Let’s get this straight. Nationalized health care — which would replace greedy insurance companies with overwhelmed government bureaucrats as middlemen between patient and doctor [that’s the image being sold], ending the tragedy of uninsured and underinsured Americans — is socialism. Rescuing banks — that award huge bonuses to undeserving executives and neared bankruptcy because of […]
Gazpacho Summer Soup
Update, August 2020: As much as I love this soup, I tend to make it just once a summer. The recipe is both long and large. I’ve been halving it in recent years so why not just give the smaller amounts? Less thinking that way. The original post follows. Gazpacho for Four, Easier than Before […]
You Say Ganouj, I Say Ghanouj
Or baba ganoush or baba ghanoush. Baba ganouj is a first cousin to hummus dip (mashed spicy chickpeas), but with eggplant as the base. For shmearing on pita wedges or vegetable sticks. Mollie Katzen in Still Life With Menu likes it as a pasta sauce. Any kind of eggplant works; the common jumbo globe has […]
Granola, Better Homemade
Using two cookbooks for one oft-used recipe, mainly the penciled notes in each, finally got old. It’s time to write it out. Is it mine, or theirs (see footnote)? A now-retired newspaper food editor once told me not to worry: “At conferences, we all agree, if you change more than the amounts of salt and […]
Parting Shots
VENTURA, Calif. — Following are reflections that don’t fit in the reportage articles from the weekend’s annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. A proud moment came in helping select the year’s scholarship contest winner. Paul Bowers of the University of South Carolina — the other USC, was the running, old joke — […]
A Man for All Cats
VENTURA, Calif. — Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle may be an anachronism twice over, writing a humor column five times a week. That makes him a columnist hero. Sure I like some of his pieces better than others, which might mean he’s uneven. But it’s likely more of a matter of whether I’m […]