Brandy's dandy

Here's the product of this year's holiday craft binge: cranberry and pomegranate cordials. I mixed the liquor; Scott made the labels.

The recipe is simple, and comes courtesy of Molly W.: 6 cups cheap red wine, 5 cups sugar, one bag of cranberries. Simmer together until cranberries pop. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for a few days to let berries steep. Strain, stir in 3 cups brandy, then bottle.

For the pomegranate mix, I used white wine, a mix of POM juice and fruit, and a little less sugar. Unfortunately, I wasn't measuring as I did this, so you'll have to wing that one.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy holidays

Here's a photo of the croquembouche that Jessica of Feed and Supply served at her Christmas party last night. It was stunning, and nothing's more fun than pulling your very own creampuff off a sugary tower.

Jessica is the most relaxed host I know. Where I'm always racing around at the last second ("Plates! We need plates to eat on!"), Jessica comes to the door smiling and serene, even when she has a little bit of cooking to do. I always leave her house feeling contented and cared for. Isn't that a nice gift?

Here's a photo of J's tree, just to give this place some sparkle...

But enough about you

Apartment number one tagged me a couple of days ago, and I've been remiss. Here are the rules:

Post 10 weird and random facts about yourself, then at the end, list the names of 5 more suckers bloggers.

I do enjoy a good meme. Here goes:

1. I hate overhead lighting.

2. I like to cultivate a handful of quirks like #1.

3. Not that I made them up, but I'm not doing much to get over them, either.

4. I TiVo Starting Over every day, and when Scott's out of town, I watch it for hours.

5. I was in the cast of the first American musical to tour China.

6. I love Cream of Wheat.

7. If I had to choose between a 7-course wine dinner and a drive-in movie, I'd take the drive-in every time. A 4-course dinner? It's a toss-up.

8. I think all desserts should have salt.

9. Mark Bittman is my culinary role model.

10. Some day, I want to sell pies out of a reconditioned ice cream truck.

Now I'm tagging:
McPolack Inc.
Feed and Supply
cuarentayuno
Mona's Apple
and Rachael of Fresh Catering

The buck stops where?

I went to Mijita for the first time this Sunday and tried their signature quesadilla Mijita, a thick, fresh, handmade corn tortilla stuffed with Mexican cheeses, chiles, and epazote, then folded up like a calzone and cooked on the griddle. It came with a fabulous sweet-smoky-tangy tomato salsa and good guacamole. More than any dish I've had in San Francisco so far, this captured those hot earth flavors that I love in Mexican cooking. And Traci Des Jardins makes a point of sourcing local produce and using organic meats. Great view of the Bay, too. The price: About $25 for lunch for two: 2 tacos, a quesadilla, beans, and two aguas frescas. And the quesadilla was overkill, really. We were stuffed.

Then I stumbed across Mijita's reviews on Yelp.com. Reviews ran mixed-to-negative, which was surprising, but maybe there are consistency problems. What did shock me is that 14 out of 22 reviews complained about the prices. "Waaaaay overpriced," one said. "Too pricey," said another. Then the capper: "There's no reason for a taco to cost $5."

Wha?

WTF?

Don't mean to get all soap-boxy, but this stupidity is hard to take, especially from San Franciscans. I bet half these folks read Fast Food Nation and boycotted McDonald's for ethical reasons. But don't take away their cheap burritos! Mexican food isn't supposed to actually cost money. Forget what it takes to make a profit on a $3 super taco.

Everybody needs a little time away

Wow. Ten days since my last post. Sometimes you just need a break, you know? Especially when you think about food for a living. My friend Julia calls it "being fooded out."

My other excuse is that we had my sister's family here for ten days. We did all sorts of fun things, very little of which was food-related, thanks to my niece and nephew. Unless you count the cotton candy at Disneyland.

But last night I made a really nice pan-roasted monkfish on mushroom ragout. Here's the recipe:

I minced 4 cloves of garlic and 4 shallots, finely chopped 1 yellow onion, and diced 3 portabella mushroom caps and about 5 large chanterelles. Then I rendered 3 diced strips of thick-cut bacon (I like Niman Ranch) over medium heat until browned. Removed the meat, but left the fat, increased the heat to medium-high, and browned the garlic, shallots, onion, and mushrooms. Added a bay leaf and a handful of halved pear tomatoes. Seasoned with salt and pepper, Portuguese allspice and a tiny bit of regular allspice. When everything was nicely caramelized, I deglazed with a little chicken stock.

In a separate pan over medium-high heat, I seared the salt-and-pepper-sprinkled monkfish in a little olive oil, then roasted it at 425 for 7 minutes. Took it out, realized that wasn't enough time, and put it back in for another 5. Took it out, realized it still wasn't enough time, and put it back for 4 more.

The monkfish looked a little pale on the ragout, so I sprinkled it with some dried tomato powder that my mom had given me. Pretty! Unfortunately, I didn't manage to pull out the camera before we dove in. But this is a photo of the lovely Masút Pinot Noir I drank with it. This is a small biodynamic winery in Mendocino County founded by Robert Fetzer (yes, that Fetzer). If you can get your hands on a bottle (about $32), you'll be happy indeed. As my boss said when she tried it today, "This is true Pinot Noir."

The olive project: Week 2

The olives are now in their fourth day of the more concentrated brine. All in all, they've been in the mix for 12 days. Just 78 more to go!

Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. Didn't have time to use the camera, so I used my cell phone. But you can se that some are still purple, some are green, and some are turning a nice shade of brown.

Favorite food-related fainting stories #3

My apologies: This is probably the most unappetizing post I'll ever write. But the fainting stories were such a hit, and this one really is funny.

Remember the woman who faints when she eats too much?

We’ll call her Katy. Being a fainter, she has a few good stories up her sleeve. This is one of my favorites:

Katy and her husband were at a wedding in Vermont last July. It was perfect: a beautiful meadow, mountains in the background, bridesmaids in cornflower blue, and a line of tuxedoed groomsmen, including the bride’s younger brother.

So baby brother had been out drinking with the guys the night before, and had skipped breakfast that morning. Naughty brother! (That's the food connection, btw).

Suddenly, standing up for the groom began to seem like a very tall order indeed. The bride’s parents watched as he turned green and began to sway. By the time he actually hit the ground, they were ready. They raced in, propped him up, and dragged him to a chair in the front row.

Flustered, but determined, the young couple resumed their vows.

That’s when the dry heaves began.

Overwhelmed by all those tequila shots, baby brother’s system was doing its damnedest to shake off the poison. But the well was dry, so all he could do was put his head between his knees and roar.

Now the entire wedding party was beginning to look pale. So the bride’s father did what had to be done, and dragged baby brother off across the meadow. The wedding resumed, and the couple got hitched without another hitch. But the caterers couldn't help noticing that the guests were unusually restrained at the buffet line.

