28 Jan 2014 16 Comments
in Food, Humor, On the Road Tags: Ava Gardner, food, Frank Sinatra, humor, Jim Croce, Koffi, Marilyn Monroe, Palm Springs, Riviera, Twin Palms
As if my previous post wasn’t cruel enough for readers in the American midwest and east who once again suffer the unwelcome descent of the Arctic into their midst, we decided to spend the weekend by the pool in Palm Springs.
Bloody Mary & Imogen poolside
Actually, it was a Sunday memorial for my wife’s maternal grandmother that drew us to the desert. But we thought why not make a weekend of it, and so found a swanky hotel with an atomic age theme and settled in. More
10 Jan 2014 6 Comments
in Pork, Recipes Tags: David Chang, Father's Office, food, Ivan Orkin, Ivan Ramen, Japanese cooking, ramen, tokyo, Tsujita LA Artisan Noodle, Umami Burger
My pal Greg, who has expanded my cookbook horizon in the past, got me an interesting book for Christmas. It’s called “Ivan Ramen.”
So this Jewish guy Ivan from Long Island moves to Tokyo, it seems, and decides to open a ramen shop. (Sounds like the set-up for a bad joke.)
Ivan
Ramen is an interesting food. To most of us, it’s something that comes in a brick in a package to be added to hot water. In Japan, it’s essentially a fast food, but is treated with an amount of reverence not afforded our chicken nuggets or fajita wraps. More
03 Jan 2014 18 Comments
in Food Tags: 2013, caviar, foie gras, food, Kobe beef, New Year's Eve, risotto, sea urchin, silky pork, sweet shrimp
Another year done come and gone.
I hope everyone had a safe and pleasant New Year’s Eve celebration. We enjoyed a quiet dinner with a few friends. Okay, it was a raucous wine-soaked dinner.
Here are some of the highlights. Now taking reservations for 2014. More
27 Dec 2013 20 Comments
in Food, Humor, Recipes Tags: California, cauliflower soup, Christmas, Delta Propane, food, humor, prime rib, Scott Murphy hat, truffles, Weber grill
All I can say is that I’m lucky I live in California.
We were in the early stages of Christmas dinner with our friends, Debra and Ernie, when the stove flickered off.
Frustrated, I moved the cauliflower and truffle soup I was preparing to a different burner, assuming that was the problem. But one after another, I tried all five burners and got no flame. And then a sinking realization washed over me — I rushed out to the propane tank, checked the meter. It read “0”. In other words, empty.
Cauliflower soup cooking on the Weber side burner
(For those of you big city dwellers who live your lives in piped-in natural-gas comfort and have no idea what this means, here’s a crash course: We country folk have big propane tanks outside our houses and have to have gas delivered. Usually this is no problem, as we pre-buy our propane and the propane companies are good about not letting their customers’ tanks run low. What a time for them to fail their charge!) More
24 Dec 2013 6 Comments
in Humor, Observations Tags: Christmas, food, giant swallowtail butterfly, humor, mule deer, Papilio cresphontes, reindeer, Topanga State Park, yuzu
The other morning, I was in the kitchen with my wife and 3-year-old daughter Imogen, when I noticed something small either rolling, hopping, flitting or scurrying through the grasses down the hill.
I stared at the object for sometime before I felt confident it was not an animal and was simply some piece of tumbling debris. Then my wife made a gasping sound and pointed. There, precisely at the point from which the mystery object had began its descent, standing stock still and staring in at us, was a deer.
After a few moments, comfortable that we posed no threat, the deer continue munching on whatever portion of our garden it was decimating. More
skinny girls & mayonnaise 