26 Sep 2014 8 Comments
in Food, Humor, Observations, Pork Tags: abalone, Asian markets, chicken farming, Don Schneider, food, humor, opera, Pork, Portland, recipes
People often ask if we’re ever going to eat our pig, Henri. I explain that he’s a family pet, and no, we have no plans to eat him.
“Not even when he dies of natural causes?” my pal Dan asked.
“You mean like when an anvil falls on his head?” I replied.
Henri napping in the rosemary
I must admit, though … I did catch him napping in the rosemary one day, and thought to myself: “Now I could just build a quick mud oven around him, throw in some coals… and he’d never be the wiser.” More
19 Sep 2014 7 Comments
in Humor, Video Tags: breakfast, Don Schneider, eggs, Ferry Building, food, humor, Mexico, San Francisco, Topanga
“Why don’t you do a post about me?” 10-year-old Naomi Schneider said, gazing over my shoulder as I showed her various posts about her father and mother.
“Why would I do a post about you?” I answered.
Naomi
“Because,” she said.
I assured her that she must be somewhere on my blog, and began opening posts about Tuesday sushi nights and Mexico vacations and Sonoma wine barbecues and other Schneider-related topics, and finally found a group shot at the Ferry Building in San Francisco where a teeny, tiny Naomi could be spotted in a corner. More
29 Aug 2014 6 Comments
in Recipes Tags: catering, food, humor, Lake Tahoe, leftovers, recipes, risotto, scallops, soft shell crab, stracciatella
I used to complain to my wife about the fact that her sister — a caterer — would often drop by and “gift” us large quantities of food leftover from one of her jobs. There would be big Glad bags of pasta salads, large chunks of picked over cheese and half cakes.
I called it “the Dump,” and came to resent coming home to discover a fridge full of leftovers from someone-I-didn’t-know’s wedding that I was now responsible for either eating or assuming the guilt of throwing away.
Heirloom tomato & corn risotto with parmesan scallops, stracciatella
We don’t see her sister often these days, and it’s probably been nearly a decade since we last received a drop off. But our friends, Kristine and Simon, just moved to Lake Tahoe, and were back in Topanga to pack up. We invited them to dinner, and Kristine showed up with a canvas bag full of stuff. More
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
skinny girls & mayonnaise 