Tastes of the Week

March 26 through April 2, 2012 You've heard of sour grapes? Try salty grapes! A delicious accident waiting to happen. I had given my daughter some matzoh with butter and salt and put a small bunch of ripe black seedless grapes on her plate. When she was all done and I was about to wash her plate, I popped one of a few salty grapes in my mouth. It was fantastic. Try it.

At the French Culinary Institute on Sunday, my daughter and I helped celebrity chef Bill Telepan prepare a healthy school lunch based on the initiative started by the "Wellness in the Schools" program created by Nancy Easton. We all wanted seconds. Great chili, yellow rice with peas, fresh salads with the BEST homemade french dressing recipe (must get the recipe), cut up oranges, bananas and apples. Cold skim milk. And all on a very slim budget. We had a blast. In the kitchen popped up some of the world's best chefs -- including Andre Soltner from Lutece and Cesare Cella from Salumeria Rosi, both deans of education at the school. But speaking of school lunch programs -- this just in from Sweden:  disco lunch! You listen to great music, dance a bit, grab a sandwich -- and the money goes to charity! Not only is this a great idea but it burns some calories.

Seamus Mullen has made quite a splash as the chef-du-jour at the beloved, crazy-busy restaurant Tertulia in New York's Greenwich Village. We had a fabulous, fun dinner the other night with our friend from Malaysia who oversees 250 hotels in Southeast Asia for Starwood. He is always on the prowl for great new concepts. Dinner began with splendid jamon iberico, pan con tomate (the famous fresh tomato-slathered bread from Barcelona), and a variety of remarkable tapas, including stuffed eggs "devilled" with salt cod, anchovy toasts with pork belly and poached quail egg, deliciously funky wild boar "chorizo," then on to more crisped lamb belly, pesce spada (swordfish), fabulous nuggets of fried sunchokes in a thick sumac-laced citrus yogurt sauce, and a huge paella made with a whole Amish chicken, gorgeously cooked. Soon to be had:  the best Spanish wines from the region of Galicia, brought in by über-wine importer and Spanish wine maven, Gerry Dawes. Lots of foodies for dinner that night and I had a sneak preview of Seamus' new cookbook called Hero Food, which he wrote with Dorothy Kalins (former editor of Saveur and Newsweek.)

The real surprise this week was dinner at the Beagle on Avenue A. An out-of-town friend told us about it and so off we went -- four "girls" for a Saturday night gab-fest on the lower East side. Thanks to Priscilla Martel, co-author of  On Baking: A Textbook of Baking & Pastry Fundamentals (3rd Edition), radio host and WHYY-producer Lari Robling, and Kathy Gold (no relation), founder and executive chef of In the Kitchen Cooking School we shared a remarkably conceived-and-cooked meal. Executive chef Garrett Eagleton needs to be better known and I'm sure that will happen soon. The execution of the Striped Bass with glazed cipollini onions, rock shrimp and "broth" was absolutely perfect, as was my dish of a crispy flattened half chicken served with Irish oats (!), turnips and jus. It tasted positively French and oats are a brilliant starch to play with. I'm sure this will be copied everywhere. The "jus" was voluptuous and reminiscent of the classical stocks that I long for. Also brilliant are the little "pairing boards" of small tastes paired with a tiny "cocktail."  Did I say this was brilliant? Listen to these flavor duets: Pork Belly and Rye -- salt-roasted pork belly, bay leaf yogurt, sauerkrauts and a mini Manhattan.  Burrata and gin -- burrata, braised celery, parsley, arbequina olive oil, and a mini Martini. Mackerel and aquavit -- pickled mackerel, creamed pickled onion, garlic, caraway cracker and a taste of Aalborg Akvavit. Desserts, other than the very special black olive marshmallow, did not quite live up to the rest of the meal. And the prices are surprisingly reasonable given the quality and generosity of the offerings. I recommend it highly. 

Tastes of the week to come:  A review of Peter Kaminsky's new book, Culinary Intelligence.

Tastes of the Week

March 19 to March 26, 2012 It was all-Italian all-the-time last week with three indelible meals. So here’s an homage to pizza, to pizzazz, to posterity, and to the maestri behind the magic:  Antonio, two Frankies, and Pepe.

Last summer in Naples, we forked out a fistful of Euros to a clueless cab driver while searching for the legendary pizzeria named “Starita” in the twisty-curvy district of Mater Dei. Of course it was closed. But a version of it recently opened on Manhattan’s easy-to-locate West 50th Street, and there he was, Don Antonio Starita himself, overseeing the grand parade of pizzas in and out of his wood burning oven and, oh, yes, his deep fat fryer. I’ll come back to the fried stuff in a moment.

Antonio has partnered with a former student who also runs the pizzeria Keste in New York and the new place is called “Don Antonio by Starita.” We were a party of six celebrating dear friend Arthur Schwartz’s birthday, and I can tell you that every dish was its own celebration. We began with a huge platter of angioletti, which are fried puffy strips of dough topped with marinated cherry tomatoes and arugula, and then onto pizzas chosen by Antonio and not necessarily on the menu.

We went nuts over a two-layer affair stuffed with a mix of sautéed escarole, pine nuts, raisins and ricotta, then topped with wafer-thin dough and fresh mozzarella. For dessert there was a pizza slathered with ricotta, honey and almonds.

But in between these pies came Starita’s justly famous fried pizza – called montanara -- invented there about ten years ago where it simply is called pizza fritte. They drop a round of pizza into hot palm oil and it puffs up into an amazingly light disc (light as in texture; caloric like the dickens), which they top with an intense tomato sauce and imported smoked mozzarella di bufala, and slide it into their oven for finishing. You’re looking at a trend here, mark my words.

We all rolled home to sleep off dinner because there was another the following night, celebrating another friend’s birthday…Erica Marcus, former honcho cookbook editor and now ace food reporter for Newsday. That feast took place at Frankies (no apostrophe – there are two guys named Frank) in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens. We sat at two long tables in a romantically refitted old stable behind the restaurant and took our food from huge platters of antipasti; crostini of chicken liver mousse, delectable eggplant caponata, split fresh sardines en saor, followed by platters of  homemade cavetelli and hot sausage in brown butter;  of ethereal meatballs with pine nuts and raisins;  and robust braciola marinara -- all washed down with an infinity of excellent Barbera.

My husband especially liked Frankies’s opening aperitif, made with gin, Cointreau and lemon juice topped off with prosecco. He reminded me the following morning precisely how many he’d had as we got into the car for a two-hour drive to Yale where our daughter will be attending a high school summer program.  I knew he was worse for wear when he popped a couple of Tums on I-95, which he blamed merely on two days of feasting.

Now Yale is in New Haven, and you don’t drive there without stopping either at Sally’s or Pepe’s, both of which are the town’s equivalent of Starita, both of which bake a thin-and-crispy crust in coal-fired ovens. Yale could wait because we had just enough time for a pepperoni pie (pretty good) and for New Haven’s gastro-gift to the world – the white clam pie, which we had at Pepe’s (Sally’s being closed for lunch). This is a fairly affable assemblage of chunks of chewy clams, a sprinkling of cheese, some oregano, copious dousings of olive oil and enough garlic to eradicate all the witches in Transylvania.  It was an ultimate umami assault on our tastebuds, and while some folk make pilgrimages for the white clam pie, I think it is OK just to make it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Tonight we’re having broccoli.

