01 Apr 2014 9 Comments
in On the Road, Recipes, Video Tags: ceviche, gooseneck barnacles, humor, Japanese cooking, Malibu, percebes, Spain, Steve McQueen, sweet shrimp, tempura
I’ve always felt an affinity for the sea. Growing up near the shore, it was forever a part of my life. But it’s only been the last decade or so that I’ve begun to feel its pull in a more primal way, like gravity. I need the sea.
Dinner?
Fresh off a week of deep ocean connecting on the bluffs in Puerto Vallarta, we got invited to the bluffs in Malibu for a night with our friends Nadine and Andrew at the Steve McQueen beach house. Which was good, because I was already missing the sea. More
24 Jan 2014 12 Comments
in Food, Humor Tags: barbecue, California, Camping, carne asada, Endless Summer, grilling, Malibu, Mexican food, tequila, Winter
I had just finished lunch of Mexican food and ice-cold beer with my father and brothers, and was now standing outside the Home Depot in my t-shirt, shorts and flip flops, waiting for a customer service associate to swap out my empty Amerigas propane tank for a full one.
I would be barbecuing for friends this evening, and needed my back-up tank full just in case. After all, I’d had to use the Weber to cook my Christmas dinner when the main propane tank went dry. And suddenly, thinking of this, I had a moment of sadness. It was mid-January. Another 80-degree day, another cold beer, another barbecue… and what happened to winter, to whisky and braises?? We can’t even go skiing because there’s no snow in the mountains. As I write this, many of the mountains are, in fact, on fire.
Happy, lightly dressed girls, camping in January
I know it’s difficult for those of you friends in the Midwest, on the East Coast, and in Canada, Iceland, the British Isles and beyond, swallowed by various polar vortices, nor’easters, blizzards, ice storms and so on, to have much sympathy for our plight. More
06 Sep 2013 8 Comments
in On the Road, Recipes, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), World's Best Sandwiches Tags: food, humor, Keith Moon, Lindsay Buckingham, Ludo Lefebvre, LudoBites, Malibu, Pierce Brosnan, Steve McQueen, Trois Mec
There are many interesting stories surrounding the Steve McQueen beach house in Malibu. Some of the most colorful involve him and his neighbor, the notoriously rowdy British drummer for the Who, Keith Moon.
Morning at the Steve McQueen beach house
Once, for example, exasperated by Moon’s refusal to turn off a light in an upstairs bathroom that shone into McQueen’s bedroom, the actor grabbed a gun and shot the light out. Another time, he found Moon passed out in a full Nazi uniform at the bottom of his beach access stairs. The tide was rising, and would soon overtake the stairs, and McQueen had to consider for a moment whether or not to drag the despised neighbor to higher ground. More
03 Sep 2013 15 Comments
in Eating Out, Recipes, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: Ernie Demontreux, food, humor, Malibu, pop-up restaurant, Topanga Canyon, Topanga Elementary, Trust Ranch, Wine Guerrilla
In cooking, as in many things in life, it’s all a matter of scale.
The chefs — (l to r) your humble author and pals, Ernie and Peri
“That’s not enough gazpacho for 60 people!” my wife declared, alarmed, as I walked through the kitchen with a gallon bag a quarter full of soup. “I have another bag,” I said.
“It’s still not enough!” More
23 Jul 2013 9 Comments
in Eating Out Tags: Carbon Beach, Foodie.com, humor, Larry Ellison, Malibu, Nikita, restaurants, Shannen Doherty, Vic Ate Here, Vic Zaud
When our friends Vic and Jessie invited us out to dinner, who were we to say “no”? We love them, and besides being a person of fine taste and author of the restaurant blog, Vic Ate Here (he got his review up before me — how is that possible considering 12 hours ago we had just sat down for our reservation!?), Vic is also the man behind the wonderful new food website, Foodie.com, and wanted to treat us to an evening checking out one of our fine city’s newer restaurants.
Waiting for Nikita
They chose to take us to Nikita, a new restaurant in Malibu funded by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison — one of the richest men in the United States, who likes fine things and has been busily buying up a swatch of Malibu’s Carbon Beach. More
skinny girls & mayonnaise 