Chef Reinvented

How to hand forge a simple knife in ten grueling hours with significant forearm torture

2012-01-28T22:33:00.000-08:00

One might think, from the title, that I'm prone to being over-dramatic, which - in fact - would be a correct assumption, but more importantly, I'm here to tell you that making tools by hand with fire and steel is not for wimps. There's a reason, a very good reason, we let machines (or migrant labor) do most of our work now. In short, hard work is HARD! Nonetheless, when my friend

Curse you Rachel Finkelstein*

2011-11-10T09:51:00.001-08:00

Photo attribution: Creative Commons License from Equalization Schools; Rebekah Dobrasko A version of this article appeared in the September/October issue of Edible Seattle Magazine where I recently got the DREAM JOB of writing a food humor column every month on the back page called "Back of the House" Miracle Whip is Satan’s sandwich spread. I know this because on one of only two

Basic to Brilliant, Y'all: or how I revealed my super-not-so-secret-chefcrush to my wife

2011-10-04T00:22:00.000-07:00

photos by the awesome and talented Helene Dujardin Pretend that you are the proverbial fly on the wall: Me: April, I have something to tell you.... I... I think, uh, I think I have a chefcrush. April: A what crush? Me: A chefcrush, totally innocent. April: {cue stone cold stare, one eyebrow reaching for the ceiling} Me: You know, like when you respect

Portland, Oregon: City of (st)INK and roses

2011-09-01T02:29:00.000-07:00

The recession is worse than I thought, Portland -it appears- is for lease. I was recently down in Portland, Oregon to do a couple bookish events, one at the Whole Foods in the Pearl District and the other at Robert Reynolds Chef Studio (take a class here - he's wonderful!). I've lived in Seattle for 16 years and had just barely scratched the surface of our sister city to the south. Until

5 wild foods that will make you richer, prettier, and even more delusional

2011-07-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

#1 Rose hips Dried on the vine rose hip, best from the species Rosa rugosa I love the tart, cranberry-like acidity of rose hips, chopped up and infused into teas, added to sauces served with fish, or made into jam. Walk on by this dried up one and harvest them earlier, just after the first frost (they are sweeter then). Peggy over at About.com wrote a nice little piece about the culinary

So you want to write a cookbook?

2011-06-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

Take a conversation on Twitter the other day where I tried to gently educate folks about unagi (eel) and how it is likely on its way to extinction. Some people were surprised to hear this and lamented how it is their favorite item to order at the sushi

I fucking hate Vegas

2009-11-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of cannonsnapperAs he was walking through the casino, I could make out his t-shirt miles before I could make out his facial features. It said, "I like boobs."Actually, if I were more precise I'd type it all in caps: “I LIKE BOOBS!” because nothing in Vegas is said in a whisper, and that applies to overpriced souvenir t-shirts with deep statements such as this, just as surely as

Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager

2009-10-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Spend any time with me and Langdon and you'll feel like you've regressed to some 70's suburban living room scene, with siblings lovingly spatting, trading barbs and one-upping each other. I keep telling him he's the little brother I never wanted. Turns out, he's older than me. Not that he acts like it, mind you.Introduced by a mutual friend, he's one of those people that I felt instantly related

My omnivore's dilemma

2009-09-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

Looking out at the hen house from insidethe poultry processing shed.(The following post discusses the slaughtering of animals, in some detail. You may want to put down whatever you are eating.)On September 8th, I followed through with a strange promise to myself. It went thusly: that, no matter what fear or trepidation I might have, I would kill - with my own hands - some of the animals I was

Mission: Sustainable

2009-09-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

duhn duhn DA na duhn duhn DA na duhn duhn DA naduhn duhn DA na. DA-NA-NA. DA-NA-NA. Duhn NUH!There's this game called "I never." Most people know how to play, but for those who don't, you sit around in a room and say something (usually something fairly funny or shocking) such as: "I've never had sex with a pygmy goat from Afghanistan." If you or anyone else in the room can't honestly say that's

Damson plums make the best jam.

