in praise of sardines

On diamonds and olive oil

My question was met with silence, so I repeated myself in broken Spanish.

“Do you know where the diamonds dwell?”

My question, which made perfect sense to me, caused the man's eyebrows to rise in perplexed bemusement. I’d seen that look often in my travels through Spain. It’s a facial expression familiar to anyone who has ever ventured outside her home country and made an attempt to speak with the locals using the local language. You know the look. The one that perfectly conveys that the person you’re speaking to thinks you have the IQ of a parrot.

My wife, who speaks Spanish much better than I, came to my aid. “Los Diamantes. It’s a tapas bar.”

After the man regained control of his giggles, he encouraged us to keep walking further down the street, Calle Navas, to number 28.

The sun shone hot as a pizza oven on that day a few summers ago. We were in Granada, a city in Andalucía famous as the home of the Alhambra, the fourteenth century Moorish palace. The city is not renowned, however, for its food. After two days tolerating mediocre chow, we decided to venture outside the romantic yet touristy Albaicín area in search of a decent lunch. On a tip from a friend, we headed to the nearby business district. The streets were nearly empty and all the shops were closed.

When we finally arrived at Los Diamantes, we were stunned. It seemed that every single worker on lunch break had descended upon this tiny bar the size of a shot glass. Customers spilled out of the bar onto the streets. In appearance, the bar is unremarkable, similar to any working class tapas bar anywhere in Spain. On warm summer days, the owners take advantage of the bar’s corner location by opening up both the front and side of the building to the street so that it effectively has just two walls. Along one wall is a long bar, which is standing room only. As far as I can recall, there were not even tables or chairs on that day. Along the shorter wall in the back is the diminutive kitchen.

My first attempt to penetrate the rugby scrum of a crowd proved useless. I generally don’t fare well in crowded bars. Much to my mother’s consternation, I take after my calm and quiet New England grandparents more than my mother, who was raised in New York City. I just don’t have it in me to elbow my way to the front of the line to place a drink order. Cocktails don’t provide adequate incentive for me.

Tapas bars, however, are another story. If there’s fried fish as a reward, I’ll happily toss elbows with a roomful of Arnold Schwarzeneggers (as a liberal San Franciscan, that’s an especially terrifying vision). Fortunately, I didn’t have to, because N noticed there was a gap in the crowd at the far end of the bar by the kitchen.

There was virtually nothing separating the bar from its kitchen. Just a wide open window. From the perspective of a local, the spot next to the heat of the kitchen was the least desirable place to stand. As a hungry traveler hoping to learn about Spanish cuisine, that was exactly where I wanted to be.

As is typical in Andalucía, the kitchen at Los Diamantes is dominated by the fryer. Andalusian cooks are masters in the art of frying. A friend who spent a year as an exchange student in Sevilla told me that he knew lunch or dinner was approaching whenever he heard the sound of oil beginning to bubble in his host family’s kitchen.

With the fryer about 12 inches from me, I could see that the frying cauldron was filled with olive oil. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as the landscape on our train trip between Sevilla and Granada seemed to be populated by nothing but olive trees. However, cookbooks and food authorities had always warned me to avoid frying in olive oil, because its smoking point is relatively low, between 375 and 410 degrees Fahrenheit (190-205 degrees Celsius). The food that emerged from the fryer at Los Diamantes (and many other tapas bars throughout Andalucía and Madrid) reminded me, once again, not to trust those who anoint themselves as authorities.

The two fried dishes we had at Los Diamantes were amongst the best fried food I have ever eaten anywhere. Everything was perfectly greaseless and nicely crispy, despite the relatively pale blonde color of the final product. If N hadn’t stopped me, I could have eaten 10 platefuls of the berenjenas fritas, lightly battered paper-thin slices of eggplant. The coating reminded me of tempura batter. Each bite shattered like the top of a crème brûlée. We followed that with the surtido de pescados fritos, a plate of anchovies, hake, and tiny squid that had been dusted in flour before their quick dip in the olive oil jacuzzi. Bliss.

The other two dishes we ate, chopitos a la plancha (baby cuttlefish cooked on a griddle) and the house ensalada, also dwell high on my culinary pantheon. The salad, a version of which will be found on the menu of my future restaurant, Olallie, simply consisted of little gem lettuces cut into quarters and dressed with fantastic local extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, fried slivers of garlic, and lots of salt. So much more refreshing than the ubiquitous mesclun salad!

In the end, at least from a gastronomic point of view, I guess I did discover where the diamonds dwell.

[Recipe after the jump]

I heart artichokes + a favorite way to prepare them

Last Saturday, the day before Easter, I was singing the blues. By that day, the Bay Area had endured far more than 40 days and 40 nights of rainfall (which might help to explain my extended break from blogging). I had started scouring the web to learn more about the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, convinced I must be suffering from it. After I grew bored with medical sites, I surfed over to ones picturing vacation rentals in Barcelona, hoping that Travel Porn would lift me out of my funk. No luck. Nothing could cheer me up, not even dunking chocolate covered Digestive biscuits into a cup of Earl Grey.

Then I made my weekly trip to the local farmers market and spied these.

Just knowing that something so gorgeous could spring up out of our sodden local landscape cleared away my gloominess in a flash, like the elusive burst of sunshine that I and everyone around me so desperately craved.

Feeling like a child who had just found a stash of brightly colored plastic eggs filled with chocolates, I picked 6 purple-tinged lovelies out of a basket of the Sicilian Violetto artichokes at Mariquita Farm's market stand. I was amused that about a third of the artichokes in the basket perfectly mirrored my previous foul mood: dark violet in color, they bore vicious long spikes as sharp as a wolf's fangs or claws. I was happy to leave those -and my blues - behind. I'd dealt with cases of those bastards a decade ago as an intern at Chez Panisse, daily returning home with a new collection of bandages. I figured this time around that I deserved to pluck the tamest looking chokes in the basket.

I am a sucker for sexy produce. Some might say to an unhealthy degree. Once, a few summers back, I was so absorbed by a display of ripe, juicy heirloom tomatoes in a rainbow of colors that I completely missed that a beautiful Hollywood celebrity was standing right next to me. I'm not making this up. She apparently even bumped into me and excused herself and I didn't even look up. In fact, I recall being rather annoyed. I only learned of it when, after she had left, the salesperson and my wife both exclaimed their excitement at the brush with celebrity. I was oblivious and thought they were making it up. Sadly, they were not. And N will never let me forget it. Yes, I have a problem.

Where was I? Ripe, juicy, sexy... oh, yes, artichokes! I have yet to find a way to prepare these prickly flower buds that I don't like. See Mark Bittman's article in yesterday's Dining section of the New York Times (on line free for a week) for how to stuff, pan fry, and shave artichokes raw into a salad. But stay here if you want to learn one of my favorite ways to tame this thistle, a method that draws out the vegetable's innate sweetness better than any other. For lack of a better term, I'll call it oven-braising.