Family-style

First, the bad news: I didn't make it to Calle Ocho, or to Mosaico, or even to Joe's. The Murphy's Law of family visits is that no matter how much of a food nerd you are, you'll never eat at the fabulous restaurants in any town where your family lives.

Which is fine. I had my arepa, I had a tasty shrimp salad at a dockside spot in Aventura, and we had lots of cheesy fun at The Melting Pot in West Alligatorville (ok, outer Kendall). Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the la-la food scene, or even the chowhound scene, for that matter. We did share a terrific caramel apple from this spot at the Broward County Fair. But poor Broward County. It's a sorry day when your county's ag fair doesn't have enough actual agriculture left to fill a party tent. Just a bunch of sad rabbits and some agitated chickens.

Miami? Nice...

Big goings-on this week: Californiaeating is off to Miami to visit the in-laws.

Miami, land of tropical fruits, arepa carts, and t-shirt suits. I love Miami. I even love the in-laws. But since Scott does not come from a family of cooks (kitchens are more of a decorative element for them), we'll be having a catered turkey dinner by the beach. This kinda goes against all that is holy for New Englanders and food nerds, but I had my fill of Thanksgiving food this summer, so I can roll with it. And they sure know how to throw a party.

Anyone have any Miami restaurant recs? We've been to Norman's and Joe's. But we still haven't made it over to Calle Ocho in all these years. This time, I want some good Cuban and Caribbean food.

Olive me, olive you

I bought some really beautiful olives this weekend at the farmer's market (at $10 for 2 pounds. Suckaa!). But better to get soaked by the hippie farmers than by Monsanto.

Anyone have advice to share about brining them? I'm planning to go the standard salt/garlic/chilies/peppercorn/bay leaf route, but I'd love some input. Anyone ever done an oil cure?

Sicko

What are the chances? All my happy plans for this weekend have been felled by a double whammy of biking accident and stomach flu.

Yesterday, coasting down the final (steep) hill after a ride around the city, I hit the brakes too suddenly and went flying over the front of my bike. Thankfully, no major injuries, aside from a badly banged-up knee (I'm dragging that leg around the house like Igor) and some bruises.

Then, this morning I woke up to a gory case of stomach flu: fever, more aches, and...you can imagine. Scott comes in every so often to make sure I'm drinking my liquids (he's acting on prior experience), and he and our friend Grady have stepped in to do my share of the cooking for a movie screening that our neighbors are hosting tonight. The party will go on, while I comfort myself with saltines and ginger ale.

Our neighbor Meredith is a chef, so she's doing most of the work: braised beef with a pepper relish and biscuits; arugula, grapefruit, and avodaco salad; broccolini; and persimmon pudding with vanilla ice cream. Our contribution is a vegetarian butternut squash lasagne (this being San Francsico, it's the veggie alternative).

Grady is cooking as I type. What a treat it is to sit and read while someone prepares dinner in the next room. I can smell the sqash roasting, the garlic and the rosemary. It's Sunday night, my fever is going down, and the world feels very cozy, if a little achy still.

[Note: Scott says I soft-pedaled my description of the accident. Watching me fly through the air, he thought he was facing young widowerhood (that's a real word, I checked). But I come from good peasant stock. My people have been falling off horses for generations.]

Zuni tunes

Title-writing skills continue to deteriorate here at California Eating...

Last night we went back to Zuni Cafe to celebrate the arrival of G, a real food lover and former Boston compatriot. Some places, like Zuni and Chez Panisse, make me feel like a pilgrim worshiping at the sacred sites. California looms so large in your consciousness when you're living on the east coast and studying American food, and I still feel a little thrill when I try the signature dishes.

One classic, the house-cured anchovies, was everything I'd hoped it would be. Anchovies walk that fine line between the sublime and the foul, but these were fantastic. No oily-fishy residue here. Just a rich briny wallop in a tiny little tender package.

The roast chicken was also perfect, but the bread salad underneath was soggy with oil. It went way beyond unctuousness to something closer to greasy. Eh, it was probably just an off night.

I do have one other criticism, though, which remains constant with every visit: Could the staff please act just a little happy to have you there? They may as well introduce themselves with, "My name is Jeffrey, I'll be your waiter tonight, and I couldn't give two shits about it."

But I'll be back, because it's just that good...

The other CIA

Do you find that taking a couple of days out of the office almost isn't worth it because of all the work you have to make up? That's where I am right now. But I wanted to jot down some quick observations from the Worlds of Flavor conference I just attended at the CIA Greystone campus.

1) The CIA must have done some mad fund-raising because that place is swank. The stone buildings, the gardens, the platters and platters of Spanish cheeses and crab and wild mushrooms. The wine. It's so...well, it's so Napa.

2) The last week of October and first week of November may be the prettiest time of year to visit the valley. The vines changed color overnight, and the valley floor was all gold and red. And the sun was set at a lower angle, so the light never got washed out like it does in the summer. The olives were ripe, too (I took that photo on the grounds of the Krug winery).

3) I have to get to Marnee Thai as soon as possible. Chef /owner Chaiwatt Siriyan was a guest speaker (here he is giving a demo class), and his food was phenomenal. Great Thai food has that same heady perfumey quality as Indian food, but it's so bright and refreshing. I have been trying to recreate eggplant in green curry (I'll post the recipe when I get it right).

4. Every night, the conference organizers turned the huge barrell room into an international night market lined with booths featuring the foods of Spain, Mexico, India, Viet Nam, Thailand, Turkey, Persia, and North Africa. It was extraordinary (though packed, with nowhere to stand -- a recurring theme). The food was prepared by a battery of chefs who were flown in to speak and cook at the conference. I'm still craving a dessert from the Thailand booth: little bannana leaf packets stuffed with a sweet rice flour and coconut milk dough surrounding a caramelized coconut center.

5. For a man who spends his time traveling the world to eat at fancy restaurants, R.W. Apple is a pissy and impatient grump. This is the second time I've heard him speak at a conference, and the second time I've watched him bully and embarrass audience members who take too long to pose their questions or forget to say their names first.

If you get to have this kind of fun for a living, you have a moral obligation to at least be pleasant.

Napa time

What a silly title. Sorry about that.

But I am heading up to Napa today for the CIA's annual "Worlds of Flavor" conference. Here's their description:

Each year, the Worlds of Flavor International Conference & Festival transforms the Napa Valley campus into an amazing crossroads of world food and culture. More than 50 leading chefs, cooks, cookbook authors, and other culinary experts from Latin America, the Mediterranean, and Asia as well as from across the United States will head up the prestigious guest faculty at this CIA anniversary event.

