marlena spieler

weird food confession, burnt food category: I LOVE burnt popcorn. I always make popcorn using a little bit of olive oil in a heavy pan or wok, and always let it cook just that little bit beyond perfection so that the bottom gets scorched. i adore the popcorns that have a burnt edge to them. sick, i know. but i can't help myself! (salt on it, yes. butter: no! not good with the burnt flavour). marlena

enjoyed your review, or should i say warning......thank you for going, so that the rest of us can be spared. but seriously, love your comments about wanting potato chips (and it not being the first time in the menu you would think that!), and also your asking yourseld how on earth could you use the words foie gras with unpleasant in the same sentence? vegetable lunch at arpege is worth it (usually). just pro-rate it with a cheap bistro the next day. i really love chez ramulaud for lunch, its on rue faubourg st antoine, delish, and a better bargain i don't know. they always have something to inspire me, though sometimes something to confuse me too, but it always works out. i keep returning. a bientot! marlena

yes, the sister said that they thought the name bamboo would be a more upscale way of branching out, but i'm not surprised they went back to old name, their pho is very, very good! marlena

I remember hearing someone ask The Late Totally Great Julia Child about how to eat well on a budget, and she answered: "learn to cook well". the postings by all of you guys, above are such good examples of that! as posting after posting illustrates, if you understand what flavours go into a dish, what can substitute for a different (expensive) ingredient, and also to cook in the seasons. once i wrote a book which was alas not published in the usa, only in the uk, and quickly went out of print, again how sad i was: because it was all about feeding ones family and friends really well, on a budget (often very strenuous, as being a freelance, budgets can get verrrry tignt inbetween assignments) and also i LOVE to entertain, and have to keep it under control pricewise. so i had lots of hints in the book in that direction. what is important to remember is how different foods are either cheap or expensive in different places. and buying in season is always cheapest (and tastiest and no doubt more healthy too). and i try to keep a windowsill filled with herbs in pots, as fresh herbs can be expensive, and having them right there on the windowsill adds to my own creativity too, i'm not so reigned in by what i shop for......... sometimes i like the challenge of feeding people on a small tiny skinflint of a budget, and other times I love to splash out, cloak it all with truffles, say what the hell lets just enjoy enjoy enjoy...... oh, but i like to keep my freezer tidy and eat stuff pretty quickly, not letting it linger too long. i can't stand throwing stuff out, so i keep it rotating, and frequently check freezer to see: what can i take out and cook today. its more frugal financially in the long run, too. x marlena

if YOU think so Mabelline, then here it is! (ps it ends with a couple of yummy pear recipes) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...FDGTU4FQT61.DTL

And i'm forgetting the couple who came to dinner, old friends of my late father in law. we invited them because the father in law had played bridge with them every week and liked them a lot, or at least liked the wife. the husband, who i shall call the colonel because that is how he acted, was dissapproving of everything. has coeliacs disease, and was angry that i was making pasta for everyone else when he couldn't eat it. (i had lots of other courses, and gluten free, wheat free, everything free for him, and our other courses were totally in keeping with the coeliacs disease diet...i had just been to italy though and wanted to share some pasta discovery with the rest of the party). he insulted me, he insulted my daughter and i belive he insulted my cat. he held forth pompously on the subject of medicine (my daughter's a doctor, he's not), belly dancing (she does it, he does not), and the ballet (neither do, but he felt some strong pull to just diss the ballet in case we decided it was a good thing). they brought NO gift, no wine, (and no manners), and never sent a thank you note or made a call. he was a pompous oaf, and i thought if i never see them again i'll be happy. she was a simpering little mouse. there were no happy eating sounds from either of them, and if any of the other guests dare show their appreciation of the food the colonel would soundly rebuke them through sheer force of bad vibes. i thought that i never wanted to see him, though i didn't mind about her. about two years later we were invited out to lunch with them. and the rolls seemed to be reversed with the husband and wife. she was passive agressive, and dissapproving. he had had his comeupance with a bad operation and a long languish on a waiting list, and limped along, extremely human and humble. amazing. this time i thought: i can get along with him just fine, but i don't care to be with her again. bad vibes do not help digestion. marlena