No Longer a Rookie Cookie

I love to get gifts of food, and every now and again someone sends me something. There is the yearly arrival of luscious honeybell oranges from Florida sent by a close friend; around the holidays, a large tin of Middle Eastern pastries arrive from a bakery in Dearborn, Michigan, (a tradition started by my father and continued by my husband), and recently I received a fabulous package of artisan food products from Spain -- including an unusual semi-soft chorizo known as sobrasada Mallorquina from my sister-in-law when she finally exhausted her gift ideas. And just the other day, a box of delectable cookies and one-bite mignardises, arrived safely from Culver City, Calif. Not only was I impressed with the originality and quality of the brown butter, dark chocolate & smoked salt cookies, the delicacy of the lemon pieters, made with a bit of lemon oil and lemon sugar, and the addictive platino -- an elegant version of an Oreo, I wondered how a business that deals with high-cost ingredients and lots of labor, manages to thrive. Especially when much of its business is coast-to-coast. Many people have fantasies about food and opening food businesses. Some succeed; but most of them fail, with dashed bank accounts and broken dreams as the payoff. But Jamie Cantor, the owner of Platine Cookies, in Culver City, Calif., located east of Santa Monica and south of Beverly Hills, has been in business for more than 10 years and had her largest order -- 3,500 dozen... that's 42,000 cookies to roll out, bake, and package, in a rather small space -- just last month. Whether it's "Android" cookies for Google, "engagement ring" cookies and miniature Ho-Ho's for the local Bloomingdales, or gift boxes for corporate clients, Ms. Cantor has beat the odds in an industry where small entrepreneurs are notorious for abruptly disappearing.

Lucky for her, Jamie Cantor chose to make sweet things, which, despite our national obsession with obesity, are today all the rage. Just think of the cupcake madness around the country, with endless lines for Magnolia Bakery's products, and with Sprinkles, a California-based company, fitting out some of their stores with 24-hour cupcake ATMs for those clamoring for a sugar fix at midnight. Even McDonald's just last week announced that it would be selling baked goods all day long, hoping to snare some "treats" business from the likes of Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks. New business hopefuls are trying their hands at artisan gelato, which looks like a precarious trendlet to me. And chain restaurants are following the lead of Darden's Seasons 52 with socially-responsible mini-dessert options.

Jamie's dream of opening a cookie store (not unlike that of cookbook author Dorie Greenspan who opens "pop up" cookie stores all over New York), began when her father bought her a copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum's Christmas Cookie Book when she was a young girl. Combine that yearning with the creative precision of her mother who was an architect, and you have the stuff dreams are made of. Jamie enrolled in the CIA in Hyde Park, New York, and received the 1998 Women Chefs & Restaurateurs Scholarship to study in the Napa Valley campus where she earned a degree in Bakery & Pastry Arts. She landed an internship at Thomas Keller's French Laundry, and then, after graduating, worked as Chef de Partie in the pastry department under the tutelage of pastry chef Stephen Durfee and Keller, himself, who she describes as impressive, smart and fastidious. It was there that Jamie honed her perfectionism and her desire to infiltrate a world smitten by cupcakes with her own, more upscale, petit pastry and cookie offerings. More Francois Payard than Sandra Lee, Jamie headed south to Los Angeles, bought some flour, and started a company.

Her first items? Jamie created the platino (a cakey-chocolate cookie sandwich filled with voluptuous white "cream") and the camee -- which is an all-white vanilla version. These continue to be her best sellers among a comprehensive list of brownies, lemon meringue grahams, and more. What I find compelling is that her cookies have a home-made quality about them rather than appear like (well) cookie-cutter products from an industrial manufacturer. And for the last few years she has two dynamite offerings for Passover -- traditional coconut macaroons and the less-traditional chocolate flourless "baby cakes." Others swear by the caramel-topped brownie and the chocolate pots de creme with black lava salt: Return the little cup and you receive 10 cents -- Jamie's nod to ecology. I, for one, am enamored with Jamie's exquisite balance of salt and sugar in her recipes.

Discovered by the Food Network in 2004, Platine has also received raves from Japanese Vogue, People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. While her biggest issue continues to be delivering a hand-made high quality product at a reasonable price, her dream is to turn Platine into a nationwide brand. In the meantime, she just developed a new cookie in honor of her niece "the Cho-la-la" -- a chocolate thumbprint cookie filled with gianduja and sprinkled with Hawaiian pink salt. Next, will be an homage, no doubt, to her son Jackson, who is just one year old. Lucky kid.

And now that Thomas Keller has opened Bouchon Bakery in Beverly Hills, Jamie Cantor has become a friendly competitor to her beloved former boss.

www.platinecookies.com

Tastes of the Week(s)

February 27 through March 18, 2012 Several weeks have gone by and I haven't shared some of the interesting and, often superlative, tastes that I've had. This "tastes" column is a way for me to both document and re-imagine the experiences, but also an invocation for you to fine tune your own. This is a new era of "mindfulness" for me -- in both cooking and eating -- resulting in far more pleasure and appreciation. As many of you know, I am a student in a program called Foundations in Buddhist Contemplative Care and I work in an emergency room and on a cancer floor once a week. The very notion of contemplation spills over into everything nowadays -- not just in working with patients. It even extends to the little cafe at Beth Israel Hospital in New York, where I slowly savor my tuna fish sandwich and unexpectedly decent coffee in a weekly ritual, sharing tables with strangers, wondering what the day has been like for them. Mindful eating is now being talked about with much grace -- I enjoy re-reading the wonderful article in the New York Times about it several weeks ago -- but I am also interested in "contemplative cooking" -- that of my own and of others. It is a subject I will be writing much more about.

This installment bridges February and March -- the end of an almost nonexistent winter and very early spring. I had a wonderful lunch last week at Rouge Tomate, a beautiful sprawling modern restaurant on East 60th Street in the city.   Their $29 prix fixe menu was quite a surprise especially because the meal was as enjoyable and professional as one I recently had at Le Bernardin. The chef, Jeremy Bearman, deserves much more attention and I look forward to learning more about him and his philosophy in cooking. Now here is a "contemplative chef!" Every detail of taste, color, harmony, balance and surprise existed in every dish. I started with a Green Tornado (not part of the prix fixe) instead of my usual glass of wine. It was a fabulous quaff blended from tarragon, spinach, basil, butter lettuce (!), mint and lemon juice. Stimulating and satisfying, I could drink these all summer long.  (And doesn't butter lettuce sound divine and fattening?!) The first course, Wild Mushroom and Leek Salad, was a "painting" that also included spring garlic, frisee, Meyer lemon, and a polenta crisp. The main course, Arctic Char a la Plancha, came with black rice (also known as "forbidden rice"), green olives, spring onion, and passion fruit. The passion fruit was expressed by a disk of daikon that was cooked "sous vide" in passion fruit juice. It might have been one of the most exciting tastes I've ever had.  And while the arctic char spent a few too many seconds on the plancha, the dish as a whole was fascinating.  Desserts? A bittersweet chocolate tart, with accents of banana, coconut, lime yogurt and ginger gelato, and Fingerlakes Farms' Yogurt Panna Cotta, with notes of dried cherry, pistachio, orange and kumquat. I want to learn more about the principles of SPE -- which according to the menu is based on a "genuine respect of ingredients and the crafting of balanced dishes that naturally marries extraordinary cuisine and authentic nutrition." The restaurant is committed to support local farms, fisheries, and producers who employ sustainable practices. And while I respect all that, I respect the "mind of the chef" most.

