This time next week many of us will be scrambling around the kitchen, tending to a bird, popping a batch of rolls in the oven, trimming Brussels sprouts to steam, setting just-baked pies aside to cool. For some I know this can be a stressful occasion, whether it's because of [...]
If hotel prices in Portland this weekend are any indication, this year's Feast Portland is a pretty big draw. Taking over the city, maybe. I'm going to be doing some hotel-hopping, chasing around the best deals I could find. I was on the phone with a fellow at one of [...]
It's one of those photo-ops-missed that I've thought about more than a few times in the past year -- arriving in Portland on a Sunday afternoon, looking down on the sidewalk and seeing a "Feast Portland" wristband that clearly had gotten a lot of good use over the previous few [...]
It's funny, much as I usually abhor ruts and routine, I can be quite the creature of habit sometimes. Which, in the case of visiting the San Juan Islands in the Northwest corner of Washington state, comes in the form of me heading 99.9% of the time to Orcas, dating back to trips [...]
One of my mother's favorite quotes came from none other than Michelangelo -- the translation I remember seeing in clipping-form on her refrigerator cited it as "...and still I am learning." It's a quote I think about often. In this back-to-school week I'm personally thankful to not be starting high [...]
It doesn't take much to motivate me to hop on the train and head south to Portland. Though some motivations are more pronounced than others. As was the case last week when rock-star butcher Dario Cecchini was in town. Soon as I'd heard word of his pending visit a few months [...]
I had a punderful time last weekend, arriving late Saturday morning at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford just as folks were showing up with their entries for the 7th annual Seattle Edible Book Festival. I'd heard about the festival a couple of years ago, seen the Flickr postings of [...]
There was a time when I really did try to keep up. In years past I was not only covering the local wine scene a bit more directly when I was food editor of Seattle magazine. But I also traveled to Bordeaux, France, with the team from the Washington Wine Commission [...]
It has been SO much fun spreading the word about the release of my latest book, Gourmet Game Night, because the basic premise of the book is all about having fun. I like to think that previous books I worked on had their merits: tasty reliable recipes, interesting stories and [...]
I was chatting with the butcher at my neighborhood grocery store about lamb on a recent visit. I wanted to do a simple braise-stew but time was short, didn't want to fiddle with trimming shoulder (blade) meat from the bone, nor rely on leaner leg steaks that are less unctuous for braising. He [...]