Daily Gullet Staff

Voyage into Creativity, part four Friday afternoon By John Sconzo The individual perhaps most responsible for the resurgence in artisan cheese making in Spain is Enric Canut. He launched the evening’s general session: Spanish Cheese: Revival of a Craft, Inspiration for Chefs,” led by American master fromager Max McCalman, who stated that “cheese puts an exclamation point on a meal.” Canut recounted the recent history of cheese in Spain, a longstanding tradition that was decimated during the Franco years: the government drove the country towards large-scale cultural homogenization and de-emphasized regional artisanal traditions. The situation was exacerbated as the country slipped further into poverty. Canut blamed the demise of the cheese traditions on the Catholic organization Opus Dei, which persuaded the Franco government to stress the efficiencies and economics of large-scale production. It was actually illegal to produce cheese below certain high volume production standards. The 1968 catalogue of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture described 42 different cheeses of Spanish origin; at that time, more than 30 were being produced illegally by artisanal producers. After Franco’s death, Spain slowly relaxed many of the limitations, sparking a revival of cheese production and artisanal craftsmanship. Despite that, some restrictions remained on the books; as recently as 1979, most cheeses produced and sold within the country were still illegal. It wasn’t until 1980 that Spain had its first classified DOC cheese – Roncal. Finally, in 1984, the “Decree on Industrial Minimums” was repealed, regulations for the development of crafted cheeses were promulgated, and assistance money was made available to small-scale cheese makers. The first Cheese Fair was held in Trujillo in 1986; it has since become Spain’s biggest. By 1990 the official roster of Spanish cheeses had increased to 82 distinct varieties -- all legal -- and by 1996, Spain was able to bill itself as “the land of 100 cheeses.” These days, Spanish cheese producers are emphasizing re-incorporation of the domestic product in both professional and home kitchens. To demonstrate this point, Pedro and Marcos Moran from Casa Gerardo in Asturias highlighted their local Cabrales Cheese in several recipes including one, “Crispy Bocadillo de Cabrales,” that I was able to enjoy later on in the Market Place. Also, Oriol Balaguer used different cheeses for sweet and savory combinations. Spain has a rich history as a seafaring nation, so it should be no surprise that it is a country that relies heavily on seafood. David Rosengarten and Maria Jose Sevilla, a London-based authority on Spanish food, moderated “Out of the Sea: Three Spanish Chefs’ Approaches to Fish and Shellfish” with presentations by Joan Roca, Andoni Luis Aduriz and Joaquin Felipe. Though Roca did two demonstrations, the first was the one that had everyone buzzing: Roca presented a video of the preparation of the much-discussed “Earth and oyster.” This dish, which gives “surf and turf” a literal manifestation, comprises a single briny oyster and a distillation of “earth.” In the video, Roca collected samples from his local forest floor, took them back to his lab and distilled the essence, which was applied to the briny oyster. I discussed this dish with Jose Andres, who told me that the genesis of Roca’s idea came from pairing oysters with wine. The best pairings, he said, were with mineral-filled wines like Chablis. In that case, why not add the mineral sensibility directly to the wine from its source? Though the dish is not intuitive, Jose’s explanation made sense to me. I would also imagine that this dish would be very much driven by terroir -- both from the “earth” and the oyster (though in that case one could hardly call it “terroir”), and that it would taste quite different depending on the specific characteristics of the soil and the oyster. Aduriz made a crustacean soup and an untraditional ceviche without citric acid, using instead roots and leaves with lemony qualities and tannins. I had never heard of Chef Joaquin Felipe prior to this conference; however, he delivered one of its more interesting demonstrations. His subject was tuna and he showed ways of preparing practically every part of the large pelagic fish. For Felipe, chef at the Europa Deco restaurant in Madrid, the liver is the most difficult part to cook. Finishing the session was Dani Garcia who concocted a dish with oysters, using his “popcorn” as an accent. By the time the General Sessions were over, many an appetite had been rekindled -- just in time for the abundant marketplace. A live Flamenco show accompanied a cornucopia of culinary highlights. Unfortunately I was barely able to make a dent in the offerings. Some I did get to enjoy included: Cabrales Bocaditos from Pedro and Marcos Moran; Broad Beans with Clams from Amado Alonso Heria of Asturiasa; Fantastic ajo blanco from Jose Andres; Crushed Potatoes, Broken Eggs and Vegetable Coal with Casein Dressing from Andoni Aduriz; Salt cod “Bunyols” from Nando Jubany; “Slightly sweet seafood rice” from Maria Muria Lloret; Red tuna bites from Joaquin Felipe (pictured above); McFoie burgers (foie gras and beef) and “kindereggs” from Carles Abellan and Caneloni tradicional with truffle sauce from Carles Gaig; Our share of fine wines from all over Spain. My wife and I stumbled towards the bus stuffed and exhausted. Tomorrow was coming soon. + + + + + All photos by the author.

<img align="left" vspace="6" hspace="8" src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1165943084/gallery_29805_1195_13344.jpg">by Steven Shaw Somewhere between an email from a lonely coed who wanted me to check out her webcam and a plea for assistance from the family of a displaced African dictator, I came upon an invitation from the James Beard House in New York City to participate in a latke-making competition. There were to be three professional chefs and three "amateur chefs" (that would be my category) competing, and former New York Times restaurant reviewer Mimi Sheraton, among others, judging. I typed, "sure," and pressed send. Then I panicked. Matt Seeber, my best chef (professional category) friend and then chef at the wonderful but destined-to-fail restaurant Bid (owned by the Sotheby's auction house), was on the phone counseling me within moments. "A what competition?" (He's a gentile.) "Okay, well come over to the restaurant and we'll practice making those things." Returning the courtesy with one of my own, I inquired as to which night might be best. "A slow night," he said. "That would be any night we're open." (Matt's now the chef at the phenomenally successful Craftsteak in Las Vegas.) My first idea was to serve the latkes with bacon, it being axiomatic that everything tastes better with bacon. But research revealed that someone had tried that in a previous year and not been judged well. The preparation sounded great. The latkes -- potato pancakes, traditionally served on Hanukah -- had a hole stamped out of the middle, into which was nestled a quail egg and some bacon. The Beard House isn't kosher, but I guess when it comes to disrespecting tradition there's only so far you can go. I decided I wasn't going to do anything blatantly un-kosher. But boy, I thought, wouldn't the latkes taste good if they were cooked in . . . bacon grease? I mean, that's got to be better than Canola oil, right? Then it hit me: there is one substance in the universe that's as good as bacon grease, and that substance is duck fat. A Google search revealed plenty of purveyors of kosher ducks, so no theoretical problem there. It's not that far from chicken fat (schmaltz), which is a widely accepted European Jewish food product. Why didn't anybody think of this before, I wondered? I got myself a seven-ounce container of D'Artagnan duck fat (don't ask me why they sell it in increments of seven ounces), made up a standard latke batter of shredded potatoes, diced onions, eggs, matzoh meal and salt and pepper, fried up a few latkes and plated them up with the standard condiments of apple sauce and sour cream on a red plate. The white sour cream looked great against the red plate. Shit. That's why nobody cooks latkes in duck fat: in kosher cooking you can't mix meat and dairy, so duck fat and sour cream together is out of the question. Another problem: the latkes were awful. They were limp, undercooked on the inside and burnt on the outside, and they tasted like all fat and no duck. Still, I believed -- I was too emotionally invested in duck fat to give up. Did Thomas Edison stop trying to invent the light bulb after his first few experiments failed? Did Christopher Columbus turn his ships back at the first hint of poor weather? Did Evel Knievel stop at jumping only a dozen Pepsi delivery trucks? Visionaries don't just quit. I left a voicemail for Matt: "I'm going to need you to order me like five pounds of duck fat, okay? Do they even measure it in pounds?" While I waited to hear back, I considered the sour cream problem. Nowhere in the Beard House competition rules -- or the Talmud -- is it written that you have to serve your latkes with sour cream, so I figured I'd just substitute something else. I'd already been thinking about how apple sauce was sort of one-dimensional, and had decided to replace it with something along the lines of a fruit compote. I hijacked a family Passover recipe for Sephardic stewed dried fruit haroset -- on Passover, the haroset symbolizes the mortar for the bricks the Hebrew slaves built with in Egypt. It usually tastes that way too, but this recipe is quite tasty. I'd grown attached to my red plate idea, and really wanted the whiteness of sour cream as part of the composition. I made a list of white foods. Nothing. I wandered the aisles of a supermarket looking for white foods that could form the basis of a good latke condiment. Nothing. On the way home, defeated, I stopped at Falafel Express for a snack. The cook assembled my falafel platter: first the falafel balls, then a small green salad, then a lemon wedge. And finally, a beautiful white sesame tehina sauce. I had my white condiment, courtesy of a Middle Eastern street food. From there on, everything I ate triggered thoughts of the latke contest. One night, at dinner, I looked at the caramelized onions on my plate and my mind raced: onions are an ingredient in latkes . . . wouldn't latkes taste even better made with caramelized onions? I got my four cast-iron skillets and two deep-frying thermometers through security at Sotheby's, walked through the Bid dining room -- populated by maybe eleven people – to the kitchen, where my tub of duck fat awaited. I caramelized several pounds of onions and made four batters. The variations were: caramelized onions versus raw onions; and grated potatoes versus shredded potatoes. I heated up a quarter-inch of cooking fat in two pans -- one duck fat, one vegetable oil -- and cooked one of each of the four types of latkes in each, then repeated the exercise until everybody on the Bid kitchen team had tasted all variants. The only conclusive findings from this first experiment were that grated potatoes make better latkes than shredded potatoes (a long-standing belief validated at last by a team of culinary professionals). There were, however, divergent opinions and much indecision about the other permutations. Latkes cooked in duck fat were too much of a good thing -- and I just couldn't find a good frying temperature. The ones in vegetable oil fried up as golden brown as a food stylist's wet dream, but were flavorless by comparison. The caramelized onions were too sweet, but they did have a great taste that the raw ones lacked. I appealed to Matt, demanding that he rule between duck fat and vegetable oil. "Both." Caramelized onions or raw? "Both." It was Solomonic: there was no need to choose. Each element had favorable components -- I could combine them. The neutral vegetable oil would lend its properties to the flavorful duck fat; the caramelized onions would enhance the raw. The only remaining question was ratio. After hours of tasting that brought the Bid kitchen team to a state of exhaustion and gastrointestinal distress, the winning ratio was 50-50, for both fats and onions. I was glad to be keeping oil in the recipe; part of the Hanukah tradition is to eat foods fried in oil, symbolizing the one-day supply of oil in the lamps in the Temple that burned for eight days -- the miracle of Hanukah (I later learned that European Jews had fried latkes in goose fat for centuries before I thought of it. Dang). Chika Tillman, the Bid pastry chef who now owns the Chikalicious dessert bar in Manhattan, helped me tweak the condiments (ground dried ginger in the haroset and rosemary in the tehina) and sketch out a plating composition kind of like a yin and yang centered around a latke. We also came up with a few other minor innovations, like sprinkling a little coarse salt on each latke after cooking. And so I had my latke and condiment recipes, ready for competition. The Beard House advertising went out, introducing the contestants. It was said of me that, "With tastes that tend more toward France than the Lower East Side, you can bet he will prepare something creative and delicious for his latke entry." This worried me. Such big talk would not only raise expectations, but also turn the anti-snobs against me. Besides, if I have such French tastes how come I don't know why duck fat comes in seven-ounce containers? I arrived at the Beard House with my equipment, my latke batter, my condiments and eighty red plates. Things fell apart almost immediately. The Beard House kitchen is an embarrassment: most visiting chefs do as much of their cooking as possible in nearby restaurant kitchens and bring the nearly finished food over for final heating. You can't do that with latkes, which degrade logarithmically from the moment they're removed from the oil. Visiting chefs also have the kitchen to themselves; I had to share it with five other competitors: a woman from Long Island who hosts a large annual latke party, a young Jewish woman from Mexico who used to be an intern at the Beard House, Alex Porter (from the restaurant Norma's in the Parker Meridien hotel), Christine Kelly (from Avenue restaurant) and Chris Broberg (then pastry chef of Petrossian, now at Cafe Gray). I had half a stovetop to work with; Broberg had the other half. The restaurant ranges were so hot they interfered with my thermometer readings, so I had to judge the oil/duck fat temperature by telepathy. The warming oven was too far from my station, which created a traffic jam, but I was actually able to produce my latkes on schedule. The same could not be said for the professionals, though, so my latkes had to sit, while they finished theirs late. When it came time to plate the latkes, we were informed -- surprise! -- that we had to share presentation plates: there would be one of each type of latke on a large white plate. My red plate idea went out the window -- as did any hope of a special composition, when two helpful volunteers grabbed the condiments and started spooning them willy-nilly. We served about eighty guests this way. In the end, the panel of professional judges voted, as did the entire assembled audience of mostly Beard House members. The professional judges ranked the professional and amateur contestants separately. The audience voted for a single best latke specimen. I had never before participated in a cooking competition, nor have I since. The professional judges didn't regard mine as the best, even among the amateurs. The audience, however, chose mine as the top overall latkes. Maybe that makes me a winner, or maybe not. But it felt good. <div align="center">+ + + + +</div> Caramelized-onion Latkes with Sephardic Haroset and Tehina-Rosemary Dressing Feeds a dozen Jews, or about 20 Gentiles For the caramelized-onion latkes: 6 medium Idaho russett potatoes 2 medium Spanish onions 3 large eggs 1/4 cup matzoh meal 1/2 cup duck fat 1/2 cup canola oil 2 tablespoons olive oil Coarse salt and freshly ground white pepper Fleur-de-sel Finely dice one of the onions and place it in a skillet over low heat with the 2 tablespoons olive oil and a generous amount of salt (approximately 1 teaspoon) and pepper (10 or more grinds). Cook for approximately 20 minutes. Keep the heat low in order to get the onions thoroughly translucent and only very slightly caramelized. If you let the heat get too high, the onions will get too brown, which will cause the onions to burn when you fry the latkes, adversely affecting their appearance and flavor. When done, set aside to cool to room temperature. Finely dice the other onion and place it in a mixing bowl. Peel and grate all the potatoes by hand on a box grater or mandoline. Do not use a food processor or grate the potatoes into water. Just hand-grate them into the bowl that contains the raw onion. After each potato is grated, toss the mixture together with a spoon. The onion will help keep the potato from discoloring too much. There will be some discoloration, but mostly it will be reversed by the cooking. Drain the potato/raw-onion mixture in a colander. Press down thoroughly on the mixture in order to squeeze out as much water as possible. Return mixture to bowl. Add the eggs, matzoh meal, caramelized onions, and approximately 1 teaspoon salt. Combine thoroughly with a fork. Heat the canola oil and duck fat together in a heavy (preferably cast-iron) skillet until they reach 300 degrees as measured by a candy thermometer. (This is an intentionally low frying temperature, but works well for latkes.) Take a small handful (approximately 1/8 cup) of the latke batter and, holding it over an empty bowl or sink to catch excess liquid, flatten it into a rough oval with your hands. Slide the latke carefully into the hot cooking fat. You should be able to fit five latkes at a time comfortably in a standard 10.5 inch cast-iron skillet. By the time the fifth latke is formed and in the fat, it should be time to turn the first one (an average-sized spoon, like you would use to eat a bowl of soup, works better than tongs or a spatula). Peek underneath to see if it is a nice light golden brown; if it is, turn it. Wait a few seconds and turn the next, and continue for all the latkes. When the latkes are light golden brown on both sides, remove to paper towels. Blot both sides thoroughly then sprinkle each side with a few grains of fleur-de-sel. For the Sephardic haroset: 2 large apples of a variety suitable for cooking (e.g., Rome) 2 cups assorted dried fruits (as a rough guide, my recipe included dried apples, California figs & dates, Turkish apricots, Angelino red dried plums & black prunes, and Monukah black raisins) 1/2 cup walnuts 1/2 cup sweet kosher red wine (such as Manischewitz Extra-Heavy Malaga) 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground dried ginger Peel and core the fresh apples and cut into rough chunks (the size is not particularly important). Combine the fresh apple chunks with the dried fruits and sweet wine in a saucepan sufficiently large to accommodate some expansion (a 2-3 quart saucepan should suffice). Add cold water just shy of covering. Bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer for 1/2 hour. Allow to cool to room temperature. Put the cooked fruit-and-wine mixture and the ground ginger into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade. The mixture should not be watery. If it is, pour off the excess liquid (this liquid is very flavorful and can be reduced and added back to the mixture if desired). Process for about 10 seconds until you have a roughly chopped mixture. Add the walnuts and process for about 2 seconds more. Refrigerate until needed. Serve at room temperature with the latkes. For the tehina-rosemary dressing: 1 cup sesame tehina 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, picked and cleaned (plus extra for garnish) 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice 2 tablespoons olive oil salt Put the tehina, rosemary, lime juice, olive oil, about 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup cold water in a blender or food processor bowl fitted with the metal chopping blade. Mix until thoroughly combined -- at least 30 seconds. Refrigerate until needed. Serve at room temperature with the latkes. Garnish the tehina-rosemary dressing with cut-up sprigs of fresh rosemary. <div align="center">* * *</div> Steven Shaw (aka <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showuser=1">Fat Guy</a>) is executive director of the eGullet Society. He has been known to do other things on occasion.

Voyage into Creativity, part three Friday Morning By John Sconzo The CIA/Greystone is located in St. Helena, in the beautiful Napa Valley. The bucolic scenery and a cultural climate devoted to the pleasures of wine and food provide good reason for participants of the annual World of Flavors Conference to return year after year; however, the consistent quality of the topics, the professional organization and the luminescence of the presenters would be more than enough reason to return regardless of the location. Day Two of the conference opened with a bountiful Spanish-themed breakfast. Spanish tortillas, eggs with chorizo, cheeses, fruit and pastries were amongst the offerings. A very popular Illy espresso station (a touch of Italy) caffeinated the groggy participants. The pork-rich breakfast was a natural segue into the morning’s initial topic, “Spanish Ways with Pork and Lamb: of Wood-Fired Ovens and the Fine Art of Curing,” moderated by eGullet Society member and author, Anya Von Bremzen. Peter Kaminsky, author of Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them, talked about finding “the perfect ham” in the region of Extremadura in southwest Spain -- the so called jamon iberico de bellota (hams from the acorn-fed iberico pig). According to Kaminsky, “jamon iberico is like a good pinot noir” with subtlety, complexity and textural lushness. He stated that “pigs raised in nature’s way always lead to the best product.” Kaminsky described efforts in the U.S., including a farm in South Carolina that is farming iberico-related pigs in a fashion similar to the way they are raised in Extremadura. Kaminsky asserted that there is “no better example of long-term sustainable agriculture,” providing photos and data to support his assertion. Santiago Martin of Embutidos Fermin in Spain, trained as a family physician but now running the family pork business, was brought up to the stage by Jose Andres. Together, they have been instrumental bringing these famous hams to American plates. Martin has made USFDA-mandated changes in his production methods, which will finally allow this legendary product to be imported into the United States. He gave a presentation that laid out the different grades of Spanish ham, the production process, and a description of the iberico pig -- the source of the most prized of hams. In order to qualify as iberico -- a descendant of the Iberian wild boar -- the pig must be at least three-quarters iberico bred, and have a 100% iberico mother. The animal has a long snout, medium-sized ears and slender legs. Initially they are fed upon cereals and grains, but at 8 or 9 months of age, the fattening begins. It is usually slaughtered at 14 to 18 months, at a weight of about 170 kilos. Those pigs who continue to feed on cereals and grains ultimately become jamon iberico, while those ranging in the oak forests and feeding on acorns become what many consider the “kings of ham": the jamon iberico de bellota, described by Anya Von Bremzen as “like a pleasure inducing drug!” (Jamon Serrano, basic Spanish ham and a good product in its own right, does not come from the iberico breed.) The basic product of pork now duly described and presented, it was time for some demonstrations of culinary prowess. Joan Roca, of El Celler de Can Roca in Gerona, and author of what many consider the definitive book on sous vide cooking (called simply, Sous Vide Cuisine, cooked a rib section of iberico pork sous vide at a temperature of 78*C -- bone-in because he feels that the gelatin provides an important component to the process. After easily removing the bones, he toasted the pork skin-side down in a pan until it became crunchy. The juices collected from the sous vide process were used in a sauce. Roca prepared two other pork dishes: pork jowl cooked sous vide for 12 hours at 70*C then coated with thin-sliced bread and pan-toasted, and a final plate of trotters and esperdenyas (sea cucumbers) for a traditional Catalan “Mar y Montana” presentation. At the end of Roca’s demonstration, Von Bremzen noted that the modern techniques used “are all about bringing out inherent characteristics of the product” and applauded “the constant dialogue between old and new” in Spain. The scene shifted from Roca’s use of new techniques to traditional preparations and techniques such as those from the asadores of Central Spain. Von Bremzen described the preparation and eating of lechal -- baby lamb roasted whole -- as “a cult-like thing.” Marco Antonio Garcia of Restaurant Mannix in Valladolid described and demonstrated the process. The lamb, from a special breed, is 21 days of age at slaughter. It is quartered and cooked in a special earthenware pot for 2.5 hours at 200*C. Candido Lopez Cuerdo from Horno de Asar in Segovia took on one of the other classic roasts of Spain, cochinillo or roast suckling pig. Of particular note, Cuerdo explained that every suckling pig served in Spain is individually marked on the farm, then labeled with an identification number and sacrifice date at the slaughterhouse. Though he demonstrated several different pork preparations, his centerpiece was the cochinillo: ultimately, he cut it with a plate, a gleam in his eye and a proud grin on his face. Nando Jubany of Can Jubany in Vic, a chef whose approach to cooking bridges the gap between tradition and avant-garde, used cuts such as trotters and Catalan charcuterie, butifarra negra, to prepare novel dishes based squarely on Catalan tradition. Rice, an integral component to much Spanish cooking, is often overlooked as such in this country, even given the relative fame of paella. eGullet Society member, writer, photographer and educator Gerry Dawes moderated this set of presentations entitled “Rice Traditions of Spain: Preserving, Adapting and Re-imagining.. Ca Sento, a small eight-table restaurant in Valencia has received much praise in the press as well as from Gerry Dawes, who in his introduction called several meals there amongst the best of his life. The restaurant is run by a mother-and-son team. The son, Raul Aleixandre, was unable to attend the conference, but his mother (and co-founder of the restaurant) Maria Muria Lloret offered her insights into the Valencian staple. The rice most often used for paella and other Spanish rice dishes is bomba, a medium-short-grain rice. Senia and bahia varieties are also popularly used for specific preparations. The term paella itself actually refers to the pan in which the dish is cooked: round and flat with a short, sloping rim. Classically, paella is cooked over an open fire fueled by grape vines. Maria Muria did not make paella though. Leaving that for others to do, she prepared an arroz meloso, or semi-dry rice in a cast iron pot. She made a marinero style rice dish with chipirones (tiny squid) , Alicante shrimp, rockfish stock and senia rice. I tasted it later on, during one of the Marketplace meals. It was marvelous. Carles Gaig, the dean of traditional Catalan cooking in Barcelona at his restaurant Can Gaig, and Maria Carmen Velez, chef of the Alicante restaurant La Sirena contributed, too. Gaig adapted his preparation from traditional rice dishes, making a “soupy” rice with line-caught squid and esperdenyas. His stock used “trash” shellfish, which, though adding little usable meat, gave great flavor to the base. Also served later on at the Marketplace, this too was delicious. Velez “re-imagined” the traditional paellas of her area in a dish with vegetables and tuna, using the less fatty central part of the tuna. In the meantime, to whet our appetites, we were shown live video from the “paella cam” outside, where Llorenz Petras was grilling traditional calcots (Catalan large green onions) and Rafael Vidal was making a battery of paellas for our upcoming lunch. “The Olive Groves of Spain:World Heritage of Flavor, Platform for Innovation,” led by Clara Maria Gonzalez de Amezua, founder of the El Alambique gourmet store and culinary school in Madrid, followed. We had already been introduced to Spanish olive oil in the opening sessions; this was to be a more detailed presentation. Spain is the largest producer of olive oil in the world, but it is not just about quantity. Quality is of utmost importance and Spain’s olive oils can compete with anyone’s, according to Santiago Botas, a free-lance consultant and specialist in olive oils who has conducted tastings in 25 different countries. From Botas we learned that 80% of Spanish olive oil production comes from Andalucia, with Castilla La Mancha the second largest producer at 7%, followed by Extremadura (5%) and Catalunya (3.5%). Manolo de la Osa, chef at Las Rejas in Las Pedroñeras, an eight-table restaurant specializing in traditional regional cuisine, highlighted the use of olive oils as a base for carrying other flavors. Using these various flavored olive oils he prepared escabeche of rabbit. Oriol Balaguer, Barcelonan pastry chef and chocolatier, used olive oil in desserts and chocolate bon-bons. One dessert he made was based on a classic Cordoban dish using orange, olive oil and Pedro Ximenez. We were promised an additional treat after lunch. The morning’s sessions, educational and interesting, served as an appetite stimulating prelude to an exceptional lunch that was held both outside and in. Coursing through the food preparation areas, smelling the aromas from the paellas, watching the dancing flames and the ministrations of the paella masters intoxicated my senses as did passing by and chatting with these legends of the Spanish Cocina as they pulled the outer char from their calcots, dipped them in romesco sauce, tipped back their heads and slid the steamy onions down into their waiting mouths. It was a particular pleasure to have grillmaster Llorenz Petras himself show me the technique for gracefully and successfully eating a calcot. Though messy, they were tasty. Spanish wines flowed freely. The paella was well worth waiting for. The tapas/pintxos prepared under the direction of Patxi Bergara of Bar Bergara in San Sebastien were also superb. From here it was on to another intensive afternoon. + + + + + All photos by the author.