I had a bar of chocolate called Brooklyn Bar from Mast Brothers Chocolates -- a real player on the chocolate scene  -- manufactured in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The flavor profile of this particular variety really got my attention -- red wine and plum.

Vietnamese coffee at the home of Arthur Schwartz. Arthur just returned from a 40-day cruise to Australia and Asia and we went to hear stories of the voyage and sip extraordinary coffee that he brought home from Vietnam. Just a few sniffs of the coffee could send you into orbit. There is nothing else that has that bouquet. Vietnamese coffee is usually served with sweetened condensed milk -- but I love it straight. I, too, was so enamored of it from my own trip to Vietnam five years ago that I put a "recipe" and photo of Vietnamese coffee in my book Radically Simple! The coffee is very expensive and worth it.

Fabulous Spanish wine tasting with Gerry Dawes at Despana in Soho. It's a terrific place to stop into mid-afternoon for a snack. 410 Broome Street. Wonderful tapas and more of that terrific Iberico ham.

Homemade whipped cream! I forgot how delicious it can be. I had leftover heavy cream from an article I was working on and decided to whip it up with confectioners sugar and good vanilla extract. Plopped it on strawberries and crepes we made from Eat Fresh Food:  Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs -- for Sunday brunch.

Have a delicious week!

Waiting for Godello: The New Wines of Spain

There's a "new kid" on the wine trail. After hawking other importers' wines for 30 years, Gerry Dawes is now selling his own discoveries. And discoveries they are!

Gerry Dawes, a wine expert's expert, is particularly smart about Spain's food and wine scene, and takes America's top chefs to Spain for their own edification. He's been prowling Iberia for ages, discovering gems of restaurants and small wine makers who have utterly no interest in selling to you, me -- or even to Gerry at first, until he proves himself professionally savvy enough to merit at least a conversation. A conversation with Gerry usually is a conversion.

This week I attended a tasting of 20 wines he's just brought in from Spain. They're being touted by chef gurus like Jeremiah Tower and Dan Barber, and gobbled up so quickly by restaurants such as Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Picholine, Petrossian, Paul Grieco's Terroir Tribeca and by topflight wine shops, such as NYC's Chambers Street Wines and Nancy's, that about half are already sold out.

The tasting was held at Despaña Soho, a Spanish café, gourmet shop and wine store (Despaña Vinos y Mas) in New York's Soho district, along with a parade of splendid tapas from Despaña's kitchen. The tasting of wines began, unexpectedly, with the reds, followed by a few rosados, a half-dozen whites, and a last sip of a late harvest moscatel (Aliaga Moscatel Vendimia Tardia 2010).

Gerry is garrulous and endlessly funny, but when it comes to wine he's a fanatical traditionalist: wine should taste like where it came from, and wines shouldn't be manipulated into big alcoholic bruisers crammed with "jammy" fruit. He's not a fan of what has been called the world-wide "Parkerization" method of vinification. Put differently, he's a fan of old-fashioned wines made the old-fashioned way. "Great wine is made in the vineyard," he says, "not in the winery."

For proof, we tasted five different reds from the Ribeira Sacra region of Galicia, each in its own way a star, but each notably different from the other. A tasting companion seated next to me was so stunned by a Toalde Tinto ("tinto" means red) with a big barnyard nose and well-tamed fruit, that he fumbled two idioms in this malapropism: "It knocked me onto my socks." Well, I suppose for twenty-five bucks, a wine probably should do just that -- except these days you'd have to shell out twice that amount for something French or Italian that approached this gem.

To prove this was no fluke, we then tried four different Albariños made by four growers who are part of a small group making singular artisan wines. They were so radically different from each other -- each displaying its own form of greatness -- that you'd never guess they came from the same small patch of geography. "These people aren't making wine to fit a pre-conceived mold," Gerry says; "they're letting their own localized wild yeasts work their individual alchemy."

What "The Spanish Artisan Wine Group -- Gerry Dawes Selections" stands for is rather simple: Relatively low alcohol, little or no oak, generally hand-harvested grapes, real corks, avoidance of over-ripe grapes and over-extraction in the winery. If you've grown up drinking California "fruit bombs," these Spanish artisan wines may be a revelation. The truth is that many California growers today also are working to crank back the excess fruit and alcohol that many gastronomes complain are antagonistic to food and sobriety.

Speaking of sobriety, we were kept sitting upright by stunningly great platters of jamón Ibérico, crunchy salt cod croquettes, Spanish tortillas filled with sweet peppers and garlic and dabbed with smoked paprika aioli, and a cheese that was new to almost all of us: Torta de Queso Canarejal, a soft unpasteurized, ewe's milk cheese, produced by the Santos family in the province of Castilla-Leon. Made with milk thistle rennet, the cheese which comes in a four-inch round, about two inches thick with an edible rind; it resembles an extremely zaftig camembert. You slice off the top and inside there's a creamy, spoon-able voluptuous cheese that you scoop up with breadsticks. All these, and vastly more, are specialty products sold by Despaña and also served in its friendly café with communal tables.

Senor Dawes also has a passion for rosado (rosé to us) -- not the "blush" wines and white zinfandels that give rosés their bad name, but light, elegant Spanish versions that you just keep on drinking. As he says, "No one's ever seen a group of people drinking roses where everyone wasn't smiling." We had two, both retailing at $13.99: Aliaga Lagrima de Garnacha from Navarra, made only from unpressed grapes, and Hermanos Merino Catajarros Cigales Rosado, a mix of two red grapes (tempranillo and garnacha) and two white grapes (verdejo and alvillo). The latter had a slight spritz, and lots of body without being weighty; it is an unmitigated bargain and will become our house pour for the summer. If I can lay my hands on some.

For me, the most exciting flavors came from the Adegas D. Berna Godello 2012 Valdeorras with 13% alcohol, retailing at $24.99. Despite a stuffy nose, I was able to detect notes of white peach, dry lychees, sake, guanabana, and unripe pear! Gerry was delighted. Godello is a white variety of wine grape grown in Galicia, a region of northwest Spain. It's the wine world's new vacation spot.

You won't find these small-batch wines at your local Costco, but the good news is that in addition to New York, Dawes is working on distribution in New Orleans, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and both Northern and Southern California. In the not too distant future then, my prediction is that grape varieties with names like mencía, garnacha, and godello, will join the more familiar tempranillo and albariño on restaurants lists and in our wine glasses at home. After all, this is what we what to drink alongside our favorite tapas.

I should note that between wine shipments, Gerry Dawes runs amazing gastro-tours to Spain, sometimes with great chefs, and often with just-plain-folk who want to really dig into the food, wine and culture of the country. These tours are as unique as his wines; to learn more, you might click here.

What My Readers are Cooking!

During the last few weeks, random readers of my cookbooks have been sharing what they've been cooking. That's always fun to hear about. Sometimes my recipes are being followed exactly as they are; other times there are embellishments or substitutions being made. And just last night one fan remembered something about a dish made with frozen peas and then asked me to email her the recipe while she was on vacation. I did.

The selections, offered below, come from a variety of sources,  Little Meals,  Radically Simple, Eat Fresh Food, and my new eBook: the 1-2-3 Collection.

Mod Cod:  Crumbed Cod with Frozen Peas (from Radically Simple) Yep, you can use frozen peas straight from the freezer; just slam the package on the counter a few times to break them up. They provide moisture as the thick pieces of cod, topped with garlicky breadcrumbs, are roasted at a high temperature. The peas also get roasted and take on a comforting starchy texture.

