The sense of place is an ever-increasing subtext when we consider our cooking and dining experiences these days. Shopping farmers markets and choosing to dine at restaurants that source locally as much as possible (if not growing much of the food they serve themselves) are de rigeur for many of [...]
It's funny how sometimes there's an odd confluence of input on one topic coming at you from seemingly disparate directions. For me this week, it's been canning: a subject chatted about at a dinner party Saturday, something Facebook friends gave me lots of guidance about after posting a quick question, and something [...]
It strikes me as interesting that I have my liberal arts education in Tacoma, Washington to thank for my introduction to North African cuisine. Indirectly, I suppose, but it was a University of Puget Sound winterim study program of a month in Paris that had me exploring the bustling, colorful [...]
So, my next book Salty Snacks is going to be released last week of September.... After all those months creating and testing recipes, doing research, talking with countless folks about the world of salty snacks and some of their favorite preparations -- editing, tweaking, pacing in consternation, editing some more. This [...]
One of the unexpected outcomes of pursuing a path in the world of food writing is that of being asked to judge cooking competitions. It's not something I'd had in my scopes when thinking about this career path, but must say it's a really enjoyable part of the picture. From salmon [...]
It's such a delightful problem to have. More crab than you can eat in one sitting. Friends who have a home on Whidbey Island had had pretty good luck with the crabbing last weekend, got through as much as their family could consume, then dropped a quick email to see [...]
I took about a thousand pictures in this field bursting with yellow blossoms, set against the blue sky accented with white-and-silver clusters of clouds. Okay, I exaggerate. A bit. It was a few dozen perhaps. But I could have kept going if me and my fellow travelers didn't have yet another great [...]
Yesterday was just one of those days. Mid afternoon I found myself staring out the window into the gray-ish sky, considering the kind of week it had been, the kind of frazzle I felt, the fact that it couldn't be just Wednesday, really?! -- the weekend seemed too far away. I deserved a [...]
A couple of months ago I had been at a late afternoon gathering on the 100-foot level of the Space Needle (celebrating the launch of Check Please!, to be exact) and had a short walk from there to a dinner date downtown. Somewhere around 4th and Denny I saw a few tourists [...]
“So, do you want to maybe go to Germany today?” Anne-Marie asked us. Not your usual breakfast time cconversation but it's one of the benefits of spending time in the Alsace region of France. Taking a brief drive to have lunch in Germany is a fully realistic option. And we [...]