in praise of sardines

Home sweet home

I know, I know. I said I would post a summary of my future restaurant's concept today. Mañana, amigos. The thump thump that was fun on the dance floor last night is now thump thumping my brain.

Since you were kind enough to drop by, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least offer you a snack: grilled sardines with escalivada on toast. Escalivada is a Catalan salad of grilled or roasted summer vegetables, usually including eggplant, peppers, onions, and sometimes tomatoes. I cooked every part of this appetizer for you in my newest favorite toy: my fireplace. I heart you, hearth.*

Warning. Cooking sardines in your fireplace is a risky undertaking. If done improperly, your house could be haunted by the smell of sardines for eternity. Contemplate that on Halloween. There are two keys to help you avoid this fate. First, you need an excellent fireplace. I can't overstate my enthusiasm for the one in my new home, which is about 80 years old. I love it so much I've cooked dinner in it the last three nights. By comparison, my attempts at hearth cooking in my last house, built in the early 1950's, failed. The aromas of firewood lingered for days afterwards. I never dared attempt sardines. I wish I knew what made one better than the other, but I don't. Apparently they don't build them like they used to.

The second key is maintaining a medium to large fire. In his book "The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking," William Rubel describes the ideal fire for grilling as "a mature fire with moderate to high flames and a substantial bed of embers." Don't actually grill the fish directly over the flames, however. Grill them over the radiant heat of the white hot embers that you spread in front of the flames. High flames are necessary because they pull the smoke and sardine-cooking odors up the chimney and out of your house. Again, I'm not sure why. Something to do with physics. Or perhaps magic. I'd look it up, but remember: thump thump.

Escalivada from the Fireplace (recipe)

By contrast, I roasted the eggplant, peppers, and onion (whole and unpeeled) for the escalivada in a bed of embers and ashes in front of the fireplace hearth. In fact, the root word for escalivada, escalivar, means to cook in ashes and this is the traditional method for cooking the dish. I also wrapped a few cloves of garlic in heavy duty aluminum foil and roasted them the same way. The smoke permeates the vegetables. (Now, if I had an editor, I'd be required to tell you that you can, of course, roast the vegetables in your oven or over a gas burner. The difference in the end results, however, is akin to the difference between soaking in the hot springs of Esalen overlooking the cliffs of Big Sur and taking a bath at home). To finish the escalivada, I allowed the veggies to cool, peeled off the blackened skin, and tore the eggplant and peppers into strips by hand. I sliced the roasted onion into eighths. Then I made a dressing by mashing the roasted garlic with a few splashes of aged sherry vinegar and a healthy dose of extra virgin olive oil. Finally, I tossed it all together, adjusted it for taste with sea salt and more vinegar, as needed, and a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

Hey, check it out! That's the closest I've come to publishing a recipe on this site in many, many months.

I actually assembled the escalivada the day before when I served it with grilled lamb spread with romesco. For the sardine dish, I chopped up the leftover escalivada, transforming it into a marmalade-like relish. Then I spread that on grilled bread and topped with the sardine fillets. How did I grill the sardines? Now you're getting greedy. Do you want a sardine recipe too? Fine.

Grilled Sardines

Gut the sardines. Season with sea salt. Place in grill basket or directly on the grill. Cook until done.

Heh. Are you satisfied now?

Well, one more thing. This is an open letter to all the restaurant cooks who have overcooked my sardines nearly every time that I have ordered them. The properly grilled sardine should maintain all the tenderness and juiciness that makes sardines such a delight to eat. Like all fish, sardines should be cooked delicately, just to the point where the flesh firms up. I implore you. Please, please, please do not overcook my sardines ever again.

Thank you. I feel better now.

Why did I title this post "Home sweet home?" Could I really consider my new place home before I cooked sardines in it?

* Hearth. About 10 years ago I thought of calling my restaurant Hearth. I liked that it had the word heart in it, because my personal cooking goal and motto is to "cook from my heart." I referred to my restaurant as Hearth in all my old "restaurant ideas" journals (note to aspiring restaurant owners: start a journal). I was sad when, several years ago, some big name restaurateurs opened Hearth in New York City. What really galls me is that, as far as I know, their restaurant lacks a wood-burning oven or grill or anything that remotely resembles a hearth. To add insult to injury, I discovered that I couldn't use that name in San Francisco even if I had wanted to, because there's already a bar that goes by that name. Harumph!

