Yesterday Victoria and I took a roadtrip to Dittmer’s, the fabulous German butcher that Katja recommended down in Mountain View. Katja was right–this is the place to stock up on German meats and miscellany. After cruising the shelves for kraut, almond paste, and so on, we bellied up to the meat bar and started discussing […]
Once the menu is sketched (it can and likely will change somewhat over the coming week), we figure out the shoping list. We always get lots of stuff at Nordic House as well as Costco and your basic grocery store (Albertson’s or Andronico’s), but this year we had to figure out where to get our […]
&tLast night, Jane came over and we held our planning session. Naturally this requires cocktails (gin gimlets, in this case). While we’re at it, here’s a recipe for a better gimlet: pour a generous shot of Tanqueray or Bombay Dry gin per person into a shaker filled with crushed ice, squeeze in half a lime […]
Next Sunday, Jane and Victoria and I are throwing the sixth annual-but-for-one-year smørgåsbord, this time featuring Germany as the guest country. We’ve decided to document the whole process here on the blog, complete with photos and recipes. Step 1: send out invitations We always email the invitations, modern women that we are. This year I […]
Every so often I get a little too big for my britches and try to make something basic into something fancy, just to show off. Case in point, last summer I needed to make something to take to a potluck picnic. Everybody loves meatloaf, but few of my generation seem to know how to make […]
It’s time to update the old-fashioned. An old-fashioned is, of course, a marriage of bourbon, bitters, water, sugar, and some fruit–usually a slice of orange and a maraschino cherry. Updating the recipe to take advantage of kumquat season, we get a new-fashioned: bourbon, a few dashes of bitters, several squeezed kumquats, and a kumquat garnish. […]
Here’s a shot of the family product, a Montclairberry-vodka infusion. We also make a rum variety. The backstory on this fabulous stuff, which we freeze and serve slushy, is in a post from long, long ago.
I like cooking and do a lot more of it than most people in my generation or the several generations before and after mine. However, at lunch time or when I’ve got nanoseconds before I need to run out the door to a gig, I cut corners. Unfortunately, I’ve been cutting corners more than usual […]
I just had that special French press moment. I was greedy. I’d enjoyed my morning coffee—lovingly prepared by the lovely V—so much, I just had to take that last sip, the one full of grounds and sludge. But there was something good in the moment: I was reading this column by the Bay Area’s own […]
I accidentally developed a recipe for grey Cosmopolitans, which I’ve named in honor of my grey cat, Norton, and San Francisco (home of the original Cosmopolitan cocktail)’s folk hero (see more on him here): Shake over ice: One part fresh-squeezed lime juice Four parts tangerine-zest-infused vodka (make this yourself by dumping a bunch of tangerine […]