At the broadway pho bac hoa viet, the daughter-owner said that the pho broth was her fathers secret, and each time a sibling opened a restaurant, he gave the secret broth recipe to that child. i really do like their broth a lot. and all the freshness of the herbs and sprouts. shudder of pleasure. marlena

gosh, i didn't realize this thread was so long, or has it just been merged? i have eaten a sandwich of roast chicken, caper mayo, sliced artichokes and roasted peppers. and i've also eaten a dandy sandwich of italian breaded chicken cutlet, on a crusty roll, slathered with red pepper and chipotle aioli. i'm wondering: does banh mi come in chicken? and if it doesn't, why not? marlena

Carrot Top, you've made my day! (you know, i actually find chicken salad sexy. i've often wished an editor would hire me to do a book on chicken salad, or even an article.....maybe i'll just do a column on it, and dash my deeply yearned for dreams......). marlena

I LOVE chicken sandwiches, god help me, and i find them so exciting! anyhow, here is a chicken sandwich i used to make for my daughter when she was a teenager, and all her friends: take chicken breasts and smear them with tandoori paste (i like pataks). sear in a pan or broil, but don't over cook. Let cool. (i did this the day before). Mix half mayo and half light sour cream or greek yogurt, and add a handful of chopped fresh mint. smear this onto wholewheat bread, place a layer of lettuce, dice the chicken and arrange on top, then smear the second piece of wholegrain bread and close that sandwich up! also, i like diced grilled (not overcooked) chicken breast with black olive aioli, on a rosemary roll with a handful of arugula, sometimes a few al dente green beans or roasted red/yellow peppers if i'm in the mood. chicken salad: curry powder as well as a handful of toasted cashews and handful of golden raisins are delicious in chicken salad, dressed with a half mayo half yogurt dressing. oh oh, its almost time for dinner. and we've no chicken! what am i gonna do? i've got chicken on my mind! marlena

oh yeah, then there was the time that a BBC producer got drunk and started insulting my other guest, an american food writer based in europe. producer kept insulting guest about being american (hey, so am i!) , saying things like: Americans have no sense of humour, Americans are just stupid, and so on and so forth. at some point i think producer jumped over the table and tried to punch guest....... my insulted guest was good about it. she took me into the kitchen and said: She's drunk, i won't hold it against her. just never EVER have us both to the same dinner again.

a few years ago i got a call from a visiting food writer colleague and her husband who was a family friend; they were in london on vacation and would i like to get together. I immediately invited them over as I was having a dinner party the next evening, with some very favourite people also visiting from California, in fact, it was my editor at the time. so i invited one or two other people too, to make a big happy dinner party, and started my shopping and cooking. i belong to the cook until you drop school of dinner parties. i set out the various before dinner tidbits and nibbles and guests began to arrive. when this particular couple arrived--and believe me she is really nice!--the husband could find nothing pleasant to either say or do. They did not bring A THING! He was withdrawn to the point of pathologically, insisted on keeping his huge winter coat on (well our heating is a bit more uneven than in california suburbia, but it was a warehouse and the heat was full blast and i don't even remember if it was winter or not). he wouldn't touch any of the food and wiped the glasses clean with a napkin. he was on a number of diets it seemed. he was so rail thin that it was scarey. he was very self righteous and disapproved of everything we had to say in the conversation, which as my editor was very well educated person, was a lively and stimulating conversation. oh, well, he did he had spent all day excercising. that much he said. He refused to eat anything ANYTHING that i served except for one pre wrapped mint. There was something wrong with each and every thing i served. he didn't even really speak, though, it was mostly just dripping distain and disgust. he looked as if he needed to be fed through a tube he was so thin, and he was so miserable too....about 3/4 through the dinner he suddenly stood up and said we have to go. after they left we all just looked at each other, and i said well i had no idea...she always seemed so nice.......and then we all relaxed and got a bit more jolly, and the rest of the evening was lovely. a few days later i got the NICEST thank you note from the wife, the nicest. we were so perplexed though as it couldn't have been much fun for her. it certainly wasn't for anyone else at the table. but the kicker is this: a few months later we were at a family/community gathering, and the couple was there, the man being a very important doctor. He was acting very important, nothing like the little creapy out of touch person who was at our house, and i told my husband: lets just let bygones be bygones and be nice to this guy so as not to embarass him, certainly he must be very upset by the boorish way he acted, we'll just be nice and not act as if he ruined the evening which he did. And so we smiled and said Hi and he looked at us with total coldness, and raised his little nose in the air and looked right through us! he totally snubbed us, with that "hey, you're nothing" disdain. man, that was the guest from Hell.