Over the last 15 years, American menus–and the chefs and operators who create them–have undergone a profound, even revolutionary transformation. For most of our culinary history, we have been largely tethered to Northern European traditions–with France often representing the gold standard in fine dining–while a host of “ethnic flavors” beckoned our palates from the fringes of the industry. In the late 80s and early 90s, however, what we now call “world cuisine” started to catch the imagination of American consumers and the dining public.
First it was broader interest in regional Italian flavors, then a collective grasp of the larger Mediterranean, then regional Mexican and other Latin flavors. Next, fascination with an expanded range of Asian flavors emerged, from China and Japan to Southeast Asia and India–and finally we have now come to a “tipping point” that represents a remaking of the American culinary landscape. Once we thought it was sensible to rank the world's cuisines, but today we see a more level playing field with many cultures contributing brilliant ideas to the world table. Whereas before we thought of “American cuisine” and “American food” asbeing separate from other cuisines of the world (the latter often referred to as “ethnic foods” or “international foods”), we now increasingly think of American food as world food.

Doesn't that sound fun? These are the moments when I think, This is my job? How in the world did I finagle that?

I'm also happy to see that, with the term "world food," the good folks at the CIA have come up with an alternative to "ethnic," which is such a ridiculous bit of imperialist residue. As if some group (Brits? The French?) are the standard-bearers of humanity. No, French food is ethnic food, too. Anyway, I'm preaching to the choir.

I'll try to post any interesting news from the conference.

Berkeley bound

One of the best things about moving to a new place is that constant sense of discovery. On weekends we like to take our bikes -- by car, ferry, or BART-- to some new town or neighborhood and spend the day exploring. Last Sunday, we did a Berkeley tour.

There were a few places I'd been eager to visit: Kermit Lynch's wine store, the Cheese Board, Breads of India, and some non-foodie shops and sights. Won't bore you with those.

I had read Lynch's excellent wine travelogue Adventures on the Wine Route, purchased two years ago at a tiny wine shop in St. Johnsbury, VT, and I was secretly hoping to get a glimpse of the man, even though I know he lives in France part of the year. Can't believe it took me six months to do this, but it's just such a nuisance to drive to Berkeley on weekends with all the bridge traffic. Now I was prepared: Bike, backpack, and willing legs for the schlepping. Counting down the addresses, I saw the barn-like building up ahead. Turned the corner, holding my breath, and...they're closed Sundays.

Next stop: the Cheese Board, the legendary collective that was there at the beginning of the Berkeley food revolution. A quick search for directions informed us that they, too, are closed on Sundays. See what happens when you give the workers a say? No wine and cheese for the hedonists.

Bravely onward. Now we were hungry. Breads of India, was open, God bless 'em. We ordered tandoori salmon and a vegetable curry (the menu changes daily), plus garlic naan. Wow. I honestly think that fish was the best tandoori I have ever had. Maybe the best salmon I've ever had. The naan lived up to its top billing. Even the raita was great. Plus, everything had that wonderful new-discovery smell. And so the day was saved.

Corked

Can you explain to me why a restaurant would charge a $10 corkage fee when they don't have a liquor license and don't even uncork the wine for you?

That was the story last night at Mangosteen, a new restaurant in the Tenderloin that's had a buzzy (though not boozy) opening: mostly enthusiastic reporting in the Chronicle and lots of foodie chatter.

My friend T met me there, toting a bottle of wine. I was wary, given the day's wine drinking, but I said I'd have half a glass. T asked the waitress for an corkscrew. The waitress came back with it, saying she'd have to charge us $10 for, "uh, bringing the wine."
"But you don't have a liquor license, right?" I asked.
"Right," she said.
"So it's not like we're drinking our own wine instead of drinking your wine."
"Right," she said.
"So why charge us for bringing something you don't have?"
"It's for the opening of the bottle."
"But you didn't open it for us. We opened it."
"Um, let me call my boss."

When the food arrived, we went ahead and opened the bottle, since our waitress had disappeared and we weren't getting any water. Then the bill arrived, with a $10 "appetizer" tacked on. We paid it, but for the first time in my life, I didn't leave a tip.

Looking back, I'm not sure it was the right way to handle it. The service was really bad, surcharge aside. Still, they did bring the food to the table, and probably should've gotten a token 10% just for that. It was just a lousy experience, and we were pissed off by the end.

Wine before noon, a little too soon

I am the tiniest bit, ahem, buzzed at the moment, having just bellied up to the tasting table at work. I always feel a little bamboozled when I drink before 3pm. We're working on a "shockingly perfect wine pairings" piece, matching some down-market foods with nice (but not too expensive) wines. The results are fun and surprising, but I can't spill the beans. We know where that leads.

I can't say we drink a lot at work (and we do spit). But it came as a shock. We're drinking? At work? In the middle of the day? And not getting fired? But then I realized, duh. We're in the West. They make wine here. We write about it.

You don't realize how much you've absorbed the values of one place until you leave it, and I see Boston's puritanical streak more vividly now. When I first moved there, you couldn't buy liquor on Sundays (that law was repealed in 2003). And I didn't realize what a New Englander I was until I came here, where every supermarket has at least three wine aisles, and found it--to my chagrin--kinda shocking.

I enjoyed wine in Boston. I am Italian, after all. Gotta, um, represent. But on some, nearly inaudible level, the glass came with a voice that said, "Ah, partaking of the demon liquor, are ye?"

This way is better.

(and I keep having to go back and edit this piece. Blame the demon.)

Watch it wiggle

Check it out: A San Francisco artist named Elizabeth Hickok (who, incidentally, also moved here from Boston), has sculpted the city out of jello.

Apple crisp

My mom called from Connecticut a few weeks ago to say she was making her first apple crisp of the season. Wouldn't it be great if we could teleport? Best of both worlds: California and Mom's apple crisp. Of course, the technology would be appropriated by Silicon Valley and I wouldn't be able to afford it. And then you'd have the porous border problem. Maybe jetpacks.

This is an apple crisp worth traveling for. No Cali-hippie granola topping, more like a sweet biscuity crust drizzled with butter and cinnamon. It was my grandma Mary's recipe, clipped from a 1940s women's magazine. I found the original copy in a ziplock bag a couple of months before she died. The paper feels like worn silk and barely holds together, but I like keeping it in the bag with the others, the ones that became family standards, and the ones she set aside for some future day. "Your grandma Rose was the good cook," she'd say. But this is the recipe I make most.

With an old-fashioned apple peeper/corer, you can get it prepped in about 20 minutes. Bake it while you eat dinner, then serve hot with poured cream or vanilla ice cream.

Mary Q's Apple Crisp

1 dozen apples, peeled and sliced 1/3 inch thick (I like to mix Braeburns and Granny Smiths)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
10 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°. Melt butter over low heat; set aside.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl. Drop in eggs and mix with a fork until crumbly (the mixture will look like streusel).

Spread sliced apples in a 9x13-inch baking dish. Distribute topping over apples, then drizzle with butter. Sprinkle cinnamon to cover. Bake 45 minutes, or until topping is golden brown and filling bubbles.