You can use any size artichoke for this method, but try to use the smallest you can find. Regardless of the size, the challenge with these curmudgeons of the vegetable kingdom is always the same: getting down below the layers of armor and thorns to expose its tender "heart." Of course, as a loyal reader of this blog, you already know how to do that from my recipe for vegetable paella.

So, on to the recipe!

Secrets to creating fluffy gnocchi (+ stinging nettles! + rant!)

Before I became enamored of Spanish cooking, like so many American cooks my first "cuisine crush" was Italian. In the early 90s, when I was a vegetarian for 3 years, I felt particularly inspired to pour through the writings of Marcella Hazan and Lorenza de'Medici to glean wisdom that would help me make better risottos, pizza, fresh pasta, and - my personal favorite - gnocchi. Later, during my decade of slaving at Bay Area stoves as a professional, I gathered tips and hints from my fellow cooks and chefs. Like a forager picking mushrooms in a forest, I carefully tucked the tastiest morsels into my basket of tricks.

Although I never pursued my romantic notions to live and cook under the Tuscan sun, it seems virtually every other cook and chef in San Francisco did - so many that it seems as if our city is a colony of some new culinary Roman Empire.*

Perhaps the most successful of this cadre of Italophiles is Delfina's Craig Stoll. In part, I owe my mastery of potato gnocchi to his recipe (which you can find after the jump). The real secret to consistently turning out cloud-like gnocchi, however, I discovered on my own.

Potato gnocchi are made with 2 primary ingredients: potatoes and flour. Sometimes a third ingredient - egg - is added. Because there are so few ingredients, the quality of each cannot be overstated. First, for the potatoes, I prefer organic russet potatoes. I prefer the balance of starch and sweetness found in organic russets, but if organic are unavailable, regular russets are a great second choice.

Through following recipes and my own experimentation, I learned that I prefer the taste of gnocchi made with baked, rather than boiled, potatoes. The (for lack of a better word) potatoey flavor is more pronounced from baked potatoes, because they lose some of their water content through evaporation during the baking process. After baking the potatoes, I let them cool slightly, then I scoop out the insides and press them through a ricer and let the resulting potato cool completely.

IMBB#22: Orecchiette with Baby Turnips and their Greens

When I listed my 10 favorite foods last week, I began with broccoli rabe, known as cima de rape and rapini in Italian. Judging by flavor alone, broccoli rabe seems to be more closely related to turnips than broccoli {I'll leave it to you botanists out there to set me straight}. The greens of both plants taste pleasantly bitter, toasty, and nutty and can be used interchangeably. As far as I'm concerned, the little white bulbs on the end of the turnip greens is a nice little bonus!

A few days ago, I was surprised to find perfect thumb-sized Tokyo turnips {pictured above} grown by one of northern California's premier organic farms, T & D Willey Farms at a store I rarely visit, our local Whole Foods. Whenever I see these baby turnips, I cannot resist buying them to make my frequent weekday dinner of orecchiette. Therefore, Orecchiette with Baby Turnips and their Greens is my entry in this 22nd edition of Is My Blog Burning, hosted by Amy of Cooking With Amy, who chose the theme Use Your Noodle.

This healthy pasta dish can be tossed together in the time it takes to bring a pot of water to a boil. If you can find it, use the hand-formed orecchiette pasta made by Rustichella d'Abruzzo. I like the rustic irregularity of their orecchiette {which means "little ears"}, because the garlicky olive oil clings to all the pasta's grooves and crevasses. They're the pasta equivalent to the nooks and crannies of English muffins. Otherwise, De Cecco's excellent orecchiette and penne would make worthy substitutes.

When making Italian pasta dishes, I find it helpful to remember that, from the Italian perspective, the point of the dish is the pasta, not the sauce. The other elements in the dish are there to complement the pasta. Therefore, you must adequately season your pasta water. Use 1 tablespoon salt {preferably inexpensive bulk sea salt} per every 2 quarts of water.

Since there are so few ingredients in this dish, the quality and choice of each is of equal importance. To match the assertive flavor of the turnip greens, use a good quality aged sheep's milk cheese to grate over the pasta. I prefer the slightly creamier and milder pecorino sardo to pecorino romano, so if you use the latter combine it with some parmigiano reggiano.

Use this recipe as a starting point for your own variations. Possible additions include anchovies, breadcrumbs fried in olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and a squeeze of lemon or a dash of vinegar. For a heartier meal, I sometimes add Italian sausage. It's up to you.

While the pasta is boiling, relax with a glass of Barbera or Dolcetto d'Alba, which both nicely complement the flavor of the bitter greens.

Sugar (not) High Friday #15: Oranges and Dates

This juicy Orange and Date Salad is my minimalist entry for the fifteenth edition of  Sugar (not) High Friday hosted by Sam of Becks & Posh. Our goal in this event was to showcase desserts that used little or no refined sugar.

This easy dessert is a refreshing assortment of medjool dates and sliced organic citrus (blood oranges, cara cara navel oranges, clementines and tangelos) topped with toasted pistachios, dusted with powdered sugar, and baptized with a spoonful of sweet muscat wine and a few drops of rose water. It was inspired by a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Casa Moro, from the chefs/owners of the London restaurant Moro.

Together with a glass of mint tea, this Orange and Date Salad would make a simple yet elegant conclusion to a rich winter meal, especially one with a Moorish or Indian theme. Use the sweetest citrus fruits available and vary the flavorings to suit your taste. You could substitute orange flower water and perhaps add some orange blossom honey if your citrus fruits are not so sweet. Or you could make it more savory by drizzling the plate with extra virgin olive oil and a few flakes of sea salt. Remember to keep it simple, so that the tartness of the citrus fruits can dance with the sweetness of the dates without too much distraction.

Food|and Drink|Recipes|Desserts|Sugar High Friday #15

Another cold remedy...

...my wife's Tortilla Soup

Let me start this post with a disclaimer. It has nothing to do with the pallid 2001 remake of Ang Lee's masterful Eat Drink Man Woman, which, along with Babette's Feast, Tampopo and Like Water for Chocolate, is one of the all-time great food films. Who's brilliant idea was it to remake a film just 7 years after the original?

Rather, this is my response to Indira's* request to share my cold remedies {which is actually a meme started, I believe, by Raquel of Raquel's Box of Chocolates}.

To help recover from colds and flus, I rely on the curative powers of a never-ending supply of ginger-honey-lemon tea, supplemented with lots of chicken soup, like polentina soup and this spicy tortilla soup. The recipe, which I give all credit to my wife N for developing, was inspired by a different style of tortilla soup that she and I often shared in Washington, D.C., where we both went to college. However, my fondest memory of the original soup goes back to a time before I met N.

One icy winter in the dark years of Bush 41, my mother and brother visited me in D.C. to celebrate Christmas. My Republican mother {please tell me I'm adopted} had never been to the nation's Capital during the holidays, so she was keen to visit the White House to see how Barbara Bush decked the Presidential halls. I remember nothing about the decór except for Mom's declaration that, surely, Nancy's taste was better.

