My husband recently took me for a weekend trip to Calaveras County. What does that have to do with Grains of Paradise? Very little, except that I found this interesting spice while in Murphys, which along with Angels Camp reside in Calaveras County, California. Grains of Paradise Grains of Paradise, formally known as Aframomum...
What’s In a Name? Depending on the national laws of the country, the name caviar may also describe the roe of other fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish, and any number other species of sturgeon. The term is also used to describe dishes that are perceived to resemble caviar, such as “eggplant...
Sepideh sent me a cryptic email: "Do you know about sweet lemons?" was all she wrote. I replied that I thought, based on a quick glance at a sweet lemon in the neighborhood market, that it was like a Meyer's lemon. "Not so fast, my friend", was her response.
Mendocino County is as breathtaking as ever, but we recently stumbled across something that took us by surprise. My mother-in-law, who accompanied us on this trip, had heard of a restaurant called 10,000 Buddhas that intrigued her and she wanted us to go there for lunch. She said it was a Buddhist restaurant close...
A scene from one of the Planet of the Apes movies with Charleston Heston, came to mind the first time I saw the Sutro Baths. I was looking at a relic of the center of some thriving recreational activity for folks in San Francisco. Never heard of either place? If you are not from...
Last week, we spent the weekend exploring parts of Sonoma County, that we had left undiscovered, not by any deliberate design, but a somewhat happy consequence that we just had not made it there just yet. My husband found us a wonderful bed and breakfast just outside of Santa Rosa that proved to be...
Hands down, one of my favorite herbs is basil, there is just something about it that adds a bit of zing or flavor that I never get tired of, and I am a firm believer that just about anything you add basil to is better as a result. Having only married into a family...
Every year about this time in San Francisco, pepper lovers in the know eagerly check their CSA’s with the same anticipation as a child peeking into their Christmas stocking, “Is it there?” ”Have my wishes been answered”? What are they looking for? In my case, it was a nondescript small paper bag almost hidden...
I had one of those experiences where you feel like a bothersome puzzle piece just fell into place. I found some Pinquinto beans at a wonderful market called Phipps in Pescadero, California. I thought they sounded vaguely familiar and sure enough I was right. These little red beauties are unique to Santa Maria Valley,...
I was tempted to title this post “Spaghetti Western” because of the strange connection that agretti has to the American west. You see agretti could be considered an edible tumbleweed. It’s more famous relative can been seen in its meandering migration across the western plains. Agretti’s botanical name is Salsola soda, and this familial naming...
