When my Mamma was growing up, almost no one cooked with olive oil. When I was growing up, no one baked with lard. Our family’s transition from butter to margarine and back again was repeated millions of times across the country in the 1980s and 90s, when studies on the adverse effects of trans fats […]

It happens suddenly. One minute, I’m walking through the crunchy yellow leaves and the crisp fall air, and the next, big globs of half-frozen snow are plopping down on the sidewalk – signifying, loud and clear, the end of always-too-short autumn and the start of honest-to-God winter. It’s like that day a few months ago, […]

Click on the video screen above to watch the third webisode in a series documenting The Dinner Belle’s A Feast Fit for a Queen soiree. In this webisode, The Dinner Belles take to the couch to pick sage leaves (for my Brown Butter Sage Pumpkin Ravioli), wrap gift boxes filled with Whole Wheat Apple Crunch […]

Her revolution started with taste. Back in 1971 when Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse, she wasn’t so much interested in becoming a restaurateur, as she was provoked to open a restaurant that would cater to her values. She wanted to feed the Berkeley revolutionaries and build a revolutionary meeting place that would, as she says, […]

I love San Francisco. I feel like I could live there. If I didn’t already live in the greatest city on the planet, a move might be imminent. As is, I give myself five years before the lure of The West is too profound to ignore. Ideally, I’d be bi-coastal. The thing is, I’ve never […]