A few days ago, I moved to a great location in Berkeley, between downtown & the “gourmet ghetto.” Since then, I have been gleefully enjoying my neighborhood–one I was previously familiar with, but always drove in to, hasseled with parking, and felt like a visitor in. After just three nights here, it feels like home.
In [...]

Tuesday night my friend Peter’s neck was hurting and he offered me a barter: fix it for food. I brought a bottle of Barbera D’Asti and expected duck.
Peter’s dinners are always wonderful and seemingly effortless, I don’t know anyone who seems so comfortable in the kitchen and works so quickly. I often find myself wondering [...]

Last Sunday my friend James had a large, casual gathering of friends to his place in San Francisco for cake. he baked several:
a delectable and perfectly moist carrot cake,
an orange pound cake,
cardamom coffee cake,
peanut butter pound cake,
New York cheesecake with strawberry sauce,
walnut-chocolate bundt cake.
It was a mix of great people and great food, good coffee [...]

About a week ago I bought a black truffle from Alba (.85 oz) and cooked two dishes with it. I first had a dinner party for three friends where I made
seared scallops with champagne-vanilla sauce on a bed of bitter greens (baby kale, frisee, arugula) with ginger-yuzu dressing
and then we had
black truffle risotto with crimini [...]

So I had a couple friends over and got all three of my roomates in on dinner tonight, just randomly. I decided during my 2:30-5pm class that I wanted to cook tonight and have people around, so called a few friends who didn’t answer and got a hold of a few others and ended up [...]

Something sharp is LODGED in my foot after several days at the beach in Levanto. Yesterday the surf was really rough (2nd day of red flag) and i took a beating along the rocky sea floor and as I came out must have hit a sharp rock or a peice of glass or something that [...]

I had a wonderful weekend via smart car in less traveled Italy only to have my purse and everything possibly very valuable to me inside it at the time on the bus ride from the car drop off to my apartment. Mostly I was in Castagnetto Carducci and Bolgheri, but hit San Gimignano and others [...]