nutty dried berry granola

once you’ve eaten homemade granola, you won’t be able to stomach the too-sweet stuff from the store.   mine doesn’t use butter, is high in protein, and loaded with berries.   we eat it  with… Read More →

i’m attempting to live up to my blue china…

with end-of-summer, roasted tomato soup. this is the time of year…  dry-farmed tomatoes are inexpensive at the farmers’ market.   i roast them with other vegetables for an intense, super-tomato flavor. 10 pounds of… Read More →

paella on the beach

originating in valencia, paella is named for the pan it’s cooked in — the paellera — and was at first made with chicken, rabbit, snails and fresh beans cooked together over an open… Read More →

michael pollan’s book, “the botany of desire”

has been on my stack for about 7 years.  i dutifully read pollan’s articles in the new york times magazine, but when it came to reading an entire book, there were just too… Read More →

woodward’s garden!!!

how could i have let so many months go by without eating at woodward’s garden?    i first ate there 10 years ago – on my birthday.    all this lifetime later, and… Read More →

nopalito in san francisco

i shouldn’t do this…     we walked into this new restaurant and were seated immediately 3 times in the last 2 weeks.    but the secret is bound to get out, so here goes… nopalito… Read More →

i should’ve been blogging

from italy last week.    sorry.   now that i’m home and have internet access, here are some highlights. a year ago, our friends randall and teresa bought a masseria – a walled italian farm… Read More →

thanksgiving dinner

jane asked how i cook my thanksgiving turkey…   my recipe is a hybrid of the high-heat recipe that was in the new york times a few years ago and more standard recipes… Read More →

paul discoe – zen architecture / la mar

we went to paul discoe’s book signing last night at greens.   “zen architecture: the building process as practice” illuminates paul’s considerable understanding of traditional japanese architecture as well as documenting about 10 of… Read More →

favorite restaurants in san francisco

i read one of those ridiculous “favorites” lists and the poor schmuck actually listed zuni as his favorite restaurant.      louis has been proclaiming for years that “zuni is the ernie’s of our generation.” … Read More →

madrid – nouvel’s reina sophia/espacio minimo/churros y chocolate/color red

the atrium of jean nouvel’s new reina sophia… and a view of the outside from the street… we checked out espacio minimo — the gallery that shows liliana porter in spain — a… Read More →