Anyone can make a gin & tonic. But it takes someone special to make a Monkey Gland. Bon Bon. Get there. 

This cool, cozy corner bar brings cocktails to a whole new level. The pros behind the bar mix and muddle and shake concoctions to perfection, and serve 'em up with bowls of bottomless popcorn from the theater next door. 

Happy Hour runs Monday through Saturday from 5-8 and all day on Sunday.

Pinkies high, friends.

You'll find Bon Bon at the corner of Garland & Monroe, just outside the Garland Theater lobby.

During our stay in Rome last year, my wife and I both developed a taste for the traditional Roman pasta dish of cacio e pepe. A totally basic dish of cheese and cracked pepper, it is served with some sort of spaghetti. And when it is done well, it is usually as delicious as it is simple.

On Sunday night, while visiting friends in Seattle, we ate at the Capitol Hill Italian restaurant Rione XIII. We shared a number of dishes, including an appetizer made with morels that was scrumptuous. But the hit of the night, in my mind, was the cacio e pepe, which was served with tonarelli pasta. With our server — who happened to be my friend Leslie Kelly's daughter Claire Nelson — blending the cheese and pepe with the tonarelli at our table, we watched magic being born. You can see the process in the photo above.

(BTW, Rione apparently means “neighborhood.” And Rione XIII refers to the restaurant's inspiration, Trastevere, which is Rome's 13th district.)

And as my Italian-speaking pals might say, “Era delizio. Veramente.” In fact, this dish of cacio e pepe was as good as anything we ate in Rome and better than a recent dish we ordered in Florence.

Abbiamo soddisfatto. Moltissimo.

My brother and I had an interesting dinner at Applebee's the other night. We'd just gotten out of a 5 p.m. movie (“This Is the End”: don't ask) and were looking for something to eat. “What do you want?” I asked, to which my brother replied, “Something with meat and vegetables.”

To which I thought, “That means steak.”

Trouble is, we're talking about just before 7 on a Saturday evening. But as I was driving east on 29th, I saw the Applebee's sign, thought “why not?” and drove through the parking lot to see it it was crowded. It wasn't, so we went inside and got seated right away.

Our server was attentive, if not overly prompt (it was fairly busy, if not packed), but the specials looked tasty enough and well within our price guidelines. So we ordered “bottomless” lemonades and waited.

Pretty soon a guy was at our table asking if we knew the score to the Mariners game. I looked it up on my phone and then listened as the guy went on about this being his 68th birthday and he was there with his family and Felix Hernandez was a helluva pitcher and … you get the idea. Friendly. In a small-town, neighborly kind of way. Something I'm neither used to or particularly comfortable with. But I can pretend politeness with the best of them.

Then they sat another guy, alone, at a nearby table. He was carrying a Clive Cussler novel, started downing glasses of red wine, never made eye contact with anyone but his server and kept his eye on the hockey game playing on one of the many overhead TVs. And then, for reasons I still don't understand, he started chanting — about every three minutes or so — “Mo-HEEEEEE-toh!”

Uh, OK. Our meals came, they were better than bland. We ate as quickly as we could. Skipped dessert. And we exited. And I swear the last thing I heard as we passed through the doors was — “Mo-HEEEEEE-toh!”

That was my Saturday night. How was yours?

Always on the look for a new breakfast place, I drove out to the Spokane Valley this morning. My destination: Terry's Breakfast & Lunch, which sits on Trent Ave. just a few blocks west of Argonne Road. And I'm glad I did.

Two things I liked about Terry's. One, the waitress was friendly in a way that was jokey but not precious. She didn't call either my brother or me “sweetie” or “hon,” which I find irritating, but she kept up a ready patter of minor insults that left us both smiling. Two, my eggs were cooked exactly the way I like them (over well, by which I mean almost hard but not broken — directions that so many fry cooks just can't follow).

Plus, my hashbrowns had a good taste of gravy (even though no gravy was in sight), instead of the greasy taste many breakfast places serve. And the coffee, though hardly gourmet, was strong and hot.

My brother had no complaints about his french toast, either. Especially after I agreed to share my bacon. Maybe some dad you know will enjoy his bacon this Sunday at Terry's.

My advice: Order extra.

Nothing like an evening of literature and good food, which is what I enjoyed earlier this evening at Hill's Restaurant and Lounge. The book, Julian Barnes' Man Booker Prize-winning novel “The Sense of an Ending,” was a hit with my book group. And my Elk Burger, which I ate with a side of cole slaw, was certainly a hit with me.

All in all, over the evening, most of my tastes were sated. Literary and gastronomic. Next month: the nonfiction study “Thinking Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman.

Not sure what kind of brain food that calls for. Something with avocado, maybe?

