The custom of eating pork on New Year’s is based on the notion that pigs symbolize progress or prosperity for many cultures – not a connection that may immediately come to mind. The animal pushes forward, rooting in the ground before moving, symbolizing progress. In Italy, the fatty meat also symbolizes the fattening of...
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On blustery, rainy days, much like today here in San Francisco, I imagine I am curled up under my favorite blanket engrossed in a book, sipping a liqueur and nibbling a biscotti and some chocolates. Actually indulging in this scenario does not happen often enough to my liking. Now the liqueurs I have in...
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A topic smoldering in the back of my mind for some months as I’ve seen variations on this theme for months because of numerous holidays. When is bread more than bread? Or perhaps a bit more generally, when do baked goods serve a higher purpose? I’ve unearth a few instances, and I am sure...
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Jean-Antheleme Brillat-Savarin called cheese “milk’s leap toward immortality” and I couldn’t agree more. If cheese is something you like sandwiched between two sheets of plastic, than you will not appreciate this post. But if you’ve had the real live thing – you are passionate about what cheese is and can appreciate its diversity...
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I’d been cooking with fish sauce for a while and knew well its potency and pungency, but until I broke a bottle and liberally doused myself and had to suffer through folks quickly backpeddling to give me “breathing space” did I really get it – this stuff is strong – really, really, strong! No wonder the...
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I learned my lesson about being hesitant about trying sheep cheese, and eagerly jumped in with both feet to try goat cheese. I was ready to be impressed, and was not disappointed. Goat cheese, with the fresh kind also known as chevre, is made from goat milk. Goat cheese comes in a wide variety of...
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I’ve been around enough to know that sometimes when you are having a conversation with someone regarding a topic you are both familar with from your own culture and experience, while you may be agreeing, what you are actually agreeing to, is miles apart from what the other fellow thinks.
I’ll never forget, I was...
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Last week we took my father-in-law to A16 for dinner, here in San Francisco for his birthday. We had a wonderful meal, and thankfully we elected to eat family style, as I got to sample to my heart’s content. While everything we consumed was amazing, one of the appetizers we ordered, really struck me, and not least...
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Like much of life, fortified wines were born from necessity. In this case, to preserve European wines on long trade voyages in the 16th and 17th centuries. Brandy was added either before or during the fermentation process to stabilize the wines, and improve their shelf life. As might be imagined, traditional wines did not store well in the...
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photo from sfgate.com
In preparing a recent post on raw fish, I developed a craving for cerviche, and really who could blame me? Living in San Francisco, there was one restaurant on my radar that I knew could offer me an authentic, or at least close proximally, of the Peruvian cerviche I desired:...
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