Mostly, I recall standing in line outside the White House for an hour on a night that the mercury dipped so low that the Reflecting Pool {that long rectangular pond between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument} froze solid. My brother was inconsolably irate. If he had his way, he'd never leave the comfort of his EZ-Boy recliner in his San Diego condo, a remote in one hand and a Big Mac in the other {remind me to check DNA samples for evidence of adoption}.

To help thaw relations {literally and figuratively}, I lured the warring parties to Houston's** with promises of hot soup. The chill thankfully kept the usual hordes away, so we were able to be seated the moment we arrived. We slipped into our bowls of velvety tortilla soup as if they were pools of volcanic mud at a Calistoga spa. The garlic-cumin aromatherapy warmed our frostbitten noses, while the avocado and cheese garnishes wrapped around our tongues like thick silk robes. I knew my ploy had achieved détente when my brother ordered a second bowl.

Although N didn't participate in this episode, we shared many bowls of Houston's tortilla soup during the year or so that we dated before moving to the West Coast.

While there is a branch of Houston's in San Francisco, we only go when my brother visits - on his insistence. With exposure to more authentic Mexican food in the Bay Area, I suppose we've outgrown Houston's version of tortilla soup, which in hindsight is basically a gooey platter of nachos tossed into a blender - i.e. pure college comfort food {see their original recipe here}.

Houston's version fortunately inspired N to create a better version, one that is wonderfully spicy, tomatoey and brothy, yet still preserves the voluptuous avocado garnish of the original. Her tortilla soup is the soup we both clamor for when the latest virus strikes. The good news for the cook is it is as easy to throw together as it is satisfying.

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*I have a feeling that Indira's recipe for tomato rasam is soon going to join our arsenal for combating future colds. Just looking at the photos of the soup on her brilliant site Mahanandi rejuvenates me. I plan to make a bowl later today!

If you're ever feeling under the weather or just need a kick-start, try Indira's other cold remedy, "Dried Ginger Ale," a tea steeped with dried ginger, black peppercorns and a touch of honey. I am sipping a hot cup right now. It's so powerful, it will resurrect a Zombie.

**Although I didn't think so at the time, my palate and restaurant knowledge was pretty simple. Back then I had no idea that Houston's - which played such a big role in the social scene during my college years - was merely a branch of a Texas chain.

Food blogging when you're ill

Every other year, I catch a cold.

Although this will hardly surprise anyone who's been reading my blog, I tend to be rather self-indulgent. Multiply that times ten when I am not feeling well. I crawl under my thick comforter and curl up catlike for long naps, only coming up for air when the impulse strikes to watch a Woody Allen movie or an episode of "The Kumars at No. 42" on my iBook.

Because my wife N spends her days taming 7-year-olds, the season's virus du jour lays siege to her at least 4 times per year. At those times, I gladly spoil her, serving as her personal chef and support staff. During the relatively rare occasions when I get to play the role of indulgee, I do not hesitate to cash in my favors Godfather-style.

N knows exactly what I will be requesting, so she hardly bothers to ask any more. I suppose that's a perk of a dozen years of marriage.

Thursday after work, she headed straight to Irving Street to pick up two orders of chicken pho' from Loi's, one for our dinner and one for my lunch Friday. Then she stopped by New Cheung Hing for an order of duck jook for Friday's breakfast. Finally she went back up the block to the grocery store to pick up a few chicken legs and thighs so that I could make stock when I was feeling better. It’s good to be loved.

Yesterday, I felt well enough to simmer up that batch of chicken broth.

The best broths are made with a good proportion of meat to bones. I often use a whole chicken per gallon of water, but this time I opted to augment the stash of bones that waited in my freezer with a few extra legs. I removed a couple of thighs after an hour so that I would have meat for my soup. I like to simmer my chicken broth for 3 or 4 hours to extract the most flavor.

The easiest soup for a sick person to make is the polentina from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. I find it incredibly soothing to prepare and eat, and believe it should be in every busy cook's repertory.

The recipe is just a few lines long. In a medium pot, stew a diced small onion or a leek and a slivered clove or two of garlic in duck fat or butter, pour in a quart of chicken broth, bring to a boil, stir in ⅓ cup polenta (preferably stone-ground), toss in a few leaves of sage, a sprig of thyme and a teaspoon of salt, and simmer the soup for 20-30 minutes. The polenta slightly thickens the broth and imparts a comforting corn flavor.

While the soup is cooking, cook and then chop whatever greens are in your fridge {I’ve used broccoli rabe, arugula, turnip greens, chard and even watercress with equal success in the past. This time I used some gorgeous red Russian kale - pictured left}. When the soup is ready, stir in the cooked greens and add a few grindings of pepper. This time, I added some shredded meat from one of the chicken thighs I removed from the stock. Garnish each serving with some shavings of parmigiano reggiano and a drizzle of your best olive oil.

Depending on how I feel, I may post one of my other favorite chicken soup recipes later in the week. Until then, take care good care of yourselves and try to stay healthy!

Food|and Drink|Recipes|Chicken|Soup

Oink, oink! Le pied de cochon is French for...

...pig's trotters, of course!

It's startling how our tastes change as we age.

As a college student in Washington, D.C., in the 1980's, many a late night ended eating at a mediocre 24-hour French bistro in Georgetown called "Au Pied de Cochon." The name paid homage to the famous {and presumably better} bistro in Paris. The red walls of the Georgetown bistro colorfully depicted a mad chef waving a cleaver whilst he first chases then eventually catches a squealing pig, triumphantly grabbing him by the foot. At that time, the thought of actually ordering the namesake pig's feet never so much as crossed my mind, regardless of the number of drinks that preceded my visit there. Rarely did my 3 am order stray from the comfortable oasis of eggs benedict and French fries.

Fast forward to tonight. In the ensuing 20 years, I have apparently become that mad chef.

I now not only sample odd bits like pig's trotters, tails, ears, snouts, bellies, and what not, I actually relish and even crave them. So I figured it was about time that I learn to properly cook some of these parts, especially as this Tuesday the 17th is the feast day of San Antonio Abate, Patron Saint of Pigs and Butchers {pictured left}. In celebration of this event, Diva in Italy and Kate in Gascony created Some Pig Blogging Weekend, an event I could hardly miss!

These off cuts, innards, and extremities are the sardines of the meat world. We cooks, particularly in America, are often guilty of only paying attention to the sexier cuts of meat. Go to any mid-scale restaurant in San Francisco, for example, and you'll invariably find a menu full of roasted half chickens, flatiron steaks, pork loin chops, braised lamb shanks, and short ribs. I, for one, have had enough!

Though all of the kitchens I have worked in have received at least 3 stars from the local critic, I have not often been afforded the opportunity to work with these lesser used parts of the animal. Like so many American cooks, I have had to look further afield for expert advice on how to cook these forgotten cuts. My main guide is, of course, the gifted Fergus Henderson, the author of The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and chef/proprietor of St. John, his restaurant outside of London. I also look to other British food writers, Anissa Helou and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a few Spanish cooks, and some intrepid Americans, including Paula Wolfert, Anthony Bourdain and Thomas Keller.