I'm a genius.

http://m.now.msn.com/smarter-people-drink-more-study-says

Cheers!

That picture above is of a Black and Bleu Buffalo Burger, which Huckleberry's describes as a “blackened seasoned buffalo patty, roasted tomato mayo, lettuce, tomato, bleu cheese on a ciabatta bun.” It costs $10.99. And along with a whopping portion of potato chips, it is worth every penny.

My apologies to Mrs. Buffalo.

One of my favorite eateries in Florence, Italy, is Trattoria ZaZa — which, this visit, was barely a block and a half from the apartment we had rented. But then one of our friends recommended another, nearby restaurant, Trattoria Da Garibardi. So on one of my last days in Florence, we dropped in for a late lunch.

So, in the photo above you see, starting from the top left, insalata Caprese and fried sage (a house specialty); in the middle, bruschetta (which you pronounce “broos-ketta”) Toscana; and at the bottom, my bowl of Ribollita soup (a traditional Tuscan soup made from leftovers, especially dried bread).

It was exquisite, by the way. Think I'm gonna try my hand at making my own home-made Ribollita.

During my recent stay in Florence, Italy, my friend Larry Weiser kept saying that I needed to check out what he had been told was the best coffee bar in the city. Yeah, yeah, I thought. But I finally did check out the News Cafe, and I wasn't disappointed. Not that the cappuccino I ordered was any better than what I'd been served in any of a half dozen other spots. But it was pretty good. And it was … well, pretty.

In between seeing two movies on Saturday — “Frances Ha” at the AMC and “In the House” at the Magic Lantern — my brother and I drove out into Spokane Valley to get hamburgers. So, naturally, we dropped by Ron's Drive-In.

Here's what I like about the place, besides its retro feel: Unlike most other places, especially the chain establishments, Ron's specializes in offering actual hamburgers — not massive meat concoctions whose combo-prices run in double digits.

My brother and I got Super Burgers, with large combos. And in additon to walking, not waddling away, I enjoyed the fact that the entire price came to less than $16.

Hey, that was the same price we paid for a movie!

So, the joke goes like this: What do they call Italian food in Italy?

Answer: Food.

Ah, but not always. The photo above comes from a sign attached to the front of a trattoria in Rome that we walked past last weekend.

I'm back from Italy, where wireless connections are seldom the best, and I wanted to complete a thought that I had at least partially expressed in my last post. The one about eating bistecca fiorentina.

I did eat an order, which usually comes for two people. And between my wife and I, we ate an entire kilo of meat (2.2 pounds) — though that's not so impressive when you consider a portion of each was pure bone.

Anyway, it was done to perfection. And that is a photo of it above, held in my wife's hands. Yum.

Photo: What's left of a platter of strozzapreti, a pasta dish served with meat sauce.

(This post is dedicated to my friend Leslie Kelly.)

In February 1974, concerned about my weight and wanting to clean up some fairly unhealthy habits, I stopped eating meat. My then-wife Freddie and I opted instead for a fairly restricted vegetarian diet, abstaining from all meat, fish and fowl. Though Freddie and I divorced in 1993, I continued my veggie lifestyle until three years ago.

I won’t go into the whole story, but a medical condition caused me to rethink things. I started taking medication that was, in essence, pure pig enzymes, so I figured … what the hell. If they’re killing pigs to feed me enzymes, I might as well go, uh, whole hog. And so, after 35 years, I again began eating meat.

I started slowly. My friend Leslie Kelly helped me break my flesh fast by preparing me a delicious halibut dinner. And for a while afterward, I was disciplined. But that sense of dietary care lasted barely a few months. Pretty soon I was back on the carnivore train with a vengeance. I ate everything. If it was meat, I consumed it. Roast beef, chicken, turkey, pepperoni pizza, hamburgers, filet miñon and rib eye steaks, swordfish, sausage and salami, lamb chops, seafood of all shapes and sizes, I tried it all.

My now-wife, Mary Pat, finally began calling me a carnivore when she saw me eat a Costco hot dog. Yeah, I ate it. The whole tasty thing. But that was hardly the peak moment. The peak (so far) came during the Christmas holidays of 2010 on Hawaii's Big Island when I ate a meat platter at a place called Huli Sue's. It was so flesh-filled I called it Meat-o-plenty. Ate it to the last bit of gristle.

For the past week and a half, I've been in Italy. And so far I have eaten pork chops in Florence (at a place called I’Che Ce Ce), roasted duck in Cortona (at the winery Teminemti Luigi d'Alessandro), picci with ragu sauce in Perugia (Il Falchetto), strozzapreti (or “strangled priest” pasta) with ragu sauce in Florence (A Casa Mia), porchetta in a panino in Florence (at Pork's in the Mercato Centrale). And before I leave, if I can manage it, I plan on eating the biggest, most famous Florentine meat dish of all, bistecca alla fiorentina, which we’ll consume at Sostanza.

