I just recently watched all of Twin Peaks including the movie and I fell in complete love with it.  It blew my mind away how crazy it is and how this was on prime time television back in the day.   When I heard that it was filmed in Seattle, I was hell bent on doing a Twin Peaks trip.  There are a few good reference sites  that tell you where things are but in the end the Twin Peaks part of the road trip lasted only 4 hours.  The rest of the trip was about eating some of Joe's recommendations.

2. Meanwhile, in a 4 to 5 quart Dutch oven, heat the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat. Add bratwurst and apples; cook for 2 minutes. In a small bowl, whisk together water and mustard. Add mustard mixture to bratwurst mixture. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 4 to 6 minutes or until apples are tender, stirring occasionally.
3. Transfer cabbage to a serving platter or bowl. Use a slotted spoon to remove bratwurst and apples to platter with cabbage. In a small bowl, combine sour cream and snipped sage. Gradually whisk in bratwurst cooking juices until well combined. Serve over bratwurst mixture. If desired, sprinkle fresh sage leaves.



Per serving: 456 cal, 38g total fat(10 g sat. fat) 88mg chol, 1046 mg sodium, 13 g carbo, 2 g fiber, 15 g pro.

DOMICIANO DE BARRANCAS MALBEC CONSECHA NOCTURNA, 2007, Mendoza region, Argentina (approx. $25 CAD)

LABEL SAYS: Can you tell I'm a romantic at heart? The kind of a man (in a hat) waiting for you under the stars, walking on the beach barefoot, thinking deep thoughts. I'm quiet yet brooding. You hook up with me for the night and you'll be seeing stars.

WINE SAYS: The man in the hat is right! I'm smooth, gentle yet strong. I come off mild and finish big. You'll get no grittiness here, but I do bite a little. My seductive, rich cherry flavour will linger in your breath long after I'm gone.

DESIGN HARMONY: This sexy Argentinian and I are already on our second date.

Anya.

There's a whole genre of Japanese manga devoted to food and all things related - garume manga, or "gourmet" manga - and Oishinbo seems to be at the centre of it. Written by Tetsu Kariya and drawn by Akira Hanasaki on a somewhat continuous basis since 1983, the series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it one of the most successful manga titles around.

Oishinbo (combining 'oishii,' which means 'delicious,' and 'kuishinbo,' which refers to someone who likes to eat) follows the adventures of Yamaoka Shiro and his colleague (later his wife) Kurita Yuko, as they work on an "Ultimate Menu" project for Tozai News, the newspaper they work for. The two explore the gamut of all things culinary as they attempt to put together a model meal representative of Japanese cuisine at its best. The only catch? Rival newspaper Teito Times has their own similar project, the "Supreme Menu," for which they've hired prominent old-school foodhead Kaibara Yuzan. Much of Oishinbo documents the battles between Yamaoka and Kaibara as they try to one-up each other with the best way possible to prepare a specific ingredient, a heated affair that's only made that much more intense by the fact that Kaibara is Yamaoka's estranged father.

When he's not busy living out his Luke Skywalker issues, Yamaoka generally gets challenged to work with one specific ingredient per storyline. It keeps with the now-standard "respect the ingredient" MO that most people have become familiar with - there is no shortage of stories where simplicity and purity trumps needless inventiveness - but it also introduces Western readers to Japanese ingredients, foods and techniques that aren't widely known, all while slipping in a few morals and critiques of modern Japanese society (one story sees a famous gourmet lose his sense of taste due to the rise of large scale farming...and a good five panels about celery to explain it). The stories aren't overly complicated, and the drawing varies across the spectrum (pictures of food get detail, pictures of people don't), but there's a charisma to Oishinbo that can't be denied.

Since 2009, Viz Media has been publishing English translations of Oishinbo. Since the original print has spanned over 100 volumes (and begat movies, tv shows and video games), the English translations are grouped by theme: one volume covers all the fish, sushi and sashimi stories, another covers vegetables, and so on. There are seven volumes thus far (the most recent is on izakaya fare), and each is worth picking up.

One cart, one great sandwich: normally I'd drone on about singularity of vision, but in La Brasserie's case, it's more a case of two birds with one stone.

The food cart, an offshoot of the Davie Street restaurant, takes the place of Kimono Koi Crepes, though one of the purveyors of the latter also helps to run this new iteration.  It's a simple premise: they pick up rotisserie chicken from the restaurant, shred the white and the dark meat, serve it up with a tasty gravy and deep-fried onions to give it some crisp, and put it all on a buttermilk bun (the cart serves mostly as a reheating station).  

It's a fantastic sandwich ($7, tax in): the chicken is moist and flavorful, the gravy just present enough without rendering the sandwich into mush, the onions and buttermilk bun giving that all important texture.  And, perhaps even more importantly for La Brasserie,  the sandwich is a genius piece of marketing for the restaurant.  If you haven't thought about visiting the brick and mortar location yet, here's a great way to pique your curiosity.  Two birds, one sandwich.

Joe.

La Brasserie (the food cart)

On Granville Street, at Georgia

Vancouver, BC

While Bon Appetit goes through a major revamp with former GQ Style Editor Ben Rapoport at the helm as their new editor-in-chief, here's a couple of other newish food magazines to check out:

Fricote is the new food magazine from French sneakerheads Shoes Up. It's just as design savvy, with a good half of the magazine devoted to product shots, photo shoots and other pretty layouts. There's short features on music video directors, football stars, Eugene from Hypebeast, and a slew of other picks that are heavy on the Parisian. It's entertaining, in spite (or perhaps particularly because) of the iffy English translations.

If your tastes skew slightly less street art and more fine art (but just as hipster), then check out Condiment. Two issues in, this Australian zine skews more towards the conceptual (read: more prone to grand thesis statements)("The most abstruse and fundamental quality I could perceive in the onion was its weight, its utter immobility on an upturned dish; but the onion at least discovered fear in me)(geesh!), but less brainiac than Gastronomica. It might be less fun than Fricote, but if nerdjams are your thing, here you go.

When I flip through articles about Ferran Adria's dishes at El Bulli, and after I lose my mind about the sheer impossibility of ever getting a reservation there, I often wonder if it would be appropriate to hang a picture of one of his dishes. Most people recognize that they're works of art...and that's without ever having tasted them.

Part of that is due to Francesc Guillamet, the only photographer trusted by Adria to document his work. He's taken every single photo in every single book put out by El Bulli: a great feat considering the sheer volume and intricacies of each dish (some of the dishes only last a few minutes, which allows Guillamet a minimal amount of time to prep the shoot). He's got his own book out - Comer Arte - which documents their 17 year partnership.

Here's a video on Guillamet:

Joe.