My husband and I still remember that first meal we had at Rover's. It was August, 1988. We were both having grumpy weeks, didn't like our jobs, whatever the grievance. So we played hooky that lovely sunny day and walked onto the Bainbridge ferry to escape a bit, wander Winslow, [...]
I didn't want to break the spell. When I left Seattle to go to cooking school in France, it was a major adventure, a big step into an unknown future, a dream come true. Belongings that I wasn't taking with me went into long-term storage, since this was to be an open-ended [...]
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 [...]
Back in early November of 1990, I was into my second year in France for an extended stay. Earlier, in college, I'd had a couple trips to France as part of my studies--once for a month, the following year for a semester at University of Dijon. But this was my [...]
I can't say how many times a food story I've written, or recipe I've developed, has come with a story of my mother. My favorite is this one, which ended up getting picked up by Saveur's online offerings and has, in the long run, become one of the most popular [...]
This past weekend, at dinner with friends, some random course of conversation brought up a crazy story that I told the group. It was something I hadn't thought about for a while, but they loved the story and urged me--repeatedly--to write more about stories like it. It'll have be another time that [...]
It certainly isn't an obvious connection. But the recent notice I read about the Flying Karamazov Brothers coming to the Seattle area soon sent me on a trip down memory lane. The year was 1985 perhaps. Tacoma, on the campus of the University of Puget Sound where I was a [...]
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 [...]
He was such a gem of a man. Monsieur Fernand Chambrette. A gentleman of small stature, big heart, giant talents and not a small dose of the devilish imp that will be so greatly missed by those who knew and loved him, and certainly those who learned from him. At [...]