Food, Photography and Bon Mots
It hasn’t worked for me with kale or spirulina, but I’m willing myself to love eggplant. As you know, if you have been reading this blog, eggplant and I have a fraught relationship–a bit like Donald and Melania. Eggplant recipes, especially ones that tout their…
Which “vegetable” is actually a berry, has the highest nicotine content among all vegetables, and is 95% water? (Hint: Chinese ladies once used the dye extracted from this vegetable’s skin to polish their teeth to a then-fashionable gray hue.) It’s the eggplant. Who knew? (Don’t…
What do a Pavlova, a bowl of cherry Garcia and a Margarita have in common? You got that one right! They are all foods named after a famous person. (The Pavlova meringue confection is named after the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. Cherry Garcia is…
I know. It’s a puppy. I can’t seem to take a decent photo of the risotto dish I want to share with you, so I’m posting a photo of a puppy. Everyone loves a puppy photo. Don’t get me wrong, the risotto is quite…
Tender artichoke hearts. Lemon. Grape tomatoes. Herbs galore. Yum. A friend served this as the main course at a dinner party I was fortunate to attend a few years ago. She confided that the recipe came from a Jamie Oliver book, The Naked…
To my delight, I’ve realized that I have some holes in my cookbook collection. My Middle Eastern cookbook shelf, in particular, is a little thin. I say “to my delight” because, believe me, I welcome any excuse to buy new cookbooks. Picture me with a…
I love bread pudding. It is my idea of a soothing comfort food–right up there alongside refried beans and candy corn. That said, I guess it’s pretty clear that carbs whisper sweet nothings in my ear when the pressure’s on in my life . While…
My friend Sarah recently went to lunch at the new Farmhouse Restaurant at Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach. She came home raving about the food. The cauliflower steaks with chimichuri sauce particularly impressed her. I decided to see if I could recreate the dish…
I often look to David Tanis’ food column for inspired food ideas. He was a lead chef for more than thirty years at Berkeley’s legendary Chez Panisse. That credential alone positions him in the pantheon of culinary immortals. Since leaving Chez Panisse in 2011, Tanis has written a…
Qualcosa bolle in pentola!!! That’s Italian for “something boils in a saucepan”– a delightful idiom meaning “Something’s up!” So, qualcosa bolle in pentola here in Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach’s two wild and crazy cooking divas (and a small sweet dog named Juliet) are back…
