I have an age-coping mechanism. At the start of the New Year, when we all share a heightened awareness of time passing, I remind myself that I’ll be another year older. That way, when my birthday rolls around in August, I can happily enjoy the cake and ice cream without feeling morose.

Some people groan about growing older. I admit I do, too. But I am also grateful for that extra year to explore new foods and new trends. Most importantly, the years pay off in the kind of experience needed to be able to assess what’s really going on in the food world today and to put it in context. I’ve had a lucky head start, since I became an editor at a New York magazine at age 22. So I’ve been tracking trends for a good number of years. [more…]

I love Thanksgiving, the all-American holiday that reminds us to give thanks for our blessings and celebrate amidst a bounty of food. Kitchens smell of turkey roasting, pies baking and good things simmering. It’s a simply delicious holiday, celebrated for all the best reasons.

I have my standards. We order a free-range turkey from Whole Foods because we find these turkeys more meaty and more flavorful. And I always make cornbread stuffing from The New York Times International Cookbook, which requires grinding the giblets in a meat grinder, baking cornbread and endlessly chopping onion, celery and green pepper, as well as mincing a lot of garlic, parsley and basil.

BUT I also make pumpkin pie from the recipe on the Libby’s pumpkin can, a Crisco pie crust and the cranberry sauce recipe on the Ocean Spray bag. Sure I’ve toyed with making pumpkin creme brulee or pumpkin cheesecake, using a different crust and making fresh cranberry salsa. But these recipes are tried-and-true and simple, giving me time to explore new recipes for the second dessert I bake and all the side dishes. [more…]

I just returned from Honolulu Tuesday night, after a week away for the Les Dames d’Escoffier annual conference and a few days of vacation. Les Dames is an organization of women leaders in the food, beverage and hospitality industries and membership is by invitation. The Hawaii chapter staged a brilliant conference that included a luau at the Bishop Museum and a trip to Kualoa Ranch, where we toured the gardens, learned all about poi, and boated in the ancient native Hawaiian fish ponds. This is land familiar to fans of Jurassic Park, LOST and other productions.

During any downtime, I was busy getting my fix of local foods — saimin, shave ice, plate lunch, malasadas, laulau and a Hawaiian breakfast — Portuguese sausage, eggs and rice drizzled with soy sauce. I also needed to fit in breakfast on the veranda of the historic Moana Hotel, tropical drinks with paper umbrellas, dinner at Alan Wong and 3660 on the Rise, and time for family and Honolulu friends.

But this isn’t a story about my trip. It’s really about a thoughtful presentation by the conference’s keynote speaker, Rachel Laudan, a culinary historian and author of The Food of Paradise, a book that had been recommended to me 12 years ago by Zanne Stewart, who was then executive food editor of Gourmet magazine. Laudan’s speech aligned perfectly with my craving for the local foods of my Hawaiian culinary heritage. [more…]

I am a constant reader, with ecclectic tastes. On my nightstand you might find a British murder mystery, military history (Civil War or World War II), political biography, contemporary fiction, or a literary classic (anything I never got around to reading in English Lit or any leftover paperbacks from my sons’ English classes).

Right now, I’m reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Memoir, by Bill Bryson, a hilarious look back at growing up in the 1950s in Des Moines, Iowa.

Bryson takes us back to American food tastes then:

“Like most people in Iowa in the 1950s, we were more cautious eaters in our house. On the rare occasions when we were presented with food with which we were not comfortable or familiar — on planes or trains or when invited to a meal cooked by someone who was not herself from Iowa — we tended to tilt it up carefully with a knife and examine it from every angle as if determining whether it might need to be defused. Once on a trip to San Francisco, my father was taken by friends to a Chinese restaurant and he described it afterward in the somber tones of someone recounting a near-death experience.” [more…]

December is a busy time in my household — cooking and baking for my own holiday party, for potlucks and for our family’s Christmas dinner. This month, I’ve made four types of cookies,two Christmas wreath braided yeast breads, a double recipe of Buche de Noel with meringue mushrooms, pork pate with red onion confit, gravlax (cured salmon), two kinds of chutney to serve with Kerrygold cheeses, smoked trout spread, homemade pita chips with artichoke dip…and more.

