28 Jun 2013 11 Comments
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
08 Feb 2013 18 Comments
in Food, Pork, Recipes, Video Tags: Austria, Austrian cooking, Café Pruckel, Danube, Mozart, spaetzle, Vienna, Wien, Wienerschnitzel
I spent a long, cold portion of a winter in Vienna once.
What I was doing there is a long story all it’s own, but like many such stories, it had to do with a girl. That didn’t work out as planned, and I spent much of my time there on my own, exploring the city — stumbling on former residences of Beethoven around every corner, searching out the Grove of the Immortals — Brahams, Schubert, Strauss, Beethoven — in the Central Cemetery, visiting the homes of Mozart and Dr. Freud, staring at the sparkling canvases of Klimt at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, taking in Richard Strauss’ “Rosenkavalier” at the famed State Opera House and a performance of the Vienna Boys Choir at the Imperial Chapel. More
13 Jan 2013 8 Comments
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
28 Dec 2012 13 Comments
in Food, On the Road, Video Tags: Boccalone, Embarcadero, Ferry Building, foodie, Hog Island Oyster Co., San Francisco, The Slanted Door
When I was a kid, I remember the Ferry Building in San Francisco being a beautiful relic, sad and unused, its iconic clock tower hidden behind the elevated 480 freeway.
Flynn & the Ferry Building, San Francisco
The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 destroyed the freeway, which resulted in one of the most extraordinary and successful urban redevelopment projects in history. Today, vintage street cars from around the world run along the Embarcardero that fronts the Ferry Building. Craftspeople sell their wares across the street, while a daily farmer’s market brings the city’s residents the freshest produce from the farms of nearby Sonoma and Marin. More
24 Dec 2012 10 Comments
in Food, Humor, On the Road, Video Tags: blewit, California, candy cap, Christmas, Japanese cooking, matsutake, mushroom hunting, porcini, Sonoma, wild mushrooms
I like the thrill of the hunt. But not one for killing animals or dealing with blood, I mostly limit my hunting to wild mushrooms in the woods and groovy cowboy shirts at thrift stores. It was the former that had my wife and I up to our ears in Sonoma pine duff, hunting the elusive matsutake.
Orange jelly fungus
“Matsutake” translates as “pine mushroom,” since they often grow in symbiotic relationship with pines. “Take” is Japanese for mushroom, while “matsu” means pine — I have a friend named Kazue Matsunaga. I’m not sure what the “naga” part is, but she’s got something to do with pine trees. She’s a “Pine naga-er,” I guess. More
skinny girls & mayonnaise 