2009-08-29T03:32:00.000-07:00

NYC Union Square Farmer's Market, Photo Credit: j_bary There are many possible paths to take if you contemplate the life cycle of a piece of fruit. A biologist sees flower, pollen, pollinator, fruiting body, seed dispersal. A farmer sees drought cycles, fertilizer, pests, hybridization, ripeness, seed saving. A poet sees the developing fruit, a blush of color appearing on the skin and

For the love of oysters, sushi and nephews

2009-08-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

I remember eating my first raw oyster just as surely as others remember their virginal lake dive, hands pointed together in prayer, toes death-gripped to the splintery edge of the dock, knees knocking together like that obnoxiously fun kid's toy Clackers, moments before cracking open the still black surface of the water. I approached the oyster with the same knocking knees, sure that my culinary

Cookbook Title FAIL

2009-07-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

The problem with getting blog inspiration from self-deprecating personal disasters (see the tart story from 2 weeks ago) is that if you have a pretty good string of days, where total humiliation has eluded you, you might find yourself lacking in material. And when I say you, I mean me. Some people call it writer's block. You could call it Blogger's Block but that sounds dumb, so we won't. And

Life is just a bowl of (Montmorency) Cherries

2009-07-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

Here's some unsolicited advice: Never. Ever. Pat yourself on the back.Or, if you insist on patting yourself on the back continue the motion and swing your hand up and around and smack yourself firmly and briskly upside the head. Pride is a fickle, tricky fool. Not even a minute into your self-celebration, you can find yourself staring, dumbfounded, into the eyes of your own humiliation. It's as

My heart belongs to M.F.K. Fisher

2009-07-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

M.F.K Fisher striking a pose and displaying what years of raw oyster slurping can do for your complexion. It used to be that "food" writing was seen as a lesser form of writing; stories about food were relegated to the so-called "women's pages" - a euphemistic term that sounded okay but must have felt like a feminine ghetto. The notion of food writing getting real journalistic respect from

D-Day

2009-06-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

I've been on a roll, lately. When I say roll, I want you to think of a soft, squishy bun piled high with tasty vittles. Vittles that are carefully selected, with extra points going to meaty bits with an address of origin I can visit. Last time I wrote, we were driving to Olympia, Washington to pick up 1/4 of Lil'Runt, a steer from a rancher named Gary Iverson. The whole way back to Seattle, with

The Standard Deviation of a Steak

2009-06-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit: Lara Ferroni101 of you answered my question about how much beef you consume. You may be wondering why I was inquiring. Let's leave that for a moment and first check my study design and its inherent flaws.I'm going to have to channel my college self here. Walk with me through memory lane as I plumb the depths of my past to find 20 year old me sitting in a Statistics class. It's

A fairy tale dinner

2009-06-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

My knight in shining armor (or a long sleeved gray t-shirt, but whatever)Most of the following events happened. Some are exaggerated well beyond the truth. I call it "creative" license. You would probably call it lying. My family might call it "telling a good story". Let's agree to disagree.My biggest complaint in this life is that no one, save for a few special people, cooks for me. Even

Typical Chef

2009-05-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

The wine goddess and I have this ongoing argument. The kind that when you get into it, you know it’s completely pointless and that one of you - the one feeling most mature at that moment - should sound the beep beep beep, this truck is backing up sound and leave the scene. Some days both parties dig their heels in, checking their footing to make sure it’s good and secure.The quicksand in our

Hungry Monkey

2009-05-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

He had me at this line:"I won't buy strawberries from California, not because I'm a dogmatic locavore but because strawberries from California suck."Well, Mr. Amster-Burton, author of Hungry Monkey: A food-loving father's quest to raise an adventurous eater, I couldn't agree more.Matthew is a friend, an uber-talented writer and a most excellent father. I read his book in like, oh, 4 minutes. I

Food Movies at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF)

2009-05-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Go on, if you live in Seattle, go git your tickets early.Food, Inc.USA, 2008, 94 min.4:15 p.m. May 30, Egyptian7 p.m. May 31, EgyptianYou are what you eat, the saying goes. But do you really KNOW what you eat? Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the curtain on the unsavory practices of our nation’s food industry. The film illustrates how the corporate purveyors of food products have literally gotten

Does this blog make me look fat?

