Welcome to The Inside Dish!

Eating for a living is hard work! You may find that hard to believe, but it’s true. There are some days that I open newly arrived samples with a sense of dread—am I really in the mood to test garlic peanut butter today? I’ve had stuffed quail for breakfast and French toast for dinner, all in the name of finding the best of the best. And while you would think that more expensive foods would be of higher quality, that’s not always the case. In my test kitchen, we have our share of surprises, laughter, disappointment, and utter shock on some of the foods that we encounter.

My main focus is Mackenzie Limited, a gourmet-food catalog that seeks out “the world’s finest foods.” Over the past 12 years, we’ve tested thousands of different products (13,000 or so by the last count), selecting only a dozen or so for each new issue of the catalog. For a multitude of reasons, many interesting, unique, high-quality product just don’t make the cut. And while I’ve always been extremely proud of the foods we select, it’s the ones we don’t that I always want to talk about. Now I can.

So what can you expect? Anything related to good food. One day I may discuss the best bagels in New York (H&H, and soon I'll tell you how to order them online!), while the next day I talk about Thanksgiving or other entertaining ideas. I’ll do some features on budget gourmet finds. There will be recipes. And links to great sites where you can buy gifts or treat yourself to amazing mail order finds that I guarantee you'd never find on your own. You'll even read about my favorite picks from Trader Joe’s, some of which come from the very same suppliers that supply the fancy catalogs (and at 1/3 the price).

So welcome to my blog. And bon appétit!