Food, Photography and Bons Mots
It has been chilly here in southern California for the last couple of days. I found a thick coat of frost on my car this morning and my thermostat registered 55 degrees in my house. Even my pup Juliet was reluctant to leave the warmth…
It has been raining here in southern California. Wet. Glistening. Rain. After the long drought and precious little rain from last year’s fizzle of an El Nino, it is a delight to just stand outside and get drenched. Juliet? Not so much. The pup…
Oh, my! Can’t you just smell the sweet rich aroma of baked onions wafting through your computer screen ? And, look at that ooey-gooey cheese sauce. Onion heaven. As Julia Child once said, “It is hard to imagine civilization without onions.” The history of…
I found this soup recipe on the Washington Post site and the ideas of pureeing some of the chickpeas as a technique to increase the creaminess of the soup broth and of adding farro to give the soup substance intrigued me. In…
It is overcast, drizzly and gloomy in Huntington Beach today. Cooking weather! My good friend Sarah is an Ina Garten devotee. Well, actually, she is an “Ina ♥ Jeffrey” devotee. Show Sarah a good romance and she’s hooked. Connect the romance to good food…
The plan was for Juliet, a scary and wicked witch last year, to be Juliet Sparrow, the brave pirate, this year, but, blimey!, we had to scuttle that plan. All the pirate hats were way too big. Halloween Plan B: Here’s Juliet, the Sweet Sea…
My good friend Sarah and I have been taking cooking classes at Sur La Table in Costa Mesa. (Sarah is the pretty lady in the middle holding what is left of a tray of minced chicken lettuce cups). What fun! Our most recent class…
The vocabulary word for today is umami. Now don’t go getting all “low energy” on me. I really don’t want to see any of you putting your heads down on your desks and hyperventilating like this is just too hard. …
Is there a support group for compulsive cookbook buyers? Hundreds of cookbooks share my office bookshelves with my collection of history and political science books from my thirty-two year teaching career and my growing collection of photography books. My history books are sacred possessions but I’m…
There is a vendor at the farmers market I frequent who stands in front of his stand every week and sings “almost too yummy” about his produce in a scratchy tenor voice. On more than one occasion, I have heard the nearby vendors good-naturedly (and…
