Category Archives: Dining

Where to eat in San Francisco

Paul Prudhomme

Cooking, Dining, Uncategorized

Cajun cooking.




Cajuns migrated from southern France to Nova Scotia whence they were kicked out by the British, moving to French Louisiana. This was before Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, buying Louisiana and a bunch of other states from Napoleon. Nappy promptly wasted the proceeds on his disastrous invasion of Russia.

Paul Prudhomme (1940-2015) was a Louisiana born chef, the youngest of thirteen (!) children, who learned cooking from his mother. The home had no refrigerator so everything was sourced daily from the surrounding land. He remains the dean of French influenced Cajun cooking, and of its Creole cousin with its more African focus.

Cajun cooking has a strong focus on chicken, shrimp and fish, and both the classic ‘Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen‘ (Cajun and Creole) and ‘Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Seasoned America‘ (countrywide American dishes) make extensive use of spices, often as many as nine or more. So probably ill suited to bland English palates. The books were published in 1984 and 1991 and, rightly, remain in print. Invest in these and your spice drawer will grow. Mine comes in at no fewer than 68.

Prudhomme opened his famous restaurant K Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in 1979 (now closed) and I was fortunate to dine there, in beautiful New Orleans, in 1982, enjoying a still memorable seafood and Andouille sausage gumbo with a Cajun Martini*. The line was out around the corner and I was accompanied by my girlfriend of the time, appropriately a Southern beauty and native of nearby Mobile, Alabama. As we waited behind a couple of cops, she got into conversation with one and they discovered that they has been high school classmates some 20 years ago!

Anyway, if you like properly and subtly spiced food in Cajun and American styles these two books are strongly recommended. Clearly Louisiana natives have abundant time on their hands as some of these recipes are anything but speedy. No problem for this retired old fart. Be warned that the layout is dated – solid text interleaved with (beautifully photographed) color plates – maybe just 5% of the recipes illustrated. From a health standpoint our understanding of saturated fats and their artery clogging proclivities is far better than it was when these tomes were written, so I would advise cutting back on processed Andouille sausage, and replacing margarine (ugh!), butter and vegetable oil with extra virgin olive oil, in the interest of heart health. Also the recipes frustratingly use volume (cups) instead of weight, though that is easily fixed with the knowledge that 1 cup = 8 ounces.

Tip: Unless you like your books splattered with food, juices and oils, no cookbook should ever see the inside of a kitchen. Take a picture with your cell phone, print and annotate the result and it’s off to the stove.

A word of warning: A few of the recipes call for warming up your pan until it is smoking hot, adding the fish or chicken and then immediately adding butter. That’s a prescription for fire. In a large, professional kitchen with large, vented hoods that’s likely not an issue. However, in the tighter confines of a home kitchen you could be looking at a visit from the fire brigade. I avoid those recipes.

*Soak coined jalapeno peppers in dry/white vermouth for a week, strain and add vodka. Liquid fire.

Musso & Frank’s grill

Dining, Photographs

A Hollywood institution.



The bar scene.

The bar scene here may not be quite up to Manet’s A bar at the Folies Bergère, but the atmosphere was positively electric when we dropped by this fabled eating spot for dinner. After stumbling along Hollywood Boulevard, that is, trying not to breathe what passes for air in that neighborhood.

Despite its 103 year old provenance and great fame, the food and service were excellent and we lucked out with a small banquette seat isolated from the non-mask wearing set. This being a Thursday I naturally chose the famous homemade chicken pot pie while Winston enjoyed a lovely trout.

If you want to see the glitterati and enjoy a good meal in Hollywood, Musso’s is it.

iPhone 12 Pro Max snap, some taming of the highlights in Photoshop.

Traditional British Cooking

Dining

Beautiful stodge.





Sure, British cooking is not about to challenge France for culinary domination. Much of it is unimaginative, strong flavors are avoided, spices are strangers and carbohydrates and frying dominate.