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164818704/gallery_29805_1195_8654.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">and, oh yeah, the Motorcycle Wreck by Joseph Carey Second in a series. 1968 - 1971 Try as I might (and I really have tried!) I can’t seem to completely separate my life in food from politics. I think it has something to do with the beatitude/vicissitude imbalance in my experience. Or maybe I’m just gullible. Maybe some of you know what I’m talking about here. In April of 1968 I was released from military servitude in Oakland, California. I spent a couple of days reveling in San Francisco (I liked it there. A lot.) before flying to Chicago. Suzan was teaching in Chicago and we had determined to move to San Francisco when the school year was up, so I needed something to do for a few months. I had known Jeff Sharlet at Indiana University. He was a political activist and Vietnam veteran. I was neither when I met him, but Vietnam had changed my mind. I got in touch with him: he and Davy Komatsu and Jim Wallahan published the Vietnam GI, a pro-GI/antiwar newspaper. We had a few drinks and they asked me if I’d like to join them. I usually remembered to put on my turn signal when I was about to make a left turn. I forgot this time. They put me on the masthead and published several of my photos. They paid to print and mount about 60 of my black and white photos (relevance on the way). My most indelible dining memories of Chicago are Diana's Grocery, a Greek restaurant -- there was a grocery in front and you had to walk through a beaded curtain at the back of the store to get to the restaurant (had my first fresh octopus and Retsina there) and a little French place, Michel's. The school year ended and Suzan and I headed west in July of 1968. Davy had made arrangements for Barbara and Marvin Garson (Marvin published a local counterculture newspaper, The Express Times; Barbara was a playwright) to put us up. We all went to dinner one night at a black barbecue joint -- I love good barbecue. Marvin explained that they had three levels of sauce: hot, medium and mild. All my companions ordered the mild. He told me that if I liked really hot food (I do) to order the medium sauce. I’m thinking, huh, what does a New York Jew know about hot food? I’m from New Orleans! -- and ordered the hot. They brought everyone else’s ribs out before mine. We were facing the kitchen -- what I call a "semi-exhibition" kitchen -- where you get a glimpse into the kitchen through the pass-through window. Usually you can see from a little above waist high to just below the top of the head. I looked up as my plate was set down in front of me. Five black faces grinned at me. Oh, shit, I’d done it again. I sweated. I cried. I tried to say I was fine in response to multiple inquiries. I wasn’t, of course, unless it’s fine to play host to a small army of hyperactive pyromaniacal Romanian mercenaries wielding torches and doing dervishes in your mouth, throat and esophagus. I ate the damn ribs and a half a loaf of what they call in the south "light bread." I drank several beers. If you’ve read anything I’ve written before you’ll notice this kind of thing forms a leitmotif in my life. After much mulling it over, I've decided I just ain't very bright. Barbara and Marvin lived in North Beach. We’d been there about a week -- had just begun looking for apartments -- when the boys called me from Chicago and asked if I’d like to go to Paris. The occasion, I inquired? A "war crimes tribunal" I was told. Shades of Nuremberg. Sure, I said. Marvin said he’d like to publish a few of my photos. Sure, I said. The boys said they’d get back to me with the details. A day or two later Rennie Davis called. I was "interviewed" as to my appropriateness, I suppose. Why do I make people with agendas so nervous? He said he'd get back to me. The boys called back and said I needed to get to New York in three days. I said I had no passport -- and my birth certificate was still at my father-in-law's apartment in Evanston. A friend agreed to pick it up and meet me at O'Hare. I packed up a couple dozen of my mounted photos -- and not much more, and embarked. I was to go to the offices of Liberation Magazine when I arrived in New York. A ticket to New York -- with a stop in Chicago -- was sent to me issue-wire. That all worked. Barbara was very helpful through all of this facilitating here and there, pretending to be my secretary or assistant in those cases where I had to appear to be important. Once in New York, birth certificate in hand, I took a taxi to Liberation Magazine, and met with Dave Dellinger. He gave me my Air France tickets and got me to the passport office, in Rockefeller Center as I recollect. I got a "rush" passport, since I was to fly that afternoon: my fifth ocean crossing -- the other four had been related to the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia. A Dr. Kahn picked me up at the airport and took me to his place, where I was "interviewed" again -- this time by Tom Hayden. Somehow, I passed again. (For those of you keeping score: within the space of a few days in July I was vetted by three men who were to head to Chicago in less than a month and become three sevenths of the Chicago Seven.) By this point, I was very tired, but the "tribunal" was to be that evening. Dr. Kahn gave me something so I could sleep a few hours. He woke me and said it was time to go. He gave me something so I could stay awake for a few hours. One of the first people I met that evening was Maria Jolas. I knew of her, but what I knew was totally unrelated to antiwar activities. She was mentioned in Richard Ellmann’s book James Joyce. She had hobnobbed with Joyce (and took care of his crazy daughter, Lucia), Beckett, Gertrude Stein and all the expats who were my English-major heroes. She sat next to me on the stage; since I didn’t speak French that was not related to food or genitalia, she translated for me. The tribunal was under the aegis of Laurent Schwartz, mathematician, staunch antiwar activist and cohort of Sartre. Much of the proceeding was in French, so I was lost after trotting out my photos and delivering a brief spiel about my experiences as a combat photographer in Vietnam -- just one of many times I would be lost over the next several years. The next few weeks in Paris expanded my universe considerably. The quick tour: I was introduced to the North Vietnamese Minister of Justice (his translator had been a company commander at Dien Bien Phu); was taken to lunch at a great Vietnamese restaurant by the head of the North Vietnamese News Bureau in Paris; met Arthur Miller at a seminar; got my ass royally kicked in the Latin Quarter by the CRS (French national police force) -- they also smashed my Nikon and stripped the film I had been shooting. I was arrested briefly and let go by a supervisor who was tricked by my not-yet-out-of-date-signed-by-General Westmoreland press card; was interviewed by a Turkish reporter for a feature article in France Nouvelle, the Paris communist newspaper; was treated to a bunch of wonderful meals by Maria Jolas who also made me iced tea on my last Sunday in Paris and invited her neighbor, Mary McCarthy. We looked through all the volumes Joyce had personalized for her; almost had sex with an Australian babe (we literally slept together); ate a bunch of lunches with guys who worked for Le Monde; had two "dates" with a beautiful Russian woman, one at a movie theater and one at her apartment and that’s all I’m saying about that; met and talked with French photographer Roger Pic, who had been in Vietnam photographing the war with the Viet Cong -- we had taken photographs of the same 1967 battle from opposite sides of the lines. Sadly, I was somewhat hampered in Paris. I really wanted to walk around and see a bunch of the stuff I’d read about. I couldn’t. I was hobbled. Like the moron I am perfectly capable of being, I had brought just one pair of shoes -- a new pair of kicks just for my Paris trip. I got around as best I could, spending most of my liberty in The Latin Quarter. Within limping distance, I found a little place that had great escargot and soupe a l'oignon. I could also trundle to a kinda French fast-food joint that had a great grilled entrecote. Around the corner from my hotel was a bakery -- a boy on a bicycle brought warm croissants and baguettes every morning. I wolfed them down with strawberry preserves and good French butter. I can't think of a better way to introduce my post-Vietnam, post-Paris life in food than to start with an excerpt from my old friend Spencer’s newsletter. He is an unrepentant hippie (although some Food Network toady bestowed him with the title "King of Salsa"). Spencer and I worked together for many years, many years ago. He now owns a restaurant, Mama's Royal Cafe, in Cabo San Lucas. If he wants to, he sends this newsletter out on a monthly basis. While he may be a little shaky on dates and places, he’s right on ambience: <blockquote><blockquote>Any of you who have eaten at my place have undoubtedly noticed the heavy Louisiana influence on my menu. Mexican style Jambalaya and a Mexican style Bouillabaisse that sounds a whole lot like a New Orleans gumbo. This is not an accident -- these two great cuisines have a lot in common and my very first involvement with a restaurant was back in the 60’s with a little Creole place in Berkeley called The Ordinary. My friend Billy Kirschen has said, "If you can remember the 60’s -- you weren’t there!" The Ordinary was opened on a shoestring by a late-twenty-something Vietnam vet named Joseph Carey who was rapidly burning out, trying to do it all himself. Do the shopping in the morning -- cook all afternoon 'til 10 p.m., when the restaurant would turn into a live music bar. He would then tend bar until 2 a.m., go to sleep in the office -- wake up and do it all again. Ah, Berkeley in the '60s . . . The streets . . . even had their own smell -- a funky mix of spent tear gas and patchouli mixed with the sweet smell of Columbian marijuana and burning bras and draft cards. I would like to tell you that The Ordinary was an island of sanity in this boundless sea of madness, but you wouldn't believe me. Besides, I’m inclined to believe that we were at the very epicenter of it all. In fact the madness of the '60s may have been spreading from the Ordinary like ripples from a rock tossed into Lake Merritt.</blockquote></blockquote> The Ordinary Suzan and I had separated. I was still living in Berkeley; she was teaching in the Oakland Public Schools and living in Oakland. She was having an affair with a married black school administrator and I was proceeding through her friends (I think the one I missed got mad at me for neglecting her), schoolteachers all. Hey, it was a different time and place -- what can I say? I cooked a lot. I read cookbooks, had joined a book club, when I wasn’t teaching or doing anti war work. Oh, yeah, I was writing songs, too and plunking on my Martin 00-21. I considered Suzan a good friend -- still do. She and her friends helped me with the work of getting the building in North Oakland ready to be a restaurant. I remember them helping me strip the bar I had found in the San Francisco redevelopment area -- it had been in The Palace Hotel during the big earthquake. We got the settlement from the motorcycle wreck and I opened The Ordinary in April of 1971. Damn, I forgot to tell you about the motorcycle wreck. We were living in the flatlands of Berkeley on Chestnut St. and Suzan was teaching at an Oakland junior high. My income was a grant from The American Friends Service Committee to operate a draft-counseling center in southern Alameda County. I'd bought a Triumph 650 murdercycle and went to pick her up after school one day. We got as far as Berkeley and were broadsided at a yield sign by the Dean of Women at the Berkeley West Campus High School -- just a few blocks from home. Knocked us about 40 feet. Suzan landed in a bush; I landed on my right shoulder on someone’s concrete front porch. They took us to the Kaiser hospital where Suzan had her insurance. I found out later I was in shock. She had an obvious broken leg -- they took care of her immediately -- and I was limping a little and couldn't lift my right arm. But when they asked if I could walk to x-ray myself, and then return to the emergency room with the x-rays, I said sure -- and did so. My right shoulder was beginning to hurt quite bit. When I returned, the nurse smiled at me as she inserted the film in the light box. She turned to look at them and gasped. “Sit down, I'm getting the doctor!” The humeral head of my right shoulder was broken all the way through. I was in two pieces: my right arm and the rest of me. There was therapy, agony, blah, blah, blah, poison oak from head to foot, blah, blah, blah. Took a couple of years to get the settlement. Back to our story. I built a loft, about ten by twelve feet, over the restaurant kitchen and furnished it with a bed, a few books, a television set and a Modigliani nude -- had to climb up there with a ladder. I told the health and fire inspectors that it was dry storage; they didn't want haul their government-nurtured beer bellies up those rungs. This was to be my sometime home for the next few years. Suzan's apartment was just a few blocks away and I took long daily baths there, or showers at her friends' places. (For several years I was super-anal, having spent weeks on end without bathing while photographing the war in Vietnam.) I hired a local artist to carve some signs for me -- going for a rustic look. I didn't want to scare anyone. It was to be a Creole restaurant. He was the inamorata of an old friend, Michelle, from Indiana University. Unfortunately, he was also, how can I put this delicately? Stark raving bonkers. She called us one day when she couldn’t handle him anymore and a friend of mine and I coaxed him down the stairs and hauled him off to the loony bin. This was a bad sign -- literally. The restroom signs weren't completed by opening day. On the restroom doors, I put up two of the signs that were finished -- Pickled Eggs and Sangria. Never changed them. It was a source of great amusement to the bartenders when stodgy folks would ask which restroom was the men’s -- or women’s. I always answered, "What do you feel like today?" While working on the building I had been assisting a friend of mine, Don Campbell, a sculptor, in completing some pieces of sculptures for which he had a contractual agreement with a large gallery. Paid me a hundred bucks a week. He, in turn, was helping me build The Ordinary. Laser sculptures: a mirrored top with three motors mounted underneath. Each of the motors had three small mirrors attached to three facets. As the motors rotated, the mirrors would reflect the laser beam, which entered from the cabinet below, hit one small stationary mirror that reflected the beam onto the rotating mirrors (got that? I attempt to commit mathematics as infrequently as possible) in what I presumed to be an infinite variety of patterns. There was a tube in the side of the box containing the mirror through which we blew cigarette smoke so you could see the laser beam. Kinda nifty. I kept begging him to let me build a pinball machine with mirrors on the flippers. He didn’t. At any rate when I opened I hired Don as a bartender -- at a hundred bucks a week. I was regularly seeing a friend of Suzan's at this point and took her with me to many really good Bay Area restaurants. Campbell and I also went out a bunch of times. We had one night at Trader Vic's where we had just finished a bunch of demolition on the building to house The Ordinary. We were really funky in dirty t-shirts and jeans. The headwaiter gave us both ties to put on -- proper decorum is important. The bartender then gave us a bunch of Mai Tais to put on. And we did. I think we forgot to eat. Not sure. Don's wife was Greek and taught me how to make Avgolemono. After she and Don separated, she also taught me that the menage a trois (er, two-girls/one guy!) was not necessarily a good thing. Damn, this piece was supposed to be about The Ordinary and I haven't even opened the doors and invited you in yet! I really am trying to stop interrupting myself and get to the Ordinary. Really. You believe me, don't you? <div align="center">+ + + + +</div> Joseph Carey, aka ChefCarey, is the author of Creole Nouvelle: Contemporary Creole Cookery and Chef on Fire: The Five Techniques for Using Heat Like a Pro. He cooks, teaches and writes in Memphis, Tennessee.

Voyage into Creativity, part two Day One By John Sconzo American interest in Spanish cuisine has grown exponentially in the last two decades. Reams of press concerning the rapid growth and incredible success of Spanish “alta cocina” have certainly contributed to and reflected this phenomenon -- most notably that covering the person and work of Ferran Adria and the team at El Bulli in Roses, Catalunya, and chefs like Juan Marie Arzak in the Basque country. While Spanish “alta cocina” has gained esteem in the United States, its success has opened the door for the traditional cuisines of Spain. “Spain and the World Table,” the latest of the annual World of Flavors Conferences held each November at CIA/Greystone in St. Helena, California, was convened to explore, demonstrate and highlight the full range of this extraordinary cuisine. Not long ago, few in the United States had had authentic paella -- or even knew what it was -- yet it was one of the few dishes that people in the U.S. would have identified as “Spanish.” Another would have been gazpacho. Even for those who did understand and appreciate these and other dishes, difficulty in sourcing quality Spanish ingredients such as pimenton, piquillo peppers, and Spanish jamones amongst others important to the cuisine made it near impossible to make or eat many true Spanish flavors. Fortunately, that is changing; all of those ingredients and many more are now available at excellent quality in the States. So while dishes might not be quite the same as they are inside Spain, they can be made to reflect the style, spirit and sabor of their original counterparts: now, the flavors of Spain can enliven the cooking of America. Today Spain is known as a hotbed of culinary innovation and creativity, but it's not really a new development. Spain has been an arena of creativity since its earliest days, incorporating Phoenician, Roman and Arab influences and products into its cuisine. The sixteenth century arrival of peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and cacao (amongst other things) from the Americas sparked a revolution -- not just in Spain, but throughout the world. The current pace of creativity and production now seems all the more startling in contrast to the mid-twentieth century years of culinary and cultural repression and homogeneity. The Conference commenced on Thursday evening with a welcome from Greg Drescher, the Conference organizer, and others. Nancy Harmon Jenkins, the ever-interesting and knowledgeable food writer and cookbook author, followed with a discussion on Spain and its Culinary Traditions, elucidating the current allure of. Spanish cuisine: We Americans have been enamored of French cuisine, with its dazzling kitchen techniques, since the days of Thomas Jefferson, if not even well before; more recently we have come to embrace la cucina italiana with its profound understanding of materia prima, the importance of ingredients. And now, perhaps, with the dawn of a new century, it’s time for us to get to understand, to appreciate, to value la cocina española which brings us both techniques AND ingredients but perhaps more importantly a dazzling sense of risk, experiment, of options previously undreamed of that are still somehow grounded in the reality of Spanish tradition. As with many culinary traditions, select ingredients are key to those from Spain. Conference Chairman Jose Andres, bounding about the stage, led the presentations that focused on the use of six specific ingredients that have flavored the Spanish table and shaped its contribution to world cooking. The first focus was on olive oil. Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil and is justifiably proud of its quality. Mari Carmen Velez, chef from La Sirena Restaurant in Petrer-Alicante created allioli with olive oil, lemon, garlic and salt. Dani Garcia, chef of Calima in Marbella, demonstrated a new approach to using olive oil when he combined it with tomato water and dropped it into liquid nitrogen to make his version of “popcorn”. Though he served this “popcorn” unadorned during the subsequent “World Marketplace,” later in the conference he showed how he uses it as a culinary accent. Jose Andres and Ruben Garcia from THINKfoodGROUP in Washington, D.C. demonstrated the making of a “pil-pil”, the traditional Basque dish using salt cod and olive oil, with the gelatin from the cod itself contributing unctuous viscosity and flavor to the result. Harold McGee was onstage to explain the scientific process for this bit of traditional culinary alchemy. Maria Jose San Roman, chef-owner of Restaurant Monastrell in Alicante, showed a video on saffron production and spoke on the intricacies of its use. She suggested that saffron be infused for longer periods of time to achieve its fullest and best effects. She is currently in collaboration with the University of Castilla-La Mancha, exploring saffron and its applications. Other ingredients highlighted included salt, garlic, tomatoes, peppers and wine. The conference adjourned for exploration of “The World Marketplace”, where wonderful foods and wines from Spain were to be had. Though it was crowded, it was worth wading through to the various booths. Unfortunately, it was difficult to encounter every booth, but it wasn’t long before hunger was sated by the variety of offerings: cochinillo from Candido Lopez Cuerdo, Dani Garcia’s “popcorn,” Carles Gaig’s “Juicy Seafood Rice with Lacquered Hook-Baited Squid,” Spanish cheeses and wines, Paella Valenciana by Rafael Vidal, Miguel Palomo’s fried anchovies, Norm Van Aken’s “Moorish Lamb ‘Espadas’ with Recado Rojo and Lemony Allioli,” Serrano ham hand-carved by Pedro Barba Gil, tapas with uni from Jose Andres, Oriol Balaguer’s “Concept Cake” and many more. The opening of the Conference provided a lot to digest -- in food and thought. Plenty more would follow. + + + + + All photos by the author.

By John Sconzo The Daily Gullet is proud to present this, the first in a multi-part, front-row report on the recent "Spain and the World Table" conference. Watch for subsequent installments in this topic. In his introduction of Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller -- perhaps the most celebrated American chef ever -- described four elements that go into making a great chef. The chef must be aware. Once aware of one’s culinary and other surroundings that chef can then be inspired, which leads to the ability to interpret those surroundings. But a great chef does not stop there. Instead, the great chef continues to evolve. Ferran Adria, perhaps more than any other chef who has ever lived, is the embodiment of those four elements. The moment that Ferran Adria strode towards Thomas Keller on the stage at the CIA/Greystone’s World of Flavors’ “Spain and the World Table” Conference was electric -- as if a giant Van de Graf generator had been turned on. The feeling didn’t subside when Adria took the stage from Keller; it only became more pronounced as the packed crowd rose to its feet, raining applause, admiration and love on the Spanish master. Adria accepted the response with aplomb, and gave it right back to the audience -- and to his fellow Spanish cocineros, who were standing off to the side. He brought each one up to join him on the stage for a rousing thank-you to the conference organizers, sponsors and participants. Once this emotional release subsided, Adria got down to what everyone had been waiting for -- his discussion and demonstration. Ferran Adria, with eyes sparkling like the finest cava, began speaking Spanish in a voice as gravelly as the beaches of the Costa Brava, while Conference Chairman Jose Andres translated. The crowd, hushed and straining for every word, moved forward in their seats as Adria explained El Bulli and himself, with a lesson in recent culinary history thrown in. Ferran explained that El Bulli is not a business. While offshoots of El Bulli are operated on a for-profit basis, the restaurant runs without profit as a primary motivation. For example, he said, the greatest difficulty they have is distributing reservations. Given the extraordinary demand and the severely limited supply, he explained that they could simply raise the price of a meal to the point where the supply and demand met. Indeed, the price of a meal at El Bulli is in itself quite reasonable given the stature of the restaurant and well within means of most motivated diners should they be able to get there, and this is how Adria prefers it. He stated that he was not interested in cooking solely for those with the most money. He prefers to work for people with a true interest in exploring the limits of cooking with him. To this end he showed a short film depicting “A Day in the Life . . .” of El Bulli set to the Beatles’ song of the same name. The film showed a couple’s response to the experience. Ferran’s voyage into creativity began with a visit to Jacques Maxima at Le Chanticleer Restaurant in Nice, France. He learned from Maxima that to be creative is not to copy. This idea changed his entire approach to cooking -- from making classic cuisine to making his own. Aware of elaborate books of French cuisine, Adria resolved to catalogue his work, the results of which are the richly detailed El Bulli books, published by period. These books, as wonderful as they are, are huge and extremely expensive. During his presentation, Adria announced -- and demonstrated -- that the individual dishes photographed and described in a chronology within each book are all now available online at elbulli.com. He finished the philosophical discussion by talking about the general style of haute cuisine that he and others are engaged in. While others have coined the term “molecular gastronomy” to highlight the scientific component of the creativity involved, Adria rejected it, saying that all cooking is molecular: most of his techniques are in fact rather simple and don’t employ radical new technology. Most of the technology that they do use has been around for some time; they have simply adapted it to their own purposes. Nevertheless, he applauds contributions to gastronomy from Harold McGee and other food scientists, and welcomes their collaboration in the kitchen. He has yet to find a term that describes the movement: as of now, he feels that there really is no good name for this style of cooking. More than any other single thing, Ferran Adria is known for the use of “foams” in cooking. While he is proud of his achievements with foams, he stressed that while appropriate in some circumstances, the real utility of foams is limited. He bemoans their ubiquity -- and wishes to not be blamed for others’ poor deployment of the concept. In the course of describing this and other techniques, Adria made a point of stating that using them should not be inferred as copying. Techniques and concepts are to be used and shared. He invited everyone to learn and harness whatever they found interesting, and to employ it in to their own pursuits. Another set of techniques discussed and demonstrated by the master and his assistant, Rafa Morales from Hacienda Benazuza, included three types of spherification. These included the use of calcium chloride (CaCl) and sodium alginate as well as the converse, and exploration of a new agent, gluconodeltalactone. The original combinations of alginate into CaCl for “caviar” production, and CaCl into alginate for larger “spheres” have chemistry-related limits as to what can be sphericized. In private correspondence, Harold McGee explained to me that . . . gluconodeltalactone is a substance that is water soluble and slowly breaks down into gluconic acid, thus gradually lowering the pH of whatever it's added to. The alginates can form gels both by crosslinking with calcium, or by acidification, which neutralizes the charge on the alginate chains and thus encourages them to hydrogen-bond to each other. So gradual acidification would gradually gel an alginate solution in the absence of calcium. Adria described encapsulating a mussel in its own juice. While this would make the dish technically an aspic, unlike conventional aspics it remains a liquid. Adria said that though gluconodeltalactone is very new, and they are just beginning to get a handle on it, he is very excited by it. He also demonstrated a machine for spherification on a larger scale than they had originally been able to do, as well as liquid nitrogen and freeze-drying (lyophilization) techniques. At the conclusion of his demonstration -- and thus the Conference -- the audience once again awarded him a standing ovation. While Adria’s appearance was the culmination of the conference, the energy it produced was not just because of his stature in the world of gastronomy -- it was also due to the excitement generated by the conference that preceded it. If there had previously been any doubt, Thomas Keller’s welcome of Adria was a clarion: Spanish cuisine has landed on North American shores and is finding a niche in the North American psyche. Spanish cuisine -- in its multifaceted, delicious entirety -- lives here, too. + + + + + John M. Sconzo, M.D., aka docsconz, is an anesthesiologist practicing in upstate New York. He grew up in Brooklyn in an Italian-American home, in which food was an important component of family life. It still is. His passions include good food, wine and travel. John's gastronomic interests in upstate northeastern New York involve finding top-notch local producers of ingredients and those who use them well. A dedicated amateur, John has no plans to ditch his current career for one in the food industry. Host, New York.

