burn in

Smoke emanates from a prescribed burn in Mendocino County.

It took three years to get all the required permissions for the 50-acre Hopland burn in Mendocino County, where vineyard owners worried their world-class grapes might get a little too “smoky” for most wine lovers.

Instead, this weekend, as buildings burn in Tehran and Tel Aviv, the government is staring at a crisis.

You can stuff it like Laurie Colwin with bread and mushrooms, go iconic with the tried-and-true method of Judy Rodgers's Zuni Café bird, or go in another flavor profile direction altogether, but keep in mind that anything too buttery, sticky or sugary on the skin of your chicken might burn in the air fryer.

It wasn’t unfamiliar: I had watched the hillside above me burn in La Crescenta during the Station fire of 2009, and in 2020 the Bobcat fire brought noxious smoke and ash to Altadena.