I don’t mean to sound boastful. For three and a half decades, I was a proud vegetarian. And, to be completely honest, I was at times a tad bit judgmental of my non-vegetarian friends. Which, of course, is never a smart thing to do because things have a tendency to come back around. A couple of years ago, when I was regularly traveling to Washington, D.C., for a web-production job, I would have lunch with the whole D.C. staff. One of the young web producers was not only vegetarian but actually vegan, and I could see her nose get slightly out of joint every time I would take a bite out of my tuna-salad or turkey-and-provolone or roast-beef-and-cheddar sandwich.

So if you are like that young colleague and what I have written here offends you, well, I apologize. I do understand that, 1, you may have different values; 2, that you might not understand how I could have changed my opinion about food so easily, if not cavalierly; and, 3, that it might seem strange how few regrets I have. Fact is, I could have gone the rest of my life eating a diet of tofu and veggies and rice and beans and all the good nutritious foods that are available to the average American eater. And I would have been fine with that decision. But fate intervened.

And when I do bite into that bistecca alla fiorentina, and the first chunk of flesh gets masticated slowly into succulent bits of pure carnivorous lust that I will wash down maybe with some fava beans and a good Chianti, just know that I will be thinking one thing.

Yeah, sometimes karma is a bitch. Other times, though, it’s simple deliciousness.

Photo: Florence's famous Duomo, on a cool night between rain showers.

It’s raining today in Florence. Spring here in Italy has been what we normally experience in Spokane – an extension of winter. Cold, wet and often miserable.

Except that we’re in Italy. And anytime you find a decent coffee place, you realize just how lucky you are. And by decent, I mean … well, pretty much any coffee place you stumble upon.

Florentines have so many coffee spots it’s virtually impossible to count them all. Every bar on every corner will give you some version of a coffee drink, from a caffe normale (simple espresso) to a cappuccino (a shot of espresso served in a larger cup with steamed milk) to a macchiato (a shot of espresso with just a splash of steamed milk) … and so on.

 We all have standards as to how to judge a cup of coffee, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. In Italy, those standards often have to do with atmosphere. You can find great old buildings, with immense bars and baristas dressed in pristine white who serve cappuccini boasting designs in the milk that are pure art. Tourists in particular love these places.

Or you can opt for the cheap corner bars, the ones that serve a local population that drinks (and maybe eats a brioche) while standing – the whole process taking maybe five minutes and costing less than 3 euro (a little less than $4).

I prefer the corner bars. But just as I judge most things in Italy, I tend to spend my money in places where I feel appreciated. A year and a half ago, when I worked for a month in Rome at an online news agency, I stepped into a bar a minute before 7 – a bar at which Italians were already drinking their coffees – and I was refused service. I had to wait for the bar to open, the barista said with a sniff. And when was opening time? I asked. At 7, naturally. Well, excuse me. Despite its sitting just below the office I was working in, I never went back. So many choices, so little time for attitude.

This brings me to the Caffe Accademia, a Florentine bar that sits on the Piazza San Marco. Its appearance is hardly prepossessing, what with its only distinguishing feature being a red “Illy” sign out front, advertising the type of coffee it serves (Trieste’s best). The hall-like space holds barely enough room for four or five medium-size people. And no one speaks much English.

But for the past several years, as I have taken classes at Gonzaga University’s Florence program (or simply visited with the faculty members I know), I have stopped in and ordered my cappuccini or macchiati at Caffe Accademia. And I have always been greeted with a smile and a “prego” to my “mille grazie.”

In coffee serving, as in most everything else, substance tends to win out over style. 

So a couple of months ago I made the switch to a gluten-free life. For the most part I've gotten used to living off almonds and eggs and Greek yogurt. I know, I know, there are zillions of gluten-free options. But I'm lazy. The thing I miss the most is bread. Every option I've tried has tasted an awful lot like cardboard (yes, I have tasted actual cardboard so I know what I'm talking about) and is so dry it can't be swallowed without the aid of an oscene amount of water or wine or coffee or whatever slippery liquid happens to be handy.

And then I met this gorgeous sandwich at Geno's. Yes, it was meaty — kind of like someone had slid a slab of the world's most tasty meatloaf on the plate. But what was even better? The fact that the slab was nesteled within the most moist, most flavorful bread I've had since March. OMG. I forced my gluten-friendly lunch partner into a taste test. We both agreed … gluten-free for the win.

Get yours at Geno's, 1414 N. Hamilton, in the Gonzaga District.