Beautiful Simplicity

At times, I can be an elaborate cook — crafting complicated objets d’art composed of long simmered reductions, leaves blanched to ultimate greenness or fried to lacy crispness, powders of brilliant red or yellow, flowers and tiny herbs.

But at other times, I am reminded that nature — God, if you prefer — is the better artist.

It was Sunday morning, I was home alone sipping some Kauai coffee, listening to Nick Cave and reading the paper. And I got a little hungry.

Sunday breakfast

Sunday breakfast

I’m not really much of a breakfast person. In my roguish youth, I’d skip the requisite greasy diner hangover breakfasts my friends would set out for on the weekends, and the languid Sunday brunches of the early career years held equally little appeal. These days, apart from the occasional extravagant Mexican or Japanese breakfast, I typically grab a handful of cashews or maybe a small bowl of muesli and blueberries. More

Sonoma Summer

Summer is a wonderful time in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley. The days are long and the nights warm, the river languid and inviting.

Relaxing on the river

Relaxing on the river

We typically spend time in the late fall at my mom’s house near the river — hunting mushrooms, sitting by fires and exchanging early Christmas gifts. But when my mom and her partner, Bruce, asked me to come cook for an event at our family winery, I saw the perfect opportunity to extend a one-day event into a nine-day family vacation! More

The Green Party

I’m always on the lookout for interesting ethnic markets. And so, while driving several days a week to a deep western corner of the San Fernando Valley to visit my father recovering from cranial surgery, was delighted to discover the Island Pacific Supermarket.

Green papaya salad

Green papaya salad

My repertoire of markets boasts a healthy array of ethnicities — Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, German, Italian, Persian, Mexican… But here was something new — a Filipino market! More

Good Gadget, Bad Gadget — The Annual Summer Post, 2014 Edition

Around about this time each year, I get emails from the likes of Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table touting their wonderful selection of summer grilling “must haves” at up to 50% off. Last year an email from Sur la Table even included the recommendations of “Jenn the Gadget Girl,” whom I tried in vain to prove or disprove the actual existence of.

The emails always seem to arrive when I’m scratching my head about what to blog about, and in that way are like a gift. And this year, they did not disappoint.

Adding to my already formidable collection of “Good Gadget, Bad Gadget” posts is this summer’s grill edition, which as usual is heavy on the “bad gadget” side… It’s hard to believe that in a product lab somewhere on earth, people are actually dreaming these things up. More

Of a Sunday Afternoon, Pupusas & Elvis

Life sometimes has a strange way of surprising you when you expect little, and touching you when you least expect it.

Such was my past Sunday.

A Sunday surprise in Canoga Park

A Sunday surprise in Canoga Park

My daughter, Willa, has been taking piano lessons. Except we don’t have a piano. So we needed to get something for her. My wife was out and about, and somehow wound up at a piano store. She called me and said she’d found an electric piano. I asked how much, and she said $900. More

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