You don’t have to know precisely where the shop is because the first thing you see as you turn from Divisidaro onto California Street is the line that’s there at almost any time but, of course, especially thickly on weekends.   The line is out the door and down the sidewalk where people wait very […]

I used to believe that the best quality of life is found in America’s smaller cities. That was before I knew Reading, Pennsylvania I spent much of three years in Reading and after I came to know it very well and to love being there, I had a greater understanding of the impact on smaller […]

My son Philippe and I were eating rib steak with our friend Michel. It was his favorite. Someone came to the table and whispered to him that a tray of already baked puff pastry had been dropped on the floor. He left us and went into the kitchen of Central, his restaurant. After perhaps 20 […]

I am driving across the country for no reason other than that I have not driven across the country before and therefore there is too much I have not seen. This seemed like a good time to do that. Seeing Asheville, North Carolina for the first time was wonderful; seeing Hazard, Kentucky again after 52 […]

I recently returned from a trip with Philippe, my son. We were in hot climates and at high altitudes and he reminded me several times a day to drink water. He bought bottled water for me and made me carry it around in my little sack. My other son, Francois, is calmly critical of my […]

I am a not an easy man to work for. (Ask anyone here.) I am frequently pleased but rarely satisfied. Each morning I walk to the bread rack to look at and feel the breads – to see if they are baked to the color I want, whether they were proofed fully before baking, whether […]

I returned early from a conference in California to which I had committed myself. I did that because Bread Furst was robbed. Two men invaded our space and beat Jesse McCormick with a pistol. It was in the middle of the day and brazen. It was awful. I wanted to be here and left San […]

At the very end of 2014 I wrote an essay about my tipping dilemma and asked for advice. You know, I suspect, something about restaurant tips. Restaurants are able to pay a modest hourly wage, below the normal minimum because the preponderance of a waitstaff’s salary comes from tips. This is a good thing for […]

Would you like to know about my craziness – well, some of it. My new year’s resolution is not to lose weight; that’s a year-long, lifelong resolution. Nor is to be a better person; that’s unachievable. My resolution this year is to bring greater order to my home. That may seem to you so simple […]

Back in the old days, there were two public voices of food criticism in Washington. She was Phyllis Richman of the Post and he was Robert Shoffner of the Washingtonian. Shoffner immersed himself in Washington’s culinary history and wrote with real knowledge about our traditions and development. Richman first wrote a food column for the […]