27 Dec 2013
by scolgin
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
by scolgin
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
20 Dec 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor
Tags: 2014, Cuba, food, food trucks, humor, paladar, pop-up restaurant, schmaltz, Thomas Keller, trends
Looking back on the fickle food winds of the past year, while such red hot trends from years past as organ meats, food trucks, bacon confections, pop-up restaurants, red velvet cake/cupcake/ice cream, gold leaf on food, foam and so forth begin their long and inevitable slide into cliché, I wonder what will become trendy in the coming year.
Hungry foraging guy, probably in Portland
Here are some of my predictions:
• 70s/80s Food
The music is back, so why not the food? We’ve seen the comfort foods of the 50s and 60s — fried chicken, mac and cheese, meatloaf — get their glowing due in the contemporary foodie renaissance. So isn’t it time for the return of the sun-dried tomato and the re-introduction of radicchio? Quiche and blackened catfish, anyone? More
25 Nov 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Markets & Stores, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: caviar, charcuterie, cooking, Epicure Imports, food, foodie, humor, North Hollywood, warehouse sale
I can’t remember who told me about it — a gourmet food sale to end all gourmet food sales. I was at a party somewhere, talking to someone, they described a nirvana of exotic food items, all at wholesale prices — in a sale that only happened a couple times a year, and only if you knew about it.
The line on the loading dock outside Epicure the opening morning of the Holiday sale
I had promptly forgotten all about it when, the next day, an email arrived from [whomever it was] with information on how to sign up for sale notifications and a link. I followed the link, gave them my name, and promptly forgot about it again. More
19 Nov 2013
by scolgin
in Good Gadget, Bad Gadget, Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories)
Tags: barbecue, Black Equities Group, food, gadgets, grilling, humor, rib eye, Scott Murphy, Topanga
People often give me items for cooking or the kitchen that are sometimes useful, sometimes not. And you never quite know at first in which direction they will fall.
The Scott Murphy Hat
For example, you may open a Christmas gift to discover a beautifully designed utensil from Williams-Sonoma that looks like something you couldn’t live without, and find over time that you have no use for it at all. Conversely, someone may hand you something you couldn’t imagine ever using, and it winds up being one of your MVPs (Most Valuable Products). Such was the case with the Scott Murphy hat. More
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