A Taste of Yellow: Mariquita's carrots

I feel a special bond to Barbara, the writer behind the blog Winos and Foodies, even though we've never met. Barbara lives in New Zealand. I live in San Francisco. I am positive that if we do some day meet, we'll get along famously. Why? We have one rather random thing in common.

When each of us started our food blogs back in 2005 (she in January, me in June), we both wrote about our trips the previous year to the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal for her, just Spain for me). In the first posts of our respective blogs, we each described a significant meal that featured the same special product. Yes, you guessed it. We both wrote about sardines! What are the chances of that? For that reason alone Barbara and I share a special kinship.

My meal of sardinas a la plancha in Seville completely changed the way I looked at cooking, so much so that I named my blog after the occasion. For Barbara, sardines represented something else entirely. The grilled sardines Barbara ate in Portugal were her last memorable meal before receiving news that forever changed her life. In the middle of her holiday, not long after she had completed a 500 mile (800 kilometer) walk along Spain's Camino de Santiago, Barbara checked into a Portuguese hospital and discovered she had cancer. Read about it in her moving first post.

Recently, after several years of improvement, Barbara received news that her cancer has returned. Barbara's friends and supporters throughout the food blogging community wish for one thing. Some day we all hope Barbara will make a complete recovery.

This year, to raise awareness of the issues associated with cancer survivorship, Barbara created an event she's calling "A Taste of Yellow." She made a simple request: bake or cook something yellow, the color of the famous LIVESTRONG wristbands. Her event provides us food bloggers with a small way to take part in LIVESTRONG Day.

LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivorship issues on a national level and in local communities across the United States. LIVESTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday, May 16, 2007.

If you wish to make a donation to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, please visit the foundation's donation page.

When I picked up this week's CSA basket from Mariquita Farm, I knew in an instant I wanted to make something from the farm's sweet yellow carrots (pictured above) for "A Taste of Yellow." I also wanted to somehow pay homage to that significant meal of sardines that bound Barbara and me together. Unfortunately I couldn't find fresh sardines. Instead I chose another local fish, petrale sole. I decided I would cook the sole a la plancha (in a cast iron pan), the same way as the sardines I ate in Spain. Cooking fish quickly in a searing hot cast iron skillet gives it a delicate crisp (and golden yellow) crust. To provide a textural contrast, I decided to simply whiz the yellow carrots with slowly cooked onions and coriander leaves (cilantro) in a blender to create a silky smooth purée.

To complete the petrale sole dish, I stewed some artichokes and blanched some peas to scatter over the top. Then I whipped up a spicy olive oil-based sauce with finely chopped mint, coriander leaves (cilantro), garlic, ginger, and chilies. The whole dish was spring on a plate, the kind of food I'll surely serve this time next year at Olallie. In the picture below, you can barely see the carrot purée peaking out from under the sole. N loved the dish.

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!

The art of the frying an egg

While we're on the topic of eggs....

Several years ago at our farmers market, N and I spied one of our favorite farmers, Lee of Tierra Vegetables, surreptitiously slip a small carton of eggs into a customer's canvas bag. Our curiosity was piqued. Neither of us had never seen a sign advertising fresh eggs at Tierra! My eyes widened and my jaw started to drop. N, sensing an opportunity, cast a sharp sideways glance at me that wordlessly communicated that I had better bite my tongue and not make a spectacle of myself. This situation required finesse.

We sidled up to the displays of dried and smoked peppers and feigned interest in the jars of spicy pepper jams even though our cupboards were already filled with them. Now within earshot, we overheard Lee tell the grateful customer that her brother Wayne had gathered the eggs that very morning. The customer prattled on about freshness and flavor and how these were the best eggs ever...blah blah blah.

My heart began to race and I turned Araucana green with envy. Must. Have. Eggs. Now. N gave me another one of her looks, this one saying "Let me handle this." I bit my tongue until it damn near bled.

As soon as the lucky bastard had left with his stash of eggs, N mustered up all her charm and made her move.

I watched with my usual sense of awe as N wove one of her masterful stories, using her astounding powers of persuasion and innate emotional intelligence that, were EQ as highly regarded as IQ would surely place her on a par with Einstein. Were my memory as gifted, I would share every detail with you. Suffice it to say that she somehow turned Lee's initial "No, I only have a few eggs for special long-time customers" into a "Yes, just this once."

