Skinny Girls Roadshow LIVE from Seattle — Mallmann in the Northwest

05 Sep 2016 9 Comments

by scolgin in On the Road, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , ,

My pal, Donnie, sent his son Ben over one morning with a cookbook by Francis Mallmann.

“My dad wants you to make this,” he said, opening the thick volume to a bookmarked page.

Francis Mallmann is an Argentine chef from Patagonia who likes to cook over open fire. The recipe was for a grilled cow. In the ingredients section, it called for “One cow, butterflied.” I imagined walking to the meat counter at the Whole Foods and asking for a cow.

Salmon at Pike's Place Market in Seattle

Salmon at Pike’s Place Market in Seattle

Prior to our Labor Day weekend visit to Seattle to see our friends, the Pfaffs, I had suggested to host Bob that we might do an open-fire Mallmann dinner, which wouldn’t be practical at home in Topanga Canyon, where I might burn the better part of drought-stricken Southern California to the ground. More

Multekrem, Revisited

29 Aug 2016 2 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes Tags: , , , , , ,

It had been nearly four years since I wrote about cloudberries and the Norwegian dessert, multekrem, on this very blog. It was time to revisit the subject.

Multekrem

Multekrem

I would run into my towering Norwegian pal Pål (with the cool little bubble over the “a”) over the intervening years at school. Pål had brought polar cloudberries that his parents had smuggled in frozen from Norway to our house for dinner, and I was smitten. The cloudberries, folded into whipped cream, became multekrem — one of the most heavenly flavors ever. (Appealing, perhaps, to my northern DNA…) The salmon-colored cream would often enter my head for no reason at all, like a beautiful song from the past. More

Skinny Girls Roadshow LIVE from Hawaii — Town and Country

12 Aug 2016 6 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out, Markets & Stores, On the Road Tags: , , , , , , ,

Fifteen years ago I made a good decision, and married my favorite person. Three kids, two houses, a successful business and a couple dozen chickens later, we realized we would fortuitously be in Oahu for our anniversary — a perfecter place to celebrate we couldn’t have planned!

Waimanalo People's Open Market

Waimanalo People’s Open Market

Through more of my pre-vacation research, I zeroed in on a restaurant called “Town” that I thought would make the appropriate anniversary dinner destination. A chef named Ed Kenney was creating interesting, Italian-influenced Hawaiian cuisine with an emphasis on traditional island ingredients and strong relationships with local farms.

More

Skinny Girls Roadshow LIVE from Hawaii — Local Grinds

10 Aug 2016 3 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out, On the Road Tags: , , , , , , , ,

It is a sad thing, really, when upon returning from an epic summer vacation traveling across Italy, Switzerland and France, you are somewhat blasé about your upcoming 8-day trip to Hawaii.

Willa on Waimanalo Beach

Willa on Waimanalo Beach

I grew up spending a good part of the year in Hawaii, and have always cherished my visits to the breathtaking island of Maui. And it had been six or seven years since the last time we had been, for the wedding of my pal Gary on the equally ravishing isle of Kauai. This time, however, we would be going for the marriage of one of my wife’s nephews, and would be staying in a communal family house in crowded Honolulu on the island of Oahu. So my excitement was a bit more tempered.

That is, until I began researching the food. More

La Vie En Rose

05 Aug 2016 7 Comments

by scolgin in On the Road, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , ,

In France these days, nobody is drinking red wine. I brought a nice Cotes du Rhone to the home of friends in Paris; they thanked me, tucked it away, and brought out the rosé.

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“It is hot,” friend Sebastien offered by way of an explanation, “We are not drinking red wine.” More

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