So You Want to Be a Vegetarian?

So you want to be a vegetarian, huh?  Maybe you’re a little worried- will it be difficult?  How do you redesign your diet?  Will you be able to eat at your favorite restaurant?  How yucky IS fake meat?
Never fear, I’m here.  A vegetarian since before puberty, I’ll guide you through the basics so you can [...]

Letter from a Bewildered Vegetarian

I am a vegetarian. This means I don’t eat meat, chicken, or fish. When new people find out about this “personality quirk”, as it is often viewed, the inevitable question appears: Why?
When I was nine years old, I had a babysitter who was five years older than me, and I worshipped her. [...]

The Celiac Story

Stacy McCloud is a successful television reporter in Ohio.  Beginning in the summer of 2001, her stomach problems became too severe to bear.  She remembers having to pull over to the side of the road because it hurt too much to drive, or hunching so far over from pain she was practically sitting on the [...]

Will Cook for Fame

America’s incomprehensible love affair with reality TV is producing some astonishing side-effects.  Besides the ability to make us care about a group of largely untalented, moderately attractive, fairly poorly-educated strangers and their exploits in the big city/on an island/in Trump’s boardroom, reality TV has created a new generation of celebrities from an unexpected place: the [...]

Have Your Celebrity and Eat It, Too

One of the exciting aspects of visiting big cities like LA, New York, and San Francisco is the chance to spot a celebrity- the modern-day nobility of our stubborn democracy.  These people are lauded, famous not for their birthright as in olden days, or even for their money necessarily (although the two ARE correlated), but [...]

Baby Knows Best- Dinner Party Propriety

Let’s face it- the economy sucks right now.  All I can hope is that by the time I care about more than clean diapers and breast milk, things begin to look up.  For now, however, many people are cutting costs by cooking and eating at home.  For those of you who still crave the high [...]

Baby Knows Best- Drive-Thru Dining Delight

With a high-maintenance baby like me to worry about, chances are you don’t have a whole lot of time to cook, and restaurants can be expensive and tough to manage with kids.  So I understand that fast food places have jumped dramatically on your list of frequented eateries.  But this is a slippery slope, so [...]

Baby Knows Best- Consume in Casual Comfort

Let me explain something.  While I’m an eminent expert on fancy dining in theory, in reality romantic dinners are kind of jumping the gun in terms of my development.  Casual dining, however, is something I have more experience with, so pay attention.
Consume in Casual Comfort

Casual dining has become the norm in the world of eating [...]

Baby Knows Best: Forestall Fancy Faux Pas

It appears that you need some help.  I may not be the first person anyone would think of to teach restaurant etiquette, but you’d be surprised how much I see and how much I learn sitting up here in my high chair.  You think I’m just munching on cheerios and drooling, but you underestimate my [...]

Why Having a Personal Chef is a Smart Decision

Chefs for Hire

In the midst of a recession that seems endless, when newscasters continuously refer to our economic situation with words like “crisis” and “meltdown,” there is at least one industry that’s growing by leaps and bounds- the Personal Chef movement.
To many of us, having a personal chef seems like an excessive indulgence of [...]

Keith Richards Loves Pie

Poor Stuart Cable.  All he wanted was some of the delicious-looking Shepherd’s Pie that was sitting backstage before a concert.  Stuart played drums for the Rolling Stones on one of their European tours, and tells this story in his book “Demons and Cocktails.”
When Mick Jagger came in to see him glopping several heavy spoonfuls of [...]

Germany Bans Genetically Modified Corn- Europe in an Uproar

Yesterday, April 14th, 2009, German Minister Ilse Aigner made a controversial announcement that plunged all of Europe, the US, and some parts of the developing world into a tense frenzy of hot-headed bickering.  Which area of the German government did this tiny little kernel of war come from?  Not Defence.  Not Finanice.  Not Justice.  No, [...]

Interview with Lynn Crocker of Second Harvest Food Bank

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Lynn Crocker, the Director of Marketing and Communications for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.  They are a certified member of Feeding America, a national network of food banks that promotes cooperation between similar organizations.  This food bank is the largest provider [...]

Food and Music: Double Your Pleasure

“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
~Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night
I was standing front row center at the Bruce Springsteen concert last week in San Jose, CA.  While trying to rap my mind around the awesome fact that the Boss was practically [...]

You’re Wrong! Nutrition Myths DeBunked

Here’s a video of Rick Hall, an ASU nutritionist, appearing on FOX in Phoenix, AZ. Referencing the odd cornucopia of food items on the table in front of him, Rick talks about several common impressions we all have about certain foods, and how we’re just a little bit- or maybe a whole lot- off [...]

The New Padma Burger

For those of you that joined the discussion “Padma Lakshmi- Crock or Cross-Over?” I wanted to make sure you got a chance to see this Carl’s Jr. commercial that has been airing recently to push their Western Bacon Cheeseburger.  The special extended version is below:

While on Top Chef, Padma’s undeniable sexuality is restricted to her [...]

Sugar’s Back in Town

We all tremble in fear.  The smooth, sweet, and tantalizingly tasty villain who plots to increase our blood glucose, stuff us with calories, and raise our obesity rate is a constant shadow over our collective dietary happiness.  Sugar.  Oohh, goosebumps.
Sugar has been cast as a nutritional evil for decades now, and despite myriad scoops about [...]

Feed the World, One Row at a Time

Don’t let your kids grow up to have to use signs like this.

The world is going hungry.  It’s something we all know, it remains in the periphery of our consciousness as we go about our daily lives.  We’re not surprised to hear about it when it’s mentioned.  But it’s rarely a main topic of conversation.  [...]

Foodie Adventures in Tanzania

This is the first in a series of articles about food from off-the-beaten-path:  Just because it’s not at the top of our travel agents’ lists of places doesn’t mean the food isn’t delicious.  Join me and experience the unique life and food of some unexpected locations.
It’s almost twilight in Bangata, Tanzania.  As a wife [...]

Padma Lakshmi- Crock or Cross-Over?

Padma Lakshmi

“Hello, Chefs.”
The words are met with mixed emotions each week during a Top Chef season.  They hail the beginning of another exciting culinary adventure frought with tension and drama.  They also indicate the presence of the popular TV show’s infamous hostess, Padma Lakshmi.  Since taking the position for season 2 of Top Chef, Padma [...]