2009-05-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

Imagine this entry filled with words. Words all about the most amazingly enjoyable day I had foraging for clams with some friends recently.There would have been my photos too, albeit amateur and taken with my cellphone. There would have been some irreverent comments I'm sure. But you see, one of my friends wrote such a perfect summation of our day that all that I could possibly add to it would

The return of local meat to Western Washington

2009-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile, I get the opportunity to take chef education road trips. There was the one to Quillisascut which was formative, to say the least. There was the yacht trip that I cheffed on where we followed the Inside Passage to Alaska. There were international trips, to Thailand, Central America, Argentina, France, and Italy.Then there are the trips where I don't even leave my house; when

Sauteed stomach butterflies, side of intense fear

2009-04-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

Words of wisdom: If you volunteer, half-jokingly, to make dinner for a famous chef in your house, make sure the half of you that wasn't joking is prepared to follow through. When I say follow through, I'm not talking just about producing the meal, I'm talking about not bloody freaking the hell out with nerves prior to the meal.Seattle Tall Poppy, as she is often in the position, was given the

PCC Cooks takes IACP honors, acronyms rule day!

2009-04-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

First off, let me just say how proud I am of PCC Cooks, the avocational cooking school I've been teaching at for the last 4 years that just took the 2009 Award of Excellence at the International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference (IACP). Huge kudos to Marilyn McCormick, Jackie DeCicco, Rachel Welker and Alicia Guy for making the program the huge success we always knew it was. Now,

Stinging Nettle Trips a Huge Success! Tour Leader Only Casualty.

2009-04-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Spring.Or, as the Wine Goddess says, “the war between winter and summer”. It’s a time, she offers, filled with "hesitant optimism".For me, spring means one and only one thing: Stinging nettles.In this war between winter and summer, I fancy myself a culinary warrior and healthful, delicious nettles are my booty, the spoils worth the stings.This spring we led two foraging adventures on Vashon

Warning - Food Allergy RANT, just ahead.

2009-04-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

This entry is overdue. Long overdue.More and more people are being diagnosed with various food allergies and intolerances. Some, no doubt, are dubious. I’m thinking of the woman in the restaurant I worked at who claimed she had a severe dairy allergy. We made a special dinner for her and made sure there was no dairy of any kind in her meal. Later, we watched her eat the entirety of her husband’s

UselessKitchenKrap

2009-04-06T01:04:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's the plastic egg cracker!Exactly what you need to instantly create more unnecessary dishes.I used to think that I'd start a blog called: UselessKitchenKrap.com. The idea was that I'd snap a picture of some totally ridiculous tool; Something that the manufacturer claimed would change your life. My idea was to post a pic of the useless gadget, describe its intended purpose, rip

Cupcakes are so, like, last week

2009-03-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

I recently heard on a radio program that cupcake shops are, in one person's opinion, so ubiquitous as to render them oversaturated on our streets and therefore, she concluded, passe.Huh.She's right in one sense; They have been sprouting up all over, especially peppering the streets of hip, urban areas. But since when does something so good as to encourage replication mean it becomes so last week?

Play date.

2009-03-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

Quail eggs with toasted cumin seed and parsley gelee.In the background watermelon "shot glasses" filled with olive oilMonday was my day off. I had a packed weekend of work with a private dinner/class Friday night, a PCC class with April (Northwest Wine and Dine) on Saturday and a nettle-foraging trip to Vashon with cooking class on Sunday (phew!) You'd think I'd sit on the couch and do nothing

G and G cookies

2009-03-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

Look closely in the upper left of this pic. Even my dog is very, very tempted.Sometimes our ability to think freely is limited by knowing too much.I've probably made over a hundred batches of chocolate chip cookies, but not once have I ever thought of adding freshly grated ginger to the mix. I had a nice-sized box of E. Guittard chocolate wafers that the wine goddess and I had been rewarding

Why I love Seattle

2009-03-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

I love Seattle because people here actually give a crap about our world, are smart enough to come up with creative ideas to make it better, and have the technological know-how to make these concepts accessible to the rest of us.The idea is so painfully simple one wonders why we've never seen this before. Think Match.com for gardening. Person A has yard space that, for whatever reason, they don't

94111

2009-03-02T22:23:00.001-08:00

The Ferry BuildingSan Francisco, California.We all have those places that evoke distinct emotional responses. Just typing “San Francisco” on my keyboard pulls at my memories, inspiring waves of nostalgia. I lived in Berkeley in 1992 for 3 short months. I had packed up all my personal belongings, threw them in the trunk of my lemon of a hand me down from my Dad and took off from upstate New York

Public Service Announcement. Check your passport.

