Eating seasonally is the simplest way to improve your food and cut down on your carbon footprint. There is a reason why that factory tomato shipped from South America you slap on your turkey sandwich in mid January tastes like gooey plastic sludge. It’s because it isn’t meant to be. Vegetables lose their crisp bite and become limp. The luster and tart sweetness of fruit devolve into bland lifelessness. Meat and fish lose complexity and the texture is ruined through freezing and shipping. On top of being murderous to the environment, shipping food destroys all freshness in transit. So not only are you a polluting asshole–you’re also eating crap. If that’s what you want, why don’t you just go ahead and chop down a tree, shoot bambi and eat dirt thereby cutting out the middleman, you Jerk? Summer is my favorite culinary season. Everything is in abundance and fresh. The dull colors of root vegetables, stewed meats and gravy are wiped away making way for bright purples, blues, reds, sweet, tangy and briny. There is something for everyone. One of my staple recipes, Julia Child’s (slightly modified) ratatouille was made specifically for this time of summer. All of the classic ratatouille ingredients are in season in August: onions, zucchini, eggplant summer squash, tomatoes and peppers. I really just saute every great fresh vegetable I can find into this great dish while adding garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. It tastes great cold or hot and will feed a family for awhile on the cheap. As far as fruit goes, everything that you love in pies and jams sprouts up in abundance in the summer months. I am not a baker or a canner (baking requires discipline and the ability to follow direction, both things...

Author’s Note: When you want to cause a stir in politics, bring up government spending.  No one is right and everyone is wrong.  We are taxed too high, spending’s too low, too much money goes to parks, not enough on research… the shouting will never subside. If you want to stir up controversy amongst everyone else, bring up bread.  The ultra fit, meathead marathoners will tell you to eat as the cavemen did.  The le pain snobs will tell you about the ONLY boulangerie where you can find a decent baguette.  Then there are the folks who like their bread fluffy, airy and tasteless and would sooner eat dirt than multigrain. I loved this column because ever after 30,000 years, bread is still sexy as hell.  My lifelong love affair with it burns like the fire of a brick pizza oven.   I am not really a fan of dieting. I usually gain five pounds in the first week because my brain and body become convinced I am secretly conspiring to starve myself to death, so they conspire to send me into insatiable pizza and ice cream urges. But like it or not, dieting basically becomes a must at some point after you hit twenty five and everyone’s metabolism hits the wall. Whilst having dinner with friends last week, one of my dining companions regaled us with ins and outs of his newest low carb fad. The idea is to deny yourself of all carbs so on your one day off, all you want is strawberries for your cheat food. Thinking about it, I said that was pretty much how I naturally gravitate in my eating. I focus on healthy proteins and my indulgences are generally a bunch of grapes here and there. I sat...

Until this past year, my beer knowledge was limited to Natty Light kegstands on University housing porches. In years when my bank account hovered well below sea level, I enjoyed Guinness for dinner but mostly because it had lots of iron, was cheap and filled me up like eating actual food. My gastronomical education leaned more towards wine and spirits. Being the social sort, I’m able to hold my own with the snobbiest of wine connoisseurs and the most discerning of scotch drinkers. Evenings with paramours or girlfriends naturally gravitate towards the cocktails and great bottles of wine for the table. But then I moved to Hollywood where every other restaurant is now a gastropub. Quite simply, fried, spicy, bread-heavy, fatty food is just better matched with beer. While even the most elite of gastropubs often only carry passable wine, the most makeshift location will have a beer list that rivals a Berlin beer hall. I make no assumptions that I know anything about beer beyond what amounts to a pre-school education, but I do know food and what flavors pair. I have tried every kind of bougie junk food with all kinds of craft brews and have fallen in love with what you can do with the two. So, instead of being that annoying, pathetic person who drinks a glass of bad Cabernet with a burger, you can follow the simple tips below to know what pairs best with what. There are two types of beers and a plethora of styles within them. Depending on the fermentation, a beer is either an Ale or a Lager. Lagers: Pale lagers are the most produced and consumed style of beer in the world and for a good reason. The flavors are pretty mild allowing it to pair...

