by Freda Moon
My pops and his lovely lady are in Jamaica right now, where they’re eating something called Brain Vegetable.
This just in, from the AVA’s intriguing foreign foods desk:
“Akee when boiled, drained and simmered in oil with salted dried cod with your choice of vegetables and hot peppers, becomes Jamaica’s national dish Akee and Saltfish.”
akee is also [...]
by Freda Moon
I wrote a sweet little piece of fluff on Fort Bragg’s new artisanal bakery and its hulking wood-burning brick oven.
Normally, I’m not one for quaintness. And I especially bridle at the idea that the way to resurrect America’s abandoned downtowns is to rebuild them in the image of the past — as if cutesy storefronts, [...]
by Freda Moon
I spent most mornings of my childhood standing, with legs splayed like a saw horse, above an old gas floor grate furnace in my dad’s house on the Mendocino Coast. I love that heater. There was a time when nearly every pair of my shoes had grid lines melted into their souls from moments I [...]
by Freda Moon
It’s been unusually cold on the Mendocino Coast. It’s the kind of weather that shows on ashen lips and huddled bodies, a conversation starter that always ends with an exclamation point. Needless to say, this is soup weather—a time for something warming and easy.
Here’s one I especially love. It’s a soup I learned in Mexico, where [...]
by Freda Moon
This story, from NPR’s All Things Considered, about a Chinese “garlic bubble” reads like a children’s tale: Peasants in China’s countryside fill their garages to overflowing with garlic.
With swine flu fears running high—and a firm belief in the healing powers of an ancient, medicinal plant—people began hoarding. They bought large amounts when the price was [...]
by Freda Moon
Sometimes I discover a new cooking technique—a little trick, long-established but new to me—and it feels like I’ve landed on a new continent, where colors are twice as brilliant and my tongue possesses double the taste buds. Earlier this fall, I had such a moment of discovery when I picked up a bottle of Hot [...]
by Freda Moon
Some impulse purchases are more gratifying than others.
This Thanksgiving was to be a small get-together; for our expansive family, an unusually restrained event. As such, we decided to keep our celebratory dinner to the essentials of a Northern California feast: We’d gorge on Dungeness crab, instead of a turkey. We’d throw down a few extras—a [...]
