tanabutler

I don't drink coffee, only hot tea, and it's impossible to get a decent cup of tea if you have to drink it out of cardboard. The scalding water soaks up the cardboard taste—bleggggggcccccchhhhhh. </big wet dog cough>

Alanamoana is right. Definitely go to Copia in Napa. It's a knock-out—a $100 million facility dedicated to food and wine. They don't have their schedule published for your dates yet, though. Give the gardens a tour. From the Copia website: Copia Virtual Tour

I know it's blasphemy, but my most-used Italian cookbook is from Patricia Wells. Patricia Wells' Trattoria: Simple and Robust Fare Inspired by the Small Family Restaurants of Italy I reviewed it there on the Amazon link, and later learned that Patricia Wells posted my love letter to her on her website. Also beloved is my Lynn Rosetto Kasper's Italian Country Table Of my fifty (I know, I'm not worthy) cookbooks, a dozen are Italian. Patricia Wells' is my easy favorite. Easy and so good.

I jist wish that people would make their dawgs wear hairnets. That squicked me out worse than the trip to the vet today.

Our kitchen is poorly designed. Standing space = 10 feet deep and 4 feet wide. I'm not counting the space in front of the dishwasher. It does have tons of cabinets and a high ceiling (more cabinets). But it's a cheap, cheesy rental kitchen. Nevertheless I cook every night and have managed to turn out some great meals.

Call it Starbucking...the fine art of hating your local outlet of the Seattle coffeehouse chain. Why is Starbucks the brand we love to hate? That's in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Cawfee tawk.

Book lovers would also love Readerville.com, which also has its own magazine. Round tables there included a visit from Tony Bourdain, and a trio visit with Russ Parsons, John Thorne and Rick Bayless. The last two books I read were food books: Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour and Ruth Reichl's Comfort Me with Apples. Both had me laughing and both had me crying. And I loaned both to my best friend (a former caterer, as I am) and she'd ditto here if she could. Absolutely fantastic writers, both of them. Tony's chapter on the vegan dinner in California made me howl with laughter, and also squirm (guilt through proximity? Talk amongst yaselves). I'm gearing up for Katharine Weber's Objects in the Mirror Are Closer than They Appear and Dinner with Persephone: Travels in Greece by Patricia Storace.

what's the website? The Girl and the Fig Everyone I know who's eaten there just raves and raves about it.

And so are many celebrities. I'll be meeting Alice this weekend. Not that I'm excited about it or anything.

I know what a publicist does—I work with one. What Russ posted makes it sound as though Tower kept his own obsessive collection.

What Russ posted didn't sound like the press clippings were from a publicist, to me.

The last time I had a "there's nothing to eat" moment, I improvised something that is one of our favorite dishes in the world. I had a smoked chicken breast, some cilantro, onions, pine nuts and orzo. Found a near-empty jar of jalapeños. Made jalapeño pesto (something I literally dreamed up one night, back when I was catering): Jalapeño Pesto cilantro olive oil pine nuts garlic jalapeño slices (and a little of the brine) salt Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rp in the food processor until smooth. (No cheese in jalapeño pesto!) Then I sautéed red onion, diced fine, in olive oil until translucent, and added the chicken breast (diced 1/4"). Cooked the orzo and tossed the whole thing together: orzo smoked chicken breast onions jalapeño pesto more pine nuts Try it.

The one cookbook I recommend to everyone getting started is The New York Times Cookbook. Every single recipe I've tried is excellent and simple and perfect. It's a good basic starter cookbook, and I use it more than any other. The prettiest cookbook I have is The French Laundry Cookbook.

Another endorsement of Hearst Castle. We did two tours, 1 and 2—and you get to see the kitchen on the second one, as well as the libraries, which are jaw-dropping. We had a fine meal at Robin's restaurant in Cambria, including the grilled salmon with cilantro-lime butter and a perfectly cooked steak. Cambria's a sweet little town, filled with artists. There is a glass gallery that is amazing but I can't remember the name. It's unmistakeable, though. Everything downtown is close together.

Suvir and all—not sure you know about MySimon.com, but I always start there when pricing anything. (You did find the cheapest price on the EH 12" pie dish, according to them.) I've saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars using that service.

Oh, phoo. "Forget Santa Cruz?" You can't just dismiss Santa Cruz. Not in the least, and I would arm wrestle on that.

My book-loving friends elsewhere have convinced me that this is a library book at best. Or maybe the People magazine of culinary tell-alls. Okay, can the guy WRITE? Or is it one of those "as told to" abominations. Who's got the voice? The literary voice. Tony, you get to be brazen in your appreciation because you know the players. What's in the book for a regular (fairly bright, somewhat food-involved) reader? I ain't above guilty pleasures.

The truth is, if you don't have any peaches or flour or butter, you could just chug a pint of whipping cream and be happy. Right?