But check out some of these delicacies: Bangers and Mash, Toad in the Hole, Steak and Kidney Pie, Braised Brisket with Dumplings, Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, Shepherd’s Pie, Beef Wellington, Liver and Onions, Lamb with Mint sauce …. well, you get the idea. Classics all. And the greatest, Fish and Chips.

And one of the finest ways of discovering these meals, many predating Shakespeare, is in the book illustrated above. Copies are occasionally available from the usual used sources (Abe, Alibris, Powell’s, Strand) and the illustrations are, well, mouth watering. The photography is beautiful.

But I cannot pull this tome from my cookbook collection without a merry chuckle, for I am always reminded of the remark of an American friend to whom I was extolling its virtues. After glancing at the title, he carefully weighed it up in one hand, remarking “Strange that it’s so thick, really”. Ha!

Whatever you think of English cooking, if you need to enslave unarmed nations, sell opium by the boat load or import tea on the cheap, this book has what you need before setting out to pillage, plunder and steal.

The Full English

Bio, Cooking, Dining, Photographs

For the Man in you.

For an index of cooking articles on this blog click here.

The ‘Full English’ denotes the traditional English breakfast, one described in great historical detail, with regional variations, by Wikipedia.

Now that I have found a reliable source for smoked mackerel kippers (thank you, Whole Foods) I serve my son a Full English monthly, though I do drop the baked beans – there’s only so much a Man can take – and Winston is no coffee drinker.

I have so many pleasant memories of the Full English.

When a young lad – I would have been 14 or so at the time – in London, I got a summer job at the Habit Diamond Tooling Company. Their byline was “Make it a Habit” and they cranked out machine tools with diamond abrasives for industrial use. I was paid some $20 weekly – this was in 1965 – and was further provided with 5 Luncheon Vouchers. The face value was some 40 cents and yes, that got you a Full English at the local ‘caff’ with money left for a tip. And yes, it was absolutely delicious. The job was incredible fun and I learned to operate a pantograph, a lathe, a mill and an industrial grinder. The lessons garnered in working class attitudes were invaluable, and the many posters of buxom, undressed women on the walls of the factory harken back to a time when men were Men and women were in the kitchen. Or naked on posters.

British Railways used to serve a Full English on their sleeper trains from London to Scotland and it was absolutely delicious also, the kippers floating in a sea of butter. This was always preceded by a gentle knock on the door from the cabin attendant who woke you with an offering of tea, inviting you to the dining car. Another great tradition recently discontinued in a cost saving measure by a nation in terminal decline. Sad. A Full English on a train hauled by the Flying Scotsman was really something, as I can personally attest. (My eldest sister was an undergraduate at St. Andrew’s in Dundee, hence the Scottish trips. Plus, I love Scotland).

When I vacationed in Scotland before immigrating to the US in 1977, the Full Scottish would add black pudding or haggis. Once when overnighting at a B&B in the western Highlands I expressed dismay to the landlady on noticing how much larger my breakfast was than that of the young woman tourist staying in the same home. “Och no, lad” quoth she “Ye have tae go oot and work”. OK.

Anyway, here’s Winston contemplating his Full English the other day:




Bringing the boy up right.
Bacon, eggs, smoked kipper, fried tomatoes, whole wheat toast and milk. No baked beans in sight.

iPhone 11 Pro image processed in Focos.

At Shake Shack

Dining, Photographs

Up market burgers.

A recent review of mass market burger joints suggested that Shake Shack had the best ones, so I rode the old motorbike to the local one in Scottsdale, avoiding the Porsches and Bentleys, and had at it.



$12.20 and a 19 minute wait.


Big winner for me – the place is dog friendly!


Lots of families and no white trash. The prices keep the latter away.


Porsches and Bentleys.


Table tennis while you wait.


Danny Trejo lives.


Eating off the floor.


An enjoyable, social setting with well behaved people on a gorgeous Arizona day.

It may not be La Grenouillère, but it’s still jolly nice – and the burger was indeed excellent.

iPhone11 Pro snaps.