30 Aug 2013
by scolgin
in Eating Out, Food, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: Chris Burden, food, humor, pop-up restaurant, pumpernickel, Sean Colgin, Topanga Elementary
Who would’ve guessed finding a good loaf of pumpernickel could be such a challenge!
I do a number of fundraising dinners, usually for my kids’ schools. It’s something I’m good at that I can contribute, the dinners bring in a lot of money for the schools, and they make a lot of people happy. But I had never done one quite this large before.
Heirloom tomatoes for gazpacho and green zebra risotto
Let me establish one thing: I am not a caterer. I don’t have all that caterer stuff, I dislike buffets, I don’t like not having creative control over every single dish. I typically do fancy dinners for anywhere from four to 16 or 18 people. More
16 Aug 2013
by scolgin
in Observations, On the Road, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: Alaska, Celestino Drago, cloudberries, food, humor, Ketchikan, raspberries, salmon, Santa Monica farmer's market, smoked salmon
When I sail to Alaska, as I have done five or six times now, I always look forward to waking up early the first morning we have arrived in the Great Land. I’ll spring out onto the balcony at dawn — which, in Alaska, is 4:30 or 5 in the morning. You know immediately by the towering snow-capped peaks, forested isles and placid waters of the Inside Passage that you have arrived — the bald eagles carving the sky and spouting humpback whales confirming the fact.
Willa and Immy in the woods near Dewey Lake, Skagway, Alaska
As evidenced by its sheer mass, Alaska is a land of big things. The mountains are big, the glaciers are big, the animals are big and the sky is big. Also big is the abundance of food — if you’ve not seen a salmon run on an Alaskan stream, you have no idea why there is so much of the fish in the supermarket at this time of year. The bears become so sated and picky that they will eat only the skin and discard the rest of the fish. The long hours of sunlight enable Alaskan farmers to grow those giant cabbages and pumpkins you’ve seen in pictures. More
28 Jun 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), Video
Tags: beer batter, Daniel Shore, food, fried, humor, local food, rattlesnake, Topanga
There are always interesting things happening in the canyon.
A hot, lazy Southern California afternoon. As I was driving my kids on a winding country road through horse ranches and chaparral the other day, I got a text from my friend Dan:
“Yo bro. Just got a big ol rattler. You want some slither wid yo dinner?”
Daniel with his prize
Rattlesnakes are pretty common up here, and I’ll often see one or two a year. In some of the hotter parts of the canyon, people may see one or two a day. More
13 Jan 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor, Recipes, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), Video
Tags: citrus, fish, hamachi, Hass avocado, Japanese cuisine, Ponzu, sashimi, sushi, yuzu
About seven or eight years ago, I was making Japanese food at our previous home in West Los Angeles. I had a rare delicacy — a yuzu fruit, a small Japanese citrus that, on the odd occasion you can find it, sells for about $3-$4 a fruit. Yellow and wrinkly, about the size of a lime, it is filled with seeds, and you’re lucky if you get a few drops of the pungent, floral juice from within. More useful is the aromatic zest, which the Japanese will shave over tempura, use to brighten sauces and fold into dishes both savory and sweet.
Koi pond, bamboo, afternoon sun & yuzu tree
I have no recollection what I did with the yuzu that evening. But what I do remember is planting several of the seeds in a pot outside in the garden the next morning. A couple weeks later, I had a few bright green seedlings which somehow over time became reduced to one gawky, spindly little yuzu tree. More
27 Nov 2012
by scolgin
in American Series, Food, Humor, Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: Byck's Department Store, Dann Byck, Derby pie, dessert, Kentucky Derby, Kern's Kitchen, Kurt Vonnegut, Louisville, recipes, Robert Altman
I am fortunate to have not lost many friends over the years. There was a rash of deadly car crashes in high school, reckless kids gone almost before they began, but since then things have pretty much been quiet. With the exception, that is, of one of my dearest friends — a Southern gentleman named Dann Byck.
Dann at Byck’s Department Store in Louisville, 1977
Dann would bristle at that description of him, which is exactly why I use it. He had a good sense of humor. We met at a coffee joint on a snooty street in Santa Monica where we would both sometimes sit in the mornings and watch the beautiful Range Rover mothers push their babies past in Italian-made Peg Perego strollers. More
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