Alison Cook’s HTown

Brunch gets a bad rap, which makes me sad, especially in the wake of my pretty perfect brunch experience at Camaraderie last weekend. It was terrific, from the ping-pong-ball-sized Swedish pancakes filled with lingonberry jam, to a meticulous lobster omelet and beyond.Alas, brunch's reputation

On a red-hot Sunday afternoon at 4 30 pm, I presented myself to the host desk of Perry's Steakhouse & Grille at the Baybrook Mall.Not my usual stomping grounds, but I was there for a birthday party. Or so I thought. The kind young women manning

"This salad is hideously sweet," I groused to my friends over an April dinner at Osteria di Mercato. The blue-chip corner import grocery turned Italian restaurant was packed and noisy, full of people having a high time.Not me. That romanella salad had arrived piled high and

I ate a backwards supper this week when I had business down in the Bay Area. First, I stopped in at the mothership Cosmic Ice Cream, whose products I adore. The family-owned shop has locations in Spring Branch and Pearland, too. The original Cosmic is a modest slot in

My friends are going to get sick of hearing about the Black Gold pie at Angie's Pizza, the new Heights pizza-and-pasta restaurant from Angelo Emiliani. I can't seem to shut up about it: the magnificent wood-fired crust, bubbled and singed, forcefully leopard-spotted

You have a fig tree in your Houston backyard, right? Right?????If not, make plans to plant one this fall, after the heat subsides. It will improve your life. I know because there were two fig trees on my property when I moved to the East End's Idylwood

Perhaps you have noticed that I quit writing here a couple of months back. The state of the world just overwhelmed me. I cocooned. I quit making plans save for the rare occasions friends pried me out of the house. So what changed? Well, La Rosa, a new neighborhood sandwich

Why, no, there is not. At least when you're eating them in Copenhagen, as I discovered in December when I spent a chilly week in Denmark's capital city. My lap and my tabletop and my enormous fake fur coat were continually showered with flakes of shattery,

The longest January I remember is over. At last. Even safe in my East End nest, I feel pummeled and bruised—in a spiritual way, which by no means compares to what my brethren in my late mother's birthplace of Minnesota have endured. Are enduring still. It

You should have seen my tourist-rube face as I stood in Kongens Nytorv for the first time a few weeks back. I gaped like a 7-year old, transfixed by a baroque skyline etched in Christmas lights, while skaters plowed through rough rink ice at the heart of Copenhagen&

Every year now in October, I begin following the X/Twitter exploits of Rodrigo Delgado, the Mexico City food writer and flaneur who makes it his business to sample and rate every possible pan de muerto in the capital city. He calls it the Pan de Muerto Challenge. This year

When my sister emailed today to say "Happy Cabbage Night," it took me back to the Vermont of my childhood and teens. There, the night before Halloween was the time for tricksters to perform the misdeeds that characterize what other North American regions and states call Mischief Night,

Why yes, it's still ice-cream season.In my world, anyway, that season never ends. No nip in the air dulls my enthusiasm for one of mankind's greatest inventions. Especially when I am faced with a double scoop from the estimable Cosmic Ice Cream shop in

File the egg-salad sandwich from chef Christine Ha's Stuffed Belly drive-thru in Spring Branch under "things I didn't know I needed." It reminds me of snuggling into a favorite down comforter.I love egg salad. I make it at home, using the

Now that I'm not a professional restaurant critic anymore, I can do things I never used to. Like show up at chef Hugo Ortega's new downtown restaurant, Zaranda, when the doors open for their first official dinner service.That's how eager I was to