Recent Work
Get Cerv'd
Budget Travel Magazine - June, 2010
There's a pint-size revolution sweeping Mexico, with a wave of 
microbreweries introducing tasty new ways to fill your glass. From the bars of Baja to Mexico City, look out for these local-hero labels.
Read about Minerva (Guadalajara), Cucapa (Mexicali) and Primus (Mexico City) brewing companies in the June issue of Budget Travel magazine, on shelves now.
(Continued)
COMING SOON - Lonely Planet Mexico, 12th Edition
I'm excited to see Lonely Planet's upcoming (October, 2010) Mexico guide available for pre-order at Amazon. My contribution to the book is the product of two months researching the "Around Mexico City" region of Mexico's central highlands.
Beyond that, it's the result of a year spent dodging potholes and avoiding animals on Mexico's infamously treacherous free roads. This thrilling, but decidedly non-luxurious post-wedding romp, consisted mainly of hunting for hot springs, isolated beaches and irresistable taco stands. It was a good year.
Next up: Lonely Planet New England.
The newest culinary cult
San Francisco Magazine - May, 2010
You knew it had to happen: Sooner or later, someone was going to mount a challenge to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Marketo yuppie mamas with toddlers in tow—flocked this past March to a SoMa warehouse for the third installment of San Francisco’s new Underground Farmers Market, a monthly event organized by Iso Rabins, the charismatic leader of the city’s clandestine food scene (he also runs ForageSF). Apart from some unusual homemade treats, like acorn-flour brownies and Rabins’ own pork-belly buns, the offerings (and the prices) didn’t look all that different from those you’d find at most “aboveground” farmers’ markets. So what made this event worthy of the “underground” moniker? (Continued)
California Goes Bust, Embraces Bud
GQ.com - The Q Blog - March 25, 2010
While almost everything that falls from the mouth of California's square-skulled Governator has the potential for humor, few aspects of the state's ongoing fiscal collapse are, in fact, funny. But one unexpected byproduct of California's impending economic doom is, at least, darkly comic: It's beginning to seem that the state's budgetary troubles may lead California to become the first state in the country to legalize the recreational use of pot.
Yesterday, Tax Cannabis 2010—the organization behind California's marijuana legalization drive—submitted the last of the 433,971 signatures necessary to put its initiative on the November ballot. The law would make it legal for drinking age adults to possess up to one ounce of marijuana. It would also allow for the taxation and regulation of pot by the local government. (Continued)
The Taylor-Gould Wrongful Conviction Case
Two years ago, while working as a staff writer at the New Haven Advocate in Connecticut, I got a call from the wife of a man serving a life sentence for murdering a bodega owner 15 years before. The woman, Mary Taylor, had been arguing her husband's innocence for years. But she'd been unable to get local news outlets to take notice. After hiring a former-police officer turned private investigator, Gerald O'Donnell, to look into her husband's case, she was armed with evidence, but was still unable to get the attention of the state's major papers. But the case had my attention. I wrote this cover story on the Ronald Taylor and his co-defendent in the case, George Gould, in January, 2008. This week, I learned that a Connecticut judge has thrown out the convictions of Taylor and Gould. In his ruling, the judge said the two men were "actually innocent." (Continued)
BITES - Restaurant Review: Whiskey Soda Lounge; Portland, Ore.
New York Times - Travel Section - March 6, 2010
At Whiskey Soda Lounge, in Portland’s southeast corner, Asian surf rock blares and psychedelic orange lampshades cast a surreal glow, but it’s the food that’s most striking. Small plates of aahaan kap klaem — Thai pub snacks — arrive one after the next, covering tiny tables, along with potent beverages to wash them down. Here, that means house-brewed fruit vinegars mixed with bracing spirits in concoctions like the Hunny, a cocktail of tequila, grapefruit juice, lime and honey-flavored drinking vinegar ($8). Pair that with Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings ($12), and its salty-sweet, almost caramelized coating, and you have the world’s perfect bar food. (Continued)
Round Two in Green Door Studio Vs. V'Canto Feud
Anderson Valley Advertiser - February 26, 2010
Some fights start small and build into a rage that ends in bloodshed. Others begin with a man shouting, “Hey, fuck face!” at 8am on a Saturday morning in early November in downtown Fort Bragg. In this case, Fuck Face is Jim Muto, the owner of the Italian dinner house V’Canto; the shouter was Dan Hemann, the artiste behind Green Door Studio’s howling coyote. So, what brings a bronze sculptor to stand on a public street and scream obscenities at his neighbor, the mild-mannered restaurateur?
On this day, at least, the cause for conflict was eggs. The walls of Hemann’s studio had been pelted with them—and Hemann believed Muto was to blame. So, after his shouts were ignored, Hemann came through V’Canto’s door uninvited. Muto was in the restaurant’s dining room working on his laptop. His friend, Robert Van Peer, was there, too. (Continued)
Fort Bragg Bakery oven rises again
San Francisco Chronicle - Food Section - Jan 7, 2010
The massive brick wood-burning oven is the first thing you notice. Lit like a jack-o'-lantern, the oven has a handsome facade that dominates the dining room at Fort Bragg Bakery. But it's the story behind the oven that makes it the object of pride and fascination at the North Coast's new artisanal bake shop and cafe.
When Chris and Tricia Kump decided to open a European-style bakery in this former logging town 170 miles north of San Francisco on the Mendocino coast, they hoped to make it the best in the region.
As part of that mission, the couple undertook a project as impressive as the breads, pizzas and pastries they aspired to bake: They painstakingly reconstructed the historic brick oven that had occupied their building from 1909 until 2003, when it was demolished. The oven had sustained severe water damage during a fire in 1995. (Continued)
Mazatlán’s Old Town Is Spry Again
New York Times - Travel Section - October 25, 2009
On a cool Friday night at a sidewalk cafe in Plazuela Machado, in the center of Mazatlán’s old town, a wedding party of well-dressed Mazatlecos greeted each other with kisses and toasts. They clinked glasses of imported wine, the women wobbling on high heels, the men looking on.
Across the plaza a few hours earlier, the layered rhythms of música folklórica erupted from the city’s Municipal Arts Center. Those horns and drums had been replaced by the wedding band’s jazz saxophone and bass.
Music is everywhere in the Centro Histórico, the resurrected arts district and architectural marvel of this city on Mexico’s west coast. So are galleries, sidewalk cafes and that illusive, prized product of a cosmopolitan city: the so-called creative class — artists, actors, writers, musicians, designers, hipsters, foodies and fashionistas. (Continued)
Cooking Classes on the Road
National Geographic's Intelligent Travel - August 3, 2009
It was in Oaxaca City, the capital of one of the poorest and most politically 
turbulent states in Mexico, that I first fully understood the lengths to which people go for an incredible meal.
Inside the city's cavernous central market air is thick with the smokey, chocolatey, chile-scented flavors for which this southern Mexican state is famous. The market's dimly lit interior, overflowing with vendors, buyers and hungry hordes of European tourists, is as daunting as it is thrilling. To eat one's way through the market's many food stalls—sweet rolls dipped in savory hot chocolate for breakfast; spiced dried grasshoppers at snack time; rich, earthy mole or fire-grilled carne asada for lunch—is an act of choreographed culinary devotion. There's never enough time to taste everything, but a true believer does his or her best. (Continued)
