New Year’s Resolution: More Dinner Parties

ELV — the man, the myth, the galloping gastronomic gourmand — doesn’t usually bother with such trifles as New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that he’s above trying to improve himself, but more like he doesn’t enjoy setting himself up for failure.

But 2015 will be different. For once, we intend to do something to benefit our mind, our spirit, and the friends and family around us: we’re going to cook for them.

On a semi-regular basis.

At our palatial abode.

Most of you don’t know this, but for over twenty years our dinner parties were legendary in three states: Kentucky, Connecticut and Nevada. Sometime around a dozen years ago — when both Vegas’s food scene and our food writing took off — we started dialing back our cooking to focus more on restaurants and writing about them. (When you’re eating over 400 restaurant meals/year (1998-2012), the only thing more daunting than cooking dinner for yourself is what to do with the refrigerator full of restaurant leftovers you’re always saddled with.)

Continue reading “New Year’s Resolution: More Dinner Parties”

What I’ve Learned – 2014

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/silent-film-still-gypsies-granger.jpg(Once Michael Mina decided to open in Yugoslavia, the local populace was all in.)

ELV note: We ran this feature a couple of years ago, and periodically update it so we can share these pearls of wisdom with others who follow our swinish ways:

WHAT I’VE LEARNED – 2014

Restaurant cooking is assembly line cooking. Think of it this way and it is harder to romanticize it the way most amateurs do.

I believe in the four major food groups: French, Italian, Chinese and barbecue.

The older a man gets, the more he becomes like a woman. And vice versa.

French chefs are just better than American ones. American cooks don’t like to admit this, but in their hearts they know it’s true.

Continue reading “What I’ve Learned – 2014”

Odds, Ends and Reflections – 2014

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7148/6679005967_c58f84beb9_b.jpg

This picture, though 123 years old, pretty much sums up our view of the past twelve months. It was a kidney stone of a year, and we couldn’t pass it fast enough. And since this will be our last post of 2014, we thought we’d feature a few random thoughts and observations about it, and point our loyal readers to what they can look forward to in the time it takes our blue marble to rotate around good old Sol one more time.

2014 in Review

What exactly happened on our food scene this past year?

Answer: not much if you looked on the Strip; quite a lot if you looked off it.

Continue reading “Odds, Ends and Reflections – 2014”