10-package frozen peas 4 scallions 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 cup panko 1 large garlic clove 4 thick cod fillets, about 7 ounces each

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Put the frozen peas in a large bowl. Slice the scallions thinly on the bias and add to peas along with the thyme, 2 tablespoons of the oil, and salt and pepper. Spread on a small rimmed baking sheet.  Mix the panko with the remaining 2 tablespoons oil, the garlic, pushed through a press, and salt. Season the fish with salt and pepper. To each piece add a thick cover of panko and press down firmly. Place the fish atop the peas.  Roast for 12 minutes until the crumbs are golden and the fish is just firm. Serve the fish on the peas. Drizzle with additional oil and scatter thyme leaves on top, if desired. Serves 4

Pearl Barley & Tuna Nicoise (from Little Meals) Salad Nicoise is famous from Antwerp to Argentina, but no one serves it my way, tossed with barley and a Caesar-like dressing. Barley absorbs the dressing and helps to marry all the flavors. I like it with a basket of warm soft dinner rolls and a bottle of chilled Bandol rose wine from Provence.

1 cup pearl barley 13-oz. can white tuna in water 8 ounces green beans, blanched and cut into 1-inch pieces 1/2 small red onion, sliced thin 1 large tomato, cut into thin wedges 1/3 cup black nicoise olives 2 hard-cooked eggs, quartered 1/3 cup olive oil 2 heaping tablespoons freshly-grated Parmigiano Reggiano 4 anchovies, finely minced 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, plus thyme sprigs 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 cloves garlic, pushed through a press 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard wedges of lemon

Rinse barley then cook in 4 cups salted boiling water for 45 minutes. Drain well and transfer to large bowl. Drain tuna and mix with barley. Add green beans, red onion, tomato, olives, and eggs. Toss gently. In a medium bowl, whisk together olive oil, parmesan cheese, anchovies, thyme leaves, lemon juice, garlic, pushed through a press, and mustard. Whisk until emulsified and pour over barley mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill and serve with lemon wedges and sprigs of thyme. Serves 4

Swiss Chard with Lemony Tahina & Cashews (from Radically Simple) This is great way to serve chard (in rainbow colors), collards or kale. It contains a wealth of antioxidants, too.   Note:  A reader made this with kale and loved it.

1/2 cup tahina grated zest and juice of 2 large lemons 1 large garlic cloves, smashed and peeled 2 pounds Swiss chard or kale 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 cups finely chopped onions 1/2 cup roasted cashews, broken in pieces

Put the tahina in a food processor. Add the lemon zest and 1/4 cup juice along with the garlic. Process, adding 1/3 to 1/2 cup cold water, until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Wash the greens and cut into 1/2 inch pieces.  Heat the oil in a very large nonstick skillet. Add the onions and cook over high heat, stirring constantly, 3 minutes.  Add the greens with some water clinging to them), cook over high heat 5 minutes. Add salt, cover, and cook the greens until tender but still bright green, 5 minutes longer. Transfer to a platter and drizzle with the tahina sauce and sprinkle with the cashews. Serves 4

 Chicken Thighs with Smoked Paprika & Rosemary (From the 1-2-3 Collection)

This is among my family’s favorite emergency meals. It was inspired by my best friend, cooking maestro, Arthur Schwartz. Great on a bed of garlicky mashed potatoes and a tangle of broccoli rabe.

8 large gone-in chicken thighs, with skin 5 teaspoons smoked paprika 16 large sprigs fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven the 450 degrees. Make 2 deep slits across the width of each thigh. Season chicken lightly with salt and pepper. Mix paprika with ½ teaspoon salt.  Sprinkle the paprika salt into the slits and then lay a long rosemary sprig in each slit. Arrange the chicken on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast on the top oven rack (important step!) for 40 to 45 minutes, until firm and cooked through but still juicy. Serves 4

Maple Vinaigrette (from Eat Fresh Food) This is one great dressing that everyone loves. Real maple syrup is a must. We love it with an endive salad, tossed with mesclun, walnuts and dried cranberries. To turn it into a main course, we add strips of thinly sliced turkey.

2 tablespoons real maple syrup 5 tablespoons olive oil 3 tablespoons rice vinegar 2 teaspoons strong Dijon mustard 1 small garlic clove

Put all ingredients in a small jar and put the lid on tightly. Shake vigorously until emulsified. Or whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Makes about 1/2 cup

Why not try them all this week!   Enjoy!

The New Brisketeers

When I grew up in Queens, New York, a housewife's fail-safe recipe consisted of baking a brisket with Heinz's chili sauce and Lipton's onion soup mix. This usually was done in a throwaway aluminum pan covered with a thick layer of foil. I was reminded of this last week when I was judging a brisket cooking contest in Manhattan, sponsored by Jimmy Carbone, food impresario of Food Karma Projects who is also the owner of the affable Jimmy's No. 43. Proceeds of the boisterous evening went to support a local charity.

In a frenzy to be named the Brisket King of NYC, an honorific similar to Iron Chef in some circles, a dozen die-hard guys and gals (mostly guys), competed for top honors with new styles that could rival the house of Chanel. It's funny to think of brisket being coiffed and demure and in some cases that evening it was: delicate portions of brisket Shabu-Shabu, wine-soaked brisket on a raft of melted fontina, and brisket croquettes served with mustard aioli. But mostly the stuff belonged in a Benetton catalogue, uniting the flavors of the world, from Red mole brisket with avocado cream and pickled onions, to a red wine, grape jelly and rosemary braised brisket on polenta, to oak-smoked brisket with a green papaya salad, to burnt ends with foie gras, truffle juice and tangy slaw, from worcestershire-braised brisket with horseradish, to beer-braised brisket with roasted grape chimichurri. Clearly, not your mother's brisket.

Beef brisket comes from the lower chest of an animal and its muscular function is to support most of the weight of cattle, since they have no collarbones. Brisket gets lots of exercise and therefore is one tough piece of meat. That's why it needs long, slow cooking to the point where it is well beyond well-done.

And why do we love it so? After the collagen, developed by all that muscular stress, is dissolved during cooking, you get an extremely juicy, extremely flavorful piece of beef.

Slow cooking is achieved in a variety of ways, depending on where you come from. Out west, smoking from indirect heat over hardwood coals -- in other words, barbecuing -- works wonders. If you're Irish, you immediately think of corned beef. If you're Jewish and your parents came from Eastern Europe, well then, you'd use brisket for pot roast. They're hot on brisket in Hong Kong, too, with restaurants that specialize in nothing else. In Thailand, you'd cook it gently in yellow curry paste and coconut milk.

Of course, it's not that simple. An entire brisket consists of two overlapping muscles whose fibers run more-or-less 90 degrees from each other. Supermarkets often sell these cuts separately: what's called "first cut" or "flat cut" is thinner and leaner (and therefore a bit drier); the "second cut" or "point end" or "deckle" is thicker, juicier, and much preferred in our household -- because what's the point of brisket if it isn't lip-sticking succulent? Both cuts have a fair amount of fat on or in them and you want to leave that fat on during cooking to keep the moisture in.

Because people are fat-o-phobic, many food markets only sell the first cut. But If you're cooking an entire brisket, which I like to do, then you need a quick carving lesson since the fibers of each cut aren't aligned. Much is made of this minor complexity but all you need do is carve the thin cut against its grain, then turn the meat (or flip it over) and carve the thicker cut below against its grain.

