The Culinary Timeline is a side-project that I've been working on since October. I'm hoping to have most of it complete by the end of January, with any luck. Until then, updates around here will be weekly, rather than twice weekly. Do stay tuned.
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I’m slightly skeptical of “chipotle” anything these days. To me, this pepper was arguably THE ingredient of the 1990s, as smoked red jalapeños began to officially hit the American mainstream. Not only did a burrito chain emerge from Colorado emblazoned with this very name, but television chefs such as Bobby Flay seemed to be infusing chipotle peppers into every recipe imaginable. These days, you can order a Chipotle Chicken Ciabatta at Jack in the Box or a select a packet of Ancho Chipotle Ranch Dressing for a Wendy’s salad. From my perspective, now that [... read more ...]
In many ways, I feel like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is the companion reader to Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation,” a book that first sent a shockwave throughout the American food industry in 2005, by holding up a mirror to our current eating habits. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” written by Michael Pollan and published in 2006, raises the stakes by broadening its scope: Although Americans can easily avoid the drive-thru if they so choose, our ability to avoid industrialized corn by-products — such as high-fructose corn syrup (much maligned, and deservedly so) — presents a far more daunting challenge.
Personally, I [... read more ...]
In the last few months, downtown Napa has seen the opening of two new restaurants, Neela’s Contemporary Indian Cooking and The Border. Both restaurants have received a fair amount of attention, although criticism tends to be the dominant theme for both places thus far. On one hand, you have Neela’s, which has a reputation for good food, but at high prices. On the other hand, there is The Border — an upscale take on Mexican cuisine — that has suffered similar, but even worse condemnations.
Although I eagerly anticipated the opening of both restaurants, I can’t really claim to [... read more ...]
Some pictures from two weeks ago, but in a new slideshow format. The produce looked great that day, and the overcast skies provided terrific lighting…
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Although I have covered pho somewhat extensively within these pages, rarely has this popular Vietnamese soup ever been readily available here in the Napa Valley. A few months ago, I had the Martini House “family meal” version of pho, a dish which seems to be out of the rotation at the moment. But as much as I do enjoy the Martini House for many things — including the mushroom soup and the Kobe burger — charging more than $7 for a bowl of pho is clearly pushing it (if I recall, the pho at Martini House might have been [... read more ...]
Ubuntu’s vegetarian menu is something that I always viewed with a decent bit of skepticism. For this reason alone, I had postponed my visit, knowing that I was certainly obliged to make a visit at some point. It’s just that I’m a bit tepid on the whole vegetarian concept (and I don’t think I’m in the minority here). Ultimately, it took a visit from a friend to prompt my first reservation to this much-discussed Napa restaurant.
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Arguably, Ubuntu has the most creative food within the Napa city limits, and I have [... read more ...]
The bacon banh mi sandwich at Banh Mi Ba Le can be a curious specimen for those who might be expecting a more Western approach to bacon. To be sure, most people in America have probably never seen this Vietnamese take on the almighty pork belly, which at Banh Mi Ba Le features a bright red tint, immediately reminiscent of Chinese barbecue. The bacon itself — known as Thit Nuong (just order the #6 sandwich if your Vietnamese is rusty) — resembles a technicolor pastrami more than it resembles the classic smoked and cured versions of American slab [... read more ...]
I have often said that being a chef is much more of a lifestyle than it is a profession. Working in a kitchen is far more demanding than most jobs, and I don’t think that there is any career that combines high stress with low pay so seamlessly. But the most demanding element of professional cooking is actually the schedule: even when the pay begins to improve, the odd hours remain mostly the same. As far as I’m concerned, this willingness to consistently work nights and weekends remains the job’s biggest sacrifice.
Of course, at the very foundation of [... read more ...]
Lots of barbecue places tend to be hit or miss, at least here in California. Everett and Jones is no different, although their misses are few and far between. I always get the pork ribs alongside the beef brisket, which is the “Two-Way” pictured above (typically, I request to have the sauce on the side, since they will go heavy, by default). Not pictured: baked beans, peach cobbler, Welch’s Grape.
Sharing is caring…
The approach of summer means that fresh sweet corn is quickly coming into season, which means that corn soup should begin to appear on all sorts of menus. Last night, I enjoyed my first bowl of corn soup this season at Uva Trattoria in downtown Napa, and it was excellent. Actually, the more the think about it, the soup at Uva was one of the most satisfying things I’ve eaten in recent memory. But maybe that’s just because sweet corn soup has such a special place in my heart.
At one point in my life, when I was cooking [... read more ...]
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