For my first attempt at cooking pig's trotters, I trusted this last chef, Mr. Keller {who I'll call TK, just for fun}. I used his recipe from the book/Yountville bistro, Bouchon. I'd share it with you, but I admittedly don't yet own the book. I just read the recipe in a bookstore and {hopefully} committed it to memory.

If you've never had pig's trotters before, there is one adjective that perfectly describes them: unctuous. Unctuous is not a word I use often, but it is perfectly apt here. Like so many innards and off cuts, they are all about texture and mouth feel. The part that you eat is essentially gelatin with a little bit of fat. To provide a crisp textural contrast, TK has you bread and pan fry the boneless disks of pork trotter.

For those of you who are not squeamish, after the jump I've included pictures and descriptions which illustrate my adventures cooking this succulent, wonderfully sticky and unctuous cut of the pig.

Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake

Thank you for all your patience while I've been busy with many activities, including beautifying my little blog!

As a reward, I'm going to share something sweet with you.

"What's that?" you scoff. "A dessert from Brett? What will he be soaking in his cup of tea today? Will he add anchovies?" Shamefully, your misgivings are warranted. Upon a quick perusal of my "categories" archives (note the fancy new drop-down menus while you're there), you may wonder whether I ever eat desserts.

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret: I have a ferocious sweet tooth.

As you may know, I've spent most of the past decade working in restaurant kitchens. We cooks tend to fall into one of two camps: sweet or savory, rarely crossing lines. My ten years in professional kitchens never saw me stepping away from the savory side of the fence, though many a pastry chef have told me that my calm demeanor would be most welcome in their world.

For reasons that defy explanation and, truthfully, vex my wife, the Sirens of the "hot line" continuously beckon me to their rocky cliffs, where they hypnotize me into standing for countless hours in front of an inferno while orders fly at me like daggers. Though oil burns my arms, my legs cramp, and knives slip (ouch!), I find a sense of serenity in the vortex of the dinner-rush tornado that eludes me anywhere else.

You need a dozen entrées plated right away? No problem. You need a simple pie crust? Ask someone else.

You see, by my own admission, I'm rather clumsy in the pastry kitchen. My least favorite task is one of the easiest, separating egg yolks from whites. I always seem to pollute the whites with a dribble of yolk. I tear delicate doughs, scorch sugar, and cause chocolate to seize.

Fortunately, though, over the years my sweet tooth encouraged me to keep one eye on the pastry chef at all times (and not only so I could nick that handful of chocolate whenever s/he turned away). I incessantly asked questions. There's nothing I dislike more than not knowing how - or why - to do something.

A couple of weeks ago, the Sweet Muse mysteriously chose to whisper into my unworthy ear. She spoke through the pages of my new favorite cook book, Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques. A couple of weeks ago (yes, I have fallen that far behind in my culinary tales), Pim invited local bloggers to her house to help her organize the raffle drawings for Menu for Hope II. She lured us with promises of her justly famous Thai cooking. How could I pass up such an enticing invitation, especially as it afforded me the chance to finally meet some of my fellow bloggers. I was so enthusiastic that I even convinced N to join me.

Whenever I go to a friend's house, I feel awkward if I don't bring something along. As Pim was providing the main course, I was left with only one option. Dessert.

A lime or mango tart would probably have been ideal after Pim's spicy curried Thai noodles (khao soi - read her recipe here), but my crust phobias prevented me from going down that path. I spied a large jar of Catalonian hazelnuts twiddling their thumbs on my kitchen counter and then remembered drooling over Ms. Goin's recipe for Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake. The recipe was nearly identical to an almond cake that one of my mentor chefs used as a base for her Prune Plum Upside Down Cake, perhaps my favorite dessert in the world.

I baked the cake early in the morning. The aroma of toasted hazelnuts and caramelized butter drove me nearly mad with anticipation. When it emerged from the oven, the cake looked respectable enough, belying its simple collection of ingredients.

Upon arrival at Pim's, though, my bubble of pride quickly deflated. It suddenly dawned on me that I - the savory cook - had brought one of just 2 desserts to a fête that included several well-known, excellent bakers (including Shuna and Heidi!) and, of course, a certain four-star chef. What the hell was I thinking bringing a dessert, especially one I had previously neither made nor tasted?

Thankfully, Chef Goin did not let me down! Her cake - really more of a torte - is divine. It is that rare pastry that manages to be both rich (with butter and hazelnuts), yet light (with lots of beaten egg whites). I plan to make it often, especially during the autumn and winter months. I'm sure if one of you more expert bakers attempt her recipe, it will come out even lighter and more spectacular than my version.*

Maybe it's just luck, but I tend to have a pretty good nose for sniffing out which recipes will work and which ones will flop (and be too much for me to handle). Besides, how could I resist a recipe that Ms. Goin tells us she had chosen as her own wedding cake?

Maybe, just maybe, I'll try my hand at more desserts over this next 6 months and share my successes (and failures) with you. That's a New Year's resolution I can live with!

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* Feb. 6. Update: I couldn't have been more accurate when I wrote that self-assessment last month. For expert advice on how to make this luscious cake come out far lighter and even more scrumptious than mine did, follow veteran pastry chef Shuna Lydon's detailed instructions in her "dacquoise & meringue" post on KQED's food blog Bay Area Bites!

Least popular recipe ever*

We all heard the fairy tales when we were growing up. The one where the princess kisses a frog and it magically turns into a prince. Or the one about the lovely damsel who falls madly in love with a hideous beast.

My hope is that those classic tales will inspire you, my undoubtedly beautiful readers, to consider for a moment pressing your lips up against what may at first glance appear to be the frog of the fairy tale. I'm hoping you'll get past your initial aversions, and like the heroine Roxane of another story, take this Cyrano of a recipe on a first date at the very least.

So who, or rather what, is this beast, this Shrek of the kitchen?

Before I unveil my recipe, let me remind you that in yesterday's post I promised to provide a surprising use for my beloved Spanish anchovies. This recipe fulfills that promise.

So, close your eyes and pucker your lips.... no, that won't work. How will you finish reading?

Enough suspense. Without further ado, meet slow-roasted cauliflower with pounded anchovies.

Wait! Before you close that window, bare with me just a little while longer. Beneath his ugly visage, this Quasimoto is quite lovable.

A bath in a generous amount of olive oil and a languorous stint in a very hot sauna (your oven) combine to transform this pale and gnarled member of the brassica family (whose ugly stepsisters include brussels sprouts, cabbage and kale) into a vegetable that even avowed cauliflower haters will not recognize. The alchemy of slow-roasting causes it to lose its faintly bitter and sulfuric disposition and melt into an impossibly tender, sweetly caramelized vegetable with the texture of a fat French fry.

If it is too much to ask you to top an often reviled vegetable with an even more despised pungent fish, try saucing the cauliflower with just a squeeze of lemon or a sauce of minced parsley, olive oil and toasted almonds or hazelnuts.