2009-02-27T10:47:00.001-08:00

Some people go to Disneyland when they go to the L.A. area, others stroll Hollywood Boulevard picking out their favorite stars immortalized on the sidewalks. Some walk Venice Beach, people-watching and tacky trinket-buying. Those with means or those who aspire to attain means stroll Rodeo Drive, with stops at Cartier and Versace.We drove 19 hours from Seattle to L.A. this week and I had only

Digest or be digested.

2009-02-23T23:21:00.000-08:00

These are the days...It’s a gorgeous, late winter day; 55 degrees and sunny. An early morning dog-walk brings the smell of Daphne adora to my dormant nasal passages. This is going to be a DAY, I can feel it. My buddy Jet is back home from Vietnam, having just led a bike tour over there. We worked together at the Herbfarm for many years, at times the only women in the kitchen. We developed

Divalicious

2009-02-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

I love Lynne Vea. I want to squish her up in a little ball and throw her up and down in the air. (Relax, Lynne, that's a good thing.) She has more energy in her left index fingernail than I have in my whole body on a really good day, pumped full of speed. She's so enthusiastic she creates her own trail of joyful, imaginary children in her wake, popping the bubbles wafting off her personality (

This little piggy went to a conference...

2009-02-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

Last Monday I spent the day cavorting with fabulous people at the annual Farmer-Chef Connection, an all day conference with a fairly self-explanatory title. It's a day I look forward to all year, for hanging with old friends, chatting up the farmers, eating great cheese, sipping on local wine, and listening to fascinating panel discussions. Now you're probably reading this blog because you like

Blood of Satan and other delicious warm beverages

2009-02-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

I'm home in bed after fooling myself for a day that I had bad allergies. I've since come to my senses and realized I have one of the most kick your ass flus I've had in my adult life. A kid can swing a fever no problem. I remember being 8 and I had a 104 fever and only then did I tell someone, "hey I feel a little hot!" But now, here, at my age, with the mercury lingering around 101.5... I

Save the liver!

2009-02-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

In just a week's time I will fully download my experience of my duels with a diva. Suffice it to say that I experienced some first-class jitters while I demonstrated butchering a duck, making quick and efficient work de-skinning my knuckle. The flesh-wound led a commenter to suggest that if you missed the class, Dan Ackroyd's Julia Child impersonation might be a nice stand-in. (Tip o' the

It's a good day for Good Food

2009-02-02T20:46:00.000-08:00

Taken at Post Alley, Pike Place Market. How totally cool tohave 91 1/2 Post Alley as your address.It seems that Mondays are frequently my day to myself, not necessarily by choice (not to imply that this is a bad thing). Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest work days, Sundays April and I try to preserve mostly for ourselves. Come Monday when April is back at work until the wee hours, I often

Dueling Divas

2009-01-26T16:06:00.001-08:00

Gotta love the expressions on these two women, sopranos from Florida with a taste for comedy, who spell "duelling" with two "l"s - because, as it is rumored, each diva insisted on having her own "L".I'm no singer, I'm certainly no diva and what I proposed to teach this quarter at PCC is certainly not a duel, one "l" or two, but no matter, "Dueling Divas" is a catchy sort of name (thanks to PCC

Good Morning

2009-01-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

Welcome to a kinder, gentler, smarter United States of America.

The new economy

2009-01-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

Reading the Sunday paper at a local coffee spot is a much-anticipated weekend activity. We don't always get to do it, but when we do, it's such a lazy luxury. Every once in awhile I peek over the edge of my section and catch the wine goddess' eyes and share some little random bit of news. Recently my report goes like this: "Holy hell, listen to this, blah blah blah's restaurant just closed!" We

B'stilla

2009-01-05T23:03:00.000-08:00

Also known as Pastilla, Bsteeya, Bastilla or in Arabic: بسطيلة‎B'stilla is a Moroccan dish traditionally made with squab (aka a pigeon that hasn't yet learned to fly) Awwww, that makes me sort of sad. Not sad enough not to eat it, mind you, just sad enough to say "awwww". If I were a poet I might say, as Ogden Nash did,Toward a better world I contribute my modest smidgen; I eat the squab, lest

Would I or wouldn't I?

