One of the great pleasures of being the owner of Warszawa—the only Polish restaurant in Santa Monica, California, and one of very few in all of Los Angeles—is introducing people not only to my homeland’s cuisine but also to our unusual cocktails. Some of the tastiest, and most interesting, are those made with Polish vodkas.

In Poland’s long and heavy winters, a little alcohol has been a must to keep spirits up. And for millennia, the country’s fertile lands have produced an abundance of different types of grains including rye, buckwheat, and oats, among others. These grains were used to distill alcohol that was flavored not only with a variety of herbs, but also exotic spices, because Poland was right in the middle of the famous spice trail from Asia. Read on… »

I want to introduce everyone to the Food Timeline, a research website created and edited by Lynne Olver, a reference librarian in New Jersey. The site has been around for ten years (I’m a late arrival!), and has answered over 20,000 food questions to date, covering everything from the origins of macaroni salad (including a recipe from 1916!) to cashews, insects…the list goes on, starting about 300,000 years ago with shellfish. The timeline is actually a vast, linked network of history, published articles, and recipes, and it is an absolute gold mine for curious culinarians. I find myself clicking around the site for hours–who knew reading about ice could be so interesting?

As if I needed another reason to look forward to Fridays! Acme Smoked Fish makes some of the tastiest cured fishes around–and there’s lots of competition here in New York. And it’s made just a few streets away from me. After nearly seven years in my neighborhood, I finally made it to Acme’s Fish Fridays, when they open up their facility and sell their fishstuffs to the public. There are jars of various herring treatments, huge sides of bright red salmon as thick as an arm, whole smoked sturgeon…We picked up some fresh brook trout for dinner (two for $6) and a slab of honey smoked salmon for $7. My bagel breakfast (pictured) guarantees a good day and portends a tasty weekend…

Facebook is good for a few things–it really is interesting to see what long-ago friends are up to (for the most part making babies, it would appear…) and to spy on people generally. I even have a “group” for Spooning, if any of you haven’t joined yet. Most recently, I was sent a link to some amazing photos–someone posted images from the fascinating book Hungry Planet, by Peter Menzel. These images are of families around the world with a week’s worth of food–from a meager collection of legumes and rice in Chad to a mountain of sausages and sweets in Germany. (And, of course, pizza, soda, and boxes of cereal in the U.S.) The photos are also in a touring exhibit (schedule here), but if you have a Facebook account, I recommend checking them out. The first world/third world contrast is of course stark–but I was mainly struck by one simple difference: we in the first world eat absolutely everything out of tiny little packages.

I’m a week delayed with my New York Times Dining section coverage–but Bittman’s Minimalist column last week about stocking your pantry got me thinking. (Perhaps next week I’ll have something to say about bread pudding.) I endorse all of his recommendations (though I somehow don’t have fish sauce in my cupboard, and never manage to cook beans from scratch–though that is one of my New Year’s resolutions.) I would like to make some suggestions here, though, for the 2009 “maximalist pantry.” Completely unnecessary treats that I think should be in every cupboard (when finances allow): Read on… »