tanabutler

I'll agree with the one about not using table salt for cooking any more. And not using table salt at the table. Kosher flake is my sodium of choice: the crystals are as distinct as good cocaine (she seemed to remember someone saying), though not as expensive. Also, cooking with unsalted butter most of the time, especially when cooking vegetables. That makes the application of the good salt all the more distinct. Finally (for now): good knives.

I'm on the bunny hill, I guess. After recent weeding, I have fifty cookbooks...and into that number I count Comfort Me with Apples and The Soul of a Chef. It's only my first day here and I already think I shouldn't be eatin' at the big folks' table.

Two recipes instantly sprang to mind. The first is one Russ Parsons told Terry Gross about in an interview on Fresh Air. He told her to cook salmon at 300 degrees, with a pan of boiling water in the oven, for twenty to thirty minutes. It comes out so voluptuous that I call it "voluptuous salmon" when I make it. The second is in Patricia Wells' Trattoria cookbook (an absolute favorite of mine), and it's for a lemon risotto. Loosely worded, it's made like this: • 2 shallots sautéed until translucent in 2 T. butter with 1 T. olive oil (I used lemon olive oil) • add 1-1/2 cups risotto and stir over moderate heat until the risotto is slightly translucent and shiny (glistening) • Add 1 c. white wine and stir until absorbed. • Then, stirring, add one ladleful at a time of 4 cups simmering chicken or vegetable stock. When that is all absorbed, remove from heat and add the grated zest of 3 lemons, their juice, and minced herbs (about 2 T. each: mint, sage and rosemary). • Serve immediately with grated parmesan. I think the mint and sage were a surprising combination. It's so-o-o-o-o-o good.

The absolute worst-smelling thing on earth is asafoetida (part of its etymology is Latin for "stinking," and it is related to the word "fetid"), a giant fennel that has an odor so repulsive and vomitous that I had to put the baggie containing it inside two glass jars (one inside the other), and put it in my garage fifteen feet outside the kitchen. Even then, I could smell it every time I walked into the garage. I am not making that up. I bought it for an Indian recipe, and I should have just buried it with a stake through its heart. Tied for "second worst-smelling thing," to my nostrils, are liver and lamb. They smell not only dead, but rotting. Gorgeous aromas? Vanilla beans in crème brûlée Meyer lemon zest Pork tenderloin with a rosemary/cherry (or plum, or cranberry) reduction Peach cobbler

Dark wheat toasted sandwich slathered with Cowgirl Creamery's "Red Hawk" (soft, nice, ripe) cheese, thick slices of brandywine tomatoes, basil aiöli, and Romaine lettuce was late lunch...and then I found this thread.

Mmmmmm. It's a good thing pixels don't have calories or I'd be sitting here like Mike Meyers' Fat Bastard, ballooning up from all the reading I've done today. (First day posting at eGullet.) Last Wednesday at the farmer's market in downtown Santa Cruz, with a friend: Several varieties of heirloom tomatoes from Happy Boy Farm(Green Zebra, Brandywine, Purple Cherokee—though I suspect they're Black Krims, which are smaller, and yellow Brandywines, along with Sun Gold cherries) Fingerling potatoes from Route One Farms Peaches from...I forget. My friend bought them and they weren't organic (gasp!) Two dozen of the big oysters ($20 for two dozen)—the ones that are as big as a dog's tongue—from Bill, the Oyster Man A bag of sourdough dinner rolls Two bunches of baby golden beets I usually prefer the market Saturday mornings at Cabrillo College, as it is patchouli-free and not peopled with so many aggressive petioners. "Are you a registered voter? Are you a registered voter?" One guy answered, "I don't vote, I pray." My friend answered, "See where you got us last election?!" heh

Bourdain lovers might enjoy another online appearance of his back in 2002 at another forum. Read closely...some of his recipes are jaw-dropping. I thought A Cook's Tour was amazing—I like his work so much I'd let him smoke at dinner.

Just a teeny note here (with gratitude for your synopsis: what a great idea and service). "Wiley" is actually Julia Wiley, the wife of Andrew Griffin, who is the farmer at Mariquita Farm.

My local independent grocery store (The Village Market in Oakland) sells fruit from XXX farm in Brentwood. Can't remember the name, but I've seen delivery trucks with their names dropping off fruit at the market. Could it be either Tairwa' (Knoll) Farm or Eatwell? Both are in Brentwood. I know the Knolls have fantastic figs, and I think they have peaches, too. Eatwell definitely has peaches. Farmer Al from Frog Hollow comes to the Santa Cruz Farmer's Market on Wednesday. I've bought his peach conserves on the passionate recommendation of a foodie friend in SF and they are outstanding. About the peaches themselves: I am a Georgia girl. I haven't had a fabulous peach since I left in 1976, and I'm not making that up. However (about to eat my words here), I tasted one of the Frog Hollow peaches and it was the best peach I've had since I left home. I wish I were exaggerating, and I wish he didn't charge so much. Yes, peaches only last a day or two. They pick them and lay them in the carton as gently as possible, and you need to appreciate them and eat them as soon as you can. My mama always said that you have to eat a good peach standing over the kitchen sink. A little footnote to peach things: Frog Hollow Farm is going to be the site for an Outstanding in the Field farm dinner in a couple of weeks, and the special guest is Alice Waters. (I'm the web designer for Outstanding in the Field, a complete newbie to the fabulousness that is eGullet, and am drooling my way through thread after thread today—my first day of posting, though I joined up in June.) This is a wonderful forum. I'm so glad I found you.