On this particular evening, what we ate was mostly the juicy voluptuous stuff: Mr. Bobo, the national Jack Daniels Master "brisketeer," even had a mixture of briskets, including Wagyu, in his delicious sliders. Those who didn't win any distinction that night were the cooks whose offerings were dry or thick or poorly cut. Top honors that night went to first-place John Zervoulakas of John Brown's Smokehouse (burnt ends with foie & truffle juice); #2 place to Ducks Eatery (Bubby's oak-smoked brisket with papaya salad), and 3rd place to Robbie Richter (for his suave Shabu-Shabu.)

And there's a new brisketeer in America: Stephanie Pierson. She is the author of The Brisket Book: A Love Story with Recipes (recently published by Andrews McMeel). It is a delightful read.

While I can't supply you with any of the winning recipes, I can give you one of my own that I created for Bon Appetit (below) or check out my "Tamarind Brisket" on my blog.

My Sweet-and-Sour Brisket with Shallots & New Potatoes

1-1/2 cups orange juice 5 large soft Medjool dates, pitted 4 large garlic cloves, peeled 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 5 tablespoons olive oil 2 pounds onions, thinly sliced 16 large shallots, peeled 2-1/2 cups beef broth 5-pound brisket (first or second cut, trimmed, leaving 1/4-inch layer of fat) 1-1/2 cups tomato puree 16 very small potatoes, about 1 to 1-1/2 inches, scrubbed

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Process orange juice, dates, garlic and cloves in a blender until smooth. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in large wide ovenproof pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and whole shallots. Cook until onions are deep golden and shallots begin to brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer shallots to small bowl; reserve. Add broth to onions and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits. Pour onion mixture into large bowl. Add 2 tablespoons oil to the same pot. Season brisket with salt and pepper. Add to pot and brown well on all sides. Turn brisket, fat side up. Return onion mixture to pot. Add tomato puree and orange juice mixture. Bring to a boil, stirring to blend sauce. Cover pot and bake 2 hours. Add shallots and potatoes. Cover and bake 1 hour. Uncover and bake until brisket is tender, occasionally spooning sauce over, about 2 hours longer. Let rest 30 minutes. (This can be made 2 days ahead. Chill uncovered until cold, then cover and refrigerate.) Scrape sauce off brisket. Thinly slice brisket across the grain and return brisket to pot. Add the potatoes and shallots and heat until hot. Serves 8 or more.

Poisoned by a Pine Nut Tart

So there I was last week, developing Thanksgiving recipes for a major food magazine -- yes, they work that far ahead -- and nibbling on some pine nuts that I'd bought to make an open-face apple and pine nut crostata laced with Calvados. The first attempt wasn't exactly what I wanted but I kept nibbling at the tart until it was gone.

Two days later, after nailing the rest of the Thanksgiving meal -- a cider-glazed turkey, a puree of celery root, apples and carrots with sage buttered crumbs, and a stuffing made from rice, leeks, and herbs de Provence -- I'd had enough of my own cooking and took a friend to lunch to celebrate. The wine I drank tasted awfully bitter: Metallic and off-putting. Later that night I was invited to dinner at a friend's house in the neighborhood. It was hard to be polite about the meal because everything I ate tasted like I was sucking on cast iron.

I called my herbalist and my nutritionist, neither of whom had the faintest notion about what might be causing this odd eruption of bitterness in my mouth.

A frantic rummaging around the web unearthed a bewildering number of causes: from pregnancy, to mercury poisoning, to faulty fillings, but the one that began to make sense was pine nuts. Lots of people were blaming pine nuts they'd purchased from Costco and Trader Joe's but mine came from an upscale Park Slope gourmet food store. Fingers started pointing straight to China -- and why not? -- if they can poison our toothpaste, why not our pine nuts, too.

The condition is called "dysgeusia" or "metallogeusia" and not everyone is affected. The FDA says it is not an allergy but instead is an adverse reaction to something in the nuts. Its cause is still somewhat of a mystery. Lots of pine nuts have been shipped from China because they're plentiful and cheaper, but starting about ten years ago one particular variety of white pine nut grown there -- pinus armandii -- has been infiltrating packages of the good stuff. Pinus armandii is not classified as edible by the Food and Agriculture Organization, and is called "unfit for human consumption" by food safety experts at the European Commission. Strictly speaking, they're poisonous but don't cause permanent harm, which is why you still find them on food market shelves. These nuts, if you trouble to look, are much shorter than the more expensive ones from Italy that we once exclusively consumed; they should be avoided.

"Pine nut mouth" usually develops a day or two after eating the nuts and that's exactly what happened to me! Almost 48 hours after the last bite of my apple and pine nut tart came the ill-tasting wine and then several days of hideous heavy metal tastes in my mouth. Its cause is still the subject of some controversy, but toxicologists are pretty sure about the source. Its effects can linger from a couple of days to a couple of weeks and it is sure to put you off your feed. You can't "cure" it because it isn't a disease. Various bloggers report that taking activated charcoal tablets, which cost like the dickens at my health food store, lessens the symptoms (maybe), as does drinking aloe vera juice (perhaps not). I've heard that Pepcid works for some people as does sucking on those sour kids candies that I was tempted to buy.

I started to feel like Dr. Jekyll, experimenting with all sorts of foods. Lemon juice lit up the inside of my mouth, roast turkey tasted like fuel oil, and a button mushroom almost sent me to the hospital. I took a Benadryl instead. Strangely, the things I could almost tolerate were triple-strength black coffee (Bustelo) and ice cold tap water which tasted surprisingly good.

One blogging scientist explained that you can't alter the bitterness in your mouth because the actual reaction is registered in your brain.

I suspect that storing pine nuts too long in my freezer exacerbated this miserable experience. But about a decade ago when the price of pine nuts began to soar, so did the number of complaints about this poisoning. The Sherlock Holmes moment comes when you discover that the offensive Pinus armandii happen to grow only in China. Great pine nuts are harvested in the United States, Europe and Turkey, so if you find a jar in your food market with no country of origin on the label, or if the nuts come from more than one country, you might want to put them back on the shelf.

Four days have passed and I'm almost back to normal. Gratitude never tasted so good.

An Award-Winning Dish for the Oscars

This is a bit of a shaggy dog story, but a real one. Think of it as a headnote to a recipe I'd like to share so that you have something delicious to make for your Oscar Party this weekend. It's perfect. It's multi-culti, can be made two days in advance, and is terrific with ballsy red wine. Lots of it. After all, the Oscars are one long dinner party.

Less than one year ago, I got an email from a stranger. It said "Chef Gold: I am fairly sure the subject dish featured in a recent Bon Appetit is not only the best thing I have ever made (in 40+ years of cooking), it may be the best thing I've ever eaten. Bravo! You deserve an Academy Award."

That recipe was the subject line of Mary LeComte Bowler's email: Moroccan-Inspired Pastistio with Spicy Lamb & Cinnamon. As a frequent contributor to Bon Appetit, I was asked to write a story about baked pasta. Ms. Bowler, apparently loved the unusual spicing and crossover flavors of a classic Greek dish morphing into a Moroccan one. I sent her a copy of my cookbook, Radically Simple to thank her.

Less than a year later, it was Mary's son, Andrew, who was nominated for an Academy Award! He and his wife Gigi produced a short film called Time Freak for $25,000.00. They made it in four days. That's how long it took me to create this recipe!

Anyway, Andrew and Gigi have a great story to tell and you can watch their wonderful interview on the CBS Morning Show just a few days ago. I dedicate this recipe to them and to Andrew's mother, Mary LeComte Bowler. Look for them early on the red carpet on Sunday. They'll be there. Enjoy the recipe and enjoy the show.