Back to school

I was invited to a lunch at Delfina yesterday celebrating the publication of The Niman Ranch Cookbook. Bill Niman was there with his wife Nicolette Hahn, an environmental lawyer, along with Bill’s co-author Janet Fletcher and assorted folks from Ten Speed Press. We munched on all kinds o’ meat: grilled lamb chops with rosemary salt, roasted suckling pig, beef carpaccio, and bacon-laced pizzas.

At one point, Nicolette mentioned an op-ed piece she was trying to get published. It was about animal feed, and how most of us don’t know what’s going into the chain at the early stages. The Times had published her op-eds before, but no one wanted this one.

Which got me thinking about how little we know, or even care, about the food we eat. For all my rhapsodizing about all things organic and artisanal, and all the visits to the farmers’ market, whenever I try to think or write seriously about our food system, I trip over huge gaps of understanding. I know that the growth of Niman Ranch is a Good Thing (setting aside questions of carnivorism). Five hundred independent family farms are now raising cattle, pigs, and sheep according to Niman’s protocols. If places like Burger Joint and Chipotle are buying the meat, and people are willing to pay a little more for them, then that makes the world a better place, right? That’s easy.

But that’s also a little shallow for someone who calls herself a food writer. Food is a big subject to tackle: history, cooking techniques, ingredients, wine. A life-long pursuit. But this stuff is important, and I need to launch this part of my education in earnest. Anyone have any recommendations? Favorite books?

Cow town

I went down to Valencia Street on Saturday night to take in the Lit Crawl, San Francisco's own version of a Boston-style bar crawl, with cafes and bookstores replacing the bars and published writers replacing the guy in the corner playing a strummy version of "Take It Easy." Actually, some of the readings were held in bars, but no one was doing shots that I could see.

After the readings, I wanted to take Scott to Belden Place, which has a real "Roman Holiday" charm at night, with all the outdoor tables and the lights strung across the alley. We were hungry though, and Burger Joint was right across the street.

Like many San Francisco restaurants, Burger Joint trumpets its use of Niman Ranch beef and free-range chicken. And it's nice to start a burger meal feeling virtuous, because that's a feeling you'll want to remember once the french fries kick in.

As for the food, it was certainly better than your average diner burger. But our burgers were juicy to the point of sogginess, soaking the bun, our hands, and several napkins. Fries were very good -- puffed and steaming inside, crispy outside. But Joe's Cable Car is still tops in my book.

Favorite food-related fainting stories #2

Thanks to folks who have weighed in on the soup story. I believe the fainting episode was brought on by a pre-existing condition and not by the soup itself. But it somehow seems funnier that she did pass out during the soup course as opposed to, say, dessert.

None of my own personal fainting tales are quite as funny. They tend to happen in doctor’s offices, bedrooms, or, as Scott witnessed last February, on the top floor of our house in Boston during a snowstorm. I have one fuzzy memory of being carried out in a special strap-in chair and hearing a fireman say, “Watch it guys, those steps are wicked slippery.”

That particular faint was brought on by a stomach virus, high fever, and lack of food and water. But I recently met a woman who faints when she eats too much food. Something about a big dinner and a couple of glasses of wine can knock her for a loop.

One of the most memorable episodes happened in Hawaii, where she was on vacation with her husband. By coincidence, they ran into his ex-fiancée at the hotel’s pool. The relationship had ended years before, and the ex was actually there on her honeymoon. But still. They did their awkward greetings and introductions and -- to show there were no hard feelings -- agreed to meet later for dinner.

Dinner itself was tense, but uneventful. Forced into the role of The Woman He Picked Over Me Even Though I’m Fine Now, my friend ate and drank more than was probably advisable. They finished dinner and paid the bill, and then they went for a little stroll.

The fainting, when it happened, was complete. Out by the pool, she had only the presence of mind to lie down when she felt it coming on. I think there was a little bit of convulsing, which is pretty common and not necessarily serious. And when she came to, she was so weak she couldn’t stand, or even sit up. The resort had to send a golf cart out to carry her back to the room. They lifted her into the back, bent her knees so she’d fit, and her husband got in front. They rode off, waving weakly. They never saw the ex again.

Favorite food-related fainting stories #1

I'm an occasional fainter, and I sure enjoy a good fainting tale. Nothing intterupts ho-hum polite society better than passing out cold. Here's a new one:

This woman I work with lives in a very social neighborhood: block parties, barbecues, movie nights. As these things go, she became closer to some neighbors than others. She wanted to invite her new friends over for dinner, but she worried what would happen if the others found out. "Oh hell," she finally decided, "It's not like they'll ever know."

Can you see where this is going?

One of her guests passed out during the soup course. The hostess knew the woman had a heart condition, so she called 911. Fast on the heels of the call came 2 amblulances, 4 fire trucks, 8 paramedics...and every single other neighbor, all gathered in her living room, looking at the abandoned dinner table.

The fainting victim was fine, but as for my friend's social standing, it's touch and go.

Regrets, I've had a few

Went for a long bike ride around the city yesterday. Over Diamond Heights and down to the Marina to take in the air show, then off to the Presidio and the Great American Highway. It was a perfect San Francisco day: cloudless and temperate. Your body never has to work very hard to keep a steady temperature here.

Before the air show, we biked to Chestnut St. in the Marina, dodging SUVs and Bugaboo strollers, looking for lunch. Does the Marina really exist in this city? Such a pretty spot by the water, but now I know why my old college friend got very quiet when, early in our housing search, I announced that I wanted to live there. It's hard to get past the impression that everyone is a recent graduate of the exact same college.

Scott got excited, though, when he saw Andale Taqueria, where he had eaten once, years ago. "Oh, this place is great!" he said. A few bites into his fish taco, his shoulders sagged and he announced dejectedly, "I guess this only seemed good because I hadn't been to La Corneta yet."

We haven't had many bad meals here, but there have been some clunkers. Here's my list of outright failures and minor disappointments:

Flat-out bad meals
1) Andale Taqueria
2) Shalimar (last mention, I promise)
3) Bistro Zinc - 2 bad meals, actually, because I didn't want to believe it the first time)

Places I just expected to like more
1) Yank Sing dim sum - this feels like sacrilege, but I was only wowed by the soup dumplings
2) Alice's Chinese restaurant, Noe Valley - great flavor, too oily
3) Manresa, Los Gatos - I can only believe that it was an off night. Too many great reviews elsewhere.
4) Pauline's Pizza - Did I miss something? I loved the Indian toppings, but the crust was your basic puffy Greek-style bread.

That's a pretty short list, considering.

Tagged and tagging

Mona tagged me last week, and I'm finally following through. Here are the instructions:

"It's the 23/5 meme. The blogger tagged has to go to their 23rd post, find the 5th sentence, and then write something interesting about it on their blog."

