Archive for the ‘Home Chef’ Category
5 tips to keep Whole Foods from becoming ‘whole paycheck’

I’m guessing that 90% of Whole Foods customers have made the ‘Whole Paycheck’ complaint at least once in the past 10 years. Why not? This crack gets a laugh. Me? I’m starting to get irritated. Because what I’m realizing is that the complaint comes from lazy shoppers. Here is my take on why the Whole [...]
Holiday wine pairing advice

Ready or not, the holiday season is here. And as if there isn’t enough to worry about – gifts to buy, decorations to get up, etc., etc. – if you are hosting a holiday meal you’re likely wondering what wine to pair with dinner. Let me reiterate some advice from an earlier post: don’t spend [...]
Review: Fatted Calf, Please Throw Me a Bone

I greatly appreciate that Fatted Calf is in my SF neighborhood, and the meat/product quality that it delivers to every corner of the shiny glass case. The staff is simply awesome. The issue I have is this: they charge an outsized premium for what they do, and so I rarely come out of the shop [...]
100+ Thanksgiving side dishes

If you’ve been to my house for an evening, you know that I use dinner parties as a platform for experimentation. Thanksgiving, not so much. I learned a hard lesson about experimentation – which I later dubbed the “Disaster of ’96,” when I gave the family Thanksgiving dinner a modern, ‘sophisticated’ facelift without asking my [...]
Holiday wine – pairing to the people

Ugh. The first holiday wine pairing request just came in…which ones will go best with a Thanksgiving dinner featuring thyme-roasted turkey with gingered-cranberry stuffing? My answer: beer and Boone’s Farm. Gewurztraminer and Coke. Pinot and Pelligrino. I know that’s a wacky answer. But I’m serious. Thanksgiving dinner is NOT the place to play a headdy wine-to-food [...]
Corkscrew FAIL

I used to be into high ceremony and flashy accessories when it came to opening wine. When having guests over, I would proudly walk over to my laminated box full of glitzy accessories and conduct the ritual that I thought ‘serious’ wine drinkers should perform — you know, the foil cutter, an antique wine funnel [...]