Amuse-Bouche

• The Pain and Pleasure of Pepper

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  It’s there in Black and White. Lunching with names in the movie-tone news at a chic beach front restaurant on the Croisette in Cannes, I ask the waiter in my best high school French for fresh black pepper for my Salade Nicoise. “You want black pepper,” he snarls, “go to Africa.” Still, he grudgingly brings an ancient pepper mill.

  In restaurants all over the world, before I can put fork to lip, waiters are wielding pepper mills the size of Mark McGuire’s bat, grinding and twisting them at my table. I’ve become addicted to hot pepper: black,…
  
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• Oysters and Wine

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  How do you pair oysters and wine? According to World Oyster Opening Champion, Patrick McMurry of Starfish Oyster Bed and Grill, “it all depends on your personal preference”. There are so many different varieties of oysters, and different types within those varietals, that to try to pinpoint one wine that goes well with each and every oyster would be in vain. Moreover, “wine changes by the year; oysters change by the week. Depending on that week’s weather—whether there was a lot of rain or not—the salinity in the water changes.” Therefore, McMurry suggests any of the “classic, traditional white…
  
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• My Love/Hate Relationship With Fat

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  Guilt is good. It is an emotion that I savor with each blissful tablespoonful of Butter Pecan ice-cream straight from the carton; with each profoundly satisfying bite of crispy skin chicken; with each euphoric morsel of USDA Prime sirloin steak, marbled with rivulets of sizzling, juicy, flavorful fat. Oh, come on, we all love fat. Is there one among us who will speak for delicious fat while there is a witch-hunt going on? “Fat Police” and nutrition educators are plying us with information--instructing us on how to find hidden fat and flush it out before we swallow--pouring on the…
  
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