Thoughtful Gourmet Blog

13 best bites of 2025 – a highly personal list of my best bites of the year, discovered in Napa, Sonoma, Boston, Crete, Detroit, and beyond.

Choose one of these 17 sparkling wines – grouped as Californian, French, Italian, and a few Non-Traditionals – and have fun!

Fresh, West Coast amaro, artist-driven bottles from California wineries, a non-alcoholic spritz I stand behind, and a delicious Portuguese vermouth top my list of boozy gifts and non-alcoholic drink gifts in 2025.

Field Notes is my monthly column where I share a few of the events and other items of note taking place in any given month. These are just a few of the food and food-adjacent events that have caught my attention in December. This column will be updated.

For my 2025 gift guide for food lovers and eaters, I sourced foods and food gift boxes from the West Coast, with one exception.

As I researched the 25 cookbooks included here, a singular theme arose: Food as touchstone to bring together generations across culture, geography and dislocation. Food as shared heritage, no matter your background. Food as identity.

Here are just a few restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area (and beyond) I visited in October. Borscht Cocktail (it’s true!), the biggest schnitzel you’ve ever seen (also true) and a tamale worth traveling for…

Field Notes is my monthly column where I share a few of the events and other items of note taking place in any given month. These are just a few of the food and food-adjacent events that have caught my attention in November.