It’s time for someone to write an exposé of Alamos Malbec, which has somehow taken over the discount racks at major retail stores and the menus at low-priced restaurants. Around here, at least, the taste has become so familiar that it’s a recognizable brand, like Sierra Nevada pale ale. Viet likes it a lot, and…

I had a recipe for stuffed poblano peppers fried in oil, and I abbreviated it to cooking chopped poblanos with ground pork and a small tomato. I added ground canela and cloves for seasoning. At the end I threw in two eggs, creating a delicate texture. It would probably have tasted good with some kind…

For the sake of my own well-being, and to avoid giving over my entire life to refreshing Nate Silver’s Twitter feed, I made a rule that I wouldn’t check my phone more than once a day, other than email. Instead I spent most of the weekend doing yard work in the lingering summer heat. I…

My garden is a mess, with its vines overturned and unrelated vegetables interweaving haphazardly. But it is a productive mess, giving me a daily supply of tomatoes, a little eggplant, and an upcoming crop of winter squash. I have my pick of herbs as well, except the basil is just about over: Its leaves have…

The best Friday nights are the ones where you drink a glass of wine and then go to sleep. I see I have become middle-aged. When we got home we ordered chicken from Pollo Rico, which comes with a mustard sauce that goes well with white wine. But we had no ice to chill the…

Ethiopian at a place on the way home from the Metro, with gored gored that took advantage of the spicy and sweet taste combination you find in berbere. Like at many Ethiopian restaurants, the wait staff only seemed to know a few words of English, and I’m starting to wonder if learning a little Amharic…

What do you do when you need a quick and immediate meal? Both of us got home late and we were looking for something we could throw on the stove without creating undue fuss or dishes. The options available, whether it’s takeout or even a trendy new food delivery service like Blue Apron, can be…

There is only one kind of ice cream I usually make at home, and this would be vanilla ice cream using the recipe from the ice cream maker instruction book. Beat one cup of milk with 3/4 cups of sugar, then add two cups of heavy cream and a teaspoon of vanilla. Refrigerate for an…

On the plane ride home they had a special menu item designed by Tom Douglas, the same celebrity chef from the Palace Kitchen restaurant. The scrambled eggs were not, in fact, bad; a little too watery, but that much can’t be avoided when you reheat them on a plane. They were livened up with fire-roasted…

There was a pizza place on Capitol Hill where the servers were very serious and pretentious about their pizza, which is a somewhat laughable pose in Seattle, but probably necessary to make it clear that they aren’t just a place for drunk people to congregate. “This is traditional, Naples-style pizza,” they said. “It cooks in…

There were two coffee shops that we tried in the neighborhood where we were staying, Beacon Hill, and the longer you spend in Seattle the more you probably get to know the characters of different coffee shops and the types of people who are loyal to each. One of them felt almost corporate, probably at…

We took the bus with Hiroe to a shopping center in Renton, the town where the Boeing factory is, and went to a Korean all-you-can-eat buffet where you enter at a check-in desk that looks like you’re going to a hotel or a spa. From the giant cafeteria I tried selections of sushi, a mango…