I grew up in a commercial kitchen that also included a fully stocked “prep” kitchen one floor up, two walk-in butler pantries and a detached dry food storage as large as a garage behind the house. I was not reared in a hotel or army base but with a mother who believed why do less when you can have the best? Because of this, she could throw a dinner party for two dozen guests, bake a wedding cake or jerky an entire deer without going to the store (I have witnessed all of these things too many times to count growing up). Since I was raised in a culinary Xanadu, I know that someone should have a nine gas burner stove with 36 inch convection oven and griddle attachment. However, I am also a bit of a gypsy and in a whirlwind in the heat of passion I will start off to a new city and new life with only what fits in my hatchback. Everyone needs certain things in your kitchen but not everything needs to be purchased at Sur la Table. There are a couple items you have forever, some you buy cheaply and toss and more things are money pits you are fooled into thinking you need. If you are right out of college, a bachelorette with only a can and wine opener or just need to revamp your favorite room, here’s a handy list that shows you what to invest in, buy on the cheap because you didn’t pack it and what you should save money on and avoid completely.  Just like the relationship game: some you marry, some you fuck ’em and leave ’em and some you outright should kill. NOTE: I consulted my culinary genius that is loins...

There is a reason why all great southern literary works, like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Confederacy of Dunces, all take place during the blazing, humid months of summer. There is something special about summers below the Mason Dixon Line. It is a place where second story porches are covered in gauzy mosquito nets and used for sleeping in August. Where professional men walk to work in their pressed seersucker and ladies lunch on verandas in sundresses and scarves. The sweet tea never stops flowing and everyone talks and moves really, really slow because it is just too darn hot. Although I am a sucker for a man in seersucker, my favorite aspect of a southern summer is the evening libations. The heat and humidity is stifling, making my usual dry red wine almost suffocating. (And one can only drink so much Chardonnay before resembling some Real Housewife shrew.) The southern answer? Cocktails, good ones. These are not your well drinks of your tacky college days. If you’re over 21, you should not be drinking a Long Island Ice Teas or a Cosmo (the tackiest of all tacky drinks). Nor can any amount of hipster irony make a Dirty Girl Scout or a White Russian acceptable drinks. The first thing you’ll be asked at a cocktail party or happy hour is, “So, what are you drinking?” Take a cue from your southern brothers and sisters and find a cocktail that makes a statement. Below are four of my personal summer staples. Bloody Mary The Blood Mary has gotten a bad wrap in the past 10 or so years. The flavorless tomato water with limp celery is not a Bloody Mary, it is a bloody abomination. One of...

There is nothing like paying a visit to your hometown to make you feel like a fish out of water. I really do not know how I survived in D.C. as long as I did in a lot of ways. My mother is the quintessential D.C. political glamazon. She has big, beautiful blonde hair that is never out of place. She has a suit for every sort of occasion and is always perfectly coiffed and made up, even if she is just running out for a carton of milk. As soon as I moved west, I let my brown hair flow free of products and styling, bought my first pair of jeans since high school and invested in fabulous face creams so I would never have to wear a stitch of make up again. However, I do believe you never really grow out of your hometown food beliefs. You will never see a Chicago native put ketchup on a hot dog, hear a New Yorker tell you he is craving a deep dish pizza or have instant grits for breakfast in Alabama. My food preferences are torn between L.A. and D.C. I spent my early childhood in California. My parents migrated west, following the music of The Dead and settling, amongst many other stereotypical liberal hippie havens, in the Haight Ashbury district but I grew up on the East Coast in Washington D.C. My everyday eating preferences are very much southern California cuisine. I like the Mediterranean influences of healthy fats like olive oil and avocados. I’ve been a vegetarian on and off much of my life (taste preferences) and cheap alternatives, like chickpeas or tempeh, are as easily accessible as fresh white fish and grass fed beef. My first food related delight when I moved out here...