<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr valign="top"><td align="right"><img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_10623.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_1730.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_12748.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_11855.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_10905.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_6428.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_19073.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_3458.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_1463.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_2305.jpg"> <br> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_4210.jpg"></td><td align="left">By Ivy Knight In late February 2006, I was drinking in a bar with some friends. Sitting at our table was a guy I didn’t know, a friend of a friend, who kept staring at me. As I got drunker and drunker, he introduced himself as Matt Patterson, Referee, and told me I should come out to audition for the Pillow Fight League. I pictured busty babes in lace teddies giggling through full red lips while downy feathers snowed over their ample bosoms. This turned out not to be the case. Not even close. I went to the audition very anxious. I’m not an athlete or a performer and I had no idea what would be expected of me. When I got there I saw Katrina, a girl I’d known for years. That set me at ease a bit. A man named the Mouth was running the audition and he got Sally Spitfire (Katrina) and another fighter, Digit Jones to get on the mats and do a quick bout to show me and the other girl auditioning (Aimee) what would be expected. He also planned to interview each of us on camera and wanted us to have some idea of what type of persona we'd create for ourselves. Good girl? Evil Bitch? Aimee looks like a young Faye Dunaway and I was so blown away by her beauty that she whacked me quite a few times before I came to my senses and leaped on her. Her slippery shirt made it hard to get a grip so I ended up holding her breasts to stay up. We grappled a bit more and then they called for the fight to end. I knew who my character was going to be. We did our interviews and were both asked by Stacey “The Pillow” Case, Commissioner and creator of the PFL, to join the league. Life would never be the same again. It took a bit of tweaking, but my character, “Vic Payback”, finally emerged. She’s a good girl, but she’s a bit of a hussy and gets easily distracted by the proximity of her opponent. She loses track of the ultimate goal -- winning -- and never really comes out on top. That sounds as if the fights are scripted, but they're not. No fight is predetermined, but we do try to fight in character. Vic really wants to win, but having fun is more important. We now have twenty girls in the league and, while some are intent on winning, all of us care more about fun and entertainment. Although none of us has professional fight experience, we’ve caught the fever and love fighting. We’re a diverse group of girls from all walks of life. I want to know what some of these broads eat. How do they prepare for a fight? Do they follow some strict dietary regime? Our first PFL champion was the Persian Princess who's this tiny Barbie doll made from sinew and muscle and steel. She’s the strongest creature in the smallest package I’ve ever come across. “I eat everything except the PFL pillows! Since I’ve joined the league I eat more. To maintain my physique I eat every two hours, I have a very high metabolism.” She likes Doogh, a traditional drink prepared by beating plain yogurt until smooth, then diluting it with water to get a consistency close to whole milk. Salt is added with dried mint and it's left to ferment, then served chilled over ice. The Princess likes to add diced cucumbers for crunch. I ask her what some favorite Persian dishes are. “Gorme Sabzee is stew beef and kidney beans fried with scallions, spinach, parsley, mint, basil and sun dried lime, served over basmati rice. Dolme is peppers stuffed with rice, lentils, ground beef , onion and spices.” Digit Jones battled the Persian Princess in the league’s first championship match -- she told me about her diet regimen before hitting the mats. “Carbs are great before a fight. I’ll eat a big bowl of pasta at noon then just peck a little before the match. Fast burning carbs full of energy and nothing to weigh me down.” Sarah Bellum is probably the only girl in the league who has a six pack; she works out like a maniac and watches everything she eats. She’s actually smaller than the Princess -- at 5 foot 1 and 100 pounds this librarian with a PhD in Pillow Fighting is our tiniest fighter. “I’ve cut out a lot of unnecessary sugar, alcohol and fried foods. It was a change that I’d been contemplating for a while and joining the PFL finally gave me the motivation to try it. So far my change in diet hasn’t resulted in better performance during my matches, but I’ve definitely seen the changes in my body. After years of working out, I’m finally starting to see the kind of results that I want.” I’d have to argue that her diet has resulted in better performance on the mats. At a recent event Sarah Bellum and Persian Princess went head to head in a fifteen minute Iron Woman Match. Fifteen minutes might not sound like much, but try fighting all out and see how long you last. Our regular matches are called after five minutes if no one has surrendered or been pinned, and decided by a panel of judges. Getting all the way to the five minute mark is very tough: lot of our fighters have never made it that far. There are girls like me who don’t know about carb-loading, and girls who don’t eat right and don’t care, like our current champion ChamPAIN. “I eat what I want, when I want, and my favorite is roti. Oh, and I love cake too!” ChamPAIN doesn’t work out every day but she plays soccer, performs in a burlesque troupe, models, works 9-5 at a “real” job and fights in the League, where she rarely loses a match. Eat cake baby, knock yourself out. One of our newest fighters is Lady Die, a class act with a regal bearing. I asked her what a typical day in her life is like. “Fox hunt, beauty salon, orphanage, manicurist, ribbon cutting, dress fitting, fight.” She has a typically British approach to nutrition: “I fancy lollies, fairy cakes, clotted cream, treacle tarts and sweets with a cuppa.” Sister Resistor is a bad girl fighter, a heel; she’s a welder and film grip by day. "I like to get my carbs in the form of beer, preferably Labatt 50. Protein is also important, so I l eat at least two breakfast specials from Carousel Bakery in the St. Lawrence Market downtown. A breakfast special is scrambled eggs and cheese with peameal bacon (Canadian bacon rolled in cornmeal in the U.S.) on a fresh bun. It's important to eat as much peameal bacon as possible to keep your strength up. Apres fight you need to replace those lost carbs, so again with the beer. Labatt 50 tastes good warm so you can stash it behind the couch in the dressing room or in your bag so that wastecase Boozy Suzy doesn’t find it and drink it.” Boozy Suzy -- big surprise -- is a big boozer, a beautiful barfly. She maintains a very odd diet, once eating an entire block of generic cheddar before coming to practice. “It's perfect that my persona allows me to keep up my daily alcohol consumption and in fact encourages it. It's satisfying to find an athletic league that condones the frequency at which I imbibe. My fighting physique is nothing to be desired so I feel that maintaining it is easier than one might expect.” To prepare for a big fight Boozy stays true to character. “I like to drink right before the fight, maybe four to six beers to loosen up a little. It tends to make me more flexible and resilient to blows about the head. My preferences are Creemore Springs Premium Lager or McAuslan’s St. Ambroise Pale Ale and, for the dessert course, their Apricot Wheat Ale. Vegetarian pizza seems to be the trend in the dressing room a few hours before we have a live event. I feel that it slows me down considerably but is a good base for the Jagermeister.” Sally Spitfire, our WWII-inspired pin-up girl is not joining Boozy in her pre-show piss up. “I do not drink before I fight at an event. Once my fight is done it’s free game, but before I hit the mat I avoid alcohol.” Betty Clock'er also avoids alcohol for the most part and maintains a vegetarian diet. She bakes cookies to hand out to the crowds at the fights. “I made cookies before our first live show because I was feeling jittery the night before and baking always calms me down. The audience went nuts for it, so I’ve done it for all the live shows since. I went with chocolate chip for PFL 1, peanut butter for PFL 2 and pecan shortbread for PFL 3. I’m an inveterate snacker, so I have to make up a lot of cookies so some will actually make it to the audience.” Polly Esther and Pixie Stix are two other sweet-toothed fighters. Pixie seems to live on candy and quadruple shot espressos. Polly, a bitter waitress, likes her sweets pumped up with a little more than sugar. She dips chocolate bars in batter and throws them in the deep-fryer at the diner where she works. If it’s the day before a fight she’ll deep fry a mango to get healthy. She thinks some of our fighters are too scrawny, “I could eat Sarah Bellum in one gulp and Digit Jones for dessert. Then I’d wait half an hour and swallow Vic Payback -- I think the only thing she eats is the lime wedges from her drinks.” If it were up to Vic Payback, she’d prepare for a fight by eating dozens of raw oysters while chugging cheap champagne and snorting blow off some guy’s nether regions in a room at the Econo Lodge. I don’t prepare for fights in character, so that doesn't happen. I know about food -- it’s what I do for a living -- but I don’t know a lot about sports nutrition. My motto has been "Eat a green thing every day" and I usually stick to it. The night before our most recent live event my husband Kerry (also known as the Krippler; one of the PFL trainers) and I decided to have a feast to help me get ready for the fight. Kerry has rowed since he was a child and coached rowing for over twenty years, so I let him pick what we would have. He called it the “Eat to Win Dinner” and started a grocery list: I peered over his shoulder and saw the first item on the list was champagne. This wasn’t going to be the heavy-on-nutrition/low-on-decadence meal I'd been anticipating. Kerry’s Eat to Win philosophy is very simple: "Eat what you like. If you want to become a professional wrestler then you should have a responsible training diet and limit your intake of saturated fats. For the short, intense nature of the pillow fights, you can stick to what you know and like." We started with champagne -- Veuve Clicquot, not cheap sparkling -- and some beautiful Colville Bay oysters from Prince Edward Island. When we were visiting the Island in September for my sister’s wedding, we spent a day in Souris with Johnny Flynn at the Colville Bay Oyster Company. I love any and all oysters, but Johnny’s are my favorite. The section of water where these babies grow must have magic dust floating through it. They are briny without being overpowering, and they have a sweetness that tastes more like innocence than debauchery. Then Kerry and I had a course of seared sweetbreads with a pistachio crust in a beurre noisette. Veuve goes with everything so we stuck with it. The main course was inspired by what Kerry imagined Andre the Giant might decide to have for dinner the night before a big showdown. He served steak and eggs with spinach (that's the green thing) and bearnaise sauce. He figured Andre would probably have a beer with his meal so we switched to Maudite, a beer from Quebec that's rich and strong and packs a powerful punch. We finished off the Veuve later with some Ontario MacIntosh apples and a twelve-year old cheddar. The next night Trashley and I teamed up to take on Digit Jones in a two-on-one match. It was a wild, crazy fight but the two of us could not get that girl to stay down. She’s tough and wily as hell and ended up winning the fight by unanimous decision. Trashley and I accepted defeat and drowned our sorrows with a few cold ones in the dressing room. Well not really. We had a few cold ones for sure but there were no sorrows. Who would be down when you get to do what we do? It’s a lot more fun than any traditional sport I’ve been involved in and that’s the key word: "fun." In every sport you want the emphasis to be on fun and healthiness and all that, but deep down you really want to win. Here you can do what you want, as long as you fight hard and show off. You get to dress up in crazy costumes, wear makeup, get your picture taken, sign autographs and take out all your aggression on someone while people scream their fucking heads off. Who wouldn’t want to fight like a girl?</td></tr> <tr valign="top"><td> </td><td valign="top"><div align="center">* * *</div></td></tr> <tr valign="top"><td><img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1164158590/gallery_29805_1195_5987.jpg" align="right"></td><td valign="top">When not writing about food for the eGullet Society and Gremolata, or pillow fighting as 'Vic Payback', Ivy Knight works for a living as a cook in Toronto.<br><br>PFL fighter photos copyright © 2006 Carrie Musgrave. Used by permission. Lead art by Dave Scantland. </td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td valign="top" width="195"><img align="left" src="http://egullet.com/imgs/golden_gully.gif" width="185" height="290" hspace="5"></td><td>Thanks to all who dropped down the rabbit hole and entered the powerful alternate universe called Limerickland. The entries were so uniformly good that I think that this competition will become an annual event. <div align="center">* * *</div> Third Prize: Carrot Top, who combined the culinary and concupiscent: <blockquote>There once was a poulterer from France Who wore goose feathers rather than pants Each morning he woke And as the dawn broke He engaged all his geese in a dance. His concept was "Poulet Heureux" (Gastronomic confreres: furieux!) But his roasts were so succulent They brought all un-buckle-ment "Delicious!" they cried, curieux. One chill morn he suffered priapsis While roasting a fat goose while capless His feathers they crisped No more joyous bliss! Tout fini! Et son nom est "hapless." <div align="center">* * *</div></blockquote> Second Prize: moosnsgrl. This is an especially elegant entry: <blockquote>To find a good wintertime melon Would require the skills of Magellan How much easier t'would be To eat seasonally And just buy what the farmers are sellin'. <div align="center">* * *</div></blockquote> And finally, First Prize: Simon_S, the silver-tongued Irish organist. <blockquote>This Paddy’s learned much from eGullet: Like “What’s rouget?” Oh, simply red mullet! As an offer of thanks Here’s a class for the Yanks About Guinness and how you should pull it. There’s a rule that you must take to heart: Tilt the glass, pour the draught, but leave part. Please don’t finish the fill Till all’s settled and still, That’s the secret behind the “black art”. <div align="center">* * *</div></blockquote> Here are you well-earned Golden Gulleys. Revel in them! <div align="center">* * *</div> (There are less virtual but equally fabulous prizes for winning the Smackdown; they'll be on their way shortly.) <div align="center">+ + +</div> To catch up on your reading, follow the link to Smackdowns Past. Pour yourself another cup of coffee. Heck, bring on the bonbons, brik or bacon -- it’s dangerous to read on an empty stomach.</td></tr></table>

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1163149472/gallery_29805_1195_13585.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">By Priscilla Driving, driving driving driving after having taken my Mother out for an appointment and to lunch and then returned her to her home. Pretty much drained am I, and anticipating the cloggy southbound freeways in SO not a good way. I remember to turn on the radio for the last half hour of Steve Jones's Jonesy's Jukebox just in time to hear him noodling around on his guitar like he does, a part of his show I love. Course there isn't a part I don't. He plays a snippet of this and a bit of that, then begins to pluck a barely recognizable "Roadhouse Blues" by the The Doors, stops, starts, tries again, asks his ever-hovering producer if that’s right. Finally he jettisons the idea, muttering, "It’s useless, anyway," meaning the song, and makes a couple of almost unintelligible cracks about Jim Morrison’s dress sense. Hee hee -- don't tell Ivan, major Doors proselytizer, whose favorite song that is. But then Steve Jones and I don’t always see eye-to-eye with Ivan musically. "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell" by The Stooges rips open the radio, and before I am consciously aware my bare foot is tapping on the accelerator and I'm sitting up straight and bopping discreetly, so discreet as to be imperceptible to my fellow drivers, I assure you. (In a startling and life-affirming who-knew, the Ig has recently been revealed as a cookbook-owner essential in this delightful recent eG Forums topic.) A couple more headbangers -- Steve Jones is in a headbanging mood today, clearly -- and I'm grooving, allowing everybody that wants to to merge and join the flow of traffic, join MY flow, thinking inevitably if fleetingly of Joan Didion's merge metaphor from Play It As It Lays. Didn't young B.E. Ellis reference it in Less Than Zero? Homage? Hmmm. Whatever. Let's face it, he ain't no Joan Didion, however his heart may be in the right place. I'm pondering dinner -- back to normal, or what passes for normal 'round these parts. Anticipating, in a good way this time. Anticipating The Last Caprese. Sounds like a movie made from a Mario Puzo novel, almost, only this is an insalata: The last several tomatoes from Ivan's this-year's crop are lined up on the table, facing this fate. They are all save one from the orange variety, which was something hillbilly I think, a name I get a kick out of because my dad’s people, before they were Okies were Missouri hillbillies. And of course that leads me inevitably if fleetingly to The Kinks' "Muswell Hillbillies," which I have life-long taken to be a Ray Davies personal aside to me. The save one was a pink Lebanese, an especially good-looking tomato. All are good to eat. There's basil remaining on the plants, lots, in fact. These have been the least-bolty basil plants evereverever, impulse-purchased while walking through a little plant boutique I like to call Target Garden Center, in frustration over every single one of the sprouted-from-seed startlings having been consumed by some predating arthropod or another. It is just the kind I like best, too, huge succulent leaves with huge flavor. When the weather is hot, and wasn’t it hot this summer, that flavor is just what I want Today’s Indian Summerish 85 is fortuitous, because it lends even more savor to this final expression. The mozz ain’t anything to write home about, just Trader Joe's "Caprese Log," which happens to taste good and, despite my slight aversion to the somewhat manipulated shape (putting one in mind of those square hard-boiled egg contraptions, or similar), excels at its job: making nice uniform Caprese stacks, which is how I've been doing it this summer. Over the years I’ve done rustica-messy-chunked, beefsteak-overlapped, even teensy with cherry tomatoes, delicious one-biters. But the little stack is what I’m liking for the past couple of seasons, and I didn’t even have Trader Joe's log at my disposal at first. But I'll take it! At least for now, for this Last Caprese. Who knows what next year will bring? Will Ivan even grow any tomatoes? We know I won't. And whither Target Garden Center bolt-resistant basil? Or indeed, any of us. <div align="center">+ + + + +</div> Priscilla writes from a Southern California canyon populated by the typical mix of old hippies, wannabe off-the-gridders, equestrians running the gamut from 20-acre Thoroughbred full dressage to clip-clop nag-riding busted flat in Baton Rouge, schoolteachers, artists, wealthy entrepreneurs, and law enforcement officers (for some reason).

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1162390163/gallery_29805_1195_5941.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Craig Camp • 2005 Petrus: $3000 a bottle • 2003 Château Margaux: $460.00 a bottle • 2002 Domaine de la Romanee Conti, La Tache: $1300 a bottle • 2003 Pegau Châteaunuef du Pape, Cuvée de Capo: $500 a bottle. Let’s face it, when we think of French wine, we think expensive, elegant, sophisticated and chic. They are the wines you drink at Daniel in Manhattan while wearing the latest from Paris. Unfortunately for the French, only a small percentage of the wines they make fall into this elite category, and the vast majority of the wines they make are unknown and ignored by American consumers. The world’s most famous and expensive wines are French. French wines are the only wines truly sought after by collectors. While pretenders like Screaming Eagle cause feeding frenzies with American collectors, it’s only the elite French producers that really whip both American and international collectors into a lather. Certainly no one would argue anymore that the French have a monopoly on great wine. While bruised a bit by the worldwide explosion of interesting, well-made wines, the elite French wine juggernaut rolls on. Evidence of this is the massive coverage of the futures offering of the acclaimed 2005 Bordeaux vintage, which has been a focus of the wine media for months. In fact, a good vintage in Bordeaux still has such an impact that those vintages become great vintages for all regions in the mind of the consumer; even those wine regions with weather, vines and geography that have nothing to do with Bordeaux bask in the reflected glory of great Bordeaux vintages. As great and historically important as the most famous French wines are, the most exciting thing about French wine is not the bottles for those with trust funds and Ferraris, but the fact that the French are making the best wine values in the world. They simply cannot be beat in the under-$20 a bottle range for making wines that still offer character, personality, and, most of all terroir -- that unique sense of place that makes a wine distinct and exciting to drink. I’ll repeat that: the best wine values in the market today are almost all French. It’s not the new world that offers wine bargains: Australian wines should actually be singular not plural, as they’re all the same jammy syrup with different labels. California wine is personality-free industrial wine produced from the same UC Davis oak-chip recipe; South American wines are thin, flavorless and produced from hopelessly over-cropped vineyards. Only their European neighbors Italy and Spain offer the French any real competition in this under-$20 category. Ironically, as good as the French (with a lot of help from the British) were at marketing their wines over the past centuries, today they don’t seem able to sell their way out of a brown paper bag. They’ve been blasted out of the value end of the wine market by a bunch of New World wines with cute animals on their labels and snappy names that are easy to remember. This is not to say the French are blameless for this situation -- all that junky wine with varietal labels from the Languedoc that flooded the market in the ‘90s convinced a lot of consumers to look elsewhere for everyday wines. The French Appellation Contrôlée (controlled place-name) system of wine regulations established the structure that allowed French wines to dominate the market for so many years. These regulations established minimum standards for how a wine was grown and made before it could be sold with a particular name. These names were based on place above all else. The varietal was important and precisely controlled. For example, a red Burgundy must be 100% pinot noir, and a Sancerre must be 100% sauvignon blanc. You won’t see those names on the label, but their regulation is far more stringent than varietal labeling as used in the New World. For example, a winemaker in California has to use only 75% pinot noir to use the name. While the best California producers would never do that to their pampered pinot noir, you can bet few under $20 are not blended with other, less noble, varietals. While I love this commitment to place and individual personality in winemaking, the plethora of wine names this has created made a marketing nightmare for the French. Should they give up and change over to naming a wine for the grapes instead of the land? I hope they don’t, and considering the French attitude about all things French I think the names will stay the same. This means that consumers who want to drink good wine at good prices will have to do some homework. There are so many wonderful French wines out there -- the Loire Valley alone is so packed with wine best-buys that to try to keep track of only them can seem daunting. Muscadet shines as the best white wine value in the world right now. Sancerre/Pouilly Fume neighbors Quincy and Menetou-Salon produce stunning, racy sauvignon blancs. The cabernet franc wines from Chinon and Bourgueil are incredibly fragrant and seductive. The list of values from throughout France is endless, with stunning wines coming from Beaujolais, the Rhône, Provence, Lanquedoc-Roussillon and the southwest. Many of these wines come from grapes you have never heard of, but should have -- like tannat, manseng, cot, picpoul and poulsard. Such an extensive list of new words and places can be more intimidating than inspirational, and can make that giant stacking of Yellow Tail at the grocery store look tempting. However, as a few importers are willing do to the work required to not only find such wines, and to hand-sell them, instead of memorizing The Oxford Companion to Wine, just learning the names of these brave few is enough to begin rescuing your palate from the industrial wine that has lulled it into a nap. A quick poll of the patients at Wine Therapy came up with a list of key importers to search out for French wine bargains: <blockquote>• Louis/Dressner • Kermit Lynch • Weygandt/Metzler • Neal Rosenthal • Robert Chadderdon • Charles Neal</blockquote>You’ll find their names on the back label, which means all you have to do is pick up that bottle with the strange name and turn it around to see if it’s something worth trying. That’s not too much work, is it? <div align="center">+ + +</div> Craig Camp is author of The Wine Camp Blog and makes wine in Oregon.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1161803453/gallery_29805_1195_11396.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Andrea Nguyen Exclusive to the Daily Gullet. Excerpted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, (Ten Speed Press, September, 2006). We heard the plane coming in low and I was scared. Mom grabbed me, pulling me underneath the staircase as a bomb exploded nearby. I shrieked, believing the end was near. It was April 8, 1975, and though I was only six years old, I knew that the stalemate between North and South Vietnam was about to end. All I could do was cling to my mother’s legs and cry. "Hush child. Calm down. What will you do in the time of real war?" my mother said in a steely voice. For her, this was not the time to panic. Instead, it was just a minor incident in a bad situation that was soon going to worsen. When the noise subsided, Mom went about restoring calm, first inventorying the kitchen to make sure nothing had broken. Indeed, events were coming to a head. The dry season was ending, the humidity was rising, and the air was thick with worry and fear. North Vietnamese forces were advancing quickly toward Saigon. On April 21, South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu announced his resignation. My dad locked the door to our house for the last time on April 23. That morning the seven of us crammed into the family Peugeot sedan and drove away. We resisted the urge to take a last look back at the house for fear of drawing suspicion, and instead focused on the road that stretched before us. What lay ahead -- the unknown -- scared us all. In a photo of my mom and us five kids taken just before we left everyone except my sister Ha, who is displaying a characteristic smirk, looks grim. But the alternative to escaping was worse: stay in Saigon and wait for the Viet Cong to take over our home and send our father, a former military governor in the administration of President Ngo Dinh Diem, into a reeducation camp. In truth, my parents had been planning a sea escape for months. My father, who had been carefully monitoring political developments and international negotiations, knew that it was just a matter of time before South Vietnam would fall. Using money pooled with four other families, a cargo boat had been purchased, renovated, and equipped. Because life jackets could not be bought in Vietnam, my mother sewed one for each of us, with our names in bold lettering for easy identification in case we were lost at sea. All of my parents' clandestine planning came to a halt, however, when the government decided to prohibit any unofficial boat from leaving the harbor. Frustrated but determined, Dad made his rounds of the city, asking the few remaining foreigners for assistance. But no one could help him. Without strong overseas connections, he was told, there were few options for escaping. At the same time, others seeking to leave were calling on my father, but there was nothing he could do for them. On April 22, my father’s sister told him that she had made a connection with a former colleague, a U.S. State Department officer with whom she had worked eight years earlier. On the eve of South Vietnam's collapse, this man, along with a friend, had reentered the country to bring out as many people as they could. He had told Aunt Hue to pack and meet him at the Notre Dame Cathedral in central Saigon on the morning of April 23 at ten o’clock. Aunt Hue offered to take my two oldest sisters with her and promised to find a way to sponsor the rest of us after she got to America. Dad refused her offer. The entire family must go, he said. My parents decided to take all of us to the cathedral. That way, if Aunt Hue’s contact permitted us to leave, we would all be ready. Our housekeeper, whom we called Older Sister Thien, waited at home to hear from us. When Aunt Hue emerged from the cathedral and gave Dad a firm nod, we knew it was a go. As it turned out, the men also agreed to help additional members of my father’s family and Older Sister Thien to leave the country. On hearing the good news, Mom sent word to our housekeeper and my father’s brothers. We drove from the cathedral to an empty office building, where we rendezvoused with the two men. The afternoon hours were spent creating documents to get us into Tan Son Nhat airport and out of the country. In the evening, we successfully passed through the government checkpoint at the airport and knew that we were safely on our way. Seven days later, Saigon fell to the communist North. My parents had purposefully packed light to avoid suspicion, bringing along only their most precious yet practical belongings. Two small, black leather suitcases held identification papers and a change of clothes for each of us. My mother squeezed her best jewelry, a couple of important photos, a bottle of water, two packets of dried instant noodles, and a small orange notebook filled with her handwritten recipes into her handbag. She decided she needed the recipes so that she and Older Sister Thien could open a restaurant in America. Surely, she thought, all the Vietnamese refugees heading for the States would want a bit of home to chew and savor. She guarded her handbag at all times, and the notebook traveled with us from Saigon to Guam to Hawaii and finally to California. But as soon as we arrived at the Camp Pendleton refugee resettlement facilities (a U.S. Marine base in Southern California), Older Sister Thien thanked my parents and informed them that she had no intention of remaining their employee. She was in the land of opportunity and wanted her liberty. They could do nothing but wish her well. Eager to get out of the resettlement camp, my father contacted one of the few Americans he knew. Surprisingly, Robert Beals lived only thirty minutes away from the base. Within days, he was made our official sponsor, and we found ourselves at his seaside Laguna Niguel home, eating our first home-cooked American dinner and experiencing many new things. Mom now laughs at how astounded she was when Mrs. Beals served her water straight from the tap. In Vietnam, you had to boil water before drinking it because tap water was unreliable. Out of courtesy, my mother drank the water and was relieved to find out it was potable. My siblings and I ate dinner off of TV trays, all the while gazing at a large color television set. Everything seemed like an amazing luxury. Mr. Beals, who knew my dad as a successful entrepreneur in Vietnam, checked us into an apartment hotel at Dana Point Harbor, a scenic destination for boating, fishing, and vacationing. We welcomed the real pillows and mattresses after living in tents and sleeping on cots at Camp Pendleton. But our new refugee status meant that we couldn’t afford the hotel for long. It was quickly eating up the savings we had carried with us from Saigon. After a week, we checked out and started a new life in the nearby beach town of San Clemente. Dad figured that if San Clemente was good enough for former President Richard Nixon it was good enough for us. We moved into a four-bedroom apartment and immediately went in search of the nearest supermarket to assess what was available. Since we didn’t have a car, the seven of us -- my dad in front, of course -- walked through the streets of San Clemente to an Albertsons supermarket. Curious locals stopped and welcomed us along the way. At the market, I was amazed to find meats sealed up neatly in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. Much to my parents’ chagrin, I poked at each package as we walked down the aisle. I wanted to see if the resilient fleshy objects resembled what I identified as meat on my frequent visits with Older Sister Thien to Saigon’s outdoor markets. After all, we used to purchase food with life still in it! On our way from meats to produce, we passed through the dairy section. Butter, milk, and cheese were displayed among unfamiliar items, such as sour cream and half-and-half. It was clear that the American cow had replaced our beloved water buffalo. Waiting for us in the produce section were beautifully arranged and polished fruits and vegetables. My parents were delighted with the abundance and variety of produce that had been either expensive or unavailable in Vietnam. America gave us the opportunity to eat grapes to our heart’s content and cook zucchini for the first time. As new immigrants, we could not budget a lot of money for groceries. Since the restaurant idea had fizzled, Mom applied her French sewing skills to start a home tailoring business that catered to well-heeled women. She spent long hours in a workshop set up in one of the bedrooms. In addition to other jobs, my father taught ESL classes at the local junior high school. My three older sisters, Chi, Linh, and Ha, pitched in with the cooking, sewing, and cleaning. My brother, Dang, and I were too young to do much. Times were tough, but our family always enjoyed satisfying meals. At first, we made do on what we could afford to spend and what was locally available. That meant Americanizing Vietnamese food. Mom and Dad hunted down substitutes for key ingredients, such as fish sauce, that were unknown in supermarkets. But as diligent as they were, the food wasn't the same because we had to rely on unremarkable rice and soy sauce. Once we bought our first car, a used Mercury Comet, Chinatown in Los Angeles provided many of the items Mom needed. The trip was always a daylong event, so we usually filled the trunk with food to make the journey worthwhile. Other destinations included piers in Long Beach and San Diego, where we would load up on inexpensive fresh fish that my mother simmered in caramel sauce for traditional kho. Whenever we heard of old friends opening markets or managing restaurants, we would stop by to show our support. Our former Saigon neighbors, the Hop family, started two grocery stores that we frequented for years. My parents' Chinese Vietnamese friend Ly Siu Coong was the accountant and eventually the manager at Tai Hong, a Chinatown restaurant where I fell in love with dim sum breakfasts. To show his esteem for my parents, whom he had known for years in Vietnam, Mr. Coong always made sure that our table received fresh-from-the-oven char siu bao. When broken in half, the golden bao exhaled fragrant vapors of rice wine. By the early 1980s, the Vietnamese population in Orange County, California, had reached a critical mass. Businesses such as the well-stocked (but now defunct) Maikong market started to draw refugees to Bolsa Avenue in the sleepy suburb of Westminster. Families like ours came in search of food and experiences to remind them of their homeland. Because we lived only forty minutes south of what would become Little Saigon, we frequented the bakeries, grocery stores, and cafés and brought home fresh herbs, high-quality fish sauces, and good rice. These trips made being Vietnamese in America -- and eventually Vietnamese Americans -- a reality. <div align="center">+ + +</div> Excerpted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, (Ten Speed Press, September, 2006), with the kind permission of the author and publisher. The Daily Gullet thanks them. Andrea Nguyen is a food writer and culinary instructor based in Santa Cruz, California and founder of the website www.vietworldkitchen.com devoted to the food and culture of Vietnam. Her writing has appeared in Saveur, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Jose Mercury News. Into the Vietnamese Kitchen is her first book. <div align="center">* * *</div> Caramel Sauce Nước Màu/Nuoc Mau This is a cornerstone of Vietnamese cooking. The term nước màu was originally coined in southern Vietnam. Northerners know this same ingredient as nước hàng (merchandising water), probably because it was so often used by food hawkers to enhance the appearance of their wares. Its ability to impart incredibly savory-sweet flavors is the key to simmering meats, seafood, eggs, and/or tofu for everyday kho dishes. Some cooks substitute brown sugar, but the results tend to be too sweet. The inky sauce also lends rich brown color to grilled meats, much as molasses does in American barbecue. Traditionally, the sauce is made by pouring boiling water into the caramelized sugar, a somewhat dangerous step that causes the mixture to bubble and spew dramatically. This method immediately arrests the cooking, so that the sugar doesn't burn to a bitter black stage. I find it easier to place the pan in a sink partially filled with water, which cools the caramelized sugar, halting the cooking, and then add the water to dilute the sugar. The result with both approaches is the same bittersweet, inky sauce that is a staple in every Vietnamese kitchen. <blockquote>Makes about 1 cup 3/4 cup water 1 cup sugar 1. Select a small, heavy saucepan with a long handle. Use one with a light interior (such as stainless steel) to make monitoring the changing color of the caramel easier. Fill the sink with enough water to come halfway up the sides of the saucepan. 