So here's Calforniaeating 23:5-6:
"I have two things to say about that. One: Yes, it's true that the blog's a bit uh, sunny."

This post chronicles the last gasp of my raging homesickness. I was responding to feedback my friends had given me about the blog: "It sounds like your life is a series of wine dinners and trips to Sonoma!" they protested. And I was pointing out that, though I was actually unhappy at the time, I wasn't sure how personal I want to get here.

The way I see it, there are three types of posts:

1) Info that's useful/interesting to anyone (restaurant and travel tips, and, if I was stupid, work gossip/bitching)
2) Stuff that's interesting to family and friends (daily events, observations, musings, and Clio news)
3) Stuff that may only be interesting to me (long musings about How I Feel and, uh, Clio news)

Haven't made much progress in figuring that stuff out. Meantime, I'm going to tag some other suckers. You're on McPolack, FeedandSupply, Cuarentayuno, and Carolyn Tillie!

What's in a name

Found a terrific Indian restaurant called Chutney right across from Shalimar (of regretted memory) at Jones and Ofarrell. Great Lamb Vindaloo and Baigan Bartha, and decent breads (puffy and slightly charred - yum - but a little bland). Cheap, too.

So thank God the place is called Chutney and not Chutney's, because I can't stand restaurants named in after a food product in the possessive form. Portobello's and Thyme's and Calamari's...ugh. Normally I don't believe in cultivating silly prejudices, especially where food is concerned. But this just sticks in my craw.

So I'm wondering if there's anyone out there with equally random quirks. Not snobby quirks ("Ugh, the waiter called them g'nokeys. Idiot."). Quirky quirks.

Heading home now to bake some challah. Happy New Year!

Yolo Tengo

I don't have time to write a proper post, but I just got back from a press trip to Yolo County (Northeast of Napa), and I'm feeling inspired. This must be what Sonoma was like 20 years ago. We met organic farmers at Full Belly Farm (check out their Hoes Down harvest festival this weekend), Good Humus Farm, and Capay Fruits and Vegetables. These are the people who are doing the work of revolutionizing our food chain. Their commitment to this life and this cause, and their innovation and resourcefulness...they're the real stars of the food world.

We also had a fantastic lunch cooked by Rachael Levine, chef at R.H. Phillips Winery. It's worth a trek out to the Dunnigan Hills just to try her wine pairing dinners.

We're off to Point Reyes this weekend to celebrate our first anniversary. I'm so excited that I'll start gushing, so I'll just stop here.

We are the champions, maybe

Walking back from a truly awful dinner at Shalimar (darn you, Zagats!), I saw this sidewalk sign outside Foley's Irish House:

"We have probably the best Bloody Mary in San Francisco!"

Mister Tamarine man

I don't go out to for lunch very often. There's usually something tasty coming out of the test kitchen at work, even now that we're finished with that theater of gluttony known as the Thanksgiving Recipe Contest.

Furthermore, I'm under the impression that, with the exception of Manresa in Los Gatos, the Peninsula isn't really a restaurant Mecca. There are some very good places, like Jessie Cool's restaurants, Flea Street Café and jZcool Eats in Menlo. But with most of the others, you're grading on a curve.

Then we went to Tamarine in Palo Alto. Now here's a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant that gives The Slanted Door a run for its money. Executive chef Tammy Huynh has a serious talent for mixing big flavors that run the entire spectrum of sweet, salty, aromatic, bitter, and sour. Like a finely tuned stereo equalizer, she can turn up the volume without losing the balance.

Menu highlights: Papaya salad with dried sesame beef and basil; hoi an beef (lemongrass beef, mint, cilantro, and lettuce stuffed into a rice noodle roll); Tamarine prawns; and, to complete the beef troika, a perfect shaking beef that even surpasses the version served up at Slanted Door.

Tamarine falls short on service, and its sleek, pleasant dining room can't compete with the Door's dramatic bayside space. But it's also a lot easier to get a reservation.

Been there, done that

The Chronicle recently published a story called "Culinary Pioneers: from Acme Bread to Zuni Cafe, how the Bay Area has shaped how America eats." It goes through its list of sourdough bread, mesclun greens, farmer's markets, American goat cheese...all culinary innovations which were either invented or popularized here. Important, claim-to-fame stuff. And not a single trend or item of note since 1985.

San Francisco is resting on its laurels.

Now, a little history lesson is fine. And everything they say about the food out here is true. It's better--or, at least, the raw ingredients are better--than just about anywhere else in the country. As I said before, San Franciscans are blessed with the expectation that they shouldn't have to settle for anything less than fresh, ripe, healthy, delicious food. It'll take me years to hit all the fantastic restaurants I hope to visit here. And I'm finally feeling like I have a big old crush on this city.

But I don't feel the raw energy that you find in other American towns. In Denver and Boston and Minneapolis they're redefining the regional cuisine and discovering all their local treasures. Even Portland, Maine feels more ambitious right now.

But how could it be otherwise? Much of the work has already been done here. It started here. So San Francsico's restaurants have been trumpeting "fresh, local, seasonal (and organic whenever possible)" for a couple of decades. And what's next? And does there need to be a "next"? Perhaps we have reached a glorious plateau.

Or, maybe the next step is to make this food available to people who can't afford Chez Panisse and the Ferry Building Marketplace. Maybe the next generation of innovators will work in restaurants that charge $10 or less. Maybe one day you won't have to be rich to eat well.

And if we can't have that anytime soon, then I'll look to the next wave of fusion cuisine. Tallula in the Castro marries Indian flavors and French technique. You can buy Indian ice cream at the Bombay Ice Creamery, and Indian pizza at Zante and Pauline's. Vancouver, B.C. seems to be bubbling over with Asian-Latin-European hybrids. So perhaps the next step is to shed our French-dominated food heirarchies, finally ban the term "ethnic food," and embrace a new vision of a global food culture.

For now, I'd just like to see the conversation take a less self-satisfied turn.

Good frickin' chicken

Haven't put many recipes up lately, but this month's issue of Sunset has a tasty Sunday dinner menu that I developed back in May. And, if I do say so myself, it's good stuff: jicama sticks and green beans served with an avocado-mint dip; a whole chicken rubbed with garlic and spices and cooked over indirect heat on the grill; little foil packs filled with sweet potatoes, red onion, spices, and lime, also grilled; and an apple crisp that you (surprise) also "bake" over indirect heat on the (you guessed it) grill.

The full set of recipes is here, but you may need a password to get in. Just in case, here's the chicken recipe for your enjoyment:


Spice-Rubbed Smoke-Roasted Chicken

1 cup (about 3 oz.) hickory, mesquite, or applewood chips (optional)
12 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/3 cup chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh-ground pepper
1 chicken (4 to 5 lb.)

