14 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in Recipes Tags: calamari, food, Greece, Greek food, humor, kolokithokeftedes, octopus, ouzo, recipes, squid
We missed our Tuesday sushi night. But the Schneiders were hungry and still wanted to eat. So we switched over to Wednesday, and at Monica’s suggestion, changed the menu to Greek.
I was pleased, as I’d been craving Greek food and had even purchased stuff to make a Greek dinner. Earlier that week Don had even accidentally smashed a plate at our house — all signs were pointing toward Greece. More
01 Aug 2014 21 Comments
in Observations Tags: Anniversary, Antarctica, blogging, food, humor, Le Creuset, Lex Luthor, Skinny Girls & Mayonnaise
I was blogging along happily one day, when I realized I was approaching my 400th post.
I launched Skinny Girls & Mayonnaise on August 8, 2010, with a volley of posts I had written and prepared — there were posts on the great Yucatan pork speciality, cochinita pibil, and how with it I’d converted two vegetarians; the spectacular torta cubano; the importance of salt, and the unimportance of quinoa — a grain that would, for the purposes of this blog, play Lex Luthor to my Superman. I wanted the blog to look like it had been around for awhile, so within the first week I published a total of nineteen posts.
The old pan, circa 2014
One of the earliest posts was about an old pan I had inherited in my 20s from whomever lived in my Santa Monica rent control apartment before me. Some two decades later, I still had the pan. And still used it more than the various Emile Henry, Le Creuset and other fancy bakeware I now had in my cupboard. More
29 Jul 2014 19 Comments
in Observations Tags: Christians, coyotes, creativity, food, God, humor, Jews, philosophy, Renaissance, scat
Being of an inherently inquisitive nature and surrounded, as I am, by every imaginable philosophical position — an atheist father, a recovering Catholic mother with Taoist leanings, Evangelical in-laws, Jewish and agnostic and pagan friends, yogis and rednecks — I spend a fair amount of time trying to figure things out.
A neighbor
Being also surrounded, as I am, by beautiful nature, my musings are often influenced by the wild. One recent morning while running in the state park, I happened past some coyote scat. Coyote scat, for those unfamiliar with the stuff, is an amalgam of fruit stones, tiny seeds, light colors and dark colors, presumably some meatstuff. More
25 Jul 2014 11 Comments
in Food Tags: Amadeus, barbecue, bone marrow, Disney Frozen, Elsa, food, recipes, summer, Texas-style brisket
My breathtakingly beautiful, heartbreakingly headstrong daughter, Imogen, was turning 4. Her birthday week was upon us (“I can’t believe I’m four today!” she began saying daily a week before the actual date.) We invited a dozen or so of her pals, their siblings and families for the party — which meant somewhere between 40 and 50 guests, large and small.
Imogen and Pepito
Many people, when they do parties, plan them from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. — or, if they don’t want to serve lunch, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Many of these parties take place at parks, indoor trampoline venues, laser tag facilities and the like. More
08 Jul 2014 16 Comments
in Food, Humor, Observations Tags: breakfast, chicken, eggs, food, God, humor, Kauai coffee, Nick Cave, Topanga
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
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
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