2. Put 1/4 cup of the water and all the sugar in the saucepan and place over medium-low heat. To ensure that the sugar melts evenly, stir with a metal spoon. After about 2 minutes, when the sugar is relatively smooth and opaque, stop stirring and let the mixture cook undisturbed. Small bubbles will form at the edge of the pan and gradually grow larger and move toward the center. A good 7 minutes into cooking, bubbles will cover the entire surface and the mixture will be at a vigorous simmer. As the sugar melts, the mixture will go from opaque to clear. If a little sugar crystallizes on the sides of the pan, don’t worry. After about 15 minutes, the sugar will begin to caramelize and deepen in color. You will see a progression from champagne yellow to light tea to dark tea. When smoke starts rising, around the 20-minute mark, remove the pan from the heat and slowly swirl it. Watch the sugar closely as it will turn darker by the second; a reddish cast will set in (think the color of a big, bold red wine) as the bubbles become a lovely burnt orange. Pay attention to the color of the caramel underneath the bubbles. When the caramel is the color of black coffee or molasses, place the pan in the sink to stop the cooking. The hot pan bottom will sizzle on contact. Add the remaining 1/2 cup water; don’t worry, the sugar will seize up but later dissolve. After the dramatic bubble reaction ceases, return the pan to the stove over medium heat. 3. Heat the caramel, stirring until it dissolves into the water. Remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes before pouring into a small heatproof glass jar. Set aside to cool completely. The result will seem slightly viscous, while the flavor will be bittersweet. Cover and store the sauce indefinitely in your kitchen cupboard. </blockquote> <div align="center">* * *</div> Pork Riblets Simmered in Caramel Sauce Sườn Kho/Suon Kho This kho involves a little more work than the pork and eggs kho (see book, page 146). You must first marinate the meat and then sear it before it settles into its long simmer. The extra steps produce a rich, roasty undercurrent of flavor that permeates the dish. These riblets have special meaning for my mom because her family prepared them for their month-long Tet festivities. An entire pig was slaughtered for the celebration, and the ribs were used in this kho. Since it reheats well, it is the perfect make-ahead dish for the Lunar New Year, a time when everyone is supposed to relax, rather than slave in the kitchen. When purchasing the ribs, remember to ask the butcher to cut them into strips for. For the best flavor, sear the riblets on a grill. <blockquote>Serves 4 to 6 with 2 or 3 other dishes 3 pounds meaty pork spareribs, cut crosswise through the bone into long strips 1-1/2 to 2 inches wide 1/2 large yellow onion, minced 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon black pepper 6 tablespoons fish sauce 6 tablespoons Caramel Sauce 2 scallions, green part only, chopped 1. Cut each rib strip between the bones or cartilage into individual riblets. In a large bowl, combine the onion, sugar, pepper, and 3 tablespoons of the fish sauce and mix well. Add the riblets and toss to coat evenly. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to overnight. 2. Remove the bowl from the refrigerator about 45 minutes before searing. Prepare a hot charcoal fire (you can hold your hand over the rack for only 2 to 3 seconds) or preheat a gas grill to high. Remove the riblets from the marinade, reserving the marinade, and sear on the grill, turning as needed, for about 10 minutes total. Alternatively, broil the riblets on a foil-lined baking sheet for about 8 minutes on each side, or until lightly charred. 3. Transfer the seared riblets, the reserved marinade, and any cooking juices to a 5-quart Dutch oven and add the remaining 3 tablespoons fish sauce, the caramel sauce, and water almost to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Adjust the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 45 minutes. Uncover and adjust the heat so that the riblets simmer vigorously. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the riblets are tender when pierced with a knife. The sauce will have reduced, but there will still be plenty. 4. Remove from the heat and let stand for a few minutes so that the fat collects on the surface, then skim it off. Return to a simmer and taste the sauce. Add extra fish sauce to create a deeper savory flavor, or water to lighten it. Transfer the riblets and sauce to a bowl. Sprinkle the scallion on top and serve.</blockquote> <div align="center">* * *</div> Beef Stewed with Tomato, Star Anise, and Lemongrass Bò Kho/Bo Kho This stew is so popular that practically every Viet cook has his or her own version. I have read recipes that call for curry powder, annatto seeds, tomato paste, and beer. But this is how my mother learned to make bò kho decades ago. Although in Vietnam it is traditionally eaten for breakfast, here in the States it has become lunch or dinner fare in the Vietnamese American community. It may be served in shallow bowls with warm French bread for sopping up the flavorful sauce, or it may be spooned over rice or wide rice noodles (bánh phở). The addition of chopped Vietnamese coriander or Thai basil leaves is something that my parents picked up when we lived in Saigon. Also, despite the name, this is not a kho dish. Here, kho means “to simmer” or “to stew.” No caramel sauce is involved. Traditionalists like to use the boneless beef shank sold at Chinese and Viet markets for this dish, which they cook for hours to yield a chewy-tender result. Once in the States, my family switched to beef chuck, which is flavorful, suited to long cooking, and more readily available. <blockquote>Serves 4 to 6 as a main course 2-1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck, well trimmed (about 2 pounds after trimming) and cut into 1-1/2-inch chunks 1 hefty stalk lemongrass, loose leaves discarded, cut into 3-inch lengths, and bruised with the broad side of a cleaver or chef's knife 3 tablespoons fish sauce 1-1/2 teaspoons Chinese five-spice powder 2-1/2 tablespoons peeled and minced fresh ginger 1-1/2 teaspoons brown sugar 1 bay leaf 3 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil 1 yellow onion, finely chopped 2 cups peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh tomato or 1 can (14 ounces) crushed tomato Generous 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 star anise (16 robust points total) 3 cups water 1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks 1/4 cup chopped fresh Vietnamese coriander or Thai basil leaves 1. In a bowl, combine the beef, lemongrass, fish sauce, five-spice powder, ginger, brown sugar, and bay leaf. Mix well with chopsticks to coat the beef evenly. Set aside to marinate for 30 minutes. 2. In a heavy-bottomed 5-quart Dutch oven, heat the oil over high heat until hot but not smoking. Working in batches, add the beef and sear on all sides, then transfer to a plate. Each batch should take about 3 minutes. Reserve the lemongrass and bay leaf from the marinade and discard the rest. 3. Lower the heat to medium-low, add the onion, and cook gently, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes, or until fragrant and soft. Add the tomato and salt and stir to combine. Cover and cook for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the mixture is fragrant and has reduced to a rough paste. Check occasionally to make sure the tomato mixture is not sticking to the bottom of the pan. If it is, stir well and splash in some water. 4. When the paste has formed, add the beef, lemongrass, bay leaf, and star anise, give the contents of the pot a bit stir, and cook, uncovered, for another 5 minutes to allow the flavors to meld and penetrate the beef. Add the water, bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat to a simmer, and cook for 1-1/4 hours, or until the beef is chewy-tender (a sign that it is close to being done). To test for doneness, press on a piece; it should yield but still feel firm. 5. Add the carrots and return the stew to a simmer, adjusting the heat if needed. Cook, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, or until the carrots and beef are tender. (This stew may be made up to 2 days in advance. Let cool, cover, and refrigerate, then bring to a simmer before continuing.) 6. Just before serving, do a final taste test. Add salt or a shot of fish sauce to intensify the overall flavor. Or, splash in a bit of water to lighten the sauce. Transfer the stew to a serving dish, removing and discarding the lemongrass, bay leaf, and star anise. Garnish with the Vietnamese coriander and serve.</blockquote> <div align="center">* * *</div> Salmon with Tomato, Dill, and Garlic Soup Canh Rieu Cá/Canh Rieu Ca When Rieu is brought to the table, expect a full-bodied soup laced with rich-tasting seafood and tangy tomato. Viet cooks prepare a fish rieu like this one as an everyday canh, or the more extravagant crab and shrimp rieu noodle soup for a special occasion. Carp is the fish typically used in this soup, but since it is not commonly available at regular markets, my family switched to salmon, which has the fattiness to pair perfectly with the tomato, dill, and garlic of a classic rieu. We used salmon steaks for years because the bones and skin enriched the broth. But steaks can be difficult to handle during cooking and later on in the bowl, so I now use salmon fillet. In the classic northern Vietnamese tradition, the fish is seared first to firm its flesh. The searing not only helps the fish hold its shape, but also provides a nice textural contrast in the finished soup. <blockquote>Serves 4 to 6 with 2 or 3 other dishes 1 pound salmon fillet, skin removed 1 tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon canola or other neutral oil 1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced 2/3 pound ripe tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon fish sauce 6 cups water 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, feathery tops only 2 cloves garlic, finely minced Black pepper 1. Briefly blot the salmon dry with a paper towel before cutting it into 1-inch chunks. In a nonstick skillet, heat the 1/2 teaspoon oil over medium-high heat. Add the salmon and sear, turning once, for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until lightly browned. The fish will cook further in the soup. Transfer to a plate and set aside. 2. In a 3- or 4-quart saucepan, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for about 4 minutes, or until fragrant and soft. Add the tomatoes and salt, cover, and simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the tomatoes have collapsed. Uncover and add the salmon, fish sauce, and water. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil, using a ladle to skim and discard any scum that rises to the surface. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer, so that the ingredients dance in the broth. Cook for 15 minutes to develop and concentrate the flavors. If you are not serving the soup right away, turn off the heat and cover. 3. Just before serving, return the soup to a simmer. Taste and add extra salt or fish sauce, if necessary. Add the dill and garlic and turn off the heat. Ladle into a serving bowl and sprinkle with the pepper. Serve immediately.</blockquote>

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1161134697/gallery_29805_1195_1271.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Diane McMartin A nervous girl, 15 and on her first trip to France, watches as the woman who will act as her mother for the next two weeks clip-clops into a bakery in just the kind of shoes she imagined a French woman would wear. She stares out the car window at the main street of Albi, the small town an hour outside Toulouse where she will spend the next two weeks. It is more quaint and more French than she'd imagined. Her host mother emerges with a long, thin loaf of bread and a white paper bag. Full of pastries, no doubt. At the table that evening, there is no dainty platter for this bread, not even a cloth or a spread-out napkin. Struggling to keep her eyes open, weary from food and wine and questions posited in an unfamiliar language, she breaks a hunk of bread from the loaf, and uses it to sop up the sauce from her dinner -- something she had, until then, only seen in movies. She stopped trying to understand what her new family was saying, and savored each bite. The light from the setting sun over the vineyards in the distance was painfully, brightly marigold, and as she chewed, and stared into it for longer than was probably good for her eyes, she felt something change. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> I moved to Pittsburgh because of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a book I found in a used bookstore on a college scouting trip with my parents. Michael Chabon's first novel, with its Gatsby-esque June-July-August structure, and its characters, with their in-jokes and outlandish clothes, fascinated me. Even better were his descriptions of the post-industrial landscape where they got into so much glorious trouble. The University of Pittsburgh's Hillman library, the “ugly, stupid prow” of Carnegie Mellon University, the mythical Cloud Factory that belched out puffy white clouds of unknown origin, the Lost Neighborhood -- I had read so much about them that I felt like I already lived there. I applied to the University of Pittsburgh and nowhere else. No reach, no backup, no Princeton or NYU, no William, no Mary. I'd never even met anyone who'd been to Pittsburgh except Chabon himself. (By “met,” I mean, “stood slack-jawed as he signed my book once in a hotel lobby.”) And yet, as my mother drove us over the bridge that led to Forbes Avenue via the Boulevard of the Allies, I fell for this gray time-capsule of a city harder than a 13 year-old at her first Leonardo di Caprio movie, harder than I'd fallen for Paris or New York or New Orleans or any of the other lovely cities I'd been to, cities it would have been much more normal to fall in love with. At that time, I was more interested in the handful of bands that deigned to stop in my new home to play -- Liars, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Mono, for example -- than in food or cooking. I was, however, a vegetarian, more because I had been strong-armed into it by my best friend from high school than because of any deep-seated moral convictions. Unsurprisingly, I succumbed to the pleasures of bacon fat and rare steak only a few months after starting college, but for the time being I was still scouring labels for traces of gelatin and stearates. The dining halls didn’t offer many options for me beyond soggy French fries and Boca burgers, and thus I was forced to forage for alternate nourishment. I discovered the East End Food Co-Op on my way to the Mr. Roboto Project , and began to stuff my dorm-sized fridge with soy milk and organic, locally grown vegetables every week. This annoyed my roommate, a very earnest Republican who liked Blink 182 and Kraft macaroni and cheese -- the vile kind you simply microwave in its own bowl. The smell would linger for days. It was a long nine months. What saved me those bleak November days as I studied for my first college finals and braved the beginning of my first Pittsburgh winter, was Kunst Bakery on Forbes Avenue. In the suburbs where I grew up, you bought bread at the grocery store, and maybe you bought a cake someplace fancy if it was a special occasion. But old-fashioned bakeries still exist in the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. Living in Oakland, the part of the East End that houses both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, I could fall out of bed and buy a fresh cinnamon roll or doughnut for less than 80 cents. The women in white aprons, and the pastel-frosted cupcakes nestled in gleaming glass cases among Eastern European-style coffee cakes brought me a sense of joy and belonging so intense that it was silly. Kunst Bakery made me feel like I was living not just in a city, but in a community. When I found one day in 2003 after having been away for a few months that it had closed, I stood at the window and stared at the empty racks and cases for a long, long time. The first time I moved to Squirrel Hill, the traditionally Jewish part of Pittsburgh, I discovered not just one bakery in my neighborhood, but several. There was Rolladin, filled with hamentashen, a pastry shaped like a little three-cornered hat and filled with fruit or nuts, and stout braids of challah. There was Allegro Hearth, which bakes baguettes, artisan peasant loaves and an assortment of pastries, from lemon tarts to carrot cake cupcakes, and there was Simple Treat, selling more mainstream fare as well as bagels and other kosher baked goods. There were also produce stalls, a deli run by an older man who didn’t always seem pleased to have customers disturbing his neat logs of cured meats and lox, a and a group of pizza joints engaged in a healthy rivalry. Everyone who lives in Squirrel Hill has an opinion about whether Mineo’s or Aiello’s serves the better pizza. I was in heaven. I would walk up and down Murray Avenue buying a loaf here, a bag of chocolate chip cookies there, and bring them back to the house I lived in with four other female students my age. They didn’t want to share my bread. They wanted me to keep all of my food in a carefully defined quadrant of the refrigerator and one small section of the pantry, an organizational system that favored neat packages of fat-free things over messy, amorphous baked goods, their awkward shapes and pesky crumbs. There was a chart of rotating, color-coded index cards for chores; mine were blue. They would roll their towels in the bathroom on the rack above the toilet, hotel-style, and were constantly rearranging the furniture. A few months later, they asked me not to renew the lease with them the following year, because I “made everyone uncomfortable.” What they really meant was, “You’re kind of messy and your blue-haired girlfriend with two dozen piercings and a motorcycle that upsets the neighbor’s dog scares us. Just a little bit.” I moved out almost immediately, but as it was February, an off time in the cycle of student apartment rentals, the pickins, they were slim. I spent 18 months in a studio so cramped, decrepit and messy that you were allowed in only if you were dating me or related to me. There was no bakery to walk to. Salim’s, a middle-eastern market, was right across the street, but he had no fresh-baked goods. To be honest, he was a nice guy, but the sauce on his gyros was gloppy and awful. I don’t know where he got his baklava, but it didn’t taste like anything anyone’s Armenian grandmother would touch with a ten-foot sheet of phyllo. Eventually, I made my way back to Squirrel Hill, and back to living with roommates. Our neighbors have an adorable dog named Kip; our landlords are a kindly, older Russian couple. One of the first things I noticed was the prayer scroll perched in the door jamb of our duplex; I wouldn’t dare move it. It was good to be back in Pittsburgh's most charming, cozy residential neighborhood. Best of all, I was once again within walking distance of fresh, non-shrink-wrapped baked goods. The first morning after the first night I spent back in Squirrel Hill, I rolled out of bed, sore from hauling boxes the day before. I tugged on the mismatched outfit that you only wear on the day after you’ve moved, when you can’t find any clothes that look normal in the pile of boxes and refuse that is supposed to be your room. For the first time in a long time, I trudged up the hill that gives my neighborhood its name. At the top of this hilly part of Murray Avenue is Allegro Hearth, the European-style bakery. They had a help-wanted sign up in the window. I entertained the idea of quitting my job, abandoning all pretense of being a writer, and becoming a baker. I imagined myself wearing a bandana, my massive, veiny forearms crisscrossed with shiny burn scars. I bought an apricot rugelach for 85 cents and was informed that when bought with pastry, coffee was only 80 cents. $1.65 for a tasty breakfast I could eat on the bus, with discretion and a smile. Sold. On the way home from work, I stopped at Allegro again, and bought a baguette to go with dinner. Folks from more cosmopolitan cities might sneer at what I carried home with me that evening. Its crust wasn’t as crisp as it could have been, its crumb not the most refined I’ve ever tasted, but it was baked that day, minutes from where I’d slept. I broke a hunk off the heel and chewed, smiling into the sun sinking behind the shopfronts topped by apartments with sagging roofs. It was bread from my neighborhood, a little stale from sitting on the rack all day. I felt like it was mine. <div align="center">+ + +</div> Diane McMartin (aka phlox) is a writer and editor who spends most of her waking hours writing those irritating ads you hear when you’re on hold with, say, the bank or the cable company. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with two boys and their approximately 8,438 video game systems. She enjoys loud music, dark chocolate, and only short, brisk walks on the beach, not long ones. Diane is also the editorial assistant for the Daily Gullet.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1160446877/gallery_29805_1195_10146.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Joseph Carey First in a series. A whorehouse was responsible for my nascent career as a lifelong voracious reader and too-long career as an English major, though I did eventually trick Indiana University out of a degree. My stepfather’s family had once owned a bakery, and they still owned the ancestral property on which it had been housed. They wanted to sell it and had to clean it out, and I was recruited to help. The second story had been a whorehouse: my job. Victoria’s Secret had nothing on these babes. I was awash in an ethereal sea of garter belts, bras, mesh stockings, panties, nightgowns and shoes -- boxes and boxes, overflowing with them. It was a real learning experience for a teenager. But, lest you think that there was no cultural aspect involved in the evisceration of this enclave of iniquity, the walls of the Madame’s room were lined with books. She was a reader. She had hundreds of volumes: classics and hardbacks. My stepfather told me to heave them. I asked if I could have them and he just shrugged. I took them all. In Richmond, my stepfather got me a job. It was January and very cold when I began working for Glen and his son, Stanley Bybee, at the Bybee and Son Casket Company. It was situated in the middle of the block -- I mean, really in the middle, surrounded on all sides by houses, one of which belonged to Glen Bybee. It was just a few steps up from the factory door to their kitchen. Bybee and Son consisted of Bybee and son, me and a part-time welder who came in occasionally. Let’s see, there was Bybee, that’s one, and then there was Son, that’s two and then there was me. Guess who was the turd? I bought a pair of overalls, something I'd never owned. This thing just gets more and more Dickensian, folks. Richmond, Indiana is something of an afterthought on the species -- except for Earlham College, a nifty place. Jim Jones honed his preaching and Kool-Aid making skills on the street corners of Richmond. I never did drink the Kool-Aid. So, I made baby caskets during the day and read Strindberg, Ibsen and LeRoi Jones and listened to all nine of Beethoven's symphonies (Toscanini) and Frank Sinatra at night, often falling asleep in my overalls. I was trying to get in the pants of a cheerleader who lived in an apartment in the same complex as did my mother and stepfather. Didn’t have much success, just a little making-out. My credentials were scanty at the time -- a third-string field goal kicker could out status me. Not a hell of a lot of panache in being the turd at a baby casket factory. The snow was to the top of my boots. Promptly at noon every workday, Glen and Stanley would climb the few steps to the warm kitchen (it was cold in the factory.) I put on my coat, gloves and hat and trooped five blocks in the snow (yes, it was uphill both ways) to the Spudnut Shop where they made doughnuts with potato flour, to eat my lunch, which consumed about 15% of my daily wage. I made $1.00 an hour. There was a sheet metal ceiling here. I didn’t see much room for advancement, unless Stanley and the welder died. One of my jobs was sawing little pieces of wood on a table saw. I mean little. Tiny blocks that were wedged into the sheet metal rims of the caskets for the lining to be tacked to. I spaced out one day -- cheerleader fantasy, as I recollect -- and ran my left thumb through the saw -- I’ll show you the scar. Blood spurted everywhere and Glen was downright irritated with me: Down time. Lost efficiency. I’d no car so Stanley drove me to the emergency room. Several stitches later and doped up I was on the couch with Frank Sinatra. I took the rest of the day off and Stanley picked me up for work the next morning. My days in the baby casket industry were numbered. Glen pissed and moaned about my speed over the next few days. I saw the mene mene on dirty concrete block walls. I’d saved enough money to buy a 1954 Mercury convertible. I quit before he fired me -- just barely, I think. I found the best restaurant in Richmond, Indiana. It was in a motel, the chef was Austrian, the manager German and the sous chef a redneck. I was first cook and dishwasher. Me -- flunky émigré from the baby casket industry, now first cook and dishwasher. But, it was a real restaurant. I learned some stuff. <div align="center">+ + + + +</div> Joseph Carey, aka ChefCarey, is the author of Creole Nouvelle: Contemporary Creole Cookery and Chef on Fire: The Five Techniques for Using Heat Like a Pro. He cooks, teaches and writes in Memphis, Tennessee.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1159716896/gallery_29805_1195_4296.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Kendra Bailey Morris An exclusive excerpt from White Trash Gatherings: From-scratch Cooking for Down-home Entertaining (Ten Speed Press, 2006). As often as my Granny Boohler entertained, it came as no surprise when one afternoon she sat me down with two, big sweet iced teas to tell me the story of our family’s greatest claim to culinary fame -- the time she cooked a full-on beans and cornbread dinner for her most prominent dinner guest, our very own "West Virginian of the Twentieth Century," U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd. Back in the early to mid-1970s, both my Granny and Grandpa were rather active in local politics. As a nurse at the local hospital, Granny was often involved in issues related to health care and education. One of her biggest concerns, and a legitimate one at that, was the quality of health care (or, rather, lack thereof ) that families living in more rural areas of the state were receiving. For many, a trip to the doctor for a check-up could result in literally hours of travel. Like others involved in the cause, Granny believed that implementing rural medical outreach programs, including bringing in more doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel to the hills, was desperately needed. And there was one very important person who happened to agree with her -- Senator Robert Byrd. Not ones to pass up a chance to politicize, Granny and Grandpa attended a meeting at the local church where Senator Byrd was speaking on issues related to improving health care. When the meeting was over, they went up to wish him well, and then straight outta the blue asked the Senator to join them for dinner. It may seem shocking that they didn’t think twice about asking him over, but that’s how country people do it. It's not about how famous you are, it’s about how hungry you are. Now, the Senator is a well-known beans and cornbread lover. Like many West Virginians during the depression, he was raised in a small coal town, coincidentally not far from where my grandfather and great-grandfather worked as miners. His story is one of achieving great success in the face of considerable odds, and although Senator Byrd may reside in Washington, his heart still rests in a little house up the holler. And apparently, so does his stomach. It seems that the older we get, the more we want to go back to that one meal that tastes like home. For mountain folk, it’s the beans and cornbread meal. Pinto beans simmered all day with a slug of fatback served alongside a big wedge of savory cornbread. Throw in a little chow chow (our version of relish), some chopped green onions, and a dollop of ketchup and you’ve true peasant food at its finest. When Granny went to work in her little kitchen on that snowy afternoon, she knew exactly what the Senator wanted to eat, and she was a true master at making it. Just the day before she had whipped up a big pot of brown beans, so she set to work on some cornbread (we call it “grit bread”) baked in a cast iron skillet. To go alongside, apples from her backyard were gathered from the root cellar, sliced, and fried up in leftover bacon grease. It wasn’t long before Senator Byrd and his entourage arrived, took off their snow-dusted coats, and sat down to table brimming with West Virginia specialties. After Grandpa gave the blessing (he always did this, as head of the household), the group began to eat, but not before Senator Byrd said his quick prayer of thanks. And then, like any proper country boy, he stuck his napkin into his shirt before spooning one single bite of beans into his mouth. They ate and ate, and talked about family, growing up in the coalfields, local politics, and God. Sweet tea was poured in abundance, and seconds were served more than once. Granny proudly watched it all happen, knowing deep in her heart that she was always built to cook for kings and queens. After all, the Senator exclaimed more than once that he hadn’t had cooking this good since he ate at Lady Bird’s. After dessert, the Senator mentioned that he had a national televised speaking engagement later that evening and would they mind if he rested a while before taking off, especially after eating all that good food. So again, like a true West Virginia hostess, Granny didn’t think twice. She escorted the Senator to the basement rec room that Grandpa built himself, fluffed him a pillow, and draped a warm blanket over his shoulders. In a matter of moments, he was on his back fast asleep, with his black sock-clad feet barely poking out from under the blanket. To Granny, he was just another hardworking man from the coalfields, who, in this particular repose, seemed more like the young man who spent time working as a meat cutter and who loved to play the fiddle than a big city politician who was twice elected President pro tempore, making him third in line for the presidency of the United States. She leaned over to cover his feet and let out a short giggle when she saw that one of his socks had a hole in it the size of a quarter. After an hour or so, the Senator awakened, fully refreshed. Granny and Grandpa said their farewells, and as the Senator put on his coat, Granny straightened his tie. It was then she saw it -- a big bean stain right on the top part of his polka-dot tie. "Mr. Senator,” she said. "I’m afraid you’re going to have to take off your tie. Seems you’ve got a bit of a spot on it." The Senator looked down to see the offensive stain and quickly removed his tie. "Don’t think I can go on television with this old thing!" he joked as he removed it and handed it over to Granny. "Here. Let me," Grandpa said, as he took off his own tie and handed it to the Senator. "It would be an honor if you wore mine." And with that, the Senator said his thanks, put on his new tie, and left to greet his public. Later that evening, as my Granny and Grandpa reminisced about how good her beans were and how funny it was that their Senator had holes in his socks, they turned on the television to watch his public address. There he was, a standing proud West Virginian, bathed in lights and fanfare that only politics can bring, and wearing my grandpa’s tie. In that moment, the lines that separate poverty from excess, backwoods from Park Avenue, and insignificant coal towns from a parking spot at the U.S. Capitol were blurred, if only for one snowy day. