Email Author Bonnie Wach

2004 Stories by Bonnie Wach

• One Plate to Rule Them All

  published December 29, 2004

  Forgive the Seinfeldian invocation, but ... ever notice how small plates are never served on small plates? Is it to create the illusion that... More >>

• Worlds Collide

  published December 15, 2004

  Growing up in San Francisco, I often found myself conflicted, and not just because I was forced to choose between a Gene Kelly musical at the... More >>

• Veganomics

  published December 1, 2004

  Every year, despite my best intentions, and despite the warnings of my inner Jenny Craig, who wags a finger to remind me that excessive... More >>

• It's No 'Choke

  published November 17, 2004

  It's all over but the keening, as they say, and even though I continue to wander around in a post-election daze, trying very hard not to grab the... More >>

• Okey Poke

  published November 3, 2004

  In an attempt to get my mind off the elections (but really because I had a surfeit of frequent-flier miles that were about to expire), I took a... More >>

• Atlas Adventures

  published October 20, 2004

  The beauty of living in this global bouillabaisse is that on any given day you can sit down at the kitchen table with a world atlas, close your... More >>

• Roe v. Age

  published October 6, 2004

  It's recently become apparent to me that I have reached the age when a few misguided folk may start referring to me as "a woman of a certain age."... More >>

• I Scream

  published September 22, 2004

  When I lived in Milwaukee, I spent a lot of time (usually during the dinner hour) lamenting the fact that I wasn't in San Francisco anymore. Good... More >>

• The Real Thing

  published September 8, 2004

  A few months ago, my sister-in-law sent my husband a sampler pack from the BBQ Sauce of the Month club. Most people would have received this gift... More >>

• The Cost of Cool

  published August 11, 2004

  I'll never forget the first time I walked into an In-N-Out Burger. There I was, all bright-eyed and expectant -- giddy with the buzz that had... More >>

• Stick-ing It

  published July 28, 2004

  I'm a sucker for a good pun. Actually, I'm a sucker for a bad pun, too. I once wrote an entire magazine article about clever imaginary pun names... More >>

• Filling the Buca

  published July 14, 2004

  The ubiquitous refrain, sung by chefs from the northernmost Napa vineyard to the shores of Santa Cruz (after "We're closed on Mondays"), is: "It's... More >>

• Neat Trick

  published June 30, 2004

  I've always been simultaneously intrigued by and suspicious of dishes at vegetarian restaurants that purport to be "just as good as" or "better... More >>

• Pasta Perfect

  published June 16, 2004

  Look back through the soup cans and frozen Trader Joe's pot stickers of your life and there's always "the dish" -- the one that started it all,... More >>

• The Call of the Coop

  published June 2, 2004

  There's something a bit unsettling about the fact that Internet spam has started to bear an eerie resemblance to Beat poetry. These days, when I... More >>

• Tuna Time

  published May 5, 2004

  You ever notice how certain foods require just the right setting to taste good? Comfort foods, for instance, like fried-egg sandwiches or... More >>

• Talking Turkey

  published April 21, 2004

  If you're like me (and I hope you're not), you've been having a tiny minor freakout over the whole mad cow thing. It's the kind of cognitive... More >>

• Heads and Tails

  published April 7, 2004

  I'm not a commitment-phobe, but I often play one when I go out to dinner. In restaurants, I can be a notorious dilettante, coercing (OK, bullying)... More >>

• Doing Chicken Right

  published March 24, 2004

  I've always had a love/hate relationship with dishes that purport to be of foreign origin but are really just glorified Americanese dressed up as... More >>

• La Dolce Vita

  published March 10, 2004

  The problem with experiencing the food of another country in that country is that you come back with expectations. Floating around your... More >>

• Chowdah Head

  published February 25, 2004

  I have to admit I've never been able to get a good grip on the dining scene in the Castro. For years, it was a scatter shot of unremarkable... More >>

• Slippery When Wet

  published February 11, 2004

  Finding a hidden gem of a dish in a Chinese restaurant is like wading through the phone book for a dentist – the choices seem endless, so... More >>

• The Baja Way

  published January 28, 2004

  Readers, please forgive me for what you're about to receive. It's an anecdote about my 2 1/2-year-old son, a subject I've resisted writing about... More >>