Like just about everyone who prefers cooking with gas, I’ve got a couple of burners that refuse to light automatically. For years I kept a plastic lighter next to the stove, but I hated the thing. They’re awkward to use and they’re always running out of fuel.
Then I read that Americans toss out 350 million of those lighters every year. And they apparently take some 400 years to break down. Clearly I needed an alternative.
Here it is. This rechargeable lighter is easy to use, works like a charm and requires no fuel. It’s fun too; At Thanksgiving everyone was so eager to use it that a fight broke out over who was going to light the candles.
Hmm, candles. If you want to make this an even better gift, you could throw in a few. Does anybody ever have enough candles?
In the seventies Jeremiah Tower was the sexiest guy in Berkeley. Everyone was in love with him. A woman chef of my acquaintance once told me, “I just won’t believe he’s not into women!” And she was certainly not alone.
His food was equally exciting. At Chez Panisse he knew no boundaries, creating French-inflected menus the rest of us had never even dreamed of. But by the time he took over The Santa Fe Grill he was turning his attention to American food, and once again made us all sit up and take notice. We still weren’t quite sure if there was such a thing as “American cuisine,” and the dinners Jeremiah created to honor the cooking of each state were revelatory. I’ll never forget that Florida dinner; he marinated spot prawns in rum until the roe was dizzyingly delicious.
But even then he was looking forward to Stars. And none of us had any idea what was coming!
If you want to see more of Jeremiah, there’s a terrific movie about him, The Last Magnificent.
In the beginning there was California Cuisine. We all studied it, wrote about it, debated what it was.
Then Cajun cuisine came along, and Paul Prudhomme took K’Paul’s restaurant on the road and seduced the entire country. In San Francisco people lined up all night to get a seat at his pop-up restaurant, and we all consumed so much blackened redfish that we nearly ate the fish into extinction.
But until Jeremiah decided to do these state dinners, I don’t think many food people had considered that every state has a unique cuisine. For me this was a really important moment; I began traveling around the country, trying to discover great local foods. But when I tried to sell an article about regional specialties, like Buffalo Chicken Wings, San Francisco Joe’s Special, St. Louis Toasted Ravioli and Cincinnati Five-Way Chili, I couldn’t find a single editor who was interested.
I hear from my teens that our rechargeable lighter makes a painful (to them) high pitched noise that 50-something ears can’t hear. Even when they are in another room, it gets a reaction out of them.
Your note about food from all the states reminded me of the online “food atlas” Gastro Obscura. There people log the most unusual food experiences and regional specialities worth trying. I love referencing it on trips https://www.atlasobscura.com/cool-places-to-eat