I ain't stupid. Just call me Tana Magnani. Ciao!

I ain't stupid. Just call me Tana Magnani. Ciao!

Thank you for the welcome, Varmint. I am the photographer, and if you like food porn, you might get very, um, excited—if you know what I mean and I think you do. Happy Boy Farm Dinner & Tour, Hollister, California The calamari with grilled corn salad was one of the best things I have eaten in my life. I'm drooling just looking at it. (The images are too big to post, dimension wide. I don't want to break the page.) Edit: I just remembered something hilarious from the dinner. I was ogling the tomatoes (the heirlooms, not da women, jeez, youse guys) and called it all "food porn" as I snapped pictures. The young man chopping the little cherry tomatoes said, "If that's food porn, this is kiddie porn." I love my job.

I know it's too late, but my favorite website on earth for finding hotels is this: ItalyGo.com They also have pages devoted to Florence, Rome, Paris, the Riviera, Tuscany, Amsterdam and Venice. Exhaustive photography and details, and the site design itself is so beautiful and navigable. For next time! Ciao for now.

I wish I'd known about eGullet sooner. Damn. What a fantastic thread this one is. Varmint, I just attended an "Italian country dinner" themed meal at a farm in Hollister, California. The chef cooked the gnocchi in duck fat (duck was also part of the meal)—he didn't boil them. Then he tossed them with pesto and it was out of this world. If you send me an e-mail, I'll send you a link to some photos. Dinner for sixty or so. tana@tanabutler.com = e-mail address. Or should I just post the link? (I'm new—only started posting today and haven't even made my way through the entire Italy thread.)

Mind if I contribute an item or two, as well? A friend who visits Italy regularly (four times a year or so) found a restaurant in Firenze called "Zà Zà's Trattoria." The first time he ate there (June 2002) he said it was perhaps the best meal he'd had in his life (this from a man of fifty). He found it by asking locals what was best, and that was their consensus. Not overpriced or overblown, just quality ingredients and simple dishes. It is located "in Piazza Mercato Centrale 26/R (zona San Lorenzo) 2 minutes from the Duomo and the Santa Maria Novella train station." My own best meal in all of Italy was in Siena at the Hosteria Il Carroccio. The bread soup is sublime perfection (especially perfect on the chilly day before Easter when we ate there). Their house dessert, a molten chocolate thing, is not to be missed. To find it, face the town hall at the Campanile: point out your right arm to one o’clock: head in that direction walk down the passage (Caseto di Sotto). You could probably just follow your nose; that's I found it. The owner opened the door to talk to someone, and the aroma hit me like those curled fingers of smoke in cartoons—the ones that lift you deliriously off your feet and float you to the table. Hosteria Il Carroccio Via Casata di Sotto, 32 Tel: 0577-41165

When accompanying five-year-old gourmand Rowan to the eatery of his choice, one must be prepared to make sacrifices. The not-yet Michelin-rated Taco Bell, just a block from our manse in the middle of Santa Cruz County, was to be the destination for a capricious luncheon with the tiny taco titan. The brightly lit menu items above our heads gleamed with portent and promise. Brilliant green lettuce, grown and picked by virgins, tumbled sensuously from robust tortillas; steaming frijoles and gloriously grilled chunks of charcoal-emblazoned meats danced with cheese so voluptuous that it defied belief. Every single plate promised a fistful of dripping, smoldering oral pleasure. Rowan imperiously ordered, as was his wont, the classic Bean and Cheese Burrito, truly the test of any authentic Mexican chef—in this case, the challenge facing the cook was how to engorge the burrito with the requisite 1200 milligrams of sodium. I brazenly ordered a Chicken Supreme Gordita®, my mouth watering with anticipation. Alas, when confronted with the reality of the actual "meal" (a euphemism employed here only for the sake of continuity), despair set in. I bit deeply into my Chicken Supreme Gordita® (Spanish for "zaftig") and encountered only layers and layers of tepid tortilla. A second bite revealed a cavernous lack of carnivorous substance: the overwhelming impression one receives in this instance is that of lettuce, so browned and mangled and wilting as to slither from its captivity in the tortilla. Subsequent bites were even more unsatisfying, as I failed to detect the cornucopia of either cheese or pollo, and I glanced at my companion to see how he fared. Rowan was tearing his way through his burrito, oblivious to the discrepancies between the marquee and that in his hands: his "burrito" resembled nothing so much as the Mexican version of a cocktail weinie (made flatter with the use of anvils, no doubt). It is thus with a heavy heart that I must offer the direst warnings to those people unfortunate enough to select Taco Bell as a dining destination. Anyone who's seen the restaurant scene in the horrifyingly bleak film, "Brazil," will understand my bitter laugh, remembering Katherine Helmond sending her compliments to the chef over three piles of glistening emerald gunge. What you see is not what you get.

Hi, all, a newbie here to this great forum. I blanch and coarse dice our homegrown tomatoes for the uncooked sauce, and sometimes lightly sauté minced red onion in EVOO before tossing it all together with the basil and other good stuff. Ciao for now...I'm just poking my way through the forums and loving it.

This post is just sublime, and I am forwarding it to a friend who is traveling in Italy for five weeks (September-October). Mille grazie for the lovely details and thoroughness, Robert. Excellent work!