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> The Senator’s Brown Beans and Fatback This bean recipe is truly fit for kings and queens. Serve it up with a wedge of cornbread, homemade chow chow, and minced sweet onions for a taste of true peasant food. Just make sure to remove your tie before diggin’ in since this dish makes for messy eatin’. But beware, brown beans and fatback can be addictive, and as of yet, there is no known cure except more brown beans and fatback. 1 (16-ounce) package dried pinto beans 1 medium to large slug of salt fatback, or 1 to 2 meaty pork ribs 1 1/2 quarts water Salt and pepper Put your beans and water in a cooking pot on medium heat. Next, stick your fatback in a microwavable coffee cup and cover with water. Microwave on high for 30 seconds or so, then turn the fat over and do the same for another 30 seconds. Pour the fatback and broth into the cooking beans. Once the beans begin to lightly boil at medium heat, lower the temperature to low and cook for 2 hours, or until they’re soft like you like ‘em. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> K.G.’s Country Grit Bread Grit bread is similar to cornbread, but it’s made with pure stone-ground grits, giving it a unique texture unlike any you’ve ever tasted. This bread is dense, moist, and not at all sweet on the inside while golden and crusty on the outside. 1 cup plain white stone-ground cornmeal (not instant) 3/4 cup yellow self-rising cornbread mix 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 teaspoon baking soda 3 to 4 tablespoons sausage, bacon, country ham, or pork chop drippings 1/4 cup plain white stone-ground grits 3/4 cup water 1 egg 1 cup buttermilk Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Sift up your white cornmeal, yellow self-rising cornbread mix, sugar, salt, and baking soda into a big mixing bowl. Put your fat drippings in a cast iron cornbread pan (or muffin or cornstick pan) and warm them on the stove. When your drippings are melted, tilt your pan so the sides and bottom are well greased. Mix up your grits and water in a bowl and cook in your microwave on high for 3 minutes. Stop and stir and then microwave again on high for 3 minutes and set aside. The grits will be about half done, but that’s okay. Whisk your egg in a bowl. Then add your egg with your buttermilk to the dry ingredients. Stir until the batter is well-mixed but still a bit on the firm and dry side. Now add the extra pan drippings and your grits. Mix all of the ingredients well with a large spoon. (If grits and water have cooled, reheat for 30 seconds before adding.) Your batter shouldn’t be too dry or too wet, but somewhere in between. Pour batter into your cornbread pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. (Cornsticks take slightly less time.) Your Grit Bread is done when a nice golden brown crust has formed. Now, all you need to do is get a big slab of butter and dig in! Cooking Tip: Leftover grit bread makes mouthwatering fried cornbread. For fried bread, slice cornbread into pie-shaped wedges and then slice each into 2 half wedges, each with a soft side and a crusty side. Next, heat your griddle or fry pan to medium-hot and drop in a small piece of butter. Place one of your half wedges (soft side down) on the sizzling hot butter. Do the same for your remaining half wedges. Cook until a golden brown. Finally, lower your heat to warm and turn all the half wedges over. Allow the other side to heat thoroughly and eat ‘em while they’re hot. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> Jeb Magruder’s Chow Chow 2 cups chopped sweet red peppers 2 cups chopped sweet green peppers 4 cups chopped cabbage 2 cups chopped sweet onions 2 hot peppers, chopped 5 cucumbers, chopped 4 cups chopped cored green tomatoes 3 tablespoons pickling salt 4 tablespoons mustard seed 2 tablespoons celery seed 1 cup sugar 2 cups vinegar Chop up your vegetables into little cubes, but not too fine or the mixture will be mushy. Sprinkle with pickling salt; cover and refrigerate overnight. Lightly rinse your veggies and drain ‘em well. Put the remaining ingredients in a large pot, and bring to a boil. Add the vegetable mixture and cook for about 10 minutes. Pack into sterilized canning jars, leaving about 1/2 inch headspace. Remove any air bubbles. Wipe jar rims and seal at once according to canning manufacturer’s directions. This recipe makes about 8 pints. Excerpted, with kind permission of the author and Ten Speed Press, from White Trash Gatherings: From-scratch Cooking for Down-home Entertaining (Ten Speed Press, 2006). Buy it here. Kendra Bailey Morris (aka kendrabail) spent hours in the kitchen as a young girl learning West Virginia mountain cooking from her grandmother and mother. She is now a writer, private chef, and cooking instructor in Richmond, Virginia.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1158718601/gallery_29805_1195_1292.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Tim Hayward I once met one of the guys who started the Hard Rock Cafe. I was keen to discover the philosophy behind that most emulated restaurant franchise. It was aimed, he explained, at young Americans on dates. He said that young people were scared of restaurants. They were terrified of snotty waiters, being made to look stupid when they couldn't understand the menu and not knowing what to say to their date. His answer was frighteningly simple: friendly staff, an idiot-proof menu, walls lined with sure conversation starters and finally, "a soundtrack of favorite tunes turned up loud enough to drown any silences.” This has made me, understandably, nervous about the combination of food and music. I can no longer eat in restaurants with “background” music, no matter how subtle, and my ill-concealed rudeness about music at dinner parties means I'm not getting invited to so many. I take particular issue with “The Dinner Party Album." There's one every year -- some hideous piece of facile contemporary Muzak with enough crossover appeal to offend no one but me. I'm old enough to remember Sade's Diamond Life over student meals where a home-cooked lasagne was the height of sophistication, but since then I've sat through Diana Krall, interminable Afro Cuban All Stars, endless Air, numberless volumes of Ibiza Chill, more Diana Krall, infinite Jamie Cullum, great existential wastes of Coldplay, more sodding Diana Krall and, once, Nigel Kennedy's Four bloody Seasons on a wrist-slashingly endless loop. All melodic, devoid of challenging variety in BPM and -- apart from the Vivaldi -- inoffensive. I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to take it any more. I mean, for the sake of politeness, I'm prepared to swallow my culinary pride and consume yet another Jamie Oliver-inspired, Middle Eastern-inflected brown bloody casserole, but doing it to the droning accompaniment of that anodyne dreck is beyond human endurance. An unchallenging mulch of well-tried ideas, warmed over by a telegenic but ultimately talent-free celebrity. Much like the food, I suppose. Back in the kitchen, on the other hand, music is vital. If cooking is theater then the soundtrack is a vital component. I once worked between two line cooks with diametrically opposed musical tastes. In the end we had a negotiated truce over control of the kitchen boom box, which involved a paper schedule far more complex than our shift rota. If you told Bruce he was getting three extra back-to-backs next week because Kenny was taking off to go bass fishing, he'd grumble but comply. If Kenny's Bowie/Stooges/Velvet Underground CD replaced his country/zydeco/bluegrass a second earlier than the appointed hour he was liable to throw hot fat. The only thing they could ever agree on was The Pretenders' Tattooed Love Boys when we were in the weeds. Even in my own kitchen, I can get as fussy about the tunes as the knives. Some of it depends on what's cooking. Roast beef requires something uniquely British; Elgar or possibly Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Anything Italian moves us into Louis Prima singing Zooma Zooma or Angelina (the waitress at the pizzeria). Ragu construction can be enhanced by the soundtracks to Broadway Danny Rose or Big Night and Frankie, Sammy and Dino in jolly Neapolitan mode on Live at the Sands is almost impossible to beat while cranking a pasta machine. With some dishes, the choice is less obvious. This weekend I'll be jugging a hare, a huge piece of game, the size of a small deer and hung, nigh unto putrefaction. It will be jointed, larded and then slow-cooked in a stock thickened with its own blood. Where to go with this one? It's an old English dish so one's mind naturally turns to Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks or perhaps one of the more recherché organ pieces. All that blood and hanging could take a chap of a ghoulish turn of mind down a path of plainchant or possibly Marilyn Manson. The larding process requires the laden longeurs of a Satie Gymnopedie, but all that knifeplay calls for Nine Inch Nails. Soundtrack, you see, varies by kitchen task. There's nothing like Glenn Gould's 1981 humming version of the Goldberg Variations for precise and repetitive knifework but for a real pot-banging, flambéing coup de feu I'd probably have to opt for Iggy Pop or maybe The Pretenders, just for old time’s sake. Someone once suggested Brian Eno's Music for Airports while rolling sushi, but I'm afraid I'd lapse into a Zen trance and have to be carried out of the kitchen to be revived with bacon sandwiches. Playlists are changing the way we use music in the kitchen. I've already got a few on my 'pod that have been named by recipe and I'm sure it won't be long before someone brings out a recipe book with music as well as wine matching. "Seal the veal escalopes to Crosstown Traffic and segue into any Nightmares on Wax to deglaze the pan." Truly the playlist is a boon, but as with all things, there is a darker side. Until last week, I'd not cut myself in the kitchen for as long as I could remember. Now I’m no longer paid for it, there’s no need to chop at lightning speeds. Lacking the constant practice of exacting daily prep, my knife skills have atrophied to a comfortable and relaxed competence. Consequently I was completely sanguine about julienning a bag of carrots. I was, as early autumn sun arced through the kitchen window and the warm smell of fresh bread rose from the oven, experimenting with the ‘shuffle’ function when Noel Coward broke into Mad Dogs and Englishmen. It's a song I particularly like and one that -- such are the delights of the shuffle -- I wasn’t expecting. I launched into a particularly spirited rendition and paying too little attention, picked up the wrong knife. It was only the tip of the thumb and a half moon section of the nail but Christ, it hurt! Know your music when using knives. An old favorite compilation, where you’re singing the opening bars of the next track before the last has finished, is absolutely fine, but anything involving the word ‘random’ has no place in the kitchen. And there may be worse still to come. I just read an ad for kitchen units with a “flip-down flat screen and DVD player.” A whole new world of distraction has, suddenly, to be dealt with. Okay, I’m intrigued by the idea of constructing an enormous, phallic crocquembouche while watching Dangerous Liaisons but I'll definitely be steering clear of the sharp knives and boiling fat. Tim Hayward is a freelance writer living in London, and former host of the UK forum. He publishes the newsletter Fire & Knives. Photo by the author.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1155608114/gallery_29805_1195_10886.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Chris Amirault Certain dishes (chicken tikka masala, hamburgers, sweet and sour pork) reveal more about the cultures within which they've flourished than they do about the cultures whence, supposedly, they've come. Food writer Claudia Roden, raised in Egypt, claims never to have heard of om ali until she moved to London, where the dish's popularity required that she include it in her New Book of Middle Eastern Food. It's quite a paradox: how can a dish represent with any authenticity a region and people that hardly know it exists? The origins of om ali don't sort things out much, being the stuff of mystery, apocrypha or stupidity, take your pick. "Om ali" translates as "mother of Ali" in Arabic, leading many to link the dish to Ali ibn Abi Talib, an important caliph for both Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. Others think Ali was the name of the baker who invented it. A few folks hell-bent on unearthing culinary origins further northwest have identified an English nurse with a penchant for puddings and an Irish surname of O'Malley. (If you say it slowly, you'll get it.) Most see om ali as an Egyptian dish, perhaps created to appease Turkish tastes during the Ottoman empire. This genesis, like so many, has the dish created out of necessity from "what was on hand": some wheat flake pastry softened with milk and mixed with sugar, a bit of dried coconut, fruits and nuts mixed in, perhaps a scrape of cinnamon or nutmeg on top. With parallels in every dairy-based cuisine, om ali is a comfort food, mother's milk made substantial and warm with sweet surprises tucked among the layers. For the cook, who can tweak proportions here and substitute ingredients there, om ali is as accepting and forgiving as a maternal embrace. <div align="center">* * * * *</div I stood surrounded by two dozen buckets of glistening olives in the Al Tamimi Safeway with my hands on my sides, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, khaki pants and a vexed grimace. After half an hour of strolling the oddly familiar aisles, the fluorescent assurance of the massive supermarket had given way to glaring annoyance. I was there to build the menu and buy supplies for a dinner I was to cook for my friends, their family and more than a dozen additional guests, and damned if I could figure out what to make. I wanted to make this meal to honor both the birth of Fawziah and Fahad's son, Saud, and the opening of their new home after years of planning and building. After a difficult week of work, I also wanted to spend my Thursday in a kitchen surrounded by food that I'd prepare, cook and serve, hoping to regain some sense of balance on a trip in a month that increasingly felt out of control. At the least, I wanted to begin the impossible task of reciprocating the kindness and support I’d experienced on previous trips. It's a truism to state that Arab hospitality is without peer. The Bedouin tradition of providing shelter and sustenance for wanderers lost in the desert lives on in the dark, walled streets of Riyadh, where Saudis greet guests openly and without pretense, dropping everything to welcome strangers into their homes. Standing outside the entrance to a home as the evening cooled to night, I’d eagerly await the opened door and smiling embrace that transformed me from an ignorant newcomer to a welcomed familiar, often among men and women, adults and children, whom I was meeting for the first time. And, once inside, there was always food -- lots and lots of food. Dinner at a Saudi home has a rhythm that manifests Arab appreciation for camaraderie over all. Take "dinner time." Saudis believed that the "start" of an evening was marked not by an announced time but rather by the final guests' arrival, which might come as late as 11 pm. In addition, Saudi meals are preceded by an extensive, multi-hour gathering devoted to conversation. One can eat enough nuts, vegetable crudités, cheeses, olives and dates to go home sated, but the finger food is served to fuel conviviality, not to fill bellies. Drinks serve the same purpose. At all formal dinners and some casual affairs, hosts serve Saudi coffee, made from roughly ground green coffee beans and cardamom pods. Saudi coffee is always offered with rich, dark dates, to offset the intense and unsweetened brew's jolt. Another common drink is "Saudi champagne," a bracing and slightly sweet beverage made of sparkling apple cider, a slice of lemon or orange and a handful of fresh mint. Strict Muslim hosts often make much ado about Saudi champagne to Western guests, whose innards, pickled by alcohol, must be screaming for a fix; effusive compliments of the beverage by same are the only way to avoid extended jokes at one's expense. Happily, less strict Muslim hosts are willing to contribute to the pickling of your and their innards. The Kingdom-wide ban on alcohol prevents store purchases, but there's a thriving black market supplying a regular stream of wine and spirits to folks willing to pay extensive markups. The supply chain provides no control over selection, however, so Saudis give their Man some money and hope for the best, learning what they've bought when they open the box. As a result, if a host offers a drink and you ask what's available, he'll say, "Why, we have what the guy brought!" to great laughter. When you're traveling in bone-dry Riyadh, "what the guy brought," be it scotch on rocks, a quirky Chilean red or a Tanqueray and tonic, tastes really, really good. All of this attention to hospitality culminates around midnight or 1 a.m., when the host announces that dinner is served. The Saudi insistence on guest happiness demands astonishing amounts of food, insuring that no one ever feels their appetite is making a dent on the largesse of the hosts. A typical meal might include individual chicken, lamb and fish dishes; vegetables in various forms; a few rice and potato dishes; salads including hummous, baba ghanoush, cucumber salad and taboulleh; and a wide selection of sweets, cakes and cookies for dessert. All a guest must do is try everything -- it’s considered extremely rude to decline the offer of food -- and take seconds and possibly thirds when encouraged to do so. Virtually all of the time, I needed no such encouragement. Standing in the Safeway, I remembered the warmth that surrounded me as I waddled out the door after countless such meals, and I searched my brain for a menu that would warm my hosts turned guests. I knew that an unskilled attempt at Middle Eastern cuisine would fare poorly in comparison to the everyday food eaten throughout Riyadh. My New England predilection for seafood would lead to foolish risks in the center of the Arabian desert. Chinese food required pantry items missing from the shelves, not to mention high heat for wok cookery and an appropriate pot for rice. Frustrated, I shifted my weight from one foot to another and considered another tack. I needed a cuisine that emphasized ingredient quality, required relatively simple preparation in abundance and allowed me to buy everything in this very store. I lacked time and equipment for many techniques, but would have access to a full range and grill. Anything recipe-dependent -- baking, for example, or subtle braises -- was out. I'd have to fly by the seat of my culinary pants. I looked around again, smelled the olive brine, and realized that my immediate surroundings provided a clear answer. An Italian menu, drawn from regions according to available ingredients, might just work. To produce the best possible meal, all I needed to do was trust what I knew about Italian food, to hand control over to the ingredients and let them tell me what to do. I scooped up a few pounds of the best olives and found a few long loaves of acceptable bread. I spied a wheel of parmigiano reggiano and some good looking gorgonzola in the cheese case and grabbed some of each. The meat selection lacked any veal, so I settled for some chicken. Avoiding predictably horrible tomatoes (and feeling relief at dodging expectations for a lousy caprese salad), I grabbed every good looking item in the produce section -- fennel, lemons, radicchio, broccoli, red bell peppers, parsley, eggplant -- and loaded up on onions and garlic. In the center of the store, I hunted down several pounds of penne and a few large cans of whole tomatoes. Finally, realizing that I was going into a new, empty kitchen, I rounded out the shop with larder items: two liters of olive oil, some dried oregano and thyme, black peppercorns, kosher salt, balsamic vinegar and capers. Each item made me feel less vexed, as if I’d been joined by yet another friend lending a hand. Rosemary nudged me back to the meat counter, where I grabbed some leg of lamb to cube, marinate and grill on the thick herb skewers. Endive sent me back to the nuts, where I found a few cups of whole walnuts that, toasted and spiced, could sit on a leaf with a wedge of pear and a thumb of gorgonzola. And the biggest score: some salt-packed anchovies allowed me to dirty up a basic tomato sauce and make penne putanesca, covering the sins of middling tinned fruit with salty, tart excess. The cart filled, I wheeled to the check-out line, paid and headed out to the car, rolling up my sleeves and plotting mise en place as we rolled down the asphalt. It was mid-afternoon when Fawziah welcomed me at her new house and showed me to the spacious kitchen. I settled into a rhythm immediately. I marinated the lamb and chicken in separate bowls but similar marinades of olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, pepper and the slim branches of the rosemary. I sauteed onions and then garlic in olive oil, added the anchovies and stirred until they broke down, poured in the tomatoes, capers and pitted olives, and set the pot on the back of the range, next to the largest pot I could find for the salted pasta water. I slipped cored red bell peppers and a few split garlic cloves into balsamic vinegar and let them simmer quietly until they were tender and plump. I washed piles of vegetables, split or sliced them, drizzled them with olive oil and salt, grilled them, and assembled them on a plate, awaiting more olive oil and balsamic or lemon to finish. I spent the afternoon and early evening in this steady, calming labor, sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner or two chatting alongside. At one point, Fahad came home, exchanged a hug and kisses, and shared one of his typically sly tales about life in modern Riyadh. A bit later, Fawziah walked into the kitchen with a smile and announced that an unexpected guest -- from Italy, no less -- would be joining the group. I didn't mind that the number was creeping toward twenty, as I’d clearly bought enough food for forty. And I was in no hurry: as each person arrived, I took a moment away from cooking, met the person or caught up on the latest news, and returned to the unfurling meal with a smile. At about 11 pm, after eight hours of cooking, I served my friends a wall of food worthy in abundance, if not in cuisine, of the most expansive Saudi banquet: antipasti of grilled eggplant, radicchio, onion and broccoli; bruschetta with an olive tapenade and balsamic pickled red peppers; fennel, parsley, shaved parmigiano reggiano and lemon salad; grilled rosemary chicken and lamb; penne puttanesca; endive with gorgonzola, pear and candied, spiced walnuts. I was exhausted and thrilled by the effort, and though I would have tweaked a dish here or there had I the ability, I allowed myself a bit of pride in a job well done. Sitting at the head of the table, among friends both new and old, I noticed my stomach for the first time all day, and I realized that I wasn't particularly hungry. Though I hadn't eaten, I was sated. <div align="center">* * * * *</div The intricacies of the day unwound as I rode back to my hotel at 2 a.m. The first thing to disappear was the gorgonzola, pear and walnut endive, which made me rue my hesitation to double those quantities in the store for fear of the new. I realized that I’d forgotten dessert, making me hanker for a few dates when back in the room and for Friday evening dinner in the hotel garden, where another bowl of om ali awaited. My guests didn't seem to mind, having turned to the lemony fennel salad at the end of the meal, chewing on parsley and chatting as folks grabbed their robes or abbayahs to leave. I rolled down the window and breathed in the jasmine wafting on the cool, dry air moving through the desert at the edge of the city. I realized that I was most proud of the puttanesca, whose three hours of simmering transformed tomatoes and their accomplices into a heady, oily sauce. The Italian guest had done me the kind turn of complimenting both the menu and the execution, and she had paid special attention to the puttanesca, granting it an authenticity I knew it lacked. Let's face it: a solid penne putanesca wasn't going to get me any awards. It was thrown together with this and that, a concoction I knew I'd never repeat, one linked forever with this night, when an American made Italian food for a bunch of Saudis, two weeks after 9/11. As we turned into the hotel driveway, I felt a sense of calm that I hadn't felt since the second plane hit the second tower. It wasn't mother's milk, but that whore's pasta was all the comfort I needed. <div align="center"> -- This is part two of two. Part one is here. --</div> Chris Amirault (aka, well, chrisamirault) is Assistant Director of eG Forums, the self-styled Czar of the eGullet Recipe Cook-Offs, and the proud owner of an apron displaying Yoko Ono's ass. He also runs a preschool and teaches in Providence, RI.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1156989181/gallery_29805_1195_17805.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Dave Scantland The first time Mom and I went grocery shopping together -- well, the first time in many years that we went shopping together -- we did a series of little dances as we proceeded through the store. My habit is to cleave to the perimeter of the market: that’s where the freshest stuff is. If it’s not fresh, like cheese or sausage, it’s there because that’s where the refrigerators are. So I circumnavigate the room like Magellan waltzing about the recognizable edges of his notorious globe, dipping inland only when my mission requires it -- for detergent, sugar, flour, canned tomatoes. I’m not certain that I even breathe when a shortcut requires a promenade through canned meats. Mom, however, senses no danger in this forbidden country. She plunges between shelves laden with canned corned beef hash, Maxwell House filter packs and Campbell’s Beef and Barley soup. Okay, she doesn’t really plunge. She’s a 75-year-old woman, short, round, gray and often tired, who probably hasn’t plunged since the early days of Clinton’s first term. But the land of dry goods is terra cognita to her. After ten years of nursing her husband -- my father -- through cancer, alcoholism, half a dozen forms of debilitating neuropathy, diabetes, cancer again, and finally liver failure, these cans are her friends. The first time I remember that Mom and I went grocery shopping together was in late-summer suburban Cincinnati. I must have been six years old, but I already knew – from searing days and sweaty nights -- what August meant: unrelenting high-80 temperatures and 98% humidity. It eased off a few scant degrees overnight, and as Labor Day drew close, people wearied and tempers thinned. As we traversed the parking lot from the car to the store, we were hailed from a thin aperture in the window of a dust-dappled navy-blue Buick station wagon. In the back of the car was a black teenager, his lanky fingers straining from the back window. He was asking Mom, in a dialect I barely understood, if she had a cigarette she could part with. I shaded my eyes and peered into a car full of deep, hot shadows. A dizzying wave, borne on irresistible convection, emanated from plastic seats and dark rubber floor mats carved as deep as Harley radiators. It streamed from the window like weightless magma. I had never been this close to people of color before. There were precious few, if any, at school. Mostly I saw them at the fringes of things: sequestered in the stands at the high-school football games, sweeping the floors and emptying the trash cans at Whitaker Elementary and Grace Episcopal, taking tickets at the College Hill theatre on Saturday afternoons. There were three people in the car, splayed over the seats, trying to shed heat like hounds on a wooden porch. Given my own youth, I was not able to estimate ages, but though the oldest of them seemed pretty old, he was still a kid. Without hesitation, Mom reached into her purse and withdrew not one, but two cigarettes, and slipped them between the door frame and the glass. Then she gave the kid a pack of matches. He was grateful in the way, I would realize many years later, only a committed smoker knows how to be. As we entered the store, I asked Mom if he wasn't too young to be smoking. I was in awe, not just of her nonchalance in the presence of The Other (and her translation skills), but of her lackadaisical generosity, her flaunting of what was, even in 1961, conventional wisdom about kids, cigarettes and black people. “He's old enough to know better,” she said. “But I had what he needed, and it cost me nothing. Why shouldn't I help him?” Starting with that very trip, I suppose, Mom taught me how to work a grocery store. Do the perimeter, then the inside aisles. Finish with frozen foods, so the ice cream has less time to melt. Frozen confections aside, I decided -- and the lesson stuck for quite some time -- that all the good stuff was hidden in those inside aisles: Frosted Flakes. Fritos. Coca-Cola. Libby’s Fruit Cocktail. My-T-Fine chocolate pudding. Betty Crocker. The bitter crunch of whole coffee beans, split and splintered between pre-adolescent molars, morsels rescued from another shopper’s spillage below the spout of the Eight O’Clock Coffee grinder. And if, 45 years later, my typical grocery forage avoids the inside aisles in exchange for extra time at the farmers’ market or a stop at the carneceria around the corner, those central corridors -- the nave of the store, if you will -- still hold nostalgic allure. On those rare occasions when I’m not in a hurry, I’ll detour through them on my way back to the bakery to pick up a baguette. I linger among the cereals (someone at home must need Cinnamon Toast Crunch, right?) I touch the spines of the cake mix boxes and peer through the fairy-tale die-cut windows of the tiny blue cottages where dried pastas live. I drop to a crouch and leer at the canned-fruit pie fillings. I take a deep yearning breath among the low-rent, mega-mart whole-bean coffees, and I run my finger down the grinder grate, like a thirsty wino checking a pay-phone slot for spare change. But anymore, I leave precious few dollars behind as tribute. In the three-plus decades since I’ve left home, I’ve developed my own cooking style. I’ve cooked in high-end restaurants; I’ve been to France and Italy and Switzerland; I’ve raised three kids remarkably free of food phobias and dependencies. I watched everything the Food Network saw fit to broadcast in the early years of its existence. As we exit produce, an aisle-end pas-de-deux takes me by surprise. This is a new store to me -- her store -- and maybe I was focused too hard, as we rounded the corner, on the cooler full of ground turkey I spied across the expanse of linoleum. I’m not in the least partial to it, but I know that where there’s ground turkey there’s spare ribs and seven-bone chuck roasts, fresh whole yellowtail snapper and 40-millimeter lamb chops. Instead, she takes a left turn into condiments. You might think we’d find common ground here -- prepared food convenience meets foodie’s obsession with flavor-accessories -- but I know what’s on her mind, and it frightens me. We’ve been sharing a household for three weeks, and that’s meant three chickens, each of them cut up and sautéed, then finished with a pan sauce. It’s bistro cooking -- my favorite style, as well as being tasty and fun for the cook -- and while she’s been accommodating of my preference (and happy to have someone else do the cooking), it’s not what she’s used to: Tyson pre-roasted lemon-pepper. Stouffer’s chicken pot pie. KFC original. The fact of the matter is, if I don’t find a new way to cook chicken, she’s going to pluck a bottle of Bull's Eye from the shelf ahead and recite her recipe for easy barbecued bird. It’s not awful, and dead simple: skinless parts doused in sauce, wrapped in Reynold’s and baked for an hour or two. It’s also improvable in ways that imaginative cooks could spin out as easily as Duncan makes yo-yos. But it’s not a challenge, and the distraction of challenges is what I need. Distraction, in fact, is what we both need: her, following the loss of her husband of more than 50 years; me with a 25-year marriage just a month past the point of failure. So ours is not just a household of convenience, it’s a sudden, forced refuge, and I’m settling in the way I’ve often handled difficult situations: by retreating to the kitchen. In the past three weeks, I’ve baked dozens of muffins (leaving them at the kids’ house for snacks and breakfasts while they’re at school); simmered tankers of stock; and butchered an entire forequarter of beef single-handedly, then fought the Green Giant -- Mom’s frigid minion -- for freezer space. But now she’s calling me out. Fry it, bake it, fricassee. Just no more poulet sauté, or face a future of fowl, be-foiled. I accept the challenge, and the bottle of sauce. I tuck the pre-emptive reprimand into a corner of the cart. And when we finally reach the meat counter, I purposely choose a chicken that, even when trimmed to its constituent parts, will be too big fit the one large pan we have for sautes. The awkwardness of our conscription notwithstanding, I find that living -- at age 49 -- with my widowed mother has its upside. Things that are mysteries as a child (and sometimes as a parent) are solved through reminiscence often prompted by food: shucking of corn, dousing of corned beef, or the customary placement of applesauce next to the roast pork. The need for secrets, softened by years and sadness, dissolves in an afternoon cocktail, and the past -- my history, my roots -- slumbers beneath the dregs, awaiting a brush, a burnish, a carefully handled side towel. One of these mysteries is raveled the next evening as I trim lamb shoulder for braising. Mom is reminded of a dish we shared long ago -- the dinner served at my wedding rehearsal, in fact: large whole shrimp and medallions of lamb, tangled in spinach noodles with a sauce thickened by feta, parmesan and garlicky cream, garnished with orange and grapefruit sections. For reasons both emotional and gustatory, the meal lingers in my memory as a favorite, but now it strikes me as the most unlikely assemblage of Mediterranean ingredients I can imagine. If I hadn’t experienced it, I’d never have thought it up. (A few times over the years, I’ve tried to replicate it without success. Maybe my memory is faulty, and it was just plain odd from the start.) But this is not what Mom wants to talk about. She wants to talk about her early married years in the Middle East, and as often happens, food is the McGuffin of our repartee. She reminisces about her first taste of baklava; her first real ripe olive (now represented by a small can of Lindsay jumbos in the pantry); then of being pregnant in Basra among doctors of unknowable skill, and people with a new color of skin who spoke with irreducible consonants; finally of their alcoholic friend from the consulate who’d gone native over an Iraqi servant girl. I ask what has prompted this reverie, and she talks about the lamb, spit-roasted, sprinkled with cumin and festooned with mint, that surpassed her (unhappy, but delicious) childhood Sunday dinners of medium-rare rack with baked potato. She laughs. It’s a wistful cackle that’s also a sign that she’s just this side of inebriated. She’s quiet for a minute. “I should know better at my age to dredge that up,” she admits. And now I know two things -- or rather, I’ve remembered one, and deduced another: why, as the last meal before our wedding, my soon-to-be wife and I had picked the restaurant and dish we had; and what I’m going to do with that damned chicken. Of course, knowing what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it are often different things. In leaving the kitchen I’d assembled over the years, I’d also left most of my tools. No five-quart sauté pan -- hence the ease with which I could enforce a weight limit on the bird (Mom suffers from severe arthritis, and eschews with trepidation any utensil weighing more than a pound and a half); no Cambro containers for brining; no poultry shears with which to spatchcock, and no money with which to buy them. I don’t give up right away. Dad wasn’t the handiest of men, but he could wire a lamp and construct a bookshelf. He could also fabricate flashing for a leaky crevice in the roof -- the last project he’d tackled before he got sick. Sure enough, among the tarnished drill bits and rust-freckled wrenches is a pair of tinsnips, gleaming in repose. When I enter the kitchen victorious, announcing that I’ve found just the thing (along with a bonus rubber mallet excavated from beneath the litter of screws at the bottom of the tool chest) with which to prep our chicken, Mom gives me the same mystified scowl that she offered when I suggested that six pounds of sale-priced butter wasn’t too much of a burden for the freezer. If we didn’t adore old British sports cars, the Gulf of Mexico and Tom Collinses with equal fervor, she’d wonder where I came from. We also both have an affection for ziplock bags; she because they’re easier for arthritic hands to manipulate than Tupperware, I because -- especially in the two-gallon size -- they’re great for brining. My two biggest chicken issues resolved, I managed the rest with more usual tools: tasting, patience and a chimney full of charcoal. The result was grilled chicken with cumin, mint and a glaze of orange. It wasn’t a sauté, and it wasn’t oven-barbecued, but the look on her face and the quiet pleasure with which she crunched a whole seed of cumin between her back teeth told me that it gave Mom what I wanted her to have -- what any cook hopes to give his patron -- memories: one tied to the past, one wrapped in the present. I'd had what she needed, and it had cost me nothing. <div align="center">* * * * * See the recipe for Orange-glazed chicken with cumin and mint in RecipeGullet. * * * * *</div> Dave Scantland (aka Dave the Cook) is an Atlanta-based writer and graphic designer. He is also director of operations for the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1156444572/gallery_29805_1195_14519.