Loving garlic as much as I do – and I love garlic – I was briefly in heaven when I discovered at a Lebanese restaurant in Cairo a dip called thoumiya. The name presumably derives from the Arabic thoum (ثوم), which means garlic, and this dip was all about garlic – almost pure garlic, touched […]

Tom and I returned from a long weekend in San Francisco on Monday evening. Guided by Tom’s brother Mike and a rented PT Cruiser (never even consider buying or renting this car by the way… it will only confuse you!), we walked the Mission, Upper and Lower Haight, and a drove through several other neighborhoods. […]

A beer’s name doesn’t necessarily tell you what you should pair it with: a porter might not complement a porterhouse, and just because it’s a Kwak doesn’t mean you should eat it with duck. But happily, sometimes names make things easy; take India Pale Ales, which in the first word of their name make as […]

For Christians, Lent is a season of solemn reflection on the trials of Jesus Christ in the desert; its central themes are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. All very noble concepts, if a not a little dour. Lent is also a time to enjoy delicious fried fish on Fridays, all thanks to a longstanding Catholic ban […]

You may have heard that much Italian cuisine was born out of deep poverty, but would you believe they go so far as to eat mouse tails? Mouse tails made from pasta, that is. Code di topo are another gem from Oretta Zanini de Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta. Although not made from actual mouse tails, […]

Saint Albert was almost not a saint at all, thanks to the discovery during his beatification process of extensive studies of the occult: black magic. Among his writings on the subject was found a recipe for a depilatory potion that required burning a large frog whole and mixing the ashes with water then spreading the […]

Not exactly my favorite holiday, but I’ll take any excuse to bust out my heart-shaped molds!

As January comes to a close, it’s really starting to feel like 2010. This weekend, while less activity filled than, say, our cross country ski marathon, was well enjoyed. On Saturday morning I was inspired by Bon Appétite to prepare crêpes for breakfast. With only one so bad it had to go straight to the […]

In mid-nineteenth century Italy, as power passed from one faction to another fighting to control the unification of the country, many lower-class people – ever ignored by political elites – resorted to brigantaggio, or brigandage, both as a means of securing a living and a form of resistance against occupiers foreign and domestic. In the […]

For Christmas my parents gave everyone in the family a bag or tub (depending on family size) of homemade granola. They used the same recipe my Mom worked with when I was growing up. I remember eating Mom’s granola from cereal-boxed shaped Tupperware containers alternately atop a bowlful of yogurt or served with milk. Having […]