Recipes that make me happy. This week’s subject is a no-brainer. Because I like a nice cocktail. A perfectly prepared, impeccably presented, cocktail. I like the whole process of a cocktail. The amassing of high quality ingredients. The high-tech gleam of good stainless steel bar tools. The shimmering, sparkling crystal of the very best barware.

I like the entire ritual.

Maybe the allure is that certain bit of glamor attached to the ritual. Engulfed in nostalgia. Swank. Stylish. It’s that, yes, but so much more.

This is of course epitomized in the scintillating viscosity a very good martini. Always gin, never vodka. Which is a cocktail that does indeed make me happy. Very happy. more »

I’m a lucky man here at The Back Burner because my post falls on the weekend. Mother’s Day Weekend. I am also lucky to have so many of my mother’s recipes compiled into a cookbook my brother put together after she passed away in 1993, long before her time. I cherish the cookbook. Of course I do, though I rarely cook from this book. I pull it out many, many (many) times to seek culinary inspiration and quietly remember my mother. But I almost never sit down, follow a recipe and cook. Until today.

The recipes from this collection are mostly familiar to me. Foods strongly attached to the woman I knew as mom and the food she provided my childhood tummy. Most of the recipes seem to me to be comfort foods from my past– dishes I find endearing because they highlight some aspect of my mother’s quirky attributes, or are just plain-ole childhood favorites. more »

I am throwing a CINCO DE MAYO party right here on this blog. And you’re invited!

Now we all know that Cinco de Mayo– or the fifth of May– is a party kind of day. It commemorates the Mexican army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867). A relatively minor holiday in Mexico, but here in the United States Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with large Mexican-American populations. Well guess what? I live in Los Angeles. Here Cinco de Mayo is the equivalent of St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin. But instead of green beer we drink tequila. more »