Archive for March 2020
Detectives, with Subtitles
There are three places among the many I love in Europe that serve as home to three of my life’s greatest heroes. And since I can’t visit the places right this minute, I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with those heroes – who are all, as it turns out, fictional detectives.…
Read MoreThe Asparagus of Spring
Asparagus can be white if it’s from Germany or purple if it’s from Italy. But for most of us, the long, tapered stalks that announce the arrival of spring are always a delicate green. For many diners, as for many chefs and home cooks, nothing is “more spring” than asparagus. We’ve always loved the stuff.…
Read MoreHow Ignacio Gave Us Nachos
When a group of Army Air Corps wives went across the border from Eagle Pass to Piedras Negras in the middle of World War II, things looked dim for the Tex-Mex lunch they’d been hoping to enjoy. Knowing his kitchen was closed and his chef had stepped out, a maître d’ named Ignacio Anaya Garcia…
Read MoreThe Wisdom of Chef Paul
I can’t make Cajun food, Creole food or any New Orleans combination of the two without thinking of the afternoons I used to spend enjoying the company of the late Chef Paul Prudhomme. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned in every cooking class I’ve ever taught that he was my No. 1 mentor when it comes…
Read MoreThe Glory That Is Brunch
Just about the only people who don’t love Sunday brunch are chefs, who insist that being dragged back into their kitchens after a wild, long and late Saturday night is the worst idea that ever crossed anybody’s mind. Everybody else seems to love brunch a lot. There are many claims to “inventing” brunch. Many cities…
Read MoreWNO: A Delilah Is Born
Decades before the old Hollywood studio system discovered that Biblical epics could make a lot of money, the opera composers of 19th century Europe discovered the same thing. Toss together a few robes with swords, sandals and gold headbands, and you had the makings of a barn burner. And there were simply more stories in…
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