At the time, no other farmer at our market was selling eggs from truly free-range chickens. (I remember how shocked I was when I first learned that poultry ranches could use the term "free-range" even if they debeak their hens and stack cages one atop the other. If I understand correctly, all they need is occasional access to the outside). Wayne's tiny flock of chickens actually get to roam around a yard and blissfully peck at weeds and grubs and slurp up the occasional worm. Like a scene out of Chicken Run (minus the evil chicken pie machine).

We carried our treasure home, nestled between bunches of herbs and spinach in our basket. Although I may not have remembered every detail of N's story, I do remember every detail of lunch that day. We fried our eggs in fresh butter, sprinkled them with coarse fleur de sel and freshly ground pepper, and plopped them on top of thick slices of toasted country bread from Della Fattoria. The yolks were as dark orange as a tangelo and we were convinced the eggs had the distinct taste of freshly roasted chicken.

Today, of course, it is much easier (for you local San Francisco readers at least) to find true farm fresh, free-range eggs at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. They'll set you back a few bucks, but they are worth every penny. While I don't think Lee still brings eggs to the San Francisco market (you can buy them at her stand in Healdsburg), on Saturdays Eatwell Farms sells eggs from Three Wise Hens (see Sunday's post) and Marin Sun Farms sells their own chickens' eggs, while Nash sells eggs at the afternoon FP market on Tuesdays and across town at the Alemany market on Saturdays.

Below are instructions for how to fry an egg Spanish-style in olive oil, which is (perhaps not surprisingly) my new favorite way to devour these culinary jewels.

Diego Velázquez's "Vieja Friendo Huevos" (Old Woman Frying Eggs), 1618, hanging in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

When is a trout not a trout?

When it's an omelet, of course! (Don't worry, this Dadaist answer will soon make sense).

A month ago, I promised an unusual Catalan recipe that features green garlic "later in the week." I made the dish, took pictures, ate it, and then plumb forgot about it.

My promise remained buried in my gray matter until an alert reader, Jesse, emailed me a few days ago. Jesse subscribes to the weekly CSA box (go Jesse!) from one of my favorite local farms, Full Belly, and was scheduled to receive a bunch of fresh green garlic on Tuesday. Jesse, hopefully you still have some of your stash remaining to use in this recipe!

During my trip to the Priorat wine region of Catalonia last summer, I sampled what was to me an unusual riff on the classic Spanish tortilla. In place of the traditional potatoes (and onions in some renditions), the cook had substituted local white beans, called mongetes, and green garlic. Tasted alongside the potato version, I actually preferred this tender, mildly garlicky tortilla.

Once I returned home, I flipped through old and new Spanish cookbooks and learned that the Spanish tortilla is just as versatile a platform for experimentation as the more familiar (to American cooks) frittata of Italy. The potato-based tortilla is the most famous and widely adored version, but there are countless others. What they all have in common is a relatively low proportion of eggs to filling.

Catalan cooks appear to be especially fond of tinkering with the classic potato version. In his book Catalan Cuisine, Colman Andrews wrote that he encountered a wide variety of fillings while in Catalonia, including "white beans, green beans, samfaina [similar to French ratatouille], artichokes, asparagus, garlic shoots [another word for green garlic], wild mushrooms, tuna, botifarra sausage, apples or pears, even fried zucchini flowers." The version I tasted, then, was not as shockingly original as I had assumed!

It's time I explain the seemingly absurd riddle of the title. It's quite simple, actually. In the Catalan language, the word for tortilla is truita, which means "trout." Although theories abound as to why a round omelet made of eggs and vegetables would be called a trout, nobody seems to know the true reason. To differentiate between a real trout and an omelet, Catalans call the fish a "trout of the river" (truita de riu). A few months back, when I made a delicious tortilla with potatoes, leeks, and smoked trout, I had unwittingly made perhaps the world's first truita de truita.

The following version is called a truita de mongetes i all tendre, meaning white bean and green garlic omelet. In its homeland, it would most likely be a served as a tapa, cut into small wedges or squares and served on toasted slices of baguette, perhaps with a smear of romesco sauce or a paper thin slice of jamón serrano. N and I enjoyed this truita one weekend for brunch. It would also makes a nice luncheon or early supper with a simple salad and a glass of sparkling Catalan Cava.

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.

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?

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

The fruit that blushes when you cook it

Quince are a difficult fruit to get to know. Every autumn, I buy one or two with the best intentions.

