gastropoda/stories

Weekend Kitchen, for the late & lamented Metropolitan Home.

Wait long enough and everything bad for you is good again.

Metropolitan Home

In the age of molecular gastronomy, the whole language of cooking is changing fast. Tradition-flouting chefs are throwing around such terms as osmosis and desiccation and sous-vide, all of which are fine and kitchen-scientific. But the most important new word is actually as accessible to home cooks as it is to wizards of foam: Umami. (more…)

Metropolitan Home

Fresh ricotta is the overlooked bonus from the great American cheese revolution over the last 20 years. (more…)

Los Angeles Times

Five years ago, it would be safe to say, not a soul in California woke up each morning to a to-do list starting with: Review a restaurant for Michelin. (more…)

Los Angeles Times

MILAN, Italy — Think of Italy, and wild and crazy exchanges of cooking ideas are not what come to mind first. This is a country where each and every region is a world apart; the Tuscans in the center might as well be on Mars for all the interaction with the Piemontese to the northwest.

Which makes the frenzy of Identità Golose (literally “greedy identity”) all the more extraordinary. (more…)

Los Angeles Times 

David Gremmels and Cary Bryant could be considered the accidental cheese makers.

Three years ago they were scouting for blue cheese (more…)

Los Angeles Times

Summer is supposed to be the mindless season, with nothing deeper to contemplate than the instant gratification of barbecues and ice cream. But something is different this year. America is getting serious about eating. (more…)

Metropolitan Home (published in altered form)

Todd Wickstrom has seen the future, and it looks very specific. (more…)

Los Angeles Times

In 20-some years of professionally obsessing on food, I’ve come to realize some innovations in ingredients hit like a thunderclap (panko — where had that been all my life?) and others are more like a steady rain. (more…)