2008-12-29T17:01:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love most about this profession is that I get to meet all kinds of people and talk about food, a subject that is the world's common denominator (I dare say, I've even bonded with a few double-Bush voting Republicans when we stick strictly to the topic of food).In my conversations with people, I get asked a similar set of general questions: what is your speciality? How do you

Think outside the sled

2008-12-28T15:55:00.000-08:00

I wasn't kidding when I said I had visions of sledding on sheet trays last week. To be accurate, these are serving trays not sheet pans but they made for excellent and surprisingly speedy downhill vehicles. We met some especially crafty Seattle-ites who propelled themselves down the steep hills of closed streets in letter-carrier boxes, hefty bags, on skateboards with no wheels, mattresses,

Sushi, tequila and the pursuit of happiness

2008-12-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

This just in: 3-4" of snow completely shuts down Seattle. Completely. Utterly. As in everything grinds to a halt. As in Bubkus, capital B.This week, my fair city regressed into a little city-baby, crying out for succor, so totally freaked out by the fluffy white stuff that our local NPR station found it necessary to direct an entire hour of programming to the scintillating topic "are

Are those beets in my closet?

2008-12-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

Beet salad with goat cheese, dill and DuChilly hazelnutsWhen people who claim they "eat everything" and "hate nothing" are really pushed on the issue, inevitably a few items are dredged out of their past and brought out into the light. Topping the list (if we exclude certain gimmes in the offal category - liver, tongue, sweetbreads - nothing sweet or bread about them) are Brussels sprouts (aka "

ไม้ ใหม่ ไม่ ไหม้ ไหม

2008-12-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

a little slice of heavenI've long since forgotten the name of the little restaurant in Chiang Mai, the one where I sat down and said in my most earnest and embarrassingly inept Thai the equivalent of "I'd like your regional speciality." I had been taking Thai lessons with a friend back in Seattle leading up to my trip. I had the numbers down pretty well and could speak fairly fluent "menu" (my

Naughty and Nice

2008-12-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

I like lists. Rather, I like to cross things off lists.I used to have this habit of collecting other people's shopping lists that I'd find abandoned in carts, partially crossed off, or stuck to the floor of the local grocery store aisle. I'd pick them up at farmer's markets and shove them deep into my pockets. I'd see them at convenience stores in people's hands and read them, on the sly,

Close your eyes. Smell.

2008-12-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

Guinea pig, smelling the world, waiting to be adopted at the Seattle PoundOutside Charleston, South Carolina: We're over at my cousin's house and I'm eating for 2, but I'm not pregnant unless you count my growing "food" baby as a separate entity from myself. I've been eating my way through our visit here, giddily slurping down piles of local "cluster" oysters thrown on the grill, savoring shrimp

House-cleaning

2008-11-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

I can’t say I’m a firm believer in the body's need for regular detoxification or “cleanses”. I will admit, however, that the idea of it sounds right, especially right now, bloated on Thanksgiving indulgences, but the act of doing it feels a little like irretrievably lost life moments. These last few months of ingredient deprivation were worthwhile - I suppose - but like a life of obsessively

Tastes like the ocean

2008-11-26T01:29:00.000-08:00

Taken from Mt. Constitution, Orcas Island, San Juan IslandsYou have to know your audience when giving cooking instructions. I forgot this important detail tonight.You see, there are two types of people in the world: "those who are comfortable with a little ambiguity" and "those who most definitely are not". To be more precise (and now I've just given away which type I lean towards) the latter

Psychic Kevlar

2008-11-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

I was in a dour mood yesterday. Perhaps it’s because I read the paper. I do most days and try my hardest to position my psychic Kevlar protective barrier so that I don’t let the sadness of the world seep so deep into my consciousness that I lose my sense of humor. Some days I win, other days there are microscopic holes in the barrier and in it creeps. Forget the local section – I’ve long since

Fist bump to the gluten-intolerant!

