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 […]

Here are a few sentences you will never hear in a French restaurant: “Hi, my name is Emile and I will be your waiter for this evening.” “Have you dined with us before? “May I explain our menu to you?” “How are you guys doing?” “Are you still enjoying that?” “Is there anything else I […]

I didn’t know exactly where I was, somewhere between Agen and Perigueux  and I was enjoying not knowing. I was meandering the little roads back and forth between Dordogne and Cahors, avoiding the “N” roads staying on “D” roads, passing fields of sunflowers bending in union away from the hot sun as if in prayer. […]

Years ago when I first got interested in cooking, food was for eating. No one thought about food as art. I had five siblings all of whom shared my enthusiasm for food and our breakfasts and dinners were at home. Each morning at the breakfast table when my father finished reading the morning newspaper (there […]

I have a few friends who quality for that title: Aglaia Kremezi whose newest cookbook Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts I am looking at more than any other right now when, at the height of the summer, we are getting the best fruits and vegetables available in the mid-Atlantic. Aglaia lives on the island of Kia, an […]

I flew to San Francisco again on Saturday and write this as I fly back after a two-day stay. I didn’t see much of that wonderful city I love so much as I spent much of my time in the kitchen of my hosts. Dave McElroy and Kathryn Morrison are people of enormous enthusiasm and […]

Some people in the food business (although not nearly enough) read The Art of Eating, an erudite quarterly periodical available also at very few newsstands. It carries stories on bay leaves and on pork in Southwest France, about bread, about butter, articles that go deeply into food. It has about 10,000 subscribers and is produced […]

I don’t read Yelp; the very word puts me off. Many people including my best sons think I should do that and many of my colleagues do so. But if you have been reading these essays for a while you know that I encourage customers to complain directly to me. And you do:             “…at […]