On the other hand, if it is not the anchovy but the cauliflower that frightens you, then use this powerful anchovy sauce to perk up steamed broccoli or a salad of chicories, such as radicchio, escarole or frisée. A judicious drizzle of the sauce will also elevate to another level your every day roast chicken, lamb chops, or nearly any pasta.

The pounded anchovy sauce is an emulsion of olive oil and anchovies, with a whisper of lemon juice and a rumor of garlic, so it is vital to use your best extra virgin oil and Spanish anchovies packed in olive oil (not, however, the white Spanish anchovies marinated in vinegar called boquerones, which are unsuitable for this sauce). The recipe is similar to the  vinaigrette I used to dress cardoons recently, minus the vinegar.

Go ahead. Close your eyes and open your heart and taste buds to a new world, one where cauliflower and anchovies are as desirable as a cup of Parisian hot chocolate or a ripe summer peach. Be like Julia Roberts in the early nineties. Allow this Lyle Lovett to serenade your tongue.

By the way, this post is my (extremely early) entry for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging (some of us start our weekends sooner than others), sponsored by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen. Once again, rather than an herb, I chose an ugly duckling vegetable, the cauliflower.

For those who were wondering, no this is not my entry for Rachael's ugly food photo contest?

*It may not be as popular in the blogging community as a recipe for flourless chocolate cake and the like, but in my house it is one of our most favorite. But then again, we both love anything involving either cauliflower or anchovies. I never liked the popular kids much any way. Cheerleaders, football players, who needs 'em?

Ducking Thanksgiving (recipes included)

I don't know about you, but I'm thankful that Thanksgiving week is finally over.

The funny thing is, I barely even celebrated it this year.

No, turkeys had no reason to fear me. I yawned at the sight of yet another golden roasted bird on the cover of each and every November magazine and Wednesday food section (and felt sympathy for those poor writers who have to feign enthusiasm for yet another story on the proper way to bake a pumpkin pie, the perils of improperly defrosted birds, or the absurd notion that there is any wine that can stand up to sticky cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes). I decided I wanted none of that, so I (and my blog) took a holiday this year from the topic of traditional Thanksgiving foods.

With N swamped by graduate school and parent-teacher conferences and me searching hopelessly for some sane way to make a living, this was the ideal year to resolve to skip Thanksgiving. Some of our friends went out of town, and we declined invitations to join the celebrations of others. Even my brother, visiting from San Diego, sought his dose of dry white meat drowned in lumpy gravy at someone else's house.

My defenses began to show weaknesses Tuesday morning, however. A plan hatched spontaneously in my mind to go to the farmers market that afternoon in Berkeley, perhaps my favorite outdoor market in the Bay Area. My anti-Thanksgiving resolve completely withered at the sight of multi-hued pumpkins, freshly dug potatoes, wet kale, and soft persimmons illuminated by the market's kerosene lanterns as dusk fell.

Before I knew it, my inner Scrooge, fully (and properly) thawed, was phoning the butcher to order not a goose for the Cratchits and Tiny Tim, but a Liberty duck for N and myself. Alas, there would after all be a meal that, in appearance, somewhat resembled Thanksgiving.

After a fireside dinner of succulent slow-roasted duck and a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin (a French pinot noir from Burgundy), I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to the temperamental oversized American bird that needs to be brined, heavily salted, massaged with butter and caressed with spices just to taste reasonably good.

I discovered that no flour-thickened gravy can compete with a sauce made from caramelized duck bones (see recipe below). Nor can the embarrassing avalanche of stuffing, mashed potatoes, and sweet potato casserole compare with the austere simplicity of turnips and carrots roasted beneath the duck in its luxurious fat.

As for pumpkin pie, I'll take mine any other autumn day in the afternoon with a cup of Darjeeling, thank you. I have never understood its allure after that orgy of butter, cream, sugar and tryptophan we call Thanksgiving. So after our duck dinner, we savored a moist slice of Lyndsey Shere's cakey pudding made from soft hachiya persimmons purchased at the Berkeley market.

If you're looking for a reminder of how wonderful roasted poultry can be, I've included my recipe for slow roasted duck, an adaptation of Paula Wolfert's recipe that appeared in her book The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. Unlike the typical roast duck, this one will not explode like a fat bomb in your oven.

In the morning, I cut my duck in half, slid it into the oven on a bed of vegetables, covered it after 10 minutes, and then forgot about it for nearly 4 hours. The oven's gentle 275˚F (135˚C) heat worked its magic, melting the fat into the meat so that it became as juicy and tender as a good confit. Then, when I was ready to eat, I chose the pieces I wanted, lay them skin side down in a hot cast iron pan and slowly crisped the skin. When the skin released easily from the pan, after about 10 minutes, it was ready. The skin was so crisp, it shattered like glass under the pressure of my fork.

One 5-pound Pekin duck yielded 2 dinners for 2, the breasts one night and the legs another. Believe me, you won't want to go back to dry turkey again.

Autumn vegetables: discovering cardoons

A couple of weeks ago, I saw whole rosettes of cardoons for the first time at our local farmers market.  Although one farm has sold large, more mature stalks of this celery doppelgänger individually (for a dollar a piece) for a number of years, last month Mariquita Farm started selling younger, more tender bunches of cardoons at a more reasonable price. Mariquita's Andy Griffin has sold these to his restaurant customers for a long time, but has now thankfully made them available to us.

Admittedly, the first thing that flashed in my mind at the sight of the oversized, spiky leafed stalks was anguish. I remembered the stressful day I was first introduced to the cardoon. I toiled for hours in a corner of one restaurant's kitchen, even skipping lunch, trying to finish peeling cases upon cases of this troublesome member of the thistle family, its bitter juices staining my fingers black. I learned intimately that the cardoon, like its cousin the artichoke, needs to be lavished with lots of love and attention to coax out its subtle herbaceous sweetness. But I suppose that's true of most of the best things in life, isn't it?

Realizing, with an immodest amount of smug elation, that I only have to cook for two chez moi, I decided to buy a single bunch. I sought out the smallest, liveliest looking bunch, because younger cardoons generally are more tender and require less preparation. Firm, solid stalks are more desirable, too, so I avoided any bunches with hollow, stringy stalks.

When I arrived home with my prize, N inquired with her usual tact, "What the f@#$ happened to that sorry-looking bunch of celery?"

Not surprisingly, she had never seen cardoons, which are rarely eaten outside of southern Europe. In Italy, Spain and France, where they are very popular during the holiday season, they are considered a colder season vegetable. According to Chez Panisse Vegetables, however, they are in season in California from the spring to the fall. I appreciate that Mariquita seems to be following the European tradition.

To prepare my bounty, I set up a bowl of acidulated water, which is a fancy term for water with lemon juice squeezed into it. I also put a pot of heavily salted water on the stove to boil. Then I cut off the base of the cardoon bunch, freeing the individual stalks. One at a time, I used my paring knife to trim off any jagged edges or leaves from each stalk. Then I peeled off the tough strings as best as I could (pictured left), just as you might string a stalk of celery. After I was done peeling each stalk, I cut it into 3- or 4-inch pieces and dropped them into my bowl of acidulated water to prevent them from turning brown.