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Ivy Knight I’m thirty-one years old, and aside from a three-year stint in Austin, Texas, I’ve lived in Canada my whole life. Somehow, though, I’ve never been to Montreal and recently I decided to change that. My husband Kerry and I planned to go to Montreal for three days with our friend Courtney, who has a car. We were going to stay with our friends Adam Bishop and Lindsay Tapscott and eat as much foie gras (because Quebec is famous for its foie) and meat (because we love meat) at as many restaurants as we could. Once we booked the dates and made restaurant reservations, things started to snowball. My chef, David Chrystian, is involved in promoting Berkshire Pork (for more information see Sausage Party) to chefs, so he asked that I take some pork to the chefs of the restaurants I would be visiting, along with a press package and t-shirts. Sure, why not? Then my Commissioner in the Pillow Fight League (I fight as Vic Payback) asked that I take a bunch of posters promoting the next Pillow Fight event -- August 17th at the Courthouse in Toronto -- to put up in Montreal to create interest because we’ll be fighting there next month. Sure, why not? We planned to leave on Sunday by 10:00 am for the five-to-seven hour drive, so as to arrive in time to get cleaned up before we hit our first reservation at Au Pied du Cochon at 8:00 pm. The next day we’d do some sightseeing, have an early meal at Mess Hall, then another meal at midnight at L’Express. On our final day, we’d have lunch at the famous Schwartz’s Deli, then head back to Toronto. Unfortunately, I got a call from Courtney on Saturday night, saying that her grandmother was in the hospital and she didn’t feel as if she could leave her: Courtney wanted to reschedule. I explained that I had one hundred pounds of pork that I needed to get to these chefs and that much was now expected of me for this trip. I asked her in desperation if Kerry and I could take her car. She said yes, but she’d call me in the morning to let me know for sure. The next morning I got a call from Courtney saying yes for sure, and she’ll drop off the car by noon. The only thing is, “It’s not my car. My car is in the shop, so this is a car rented in my cousin’s name. Please be careful.” Okay. What? Courtney works as a bartender at the same restaurant as I do. Here’s why she is nuts: 1. Courtney and I know each other, but we’re not soul mates, and we’ve never hung out together outside of work. My best friends wouldn’t lend us their car, because people just don’t do that anymore, especially not for a 500-kilometer trip. 2. You’re probably thinking, why doesn’t she tell you idiots to rent a car? Well, we would but we don’t have a credit card, I never learned how to drive and . . . 3. Kerry doesn’t have a license. Well, he does, but he had to send it back to Texas in order to get something cleared on his passport telling those Homeland Security psycho pricks that he’s not a risk for working illegally in the United States. Legally, he’s licensed but doesn’t have a valid driver’s license in Canada that’s so handy for presenting to cops when pulled over. So, our wonderfully nutty acquaintance drives up in a car at noon. Kerry hops in and drives her home, then comes back for me. We head to Joy Bistro, where we fill two coolers with the vacuum-packed pork packages, grab a bunch of Berkshire pork t-shirts, the info packages and David’s digital camera because we’re such losers we don’t even have a digital camera and it is 2006! Then we head to the Cadillac Lounge, where the Commissioner has dropped off a Pillow Fight League package of posters, pins and DVDs to shower the people of Montreal with. We finally hit the road. Because Courtney needs her car back earlier than we’d planned, we’ll need to visit four restaurants in thirty-six hours, while delivering pork and putting up Pillow Fight posters. This should be fun. Kerry is an amazing driver -- a fact that Courtney may care to know -- and we get to Montreal in five-and-a-half hours with no police hassles, which is good, considering we don’t even know the name of Courtney’s cousin who’s rented this car. So, we’re in the bustling city and we call Adam for directions to his house. Unbeknownst to us, we are about five minutes from where he lives, but due to his directions we get to his house an hour later. We finally arrive, get changed, chug a few Bud Lites and head out to Au Pied de Cochon and the brilliant Martin Picard’s cooking. Once squeezed into the most packed dining room in the world, we order the venison tartare and foie gras poutine to start; then duck in a can and the restaurant’s signature dish, pied de cochon, as mains. There is a stuffed pig’s foot on the menu as well but it’s stuffed with foie gras, and since the poutine and the duck in a can already contain that ingredient, we decide to go for the unstuffed version. Our server, Jean Francois Boily, recommends a Costieres de Nimes by Coucardier 2000-Michel Gassier to go with our appetizers. It’s a perfect pairing: “This wine is so grapey, I love it,” says Kerry. Traditionally, poutine is a serving of fries tossed with cheese curd and topped with gravy, a Quebec specialty. Tonight’s poutine is a large serving of fries with cheese curd, topped with a slab of seared foie gras and doused in a sauce made with foie fat emulsified with cream, an egg yolk and some jus for color. Lovely. My arteries are pleading with me to stop eating. I ignore them and try the venison tartare, a gorgeous cold, clean palate cleanser. Luckily for us, Jean Francois is doing double duty as the author of the restaurant’s cookbook which will be out in the next few months. He’s able to tell us exactly how everything is made. The main courses arrive. A plate with three pieces of toast topped with celeriac puree and chopped herbs is set down. The server places the can on the table, opens it and upends it over the toast on the plate. What comes out in a birthy gush is a duck breast cooked to a perfect medium and another large piece of foie, all in their natural juices. The four of us attack this plate, then move on to the pied, which is braised and served boneless atop potatoes mashed with butter and cheese curd and served with a mysterious fried cake. I ask Jean Francois what it is made of. “That is the little bits of meat that fall off when we are deboning. They are mashed up along with the gristle and cartilage and fat. It’s formed into a cake, egg washed, dipped in bread crumbs and fried in pork fat.” Can I swear now? Holy shit, I love French Canadians. I’m one myself and was raised on a lot of their crazy food, like sugar pie (pecan pie without the pecans) and tourtiere (meat pie). They are crazy about fat and sugar, which is fine with me. We have a Cotes du Roussillonu Villages Kerbuccio 2003–Chateau Saint-Roch. I don’t know anything about wine; Adam and Jean-Francois decide. It’s great. I like leaving the wine in someone else’s hands and not having to talk about it or think about it. Wine is great for drinking but I find it very boring for conversation. After dinner, we head back to Adam’s to sleep off the meal. On paper it doesn’t seem like much: two apps and two mains for four people, but it’s a huge amount of rich, full-flavored fatty food that requires some time in loose clothing after ingesting. The next day, Kerry and I head out to Schwartz’s for a Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich. Montreal is famous for its smoked meat, which is more Kosher than Texan in taste. Schwartz’s has been dishing it out since 1928, and there is always a line-up. I duck inside and grab a sandwich for Kerry and me to share. All the foie gras last night got to him and he’s craving vegetables. I give him a pickle. The sandwich is so perfect that I feel tears welling up. The meat is not cut too thin and not stacked a mile high, the bread is a nice light rye, the mustard is a little spicy. I’m so fucking mad we don’t have a Schwartz’s in Toronto. It’s enough to make me move to Montreal. Kerry and I walk along St. Laurent Boulevard putting up Pillow Fight posters and handing out pins to people who approach asking about the fights. Then we go sit in a park that has swiss chard growing in the flower beds. We snooze on a bench. At 6:00 pm we head to Mess Hall where Adam is the sous-chef. He’s promised to give us just the tiniest tastes of a few of their dishes, knowing that we’re all eating again at midnight. We let our server Marco choose the wine, a tannin-heavy merlot, and we begin with a tiny plate of shredded duck confit atop a salad of braised fennel and orange segments. There’s some cilantro and chiles in the dressing that cut through the sweetness of the salad and elevate the flavors. We’re presented with a single crispy fried sardine accompanied by a pickled cucumber and caper salad that pops with tanginess and pairs perfectly with the oiliness of the sardine. I ‘ve always hated sardines. Until now. The final course is the restaurant’s most popular dish. We’re each given a small portion of ravioli stuffed with foie gras and duck confit in a porcini butter sauce. Rich and gorgeous, it’s the end of the line for Kerry. I take him back home. We chill out, but there’s no way he can eat any more meat or foie. I put him to bed and head out -- with a huge hunk of vacuum packed pork -- to my midnight reservation at L’Express. The manager puts the pork in the walk-in for me, after showing me to my table. Adam and Lindsay arrive one perfect cosmopolitan later. This charming bistro has been around forever and it gets busy late. The place is almost empty at midnight on a Monday; by 12:30 it’s packed. I’m so glad I don’t work here -- I hate late rushes. “Let’s hurry up and order, I’m starving,” says Lindsay. Adam chooses the wine, which is okay but served cold. As it warms throughout the meal, it gets better. We order steak tartare, which I’m wary of because it’s not hand-cut. It’s put through a grinder, and I think the texture may gross me out. It turns out to be absolutely spot-on. The portion is huge, and Adam and I finish it all with the frites and aioli that come with it. There’s an order of ravioli, stuffed with veal, pork and beef in a sherry mushroom sauce that Lindsay declares her favorite, but then she goes the way of Kerry and orders a green salad. Adam and I share some celeriac remoulade, but we’re really just killing time until the bone marrow arrives. Served simply with toast and sea salt, it is the most beautiful, simple thing this carnivore has ever shoved in her maw. We head back to Adam’s, where a lot of Maudite and Fin du Monde gets drunk along with some Bud Lites and Molson Ex. The next day Kerry and I head back to Toronto to return the car -- intact -- to Courtney, and to eat a lot of vegetables over the next few days. I really like Montreal. It’s a tight little city that feels as if it’s busting at the seams with people and shops and restaurants. The sanity of the province of Quebec astounds me: they allow corner stores to sell not only beer but whiskey, wine, crème de menthe -- you name it. Every depanneur is a liquor store that also stocks gummy bears, mustard and toilet paper. The restaurants were so easy to deal with: no bullshit -- just "get in here and let us feed you." If you must have something’s flesh, head to Montreal where they don’t fuck around with their meat. Ivy Knight (aka Ivy) writes for gremolata.com and works as a professional chef in Toronto at Joy Bistro. She recently returned to Pillow Fight League competition after recovering from a broken rib.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1155608114/gallery_29805_1195_10886.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Chris Amirault I gazed over the steamer trays at the back of the British Airways lounge, which held the middlebrow, quasi-Continental fodder with which every frequent traveler is familiar: salmon steaks under depressed fronds of dill, converted rice “pilaf,” well-stewed beef with too many button mushrooms. Turning to the beverages, I noticed with relief that BA had broken out some top-shelf liquor, which allowed me to savor, in lieu of a meal, two fat Johnny Walker Blacks on ice. When I went back for number three, boarding was announced for my flight, and the pangs that had been flitting around my stomach all day finally landed hard at its base. I hustled out the door into the corridor and bumbled my carryon down the slim, lifeless corridor toward the gate. It was mid-September 2001, and I was in Logan Airport for a flight to London, one of the first international flights out of Boston since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon several days before. After that, I'd catch a connection to my destination, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Logan Airport was edgy in the week following 9/11, and I knew my presence at the entrance to the international gates threatened to make things edgier. I had been to Riyadh several times in the two years before 9/11, and I suspected that my fat, Arabic-stamp-filled passport would be a provocative document indeed. Sure enough, when I reached the head of the line, I was ushered aside by wary security guards and ordered to remove my shoes, belt, watch, jacket and headphones and to open my laptop and CD player for inspection. While my stuff got the once-, twice- and thrice-over, I was surrounded a growing number of well-armed representatives from a mishmash of security, police and military organizations: the Mass Bay Transit Authority, the U.S. Army, the Boston Police, the Marines, the Federal Aviation Authority, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Massachusetts State Police. I smiled at them; my stomach growled at no one in particular. Anxious hunger pangs have a lot of obvious downsides, but they have benefits as well, such as providing the useful, contradictory distraction of purposeful attention in tense situations. As the workers worked, I felt less and less anxious and more and more annoyed. It pissed me off that I risked a bullet in the back if I tried to beat that security phalanx and snatch the king-sized Twix that I so desperately needed from the concession stand. When they started asking questions about the thick soles of my shoes, I decided it was best to wait it out. A few minutes later, re-dressed and -accessorized, I boarded the plane. My chocolate craving had been sated, and a few extra 3.35 ounce bars had been stowed away for midair emergencies. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> The British Air executive lounge at Heathrow’s international terminal has shower facilities, a solid bar, friendly staff, internet access, and the worst food imaginable between legs of a twenty-hour travel day. Not wanting mealy apples or a dry sandwich, and having rejected the booze-and-chocolate approach that kept me sleepless from Boston to London, I headed out to the terminal shops. Walking about also seemed a better idea than enjoying a Pimms Cup while staring out the lounge windows at jumbo jets on the tarmac, my approach to this layover during past trips. The view that had then held my interest prompted ugly thoughts about the tragedies of scale that unfold when such big planes hit things like buildings. I walked out of the lounge to my favorite Heathrow haunt, a drab version of a London pub with a forgettable name and decent grub. I’d had meals there in the past and kept coming back because of the fine pints of bitter, whose perfect taste and temperature reminded me that I was in England, albeit in a very strange neighborhood. I ordered chicken tikka masala, the dish that trial and error proved was the best of the lot, and sat on a stool nursing my ale and munching papadums. My stomach full with meal and pint, I wandered down the terminal into a few duty-free shops and, gazing with ardor at the scotch selection, contemplated the conundrum of trips to and from the dry Kingdom. I grabbed a bottle of Laphroaig, imaging how a wee dram would taste as the sun shined upon and the final call to prayer drifted over the burning Riyadh asphalt. I wrestled with the urge to buy a bottle, head off to the restroom and pour its contents into a well-rinsed Listerine container. As always, the thought of spending months in a Saudi jail for alcohol smuggling lead me to place the bottle back on the shelf. I pondered the smoke rising off that Laphroaig as I ambled past familiar shops waiting for the Riyadh flight to board. Some stores felt exactly the same: drifting into and out of Pink, I decided again that their delectable shirts required a lifestyle and an income bracket that I sadly lacked. But other stores had been transformed by the events just a few days before. Shops selling Swiss Army and Zippo products had revamped their inventory, since several airlines had begun prohibiting knives, lighters, and nail files on their planes. Reading the signs about these newly weaponized items, I found myself playing a little diversionary game, wondering precisely how this and that had been changed by 9/11. Suddenly my head was filled by an extraordinarily loud alarm, screaming on and off in half-second blasts. On my right, a massive security gate began to close off the entrance of the terminal; some shopkeepers hurried to draw down their own gates, while others just looked out, immobilized, from their registers. There were no announcements over the intercom, no security guards or airport officials appearing to usher us here or there. So most of us just stopped, looked around, and proceeded to do nothing whatsoever while dread and confusion crawled over our faces. In the intervals of the bleating alarm I could hear that the usually noisy terminal was otherwise utterly silent. Then, just as suddenly, the alarm stopped, and it -- whatever it was -- ended. At first, no one moved, but as the gate at the entrance of the terminal rose, we all realized that we had planes to catch: purpose replaced panic. In the ruckus, I had dropped my carryon, so I bent down to pick it up, and I felt a strange pain in my hand. My fingernails had left deep, red impressions in my wet left palm. I decided that I needed another pint. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, filled with expansive, cool horizontal space and the quiet splash of extensive indoor fountains, looked as beautiful as it had on every other trip. If anything, folks were even more gracious than before, appreciative, perhaps, that an American had come to the Kingdom at such a precarious time. However, as the friendly cabbie drove up the entrance of my hotel, a group of Saudi National Guard troops scowled at me, one from beside a large machine gun mounted on a small jeep. Things seemed different inside too: the lobby of the hotel, usually filled with throngs of western- and Arab-dressed folks hanging around as the hour approached midnight, was empty save for dapper hotel staff, dark-suited security officers talking into radios and Army soldiers who had yet to start shaving peering awkwardly from their loose-fitting uniforms. On each of my trips to the Kingdom, the front table in my hotel room had displayed a generous array of gifts representing Arab hospitality at its finest, usually a vibrant bouquet of flowers, a handwritten note welcoming me, a large fruit basket and most wonderful of all, a box of Bateel dates. My room-arrival ritual had always involved dropping into a chair, flicking off my shoes, and savoring four or five Saudi dates in a row, whose perfection made me forget my sore joints and fuzzy brain. On this trip, the flowers were nice enough, as was the fruit basket, though perhaps less abundant. The note had been replaced by a form letter. Most troublingly, those dates were nowhere to be found. After my shower, when the room service food came, I poked the olives and pickles around the mezzeh platter for a while, then I realized that I wasn't particularly hungry after all. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> Thwarted by that initial disappointment, the search for good, sustaining food in Riyadh became my obsession. The next chance I got, I headed to the mall across town to load up on dates at my favorite store, and I grabbed a couple of pounds of spectacular nuts for good measure. Having those snacks in the room didn't do much, though, so I turned my attention to meals. I always had a bowl of bran flakes with yogurt and a big pot of coffee each morning, but that morning's preference dictated whether I took a full Western breakfast in my room (a poached egg with some facon -- the expat's wise-ass nickname for beef bacon -- and toast) or supplemented my usual with an Arab breakfast in the hotel cafe (foul madamas, olives, and some bread). Crucial meals they were, and often quite swell; however, they preceded, but did not follow, the sorts of stressful daytime events that required sustenance later in the evening. Nor did lunch provide comfort. I typically shared my midday meal with teachers and staff at the school where our progressive educational project was located. Suffice it to say that, whatever broad cultural differences exist between U.S. and Saudi life, the mediocrity of institutional fare is a universal truth. As we slogged anxiously through the details of our suddenly and infinitely more complicated collaboration, I considered the fact that gloppy Swedish meatballs, queerly soft peas, breaded fish fried to remove all moisture, carrots cut in soggy dice and white bread sandwiches enclosing "mystery meat" laid a culinary common ground that schools must share across the globe. I did, on occasion, have the ability to eat meals out during the day, but they presented their own challenges. It is possible, while in Riyadh, for those with heartfelt commitments to U.S. fast food to live utterly upon it: one can enjoy a Dunkin Donuts glazed stick and hot coffee (though not iced coffee, oddly) for breakfast, a KFC bucket with all the fixins for lunch, and a McDonalds “beefburger” (Saudi Arabia being halal, no ham, thanks) and fries for dinner. The boycotts against US interests hadn’t yet hit the Kingdom, so it was common to see Saudis lined up in two queues, one for veiled women and one for non-veiled men, at the mall Baskin Robbins, choosing from significantly fewer than 31 flavors. While there are also indigenous fast food chains, led by the ubiquitous Herfys featuring an array of Saudified fast food options, there’s not too much street food in many parts of Riyadh, largely because the daytime outdoor temperatures make pedestrian traffic rare. Some non-Saudi food shops throughout the central city serve pan-Arab fare, cafeteria-style, but I'd only had a few meals in such places, driving with a friend to grab some middling schwarma and a too-sweet sweet after the more formal places closed at midnight. On a whim one Thursday, I tried to drive to the working-class Pakistani neighborhood where many folks in the service industry live, but I couldn't communicate effectively enough to the cab driver using his bad British English and my appalling Egyptian Arabic to get there. When I asked a colleague how to get there, he laughed, told me I must be a "foolish liberal," and insisted on sushi. Not surprisingly, the sushi didn't cut it, and many similar higher-end places were also disappointing, serving overpriced kung pao chicken, curry, or kebabs. Indeed, like another desert megalopolis built in the second half of the 20th century, Riyadh shares Vegas's penchant for possessing every kind of food imaginable; unlike Vegas, whose restaurant quality has lately taken a turn for the better, Riyadh still struggles to provide the sort of dining that travelers to most large cities expect. The only place that I knew that served solid, outstanding food was a remarkable Moroccan restaurant at which I always managed to wrangle a meal from my hosts. I would sit down, loosen my belt, and eat three months' worth of delectable olives, tagine and couscous at a sitting. But that fine meal was work, as I'd have to hide my glee from my host, the school's director, while I talked shop, a delicate performance of rank and relations played out by 20 folks over three hours at the bedraggled ends of a fourteen-hour day. Flummoxed by the lack of good choices, on the first few evenings I was in Riyadh I chose to amble out to the garden restaurant at the hotel next door to have some tried-and-true Middle Eastern classics: spit-roasted lamb, hommus, tabbouleh and a few platefuls of mezzeh, finished off with a heaping, luscious bowl of the puff pastry, cream, coconut and almond pudding known as om ali. It was perfectly prepared, delicious food, especially the om ali, which was utterly satisfying in every way. But it didn't take. Eating that food, like getting a massage, or smoking a Cohiba, or walking through the souk, did nothing to allay my growing sense of anxiety. One late night, lying up in bed, I figured it out. I didn't need to eat. I needed to cook. <div align="center"> -- This is part one of two. Part two is here. --</div> Chris Amirault (aka, well, chrisamirault) is Assistant Director of eG Forums, the self-styled Czar of the eGullet Recipe Cook-Offs, and the proud owner of an apron displaying Yoko Ono's ass. He also runs a preschool and teaches in Providence, RI.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1154103508/gallery_29805_1195_2965.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">By Priscilla I used to say I’m a more enthusiastic than good gardener, but not anymore. Oh no way have I suddenly become a good gardener -- I just lost my enthusiasm. In a way, it’s all Carey McWilliams’s fault, him and his California microclimates. In the canyon here, days are shorter than they are in the Flatlands, or up on the Mesa, as locals refer to the somewhat closer-in and certainly more built-up nearby suburbs, which do in fact have proper names. But said names don’t get much use around here. Locally, the paved road in our neighborhood is the Main Road, also not its real name. I find myself using these terms too sometimes, so that I can make myself understood, although I acutely remember the utter oddity of having no idea what people were talking about a lot of the time when I first moved here. Which is something I’m used to. It was not unlike working in the local newspaper backshop years ago, where I felt like a foreign spy. (A good spy, though -- no one but me was aware!) It makes me think -- made me think at the time -- of how Gertrude Stein said living among Francophones was good for her writing. There is something to be said for not being able to eavesdrop, or having currency in, conversations and goings-on all around you. But anyway -- microclimates. And fava beans. When Ivan and I lived in the Flatlands, we had a dependable full day of full-on HOT Southern California sun, and the correspondingly fantastic tomatoes, eggplant, basil -- anything we wanted. Petunias, even, which are not a flower I especially like, but there was a day I wanted some “annual color,” as they say in the gardening brochures, for a planter destined for other things later, and I was there, and they were pink, and well, I planted them and stood back and marveled at how they bloomed all that spring and through summer. Here in the canyon, even if I wanted to and I don't, but still: I know I couldn’t get a petunia to go beyond the weary, bruised blossoms already on the six-pack sitting there at Home Depot. And that, Dear Readers, is because our Carey McWilliams microclimate is preternaturally short days, with the sun rising behind a ridge and setting behind another, and while it can get hot as blazes in the middle there, ten degrees hotter than the one mile distant soi-disant Mesa a lot of the time, things just don’t grow the same. Tomatoes, for instance. We’ve had spotty success, notably Brandywine one year, whose flavor and production puts all other tomatoes we’ve grown to shame. A Costoluto Genovese grew into something like a small tree, but bore only a couple of fruit. An anonymous and undistinguished yellow tomato which eventually belied the Russian Black Prince marker stuck in its pot at the nursery; grew, bore--but we really wanted the Black Prince. Genericish Romas bore some, enough for me to put up several quarts with basil according to that crazy-like-a-fox Eleanora person's I saw on Martha Stewart’s show, but were not mind-blowing, which is the criterion, of course. Crazy Eleanora's canning method is absolutely superior; I highly recommend it. Overall, demoralizing as hell, to the point where one day I announced to those assembled, Ivan and the 14-year-old, that I was through with tomatoes. Ivan, who does a lot of the garden stuff anyway, said, like Nero Wolfe says, “Pfui,” and has indeed planted some. But I don’t hold out much hope, even for the Sun Gold, already sprawly and loaded with blooms. I know this because the plant is right over there by the giant beautiful fava bean plants -- I can’t help seeing, but they are no longer my concern. The favas: gorgeous plants, big old square stems, six feet tall, the most lovely mildly-sweet-pea-scented black and white blooms. Shelly beans and peas of all types have been another conundrum. A harvest of six or so peas, for instance, was so not reflective of the time and fuss invested. Ivan and the 14-year-old demolished an old shed, revealing some ungood soil in a sunnyish spot, and so we thought we’d plant favas, which are supposed to enrich the very soil they use to sustain themselves. The two varieties we grew were D'Aquadulce a Tres Longue Cosse and Windsor Long Pod, from Bountiful Gardens, whose catalogue also suggested an inoculant for the seeds at planting that may well have been the secret to success. We took to throwing a few pods on the grill while the fire was burning down, letting 'em char before shelling and eating. We also made a raw fava relish from Marcella Cucina that was so good. Favas are just good. Edward Giobbi, my model for holistic art/cooking/life, says for dried favas leave the pods on the plant until they are dried and then harvest, so that's what we'll do with some. And since we grew them in the first place to enrich this particular patch of soil, and Ed Giobbi says he leaves his in the ground a long time to that end, so shall we.The tomatoes meanwhile, sprawl even more, bloom, set fruit -- not that I care. However, I recently lost an interior argument and acquired a small, sturdy-looking shishito pepper plant at the Japanese market, and Ivan accommodatingly gave it its own little drip emitter. Inchoate wisps of butter-soy shishito like they make at our favorite sushi bar float just subliminally, threatening to gather form. Resolved: Hold out no hope, not a whit not a mote not an iota. Priscilla writes from a Southern California canyon populated by the typical mix of old hippies, wannabe off-the-gridders, equestrians running the gamut from 20-acre Thoroughbred full dressage to clip-clop nag-riding busted flat in Baton Rouge, schoolteachers, artists, wealthy entrepreneurs, and law enforcement officers (for some reason).

