadline working in my hotel room through the breakfast hour. I usually find room service [...]
Okay, enough with the stone fruits! I've clearly been on a bent about that category of delicious summertime fruits. For a moment I'll move along from the peach and plum tones of those juicy treats and give some props to the jeweltone berries. A few occurrences conspired to put visions of summer [...]
I have got to make a point of getting to Vessel sometime in the next week or so. Just got an email reminder that they're celebrating one of the most venerable drinking establishment in the world--Harry's Bar--with signature items from their menu (beef carpaccio was created there, so the legend [...]
If I had to hang my hat on one theme about which I've written the most in my (ahem) nearly 2 decades of food writing, it's Northwest ingredients. Celebration of foods that are grown in my backyard, that have been part of my life since I was a little kid, [...]
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the passage of time. You'd think I'd get used to it at some point, but I never do. I often joke in an overdue email reply to someone that "I blinked twice and a week went by!" Honestly, it does feel that [...]