the turning motion helps, as no matter how messed up it looks when its still warm and squishy, just turn the pan, coaxing and rolling it onto your plate. magically it looks beautiful! and if it doesn't, there is always chopped herbs to sprinkle over the top! here are my rules on omelet love: really good eggs. really good butter. i like them cooked at a lower instead of higher temp, and keep it soft and curdy, don't, repeat don't, overcook! and if you add truffles, fresh from the ground (as i ate last week in bergerac). I'll be your best friend forever! marlena

ps: but not chilli together in the same sandwich as the pastrami. i must be clear about that! just a bowl o red, with a few packets of saltines. but its the pastrami sandwiches that i remember.

re: corti bros: it is a grocery store, with a fantastic selection of wines and imported esp italian products (the only place i know of in area you can get guanciale--hard to get even in s.f.--and also antique chickpeas). also, Daryl Corti, the owner, is a font of information about Italian cooking (and speaks excellent italian) but is a wine expert par excellence. Go, visit, ask questions, say hello for me, he's really great! Marlena ps: dear Grub, i love your comment about highway 80, and feel such a traitor. i always try to find good things about sacto food, i really try to be a cheerleader, and man, is it difficult! i love the ice cream at vics, near william land park, though, used to love Sam's hof brau when i was a kid but haven't been there since, and potato salad at Sam's ( no relationship to hof brau sams) deli out in the sunrise area. (on greenback). there's also a crazy wacky california pastrami place called maybe something like nyc pastrami, or....but its a total diner, with a rather sassy scary waitress, and they serve chili and pastrami on french rolls, they call it california pastrami, not new york pastrami. possibly because the eating out scene on the finer end is so dire, i've given some enthusiastic dinner parties in sacto!

I also liked il Postale, though it is very refined and often in Italy i feel more comfortable on the rustic side of life. in fact, at the rustic side of life is castello del sorci, which is just as it was 30 years ago, on a hillside with a fabulous view, family style trad local foods, heaped onto platters and served communally. crostini, homemade pasta, meat, contorni, sweets. there is no menu, rather its a set menu every day for a week; if its sunday it must be tagliatelle and polenta, mixed roasted meats, etc for instance.......its in an old castle. sunday lunch there is a hoot, whole extended families gathered together, passing babies to admire as often as they are passing platters of food, i'm sure i was passing and admiring a few babies during my lunch too! castello del sorci is right on the border of umbria and tuscany and i know they have a website. on sunday afternoons sometimes there is a flea market right outside the restaurant. il bacco felice in foligno should be good, as i've been to a party catered by the owner who is soooooo passionate about food local trad food (the prosciutto of umbria is divine, more like jamon serrano than the paper sliced hams of what we think of as prosciutto).... and for truffled strangozzi, there is a really excellent restaurant in spoleto, but i'm not sure completely about the name. on a little side street down from the theatre and church, maybe its called ristorante della signoria, on piazza or street della signoria. the same local foods you find on trattorie around the area, but done really well.....and i'm a sucker for truffled strangozzi! marlena

is that the one in a former barn, with a big fire when you first walk in, and lots of yummy things cooked on the open fire, like peppers, and sausage, and cheese? Marlena

Pho Bac... John, the Vietnamese UNIX admin at my client brought me there. I thought the pho was really good, as was the shrimp/pork crepe and the Cha Gio. ← Pho Bac is my fave, which branch did you go to? there are about 7 of them, all owned by different members of the same family, and none of them alike at all except for the deliciousness of the pho! i alternate between the broadway, stockton/franklin blvd one, and davis. all soooo different, all great pho. the photo of the road, though, jason, is what i'm about, too, when it comes to visiting sacto. after i've had a good pho, and a couple of tacos here and there, and can't come up with anything else delicious, i start yearing for highway 80 to take me back to bay area. still i can hardly wait for a nationwide burger and wonder why on earth nobody ever told me about this before. how could i have lived childhood in such ignorance? and not discovered it on my many adulthood visits? well, we'll put that right. soon, and to prepare ahead, i've already packed a nice stained top so i don't have to worry about any nasty grease-spills! safe travels, x m

This is a GREAT thread! thanks for teaching me a thing or two about my hometown: Nationwide here I come! the carniceria looks good too..... did you ever get to franklin or is it stockton blvd for the pho? x marlena ps used to go to moxies a lot with my family and i hated it. haven't been there in awhile but always thought it pretentious and heavy. for sandwiches, i like bon air market on.....is it P street? or J? the sandwiches are kind of ordinary, but really good ordinary. i like tuna on rye or wholewheat, with extra may, mustard, and the shredded lettucey tomato pickle onion etc makes a mighty tasty sandwich.