I tell myself I'll poach them or make a lovely marmalade or perhaps a batch of membrillo (Spanish quince paste). They generously perfume our kitchen with their floral honeysuckle aroma for a week. Then the scent fades, and N starts asking when I'm going to do something with those hard fruits. "Soon," I reply, "I have some great ideas." Then another week passes, and the guilt builds. Then a third week of neglect. I start to regret ever having bought those damned, overly demanding fruit. Then a fourth, and I can barely stand to look at them. Their very presence seems to expose my every shortcoming and weakness. Eventually, they rot and I happily throw them away.

So it was with some apprehension that I brought home my usual two quince this year. N saw them and muttered, "hmmm, quince." Not usually one to hide her opinions, she uncharacteristically bit her tongue, while I averted my eyes and changed the subject.

There they sat. Waiting. I snapped a picture for my blog. Then a week, maybe two passed. The aroma started to fade....

Happily, this year is different! I followed Paula Wolfert's unusual Turkish-style recipe in The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen which calls for slow-roasting the quince for 5 hours. The transformation was unbelievable! My homely, hard quince turned into a pair of ruby red slippers. The powerful aroma transformed into the most exotic flavor, tasting as if an entire garden of red roses had been distilled into a single bite. A reminder that cooking can be magical!

A little bit of research in Harold McGee's book demystified the process and put a damper on my romantic notions. I'll attempt to summarize the Professor's explanation. Quince are inedibly tannic in their raw state. When they are cooked, the same chemicals that cause this astringency on our tongues break down and bond with oxygen chemicals to form anthocyanins, the plant pigments that cause fruit and vegetable to appear red.

[Long pause]

As I was saying, the quince turn red through some inexplicable, mysterious, magical process. Perhaps they are blushing, knowing that the one who tastes them is about to fall in love.

When I served the roasted quince for dessert the other night, falling in love is exactly what happened to N. She was astonished and entranced by the beguiling taste. She was convinced I had added some secret ingredient like rose water or cardamom or vanilla. Believe me, folks, she is a tough critic and she was enraptured.

Or perhaps she was just stunned that I actually cooked the quince this year.

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.

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!

Memories of Aunt Geeta's Chutney Sandwiches in Ba's kitchen

Whenever N and I visit her ancestral home in Bombay (now Mumbai), the first meal we eat after our interminably long flight is invariably one of her aunt Geeta's chutney sandwiches.

I remember the first time I visited the house in a posh neighborhood of Bombay, where N had spent the first five years of her life. We arrived well after midnight and her grandparents, Ba (pictured below, talking on the phone at her kitchen table) and Dada as they were known to all the family, woke up briefly to welcome us. Although I had heard many tales of her grandparents and felt like I had already known them, this was the first time I was meeting them and the first N had seen them in several years. Emotions ran high and we both felt exhilarated.

After her grandparents went back to bed, N and I were too excited to sleep.

My senses struggled to absorb every detail of my new surroundings. We sat at the absurdly long kitchen table that N had lovingly described to me so many times. It could seat 18 guests comfortably and at its center were a at least a dozen shiny steel and plastic containers, each holding a different crispy snack, tart pickle or sweet delicacy.

The room seemed at first quite plain, with stone floors and drab peeling paint on the cement walls. But, as my eyes adjusted, I realized that we were surrounded by shelf after shelf of countless glass jars that contained yet more treats and seasonings. There wasn't a square inch of space, not even a window sill, that remained bare. And when I closed my eyes, my nose knew it would be years before I'd be able to sort out all the various aromas contained in that one room.

Aunt Geeta is by nature a night owl, so she happily stayed up with us. Knowing we must be peckish after our long flight, she offered to make us a sandwich.

For each sandwich, she spread a generous amount of sweet Indian butter, far more than any doctor would recommend, on two slices of white sandwich bread. Then she slathered a layer of spicy coriander (cilantro) chutney over the butter. Next she peeled and thinly sliced a cucumber, fanned the slices onto the bread, and showered it with salt. After putting the two slices of bread together and cutting the sandwich in half, she handed each of us our snack.

From that point on, whenever I taste one of our chutney sandwiches, I'm instantly transported to Ba's kitchen. We've adapted it to our tastes by reducing the butter and salt slightly and, during the summer, by adding a few slices of juicy tomato.

It's best accompanied by a sweet and spicy cup of masala chai (which I trust you'll never again call a "chai tea latte," right?) made with black tea, milk, turbinado sugar, ginger, cardamom and a touch of black pepper.

Click "continue" for the simple recipe for coriander chutney, which can be prepared in just minutes in a blender, food processor, or ideally, a Sumeet Multi-Grind.

