I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I dread it when I go out to eat, and the server asks: “Bottled or tap?” I always go for tap, but then feel like a second-class citizen, like riff-raff, like maybe I belong at the burger joint down the street instead. But when classy restaurants such as Chez Panisse, Incanto, Poggio, Nopa and Bushi-Tei are taking bottled water off of their menus, I can say “tap!” with gusto.

People who read me regularly enough will know that I love Belgian beer. In its infinite complexity and variability, it’s a subject as absorbing and satisfying as any wine region.

Rolling hills on one side, ocean on the other.
Between the two, the sweetest berries around.

Crab roll

Food memories have been haunting me lately. Although I’ve made SF my home, there are definitely times (usually the summer) when I toy with the idea of hopping on a plane home to D.C.—Bethesda, actually—for a brief visit. The tomatoes, peaches, corn and cantaloupe that I grew up eating have not met their fresh, juicy, perfectly flavorful match here in California—believe it or not. And then there are steamed Maryland blue crabs with a touch of Old Bay. MMMMMM.