An Open Letter to the Host at Silver Trumpet

There is a moment on season three, episode three of Julia Child’s Baking with Julia where a young Nancy Silverton is visibly gripped with terror. After eating a forkful of Silverton’s brioche tart with hot wine syrup, Child starts to weep....

Even if you read most books on a screen these days, take my advice and buy an actual physical copy of Phyllis Grant’s memoir “Everything Is Under Control.” Its words are best absorbed from real pages; some contain only two or three lines. Grant...

OC Weekly Archives In 2007, I was lucky to land a job as OC Weekly’s restaurant reviewer. It was also the year that Jonathan Gold, at our then sister paper LA Weekly, won a Pulitzer Prize–the first ever for a food critic. As a sort of initiation...

I get a lot of mail. People love critiquing the critic. Sometimes they really let me have it. A guy named Rich wrote to tell me to he’s fed up with me writing about spicy food. “I am afraid you have finally done it, Mr. Johnson! Your taste buds...

There’s “good,” and there’s “lick-the-plate good.” The food by chef Norm Theard at the new Roux Creole Cuisine in Laguna Beach isn’t just the latter; it’s pot-licker good. I told the waiter as much when he asked how I liked the Shrimp Yvonne I’d...