Doing the Topanga Hustle

They first approached me about cooking for the elementary school’s silent auction a couple years back. This year, they meant it. And being that it was for the good of the kids, I agreed!

Glass candle baubles dangle from the oaks at 1909

Glass candle baubles dangle from the oaks at 1909

I don’t often do large events — when I cook for others, it’s usually private dinners — and the logistics would be a challenge. The event, 200 or so people gathered to eat, drink, bid on things they really didn’t need, would have a 1970s “Topanga Hustle” theme. More

It’s Not Easy Being Green

My wife recently asked me to pick up some wasabi peas for her. Or more precisely, she said, “Put wasabi peas on your list.”

What's wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with this picture?

My list, of course, is the running grocery list I have going at all times. It’s a square post-it note that sits on my desk and which everyone knows not to touch lest the provisions and dining schedule be thrown into chaos. My list will usually have several categories: “Japanese market,” “TJs” (Trader Joe’s), “Grocery” (general), “Sprouts,” and sometimes the odd addition such as “Persian market” or “99 Ranch”. Lacking specificity, I put my wife’s request under “TJs”. More

The Hostess with the Mostess

When cupcake and confection maker, Hostess, went bankrupt a few years back, I watched the news with some mixture of interest and nostalgia.

I hadn’t eaten a Hostess product in probably more than a quarter century, and had paid little interest to their presence on the grocery store shelf all those years. I was never much for Twinkies, which seemed to be getting all the press as the company went under. I liked the apple pies, the little chocolate donuts and, most of all, the Ding Dong. I thought they did chocolate well.

How to make your Ding Dong look fancy so you can serve it to your snooty foodie friends

How to make your Ding Dong look fancy so you can serve it to your snooty foodie friends

The Ding Dong, for the uninitiated, is a little disc of chocolate cake with a cream center, and chocolate coating. Like most Hostess products, it remains fresh and moist even after several months on the shelf. More

The Endless Summer, Pt. II — Palm Springs

As if my previous post wasn’t cruel enough for readers in the American midwest and east who once again suffer the unwelcome descent of the Arctic into their midst, we decided to spend the weekend by the pool in Palm Springs.

Bloody Mary & Imogen poolside

Bloody Mary & Imogen poolside

Actually, it was a Sunday memorial for my wife’s maternal grandmother that drew us to the desert. But we thought why not make a weekend of it, and so found a swanky hotel with an atomic age theme and settled in. More

The Endless Summer

I had just finished lunch of Mexican food and ice-cold beer with my father and brothers, and was now standing outside the Home Depot in my t-shirt, shorts and flip flops, waiting for a customer service associate to swap out my empty Amerigas propane tank for a full one.

I would be barbecuing for friends this evening, and needed my back-up tank full just in case. After all, I’d had to use the Weber to cook my Christmas dinner when the main propane tank went dry. And suddenly, thinking of this, I had a moment of sadness. It was mid-January. Another 80-degree day, another cold beer, another barbecue… and what happened to winter, to whisky and braises?? We can’t even go skiing because there’s no snow in the mountains. As I write this, many of the mountains are, in fact, on fire.

Happy, lightly dressed girls, camping in January

Happy, lightly dressed girls, camping in January

I know it’s difficult for those of you friends in the Midwest, on the East Coast, and in Canada, Iceland, the British Isles and beyond, swallowed by various polar vortices, nor’easters, blizzards, ice storms and so on, to have much sympathy for our plight. More

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