The dark side of the eggplant and a recipe for baingan bharta

Although I love eggplants to this day, a decade ago when I was a vegetarian, I craved eggplants almost all the time.

Italian eggplant parmigiana, Middle Eastern baba ghanouj, Chinese "yu-xiang qie-zi" (literally "fish-fragrant eggplant," but usually translated as "eggplant in garlic sauce") and Indian baingan bharta were my favorite restaurant dishes. I was impressed by the versatility of this purple (or green or white) relative of the tomato, of how it soaked up the flavors of everything around it. It seemed almost magical.

Looking back on my aubergine obsession, I now believe what I really craved was not the flavor of eggplant, which after all is quite bland, but the mouth feel.

[vegetarians continue reading at your own risk...I advise skipping ahead to the recipe on the next page]

Mushrooms, it has often been said, are the closest that the plant kingdom comes to replicating the taste and feel of a piece of meat. In the mouth, the fungi are juicy, chewy, somewhat funky, not unlike a hunk of well-aged beef. Look at the portobello. Is it a surprise that in America this overgrown brown mushroom has become the vegetarian alternative to the hamburger on practically every lunch menu?

I'd like to posit, then, that eggplants are the vegetal version of animal fat. The feel of a piece of cooked eggplant in your mouth is reminiscent of that luscious piece of fat on your pork chop or rib-eye, the one you know you should really cut away, but, oh, it's just a small piece, just this once, nobody's really looking anyway, and you'll make sure you exercise tomorrow. Eggplant is the pork belly, the foie gras, the marrow, the toro of the plant kingdom.

When I was a vegetarian, perhaps my aubergine urges were my unconscious attempt to fulfill some ancient, deep-seated, primeval, buried-in-the-shadows-of-the-genetic-code lust for that velvety, gelatinous, mushy feel of fat rolling around on my tongue?

Something to pursue with my therapist.

Until then, here's my favorite recipe for the Punjabi eggplant delicacy baingan bharta, which was part of N's and my vegetarian Indian party and cooking lesson over the weekend.

Paella 101: "What's in a name? That which we call arròs By any other name would smell as sweet."*

As I mentioned in my wrap-up of Eat Local month, during August I had been resisting using the ingredients I brought back from Spain in order to support the campaign to eat as much locally produced foods as possible. Although it's true that some of the ingredients I brought back were local when I purchased them (such as the olive oil that I bought at the local co-op's mill), I didn't want to go down that road, or before you know it I'd have been rationalizing my way into eating a dozen Ho Hos® ** (you know, Hostess® claims the recipe, or more accurately the chemical formula, came from a bakery in San Francisco, so maybe it qualifies...).

Last night was the first day of September, so it was high time for me to dig into my Spanish products and make some paella!

So, what's in a name? I hesitate to even use the word "paella" to describe this Spanish-inspired rice dish, which in Spanish I would be more inclined to call arroz de verduras and in Catalan arròs amb verdures, arroz/arròs simply meaning "rice" and verduras/verdures meaning "vegetables." But, for better or worse, in English we tend to call any Spanish-style rice dish a paella, so that's what I'll call it here.

My goal for this vegetable paella was to showcase the pristine artichokes and peas from Swanton, one of our local farms, in a vegetarian (heck, it's even vegan!) rice dish that would retain the integrity of an authentic paella or arròs like the one I sampled in Valencia. You could substitute any combination of fresh seasonal vegetables that you prefer, such as peppers, zucchini, green beans or mushrooms. Even if you've never had a good paella -- oh the horrible things I have seen and tasted that went by the name of paella (even in Spain)!-- I know you're really going to like this one! And it's so easy, much less work than making risotto, because you don't have to stir it at all!

Background

Before I get to the recipe, though, I want to get on my soapbox and share with you some of the things I've learned about paella on my trips to Spain and in my readings.

Traditionally, a paella should be cooked in a special shallow, round steel pan called, not surprisingly, a paellera. I don't yet have one, but they're easy to order on line. The important thing to take into account when choosing a paellera or whatever pan you're going to use is how many people you plan to serve. The size of the pan increases with the number of servings.

For example, my recipe below is for just 2 people, so I used my shallow 10-inch/26 cm sauté pan to successfully imitate a paellera. For 4 servings, you'll need a 13-inch/34 cm paellera; for 6 servings, a 15-inch/38 cm pan; for 40-50 servings, a 36-inch/90 cm pan (and a really big spoon).

