I'm looking at this dinner table, all laid out and ready for ten guests: there’s even food in the dishes. Tamales, bread, pozole, buñuelos, other things wrapped in corn husks, olives, nopales, frijoles, sweet corn, …

’Tis already the season. And already, I’ve been eating way too much gunge! Need less fat, more fruit, veggies, nuts, twigs. A fresh taste in my mouth.And yet I’ve got that hungry hollow feeling as …

“Sorry, we have none left.”Whu? It’s 1 pm and they’ve run out of lunch already? Maybe they’re out to lunch. And here I had been so looking forward to this Indian curry — for just …

Solana BeachWhat makes Solana Beach interesting for me is not only the Hispanic history, which infuses the area with words of Spanish origin: Rios, Cedros, and Granados (rivers, cedars, and pomegranate trees), but that the …

Sometimes, you’re thankful to just sit down somewhere. You don’t care about the food, the cushions, or the view. This is one of those moments. I collapse onto this bench seat among the ancient native …

A tour of San Diego alleysJack Whalen hands me a beer. “I’m king of this alley,” Whalen says, then points west. “Down there, the king of that next alley is Tom Sweet. He’s 97.” Whalen …

“Arrogant Bastard!” I say.“Arrogant what?” asks Diane, my newly-minted sweetheart.I look at the bubbling brown elixir that is my AB, then up at Diane’s sparkling chocolate eyes flecked with green, and sigh. “Most beautiful lamps …

Sorrento Valley lacks stickiness It’s among the safest of neighborhoods. A glance at crime statistics shows negligible amounts in Sorrento Valley proper (most months: no murder, no rape, 20 nonresidential burglaries). The place is either …

Aahh! San Diego pupusas. And I mean San Diego, the Central American beach twenty-six klicks south of San Salvador, capital of El Salvador. ’Twas there I first ate that country’s national food, the pupusa, introduced …

The Aztec drums echo through the barrio. Even at this distance, you can hear the dancers’ ankle rattles shaking with each foot stomp. Chicano Park on this Monday night tells you better than anywhere else …

“We’re eating British tonight, alright?” says Annie in that voice of hers. It’s been a hard day. We’ve been working together. Both beat. She’s my friend. You’d think she was my wife. But hey, she’s …

Alpine's Secret Valley Here we could raise animals and grow a garden, learn the old arts of canning, butchering, milking, and cheese-making. The '70s provided this back-earth movement, and our few neighbors, like my family, …

“Och, dreich. Ye coulda picked a better night, sailor,” says Annie. “It’s chucking it down.” Annie’s my Scottish friend. She’s right about the rain. Says it takes her back to “Caledonia.” That’s the old name …

I came for yak, the classic mountain meat from the Himalayas. I ended up with tikka masala, the classic Indian dish from, uh, Scotland? But I’m getting ahead of myself. It was the yak that …

“Let me get this right,” I say to this fellow Jeff. “You’re offering me a shot of whiskey and a can of beer for $6. Six bucks?” “Yes, sir, that’s it,” says Jeff. He’s the …

Apostolic Prayer Temple, house of exaltation I came here, to the Apostolic Prayer Temple, a storefront in between a nightclub and a fish market in Encanto, to see the Rev. Tom Shaw in the Gospel …

“How to find the Salk Cafe?” replies this kindly professor type to my query. “And you’re walking? Ha! Head west on Gilman Drive. Turn right onto Mandeville Lane. Turn right onto Muir Lane. Turn left …

It took me years to realize that Welsh rarebit wasn’t eating about bunnies at all. A little while after I learned the truth, I was up in Oceanside — Mission San Luis Rey — at …

How they fought 2004 Campo fire After it crested, the fire started "running pretty hard" east along the ridgeline. "We were coming along holding it with engines," Scully says, "and we were actually being very …

Oh yes. THIS is how to start your day. Fire-roasted Arabica coffee beans sending their smoky aroma up my nostrils, right beside a blue pylon of incense smoke. We’re talking coffee beans that have come …

