Posted By bbinns on February 13, 2009
2.12.09 Fountain Hills, AZ to Las Cruces, 406 miles; two states: Arizona and New Mexico Butter doesn’t do well as a road snack. So when I am lucky enough to hunker down at (high-school roomie) Mary’s empty vacation home east of Scottsdale for six whole nights, I immediately get me a block of the Irish […]
Posted By bbinns on February 10, 2009
2. 5.09; On the Road: Santa Monica to Scottsdale I am driving again. These are baby steps, but the fact is that I’m moving slowly and inexorably in an easterly direction. This year’s winter plan has been adjusted exponentially downward due to various issues, number one through ten being lack of wherewithal. The idea that […]
Posted By bbinns on February 7, 2009
2.3.09 Venice Beach, CA I always order the wrong thing. This has been a vexing constant of my traveling and eating life for decades. Often, I vow to stop doing it, but that sort of resolve carries mind-boggling potential for inverse logic. Venturing down this road, I might end up second-guessing myself to the point […]
Posted By bbinns on January 31, 2009
1.30.09 Mar Vista, CA There is something about death and illness that triggers a desire for soup. To cook it, and to eat it. What happened in Mar Vista two days ago was so awful that the only tolerable emotion my girlfriend, chef Jill Davie, could identify was an auto-drive soup imperative. I was riveted, […]
Posted By bbinns on January 28, 2009
1.24.09 San Luis to Malibu Once, at lunch in Florence with a previous husband, I ate an entire bistecca Fiorentina by myself. For those not familiar with this pyllum, a bistecca is the bone-in rib-eye, preferably from an Italian breed of white cattle called Chianina (once rare, but now enjoying a carnivore-fueled revival). In Florence, […]
Posted By bbinns on January 22, 2009
1.19.09 San Luis Obispo, CA The very first meal I ate in England was all white: Poached chicken with white sauce (béchamel), rice, and cauliflower-cheese, a little-known-in-America dish that might just be good with a lamb chop and green salad. “Very nice,” I said to my proud hostess, who wasn’t even a grandmother but rather […]
Posted By bbinns on January 19, 2009
1.19.09 San Luis Obispo, CA I brined the 10-pound, bone-in shoulder of organically-raised pork in red wine instead of water for several reasons, not simply because the counter here in cousin Robert’s huge kitchen has become difficult to discern through the forest of one-third-full bottles of red wine. My recent book
Posted By bbinns on January 16, 2009
1.16.09 Santa Margarita, CA I have always been a sheep’s cheese freak. It started with Manchego, when I lived in Spain for three years (you sometimes see cow’s-milk Manchego, or a blend, but sheep’s milk is the authentic cheese). Then I discovered Greek sheep’s cheese, which includes a whole lexicon above and beyond the it’s-darned-good-too […]
Posted By bbinns on January 14, 2009
1.13.09 Creston, CA. In Hawaiian, “Pau Hana” means “no more work”, or “work is finished.” When Nick and Robin Gladdis decided to sell up in Maui after 13 happy years, move to the Central Coast of California and make olive oil from trees they planned to plant themselves, that was the general plan. It hasn’t […]
Posted By bbinns on January 11, 2009
1.11.09 San Luis, CA Okay people, What Happened to My Waistline? A few years ago when I first started the bi-annual tradition of the Great Cross-Country Drive, I’d emerge from the car on the other coast having dropped a few pounds. Okay, this may have been due to muscle atrophy, but what’s with this new, […]