When I was done prepping all the stalks, I dropped them into the pot of boiling water and simmered them until tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. They can take as long as 30 or even 45 minutes to reach tenderness, depending on the size and age of the cardoons.

My bunch of Mariquita's cardoons, which weighed about two pounds, yielded enough cooked stalks to make 4 healthy-sized appetizer or side-dish portions.

Now that my cardoons were ready to use, I had to decide how to serve them. A Spanish recipe for cardoons with almond sauce that I had seen in Janet Mendel's My Kitchen in Spain came to mind, as did lots of variations of Italian recipes for frying, gratinéeing or braising the stalks.

In the end, though, I opted for the familiar, the way I first learned to love this thistle. One of the longtime chefs at Chez Panisse Café, Russell Moore, taught me to simply cut the tender boiled stalks at an angle (on the bias, as we say in the kitchen), dress them with an assertive vinaigrette made from anchovies, garlic, lemon, a touch of red wine vinegar, and olive oil, and shower them with chopped hard-boiled eggs.

The eggs and olive oil add much needed creaminess to the otherwise naked cardoons, while the anchovies and lemon juice highlight rather than overwhelm the natural sweetness of the vegetable. A truly spectacular start to any autumnal meal.

With cardoons finally so readily available, I have a feeling they're going to make a frequent appearance at our dinner table this autumn and winter.

This post, by the way, is my entry for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, sponsored by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen. Although, of course, cardoons are not an herb, any plant or vegetable is apparently an acceptable topic.

Food|and Drink|Recipes|Vegetables|Weekend Herb Blogging

When life gives you a case of tomatoes....

With my computer up and running again, I can once again join my friends in the food blogging community. So, what have I been up to in my computer-free spare time? I went Amish.

Last week at the farmers market, I was surprised to see Joe at Dirty Girl selling his luscious dry-farmed early girl tomatoes in November. I plucked a blood red wedge off the sample plate. With juices running down my wrist, I popped it in my greedy mouth and audibly gasped as its mid-summer sweetness exploded across my tongue. If only I could bottle that taste....

In that split second, my stomach staged a bloodless coup, momentarily overthrowing the more rational and obviously weaker part of my brain known as self-restraint. "You can bottle that summer goodness," it whispered hungrily to the easily duped, and no doubt dormant, part of my cerebral cortex, the left frontal lobe, the decision-maker that mistakenly believes it holds the purse strings.

Before I knew it, I arrived home with a 20-pound case of tomatoes in my trunk.

After many hours of cutting, peeling, chopping, puréeing, stewing, cleaning, bottling and freezing, I now possess two gallons of sublime tomato sauce, enough to introduce a little bit of sunlight into the cold dark months that lay ahead.

As the days grow shorter, I seem to be unconsciously preparing for the hibernation of the winter rainy season. You'd think I lived on a farm in snowy Minnesota or rural Missouri (perhaps a part of me does).

With two dozen jars of "Dirty Girl Late Early Girl Tomato Sauce" secure in my freezer, I figured why not attempt to bottle every bit of sunshine I can? I scanned the contents of my fridge in search of the next victim to embalm. By now, I was deeply in touch with the Luddite, Pennsylvania Dutch roots on my father's side of the gene pool.

First, I whiled away an hour or two pickling a few pounds of Joe's crispy yellow wax beans. In a week, they will make the ideal tart counterpunch to a rich creamy duck liver terrine.

Today I'm putting up a batch of red pepper confiture that my friend Alicia taught me how to make in Catalonia this past summer. Cook together cut up red peppers (including a hot chile or two) and sugar in the proportion of two parts peppers to one part sugar, a lemon (inner flesh only, all peel and seeds removed) and a vanilla bean until soft. Then remove the vanilla bean and purée the whole mess, adding salt to taste. It is unbeatable with sheep's milk cheese on crackers with the morning cuppa or as an aperitif with a glass of Cava later in the evening.

Food|and Drink|Recipes|Vegetables|Market

An alliterative supper: Pork, Pimentón, Peppers, Polenta and Parsley

When you sit down to write a menu for a restaurant, you hate to see combinations like this. It's just too difficult to work around the fact that everything on the plate begins with the letter P (including the plate itself!).

But, thankfully this is not a restaurant.

And you are the kind of people (sorry, another "p") who probably (oh no) won't be perturbed (somebody stop me) by this preposterous post (let's just roll with it).

I prepared Pimentón-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Parmesan Polenta, Peperonata (peppers- perhaps pasillas, pimientos and jalapeños- and purple onions) and Pounded Parsley Pesto (with neither pine nuts nor parmesan can I proclaim it a pesto? Perhaps I should pass and pronounce it a positively perfect salsa).

Please don't presume that the plethora of P's means that this pleasantly pink pork should not be a priority for your next party.  Permit me to plead: print this prime prize of a recipe. Consider yourself as privileged as a pasha to peruse such a precious and particularly plum piece of passionate poetry.

Pardon me, but this playfully plucky post is becoming a pathetic and pathological parody! (Per chance, my past posts about pears, persimmons, pomegranates, puffed-up puddings and even poached prunes have made me positively potty).

Hopefully a pleasurable picture will pique your appetite.

Porky Pig would be profoundly proud!

(If you read all that aloud, you may want to pause to wipe the spittle off your screen).

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

For those of you who are still reading (all, rather both..., no just you now), I've included the basic directions to reproduce this meal, my favorite of the past week or two. I honestly didn't even notice it was full of P's until I sat down to write this!

I especially enjoyed the complementary interplay of textures and flavors: creamy polenta, spicy peppers, smoky Spanish paprika (pimentón de la Vera), juicy tender pork, all topped with a piquant and crunchy hazelnut-parsley sauce. Hurry up and make this while you can still find fresh local peppers in the market.

I promise you'll be pleased!

IMBB#20: Butternut Squash Pudding Soufflé

Who doesn't like soufflés? They never fail to impress your guests, yet are surprisingly easy to make. The only pitfall is that they have to be made at the last minute and eaten the moment they emerge from the oven.

My favorite type of soufflé solves this problem. It is the love-child of a pudding and a soufflé that is known, not surprisingly, as a pudding-soufflé. Unlike its more jittery cousins, it is baked in advance, unmolded from its ramekin and rebaked later when you are ready to serve it. This convenience makes it ideal for a restaurant or a dinner party (perfect as a starter or vegetarian entrée for Thanksgiving or other holidays).

The texture of the pudding-soufflé combines the best of its parents, coming out both velvety smooth, yet light and airy. But what really sends this type of soufflé over the top is the contrast between this exquisitely creamy interior and its crunchy breadcrumb-lined exterior.

