Each page features a collage-style picture of a food and its name in English and Spanish. But not everyone approves of this book. As one Amazon reviewer said:

“Radish” is another choice, but since it is such an uncommon vegetable, I am not sure why she didn’t use someting like a potato or a bell pepper, which are more common.

I’ll tell you why: because the Spanish word for radish is el rábano. If I were a masked bandit—and who’s to say I am not?—I would call myself El Rábano. I’d steal fresh ingredients from the trophy kitchens of the elite and cook them (the ingredients) into lavish banquets for the people.

I can hear them calling for me now. ¡Viva El Rábano!

(Hmm, I guess this fantasy is heavily influenced by Three Amigos. I’m not sure what that says.)

Iris Out Loud #3: Trophy Cupcakes (1.6MB AAC)

We didn’t catch this on tape, but while we were there, Trophy Cupcakes owner Jennifer Shea was frosting a party cake consisting of a couple dozen cupcakes in the shape of an octopus. It caused Iris to seriously rethink her plans for her next birthday. Which is, after all, only nine months away.

We’d been planning to check out Trophy Cupcakes, the new upstart cupcake shop in Wallingford, but Trophy Cupcakes unexpectedly came to me. I was at Remedy Teas this morning and noticed cupcakes, and they were, indeed, Trophy’s. I brought home one chai and one chocolate, and Iris and I shared the chai. I’ve never had a cardamom-flavored cupcake before. It was great. On weekends (at Trophy itself) they have a PB&J cupcake, which I’m sure Iris will enjoy.

It’s several years old now, but I finally got around to reading The Brewmaster’s Table, by Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery. It’s an absolute delight, because Oliver is an unrepentant hedonist, exactly the sort of Virgil you want on a trip to the ninth circle of beer (where presumably you’ll find a chalice of Duvel). The part where Oliver talks about what he had for dinner the previous week and what beer he chose to go with each meal is priceless—the guy can eat.

This is not a cookbook; it’s a guide to the world’s beers with tips for matching beer and food. I’ve said this before, but the ubiquity of great beer is one of my favorite things about Seattle. Any time I want, I can walk five blocks to the supermarket and choose from literally hundreds of beers, and Oliver’s book inspired me to do so last night, and to select something that might otherwise have scared me away: Dogfish Head’s Raison d’Etre. It’s scary not because of its 8 percent alcohol, but because it’s brewed with raisins. Why you would trumpet this on the label I don’t know (nobody actually likes raisins, right?), but it’s an astonishing and complex beer that nevertheless went great with chili.

And the Dogfish Head bottle illustrates perfectly another reason I love beer, one that Oliver is also quick to point out. If Raison d’Etre were a wine, it would be something weird from Austria or British Columbia and it would cost $25. Thank god it’s not. It was $2.