1. In a medium bowl, cover wood chips (if using) in water. Let soak at least 30 minutes; drain just before using.

2. In a food processor, combine garlic, chili powder, thyme, rosemary, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Process until mixture forms a paste.

3. Rinse chicken inside and out; pat dry. Press down on the breastbone of the chicken to flatten the bird slightly; rub the paste evenly over all the skin.

4. Prepare your grill for indirect heat. The temperature inside your grill should be between 350° and 400° (insert a long-stemmed thermometer through lid vent to measure temperature). If using a gas grill, place all the chips in the metal smoking box or in a foil pan directly on the heat in a corner. If using a charcoal grill, scatter half of the wood chips over the coals.

5. Place the chicken over the drip pan, breast side down. Cover barbecue with lid. If using a charcoal grill, adjust vents so that they're open halfway. Cook 40 minutes, then turn the chicken over (if using charcoal, scatter another 20 briquets over coals, along with the remaining wood chips). Cover barbecue again.

6. Continue cooking chicken until a thermometer inserted through the thickest part of breast to bone reaches 170°, about 40 minutes longer. Transfer to a board or platter and let rest 10 minutes under a tent of foil. Carve to serve.

Serves 6.

Cheese n' stuff

Hot damn, I've got breaking news!

Well, for a food writer.

This morning, at the Association of Food Journalists conference in San Francisco, I sampled a cheese that hasn't yet hit the market. And it's made by Cowgirl Creamery. And it's really, really good. In Northern California, that qualifies as news, man.

It's called Farallon (after the Farallon Islands), and it's a very soft, bloomy-rind cheese. Starting with fromage blanc, they stir in some crème fraîche, form it into little patty cakes, and then innoculate the cakes with candida and some other flora I didn't manage to transcribe. They bloom and ripen for about a week and Voilà! A delicate, fresh, creamy, perfect little button. With some fresh berries, or honey and figs, this would be your new favorite cheese. Look for it in stores by the end of the month.

You heard it here first, folks.

Speaking of cheese, I also got to meet Laura Chenel today. My new hero.

Let them eat cake

A little off-topic here, but please do your part to spread Barbara Bush's words of wisdom on the plight of the hurricane survivors stranded at the Houston Astrodome:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Burger Heaven

Operation Embrace San Francisco got off to a swinging start on Friday with a visit to Joe's Cable Car with Jessica and Sarah.

This little diner has tremendous wattage, and it looked like a great, neon beacon down at the southern end of Mission St. on a foggy night. A large yellow sign on the roof announced, "Joe grinds his own fresh chuck daily," which is impressive, since fresh-ground beef is generally considered the key to a good burger (also impressive because the only thing I grind daily is my teeth). And the menu promises equal satisfaction. "We ask a lot of questions that help us to fully satisfy your stay at Joe’s. Please order your ground steak burger the way you would like your steak cooked. Your patience is appreciated and well worth the wait. Don’t worry - same day service! All of our fresh ground steak beef burgers are served open faced for your inspection...Following food critics’ testing method, slice off a small piece of the patty without bread, taste it and come to your own conclusion."

So I was already in love with Joe's before the food arrived. We split a 6 oz. Fresh Ground Beef Steak with grilled onions on a sesame seed bun, and it was tasty and cooked right to order. With all that fresh grinding, it wasn't as densely packed as commercial burgers are. Instead, it was tender and moist. Sadly, sides (fries and onion rings) were merely average, but milkshakes were superlative. They're made with Bud's Ice Cream, a SF classic which is now produced in Thailand? Anyway, we'll be back. It's hard to imagine a more cheerful spot, with all the neon and Christmas lights and a little animatronic stuffed ape that makes kissy noises at you when you walk in the door.

Swimming

One of my oldest friends go married last weekend in Vermont, so we flew back home for a whirlwind tour of the North Country and Boston. Home, home...yes, that still feels like home.

A few of the friends we saw mentioned this blog. Specifically, that I'm making my life sound like a blur of wine tastings and restaurants and la-la-sweetness. I have two things to say about that. One: Yes, it's true that the blog's a bit uh, sunny. I still can't figure out whether I'm trying to worm my way into the Food Blog Club--all food and nothing but the food, with the occasional food-related travelogue or childhood memory thrown in--or whether I'm creating an online journal of my California life. And if it's the former, I don't want to get too personal. If it's the latter, then I should password-protect this thing. I need some more time to figure out what I want it to be.

Oh, and second: It's actually really nice when people trust you enough to tell you the truth. Yes, kindly, of course.

So in the interest of honesty, I'll say that life has not, in fact, been a bowl of (local, seasonal, organic) cherries. I'll spare you the details, which may or may not involve crying into my steamed dumplings at Taipei on Clement St., but I haven't been this homesick since Camp Timber Trails. We didn't leave Boston because we were unhappy...we left because we were so happy that it made us ballsy. There are far worse places to be homesick than San Francisco. But there was also a lot to leave behind, a home and a community, and I have been feeling decidedly unballsy of late.

I went for a midnight swim in Caspian Lake on Friday night. My friend B, the bride, wanted to do a little mikveh-style ritual with her close friends, so we sat around her on the dock and gave her our blessings for a happy marriage. Then we all got in the water. A cold breeze was blowing and the lake was about as warm as a lake in Northern Vermont can ever be at midnight. I was halfway in, shivering and wet, trying to go under slowly, when I realized that the dock was too far away to go back without getting even more chilled. "It's warmer once you're in the water," B called out hopefully. So I dove in and after a minute of agony, it did get better.

And that, metaphorically, is just about where I am right now: In water up to my waist, too far in to go back, holding on to the idea of the warm shore. And the only way it's going to get better is if I dive in and start swimming.

Fireflies

Yesterday, I talked with a woman at work who had just returned from a vacation in upstate New York. She said that the weather was oppressively hot and humid, but it was nice to go out at night without a sweater on. I said I missed that too, along with the lush green you get in a place where the growing season is so short. So much life happens there in just six months. And fireflies. You don't get fireflies here.

When I got home, I ran into my neighbor, Meredith, a chef who, coincidentally, moved here from Boston about 10 years ago. She and her partner are the kind of neighbors who show up when your moving truck arrives and say, "How can we help?" At first, we didn't even know what to do with that. Do we pay them? Send them flowers? We had incredible neighbors in Boston, but moving help? C'mon. Then we figured out that in some parts of the world, this is considered normal. We're starting to get the hang of it.

Anyway, Meredith and I were both spouseless for dinner, so we decided to go out. I let her pick, since she's always coming up with something new and interesting. "We'll go to Firefly," she said.

I had heard of Firefly. It made the Chronicle's "Top 100 Restaurants" list, and it's not too far from where we live. It's a neighborhoody kind of place set at the end of the 24th St. commercial district in Noe Valley. A comfortable, cottagey room with a fanciful canopy ceiling, soft lighting, and (relatively) affordable prices. The waitstaff know many of the customers by name, and the room has an easy, affable feel.

