Chickpea Lessons in a Taxicab

By Andrew Hunter

With my travel schedule, I end up in a lot of taxicabs. I’m always curious about the drivers, where they’re from, and if they’re professionals, craftsmen or artists from a faraway place. Since it’s rude to ask such questions directly, I usually engage in conversation and their stories typically come flowing forth.

Meet Kareem, a Palestinian driver in Phoenix. I jumped into his taxi yesterday wearing my chef jacket; Kareem called me “Chef” with a reverence of someone from a fancy hotel background…turns out he once worked for the Ritz-Carlton. I reciprocated by asking respectful questions of him, which evolved into a discussion on mezze platters. I’m working on a mezze concept and so am especially interested.

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A Trip to Chase’s

By Lori Powell

If you ever find yourself passing through Belfast, Maine, stop by Chase’s Daily (vegetarian farm fresh) restaurant on Main Street, a fixture in Belfast since 2000. You get a triple hit of gorgeous-looking, delicious food… cooked, baked and fresh.

The front part of the space is the restaurant with wood floors, exposed brick walls, wood tables and chairs. Halfway through the large space is a lunch counter in the middle of the room, overlooking the shelves loaded with baked goods and the open kitchen. The back part is a veritable green market with lots of baskets and galvanized steel tubs and bins holding fresh produce from Chase’s 35-year-old farm in Friendship, Maine.

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Tomato Season’s BLT

By Katie Barreira

Around this time last summer, I got a sandwich that blew my mind. I always love a BLT for its addictive combination of meaty bacon, crisp lettuce and sweet-tart tomato. But this particular BLT was all about the “T;” 3/4-inch-thick slices of sun-ripened tomato were the meat of this stunning sammy. This weekend, I returned to see if the best-ever TBL (Tomato, Bacon and Lettuce) was back in season; I was in luck.

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Settling Down to a New Season

By Sandy Hu

Labor Day always seems a little sad to me, marking the unofficial end of summer. In San Francisco, our farmers’ markets are still bursting with heirloom tomatoes, peaches, nectarines and fresh herbs, but we know that soon all of nature’s largesse will gradually slip away.

We officially turn the page from a summer lifestyle that’s casual and informal, to settling back down to work and school. When my kids were growing up, I always tried to introduce a few new brown bag ideas to mark the start of the school year and to help all of us get back into the daily routine.

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Curiosity, Courage and Confidence

Chefs are an odd lot. We have the stamina to work long hours, the courage to experiment and be improvisational, and the creative fuel to cook delicious food every day. Actually, this means we’re more foolhardy than odd, but we all have lots of tricks and techniques we’ve learned over the years that help us in a pinch.

I thought it would be fun to share a few tricks of the trade with you every few weeks ... it’s like a peek behind the kitchen doors. And remember, regardless of a chef’s character, our curiosity, courage and confidence is what separates the good from great. I tell my boys all my secrets, though I think they’re sick of hearing them, so I hope you enjoy!

Salt: Why you’ll only see kosher and sea salts in a respectable kitchen; never iodized.

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