Sublime

Then Michael wrote Cooked, and his agent—this was Binky Urban, a really powerful agent—read the part of the draft which described me, and she said, “Oh wow, what a charismatic character. Does she have any book ideas?” And he said, “Well, yes actually, she has an idea.” So I told her what I was thinking, and she said, “Yes, this is a good idea but i

Since doing some wine training in my early 20s, I’ve attempted to take a moment to internalize any really unusual smells or tastes, stopping to savor again in order to archive in memory. Recently at a celebratory dinner, I had a fish crudo with oat milk, jalapeno, snow, and mint that somehow wasn’t disgusting, and I can recall a medium-fidelity imp

what we wanted to serve and not enough about what our guests might actually want to eat.

produced the café’s cups, redolent of…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Near the end of my internship, I was out in the playground helping a few kids dig a hole in the sand pit. One of the boys mentioned he’d gone out to eat with his family the night before. “What did you have for dinner?” I asked. “Arugula salad,” he replied. “But usually I get squid ink.” I didn’t know what surprised me more—the choice of food or the

Harold McGee,

early-evening sunlight splashing across the tablecloth like melted butter,