Firefly's menu takes American comfort favorites, like fried chicken, and polishes them up, working in Asian flavors here and there. Nothing fancy, but carefully crafted, with excellent ingredients... the kind of place where everything on the menu looks irresistible. We split the potstickers, which were filled with sweet shrimp, scallops, and big chunks of crispy water chestnuts, along with an order of romano beans topped with candied lemon peel and a few drops of truffle oil (restraint gratefully aknowledged). For the main course, Meredith had the fried chicken and I tried the tender ribs which were thickly glazed and served with slaw, spoonbread, and beans. It was too rich to eat all at once, but delicious.

Too full for dessert, we strolled down 24th St. and looked in all the brightly lit shop windows. It got me thinking again of summer nights back home. I grew up near the Connecticut River and on June nights the damp fields along the river were lit up with those fireflies. You could go for a walk in the woods at midnight and find your way by their light, just like something out of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Here there are no actual, live fireflies. But something about the fog and the pretty displays gave me a very happy, almost wonderous feeling. Turns out this city can seem magical, too, in its own way.

Bad blogger

It's been a while since I last posted. This was a heavy travel month with some freelancing thrown in, so I've been short on free time. I took two trips to Phoenix during the record heat wave, and I can now confirm that Pizzeria Bianco is so popular that people still queue up 40 minutes before the doors open even when it's 114 degrees outside (the temperature at which it begins to hurt to breathe). Was it worth the wait? As much as it was worth waiting in the snow for an hour to get into Sally's Apizza in New Haven last December. Poor Scott was sick for two weeks after that stunt. But it was good pizza!

Yesterday, I judged the cooking competition at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. And I want to go on record to say that there's nothing so terribly weird about garlic ice cream. Think of caramelized onions. Sweet and oniony. We like them. Garlic ice cream is sweet and oniny, too. Sure, it's no Ciao Bella apricot sorbet (new obsession), but you gotta give credit to the person who actually developed that recipe. It took courage. And stamina, probably.

All that and a side of Thai

The King of Thai Noodle House at 639 Clement St. in San Francisco is as good as everyone said it was. Go figure. They're famous for their duck noodle soup, and true to form, the broth was rich and meaty and just slightly sweet.

We slurped up the fat rice noodles stir-fried with beef and ginger...all the addictive appeal of ramen, but real food. Plus, each table had a Lazy Susan loaded with condiments, and there's nothing more fun than playing with condiments. And setting aside the condiments for a moment, why did the Lazy Susan go out of fashion, anyway?

For dessert: coconut sticky rice served with perfect, ripe mango slices, which caused us to joust with our chopsticks for the last bite.

Paradise found

We finally made it to Big Sur last weekend, back to Deetjen's Big Sur Inn. If there's a more beautiful place in this country, I have yet to find it.

Deetjen's, for those who haven't heard of it (and I like to pretend that I have readers who are not immediate family or friends), is a rustic little inn with a cult following. It was founded in the 1930s by "Grandpa" Deetjen, a Norweigan immigrant who settled in the area right around the time they built Highway 1. Apparently, Grampy was on the run from the Norweigan authorities, and I'm personally grateful that he decided to hide out here. He built little cabins in the redwoods all over the property, added on through the 40s and 50s, and the place has changed very little since then. Rooms still lack televisions or phones or even locks on the doors, walls are paper-thin, and most rooms share bathrooms. It's a very wabi-sabi kind of place, and while all this going-without might bother me in another context, here it just makes you feel all the more unplugged and transported. We first came here in 1999, and it has that camp-like appeal of being the one place where the world seems consistent and peaceful and safe.

If the morning is warm and sunny, you can eat breakfast on a stone patio off the main building and look up at the steep hillside planted with roses (Deetjen's is big on little paths that lead to hidden gardens). I ordered the Huevos Rancheros that Ate Manhattan (actually, there were just called "Huevos Rancheros"). But you can see that they were impressive. That's my arm in the photo, for scale. The pancakes are also great.

My other great food find was a little tray of fresh dates sold at an organic farm stand along the highway. The farmer told me that they're grown up near Santa Cruz (another win for Santa Cruz!), and that she can't get her kids to stop eating them. The flavor and texture remind me of dulce de leche crossed with cooked sweet potatoes, and I'm with those kids: I'll take them over candy just about any day. Here's a photo of Scott holding two dates with a view of the Point Sur Lighthouse in back.

Note: If you do visit Deetjen's, check out the journals in the rooms. People tend to get very personal, and it makes for great reading.

No, not that spam

Today, my Yahoo account received spam with this subject line:


"We sell all things cervix"


Imagining the offer: "Cervix watches! Cervix snoglobes! Buy now, low price for you!"

I have a backlog of food stuff to write about, including a recent trip to Big Sur. Just too much work this week. Will return (with photos) shortly...

A civilized breakfast

I've found a grown-up alternative to the toasted-Wonder-bread-with-ricotta-and-grape-jelly breakfast that I loved to love as a child.

1 slice rustic walnut bread, toasted

topped with:

2 tablespoons fromage blanc
2 teaspoons honey

Fast, easy, yum.

See you later, frialator

I have often thought, since we moved to San Francisco, that the city looks like a place out of a child's drawing, with its exaggerated landscape and ornate houses and bright flowers. Even the people look like the cast of Free to Be You and Me.

And then there's Santa Cruz, where we spent the day on Saturday. If ever a town was not merely drawn, but designed by a child, this is it. Who else would line the town beach with an arcade and a boardwalk/amusement park? "It's like all the best of California condensed into one place," Scott marveled. It should have been named Happyville, and I can't believe the grownups let this one through.

Our personal source of childlike delight came in the form of a deep-fried Twinkie that we bought on the boardwalk. This was a first for us (surprising, given our love of carnival food) and I’m happy to say it was better than I had expected. I thought the Twinkies would break down into something oozy and chemical in the cooking, but the result was rich and almost buttery. Mmmm...twinkies. Score one for deep-fried everything.

After a ride on the Hurricane, a really violent rollercoaster which left us feeling dizzy and old, we drove up to Bonny Doon's tasting room, 8 miles north of town. I love this place. Whereas Roshambo's anti-wine-snob posturing left me cold, I find Bonny Doon's quirky approach totally charming. And the wines are delicous. I took home some bottles of the Pacific Rim Chenin Blanc—a light, aromatic white—and their signature Rhone blend, Le Cigare Volant, along with a bottle of the Cardinal Zin. After tasting 6 or 7 wines, we still felt a little dizzy, but old no more.

Our last food stop was at Fambrini's Farm Fresh Produce for some $.99/lb apricots. I've had apricot jam on the brain lately, as I miss the apricot-lime preserves from Hi Rise Bakery in Cambridge. I'm going to try to recreate the recipe sometime this week; I'll let you know how it goes. Starting with discount apricots might not have been the best idea. Blame it on the rollercoaster.