Moroccan-Inspired Pastistio with Spicy Lamb & Cinnamon

2 tablespoons olive oil 1 heaping cup finely diced red onion 2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped 1-1/2 tablespoons ras el hanout 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 pound ground lamb 28-ounces plum tomatoes in puree 2 tablespoons dried mint leaves 8 tablespoons unsalted butter 6 tablespoons flour 3 cups milk 6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled 3 eggs, separated 1 pound penne rigate ½ cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano

Heat oil in a very large skillet. Add onions and garlic and cook over high heat 5 minutes until soft. Add lamb and cook 5 minutes until just cooked through. Add tomatoes, ras el hanout, cinnamon, mint, and all but 1/2 teaspoon cumin. Bring to a boil, stirring, lower heat and simmer 20 minutes until thick. Add salt and pepper to taste

Meanwhile, melt 6 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour, and cook until golden, about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Bring milk just to a boil in another saucepan. Slowly add hot milk to flour mixture, whisking constantly until smooth. Bring just to a boil, then simmer several minutes until thick. Remove from heat. Stir in feta, egg yolks and remaining cumin. Whisk 1 minute until yolks "cook." Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until just tender, about 12 minutes. Drain pasta well and transfer to large bowl. Add 2 tablespoons butter, egg whites and 1/4 cup grated parmesan. Arrange 1/2 pasta in a deep 9-x-12 inch lasagna pan. Spread the lamb sauce over pasta. Top with remaining pasta and press firmly. Spoon white sauce on top and sprinkle with remaining parmesan. Bake 40 minutes until bubbly. Serves 8

Tastes of the Week/Tastes of the Future

Feb. 12 thru Feb. 19th, 2012 As I blabbered about being excited to go to RedFarm for dinner, the "happening" new restaurant owned by Chinese food maven, Ed Schoenfeld, I can tell you that the excitement turned into happy eating delirium. The tiny 40-seat restaurant located at 529 Hudson Street (bet. W. 10th and Charles) is darling -- a kind of farm-to-table environment with long communal tables and cozy booths-for-two. Eddie says they turn down at least 500 diners a night (they don't take reservations) but have found a way of "farming" people out to local bars and then texting them when a seat is available. I think the system is working! I fell into the arms of fellow-diner chef Todd English (we've been friends for years) and hung out at the tiny bar, drinking a yuzu caipirinha, until our table was ready.  The chef, Joe Ng, is an urban dumpling legend and we ate a few that were other-worldly -- especially the Black Truffle & Chicken Soup Dumplings that squirt into your bowl, and totally cool green vegetable-chive dumplings. Apparently Chef Eric Ripert and the adorable Bobby Flay also like them since they are frequent RedFarm-ers! Ditto Gael Greene and the rest of NY's food cognoscenti. But there are lots of nice, normal people, too -- including a couple who came all the way from Boston just to eat there. And while the kabocha squash & ricotta bruschetta at abckitchen is one of my favorite "tapas" in all of New York, I have found another favorite in Eddie's smoked salmon & eggplant "bruschetta." Truly fabulous. As was the crisp-skin chicken with garlic sauce, the okra & Thai eggplant yellow curry with flatbread for dunking, and the wok-sauteed conch with scallops and jumbo shrimp which was a special that night. The fresh fruit plate was a work of art (how do they do this in such a small kitchen?) and would you believe the chocolate pudding was first-rate! The food is "new Chinese" with so much style and grace that you may never order in again.

And my husband took me on a date to Patroon -- the beautifully, clubby restaurant in midtown (160 East 46th Street), owned by another of New York's great restaurateurs, Ken Aretsky who used to run the "21 Club." We hadn't been in years and heard that Patroon was recently spruced up! It's fabulous looking (an impressive photography collection graces the walls) and the service is the most professional and affable that we've had in a long time. Not a snooty moment, but it was precision-perfect. The very nice chef, Bill Peet, worked at Lutece for years and remains a close friend of chef/legend André Soltner. It's "the" place to go for Dover sole (filleted tableside) and steak au poivre, and the oyster pan roast was luscious. The "Simply Grilled Fish of the Day" was perfectly-cooked cod over a tangle of the most delicious "roasted" broccoli rabe we've ever had. The place is all-class and feels like the "new 21." Good mango sorbet. Be sure to visit their roof-top bar as soon as the weather gets nice. We hear it's the place to be.

Tastes of the future: Every so often I peruse the events booklet published by the James Beard Foundation as to the "goings-on" at the Beard House (located on West 12th street in NYC) and locations around the county. It provides a snapshot into current "chef thinking" -- re: new flavors, tastes, combinations, and techniques --  a "look-see" into what my peers are cooking these days! Here's a glimpse of hot new ingredients in the March/April issue:  rutabaga sauerkraut, bok choy kimchi, squash butter, tongues, black cod, pork cheeks, hake cheeks, toasted cherry leaves, almond milk, pressed palm seeds, goat milk cream cheese, "beet" steak, tomato "chicharrones," bellies (pork and lamb), freekeh, rabbits, pigs ears, vadouvan spice, and fresh curry leaves. Coming soon to your plate. Enjoy your own tastes of the week.

Tastes of the Week and Valentine's Day

Feb. 6 through Feb. 13, 2012 Happy Valentine's Day! If you're not going out for a candlelight dinner tonight, why not make one at home? You might enjoy a radically elegant Filet of Beef with Wasabi Cream (recipe below from Radically Simple) or my heart-shaped meatloaf from Little Meals. Share the love.  A St. Amour beaujolais would be a nice wine to drink.  And of course, serve something chocolate for dessert. Perhaps a "Little Black Dress Chocolate Cake" accessorized with fresh raspberries and powdered sugar (or gold leaf!)

Tastes of the week:  In a nutshell, two terrific meals last week at Le Bernardin and at abckitchen. I haven't been to Le Bernardin in years and was eager to see the new design. While I am still partial to the original "look" created by uber-architect Phil George (with the wonderful paintings by Abelard Favela -- a revered artist from Mexico), the new Le Bernardin is arresting in its cool, warm look and remarkable 24-foot painting (I swore it was a photo) of a stormy sea by Brooklyn artist, Ran Ortner. In celebrating my cousin's special birthday, we had the three-course prix fixe lunch with an additional "middle course" of ethereal fettuccine with a truffle bolognese. Sublime. But the most stunning dish was a first course of barely cooked shrimp and foie gras. The most "French" tasting dish I've had in a long while. The rest of the menu -- octopus, red snapper, lobster, were all first-rate as were the desserts -- not too crazy (as so many have become) but intelligently crafted and beautifully executed.

At abckitchen, I had my favorite starter, the kabocha squash and ricotta bruschetta, the famous roasted carrot salad, a wondrous sashimi, and a pizza to share, laden with spinach, herbs and goat cheese.  Chef Dan Kluger has perfect "flavor" pitch.

And then there was the very good guacamole at Rosa Mexicano on East 18th Street. The size of a small neighborhood, the place felt very democratic and alive. The signature dish is the table-side guacamole, made from perfectly-ripe avocados, mashed and tossed with tomato, jalapeno, lime juice and more. I loved that it was served at room temperature (those avocados never saw the inside of a refrigerator.) And while I rarely drink margaritas, no less a pomegranate one, and no less a frozen one, Rosa Mexicano's version rocks. Almost ordered a second. It is interesting that Jonathan Waxman decided to become the executive chef of this upscale chain and no doubt will bring his formidable expertise to the kitchen. I always think of the amazing woman who started it all -- Josefina Howard -- who was among the first to bring sophisticated Mexican food to New York -- in stylish surroundings, with a sexy vibe, excellent food, and those...wonderful pomegranate margaritas. She is greatly missed and one of  New York's great women-in-food.

