It was the first day of fall, and time to check the plantains. The plantains were from Ecuador, the size of cartoon bananas, Mickey Mouse phones, the old land-line kind. I had them in a paper bag to speed the… Read More ›
cooking
The flavor is in the blood
Any cook will tell you, when you brown meat and rest it on the plate, blood will accumulate there and you always use that blood, or whatever juice comes out, when you put it in the pot. I sat in… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (24 Dezember)
24 Dezember, 17 Besigheim, Baden-Württemberg Early morning, happy snoring sounds in bed with Dawn—then mom and I by the banquette watching the birds gather outside by her window. We stayed up late playing Dan Fogelberg songs on mom’s tablet, Dawn… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (23 Dezember)
My pants don’t fit, and we can’t get the lyrics right to any of the Steely Dan songs. Cooked onion hangs like phlegm from the lips of Eberhard, the seafood gumbo I made: we were so full from lunch, mom… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (21 Dezember)
This month I’ve been featuring journal-style stories from our time visiting my mom in a small German village in Baden-Württemberg. The series is named after a post from 2014, before we moved here for nine months. We had to leave… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (15 Décembre)
December 15, 2017 Colmar, France We tipped big, smiled and said please a lot our short time here in Colmar. A family of Spanish tourists at the café were practicing English with their two little boys and before we left… Read More ›
Reserving the giblets
I drank an ale and made the gravy. The gravy was to be made over several hours the book said. Outside it was gray and Dawn said look at that rain. It hadn’t been raining before, it just started, so… Read More ›
The intensely masculine act of cooking beef chili
I broke up the beef with the back of a wooden spoon until it was no longer pink and spread it with the fat and spices and aromatics into a weave and stood there in my apron, regarded myself, got… Read More ›
Cooking French in southern Germany
Competitive beer drinking season has started here in the south of Germany, or maybe never ended, and I celebrated today with a traditional Bavarian lederhosen purchase, made from real cow hide if we’re translating it right, and I look nothing… Read More ›
Another run-in with the surly butcher
Why do butchers act the way they do? Because they chop meat and get covered with blood, for work? I got to the store early, picked up my things, and saved the meat for last. I needed a couple pounds… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 