Clik here to view.
review: cooking is back… (kong hans kælder)
~ It used to be that people talked about dishes. Now, they talk about names. Those of you who read this blog or follow me on social media know that I have been fairly critical of the way the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
travel: toward a facile familiarity…
~ The Norwegian Airline strike was a refrain during the latest Friends of Lysverket weekend in Bergen. It came up repeatedly in conversation. The strike had gone on way too long, keeping thousands of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
rumination 31: a martyr and a millionaire…
One of my biggest criticisms about food media today is that they tell us what is “good,” instead of telling us what we need to know in order to determine what is good, for ourselves. They tell us...
View ArticleClik here to view.
save the date: kansas city… (friends of james beard foundation dinner)
~ This year marks the seventeenth annual Friends of James Beard Foundation dinner at The American Restaurant in Kansas City, the longest-running fundraising dinner for the foundation in the country....
View ArticleClik here to view.
travel: cinnamon and midnight toasts… (helsinki)
~ My first trip to Finland was in 2005, when I took an overnight cruise from Stockholm to the ancient capital of Turku on the country’s west coast. That day-stop – which only gave me enough time to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
review: the wider, richer universe… (fäviken magasinet)
~ I might die in this car. And if I don’t, I’ll probably miss my flight. And if I miss this flight, then I’m probably going to miss my connecting flights. And that means that I won’t get to New York...
View ArticleClik here to view.
collaboration: friends of lysverket 5… (qui)
~ If the clouds are just so, and if you happen to look at the right time – just before midnight in a mid-calendar month – the skies over Bergen, Norway will appear as if they’re on fire. Summer had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
travel: for bothwell and tandsmør…
~ In 1559, while sailing through the Dano-Norwegian kingdom (at the time, the two were united under the Danish crown), a Scottish admiral fell in love with the daughter of the Danish admiral (who was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
save the dates: the twelve days of christmas (2015)…
~ Thirty-six meals and tens of thousands of photos ago, I arrived at Meadowood Napa Valley for my first Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood. In the three, short years since, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the first day of christmas: humm… (2015)
~ There are few restaurants about which I have been more enthusiastic than Eleven Madison Park in the first couple of years that Daniel Humm became head chef there. If you look back on this blog,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the second day of christmas: mlinarevic… (2015)
~ A last-minute trip to Switzerland earlier this year landed me within commuting distance of Focus, a two Michelin-starred restaurant at the Park Hotel Vitznau on the quiet banks of Lake Lucerne....
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the third day of christmas: puglisi… (2015)
~ At a dinner at relæ in Copenhagen a few months ago, I marveled at the amount of flavor coaxed out of carrots and seaweed – an unexpectedly dynamic marriage – and how simple and delicious chicken...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the fourth day of christmas: vallejo… (2015)
~ One of the most memorable meals I’ve had in Mexico City was at Quintonil in the city’s posh Polanco district. The cooking there combined the saturated flavors and colors of Mexican cookery with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the fifth day of christmas: skenes… (2015)
~ I have eaten at Saison (San Francisco) nearly twenty times, and at The Restaurant at Meadowood (St. Helena) nearly fifty times. With only one exception*, I have eaten at these two restaurants more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the sixth day of christmas: wilkinson… (2015)
~ At the start of this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood, there was only one chef with whom I was not familiar at all. I had neither heard of Matt Wilkinson, nor his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the seventh day of christmas: floresca and ryan… (2015)
~ Two more impressive culinary resumés you will hardly find in a pair than Kim Floresca‘s and Daniel Ryan‘s. (It’d also be a challenge to find two more lovely and generous people.) Between the two of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the eighth day of christmas: mchale… (2015)
~ One of the three guest chefs at this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas whose restaurants I have not visited is Isaac McHale and his Clove Club in London, England.* I know of him, of course, from his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the ninth day of christmas: connaughton… (2015)
~ Single Thread Farms Restaurant & Inn was conceived long before I first met Kyle Connaughton in March of 2014 at the Rediscovering Coastal Cuisine event in Carmel, California. I know this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the tenth day of christmas: tanaka…. (2015)
~ He speaks Japanese, of course. But he also speaks Spanish, French, and more English than I speak in any of those languages. His name is Atsushi Tanaka, and I ate at his Restaurant A.T. in Paris...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 days: on the eleventh day of christmas: yu… (2015)
~ A dinner series called the Twelve Days of Christmas hosted by a Jewish chef wouldn’t be complete without Chinese food, right? Enter: Justin Yu. He’s the chef and co-owner of Oxheart, a restaurant in...
View Article