Tonight, I’m preparing roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, followed in a few days by dainty sandwiches and sweets for a post-Christmas tea party I’m hosting for my mother and her friends. Toward the end of the week, it will be time to start prepping for the New Year, with several kinds of sushi and traditional Japanese New Year food.

I could skip all the stress by eliminating these get-togethers, hiring a caterer or buying foods already prepared. But for me, the fun and satisfaction comes from the doing. Getting out the KitchenAid and the Cuisinart is as much a part of my holiday traditions as is decorating the tree and hanging the stockings. [more…]

So much work, so much travel. Since September, I’ve been to Ireland (fam trip for editors), Dallas (Les Dames d’Escoffier annual meeting), Austin (International Foodservice Editorial Council), Denver (new business), Chicago (client meeting) and the Napa Valley (Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference) and I’ve just caught up on my expense reports.

So Thanksgiving , even if I cooked it myself, was a welcome respite.

At dinner, my son David’s girlfriend Lynn, who is from Thailand, asked an endearingly funny question: Who invented Thanksgiving? Was it the turkey farmers?

After we all chuckled, I realized what a sensible query it was from a bright young woman who just earned her MBA this year. After all, doesn’t food marketing try to insert itself into America’s food traditions at every chance? [more…]

Terry Blonder Golson, who lives in a small town west of Boston, loves chickens. For ten years, she has kept a small flock in her backyard. The hens, of different breeds, are very individual and quite beautiful.

Terry calls them “my girls” and they have such names as Buffy, Ginger, Edwina, Eleanor and Aunt Petunia. You can take a peek at them strutting and scratching via Terry’s hen cam, but only during the day — the hen cam shuts down at night when the hens go to bed. [more…]

You can’t be a “local” in Hawaii without loving plate lunches. A Hawaiian plate lunch recognizes just two food groups: meat and starch. Whatever the main dish — teriyaki beef, fried mahimahi or pork katsu (breaded pork cutlet) — it comes with macaroni salad AND two scoops of rice, with a nominal nod to vegetables by a bit of shredded cabbage, a lettuce leaf, or a few pieces of kim chee (Korean pickled vegetables).

This uniquely Hawaiian food expression is now gaining ground in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado — nine states in all. The mastermind is Honolulu’s Eddie Flores, who came to the United States as a 16-year-old Filipino immigrant and built a multi-million foodservice empire on a Hawaiian plate lunch franchise. [more…]

Recently, I had the pleasure of helping to plan a San Francisco food education tour for eight journalists from China, who were visiting the country as guests of the U.S. Potato Board. They were on the last leg of their American discovery journey and we had just two days. With so many fabulous food-related places to visit, we had to make some difficult choices.

We started at public relations agency Ketchum’s San Francisco office, where I gave an overview of food trends, including a look at the evolution of Chinese cuisine in the United States. [more…]

I just returned from a business trip to Ireland with my client, the Irish Dairy Board, hosting some VIP guests on a culinary tour of the Emerald Isle. For people who plan their vacations around their passion for food, it’s the perfect place to visit.

Contemporary Irish chefs who have worked at high-profile restaurants abroad are returning home to apply their talents to fabulous food using local ingredients — lamb, salmon, duck, fresh garden vegetables, dairy products and grains. Traditional Irish breads are stellar, and there is nothing more satisfying at breakfast or any time, than hearty Irish brown bread slathered with Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter.

So hot is Irish food today that Saveur devoted most of its March issue to Ireland. “With its wealth of raw materials, its burgeoning artisanal food scene, and its innovative chefs, Ireland is fast growing into a food lovers’ paradise,” the magazine raved. [more…]