Archive for July, 2010

A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 17

By Larry Levine Sally Tanner and Pat Hofstetter are two women of extraordinary accomplishment. Now in their 80s, they will be spending the first half of next week fishing for salmon on the Rogue River in Oregon. Sally is a former member of the California State Assembly. She represented a district in the San Gabriel [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 16

By Larry Levine Jennifer and I once stood in the center of Union Square in San Francisco and couldn’t see a Starbuck’s Coffee shop in any direction. I phoned my son John, who used to work at Starbuck’s headquarters in Seattle, and said, “I’m standing on the only spot on earth from which you can’t [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 15

By Larry Levine It was an act borne of utter desperation. I asked the young woman who checked us into the Holiday Inn Express in Grants Pass Oregon for the best restaurant in town. She immediately answered, “Taprock Northwest Grill, on 6th near the river.” “What about Rivers Edge?” I asked. It was a place [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 14 – 7/26/10

By Larry Levine If every neighborhood had a fish market like the one Jim Oswalt runs in Issaquah Washington the U.S. would be a healthier nation because more people would eat more fish on a regular basis. Issaquah is about 20 minutes southeast of Seattle Washington. It’s where our son John and daughter-in-law Julie live [...]
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TRADITION BY PASCAL – Restaurant of the Week – 7/26/10

By Janice and Jim Lacy - The formal name of this wonderful French restaurant is “Tradition by Pascal”, but don’t try telling that to the longtime clientele based in Orange County, who simply know it as ‘Pascal,’ named after its talented chef owner Pascal Olhats. Located in an upscale strip mall near John Wayne Airport, [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 13

By Larry Levine – I don’t know of a better town for oysters than Seattle. It’s not that there aren’t good oysters in other places. Gulf coast oysters were excellent before the oil spill. Now, we’ll have to wait and see. I first tasted them at Acme Seafood in New Orleans, for my money the [...]
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A COME BACK FOR THE PERFECT MANHATTAN

By Larry Levine - Try as I may, I can’t recall when and where I learned to drink Manhattan’s. I know it wasn’t from my parents. They drank gin martini’s – always with extra olives, which they gave to my sisters, who were too young to drink. What I do know is that I was [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 12

By Larry Levine – It’s probably the silliest thing I’ve seen on this entire trip. But tonight I picked up a brochure for Chez World Cooking School – Fairbank’s Newest Attraction. I did this on the way back from a dinner of over-cooked, tough Alaskan halibut. On the train from Denali to Fairbanks we had [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 11

By Larry Levine – Denali Natural Park and Reserve is not about food. There are no edible fish in the local rivers and streams, which are largely fed by glaciers that carry too much sediment into the water. The local growing season lasts only about 100 days. The nearest “town” from which meat, fish and [...]
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A FOOD LOVER’S TREK – Chapter 10

By Larry Levine – There is no one home in Dixie tonight. They are all up here with us in Denali National Park in Alaska. They come from Louisiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and just about everywhere else that people speak southern. Funny thing is when we did a Panama Canal cruise 19 months [...]
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