According to Richard Olney, whose recipe for Zucchini Pudding Soufflé appeared 30 years ago in his Simple French Food, this convenient twice-baked soufflé is based on the soufflé à la Suissesse, a parmesan pudding soufflé. My riff on Olney's recipe (and on subsequent derivations by the chefs of Chez Panisse in their many cookbooks) is this Butternut Squash Pudding Soufflé, my entry for the 20th "Is My Blog Burning?" event sponsored by Kitchen Chick.

In the Pink: braising awareness for breast cancer

When I heard that Emily had started a new food blog event to help raise awareness for the importance of early detection of breast cancer during the month of October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I felt it was vital for me to participate. Her event, called In the Pink, named after the color of the ribbons worn to show support for victims of this disease, encourages food bloggers to cook or bake something pink.

I felt inspired to go all out last night and attempted to create an entire meal of pink foods to help raise awareness for this cause. True, some of the dishes came out more purple than pink, but I like to think of magenta and fuchsia as shades of pink.

Here's my menu:

French breakfast radishes with butter, coarse sea salt and a baguette (ideally I would've used Hawaiian pink 'Alaea sea salt if I could have found it, and bright pink watermelon radishes would have been lovely too).

Salad of baby gem lettuces, pink Chioggia beets, Pt. Reyes blue cheese and toasted hazelnuts

Wine Harvester's Chicken: legs and thighs braised in red wine with Concord grapes and pink pickled onions served with polenta and spinach

Strawberry and rose gelato with chocolate cookies (I made the gelato from Marcella Hazan's simple recipe in her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, reducing the sugar to my taste and adding a ¼ teaspoon of rose water, more or less, depending on the strength of the rose water and personal preferences).

What motivated me to go to such lengths was the story of my dear friend S.

S works with my wife, N, at a school in San Francisco. She is one of the school's unbelievably talented trio of music teachers.

A little over a year ago, S complained to deaf ears at Kaiser, the school's HMO, of all sorts of maladies. The doctors at Kaiser had come close to labeling poor S a hypochondriac, refused to run any tests, and told her to take several over-the-counter drugs.

Over the summer, S went home to Spain, where they have universal health care (you know, the kind of health care system the Bushies warn us won't work). Once in Madrid, S visited the doctor and discovered she had a fairly advanced case of breast cancer which had spread to other parts of her body, causing the various digestive and other pains she had experienced.

When we learned of her condition, I impulsively gave notice and then left my new job as sous chef of a recently opened restaurant of a prominent chef and travelled to Spain with N. We spent some time with S to comfort her during the beginning of her chemotherapy.

We also consider ourselves to have been blessed by discovering and falling in love with the beauty, joy and alegría of the Spanish people, culture and cuisine on our later travels to Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada and Barcelona.

After months of treatments, S is back in San Francisco doing what she loves best, sharing her passion for music through teaching children. Her cancer is under control for now and she returns over holidays to Spain for treatment. Her unbelievable strength and courage is an inspiration to us all.

Although I'm aware that S's frightening story sends a chill up the spine of every American who has been frustrated by our lousy health care bureaucracy, I still want to encourage everyone to visit your doctor regularly. Get your annual physical examination, including a mammogram.

As I see it, the lesson for us is twofold. First, vote the current administration of bastards out of office. Bye-bye Bush-Cheney-Schwarzenegger. Support candidates who will improve the quality and spiraling-out-of-control costs of our health care.

Second, confronted with doctors more concerned about cutting costs than curing cancer, yell a little louder. Be your own advocate. Don't take no for an answer.

Or, the third alternative is clear. Get out while you still can and move to a country, like Canada or Spain or just about any other sensibly enlightened industrialized nation in the free world, where there is better health care.

Until then, enjoy the recipe for the scrumptious chicken dish I made last night, sort of a Moorish coq au vin.

IMBB#19: Socca Crèpes filled with Ratatouille

Don't let the name of my blog fool you. I am a big fan of vegetarian cooking.

When I learned that Sam chose a vegan theme for this edition of Is My Blog Burning (my first!), I delved into my past to try to recall some of my favorite recipes from my veg days.

You read that right. Once upon a time over a dozen years ago, I was a strict vegetarian. The same Brett, who goes out of his way to consume odd bits like barnacles, salt cod tripe, razor clams, anything with tentacles, the snouts, feet and everything in between on the pig, and who even named his blog after the lowly sardine, was a vegetarian for three whole years.

And I don't use the term vegetarian loosely. I was not one of those annoying people who proclaims himself "vegetarian" even though he eats chicken and fish and sometimes bacon (what the hell is that all about, I'd like to know). Nary a piece of flesh passed my lips during that time.

True, although I live in San Francisco and used to cook at the Greens restaurant, I never even considered becoming a vegan, fruitarian, raw foodist (sorry Sky), or breatharian. No, I needed my eggs and dairy like a heroine addict needs smack.

Ratatouille is one of those dishes that entered my repertoire back in those days and I've continued to make it several times every summer for the last decade and a half.

I want to share with you here the keys to success so that your ratatouille will sing with the vibrant flavors of summer (yes, I know it's technically already autumn).

First, buy the best available, freshest vegetables (duh!). But really, please don't make this in the winter. It's a summer dish.

Second, cook each vegetable separately for maximum flavor impact before combining them. This means, fire roast the peppers (a gas burner works fine), quickly sauté the eggplants and zucchini until caramelized, and slowly stew the onions and garlic until meltingly tender.

Third, ideally, cook it the day before you want to eat it to allow the flavors to blend.

To trick carnivores into proclaiming afterwards "I can't believe I ate vegan!," I've served the admittedly mushy vegetable stew in a crispy, protein-packed chickpea flour crèpe (more like the Indian dosa than the traditional French crèpe, as it doesn't require any eggs or dairy). Socca, served at street stalls on the streets of Nice like pretzels are in New York, is a Provençal cousin of ratatouille. Although I don't know if they are ever served together in their native land, I've taken the liberty to wed these two kissing cousins (and I didn't even need a shotgun) into one satisfying dish.

Recipe: Tomato and Corn Soup with Basil

When I bought a few pounds of our super-concentrated, extra flavorful local dry-farmed tomatoes at the farmers market last weekend, I had intended to make some authentic creamy Andalusian gazpacho (to contrast it with the chunky style so prevalent in America). I waited all week for the perfect warm sunny day when a refreshing cold soup would be most appreciated.

And waited.

And waited.

It never came. I finally threw in the towel after being reminded by Fatemeh of Gastonomie (also in the Bay Area) how delectable (and utterly simple) hot tomato soup can be. And, on a cold, foggy San Francisco day, nothing could be more satisfying.

Sadly, like so many things I do, I neglected to plan ahead (just look at the time of this post). It was nearly dinner time, so I had to go with what was on hand.

No cream. Darn, I liked the sound of Fatemeh's cream of tomato soup! It brought back a flood of childhood memories for me. Whenever I was sick, my liberated convenience-food loving mom opened one of Andy Warhol's iconic cans of Campbell's and a package of those little hexagonal oyster crackers. She always accompanied it with a grilled cheese sandwich (sadly, made with American cheese and margarine...I now shudder at the thought).

