Delicious Mauritius

21 Aug 2012 9 Comments

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

“Do you want me to cook Mauritian food tonight?” Maria offered. That is not the sort of offer I turn down.

Maria’s Mauritian shrimp creole

We were staying with our friends, Gary and Maria, in their home along the Tualatin River in an idyllic suburb of Portland, Oregon. Gary is one of my oldest friends from childhood. Maria, whom he met in the Northwest wine industry, hails from Kauai, where we were fortunate enough to be a part of their wedding a few years back. Her father is American, and her mother comes from Mauritius. More

Kitchen Catastrophe

31 Jul 2012 12 Comments

by scolgin in Observations Tags: , , , , , , , ,

When I was a younger cook, I was more prone to kitchen disasters of either of three varieties — the huge mess, the ill-conceived flavor combination, or the flesh wound. With age, experience and wisdom has come the know-how to avoid most kitchen disasters in any of those categories. But every once in a while, I get broadsided by a new ingredient, tool or technique. And discover that disaster is never far at bay. More

Glensomethingorother & the Passing of Time

13 Jul 2012 14 Comments

by scolgin in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

My dad was always pushing some drink or other at me as a kid. Less in the interest of corrupting me than fostering a strong cultural foundation, an appreciation of the better things life had to offer.

A father and his son. Mt. Rainier National Park. 1968

“Try this, it’s the finest dark roasted arabica coffee,” he would say. Or, “You’ll never taste a wine this good, my boy…” I developed tastes for both. But not Scotch. That was Dad’s drink. Scotch on the rocks. There was always a Glensomethingorother in his glass, it was always “the best Scotch you’ll ever taste,” and it always tasted the way rubbing alcohol smelled. More

The Legend of Hannosuke

10 Jul 2012 5 Comments

by scolgin in Eating Out Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

“They may have tasted good sushi in the United States of America, but chances are they have never encountered authentic superb tempura.” — A sign promoting the opening of the first Hannosuke America

When I was in Tokyo, one of the things that impressed me was the profusion of restaurants, counters and stands devoted to a single particular type of food. There were of course sushi bars. But there were also tempura bars. And there were joints serving only chicken on skewers, and others serving only chicken hearts, gizzards and tendons on skewers. There were shabu shabu places, sukiyaki places, places that served horse, places that, sadly, served whale.

The legendary Mr. Hannosuke-san

One of my favorite meals in Tokyo was the dinner I had for my birthday with friend Joe at the tempura bar in the New Otani Hotel. I didn’t know tempura could be served at a bar, nor that it could be so good. More

The Ethics of Eating Meat

29 Jun 2012 16 Comments

by scolgin in Observations Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Periodically I enter contests. I don’t know why, because I rarely win. (You may still remember my entry to the Los Angeles Times “Best Burger” contest, which I was certain I would win until I discovered it was actually a “Burger with the Most Facebook Likes” popularity contest.) But hope springs eternal.

A couple months ago, my pal and sometime-Skinny-Girls-sidekick Nat sent me a link to a contest in the New York Times. “You should enter this,” he said. It was an essay contest on the ethics of eating meat.

More than an actual desire to win (the prize in this case being not a car or a trip to Hawaii but simply that your essay got published online), I enjoy entering these sorts of contests because it is a good impetus to think and write about things I might not otherwise think and write about. And though I often think and write about an ethical approach to eating meat, I had never gotten down to the actual marrow-bones ethics of it. (Nice recipe for marrow bones here, by the way…) More

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