Food and music are two of the few things in the world that are universal. Sure some people don’t like peanut butter and some people don’t like polka. There is no person in the world who does not like music or does not like food. Both can evoke more than what they are. When you hear a favorite song, you think of that road trip you took when you were twenty one. When you eat tomato soup and grilled cheese you remember the snowy days you spent sledding when you were eight. Levon Helm, drummer for The Band, died last week. When I heard the news my thoughts inevitably turned to old family Thanksgivings. I think for most people, Thanksgiving is filled with WASPy simmering and unspoken frustrations, touch football and trying desperately to come up with something for which you are thankful before it is your turn to speak up before you can dig into your stuffing. Like most festivities in my house, Thanksgiving was barely civilized. I am the middle daughter of six intense and active children of two very passionate hippie parents. The one constant we had in holiday was The Last Waltz played on loop. Martin Scorsese filmed the last concert The Band performed on Thanksgiving in San Francisco. The Band wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving before performing for the last time with some of the eras most brilliant musicians, everyone from Bob Dylan to The Staple Singers. Even last Thanksgiving, which I spent in Paris, did not pass without me playing “The Weight” half a dozen times in my Saint Germaine hotel room. I didn’t need the turkey, but I did need The Band and the happy memories it evoked. Musicians and the culinary laborer have always shared a...

Vacations in my adult life have been merely a guise for my love affair with food. Last week I celebrated my 20-something birthday by going to the San Ynez Valley. The valley, made famous by the movie Sideways, grows some of the best burgundy style grapes in the country (your Pinot Noirs, Chardonnays and Grenaches). Santa Barbara’s wine region is about two hours north of Los Angeles tucked inside a dry, mountainous region about 12 miles from the coast. For anyone who has always wanted to dip their toe in the ocean of wine knowledge, this is the best place to start. As far as I am concerned, there is NOTHING sexier than wine. It is all about passion and intoxication and sensuality. I cannot think of another activity in the world that can get a person laid quicker than a bottle of good wine paired with a succulent meal. It is also the quickest way to make friends and the most painless way to get your family off your back. Pair enough good food with enough good drink, everyone is happy and full of adoration. You can, without a doubt, hyperbolize one’s food appetite to one’s sexual appetite (although anyone who has been on a date can attest that the two are not mutually exclusive). When compared, my love of food is the kind of sex where you rent a hotel room and come out with a $2,000 cleaning bill due to broken lamps, torn curtains and turned over furniture which must be followed by a time of celibacy because you are positive at least five sins were committed on top of the act. It is intense. The real beauty of California is that besides the major cities, the state is basically countryside....

FIERCELY DREADING Christmas.  I hate to be that person (everyone knows one), the Grinch.  The one who cannot get into the spirit of the season no matter what magical Christmas miracles are happening all around.  I have spent most of my life successfully avoiding any yuletide cheer.  When I was very young, the death of my Christmas-loving Grandmother led my mourning (and overly dramatic) mother to cancel the holiday.  Since then, my family generally finds themselves at various points on the globe, letting the day pass without a bat of an eye.  I honestly cannot remember a present received to mark the occasion other than occasional cash in cards. My standard winter grump has been exasperated by starting off my holiday on a whirlwind  romantic tour of NYC, London and Paris.  I was eating baguettes and pate in St Germaine instead of turkey legs and gravy while watching TV on my mom’s D.C. floor.  When one is whisked away for the romantic vacation of a lifetime, fake trees and crummy gifts can’t help, but  pale in comparison. In case I haven’t been clear in this paragraph, let me put it this way: Christmas is a waste of my time and money because I should be drunk in London’s SOHO district right now.   SEMI-ANTICIPATING The End of 2011.  This was a big year for me.  Mid-way through 2010 I had a quarter-life-crisis and moved from Washington D.C. to L.A. without any sort of plan.  I am not an actor or a singer or a person in possession of any discerning talent.  I was just unhappy in every sort of way and decided that instead of wallowing, I should just let go and start anew.  Yet, in every way that 2010 was devastating and difficult, 2011 was...