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1153457664/gallery_29805_1195_7961.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Tim Hayward My first memory of ‘eating out’ was of tea. I attended a Prep School with pretensions, one of which was classes on a Saturday morning. My Father, who’d attended the same baleful dump with rather more relish, would pick me up at lunch time and, as a treat, take me to the Docks to drink tea and watch the sand dredgers at work. There was a stall built into a railway arch that served the traditional array of artery cloggers and ‘made’ tea. As recommended by Soyer, Beeton and the British Army Catering Corps Field Manual, milk and sugar were already added and the whole kept piping hot all day. (God, I hope it was just the one day.) The dockers had it in what appeared to be huge old jam jars. There was a selection of mismatched mugs for visiting gentry, but I’m sure the proprietor thought ‘the cup’ was an annual football match. I can still see the deep oxblood red colour, taste the mysterious milk that came in crown-top bottles and feel the way the tannin made your teeth squeak and your tongue roll up. I’d still take a jam jar full of that in place of any perfectly brewed single-estate tea with honeyed champagne notes and a light smokey nose. Above all, though, I remember the pot. It was made of aluminium and had two handles, one in the regular place and another riveted above the spout. This was so the retired stevedore who ran the place could lift it off the gas ring and pour with it. He was a gigantic man, but then the great Valhallan pot was big enough to have contained a coiled child. Somebody suggested the other day that I could make excellent tea with good loose leaves and a Bodum cafetiere. It was a brilliant idea. No bags, no strainers, no fiddling around with warming the pot and stirring thirteen times clockwise, just a few spoonfuls of top-notch Darjeeling and a leisurely push on the piston. It was a heartbreaking experience. The liquid that flowed into my cup was perfect in flavour and presentation and utterly without emotional or cultural resonance. This is a problem. Tea is emotional and cultural resonance -- in a convenient liquid serving. There have been many attempts to imbue it with the baggage of connoisseurship. Yet, no matter how carefully you cup, swill, nose, honk and spit, when it finally comes down to it nothing is as moving as a hungover cup of ‘builder’s’ in a greasy spoon when you haven’t been back to your own to bed; the cup that comforts after an emotional upheaval; the cup that makes up after a ferocious row or the tiny bone china cup with your Grandma. The British rituals of tea might not match the Japanese for calm elegance and poise, but the ingredients, the process and the equipment are just as burdened with solemn significance. The vessel from whence the cuppa is poured is the key object in the British kitchen. Once the right pot is found it should be protected more jealously than your honour. A 'good pourer' with a properly built up lining of tannin and a spout that doesn't drip is a jewel of great price. If it comes with a cosy knitted by an elderly relative then you are thrice blessed. For many people, the ‘proper’ teapot is the Brown Betty. It is the teapot a child would draw, the ur-teapot, the sixth Platonic solid. A slipcast, red-ware beauty with a Rockingham glaze, made in the same Staffordshire factories since the days when Victoria had an Empire not a Secret. It crops up in bad war films more often than Alfie Bass, wielded by a brisk, competent WRVS volunteer, dispensing the original tea and sympathy to blitzed families and shell-shocked pilots. It appears in any café scene that needs to express higher social cachet than the urn. Others favour the straight-sided enamelled pot, often equipped with that extra handle at the front for leverage when pouring tea in institutional quantities. You sometimes come across these beasts in antique shops and, though they look undeniably fetching in a kind of road-mender/tinker/bargee way I can’t love anything which so resolutely refuses to patinate. My perfect pot is the Picquot Ware T6. My Mother had the first one as a wedding present at the beginning of the sixties. Hers is still going, though knackered. Mine was won at great personal cost in an extended negotiation with a man in Brick Lane Market and comes with the matching tray, milk jug, coffee pot and sugar bowl that my ancestors could probably not afford. The pots are milled and machined, from a single casting, to such fine tolerances that they can be inverted without leaking. They were built by Burrage and Boyd: a Northampton aluminium foundry that had been making ‘non-electric vacuum cleaners’ throughout the thirties. They had the same, massive, over engineered quality of most British goods of the time, but with the added appeal of irony-free Deco streamlining. Manufacture of the pots was suspended during the war while the company turned out vital military materiel. That little detail adds the extra spoonful to the myth of my pot. It feels like pouring your tea from a bit of a Spitfire. The T6 is made of ‘Magnailium’ an aluminium/magnesium alloy on which “a ‘silver like’ look could be obtained after polishing”. There’s something lovely about the pretension in that; the idea of buying something knowing that its very construction means an effort to maintain it. That implies either aspirations to gentility (right up there with polishing the front step and blackleading the grate) or servants. I’m a devotee of the tannin deposits in a teapot. Flavour and, damn it, character, are built up in that tarry coat. On the other hand, the knowledge that the outside of my T6 need not look like a slowly oxidising galvanised bucket was a spectacular revelation. Within minutes of finding that last little detail on their website, I was in the kitchen plying the ‘Duraglit’ with such frenzy that a couple passing in the street stopped and watched me through the window. Granted, I must have looked like I was encouraging a genie to appear but the humiliation meant nothing to me as, with a final flourish of the glass cloth, I revealed the satin lustre of my restored pot. If you ever ask a man about his watch or his car he’ll give you a wonderful line about how it expresses his character. I could never allow myself to be expressed as a vulgar red car or an enormous chunky diving watch. I am, I discover as I pour from my lustrous T6, a little teapot. Tim Hayward is a freelance writer living in London, and former host of the UK forum. He publishes the newsletter Fire & Knives. Photo by the author.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1152837011/gallery_29805_1195_5129.jpg" hspace="5" align="left">by Margaret McArthur In those blue hours just before a summer sunset my two-year-old self laid her head against her father's chest and settled into the bedtime ritual: storytime. It wasn't always an idyllic world -- I can't bear to conjure Dumbo's plunge into the ring of fire, the maniacal clowns, and his Mom's madness. But the next story from the stack on my bedside table could send a terrified toddler straight off to Dreamland, if it contained some good eating, and so many of my books were about food. I suppose they weren’t. Not really. The bunnies in The Tawny Scrawny Lion might have been making points about pacifism, but what I remember is the carrot stew. Peter Rabbit risked his cottontail to terrorize McGregor’s organic garden, and the Two Bad Mice trashed a mini-mansion when they discovered that the ham in the dolly's dining room was a plaster cast. Pooh had honey. But my real hero was Little Black Sambo, the kid who turned tigers into butter -- golden vortex of melted butter, just perfect for the pancakes Daddy flipped on Saturday mornings. The story hour with Daddy didn't last long; learning to read came early and I 've spent the rest of my life turning the pages way past bedtime. I can't remember the plot points of Heidi, but I sure remember Grandfather's raclette. Louisa May Alcott promoted "honest" food, and dress reform too, in Eight Cousins -- Rose the Heiress baked bread before she was permitted to explore the decadence of cake. (Oh, for her skating outfit –the one with the scandalous trousers!) I still shudder at the memory of the maggoty biscuit aboard HMS Bounty; to this day it seems worse than a bloody back bared to the cat-o-nine-tails. Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian could have rewritten history had they shared a short stack, swimming in melted tigers. I licked frosting from the beater of Mummy's Mixmaster, but my mary janes had mentally made their way to the stove before I could reach its knobs. Like sex when I was twelve (Frank Slaughter's Doctor's Wives and Thomas Mann's The Holy Sinner) and bird watching when I turned forty, I knew I wanted to cook because books told me it was important. I understood this long before my first visit from the Tooth Fairy. I can't remember the title -- can't remember a single recipe -- but I'm pretty sure I ordered my first cookbook through the Scholastic Book Club, as a budding third grade foodie in Gatineau, Quebec. (Things have changed, but when I was eight, Gatineau's claims to fame were an enormous newsprint mill , managed by my father, and a Dairy Queen owned by Paul Anka's uncle.) I do remember a "Clean Kitchen Cook" sign-off sheet, on which we swore to submit to Mom for signoff after adventures with cupcakes. We pledged to wash every sticky frosting bowl, swab every dribble of lemonade from the linoleum, and stash the sifter into its appointed corner in the baking cabinet. The book got lost in one of the moves my family made from one paper mill town to another. I own hundreds of cookbooks now, including a vintage Escoffier, a 1927 Fannie Farmer, and, inexplicably, two copies of Robert Farar Capon's The Supper of the Lamb. But I'd trade ten pounds of glossy photos and trendy ingredients for that smeary seminal volume -- my first cookbook, my very own cookbook, a cookbook written especially for kids. I hadn't thought of that book -- let's call it Cooking for Clean Canadian Kiddies -- since I pulled on my first pair of hose, long enough ago that my mother had to explain the mechanics of a garter belt. Two years later I'd mastered pantyhose, eyeliner, and The Sunbeam Mixmaster Cookbook, and I watusied my way down the shelf to The Joy of Cooking. I felt as if I'd been handed a backstage pass to a Kinks concert or a summer internship at Seventeen. This was joy, all right, but it was something even headier -- it was power! No more brownies and Jiffy Two-Egg Cakes for me. Absent my mother’s supervision, I could throw currants into a tomato sauce, fiddle with tiny logs of butter (Chicken Kiev) or sneak a sip of sherry (Mushrooms Under Glass). Even my brother liked the Country Captain and I realized why we always stocked onions in the avocado-green fridge: everything worth cooking started with runny eyes and a bloody thumb. My cousin learned to cook in the ashram because the Maharishi had lots of followers and a limited supply of brown rice (Dr. Conover now ponders the reasons lab rats pack on the pounds.) His brother worked the line at the Keg and Cleaver through high school and college; the proceeds of his MBA are spent on professional ventilation for his six-burner Viking and two-week stints at private cooking schools in Tuscan villas. (July, 2006 -- yes, the whole month -- finds Cort in Catalonian villas and Paris hotels, dining through a wish list that would make anyone gnash his bicuspids.) My brother Ian, who made a mean plate of maple fudge before his eighth birthday, grew up and married Hilary, a hottie caterer -- he cooks for a living now. One friend made his bones cooking for roomies in Ann Arbor; another made dinner for his mother and brothers because Mom was tangled in tougher things. An Amish farm girl learns to cook because it's her job. Irma and Marian Irma Romabuer and her daughter, Marian Becker, taught me how to cook. These ladies, my teenybopper kitchen skills, and the on-call technical support from Mummy made my kiddy cookbook as redundant as my saddle shoes. What I didn't know then is that Irma Rombauer had written A Cookbook for Girls and Boys two years before my parents went on their first blind date. For a collector like me, the lure of a second-hand bookstore is as irresistible as the pull of the lotto machine to the six people ahead of me at the gas station. I spotted its pink and white gingham binding in a used bookstore last last winter, pulled a ten from my purse within six seconds, and skipped home to savor the childrens’ cookbook I should have owned! It fell open to Chicken. The opening paragraphs didn’t waste time extolling the ease of the skinless boneless chicken breast, or suggest that a ten year-old could make his own McNuggets. The ten-year-old whose Dad had recently returned from Omaha Beach was made of sterner stuff! "To Clean a Chicken" didn't mean a quick cold shower and a patdown with a paper towel; Irma guided little Peggy Sue through decapitation, evisceration and gall bladder identification. She was warned to remember never forget to pull the stomach sac from the gizzard before proceeding to the first recipe in the section: Roast Chicken. I've never had to steel myself to perform a poultry post-mortem, but should it happen, I have a textbook set of procedures, elegantly written for the pre-teen pathologist. The pages look like those in Mummy's Joy, with the same wide margins and neat columns. It's illustrated with charming black and white silhouette work, and garnished with historical gems like "In French the word [canapé] means 'sofa.' So the sardine, cheese or tidbit used is resting on a sofa (in this case a small piece of bread.)" "Joseph Conrad, who wrote many fascinating novels of adventure, once said: 'Eating is a necessity, but it can be a pleasure.' " Or, from the vegetable chapter: "In England, however, the potato was not well known, and Shakespeare's audience thought it was uproariously funny to hear Sir John (Falstaff) cry from the stage: "Let the sky rain potatoes!" Michele Felice Corne was the first man to eat a tomato in the New England colonies, and there's a statue commemorating his valor in Newport, Rhode Island. Who knew? Maybe public education has gone to hell in a handbasket since Grandpa matriculated. The menus read like mid-century school night classics. Peggy Sue is wrapped in her Mom's apron, (a riot of rickrack). Dad's beaming at his Princess, and the little kids, Dick, Sally and Jane squirm in their seats until Big Sis sets down the Pork Chops with Scalloped Potatoes, French Bread and Harvard Beets. "No Apple Crisp until you finish your beets!” (Thursday is Liver and Onions night -- I bet Dick dragged his feet returning from his Boy Scout meeting.) Cookbook for Girls and Boys is a real cookbook, with four hundred recipes, no dumbing-down, and zero concessions to cake mix, shortcuts, or Sloppy Joes. The publisher, (Bobbs Merrill) provided blank pages at the back of the book for "Your Own Recipes. " It's long-ago owner, Clara Gordon Harley, bothered to scribble only one: Plum Pudding, which begins with the instruction: "Chop one pound suet." In 1952, (year of the second edition) Daddy Gordon didn't swing by Baker's Square on Christmas Eve to pick up one French Silk, One Apple -- Clara was in the kitchen stirring up some Lemon Sauce. I began to wonder if learning to cook is for most modern kids a chore as anachronistic as a paper route, or polishing the family shoes on Sunday night. After all, my friends and I weren't distracted by four seasons of interleague sports, a computer in the bedroom (with a clamoring buddy list) or baby-sitting our younger siblings until Mom got home after her busy day clerking for a Supreme. Mom and Dad don’t necessarily sit across from each other every night, making sure Brandon's eating his brussel sprouts and grilling li'l Kimberley about the wisdom of her belly ring. Heck, they probably haven't had time to check that the kids have washed their hands. Tiffany and Tyler Glum: That describes the four short shelves of cookbooks in my small-town library. The good ones I already own, the majority run to diet-of the-decade and a complete set of Jeff Smith. I was struck by the absence of any Kiddy Cookbooks, not even those devoted to the American Girls dolls -- heck I'd seen a notice announcing the formation of an American Girls Book Club on my way in! What, not even a copy of The Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook, the one that sold enough boxes of Bisquick to reach to the moon and back (before, I might add, NASA got its act together.) I approached the reference librarian, a hearty lady with sensible shoes, baggy cardigan and masterful mien -- a dead ringer for my tenth grade English teacher, Elsie McPherson. "Doesn't anyone publish cookbooks for children anymore? I checked over in Cookbooks and couldn't find a single one." Elsie lifted a hand from her ergonomic mouse and set down her can of Red Bull with the other. "Kid's cookbooks? We've got hundreds!" She rattled off the Dewey range. Feeling as if I'd forgotten to do my homework, I stared down at my shoes and said that I'd looked, I really had, and I couldn't find any. Elsie swung out of her chair and red-cheeked, I trailed her Reeboks to a corner in the children's section. She was right -- there were more cookbooks for little Madison than there were for her Mommy. Elsie squatted and started stacking cookbooks on the floor for me. "Let's see, Emeril's book is really popular. And kids like gross recipe books like Roald Dahl’s. And this one, where you can make a cake look exactly like a litterbox." I peered over her woolly shoulder and yup, that cake sure did look like a litterbox garnished with Tootsie Roll turds. "And then there are the American Girls cookbooks of course. They're always checked out." I told her that I owned the Samantha cookbook, a relic of my daughter's long-ago fling with an American Girl. Then I started my own stack. Samantha still sleeps in a box in the bedroom Honor abandoned ten years ago, but after I dumped my haul on the kitchen table, I checked for her cookbook in the bookcases -- nowhere to be found. Is it possible that Cooking with Samantha has made the move to Los Angeles and sits near the All-Clad, the 1975 Joy the ten Global knives and the sushi mats in my daughter's kitchen? I hope so -- an American girl's first cookbook. I poured myself a martini and commenced to con the kiddy cookbooks. Hoo Boy: I'd set a high bar for these efforts. Yes, I'm a cook, a writer and a mother –- my heart gladdens when I hear the children of friends have that cooking jones: Brianna has baked her first brownies, and little Lucas drills out dolmades. I realized that I'd established a set of serious criteria – a book should equip Ethan with a working knowledge of stocks, salads and sauces. He should know how to spatchcock a chicken, and he should be armed with all he needs to trim an artichoke. But, fretting about the short attention span of kids who can surf the seductive web for all cooking advice they could ever need, I wanted the books to be alluring. Many martinis later -- spread out over a span roughly equivalent to Spring Break -- I'd read Elsie's recommendations, scoped out the selection at the local Borders, and proceeded to checkout at Amazon with a couple of promising-looking candidates. Not one would get my vote for Student Body President, but it was sure an eclectic field. The only plank in every platform, pitched to all my children from Ashley to Zach was: More student parking? Open lunch for freshman? Lifting the restriction on bongs as a Pottery Class project? Nope: Granola. What were they smoking, those Boomer writers? They gave up granola before they'd retired their turntables and pulled down their Farrah posters. I’ve yet to meet a kid who’d rather drag out the rolled oats than nuke a piece of frozen pizza. Slipping into full-fledged fogey mode, I understood my mother's sadness that I can't decline Latin nouns (or is it verbs? Cases?) My grandfather could recite Coleridge. I understood for the first time why my American Girl, my brilliant English major, hadn't read Jane Austen in high school or college -- no one had assigned it. Most of these books seem to destine a child to scrape through real cooking lessons the way I scraped Joseph Conrad. Tyler and Tiffany can make a smoothie from these books; they can whip up some nachos. But they won't know how to make a pot roast or a piecrust, or even an Apple Crisp. If they turn to The Best Kids Cookbook (Sunset, 1992) they'll learn about the now-derided Food Pyramid, "Dawn to Dusk Granola" and "Halloween Orange Worms,” prepared from pureed apricots and gelatin. It's an earnest book that reminded me of a Health Class text, but cuter. Though it attempts to steer the cook onto the righteous lo-fat path -- way too many dishes call for Neufchatel cheese -- it does demonstrate sausage making, and tarnishes its healthful halo by including a lovely, lipid-laden recipe for Cheese Grits. Some kid must have liked it -- the pages had to be pried apart, they were so sticky. The Math Chef (John Wiley and Sons, 1997) reads like the lesson plan of a well- meaning sixth grade teacher -- there are quizzes about computing the area of a pan of brownies, answer keys to the quizzes, lectures on the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales, and instructions on how to figure half of three quarters of a cup. (That last is useful, actually!) But oh my, it’s dreary; so dreary I almost yearned for cutesy names and day-glo illustrations. My quick scan of the curriculum revealed the only recipe asking for butter rather than margarine: inexplicably, Animal Crackers. The Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook (1997) didn't rate a smear. It contains a scant fifty recipes, heavy on the store-bought tomato sauce: lasagna, pizza, tacos and their bubbly cheesy ilk. It's cheerful, it contains complete nutrition facts for every dish, and it won't tax the talents of your budding Batali – he's instructed to use a package of Ranch Dressing mix instead of olive oil and lemon juice. Better Homes and Gardens also gave us the latchkey kid classic: After School Cooking (1987) It's bright, it's pretty, and all a hungry kid needed to grab before wasting a few hours with Mario Bros. was a package of frozen waffles! We have "Yo Go Waffles", the "Wonderful Wafflewich (peanut butter and bananas,) "Pie a la Mode Waffles" -- pie filling from a can and instant pudding mix. When Jason wanted to come down from his sugar high, he didn't need to worry about nicking his game thumb with a paring knife -- he whipped out the freezer corn muffins and a can of chili. Soups come from cans, hash browns from a bag, and salad dressing from the supermarket. This book will teach you more uses for canned crescent rolls than Escoffier had for demi-glace. I felt myself slide into Concerned Parent Mode -- this wasn't teaching kids how to cook! These books were pushing a deadening after-school combination of homework, junk food and trips to the freezer. I kicked my hypothetical son off the computer, told him to go play outside, ride his bike, be a kid, maybe shoplift a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos from the Speedway. I opened my box from Amazon. The Fanny Farmer Junior Cookbook (Joan Scobey, Little Brown 1993) can't be accused of being garish, cute or patronizing – it includes five recipes for homemade salad dressing! But, dearie me, it is so prim, from the chaste black and white illustrations to the recipes for Boiled New Potatoes, Microwaved Fish and Blueberry Muffins. Your daughter won't get into any trouble here, but she'll be as likely to love it as wear a Laura Ashley dress to the prom. I turned with real hope to Marion Cunningham's Cooking With Children (Knopf, 1995.) The Grande Dame of authentic American food writing dedicates it to Evan and Judith Jones; with a gene pool like that, how could a hopeful child not learn to cook? In fact, this could be a useful volume for beginners of every age, with its basic repertoire, logical progression, careful instructions and realistic learning curve. Cunningham used her experience teaching cooking classes for children at a local community college, and it shows. She's devised a fifteen lesson master plan, each chapter building on skills taught in the ones before it: soup, salads, eggs, biscuits, meatloaf, popovers, bread, apple pie, roast chicken -- a kitchen canon. Chapter Nine, Pasta is exemplary. She gives us a summer and a winter version of Tomato Sauce: "Tomatoes can be dressed differently in the summer and the winter, just like you." Praise be, she demonstrates a splendid mac and cheese, including "a basic white sauce, which will reveal the mysteries of thickening." (The prose style she uses with children makes me grate my teeth along with that cup of sharp cheddar cheese!) Cunningham has done everything right in this book, and for all the right reasons. In her introduction she says, "Teaching children to cook, I think, is our greatest hope in recovering what we have lost. Those values we unconsciously learned and absorbed day after day as we shared meals together and exchanged conversation." Yes, all those lost things: Saturday morning pancakes, Sunday dinner, liver and onions on Thursday. I mourn their passing too, except for the liver.. It's a terrific book: why did it fall so flat for me? Maybe the lesson plan format, the lists of learning objectives for the little cook, the not-quite-good-enough illustrations, the rare photographs that look like family pictures snapped on Grandma's deck. The subtitle captures the tone of the book perfectly: "15 Lessons for Children, Age 7 and Up, Who really Want to Learn How to Cook." (Emphasis mine.) I felt as let down as I had when the high-minded Louisa May Alcott married Jo March off to that goody-goody German professor, instead of to the rich, dashing Laurie. It makes sense, it's the right thing to do, it's all for the best . . . but it made me yearn for some color, some romance. Some BAM! Hannah and Liam There's beaucoup bam in Emeril Lagasse's There's a Chef in My Soup, (Harper Collins, 2002) including a recipe for "Baby BAM" spice rub. Emeril's face beams from almost every page, the illustrations are bright, and the recipe names so damn cute I almost – almost -- wished for Cunningham's stern blue pencil. Have a Happy-Happy Club Sandwich, kiddies? Maybe a Notches Unknown PBJ? Care for a Ka-Bam Kabob? (Yup, the Crispy Crunchy Granola Munchies are yours for the asking: page 120.) But I soon took myself to task for being such a parental purist; these recipes sounded good! The instructions are clear, he's enthusiastic, and he's concerned about safety. (Maybe a little too concerned: he recommends that we cook our hamburgers well done -- can he really prefer his meat gray? Hah.) And Emeril’s a brand. Children know brands, and as sure as they know that Puma sneakers are cool again, they know that Emeril is everywhere. Children watch Food TV, and Rachael Ray is the way cutest brand for the twelve-year-old lad who's perused her spread in his big brother's Maxim. Her Cooking Rocks! (Lake Isle Press 2004) is spiral bound , bright , bouncy and heavy on sugar-rush recipes . Rick Bayless’s Rick and Lanie’s Excellent Kitchen Adventures (Stewart Tabori and Chang, 2004) is a serious cookbook featuring recipes from their road trips in Mexico, Oklahoma, Morocco, Thailand and France, along with the Pedagogue Dad/Smartmouth Daughter back-and-forth that rings true. Barbie: there's branding even Emeril can’t match. I thought of her when my Wolverine buddy told me a story. His five-year-old daughter is allowed, as a special treat, to stay up late on Wednesday night and watch Alton Brown with her Daddy. Just before Christmas, as he was putting her to bed after their quality time with FoodTV, she begged: "Please, please Papi, don't give me any Mr. Brown tapes for Christmas. I want a doll!" Iris, don't tell your father, but do I have a cookbook for you! Barbie Fun to Cook (Dorling Kindersley, 2001). It’s a slim forty-eight pages of girlie fun, packing the same picture-heavy format DK used in the Anne Willan Look and Cook series ten years ago. Like Emeril in his cookbook, Barbie bubbles from every page in hers, but with better hair and cuter clothes. She and her multiracial Barbie buddies cook like girls, and why not? Their sleepover Nacho Nibbles are untainted by the leering lure of prepared food products, their Cute Cookies are very cute, and the Dippy Chicken requires marination, skewer-threading and a semi-authentic satay sauce. My mother once frowned at Barbie -- in fact I was the only girl in my school without one. But Mummy came to her senses and now bestows Barbie at every gift-giving opportunity, and her great-nieces love her. Now that Rachel and Lauren are a little older, I think she should send them each a copy of Barbie Fun to Cook for Christmas, along with Barbie's Dream Kitchen. Barbie and Emeril gave this high-minded foodie Mom a reality check. Who cares if Barbie isn't discussing demi-glace with Skipper, or that Emeril is flogging a pint-sized line of cookware and tiny aprons? Maybe, like gas station coffee, granola has improved since Kent slung macrobiotic slush in the ashram. I know that there's a serious child who will follow Marion Cunningham's curriculum to the letter. Perhaps making pizza on a Bisquick crust, all by himself, will spur your son to buy a package of yeast some day and fool around with focaccia. Of course you could bypass the Kiddy Cookbook genre entirely, and present her with Joy or Julia or Jean-Georges. The buddy who dished dinner to his brothers before his voice changed might have reached for Rachael Ray. But, oh the enchantment when I held in my chubby hands that long-ago cookbook that was written for me. My book, my recipes, my name on the flyleaf. Buy your kid a cookbook, any old cookbook -- his very own cookbook. Write his name on the flyleaf, and date the inscription. I bet you a bunch of Ka-Boom Kabobs that your child will organize an unscheduled trip to the supermarket before her next soccer practice -- in fact, you might just want to fire up Excel and make up your own Cleanup Checklist before you pull the minivan out of the driveway. But when you put her on the plane for Purdue, and pack away her 4-H ribbons, discarded eyebrow rings and favorite Puffalumps, please cuddle her cookbook into a corner of the box. She'll want it someday. Margaret McArthur, aka maggiethecat, is host and Dark Lady of the Daily Gullet Competition forum. She writes, cooks and tends her garden near Chicago.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1152192600/gallery_29805_1195_5979.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Ivy Knight On a sunny spring morning I'm on Queen Street in Parkdale, in Toronto, in Canada. The sun actually shines here sometimes (quelle surprise!), so I left the sled dogs at home and opted not to wear my favourite lumberjack ensemble. I'm not heading to the beer store for a couple of two-fours of Molson or to the butcher for a few pounds of back bacon. I'm just standing here, waiting for the doors to open at St. Francis Table . Waiting with me are Sean, Alice and Larry, three volunteers from different backgrounds who have given their time to this enterprise for a combined 10 years. St. Francis Table is a restaurant staffed by volunteers to serve the people of Parkdale who are in need. Do not confuse that with a soup kitchen. Here the customers pay for their meals and are seated at a table with a server to wait on them. They pay only a dollar, but that single dollar is enough to make them feel less like they're getting a handout, and more like they are functioning, contributing members of society. Brother John, a member of the Capuchin Brotherhood, an offshoot of the Franciscan family, gives me a bit of the history on the restaurant. They opened their doors in December of 1987, after a survey showed that food service for the poor of Parkdale was the number one need. "We felt that the city didn't need another soup kitchen." says Brother John. He stands at the door during meal service in his long, brown hooded robe, looking like Friar Tuck without the frothing mug of ale, greeting each customer, most of them by name, as they arrive. This restaurant has provided over half a million meals since it opened. "From day one we had patrons owing for meals. At the end of the month every single patron was paying up. We took this as an early indicator of their appreciation for what we do here." The restaurant is privately funded, relying on the charity of private individuals and businesses for income. It serves a three course lunch from Sunday to Friday adding a three course dinner from Monday to Thursday, with often more than a hundred customers per service. That's a lot of food and a lot of labor. They offer a drop-in space for the St. Francis Table patrons -- a warm and welcoming environment for folk to get off the street for a while. St. Basil the Great Catholic School provides student volunteers. As part of the curriculum in Grade Twelve every student will pass through St. Francis's doors. Today there are four girls, Ivana Cotic, Diana Chiodo, Sarah Migliaccio and Patricia Rubino. Both Sarah and Patricia have been here before and were surprised by the space. "I expected it to be more run down, I thought it would have been more like a cafeteria" Sarah admits. "I also never thought I would like serving so much." All the girls seem to love it here. Adds Ivana, "We've only been here an hour and it's so comfortable it feels like we've been here forever." It's a very friendly place. In the spotless kitchen, Head Chef Sam Kumarasamy puts the girls to work cutting French fries. "We make our own fries here," he tells me. "The students really like to do a job different from their daily life, it makes them happy and they learn new skills. This is not only about feeding the poor, this is about bringing people together. These girls will now have a better understanding of people they see on the street. They will see them as human beings because of the experiences they've had here." Volunteers Rosa, Lily and Alice are cutting veggies for salad while Larry prepares the tuna for tuna salad sandwiches. I'm happy to see he's using Hellman's and not Miracle Whip. If I had my way, Miracle Whip would be wiped off the face of the planet. It's disgusting. