It’s ironic that I’m about to recommend you buy a cheese board. On countless occasions I’ve wondered how it is that I own so many. I mean you only really need one, right? But they are popular gifts, so if …
In the past few weeks I’ve been a guest at three remarkable dinner parties. And they came just in time. My own hosting schedule has been pitifully light lately, but thankfully the craft is alive and well. While the fodder at these dinners was unique, they shared a cohesion of concept and a just-so of execution that have the three meals lingering on my mind’s palate.
I’ve been reading all the recent food magazines and the fish wraps, but nothing has been making much of an impact. Could it be that making my way through Calvin Trillin’s The Tummy Trilogy has set the bar a bit higher?
After limping along with caffein-free Twinings for the past months, I decided to invest in some herbal teas from Harney & Sons. There were many new additions to their offerings and now they are brightening up my daily sacraments. Sure …
The June issue of Food & Wine has a little piece by Josh Dean on the luxury of experiencing Alaska by cruise ship–an option he says 60 percent of the state’s visitors opt for. I, too, have enjoyed the Holland America guide to Alaska, and if you are wondering if you are really the “cruise type,” I have two words for you: taco bar. That’s right, at nearly any hour you can fix yourself a taco poolside. And at that very moment you smack your lips and look around, imagining that there might be a cold beer nearby, a waiter materializes to confirm it.
If you are like me, you find a stocked cheese case intimidating. I usually glide past it at Whole Foods and hit up my stand-bys: smoked mozzarella or a hunk of Muenster. These are also cheeses that lend themselves well to devouring in the kitchen while unpacking the other groceries. For dinner parties, I will linger by the full cheese case sniffing plastic-wrapped options that are unrevealing about their nature. Eventually I ask someone for help, but the fact that they never suggested Port Salut is evidence that I was being steered to their personal favorites or worse the blocks they want to move.
