The Best Kind of Labor

While the rest of the Los Angeles swarmed the Labor Day weekend beaches to beat the heat, see the big waves and watch Laird Hamilton shoot the Malibu Pier, we elected to stay on the mountain, be satisfied with our Pacific breezes and almost-ocean views, and do what most people do for the holiday — barbecue.

The day's star attraction

The day’s star attraction

To be more precise, smoke. When I don my pit master hat, I usually default to one of two things — North Carolina pork shoulder or Texas brisket — or sometimes both. This weekend, it would be the latter. Like a morbid cartoon, I caught a particular pork shoulder winking at me from the meat aisle at the grocery store, and was smitten. More

Beautiful Simplicity

At times, I can be an elaborate cook — crafting complicated objets d’art composed of long simmered reductions, leaves blanched to ultimate greenness or fried to lacy crispness, powders of brilliant red or yellow, flowers and tiny herbs.

But at other times, I am reminded that nature — God, if you prefer — is the better artist.

It was Sunday morning, I was home alone sipping some Kauai coffee, listening to Nick Cave and reading the paper. And I got a little hungry.

Sunday breakfast

Sunday breakfast

I’m not really much of a breakfast person. In my roguish youth, I’d skip the requisite greasy diner hangover breakfasts my friends would set out for on the weekends, and the languid Sunday brunches of the early career years held equally little appeal. These days, apart from the occasional extravagant Mexican or Japanese breakfast, I typically grab a handful of cashews or maybe a small bowl of muesli and blueberries. More

Good Gadget, Bad Gadget — The Annual Summer Post, 2014 Edition

Around about this time each year, I get emails from the likes of Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table touting their wonderful selection of summer grilling “must haves” at up to 50% off. Last year an email from Sur la Table even included the recommendations of “Jenn the Gadget Girl,” whom I tried in vain to prove or disprove the actual existence of.

The emails always seem to arrive when I’m scratching my head about what to blog about, and in that way are like a gift. And this year, they did not disappoint.

Adding to my already formidable collection of “Good Gadget, Bad Gadget” posts is this summer’s grill edition, which as usual is heavy on the “bad gadget” side… It’s hard to believe that in a product lab somewhere on earth, people are actually dreaming these things up. More

Of a Sunday Afternoon, Pupusas & Elvis

Life sometimes has a strange way of surprising you when you expect little, and touching you when you least expect it.

Such was my past Sunday.

A Sunday surprise in Canoga Park

A Sunday surprise in Canoga Park

My daughter, Willa, has been taking piano lessons. Except we don’t have a piano. So we needed to get something for her. My wife was out and about, and somehow wound up at a piano store. She called me and said she’d found an electric piano. I asked how much, and she said $900. More

Feeding the Masses, Again

I’m not sure what gave me the idea for a deep Southern barbecue for Memorial Weekend. I think it may have been the pile of paper plates and plastic cups I had left over from an event — no dishes to clean! (And you can’t exactly serve Tuscan grill on paper plates.) Maybe it was Brownie McGhee popping up on the iTunes playlist. Whatever the motivation, the invitations went out and preparations began.

Brisket & pork shoulders on the smoker

Brisket & pork shoulders on the smoker

“Good god,” my friend Katy emailed when she got the invitation, “This is almost like catering the auction all over again. You’re obviously a glutton for punishment.” More

Previous Older Entries Next Newer Entries