What do you do when the rain won’t relent, when those gorgeous bay windows welcome in the wind, and when staying home in your pajamas is not only comfortable but life-saving?
Why, make soup, of course!
Category: Recipes
Shrimp to Die For
My friend Ed works crazy long hours making sure people are fed well. Fortunately, he also knows how to party. More to the point, he knows how to throw down one hell of a spread and mixes generous, powerful drinks.
Thus, I blame him for my momentary lapse of politics. It’s been roughly a year since I gave up shrimp, confused and frustrated and devastated. Then, at a recent bash, Ed laid out platters piled high with buttery, herby, perfectly poached shrimp. My powers of resistance were strong for a good half hour, then slowly, steadily, the other guests’ swoons of delight and the potency of sangria convinced me to try one…just one….
Intuitive Tamales
When I was in college, in the dark days before email and Facebook, my roommates and I passed our time with more mundane matters. Like food. From Juli, I learned about Japanese-style curry. Rie taught me how to blanche green beans perfectly, while Ed opened my palate to an entire pantheon of slow-simmered soups. Pierrette’s trick with tuna and egg salad—grating onion into the mayonnaise—still perks up my sandwiches.
From Maria, though, I learned the most important lessons: cooking with my senses.
A Bite of Autumn: Ginger Pear Tartlets
Sometimes, the best of intentions go awry. Fortunately, there’s always frozen puff pastry.
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Old San Francisco: Eating Through the Ages
This week I scored big. In addition to finishing off a pint of burnt caramel ice cream, I found a dusty but still strongly bound first edition of Laughter on the Hill, a book about a young woman who moved to San Francisco alone in the winter of 1940.
Grandmothers, 1955. Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.
For others who have adopted this city as their home, who have looked over the Bay and its bridges with awe, lived in a drafty dump of a flat that’s very well stocked with wine, or danced in the streets with strangers, this memoir will also strike a chord. It reminded me of other books that capture a special, specific time in the City’s history.
For a taste of San Francisco in years past…
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