Oink

Oink pretty much sums up my work life of late. Sunset received thousands of submissions to its Thanksgiving recipe contest (prize: a $50,000 kitchen redo). A panel of screeners, all former editors, narrowed that batch down, and then we're choosing which recipes make it to testing. That's a lot of recipes to taste. We have a team of recipe testers to do the cooking--if we didn't, the magazine would never get done--but there's still the matter of eating.

The testers are a jolly bunch--home cooks who we normally employ on a freelance basis to come in and test drive the recipes that we develop. They're stand-ins for our readers, and the questions and problems that they identify help us insure that the recipes work. Now, with the contest, they're in the kitchen cooking up a storm all day, every day. It reminds me of holiday mornings when my grandmother and aunts would be in the kitchen chopping and chatting by the time I woke up. Only this is a Groundhog Day-style repeat loop, where every morning is the holiday morning. For the first couple of days, I sat down at the tasting table singing, "It's the most wonderful time of the year, la-la-la...," and Linda said, "Just you wait."

She was right.

Anyway, speaking of Oink, I took Scott to Memphis Millie's on Haight St. on Wednesday night for his birthday. He loves his barbecue, and Minnie's has received high praise from lots of magazines, including Gourmet and Sunset.

I want to go back there one more time to get a better take, but on first impression, I'd say that if you really like smoke, this is your place. The meat is intensely flavored. Me, I like a little more sweetness in the crust, and Millie's flavors are all base notes. Unless, of course, you add the sauces, which are all terrific. So we're going to go back to try their pulled pork, which will probably ring my bell more than the ribs and brisket did.

A Cake to Bake

My husband's birthday falls one day after my father's. Not sure if that's evidence of some unresolved Electra Complex on my part, or if it just means that good men tend to be born around the longest day of the year. But in practical terms, it means I have birthdays on the brain and lots of presents to buy. And cakes to bake.

Scott is a respectably adventurous eater, but he's not a chowhound or a foodie. Instead, he's what I'd call a good sport. And that's just fine with me. He reminds me that other hobbies can be interesting, too. Like art, or drive-in movies.

And when he says he just wants a simple, old-fashioned yellow birthday cake with chocolate frosting, I say, "Where's my butter, sugar?" No, I don't say that. But I do make the cake.

This is, hands-down, the most delicious cake recipe I have yet to bake. It's from Shirley Corriher's Cookwise (only slightly modified).

If Dante had invented nine circles of heaven, this recipe would be her FastPass to the top. If I was a movie producer, I'd buy the rights and make it into a movie. On top of that, Shirley an awfully nice lady who spends a lot of time answering phone calls from stymied cooks all over the country.

Double this recipe if you want two layers.

Basic Moist Sweet Cake

Yield: 1 layer

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick cold unsalted butter
1-1/3 cup sugar, placed in the freezer to chill
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs at room temperature
3 large egg yolks at room temperature
1/2 cup buttermilk at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a cake pan with parchment paper, grease the bottom and sides with butter, and sprinkle with flour. Toss out the excess and set aside.

Sift together dry ingredients so that the baking powder is evenly dispersed. Chill your bowl and beaters. Beat the hard butter in the chilled bowl for three to four minutes, then gradually pour in chilled sugar. Beat for another three to four minutes until well-blended and very fluffy (a total of eight minutes).

Add oil to butter and sugar mixture, then blend. Add eggs and yolks and beat very lightly on a low speed. Too much beating after adding the eggs will produce a tough crust. Add the buttermilk and vanilla and blend lightly. Fold in sifted dry ingredients.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, then bake for 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Happy Birthday Dad!

He makes a mean batch of roasted chestnuts.

Behind the Music

Two Rivers Winery
Originally uploaded by amytraverso.

I had lunch last week at Cafe Niebaum-Coppola in Palo Alto. I wanted to try the pizza, since the cafe is one of just 12 U.S. restaurants named to the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana. Seemed prestigious, but...eh. It was about as good as any pizza I've had so far. Which is to say, not as good as I had expected. We have had pizza from Pauline's and Pizza Express and so far, nothing to write home about. Haven't yet made it to A-16. Suggestions are welcome.

After lunch, I went back to the office to face 12 Thanksgiving desserts, 2 salads, and some beef tacos, all of which needed tasting and rating for a recipe contest and a wine club premium, respectively. This part of the job? It's tough. Just a bite or two each, and I'll skip dinner tonight, but on days like this it's impossible to not feel like a fatted calf, sacrificed to the glory of food writing.

Which brings me to Colorado. Bad transition.

We had incredible food on our Colorado wine tour. Delicous, abundant food. Tell a chef that 10 wine and food writers are coming to the restaurant and s/he's going to aim for the bleachers, so we had exactly one meal with fewer than 6 courses. Follow the just-two-bites rule all you want, but you won't be getting up from that table for at least 2 hours. It can, at times, feel like an endurance test.

My trip was sponsored by the Colorado Wine Industry Development Board to introduce food and wine writers to their growing wine trade. At the moment, there are about 60 wineries around the state, concentrated within the two AVAs (American Viticultural Areas): Grand Valley and West Elks. Boosters point to the region's warm days, cool nights, abundant sunshine, and well-drained soil. New Mexico has had some success with sparkling wines, so why not Colorado? In fact, grapes were grown all over the Western Slope more than 100 years ago, but the vines were torn out during Prohibition and replaced with peach trees, which thrived and became quite famous. Western Slope peaches are even served on Air Force One. What a waste of a good peach.

We visited 8 wineries and tasted wines from about 15-20 more (my notes get a little slurry). A lot of wine for three days. The verdict? Well, there's tremendous momentum here, and I felt lucky to be on the first-ever CO wine tour. I can't wait to see what the landscape will look like 5 and 10 years from now. The wines were mixed, but there were some real stand-outs and some terrific bargains. The vines are relatively young, growers are still figuring out which grapes thrive in each zone, and vinification methods vary. But the winemakers are a passionate, committed bunch, carving a wine industry out of high desert orchard land, despite the perils. Everyone had a bad frost story to tell. And they're seeing some success with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, and fruit wines.

Some of my favorites, in no particular order:

1) Two Rivers Cabernet Sauvignon
2) Graystone Winery Port
3) Boulder Creek Riesling
4) Canyon Wind Rosé
5) The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey Merlot Reserve
6) Spero Cherry Wine (like bottled cherry pie)
7) Carlson Vineyard Gewurtztraminer
8) Garfield Estates S2
9) Stoney Mesa's Ptarmigan Vineyards line
10) Trail Ridge Lemberger (yes, Lemberger)

I also fell in love with the cheeses from Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy. Check 'em out!