Arsicault Bakery
Yeast-leavened French pastry or viennoiserie is a culinary miracle that traps the voluptuousness of fine, rich, sweet butter in layers of air and crunch, in the form of a golden croissant or a morning bun or a kouign amann. ( Kouign amann, a specialty of Brittany where some dishes keep their Celtic names, is puff [...]
Read More →City of Gold
City of Gold–A Documentary about Food Critic Jonathan Gold There aren’t very many of us who actually have worked as food critics for print publications. I did it for 15 years at the San Francisco Chronicle and for about 15 more years at the San Francisco Examiner. Way back when I started, no editorial wall [...]
Read More →Tosca
April Bloomfield’s rich, big flavored, Brit-style Italian cooking works uncannily well at Tosca, the iconic North Beach joint she and her partner Ken Friedman took over last year. Bloomfield and Friedman became the darlings of the New York food world ten years ago with their first restaurant, an Italian/British gastropub called The Spotted Pig, and [...]
Read More →b. on the go
A toasted sandwich, such as the iconic grilled cheese, delights because it is hardly a sandwich at all. A hot metal surface (and sometimes compression with a weight) transforms the bread into something thin, crisp and buttery, a sensual contrast to a soft, melted filling. At b. on the go, pastry chef Belinda Leong and [...]
Read More →El Molino Central
Tall, blonde, and larger than life, Karen Taylor Waikiki seems improbable as the chef/owner of the best taco stand in Northern California, but she knows exactly what it takes to cook luscious, fully realized Mexican food. At her destination taco stand in Boyes Hot Springs on the outskirts of the town of Sonoma, she starts [...]
Read More →El Molino Central Tall, blonde, and larger than life, Karen Taylor Waikiki seems improbable as the chef/owner of the best taco stand in Northern California, but she knows exactly what it takes to cook luscious, fully realized Mexican food. At her destination taco stand in Boyes Hot Springs on the outskirts of the town of [...]
Read More →The Breach–a movie about wild salmon
If wild salmon could talk, they might sound like the silvery stars of the documentary The Breach, who speak plaintively in a soft, feminine voice with an Irish lilt. By the end of this documentary, intermittently shot from the point of view of powerful fish swimming in pristine streams and magnificent bays in the wilderness of [...]
Read More →On the Fried Chicken Trail
The crunchy, spice-laden skin of good fried chicken may sell the dish, but a juicy, tender interior seals the deal. Great fried chicken has both, and our search for the ideal never ends. Fried chicken excites like no other iconic American dish, be it burger, pizza, burrito and yes, sushi. Here are three versions of [...]
Read More →On the Fried Chicken Trail
On the Fried Chicken Trail The crunchy, spice-laden skin of good fried chicken may sell the dish, but a juicy, tender interior seals the deal. Great fried chicken has both, and our search for the ideal never ends. Fried chicken excites like no other iconic American dish, be it burger, pizza, burrito and yes, sushi. [...]
Read More →Notes from Mexico City
Dinner Most of my favorite Mexico City restaurants serve late lunch, the main meal of the day, and not dinner but Maximo in Colonia Roma, within walking distance of The Red Tree House, is the exception for a blow out meal in a bistrot that has been called the Chez Panisse of Mexico City. It’s [...]
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