At the height of the season, by the Bay, Dungeness crab is ludicrously cheap--around five bucks a pound if you buy it directly from the crabbers on the wharf. Fisherman's Wharf is one of those places where real San Franciscans do not go. It is a tourist sacrifice zone, all dazed-looking out-of-towners wearing I Love San Francisco fleeces and trying ( Read more... )

Having a spent a little time in my thirties, I now feel qualified to make a few observations. As far as I can tell, the biggest difference between my twenties and my thirties is maintenance. My body requires maintenance: I need to stretch before I go running, I need to warm up before aerials, I need massage for my terrible shoulders, and an ( Read more... )

The winter holidays are traditionally a time for eating just a little bit more than you thought you could fit in your belly. There are parties and holiday dinners, people who come over, sadistic co-workers who bring the results of their baking projects to the office (oops! I baked too many pies!), and assorted cooking experiments. The Mysterious ( Read more... )

I would like to say a word about Thanksgiving. I know that it already well into December - shut up. I don't harbor any illusions about keeping a detailed record of my life. Sometimes I fall behind. Sometimes I leave things out. But I did not want to leave out Thanksgiving, not in the wretched year of 2009 ( Read more... )

Timing is everything. These are bad times for people with mortgages and credit card debt. These are bad times for people who own nightclubs. Times are bad if you happen to me and you want to make progress with your tissu routine. They're bad if you do not enjoy the sound of jackhammers outside of both the Bunker and the Mysterious Workplace or if ( Read more... )

Oh Halou, I take back every unkind word I ever said about you. That one time I said I had fallen out of love with you? It was a terrible, terrible lie. I know you've had some sort of falling out with Count and you flirted with a less trip-hop break-beat-y sound for a while there and now you call yourself Stripmall Architecture, but you are the ( Read more... )

When the dot-com boom ended and we couldn't afford to go out to fancy restaurants all of the time, J and I learned to cook. More precisely, J learned to cook. I learned to find good recipies. We've been making our way through a Spanish cookbook I bought in December.

Last night, I didn't eat a single crumb of matzah. Instead, I made this:

Seafood ( Read more... )