On the other hand, we must not view cuisine as a museum. I know one famous chef who when she visits Paris spends all her time talking about how much better it was when, when she was young, when the cuisine was purer, when there weren't so many foreign influences. Anyhow, much cuisine is made up via evolution. greek moussakka for example (the bechamel topping an addition of early 20th century greece's fascination with french cuisine). pizza for another (tomatoes from the new world). and some dishes are ancient: tamales, pesto, pasta./dumplings. but just making up things are if they are eaten somewhere else, things that sound good so that they can be sold in a chain restaurant or please middle of the road eaters in other ways, and i am thinking chicken puttanesca, and so many others here. giving a dish a name is implying a story behind it. pasta puttanesca has a story. chicken does not. it doesn't work, though the dish may be very tasty. i have a personal vendetta, too, against chicken in my caesar salad, but thats another story. again with the story. anyhow: chicken adds something that doesn't fit in with the story, either the story of its invention, or the story of the flaovurs: tangy, salty, crisp and lettucey, garlicky, savoury.....the grilled chicken is just extraneous to me. use the chicken in another salad, and give it another name! someome, please help me stop rambling now. x marlena

okay, as with art, there is the argument of people liking what they like, and who's to say this is better than that. beauty in the eye of the beholder and all..... and at the risk of saying that one way is right or wrong, or even putting Authenticity aside. ..... to answer your question, I'm to say that the original way, ie most pasta as found in the boot of land that is italy, esp in the region of campania, or bologna for different reasons, or liguria for different reasons, anyhow, i'm here to say that it is the best way for pasta. face to face with olive garden, chi-chis or whatever chain, a simple spaghetti pommodoro, or aglia olio, really simple food made with really good ingredients, hey, that is the best way for pasta. even when its plain and ho hum ordinary, it can still knock the socks off of any usa chain pasta. marlena

Wow, Nationwide, I"m gonna have to try them the next time I'm in sacto. in general, i think avoiding the fine dining options is the way to go in sacto, unless you want la casa de la maison experience...... i've been waiting the discovery of a really good mex place there, but have so far not found my zanadu, mexican food wise. Nationwide burgers sounds good though. i'm not all that keen on willies, or ford burgers, though ford burgers are right across the street from the park (william land) and so are perfectly poised for a picnic. i mean, they're fine, just fine. oh, in davis murder burger/redrum burgers is quite good? though i'm not so fond of their ostrich burgers as some are....... x marlena

Oh, yes, much less hands on, or rather nose-on: when you roast you can smell the goodness, your can judge the doneness by using your sniffer, you can give it a prod with a utensil, or with your fingers quickly, you can turn it over and admire it, you can add a few cloves of garlic just for the sheer joy of it....though sous vide cooking i gives excellent results (and i've been in enough starred kitchens to see them with their sous vide bags all lined up, stashed away, ready for warming........, it reminds me a bit of........please forgive me..........microwave cooking. that is the food is isolated and cooked according to directions and timing rather than one's senses and intuition. i guess you can tell i'm not a baker. i hate measuring things too. x marlena

Sexy photos, docsconz! frog hollow peaches are so good, i forgot how good they are, but seeing those photos i remember. thank god i'm off to southwest france tomorrow: i know there is a fragrant, juice-dripping peach and nectarine with my name on them, ripened in the sun and waiting for me to bite in, but not waiting too long, because within hours they will be past their prime. my plane lands around 4 pm and i'm hoping that the first peach/nectarine eating opportunity arises soon after that! marlena

While the result of sous vide cooking is divine, and i would love to know the intricacies of it as it seems to be a totally different mindset from hands-on cooking, nonetheless, am i the only one who feels uncomfortable with all of the cooking in plastic? i am very concerned about plastic molecules leaching into the food. and maybe i like to smell my food, stir it with my hands, touch it with my fingertips....i do find sous vide removed from the sensual side of life. but truthfully, i do worry about the whole plastic thing. marlena