2008-11-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

As I was eating my bagel this morning, I took a moment to send a little piece of gratitude out into the world that I was eating my bagel this morning. I have several friends who are celiacs (aka gluten makes them dog-sick) and several others who are allergic to wheat. It isn't a pretty thing to have unless, perhaps, it becomes something worth celebrating (see gluten-free girl if you are not sure

R.I.P little man

2008-11-15T01:53:00.000-08:00

My bff had to put her cat Hobbes down today, just weeks after her weight-challenged cat Gilda up and left this world, freeing up kibble for starving cats the world over. Gilda got more than her fair share, bless her heart. Hobbes, though, he never could keep the weight on so he was affectionately known as “Keith Richards”. I thought that after Gilda died, Hobbes would be free to enjoy his golden

The best coffee shops in Seattle start with a "V"

2008-11-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

I take sushi and coffee very seriously. Life is simply too short to waste your appetite or your caffeine headache on a second-rate place in a city with top quality fish and beans. In order to determine which places I will re-visit, I subject unexplored establishments to a form of a stress test. At sushi joints, I order a hamachi hand roll. If the nori remains crisp, if they've used the best, most

La Spiga

2008-11-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

Exactly a year before I spent two months in Italy I decided it was high-time, after 3 great years, to leave the Herbfarm nest and set my sights on something new. I walked straight from the gardens in Woodinville right through the front door of La Spiga, the well-known osteria on Capitol Hill specializing in all things from the region of Emilia-Romagna. I spent one wonderful year making their

Pinch me.

2008-11-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

Since I last wrote, things have really changed.In my ideal fantasy world the fact that our new president has a black father and a white mother would be only one detail about them; one aspect out of many in a multi-faceted individual. Much as it pains me to admit it, we don't live in my fantasies (curses!) so this detail, this small fact is no small fact, it is the very thing that has for so long

Choices, choices

2008-10-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

Some decisions are easy to make. I'll pick a random example out of the ether to illustrate my point: who will I be voting for on Nov. 4th? It's a no-brainer. I need only consult my pumpkin.Some decisions are incredibly hard to make. I have 3 days left on this elimination diet and then I get to decide which food I will test first. Shall it be wheat or wine? Do I go for the bagels or the booze?

And now for a truly scary pumpkin

2008-10-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Emboldened by my hopeful Obama pumpkin I decided to build upon the lovely descending gourd display my neighbor set up at the doorway to our building. There really weren't quite enough pumpkins to accurately portray the market decline but I did the best I could with what I had.

If you can't eat it, carve it.

2008-10-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

I doubt pumpkins would really give me much of an intolerance problem but they're easy enough for me to avoid so when my friend saved the seeds for me and asked me if I wanted to roast them, I scooped them up and tossed them in the compost. I felt like I earned some sort of point in my favor, counterbalancing the Dow Jones-pizza-free-fall that I was involved in last week.Tonight was our condo's

No eating necessary

2008-10-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

The personal pizza is political

2008-10-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

If a person eats 2 slices of pizza while making political calls on behalf of progressive Washington state candidates in a small office in Seattle, can anyone digest it? Here I am caught in the act by my bff. Note the somewhat shamed posturing and the tell-tale east coast finger in the act of folding the slice in half. I'm a food criminal so my head is ducked. You can't see me. This isn't

Trickle Down

2008-10-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

The trickle down (some would say 'flood') of economic woes has hit home a bit and several of my friends and clients have lost their jobs. Private clients that normally hire me for dinner parties are snapping their wallets shut and I can't say I blame them. If I could afford to hire myself, I'd probably have to fire myself.All of this makes me want to stuff my face into a big bowl of macaroni

Grooves

2008-10-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

Taken at my family's property, Johns Island, South Carolina. Photo credit: Rachel ElkindSome days it strikes me that it might be more efficient if we humans had actual grooves on our bodies where we could align ourselves perfectly with our environments; a physical embodiment that exposes our need for routine and predictability, like so much steel gliding down a train track. While we're built - on

Finnegan Begin Again

2008-10-13T15:21:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Chef Reinvented. Stay tuned for new writings, whinings and gut-wrenching, bittersweet paeans to foods that I can't quite eat... yet.