Back to my fridge. I found one lonely ear of corn. It still tasted sugary sweet, which would help to balance out the tartness of the tomatoes.

Herbs? The only herb on hand was basil. A couple of farms at our market conveniently sell bouquets of basil with the roots still attached, so when you get home and put it in a vase full of water it thrives for about 2-3 weeks. It's convenient and I, such a city boy, get to play the farmer (pitiful, no?). I stripped the leaves from the stems, puréed the leaves and used the stems to flavor the soup.

So, together with one of my famous caesar salads (you can't survive as a cook in this town if you can't toss together a decent caesar), some tender sautéed rainbow chard from my favorite Zen farm, and a hunk of fresh, crusty bread still warm from our bakery's oven, I was able to improvise a quick summer vegetarian menu for two.

Click "continue" to see how easy it is to make this soup!

Recipe: gravlax of wild king salmon

There are only about 6 more weeks remaining for the local king (chinook) salmon season in the Bay Area, so I wanted to take the opportunity to share my favorite method for making gravlax, the Scandinavian cured salmon. My version, which results in rich, velvety slices of salmon (albeit saltier than your typical smoked salmon) is based on the recipe I learned years ago when I interned at the Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley (their version is in one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook).

I diverge from the classical gravlax in one major way. I substitute lemongrass or lemon verbena or, well virtually anything, for dill.

Before I go on, I have to confess, I don't like dill. My friends and I were discussing over the weekend what, if any, flavors we dislike and the only one I could think of was dill. It's funny, because my Indian wife despises saffron and my Filipino friend shudders at the mere mention of ginger. And here I am with a hefty dose of Swedish in my mongrel American gene pool, and I disdain of the herb commonly associated with Scandinavian cuisine.

It's really my mother's fault. When I was growing up, she used to dump hefty amounts of green stuff from a dusty old jar marked, appropriately, "dried dill weed" into our buttered peas. Some herbs just do not fare well in the dried form. In the case of "dill weed," the result is a disastrous exponential expansion of the weedy aspect of the herb. Now whenever I so much as get a whiff of the stuff, even if it is fresh, that gag reflex resurfaces from when I was six years old and forced to eat my veggies.

But, as usual, I digress.

First you need about a 1 pound piece of extremely fresh king salmon fillet, skin on. I buy my local salmon exclusively from Larry Miyamura of Shogun Fish Company who catches, cleans and sells his salmon direct at our local farmers market. I prefer to use a tail piece or the next cut up from the tail, because it's easier to slice the final product. It's also thinner, so it cures faster. Pull out any pin bones with needle-nosed pliers.

Lightly toast 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds in a pan over medium heat, and then allow to cool. In a mortar, coarsely crush coriander with 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns. Transfer to a bowl and stir in 1/3 cup each kosher* salt and sugar.

Coarsely chop 1/4 cup lemon verbena leaves or thinly slice 1 stalk lemongrass.

Place fillet in a glass or stainless steel dish lined with a piece of cheesecloth, skin side down, and thoroughly coat first the bottom and then the top with the salt-sugar mixture and the herbs, leaving no flesh exposed. Wrap tightly with the cheesecloth, cover, and refrigerate for a total of 48 hours. After the first 24 hours, turn the salmon skin side up.

After 48 hours, your now cured salmon will look similar to the photo at the right. Before serving, scrape of the herbs and the undissolved salt and sugar. Slice at an angle with a very sharp, thin-bladed knife into paper-thin slices.

I usually serve it for breakfast on buttered toast or a bagel, sometimes adding a few thin slices of avocado to cut the saltiness of the salmon.

I've made several versions of gravlax over the years, not all with lemony herbs. I've also had good results with fennel seeds and wild fennel fronds, ajwain (an Indian spice often used in fish curries), and a combination of coriander and cumin. Let your creativity guide you.

* For the amounts specified, I use Diamond Crystal® kosher salt. If you substitute any other brand of kosher or any other type of salt, reduce quatity of salt to about 1/4 cup.

Recipe (IMBB 18): Pan-fried Petrale Sole with Succotash of Summer Squash and Corn

For most American cooks, summer is the season to go into their backyards and fire up the grill. For me, that's never been the case. I don't even own a grill. Nor, as a matter of fact, do I have much of a backyard. Hell, living in San Francisco, I often don't have a summer.

When the weather turns hot, I crave fried food. My first truly hot summer came when I moved to Washington, D.C., for college. While most college students would return home for summer vacation, I always made sure I had some excuse--summer school, internships, jobs-- to stay in D.C. during the hot summer. It turns out I actually thrived in the heat. And so did my stomach. Summer meant crab cakes, fried chicken, french fries, fried green tomatoes, hush puppies.

It wasn't until my trip to Andalucía last summer, though, that I finally found people who truly shared my unabashed enthusiasm for frying. The Andalucían cooks have mastered the art of frying in olive oil like nowhere else. It didn't matter that the thermometer often climbed above 104˚F/40˚C that summer. Nothing dampened their, nor my, desire for our daily dose of perfectly fried fish.

So, in the spirit of Andalucía and for my contribution to this month's theme of Is My Blog Burning, "Summer's Flying, Let's Get Frying," I present one of my favorite summertime recipes for simply pan-fried, local Petrale sole on top of a "succotash" of stir-fried summer corn and squash (press "continue" for recipe).

Recipe: Stuffed Summer Vegetables

For most people, the heat of the dog days of summer dissuades even the most enthusiastic cook from stepping foot in the kitchen. According to Melissa Clark, in her article for yesterday's New York Times, diehard home cooks in New York are turning to toaster ovens to prepare their multi-course dinner parties just to avoid turning on the main oven.

I have another suggestion. If you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, come to San Francisco, where the thermometer rarely rises above 70˚F/21˚C, especially during summer (although this week has been a scorching 74˚F/23˚C--time for shorts and sandals!).

So, San Franciscans rejoice! In the spirit of this month's Eat Local Challenge, I want to recommend a late summer dish that requires roasting (if it is indeed hot where you are, it will work in a decent toaster oven like Ms. Clark lists here).

A photo and recipe in the August/September issue of Saveur inspired me to stuff some of our beautiful peppers, tomatoes and zucchinis and roast them. The article, on a bullfighting festival in Nîmes in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, also featured a terrific sounding tourte de brandade that Molly of Orangette recently prepared for a picnic just outside Seattle.

The secret to stuffed summer vegetables, as in any simply prepared dish, is to use the best quality ingredients available to you. Take the time to go to your farmers market and buy locally grown, preferably oraganic, vegetables. I chose the squat, thick-walled, lipstick-red pimiento peppers and round, pale green ronde de nice squash from Andy of Mariquita Farm and the impossibly sweet dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes from Dirty Girl Farm (yes, they have T-Shirts...and even hoodies) that Pim of Chez Pim describes so beautifully here (my God, I've plugged two other blogs in one post!). Small eggplants would work well for this recipe too. Click "continue" for recipe.