What a great thread. Thanks for all the tasty posts.

(Katherine, is that watermelon an avatar, or are you just glad to see me? )

I forgot to mention that the first time I made the Paula Dean cobbler, I substituted 1-1/2 cups of 2% milk with 1/2 cup heavy cream, as I had no whole milk. The second time, I had no cream, but only 2% milk and it came out fine—well, except for the salted butter business. I would think either cream would be fine, but will defer to better bakers. I'm not the scientific kind of baker, but the intuitive. I have great beginner's luck, but have a hard time replicating great results, which just means it's time to move on to new territory.

After suffering through the ditsiest, worst service imaginable at a local restaurant (Michael's on Main in Soquel, here in Santa Cruz county), where I had previously enjoyed a fantastic meal (and service), I wrote this up at my other forum: --------------------- Boy, are they lucky we weren't there for a professional restaurant review. It was supposed to be as divine as my birthday meal, but instead was completely hit and miss. The main problem was our waitress. She broke the first rule by taking five minutes to greet us, then fifteen minutes to bring our wine and soda. She didn't tell us the specials until we asked, and she didn't tell us the prices without being nudged (I hatehatehate having to ask prices of specials, and hate more when waitstaff are supercilious when you ask). She brought my girl a cloth napkin and then balked slightly when we asked to exchange our paper napkins for cloth ones, as well. Appetizers (highly recommended): cornmeal batter-dipped calamari with two sauces (one a hot, red, peppery, gingery, clear compote of some kind, and the other a Southwestern kind of aïoli) and a cheese platter made of local artisanal cheeses from the Bay Area. (On second thought: the calamari was on a bed of shredded cabbage, but the cabbage was brown on the edges.) Waitress did not know the first thing about the cheeses, and had to go ask. She came back with knowledge of three cheeses, but there were four on the plate. When she pointed, her fingers were so far away from identifying the actual cheese, we were not sure which she meant—I'm sure she didn't, either. The cheese platter was excellent in two respects: the cheeses were out of this world, and they were paired with dried cranberries and baby greens. The "toasted baguette" slices were stale and painfully hard. Lori ordered the salmon special (salmon orzo with crabmeat and prawns and a salmon mousse) and was instead given the salmon off the menu. It took twenty minutes to replace her dish, by which time she was no longer especially hungry, as I shared my food with her. Malaika and I split a New York strip steak, which I ordered medium-rare to rare, being quite explicit that the steak should be pink and red inside. Her half evidenced lots of red. Mine was medium well, and 1/3 gristle. Once she sawed off a bite or two, Malaika's steak was more than 1/2 gristle and burned fat. It was the worst piece of meat I've seen since I babysat for the cheapest woman in Atlanta, thirty years ago. The potatoes au gratin had too much salt and cheddar, and I tasted freezer burn on the cheese. The good thing was the Butterfield Chardonnay was only $4 a glass. After all that misery, all they did was comp the steak. If you go to Michael's and get a tall waitress with a pretty face under too much makeup, and long, permed, blond hair, ask for someone else. Ask for a waitress. --------------- I wrote a letter to the restaurant, and complained about the crappy service, and the fact that our table was still $70 after they took off that ghastly piece of gristle they called a steak. The owner sent me a letter offering to comp dessert next time we came in. Guess what? That's not good enough. You think we'll spend another $70 to let you buy us a piece of pie? I don't think so. One thing I learned when I waited tables was, it's worth it if you are generous in making up bad service to customers who've suffered. A happy customer might say nothing, or might tell friends that a bad experience turned better when the manager treated them right and said, "How can I make it up to you?" An unhappy customer will churn out negative reviews any time the subject comes up.

I'm not getting the picture. Lengthwise? Horizontally? Chiffonade? Thanks—it looks yummy.

Sumir, it's so much fun to read about your fruit-filled adventures. FYI, the clafouti recipe I posted contains ground almonds, and they add something more than the sum of the parts to the recipe, I think. Almost a custard flavor—certainly something more than I expected. That recipe is almost as easy as the cobbler one: butter a pan, chopped uncooked fruit on butter, batter on fruit, and top with ground almonds and crumbled brown sugar. Some people use white sugar, but they are WRONG WRONG WRONG—they're missing the rustic perfection that a clafouti is. So, you're a cobbler fool? Ever made a peach fool? (That's just a sample—I don't know that I'd make that particular one, but it's fun to link to the recipe.) You just reminded me that we've got three gigantic blackberry patches on our property, and it's high time I got out there with the kidlets and picked some. Blackberry pie, mmmmmmmmmm. My fourteen-year-old daughter is an amazing baker.

Gallery of Regrettable Food: Savory Horrors from the Past! "What were they thinking? How did they eat this bilge? Good questions, but you won't find them answered here." One of the funniest websites on earth, and one that surely inspired the Weight Watchers cards site.