I’ve had several excellent dinners at The Spot on Lincoln – http://www.thespotpasadena.com/ No alcohol served, but no corkage fee (near as I can recall) - place can get REALLY loud on the nights that there’s a...

We also had a milk man with the glass bottles, bread man, rag man, ice cream truck and during the summer an ice man with large blocks of ice also someone who sold buttons, sewing thread, band-aids....notions from a tray hanging...

of everyone in super formal dress and uncomfortable shoes. I’ve suffered trough one or two of those and didn’t want to put my guest through it. I wanted a fun party for everyone. Our live 4 piece jazz band kept...

kinda place. As to the jukebox: Irma Thomas, J. Geils Band, Jonathan Richman and Modern Lovers (ca. roadrunner), Exile on Main Street (the soundtrack to my perfect bar), Jimmy Smith (can the perfect bar be on skid row?), pre-1970...

but think the dogs are so-so.) Other parts of the country also have regional chains I’ve enjoyed. Dick’s in the Seattle area was great for a bite after downing microbrews while listening to one of the area’s...

Speaking of expensive watermelon in Japan...when I was there ten years ago, it was even pricer—$100/per. And this reminds me of a mystery I’ve never been able to solve. I was over there for a gig with a nearly...

think of ourselves), and because meat of all kinds is so readily available to us, I think we tend to think of the human diet as meat heavy. When we pick up books about prehistory, chances are there are tales of hunters banding...

With so many lovers of German food chipping in, may I take a moment to ask a small question about a German food product: Dried/Dehydrated sauerkraut. It was apparently issued to German soldiers during WW2 (as evidenced in...

who managed the cash drawer. He had to check me out with cash, and I usually had to yell over the band to make sure he saw my checks waiting at the end of the bar. Me asking if people needed change was a way for me to improve...

potatoes and uses her mixer and the potatoes get so rubbery that you have to be careful of the rubber-band snapping when you try to pry loose a forkful. But... Her husband loves them, so she doesn’t use the potato ricer I...

meaner, along with his band of buddies, with each episode.

he would star in his own rock and roll band. To my knowledge he has done, none of those things. Like him or not. He is REAL. And he might be one of the best things to happen to this whole “celebrity chef-dom” phenom ....

faux pas like that except perhaps serving perhaps serving them Sauerbraten, a stein of beer and having an Oom-pah band playing the whole time.

cooked evenly, using different cuts can give even a dish of mixed vegetable an attractive appearance, and you won’t need to buy as many band-aids.

is the only alternative to taco trucks in Salinas Mickey Ds? Are there no other restos in the whole town besides the clown shop on every corner and our brave band of plucky taco trucks fending off the man? I seem to remember...