A few summers ago, I moved back to the East Bay, and in with Brian. I was thrilled to be back, near the friends and food that I had come to love. I think I remembered Berkeley as being an idyllic community, filled with new places to explore, as well as old haunts to frequent. […]

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful the smell and taste remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for the moment, […]

When I was young my mom used to make egg salad. Hard-cooked eggs, mayonnaise, diced dill pickles, all mixed together into a sunny glop, awaiting two slices of white bakery bread to be sandwiched between. I never ate it. All of my least favorite ingredients blended together to make one wholly undesirable lunchtime entree. As […]

What is this lovely? Well, it’s not a scallion, and it’s too broad to be garlic chives, so by process of elimination, it’s a ramp, or as some like to call it– a wild leek. Indigenous to North America this aromatic vegetable simply resembles other vegetables, but has a taste that is uniquely it’s own. […]

I did not grow up in a household of health nuts. My parents did not try to convince me of the virtues of carob, when the only thing I truly longed for was a sumptuous, rich bit of chocolate. I was not plied with Kefir, nor was I given sandwiches of sprouts and soy cheese […]

It is a good thing that the whole low-carb lifestyle is coming to a close, not that I ever subscribed to such an extreme form of dieting, I just got tired of hearing about it. For me, and my carbohydrate loving ways, it would be torture. Some people live off of junk food, others subsist […]

Every culture has them, the Americans with ketchup or BBQ sauce, Asian with soy sauce, among others, raita for the Indian culture, the French with pure, beautiful butter, and salsa in the Latino culture. Condiments are going strong. Born and raised in California, salsa, and in turn Mexican food is something with which I grew […]

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately, and there seem to be so many answers– for fuel, for pleasure, for survival. It is inextricably bound to the broader question: why do we eat? Out to dinner last week with my husband and a colleague of his, our conversation kept returning to this one […]

The venerable matzo ball. The one food that perhaps best sums up all of Jewish cuisine in a spherical, dumpling-like shape. They can be soft, ethereal almost, just barely holding their shape in a globe of glutens. They can be hard, tense almost, pressed tautly into a sphere. Me, I like them to be somewhere […]

I love apricots! After months of waiting, 10 months to be exact, they are here. All rosy fleshed, smooth, mildly fuzzy skin– as close to perfection as a fruit can come. I was doing my food shopping at Berkeley Bowl, a dizzying array of the usual winter fruits, tough skinned citrus in varying colors, a […]