It’s Mark’s eyes that draw you in. I first came across them at a food conference in an expansive dining hall in Denver filled with big round tables and mounds of mini croissants. They were clear and blue and electric, like the calm before a storm or a lazy careless morning on the shores of St. Barts, but when they are engaged in a conversation with you, a conversation inevitably and rightfully about, what else, salt, the entire room gets filled with an intoxicating culinary energy that is simply contagious.

Mark Bitterman, owner and self-proclaimed selmelier of The Meadow shop in Portland, Oregon first told me about his store  specializing in salts, flowers, drinks and chocolates when we first met in Denver. It sounded lovely to own a quaint shop in the even quainter town of Portland …Read on

Summer is almost over, I can tell.  It’s not the weather by any means, no, Florida sticks solidly to its high 90’s with heat index pushing it to a proud, stifling 107.  Now that’s summer for you.  But still, the general laziness that floated through the air is drying up.  You see it in stores piled high with notebooks and polo shirts and neon rulers.  “Back to school” is retail’s current desperate buzzword.

My summer was a patchwork of ups and downs, including a phenomenal culinary adventure through France, Israel and Spain, some peace from parenting with a child off in sleep-away camp, and then, believe it or not, all the anxiety that actually accompanies the peace from parenting with a child off in camp.  I’m slightly embarrassed to admit I missed my girl in the most exaggerated sense of the …Read on

He had long curled up shoes and a tall hat with a Pilgrim’s gold buckle on the front and even though he was forever drenched in cocoa, he had an odd smell of mothball, or dust, or mold. For years there was a little green man living in the bottom of my chocolate milk mug and this was how I imagined him. As a kid, my nightly ritual was pretty uneventful: bath time, pajama time, being tucked into bed and then read to. The closure to the day was topped with a frothy mug of chocolate milk. This surely seemed to be a treat: chocolate (albeit mixed with milk) is always a good thing. However, as rituals go, my sister and I soon caught on that this was the last step before the …Read on

Since we are still on the carb witch hunt in this country, I will focus on a salad. Let me get it out on the record first that there is nothing more glorious than a warm slice of freshly baked baguette slathered with rich butter (yep, you read it right here, BUTTER, not I-Can’t-Believe, or, I-Promise-You-Won’t-Know-The-Difference, or You-Don’t-Value-Yourself-Enough-To-Have-It-And-Nor-Do-We butter). That said, I have been known to profess to friends and family, my inner suspicions that I was a rabbit in another life, not because of my cuddly nature (which I lack) or bounding energy (something I also lack) but rather because of my insatiable craving for greens. A good salad is definitely on my top ten list. Of course, I refuse to compromise and will tell you, this dinner is delicious with a crusty buttered …Read on