The Last Big Holiday Party, Ever

By Sandy Hu

Steve and I have had a tradition of hosting an annual holiday party from our days as newlyweds living on West 14th Street in New York City. We would serve a collection of hors d’oeuvres with wine, ensuring there was enough food so guests could linger through the night and make dinner of it, or just drop by for a drink while doing the rounds of holiday merrymaking. The crowd then was mostly magazine people and accountants from Price Waterhouse, representing our two careers.

We continued the tradition when we moved to a condominium in Waikiki. At that stage in our life, the guests included family living in Honolulu, newspaper people and more Price Waterhouse accountants.

By the time we moved to San Francisco and restarted the party tradition, we had two children so the mix of guests now revolved around PR people from the agency where I worked, people from high-tech startups where Steve worked and fellow parents from the French American International School.

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Faux Foie: a Sumptuous Super Bowl Spread on a Pauper’s Budget

By Katie Barreira

Foie gras, literally, “fat liver,” is a famously French product manufactured by over-feeding geese (traditionally) or ducks, forcing the animal’s liver to more than double in size. The culinary result is a sinfully rich and silky spread that is the piece de resistance of fine dining menus and one of my favorite indulgences.

Other aspects of foie’s sinful nature have been brought to light, not only by animal rights activists, but also by chefs, like Charlie Trotter, who made foie gras (and himself) infamous when he succeeded in having the specialty item legally banned in Chicago. (The law was repealed two years later.)

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