30 Oct 2012 Leave a comment
in Beverages, Observations, Recipes Tags: Bodeguita del Medio, Casa San Matias Pueblo Viejo Anejo, Cazadores, Familia Camarenas, Jalisco, Maestro, margaritas, Patrón, tequila, Vallarta Market
Long a beer and wine (and sometimes saké) man, I’ve recently taken to tequila.
I’ve always drank tequila, in the form of a margarita or the occasional shot. But it wasn’t until I was well beyond my freewheeling 20s that I discovered good tequila — sipping tequila. More
26 Oct 2012 7 Comments
in Observations, Recipes Tags: cooking, food, hunger, Italian, José Andrés, NRDC, penne
Contemplating a quarter loaf of severely stale ciabatta bread in my kitchen this morning, I was reminded of a staggering statistic I read recently. “The NRDC report said Americans discard 40 percent of the food supply every year.”
All that stale bread & an overripe tomato can be
As a person with a gut-level aversion to throwing anything edible away, this figure was unimaginable — especially given the hunger not only around the world, but in our own country. Another statistic: “In 2010, 17.2 million households, 14.5 percent of households (approximately one in seven), were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States.” Children were “food insecure” (i.e. hungry) in 10% of households. All of which brings up a fairly obvious question:
How is it that 15% of America is hungry, when we are throwing away 40% of our food? More
23 Oct 2012 1 Comment
in Food, Humor, Observations, Recipes Tags: drinks, japan, Japanese cuisine, Mansion of Dreams, Miyazaki, recipe, sake, spirits, sushi
When I was a lad, saké was something warm and exotic we drank at the local sushi bar that served underage kids. Not ones for moderation, we used to do something called a “saké bomb,” where we would drop the small ceramic cup of hot saké into our glass of beer, and then down the whole thing.
Saké Still Life (with Sushi Knife)
I remember once, several bombs in, I chucked a California roll at my friend Pat, sitting a few seats away. It hit him on the forehead and fell into his saké-and-beer. He lifted the glass, drank the bomb and ate the roll at the bottom in one epic gulp, and we all applauded. More
19 Oct 2012 Leave a comment
My kids will sometimes come home from school and dance around the kitchen, begging for popsicles. But what gets Dad jumping is not the refreshing fruitiness of a popsicle, but rather the crackly porkiness of a pigsicle!
Pigsicles
What is a pigsicle? Well, before you gag and reflex-close this blog, it is not a sweet, frozen pork juice confection. I just gave it the name “pigsicle” because it was catchy and I may include it in the barfood menu for my restaurant one day. Rather, it is skewered fatty jowl meat seasoned and crisped up on a very hot grill. A grown-up treat of the very highest order, to be sure. More
09 Oct 2012 12 Comments
in On the Road, Recipes, Video Tags: Baja California, food, huachinango, Mexican cooking, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, recipes, salsa, Sea of Cortez
I did finally get my sea urchin. It was our last full day in Mexico, the water was calm, so I dove down into the rocky crevices off la playa de Conchas Chinas, and returned with a spiny prize.
It was the biggest one I could find. Yet, it looked smaller than I had thought once I got it onshore. I’d been talking about the erisos for a few days, still Marilu looked surprised when I brought the creature into the kitchen. More
skinny girls & mayonnaise 