I wasn't going to get into this, but I might as well. At least in Valencia and Alicante, Paella is traditionally the Spanish equivalent to the American Sunday afternoon backyard bar-be-cue. What I mean is it's a dish, more often than not, cooked by men. And when men cook, we like to do it outside, over a wood fire. If you're inclined to cook your paella in a manly fashion, you may want to consider a tripod, but actually the standard round Weber® is perfect. If you can get your paella pan in time, it would be a perfect alternative to hot dogs and burgers for the upcoming Labor Day weekend grill-fest!

Alas, as I've mentioned before, I don't own a grill, so I had to settle for cooking my paella indoors. Besides, a vegetable paella is hardly manly (real men don't eat vegetables, do they?). To replicate the subtle smokiness that a wood fire imparts to the rice, I used a little of the marvelous smoked Spanish paprika, pimentón de la Vera.

Fruit Porn (recipe inside!)

Here's a peek at some of the sexy local fruit from our Saturday farmers market.

These beauties, the best of our local figs, are the mostly widely anticipated fruit at my house. They come from Rick Knoll's Tairwa' Farm (a phoneticization of the French terroir, which loosely translates as "a sense of place") in Brentwood. The large purplish ones are Brown Turkey figs (N's favorite) and the small green ones are Adriatic figs (my favorite, mainly because I love the colorful contrast between the chartreuse skin and the red flesh, but they both taste similar). Both are scarlet on the inside and absolutely bursting with juice.

These lovelies with the color of a tequila sunrise (when was the last time you had one of those?) are called pluots. They're a cross between, as you may have guessed, a plum and an apricot. Steven Kashiwase, my favorite stone fruit farmer (peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots), grows them in Winton. This variety, which I find the most satisfying of all the pluots, is aptly called Flavor King. When eaten raw, the succulent fruit more closely resembles a sweet-tart plum. Its apricotness pushes to the forefront when it is cooked into a gorgeous galette or preserves (click "continue" below for an easy recipe for pluot preserves).

Our final bombshell is also of mixed parentage. This bunch of Bronx grapes, from Lagier Ranches in Escalon, is a cross between the flavorful purple Concord grape and the rather dull Thompson seedless variety. What you end up with is better than the sum of the parts. The Concord lends a tinge of its amethyst color, its floral perfume and its quintessential grapey flavor (I can't think of any better way to describe its almost artificial tasting flavor, the taste of the Welch's Concord grape jelly you had smeared on your peanut butter sandwich when you were a kid). The Thompson was clearly chosen to result in a seedless progeny, but it also adds its characteristic shade of jade green.

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.

Recipe: Caponata di Melanzane

Since I shopped this week at the farmers market, we have lots of wonderful local summer vegetables on hand.  Yellow and red peppers and rosa bianca eggplants from Mariquita Farm , tomatoes and basil from Dirty Girl Farm...for me that spells caponata di melanzane, the Sicilian summer vegetable stew.  Caponata is in the same family of Mediterranean vegetable ragoûts as the Provençal ratatouille or the Spanish pisto, although unlike either of those it does not usually include zucchini.   I say usually, because every family in Sicily has their own recipe for caponata.  They all feature eggplant in the staring role, but the supporting cast changes, with raisins and pine nuts in some versions, capers and olives in others.  My version leans in the latter direction, featuring capers, olives, anchovies and roasted peppers.  It can be used as an accompaniment to lamb or fish, to sauce pasta, or on its own on top of polenta.  Tonight, I served it topped with a slow-roasted fillet of local halibut (see here for tips on slow-roasting fish) and basil oil.

3 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 peppers (red or yellow), roasted, peeled and sliced thickly
1 eggplant (approx. 12 oz.), cubed (1 inch)
3 tomatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 t dried oregano or 1 T fresh oregano, marjoram or basil
1 T salt-packed capers, soaked in several changes of water
1/4 c olives, pitted (your favorite--I used arbequinas I brought back from Spain)
3 anchovy fillets, chopped (optional)

Sweat onions over low heat in 2 T of the oil, adding garlic halfway through, until they're meltingly soft.  Add tomatoes and your choice of herbs and cook 10-15 min. longer, until saucy.  In a seperate pan, sauté eggplant over high heat in the remaining 1 T oil until caramelized and starting to soften, about 5-10 min.  Add eggplant and peppers to tomato mixture and cook until eggplants are tender, but not mushy.  Add capers, olives and optional anchovies at last minute.