Happy Valentine's day. Food is love.

Filet of Beef with Wasabi-Garlic Cream (from Radically Simple) serves 6

2 tablespoons olive oil 1-3/4-pound filet of beef, tied 1 tablespoon sugar 1-1/2 cups heavy cream 2 very large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed 1 tablespoon prepared wasabi

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Drizzle the oil on a rimmed baking sheet; roll the filet in the oil. Combine the sugar and 1 tablespoon kosher salt.  Rub into the top and sides of the filet, but not the bottom or it will burn. Roast the beef 25 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 125 degrees for rare. Meanwhile, bring the cream and garlic to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce the heat and cook, stirring, until reduced to 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Push the softened garlic through a press; whisk back into the sauce. Add the wasabi, cook 1 minute and remove from the heat. Add salt. Transfer the beef to a cutting board. Let rest 10 minutes. Gently reheat the sauce. Remove the strings from the beef and thickly slice. Serve with the sauce.

How I Bought 3,500 Cookbooks and Got 6,317

You may recall that when Gourmet Magazine was abruptly shut down in December 2009 there were 3,500 cookbooks on their library shelves that would have great value as a single collection -- but they were on the verge of being broken up or, worse, sold off by Conde Nast for just $4 a book. With some well-timed phone calls, a bit of luck, and surprise approval from my family, I shelled out $14,000 to buy them all. But not for myself. Instead, I donated them, down to the very last recipe, to New York University in honor of my Hungarian mother, a vivacious cook who was more Zsa Zsa than Julia.

I've just discovered that I'd purchased not 3,500, but in fact 6,317 titles. For a moment, I fantasized that the books had bred amongst themselves and that these bonus babies represented a new form of "fusion cuisine." The more prosaic answer came from Marvin J. Taylor, director of Fales Library and Special Collections at NYU. "It turns out that there were boxes and boxes of smaller pamphlets that pushed the numbers up."

What's more important than the numbers is that almost two years to the day the collection is now available for research and for posterity. Financed by a grant from Les Dames d' Escoffier, "We have just completed the cataloging of the Gourmet library," reports Taylor. For all of us in the world of food, that's exciting news. The collection is now ready for use by historians who live in research libraries and for the rest of us who'd just as soon troll through a cookbook as read a novel.

To that point, I'm eager to read The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman. It is a novel not about cookbook collecting, but whose premise serves as a metaphor for the substitutions we make in our lives when we can't find what we're looking for, i.e. reading cookbooks instead of actually cooking, collecting instead of living. My mother wisely noted that I enjoyed puttering in the kitchen rather than working on my master's degree in psychology. So that I wouldn't cook instead of work, she encouraged me to become a professional chef at a time when women were anathema in the kitchen. I'm proud that the woman who inspired and nurtured me is immortalized by having her nameplate in each book in the Gourmet collection.


Gourmet magazine made the world of food possible for many of us: We ate and drank its dreams. Its images and words shaped our aspirations, made us thirsty, piqued our curiosity, cajoled us to travel, and steered us to ancient hungers. We grew inquisitive as we sat at its table and became sophisticated at its knee. Few institutions can help us journey inside ourselves at the same time as we journey to the four corners of the world. The Gourmet library is so important because it means something unique to each of us.

Gourmet was where I had my first job interview after I graduated from college. I lived downstairs from their elusive photographer Luis Lemus. I didn't get the job, but years later I wrote for them, and was eventually written about and featured on one of their covers. No doubt, each of you reading this has your own special story -- even Nora Ephron, who said, "Every time I get married, I start buying Gourmet."

According to Taylor, the Gourmet library, consisting largely of volumes published within the past 30 years, was discerningly put together. "It really represents what the editors saw as the best of the best," he said. "It is fascinating because you can see the various trends Gourmet covered. There are shelves of Cajun books and many Mediterranean books. And there's a very large Asian selection."

NYU reportedly has the largest assemblage of cookbooks and other culinary miscellany in the country and I am happy that the collection will be available to chefs and food professionals forever and will keep Gourmet in everyone's heart.

And I raise a glass to Ruth Reichl, Gourmet's editor-in-chief, whose spirit guided the magazine so well.

Dinner at Diva at the Met

As promised, here is the menu from the "world class" meal I had at Diva at the Met located in the Metropolitan Hotel in Vancouver. It was magnificently cooked by Chef Hamid Salimian and orchestrated by sommelier Corey Bauldry. It was a wonderful experience!

amuse bouche

olive oil marshmallow, black olive salt, olive butter diva bacon, parsnip, maple dehydrated brioche, sturgeon caviar nitro gravlax mini pork puffs, tabasco powder, tabasco mayo beef tartare, crispy tendon puffed foie gras, quince, melba toast baked potato, winter truffles, chives frozen cucumber soda

blue mountain brut, okanagan, british columbia nv grapefruit elderflower fizz

1^st course

 sunshine coast sturgeon b.c. side striped prawn, dill ash cured scallop, salmon roe, champagne jelly william fevre petit chablis, burgundy, france 2009

2nd course

albacore tuna & dungeness crab yuzu crisp, oyster leaf, cucumber, avocado, soy vinaigrette blasted church, hatfield’s fuse, (gewurztraminer, pinot gris, pinot blanc, ehrenfelser), okanagan valley, british columbia 2010

3^rd course

 pickled winter vegetables blood pudding, bone marrow croquette, trumpets la stella, la stellina, merlot rosato, okanagan valley, british columbia 2009

 4th course

 sweetbreads salsify, pressed onion sherry jus chateau ste. michelle riesling, columbia valley washington 2009

 5^th course

 perigord truffle truffle pappardelle, 63º egg, pork belly crouton del fin del mundo, reserva pinot noir, patagonia, argentina 2009

6^th course

 sablefish tomato eggplant stew, fennel rocca della macie, sasyr, sangiovese & syrah, igt, toscana, italy 2008

 dessert

 stilton cheesecake rhubarb, port ganton & larsen prospect winery “the lost bars” vidal icewine, okanagan valley, british columbia, 2009

Diva at the Met Restaurant, 645 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC Y6C 2Y9

Photos of the Week:

Food News & Tastes of the Week

Jan. 30 through Feb. 5, 2012 Done!:  Many of you may remember that when Gourmet magazine was abruptly shut down in December of 2009 there remained 3,500 books that had great value as a collection. I was in a unique position to acquire the books and donate them to New York University in honor of my mother. That collection took more than 2 years to catalogue, with funds provided by Les Dames d'Escoffier and Fales Library and Special Collections at NYU. According to Marvin Taylor, Director of Fales, "As of today (1/19/12), we have completed the cataloging of the Gourmet Libary.  The total number of titles was 6,137. (Not the 3,500 we originally thought!)  It turns out there were boxes and boxes of smaller pamphlets that pushed the numbers up."  So proud that my mother, who inspired and nurtured me in so many ways, is "immortalized" in the cookbooks she loved so well.  The collection is now available for research and posterity.

Starbucks & 1-2-3!:   Beginning tomorrow (2/7/12), Starbucks is doing a promotion with my new e-book called The 1-2-3 Collection.  For one week (ending 2/13/12), 900,000 "gift cards" will appear in 8,000 Starbucks for a free give-away of a fabulous recipe collection called  Quick & Easy Recipes 1-2-3. The e-book, featuring 50 exclusive recipes, will be featured as the Pick of the Week.

