(Gerry Furth-Sides, photos courtesy of LOCAL HIVE HONEY) Honey, in general, is so wonderful that it might just take a taste test like to differentiate the pure and local ones for yourself. We did years ago with local Santa Monica honey at a farmers market and never went back to other honey. One company that […]...
(Gerry Furth-Sides) International spices have come mainstream. Just one glance at a supermarket spice shelf today reads light years away from even a year ago. Spice Island’s New Line of Seasonings Inspire Global Cooking with product plus a website filled with details and recipes, and most of the sources. It goes al...
(Gerry Furth-Sides) Sitram USA is as passionate as the French in love can be for their contemporary store-top pressure cookers. That’s love convinced me to start using it as a pressure cooker instead of as the beautiful stainless steel thick-clad based stockpot I love that is also perfect for regular cooking. Jill Nu...
(Gerry Furth-Sides) We were hooked on Honey Roasted Peanut Butter at the first spoonful. So this pumpkin product is our favorite among the fanatical rush to use this fall, seasonal culinary darling. Blending Pumpkin Spice and Pumpkin Flakes brings out a remarkable Pumpkin Pie flavor. It is holiday-worthy whether spread on...
Popular in song and lore, Route 66 is, perhaps, more popular today than at any time in its history. In fact, GOOGLE addresses on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles are now referred to as “Classic Route 66. If you motor west (or east) on this storied old Route 66 highway, there isn’t enough time […]...
At first an item that came across our desk seemed a totally zany idea: Munk Pack’s ready-to-eat Oatmeal Fruit Squeezes to time with “National Breakfast Month” and the back-to-school season. But much to our surprise, the product tastes great (it could have a little more texture, true), so much more satisfying th...
(Roberta Deen) Laurel Gallucci and Claire Thomas’ book, SWEET LAUREL, Recipes for Whole Food, Grain-Free Desserts is a guide to overcoming adversity and limitations in the home kitchen. These two friends have written the perfect “make lemonade” cookbook. Like many things, SWEET LAUREL, the bakery, was b...
(Gerry Furth-Sides) HATCH CHILE is here, and only for six weeks. And they MUST be from Hatch, NM. It is the altitude in this southern New Mexican area that infuses the unique characteristic, cold at night and hot in the daytime. Like mesquite in the 80’s, New Mexican cooks have known about them […]...
(Gerry Furth-Sides) Leave it to fun-loving Bavarians in Germany to solve a problem with a precise, practical party solution. Munich breweries early in the 19th century added to open-air dining and beer-drinking with “Biergartens” as a way to use planted gardens above cellars to keep their lagers cool enough to ferment und...
(Gerry Furth-Sides) In Atlas of Empires: The World’s Civilizations from Ancient Times to Today, author Peter Davidson, presents a broad historical overview of how empires rise and fall. It provides a wonderful backdrop for cultural history as well, and how ethnic cuisines have been created in each empire, and how the...
Gerry Furth-Sides 
Barbara Hansen 
Chef-owner Alain Cohen 
Roberta Deen 
Jose Martinez 
Nivedita Basu 