Mark Kuller died today. We knew he would but what a loss.  Mark was the creator/owner of Proof, Estadio, and Doi Moi, three wonderful Washington restaurants. He was a giant of a man, six feet six. When he hugged me my head met his chest. But height was not the only way in which he […]

My son, Francois, the historian (whose new book, When the United States Spoke French is available at Politics and Prose bookstore – shameless son-promotion – says, “It was a noble attempt but, like Scottish independence, defeat must be conceded.” I wanted particularly to hear his view as it was his idea to put breakfast out […]

We are doing all that we can think of doing, within the limits imposed by our young age and modest experience, to make Bread Furst a place with which the neighborhood can be pleased. We have been embraced far more quickly and tightly than I expected. Since we opened in May, customers have said to […]

A customer accosted me on the stairs a couple of weeks ago. “Why do you put butter on everything,” she asked. “What do you mean,” I asked her. “The sandwiches,” she said, “You put butter on the sandwiches.” “We put it on the ham and cheese. We don’t put it on the grilled vegetable sandwich. […]

I had dinner last week in an expensive restaurant.   As I read the menu my eye was drawn to a dessert: PISTACHIO IN OLIVES cake is made with the oil from castelvetrano olives, layered with pistachio cream, sorbet is the juice and flesh of cara cara oranges, crispy pomegranate, kumquats preserved in blood orange juice […]

One of my treasured neighborhood advisors keeps telling me to “advertise” our commitment to ingredients grown on local farms.  We are making pickles with local cucumbers and buying blueberries and beets from small farms.  Indeed, we are buying whatever we can get from farms around us.  Our doors are open to them when at the […]

A decade or so ago, I visited Sicily. Eager to avoid eating like a tourist, I asked during my first afternoon over coffee in a little Palermo café where I could find a real Sicilian dinner. A few hours later I was walking around the Teatro Massimo to a restaurant whose name I now forget. It […]

I didn’t get as many ideas from Steve Jenkins as I had hoped. Zanne Stewart, the former food editor of Gourmet Magazine and one of my favorite people, wrote, “ I’ll be eager to learn what Steve has to say. He’s one of my favorites and, possibly, the most entertaining of all…”  Me too. We […]

This, my first essay in some time, is an open letter to Steve Jenkins. You may not know his name but food people do as he really invented artisan cheese in America.  Well, that is to say he was the first person I know about who began to import really good cheeses from Europe and market […]

            We are now into our second week; and I find that during the first week, even though I was about as gracious as I am capable of being, I thanked customers far less than they thanked me:             “Thank you for doing this.”             “Welcome back to the neighborhood.” […]