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> Today is Wednesday, so it's tuna salad sandwiches and fries for lunch. Larry obviously knows a thing or two about the perfect tuna salad -- he's been making it every week for seven years. The menu is totally up to Sam for the remainder of the week. Right now he's bustling around making sure everything that needs to get done is getting done. "My work is to keep everything organized and running smoothly. We have about two hours prep time and then we open the doors for service. The customers, they don't like to wait. Everything has to be ready when they get here." Sam shows me the dishwashing machine which they bought from Diversey Lever, who now donates all the necessary detergent and chemicals, and maintains all of the equipment at no charge. He takes me to a large standup fridge, filled with cakes and pastry. "Fortino's supermarket donates all day-old pastry and if Dufflet Pastry has a damaged cake they freeze it and give it to us. We're happy to have so many desserts to offer our customers." I realize just how much these people and this calling means to Sam, who's aware of how the little extras can make a meal mean so much more than just refuelling -- everybody needs a treat. Most of the rest of the food is purchased, with Sam buying all the meat and produce himself. "Through experience I finally found the best butcher, Mr. Limo at O Nosso Talho (Bloor and Dufferin). Sometimes the bank card has no money in it and he says ‘Don't worry about it, pay when you can.' He gives us very good deals." We go downstairs to dry storage where two teenage boys are loading bags with dry pasta to be taken to the food bank, where all the excess donations are sent. There are rows of shelves filled with non-perishable items. Brother John tells me how one parish in Woodbridge put out a call for everyone to make lasagnas. "We got over three hundred lasagnas which are stored in the walk-in freezer. We just put the word out for what we need and usually end up with three or four times more than what we asked for, so we pass it along. Between volunteers and donors, we're blessed every day." This place is definitely an exception to the rule when it comes to feeding the poor. If it were like this everywhere we wouldn't see Christmas in July posters for food bank drives. St. Stephen in the Fields Church may be losing its meals program, which provides free breakfast to approximately two hundred people every weekend. The Anglican Diocese wants to boot everyone out and sell the prime piece of real estate to the highest bidder. The church was built in 1857, a food bank was started in the 1970's, the church is now serving 7,000 meals annually to the people in the community. Robin Benger, who runs the Sunday breakfast program, tells me "The church is locked in the final stage of the battle to stay alive. I'm carrying on regardless. I'm committed to making sure those people get a free meal once a week for as long as I can provide it." <div align="center">* * * * *</div> Back at St. Francis Table, Sam shows me a shelf filled with boxes stamped with the American Airlines logo, containing stainless steel knives, forks and spoons. "These were donated after 9/11 when they switched to plastic. Our customers feel like they are flying first class when they use this cutlery." I meet Brian in the kitchen, a retired elementary school teacher. He's been volunteering here for two years. "This is the one thing on my schedule that's etched in stone. It's different from other places; there's a lot of respect for the customers. They say it's really nice to be served rather than have something put on a tray. You get to know the people. Some have mental health issues, there but for the grace of God are we. These people have lives and they're intelligent, they just happen to be in reduced circumstances." I'm introduced to Cassie and Noreen who are support staff for the Community Living Toronto Youth 2 Work Program. They are here with Sean, Andrew and Zinaida. "I come in and job coach for youth with intellectual disabilities," explains Cassie. "These three have all expressed interest in food. I'm here to teach them new skills. We have youth working everywhere. We train them on the job so it doesn't take time away from the regular staff. We stay on the job with them and slowly phase out until they are working independently. Once the customers come in, Andrew busses tables and Sean and Zinaida wash dishes. It's about allowing them to be who they are and focus on what their goals are. We don't say ‘Loblaws has a placement, you're going there.' You see a lot of growth, they're being integrated into the community. It makes them proud and gives them a feeling of self-worth." Sean, who looks a little like Alex P. Keaton, smiles broadly to himself, he looks up and says, "This is my favorite place." Everything's ready and the doors open. Ivana has taken her first order. "I'm so nervous, I keep asking my friend what I should say," she confides as she picks up a plate for her customer. Rosa and Alice stand behind the steam table filling orders. The servers run to get cutlery and drinks while Lily mans the coffee service. People are streaming in. It looks like lunch in any busy restaurant, with no suits and cell phones -- a noticeable and welcome difference. There are a few guys who look like roadies for the Grateful Dead, some flower children gone to seed, some seniors. Everyone quietly eats their lunch, sometimes talking with their table partners. No one is falling over drunk or screaming obscenities. It's calmer than I would have thought possible. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> Gerry McGilly has been the administrator here for six years and we go to his office to talk. He got into this from a social justice point of view. "I was doing street outreach, helping people find housing and a housing project was originally planned for this site so I was brought in. There wasn't enough money for the housing project, so a meal program was implemented instead. You can't fight housing and social justice problems so easily but you can feed people easily. The lunches here tend to be more about getting the food out and keeping it simple for the volunteers. For dinner, Sam gets a little more creative and offers more options." Gerry enjoys working with the Capuchin brothers. "They're like the hippies of the Christian world. They have a joyful way of looking at things. People are more important to them than rules and regulations. The focus here is to try and find what we have in common, not what makes us different." For small charities, a twenty year life span is the norm; donors lose interest, your volunteers, who are usually retired people, are unable to come anymore. I ask Gerry if this concerns him. "We're not worried. The religious connection allows us to get a lot of volunteers through the local Catholic schools and the Centre for Student Missions, who send kids from all over North America to spend a week volunteering here and understanding our mission." It's a mission that provides something rarely seen in situations where the poor and disenfranchised are concerned: nourishment and dignity for the customers, a deeper understanding of their fellow man for the student volunteers, and a greater sense of self and place in the community for those involved in the Youth 2 Work program. I've worked as a cook for the past six years. I've been in plenty of kitchens filled with screaming, freaking madmen racing the clock to get the food ready and out to the customers who are paying a small fortune. The kitchen at St. Francis has to get the food out for sure, and they have to get it out to customers who are paying their small fortunes. These customers have had their palates honed by near starvation -- the most important part of their day is this meal. That's pretty intense pressure, but I don't think I've ever seen a kitchen full of people enjoying themselves so much. No stress. Kindness and goodwill permeate the place. Every chef I've worked with over the years has said that the secret to good food is the love you put into it. If that's so, St. Francis Table is serving the best food in the world. Ivy Knight (aka Ivy) writes for gremolata.com and works as a professional chef in Toronto at Joy Bistro. She is currently on the mend with a broken rib sustained while fighting as Vic Payback in the Pillow Fight League.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1152073313/gallery_29805_1195_19154.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Eliot Wexler Have you ever wished to travel back in time to try the cuisine of Escoffier or another famous chef who's no longer behind the stove? I have, and for me that chef is Joel Robuchon. I’d always wished for the opportunity to experience his cuisine at its three-star best. He’s a chef so great that even his pommes purees are legendary. Mashed potatoes? What could JR do to them that no one else could? I finally got to try his pommes puree at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Paris in the summer of 2005. Once a bite of this distinctive and unique treat hit my tongue, I felt I tasted Robuchon’s version of 'Stairway to Heaven." My dream to try JR’s cuisine in a three-star setting became a reality when the gastronomic landscape of the United States changed in October of 2005. This was when Chef Joel Robuchon opened two restaurants -- his first in the United States -- at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. One, called Robuchon at the Mansion, is a fine dining establishment, and the other is the less formal L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. Before my dinner at Robuchon at the Mansion, I had the opportunity to meet with the top toque himself. I asked JR some questions and got a look into the inner workings of Robuchon’s kitchen. EW: When you opened a restaurant in China, you said that you wanted to use French techniques to adapt food to Chinese tastes. What if anything have you done to adapt to the American diner? JR: The western food culture is all alike so you don’t really need to adapt. On the contrary, you really need to understand and adapt yourself to the Asian culture and cooking. EW: How do you expect your various restaurants to conform to you and what levels of autonomy do they have? Will the food at L’Atelier Las Vegas be the same as it is in Paris and elsewhere? JR: They are always doing my style of cooking. All the L’Ateliers have the same menu. Each staff will adapt to the products that are available in their locations EW: Are your food sources global or local for each individual restaurant? JR: It depends on the product. EW: Who are your favorite American purveyors? JR: These are the best that I know with the best products: West Central Produce-Alan Weiss for vegetables, Four Story Hill Farm- Sylvia and Stephen Pryzant for poultry and veal, The Chef’s Garden- for all the herbs EW: What do you think of the various American food safety restrictions vs. European food safety restrictions (sous-vide etc.)? JR: Everyday we use products that are perishable. We need to pay maximum attention to the sanitary laws, but I’m not scientific and I hope to adapt myself more to the country’s laws. EW: What are your likes and dislikes of the United States? JR: I like the space. I do not like the immigration formalities EW: What are your favorite cities to dine in? JR: Paris, Tokyo, New York, Alicante (Spain) EW: What are your favorite restaurants? JR: In terms of quality and price: Nou Manolin (Alicante), El Bulli, Martin Beratasegui in Spain, Jiro in Tokyo, Le Pre Catalan and Le Bristol in Paris, Marc Veyrat in Annecy , and Per Se, Jean Georges, Daniel Boulud and Le Bernardin in New York. EW: Who is your favorite Chef? JR: The Swiss Chef Freddy Girardet EW: Where was your favorite meal cooked for you in a restaurant other than your own? JR: Freddy Girardet EW: If you could pick any Chef dead or alive to cook you a meal, who would it be? JR: The late Jean Delaveyne and Charles Barrier EW: If you knew that you had one last meal, where would it be (other than your restaurants)? JR: In my house, with the people I love. EW: What dish do you cook at home the most often? JR: At my house, it’s my wife who does the cooking EW: What is the favorite dish that you have created? JR: La Gelee de caviar a la crème de chou-fleur EW: What do you think of the Michelin rating system and of the Chefs that want to give back their stars? JR: The world changes, the customer also… The guests want more simplicity and the first thing they want is quality on the plate instead of better décor. The Michelin Guide needs to adapt itself also to address this evolution. EW: The current hot trend is “Molecular Gastronomy”, what do you think of it and how is it perceived in France? JR: It is very marginal in France. EW: Where do you see French cuisine in the next 5 years? JR: The French, because of their geography, have many different important products and qualities. The history of gastronomy is very rich, and the culture is open-minded. I see more creativity and even more conviviality. EW: Do you remember any advice that you were given as a young chef and do have any advice for a young chef? JR: Work, perseverance, creativity, perfection EW: In eG Forums, there is a discussion on the exact method to make your Pommes Puree. What is the recipe? JR: See the recipe in the book "Simply French," by Patricia Wells EW: Do you have any plans on opening restaurants in any other cities? JR: Yes -- NYC, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tel Aviv. <div align="center">* * * * *</div> <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1142396979/gallery_30892_2382_836430.jpg" hspace="8" height="320" width="240" align="left">Chef Robuchon watching the “Amuse” being plated for the Degustation Menu The world might have never tasted the magic of Joel Robuchon had he stuck to his original plan and finished his studies at the seminary. However, Robuchon gave up his studies at age 15 and went to work to support his family. He apprenticed at the hotel-restaurant Relais de Poitiers, where he started his culinary education. He stayed at the Relais de Poitiers for three years and then became a Compagnon du Tour de France. This was essentially an apprenticeship which moved him around France. Working with different chefs enabled him to learn a vast variety of techniques and gain experience with regional ingredients. If an apprenticeship program like that were in existence in America today, a young chef could sharpen his skills with the likes of Eric Ripert , Jose Andres, Grant Achatz and Alice Waters. What a way to learn! Robuchon took full advantage of the apprenticeship, exposing himself to techniques and ingredients that he would call upon during his whole career. Robuchon worked in various restaurants all over France from 1963-1973, following the completion of his traveling apprenticeship. The most important may have been the Berkeley restaurant, where he worked from 1966-69. While there, he met Chef Jean Delaveyne. Robuchon said of Delaveyne, ". . . for me, Delaveyne was the first to help us move out from under the yoke of Escoffier -- he was in truth the beginning of nouvelle cuisine, teaching me that cuisine was more than manual, more than technique, that it was also reflection." Next on Robuchon’s journey to excellence was the Concorde-Lafayette Hotel in Paris, where by age 29, he was managing 90 cooks who were turning out 5000 meals a day. In 1976, Robuchon was awarded the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France, the most prestigious award for Chefs. Created in 1924,' Meilleur Ouvrier de France" translates as best workman of France and is awarded every three years. Soon after, Chef Paul Bocuse invited Robuchon to teach in Japan. Japan opened Robuchon’s eyes to a style of cooking which employed simple presentations and avoided heavy saucing. This exposure led to him to creating single ingredient dishes in an era known for its extravagant and complex platings. Robuchon’s next stop was the Hotel Nikko in Paris, from 1978 until December of 1981. Robuchon’s star began to rise with the opening of Jamin, where he became chef and owner for the first time. Jamin garnered its first Michelin star three months after opening, and the second and third followed in quick succession. During this time, Robuchon created a number of his signature dishes and his style continued to develop. He began using dots and squares of sauces to amplify flavor and the appearance of the plate. Of his cooking philosophy, Robuchon says: "To make a grand meal, you have to make it simple. To look simple is very complicated. You need the highest quality products, the best equipment and you have to keep the focus on the original flavor of the product. I have learned truth from my ingredients." When asked by Patricia Wells how to describe his cooking, he answered, "Today’s cuisine might be called cuisine actuelle, a cooking in which we rediscover the savors, flavors, tastes, of an ingredient. If you’re eating lobster, it should taste like lobster. If you’re eating mushrooms, they should taste like mushrooms. As cooks, we have the right to enhance or heighten flavors, but we do not have the right to destroy them." Robuchon, needing a larger space, closed Jamin in 1993 and in 1994 opened the more luxurious Joel Robuchon, where he was again awarded three Michelin stars. His cuisine became more refined and creative, introducing "Plats du Voyage," menus based on his travels outside of France. The closure of this second venue marked the end of the first chapter of Joel Robuchon’s career behind the stove. Chef Joel Robuchon wanted to go out on top. On July 5 1996, after winning three Michelin stars and being named "Chef of the Century," he retired. He handed the keys of his restaurant over to Chef Alain Ducasse and ended his career behind the stove. No more Pommes Purees, No more gelée de caviar a la crème de chou-fleur, no more galette de truffles aux oignons et lard fume or any of the other Robuchon classics. Foodies far and wide were devastated. Had he lost a step? No. The truth was this was always Robuchon’s plan. He’d promised himself that he would retire in his prime. "You have to know when it's time to quit," the three-star chef said. "A great chef has to be in great shape. Cooking is tough. It's like being an athlete who has to stay really fit." So, keeping his promise to himself Robuchon said, "I want to live," and walked away. Robuchon retired from the restaurant business, but not from food. He kept his passion alive by hosting a cooking show on French television, launching a line of prepared dishes bearing his name, opening a school on the fine art of dining, and writing for magazines and cookbooks. It was not enough. Fortunately for American diners, Robuchon did not stay in retirement. In 2001, Robuchon a Galera in Macau opened and JR was back in business. Robuchon quickly regained momentum. He returned to his Parisian roots and opened L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in 2003. <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1142396979/gallery_30892_2382_134915.jpg" hspace="8" height="320" width="240" align="left">No plate goes out without the approval of Chef Claude Le Tohic and JR "L'Atelier" is French for an artist or designer’s studio or workroom, and the restuarant named so broke the mold of the conventional restaurant. The diner sits down for a front row seat in Robuchon's studio. The restaurant has a counter that runs around the entire perimeter of the kitchen with no tables. Gone are the chefs clad in their traditional whites instead, the chefs and servers are in black. The diner is encouraged to compose a meal by selecting several small plates from an array of offerings. There are large plates as well, so the meal can be as flexible as the diner desires. These dishes could easily be served in a "3 star setting," yet chef Robuchon wanted to bring his style to an informal format. He describes the cuisine of L'Atelier as French, with touches from Italy and Spain. "The older I get, the more I want to do stuff that suits my personal taste," says Robuchon. "It has to be less mixed up, less complicated than ever, designed to let the best ingredients shine." Robuchon’s biggest challenge since coming out of retirement was opening his first restaurants in the United States. "I never had the intention of coming to the United States," Robuchon says. "It's too hard. Americans don't need me . . . but Gamal Aziz, the president of the MGM Grand, gave me the means to do the kind of restaurant I wanted. He told me, 'I have no constraints. I have only a desire. I'll give you anything you want.' Today when you open a restaurant, all anybody talks about is the bottom line: How much money is it going to make? Quality is finished, yet that's the only thing that interests me." <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1142396979/gallery_30892_2382_905362.jpg" hspace="8" height="240" width="320" align="left">Only the nose knows. MGM Grand President Gamal Aziz explained: "As a chef, Robuchon should be understood for his passion for excellence. Concerned not only about the quality of a vegetable, he also is concerned about the quality of the soil in which it was grown," adding, "he is in a phase of life where he needs to create, not impress." With the carte blanche given by Aziz, Robuchon began to assemble the “dream team” of all-star chefs and front of the house staff to bring the Robuchon experience to the American diner. He selected 8 chefs and 6 front-of-the-house specialists from his cadre of restaurants around the world. The design of the restaurants would be in the capable hands of Pierre-Yves Rochon. He graduated first in his class of interior design at the École des Beaux-Arts et Arts Appliques in Paris. He’s known for his luxurious decor of The Four Seasons George V in Paris, the St. James Hotel in London and Les Crayeres in Rheims. Robuchon picked Chef Claude Le Tohic to be in charge of his U.S. flagship restaurant. Le Tohic received the Meilleur Ouvrier de France award in 2004, as Paul Bocuse, Pierre Troisgros and Joël Robuchon himself has before him . . . Claude is now considered to be a "French Ambassador" entitled to wear the blue-, white- and red-collared chef’s jacket. His resume is impressive, full of Michelin-starred restaurants, including the triple-starred Jamin. Most of all, though, Claude is a skilled teacher. He is responsible for the formation of the school L'Unite Pedagogique et Professionnelle, in Val de Reuil, and has been a professor there for the last 6 years. He also had a TV show "Recettes de Chefs," which aired on French television. He speaks three languages, which is important in any kitchen -- especially the kitchen at the Mansion -- where chefs from many countries have come to practice and perfect their craft. His responsibilities in the opening of Robuchon at the Mansion included hiring staff, forming and organizing the kitchen, and identifying and establishing contacts with suppliers. The hardest part of preparing the restaurant was introducing chefs that had not worked with JR before to the Robuchon style of cuisine -- a style that features the natural essence of an ingredient as the star of the plate without needing an entourage of supporting flavors. Loic Launay was working at Joel Robuchon Monte Carlo when he was tapped on the shoulder by JR to be the face of Robuchon at the Mansion. This was a great responsibility and judging by the rave reviews that the restaurant has received, Launay has risen to the occasion. There are a few more "Dream Team" members that round out the staff of the Mansion. Chef de Cuisine Tomonori Danzaki has worked with Joel Robuchon for more than 10 years in Tokyo and Paris. <img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1142396979/gallery_30892_2382_13936.jpg" hspace="8" height="320" width="240" align="left">Chef Tomonori Danzaki plating "Le Caviar Oscietre." The Executive Pastry Chef of both restaurants is Kamel Guechida. Chef Guechida worked for Fredy Girardet, and has been consulting for Robuchon for the past few years. Berengere Leleu comes from Paris, where she worked at La Table de Joel Robuchon and with Bruno Paillard. She is a manager at the Mansion. L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is headed up by two "Dream Team" members. Executive Chef Steve Benjamin served in the same capacity at the Hotel Astor ( two stars) and L’Atelier, both in Paris. The sommelier and assistant general manager is Diego Requena. Requena was the assistant general manager at L'Atelier in Paris, when JR selected him for the Vegas assignment. Diego is a perfect host and is equally adept at his duties as Sommelier. Diego says that when Mr. Robuchon asked him to come to the United States, he didn’t even speak English -- since then he has become fluent. With the deep pockets and full buy-in of the MGM Grand, his stellar hand-picked staff, and the finest purveyors in the world, Joel Robuchon has started to make an impression on diners in the United States, including a nomination for "Best New Restaurant" from the James Beard Foundation. Should fortune or circumstance land you at one of Robuchon's Vegas restaurants, luck will have nothing to do with the fantastic cuisine you’ll experience. A Meilleur Ouvrier de France leaves nothing to chance. Eliot Wexler (aka molto e) grew up in Chicago and was exposed to a variety of fine dining from an Italian beef sandwich to white truffle risotto. His love of food has taken him round the globe to many Michelin-starred restaurants. He is a specialist for the southwest forum of eG Forums. He is working on opening a restaurant in the Phoenix area.

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1151585478/gallery_29805_1195_33575.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">from Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck Special to the Daily Gullet; part two of two On July 4th, 1996, after a year in Brussels, I moved to England as a journalist for Time magazine, and found a place on St. Paul Street in Islington, a groovy north London neighborhood. A typical London row house, it had a little, overgrown garden, which I cleared out, hauling away many buckets of shattered concrete from an old patio. A farmer from Cambridgeshire delivered a load of well-rotted compost, which I had fun digging under. I laid a stone path to a spot where the morning sun fell and put a bench there. One other place got sun, and there I built a raised bed, barely four feet square, for zucchini, herbs, and lettuce. It was a tiny patch, nothing like 60 acres in Virginia, but it was mine. Apart from the clouds, I loved everything about England and made lots of friends, but soon I was homesick -- not for Virginia, but for local produce. My sunny patch was too small for all the vegetables I ate. I tried whole foods shops and what they call "box schemes" (a weekly delivery), but they disappointed. The produce was organic, but it was often wilted, bland -- and imported. I took the Tube to London’s famous street markets, which, not long ago, featured local produce from Kent ("the Garden of England"), but they mostly sold Dutch peppers and Israeli tomatoes and t-shirts. Imported fruits and vegetables couldn’t compare to the ones we grew at home. I longed for ripe strawberries in season, fresh asparagus with its scales unfolding, and traditional apples instead of the standard commercial fare: under-ripe Granny Smiths from Australia or insipid Red Delicious from Washington state. Desperate for good produce, I rented a site near my house, set about finding farmers, and opened London's first farmers' market on June 6, 1999. The Minister of Agriculture rang the opening bell, Prince Charles (a keen organic farmer) sent a letter of congratulations, and all the major papers and the BBC turned up. The farmers, many of whom had never sold at retail, were doing a roaring trade. They wanted more markets, and people in other neighborhoods were calling. By September, I’d opened two more, in Notting Hill and Swiss Cottage. In January, I quit my job -- by this time I was a speechwriter for the American ambassador to Britain -- to start more farmers' markets. After many years as a fairly dedicated vegetarian, I had begun to eat fish, partly because I had a great fishmonger, but probably more because they said fish was good for you. In 1999, a terrific book on brain chemistry, Potatoes Not Prozac, persuaded me to eat eggs again and to cut back on juice, honey, and white flour. Very quickly, I felt better and began to need new clothes. But I was still fat- and cholesterol-wary, quite afraid that meat, butter, and eggs would give me a heart attack. My own farmers' markets rescued me. Here was real food on my doorstep, just like at home -- only better, because there were also new foods I’d never eaten: dried beef, pork pie, creme fraiche. Overnight I stopped using the supermarket, except for things like olive oil, chick peas, and chocolate. For The Farmers' Market Cookbook, I wrote recipes for beef, lamb, pork, poultry, even rabbit -- and ate them all. Without really trying, I stopped thinking about food and starting tasting it. Beef and lamb didn't thrill me (nor do they now) but I loved roast chicken and bacon. I never meant to lose weight, only to eat more real foods (more ice cream, less non-fat yogurt) and tastier ones (more chicken, less tofu). The pounds did their proverbial melting as I swapped rice and beans for roast chicken, bacon, and cheese. And I’d never heard of Atkins. My other complaints disappeared too, along with the colds and flu. As a vegetarian, I would have scoffed at the idea that my diet was anything but ideal. Now it’s clear my body was depleted of protein, saturated fat, fish oil, and vitamins A, B, and D. Among other virtues, protein and fish help keep you trim, B vitamins and fish prevent depression, vitamin A aids digestion, and saturated fats boost immunity. I knew nothing about that, of course, only that the more meat, fish, butter, and eggs I ate, the better I felt. Health and good cheer restored, I became curious about the claims for a vegan and vegetarian diet. What I learned surprised me: we’re not natural vegetarians -- and no traditional culture is vegan. Humans are omnivores, meant to eat everything from leaves and fruit to meat and eggs. Our anatomy is a hybrid of the herbivore and carnivore, with flat molars to chew vegetables and sharp teeth to tear into meat. Our digestive tract is neither very short (like a dog's) nor very long (like a cow's), but somewhere in between. All over the world, omnivores eat different foods: fish on the coasts, caribou in the woods, beef on the range. But dinner for a cow (grass) or a tiger (meat) is the same everywhere. For about three million years, we ate mostly animal foods -- as a percentage of calories, much more than today. Early humans had a particular taste for bone marrow, brain, fish, and organ meats -- and with reason. Marrow contains monounsaturated fats, brain is rich in polyunsaturated fats, fish is the only source of vital omega-3 fats, and liver has loads of iron and vitamins A and D. This preference for rich food -- rather than the leaves and bark other primates ate -- had a profound effect, turning us into Homo sapiens: the thinking ape. Relative to body weight, we have the biggest brains of all animals. Our brains grew bigger rapidly, easily outpacing more vegetarian primates, says William Leonard, professor of anthropology at Northwestern University. "Brain expansion almost certainly could not have occurred until hominids adopted a diet sufficiently rich in calories and nutrients." With primates, the rule is: the bigger the brain, the richer the diet. We are the extreme example of this relationship. Modern hunter-gatherers get 40 to 60 percent of calories from animal fat and protein, compared with a mere five to seven percent for chimps. Our brain is not only big but also ravenous, using 16 times more energy than muscle by weight. What does the brain need to run smoothly? Fats, especially fish oil. The brain is an astonishing 60 percent fat, of which half is DHA. DHA is found only in fish. The simple truth is this: there are no traditional vegan societies. People everywhere search high and low for animal fat and protein because they are nutritionally indispensable. Frugal cooks use small amounts of meat and fat to supplement the vegetables, grains, and beans that provide most of the calories. Think of collard greens with fatback in the American South, Latino refried beans with lard, and the Asian stir-fry with a little pork, lots of rice. Gelatin-rich bone broth extends the poor or scant protein in plants. Even vegetarian societies prize dairy and eggs. Indian cuisine relies on eggs, yogurt, and ghee (clarified butter); Hindus call foods cooked in ghee pukkha -- authentic or superior -- and foods in vegetable oil kachcha -- inferior. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1596911441/egulletcom-20" target="_blank"><img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1151265230/gallery_29805_1195_21783.jpg" align="right" hspace="8"></a>The vegan diet is unnatural and rare because it’s risky, especially for babies, children, and pregnant and nursing women. "When women avoid all animal foods, their babies are born small, they grow very slowly and they are developmentally retarded," said Lindsay Allen, director of the U.S. Human Nutrition Research Center. "There’s no question that it’s unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans." Vegans risk deficiency of three critical nutrients: protein, vitamins, and fish oil. The body uses protein for structure (muscle, bone, blood) and operations (enzymes made of protein run the whole body). A cow can live on grass, but omnivores need complete protein and they must get it daily because it cannot be stored. Most plants contain some protein -- some, like beans, a fair amount -- but all plant protein is incomplete. Protein is made of 20 amino acids, nine of which are essential because the body cannot make them. All plants lack one or more of the 20 amino acids, or contain too little of one. Soybeans, for example, have all the amino acids but not enough methionine; corn needs more lysine and tryptophan. Protein needs are unforgiving: when the diet lacks amino acids, the body ransacks its own tissue to find them. Incomplete plant proteins can be combined to make complete protein. Famous pairs are wheat and milk and rice and beans. Yet this is still second-best nutritionally, for even when combined, plant protein is always inferior to animal protein, in quantity (there’s more protein per calorie in fish than in rice and beans) and in quality. Unlike plants, meat, fish, milk, and eggs contain amino acids in the ideal amounts. Vegetarian myths Myth: Our primate cousins are vegetarians. Truth: All primates eat some animal fat and protein. We eat more to feed our big brains. Myth: We are natural herbivores and should eat only plants. Truth: We are omnivores with bodies designed to eat plant and animal foods. Myth: Historically we ate less meat. Truth: Historically we were even more carnivorous than today. Myth: Other cultures are vegan. Truth: There are no traditional vegan societies. Even vegetarian cultures use butter and eggs. Myth: We don’t need animal protein. Truth: Omnivores need complete protein every day. A small amount will do. Myth: Plant protein is as good as animal protein. Truth: Plant protein, even when combined to provide all the amino acids, is inferior to the protein in meat, fish, dairy, and eggs. Myth: Soybeans contain complete protein. Truth: Soybeans contain all the amino acids, but not enough of one (methionine). Sources: Many, including The Paleo Diet (Cordain), Weston A. Price Foundation, Real Food (Grohman), www.beyondveg.com. Vitamin B6 is found in small amounts in plants, while chicken, fish, and liver are rich sources, while vitamin B12 is found only in animal foods. Only animal foods (especially seafood, liver, butter, and eggs) contain true vitamins A and D. Animals make vitamin A from beta carotene in grass; cows are particularly efficient. Humans, too, can make vitamin A from beta carotene, but with more effort. The conversion requires bile salts, fats, and vitamin E. Babies, children, diabetics, and those with thyroid disorders are poor converters. The body can make some vitamin D in the liver from cholesterol and sunlight, but many people, surprisingly, don’t get enough sunlight. The gravest risk is deficiency of EPA and DHA, found only in fish. In theory, the body can make these polyunsaturated fats from plants (flaxseed and walnut oil), but humans, especially babies, aren’t very good at it. Dr. Loren Cordain, a professor at Colorado State University and expert in historic diets, says that low DHA in mother or baby causes behavioral, mental, and visual problems in infants; studies show that vegan breast milk is deficient in DHA. Other risks are low birth weight and premature birth. I found all this chilling, and felt intensely grateful to my omnivorous mother. If I were pregnant or nursing, I’d eat lots of wild salmon, and if my kids got ideas about being vegan, I’d do my damndest to talk them out of it. An adequate vegetarian diet, however, is possible, if it includes complete protein, plenty of flaxseed oil, and vitamins A, B12, B6, and D. If you must be a vegetarian, do eat butter and eggs for the protein and vitamins and flaxseed oil for omega-3 fats. Better still, eat fish. Back in 1999, I knew nothing of chimp diets or vitamin A or why babies need fish. Farmers' markets, not nutrition textbooks, restored my appetite. As I ate my way through the English landscape, discovering local delights like the unctuous smoked eels of Somerset, I wondered: Is there an ideal diet for omnivores? Excerpted by permission from Real Food: What to Eat and Why, by Nina Planck. The Daily Gullet thanks Nina and her publisher, Bloomsbury USA. Nina Planck created farmers' markets in London and Washington DC, and ran New York City's famous Greenmarket. The daughter of Virginia vegetable farmers, she wrote The Farmers' Market Cookbook and hosted a British television series on local food.