“That used to be the beef jerky place,” says Will. He lives around here. “See? It’s in one of the apartments of that building. Weird. Pretty popular, though.” We’re sitting in Will’s ’95 Bronco, in …

He’s waiting as we come in: my window-cleaner friend Tim. His motto is “Your Panes Are My Pleasure.” Cheeriest chappie I know. He gets around, and he’s always steering me to the places near where …

“Think globally, drink locally,” says this one guy’s T-shirt. And people are sure obeying that law here. Whole long table of mostly guys, back from a sport fishing trip and whooping it up. “That’s one …

“Eat hot to cool down,” my aunt used to say. “And drink hot, too.” “What does that mean?” says my neighbor Kevin when I quote her to him on this stinking hot day last week. …

Wow. Red peppers in the sunset! They shine scarlet in the late afternoon light. Calabrian chile. The peppers are about the only “real” thing in this vegan meal I’m eating. But the rest of the …

“Oh no!” This is Diane. New to ’Diego. She has just picked up her gobernador taco, chomped in, and watched a splot of orange taco juice squirt out onto her shirt. Her white shirt. “Tacos!” …

There’s Thai and there’s Thai. You have Thai down south near Malaysia, where we’re talking fish, thick curries, coconuts. Up north, far from the sea, near the mountains of Laos and China, we’ve got freshwater …

“Nothing demoralizes an aspiring escoffier faster than requiring him to cook eggs over easy.” That’s Anthony Bourdain, quoted on the menu I’m looking at. Happily, I can see that this is not going to be …

“My grandfather was Archduke Ferdinand,” says Laura casually. “He was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914.” Whoa. The assassination that started World War One? Her grandfather? Laura and Bosko, her husband, definitely hail from the Serbian …

“What time is it?” “Six-thirty in the am.” “Where are we?” “Don’t even look, pappy. We’re in the Philippines. Can’t you smell the food?” I can. Vinegar, fish, BBQ. Ria, my beloved stepkid who’s no …

The angel Gabriel blasts his golden trumpet high above Fifth Avenue. It glints in the evening sun from the dome of The Abbey, the massive onetime church across the road. “I am worth it,” I …

Where is everybody? This was last Tuesday, in Oceanside. I was looking for food. Don’t look for food on Tuesday afternoons. So many places are closed. Specially last Tuesday, the day the whole nation fell …

“We don’t talk a lot, but we do yell a lot,” says Jamie Dambois. Yah, for sure, there’s a lot of shouting at the screens here. Small surprise: this is the last week of the …

Purple gives way to pink gives way to blue. Dawn is cracking late here in the Southern Hemisphere. We’re at a tiny country railroad station at seven on this winter’s morning, waiting for the train. …

“New Season First Grade Bluff Oysters! Here we go, mate,” says Russell. “This is the one. This place is da bomb.” We’re sitting beside a small sign: “Fed Up Restaurant & Takeaway,” here in Paraparaumu, …

“Just don’t ask me to taste mutton or lamb,” says my neighbor Kevin. “That’s all I ask.” Uh-oh. I have this bee in my bonnet about lamb. And about burgers. I want to see the …

Barrio Logan? It’s hopping. A sort of food cluster is forming right around Thorn Brewing’s Barrio Logan factory. They’ve opened a big eatery called ReBru Spirits, where — don’t ask me how — they convert …

“So long, Huey.” It’s a biker muttering this. He ain’t old enough to have picked up that Vietnam moniker for the sun, but he says it anyway. Because yes, that last moment’s coming. People have …

“It was beauty that killed the beast,” reads the sentence etched into the blond bar counter. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” On and on. Sayings, thoughts, bon mots, the …

“Eee-yew! Spongey!” cries my buddy Tim. “And you have to eat with your fingers? A mess! Why can’t we have a knife and fork like at any other place?” He has just unrolled a section …

It’s a sunny breezy morning. John Man, tall, slightly stooped, plenty of hair for his age, a guy who listens more than he talks, is shooting the breeze at coffee with his buddies. As usual, …