A list of things

My dear friend and fellow blog-keeper Amy has respectfully requested that I follow through on a tag--a list of questions to be answered that will offer you, the reader, some greater insight about me. But since this is a food blog--and I'm really, really trying to keep it that way--I'll answer the questions that are somehow relevant to that subject. Here goes:


Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Clerk at a health food store. Even today, if I walk into a crunchy grocer (like, say, Rainbow Grocery, the crunchiest of the crunchy--a collective, even) the smell of nutritional yeast and bulk foods takes me back to my high-school days.

2. Cheesemonger at Formaggio Kitchen. You don't know the lengths you will go for a job until you are covered in the stinky rind that has rubbed off of a wheel of Italian taleggio.

3. Receptionist at an art museum--the high point of that college work-study gig was the opportunity to cook a dinner for Sally Mann, one of my favorite photographers. What did I make, you ask? Lemon tart, and chicken.

4. Private chef. Not as glamorous as it sounds, folks.

Four Places I've Lived:

1. Woodstock, Vermont

2. Cambridge, Massachusetts

3. Burgundy, France

4. San Francisco


5 places I've vacationed:

1. Rome and Tuscany, where we ate, and ate, and ate

2. Montreal (Don't leave that city without trying the smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz's)

3. Provence, where the markets overflowed with goat cheese, olives and lavender

4. Playa Negra, Costa Rica

5. St. John, USVI

5 of my favorite dishes:

1. Grilled Niman Ranch Fearless Franks

2. Sarah's Chocolate Chip Cookies

3. Anything my mom makes

4. The Hoffman Farm chicken and polenta combination at Universal Cafe in San Francisco

5. Shanghai Soup Dumplings--someday, I hope someone will challenge me a soup dumpling eating contest. It will be a great day, particularly if it is a rainy and windy winter day at Joe's Shanghai in New York City. Watch out, challenger, my appetite for soup dumplings is boundless.

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. In a palapo watching the waves roll into Playa Negra.

2. Back East.

3. Trolling the aisles at the Grande Epicerie in Paris, a cook's paradise, awaiting the first bite of a little French macaron.

4. On a nice hike in the Marin headland with Olie and SP.

So, there. Now you know.