26 Jun 2012
by scolgin
in Observations, On the Road
Tags: carpaccio, Doves Today, food, Italy, lobster, risotto, sardines, scampi, Venetian cooking, Venice
People may complain that it stinks, others that it is sinking, and still more that it is too expensive. Those who are there in the winter lament the floods that render every street and alleyway a canal. But nothing anyone will ever say can sour my love for the most romantic city of them all — Venice.
Your host on Piazza San Marco with Venetian carnival mask, a foggy morning in March, circa 199?
So it was with some degree of green that I accepted the news that our neighbors and friends, Chris and Glennis, had rented an apartment in Venice this summer. Chris added insult to injury by sending me the website for the place they were staying, complete with perfectly framed view onto the Grand Canal. In response, I did what any affronted friend would — I invited them over for a “bon voyage” Venetian dinner. More
22 Jun 2012
by scolgin
in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: ancestry, cooking, Dublin, food, Irish food, plantains, potluck, pub food, summer
It was the last day of school — a foggy gray June morning, the day before the solstice, the kids already adapting to their summer schedule and rising late, slogging off to class with sleep still heavy in their eyes.
The Ancestor Feast, Ms. Denmark’s 2nd grade class, Topanga, CA
My son, Flynn, had recently been studying ancestry in his second-grade class, interviewing grandparents and making family trees. For the last day of school, they would be having an “Ancestor’s Feast,” in which they — or their parents, who were invited too — would bring in a dish honoring the country, or “a” country, of their ancestry. More
15 Jun 2012
by scolgin
in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: bone marrow, carnitas, food, lardo, octopus, oysters, sea urchin, squid, wild mushrooms
My friend-I’ve-never-met, Ben, was commenting on my recent post about tiny tasty fishes that he had a favorite bar where he ate fried smelt like french fries. And best of all, his wife didn’t steal them. Now there was an idea for a blog post, I thought self-servingly.
In a follow up comment, Ben also confided that his wife will not share foie gras, roasted bone marrow, very runny cheeses, cheesecake and sushi maki-rolls made out of mackerel or salmon skin. Lucky Ben. This got me thinking about some of the things my own wife will not eat — especially those that I order with that knowledge in mind (i.e. I will get to eat all of it and not have to share.) More
12 Jun 2012
by scolgin
in Cooking Tips, Observations
Tags: butter, Cara Cara orange, cooking, food, Haagen-Dazs, Jonathan Gold, L.A. Weekly, LA Times, rib eye
One day recently, I was reading a restaurant review by one of the great treasures of the L.A. culinary scene, our Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer, Jonathan Gold. If you don’t know Jonathan or his work, he is a grizzled hippy Jewish rocker who used to write concert reviews for the L.A. Times, and at some point transitioned to food — and now is one of the country’s most celebrated authors on all things edible, the only food critic ever to win the Pulitzer. He brings a literate rock & roll sensibility to his reviews that is perfectly suited for Jim Morrison’s City of Night.
The makings of a perfect dinner.
Anyway, in this particular review, he was praising the fresh, focused cooking of whatever restaurant it was (“seasonal, well-sourced produce presented in a way that lets its virtues shine through undisturbed”) against the prevailing trend of molecular cooking and the “restless mutation that modernism needs to survive”. He went on to point out that ” in California, the taste of a Cara Cara orange straight from the tree will always eclipse the flashier pleasures made possible by a packet of xanthan gum.” More
01 Jun 2012
by scolgin
in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: barbecue, chickens, cooking, coyotes, food, hawks, Memorial Day, owls, pool
We returned Monday afternoon from the obligatory Memorial Day pool party/barbecue tired and sunbaked — a family sluggish in the hangover of four barbecues in four days, beginning with the optimistic pop of a pale ale bottle opening Friday afternoon and ending with the fizzle of a yawn 72 hours later.
It was as I was tending to my afternoon duties around the house that I first noticed an ominous sign out on the property: an explosion of white feathers down by the garden. More
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