I am a big big believer in focus leading to quality. (Note: not just a big believer. That’s TWO bigs!) I enjoy all sorts of restaurants that focus on one item — chocolate, hot dogs, bagels, etc. But one of my favorite foods is macaroni and cheese. It’s a perfect food item in my opinion. [...]

Living in Seattle my choice for fried chicken is a place called Ezell’s. Honestly, it’s not as good as everyone claims. The texture of the coating is nice and crunchy, but the non-spicy chicken I had there was essentially flavorless. The spicy was, well, spicy, but not much else.
But this week, I’m in Manhattan. My [...]

I’d say the following is the most dramatic subject line I’ve ever received on an e-mail:

“Please Read. We have been betrayed. The end.”
It’s from the folks at Gypsy, Seattle’s very own underground restaurant. We posted about it back in September of 2006, February of 2007, and about cooking and eating at its sister venture Vagabond [...]

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I guess it’s easy to write about conflict in the middle east. After all, there’s so much of it. Without getting too political, it’s my belief that if we could send all the extremists on ANY side to Elba, then the folks remaining would live together in relative peace. And [...]

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I don’t know how it is in other countries that have a more religious population, but even in Israel, with a highly secular population, Friday night is something special. It’s the beginning of the Sabbath, but even among the folks who don’t celebrate the Sabbath per se, Friday night is [...]

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One thing I’ve learned is never to underestimate the human capacity for focus and specialization. And from my perspective, it’s generally a great thing.
When it comes to food, there are two ways this can go. The first is where a restaurateur or a producer focuses like a laser on [...]

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There’s not much like the old city in Jerusalem. The fact that there’s been a city (almost) continuously operating on (basically) the same spot for millenia combined with the importance to three of the world’s religions is especially compelling when combined with the day-to-dayness of the city. There are portions [...]

If you have any experience with eating a favorite dish in another country and seeing it butchered, you will understand the following. While I could certainly use broader global culinary perspective and expertise, even with my admittedly narrow scope, I can think of no better example of the disparity between a local favorite and its [...]

In a country (and a region) so culinarily rich, and so agriculturally focused, it’s pretty amazing how lame Israel seems when it comes to cheese and dairy. The classic iconic representation of this problem is that when you ask for cheese in Israel you only have two options: “white or yellow”. White cheese is liquidy [...]

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As we give context on eating in the “Holy Land” the bread deserves its own post. This one to be specific. Here in the U.S. some of us are lucky to have a handy source for fresh bread on a daily basis. (Perhaps they’re even baking it — nah, nobody [...]