Help Macrina Celebrate

I just got a notice about this week’s celebration of Macrina Bakery & Cafe’s 15th anniversary on Wednesday, August 27. The beloved Seattle bakery set down its roots in the Belltown neighborhood at a time when Belltown was still something of a wasteland. I love that while there is an endless stream of new places to keep us coming [...]

From Trouble Comes Treasure

It’s interesting those times in our lives when we realize a pleasant, unexpected outcome from an otherwise unpleasant event. My recent example is the untimely demise of our refrigerator. A week earlier I’d found the ice cream to be surprisingly soft and ready-to-eat, scooped my portion and happily forgot about it thanks to a few days out of town. [...]

A Vegas Highlight: Craftsteak

It’s a terrible thing to have to admit, but it’s not often that I get giddy with enthusiasm about a dinner out. Part of the reason is the simple reality that I’ve eaten out so many times for so many years–particularly while I was editor of the Seattle Zagat guide and food editor of Seattle Magazine–that eating [...]

One Big Food Life List

I wrote a few months ago about the idea of a food life list, the one-of-a-kind eating experiences that make delicious goals for ourselves and ultimately add wonderful gastronomic richness to our lives. I was a bit stimied in trying to come up with my own to-do list of gotta-have foods, but something that landed [...]

Julia Child, American Spy

That Julia, she was quite a woman. In many ways that we already knew: she was a trailblazer, a mentor and teacher, a proponent of eating well, a liver of life and entertainer to boot. And, as both my morning papers spelled out today, she had a hidden layer just being discovered: she was once part of an [...]

Capturing Seattle, in words and photos

It’s a fun surprise when I hear a friend’s name mentioned as part of the “coming up next on KPLU we’ll be talking to….” teaser during my daily dose of NPR radio. This morning, that friend was Joel Rogers, a Seattle photographer and writer whose book Seattlewas released last year. It was a project long in [...]

A Farmer Post-Script

I hadn’t yet opened this week’s issue of New York magazine before making yesterday’s post about the celebrity farmer (I do hope those of you in the Seattle area will try to make it to the Incredible Feast event in a couple weeks, “where the farmers are the stars”). A feature article in this issue [...]

The Celebrity Farmer

Do you remember back when we used to just go to a restaurant, enjoy a meal, pay our check and head home without much thought at all to the talent back in the kitchen making it all happen? I know, it’s hard to recall such a time. There are many influences that helped bring the [...]

In Praise of Fat

Once again, being a food writer–while not the most highly paid profession going–proved itself for the small perks that come along the way. Today it was a box from Ten Speed Press which held in it a copy of the new cookbook from my pal Jennifer McLagan, the Torontonian who penned the awesome (and James [...]