Opening!: According to food maven, Arthur Schwartz, Starita in Naples, Italy is considered by many to be the best place for pizza in all of Italy (well, certainly Naples!) When we were there last August, we took a $30 cab ride to find it, in a rather obscure neighborhood, only to find it closed! Quite by accident on my way to see "Freud's Last Session," I stumbled upon a new (not yet opened) restaurant called Da Antonio -- which, turns out, is owned by the owners of Starita! Great surprise. It is due to open this week and is located at 309 West 50th Street. The spice man cometh!:  Lior Lev Sercarz is one of the most interesting guys I've met in awhile. The Israeli-born, French-trained chef is the "artiste" behind a spice shop-cum-gallery in Hell's Kitchen where he roasts, toasts and blends hundreds of worldly spices into magical powders for famous chefs. He will also work with home cooks to develop customized blends as aromatic and personal as Cleopatra's perfume. He is incredibly knowledgeable and clearly onto a new "form" that blends the worlds of culture, craft, and cooking.  His store, La Boite, is located at 724 11th Avenue (bet. 51st and 52nd streets). It is open for viewing, sniffing, consultations and chatting (spice therapy as he called it) from Wednesday through Friday, from 3 to 7 p.m.  Lior spent years in the kitchen of Daniel Boulud and studied under storied chefs in Belgium and France. Louise McCready in Nomad Editions wrote a wonderful, in-depth article about him which I know you will enjoy. I look forward to spending more time with Lior -- the genial Willy Wonka of the spice & biscuit trade.

Great food & it's Kosher!:  Azuri Cafe on West 51st street has an interesting pedigree. Considered a bit of a dump, with only 12 rather rickety seats, it has a "26" rating in Zagat -- only 1 point less than Babbo! I was determined to try it. It is very, very good -- delicious, fun, unexpected. The owner, who has a reputation for surliness, is actually very charming and nice. Born in Israel, his food is authentic and so tasty. Generous portions and great homemade green hot sauce! Recommendations:  Fried cauliflower to begin, bourekas with tahina and hot sauce, a fabulous over-stuffed chicken schwarma pita, and a overflowing platter of ground meat kebab, accompanied by salad, hummus and excellent babaganoush. Many thanks to my friend Steve North who took me there for a rather belated birthday celebration.

A totally new taste!: My first taste of oyster leaf, experienced last week at the world-class Diva at the Met in Vancouver, was startling. Not unlike my first nibble at a fresh shiso leaf, the oyster leaf tastes not only like oysters but like a sip of fresh ocean water to the 10th degree. Oh my gosh. Supposedly these leaves, which look a bit like spinach, made their first appearance at El Bulli in San Sebastian. The verdant leaves, salty as the sea, absorb the salt from the soil to prevent them from freezing. Generally grown in Europe, they will soon pop up on more and more menus in America. Not only a prediction, but a wish.

Tomorrow!:  View the entire menu (with wine pairings) from my remarkable dinner at Diva, and enjoy some snapshots of the "tastes of the week."

Tastes of the Week

Jan. 23 through Jan. 30, 2012 A week of big, bold, beautiful, bi-coastal tastes.

Lunch at Manzo with Lidia Bastianich. Just the two of us chatting for three hours about everything:  raising children; imparting wisdom to younger women who long to be in the food business; her career path and new tv shows; my career path and new projects; food, wine, friends, our hopes for the future.  It was my first time at Manzo (located on the main floor of Eataly on 5th Avenue in NY) and it was wonderful. The best "tartare" I have ever had; voluptuous sweetbreads; a lovely unusual pasta dish of tajarin (thin egg noodles) with a roasted meat jus; a roasted ribeye with succulent sauteed cavalo nero drenched in sticky meat juices; wines from the Bastianich vineyards, and a plate of freshly-cut blood oranges for dessert. We enjoyed a brief visit from Baronessa Cecilia Bellelli and her sister. Cecilia is Arthur Schwartz's business partner in their cooking school called Cooking at Seliano in southern Italy. Espressos all around. Ciao ciao and grazie mille to Lidia.

The BEST raw yogurt and sour cream from Triangle Farm and Health Foods in Aaronsburg, PA. This was a gift from a new friend who frequents the Park Slope Co-op and cares deeply about the quality and provenance of her food sources. The sour cream was indescribable and much more like French creme fraiche than anything we are used to in the states. I encourage you to find out more about them. I know I will. Am savoring every spoonful and am enjoying it tremendously with a dab of my homemade carrot marmalade. Thank you to Anne Weisen who brought these wonderful products to me.

Many great meals in Vancouver and one of them was world-class! A superb Thai meal cooked by Angus An who worked for the revered David Thompson at Nahm in London (the only Michelin-starred Thai restaurant.) Angus' Vancouver restaurant is called Maenam:  there we had a Thai dinner party for four -- including fried oysters with "nahm jim" sauce made with green chilies (they call them scuds), garlic, coriander stem, galangal, fish sauce and lime juice; hot and sour mussel soup with holy basil; Muslim beef curry with Thai curry paste; a spicy salad of seared tuna, mint, cilantro, nuts, & chili; and of course, pad Thai (the ubiquitous noodle dish.)  Wish this restaurant existed right here in New York.

We had lunch at the sister restaurant to one of the world's most well-known Indian restaurants "Vij."  His smaller place is called Rangoli and it, too, is special.  Especially the "naan" pizza topped with roasted crickets!  I didn't touch it and neither did my daughter who ordered it. What possessed her?  But my husband thought it was awesome. He also enjoyed his lamb, chickpeas and potatoes in yogurt-date curry and our friend loved her goat and jackfruit in creamy curry with coconut cabbage salad, rice and naan. Endless glasses of credible (and authentic) chai made a chilly gray Vancouver day very welcoming.

Another meal was actually mine (!) and prepared at Vancouver's famous book store called Barbara Jo's Books to Cooks. At my cooking class with 18 wonderful students around the eating bar/open kitchen, we cooked a meal from Radically Simple:  tiny walnut-onion muffins to accompany a glass of prosecco; my jade soup with crab and dill (made with heaps of Dungeness crab from Vancouver instead of the usual lump crab I generally use -- it was fabulous); chicken ras el hanout with fresh tomato-ginger chutney sitting on a swirl of milk carrot and parsnip puree, next to a timbale of coconut-pistachio rice, a "pre-dessert" of whiskey-laced warm carrot marmalade served on silver spoons; and the "little black dress chocolate cake" strewn with fresh raspberries and dolloped with creme fraiche.  It was such an exercise in radical simplicity that the happy guests were stunned and a good time was had by all.

A lovely brunch overlooking one of Vancouver's most beautiful parks and lakes at The Boat House. Delicious eggs benedict atop a grilled cheese and lobster sandwich! Yes! A glass of terrific local BC pinot gris. 

But the most extraordinary meal of all -- perhaps the best, and most inventive I've had in years, was at Diva @ the Met (Metropolitan Hotel) in Vancouver.  More about the menu, the wine pairings and the chef later in the week.  But suffice it to say, it is deserving of at least 3 Michelin stars and the chef, Hamid Salimian is a gentle genius.

Not easy to leave Vancouver but I bring home a basket of taste memories to last a long while.

Beer Cheer Here

Don't hate me: I don't like beer, but I recognize its place in the world. My mother would slug a Heineken on a hot summer's day and I must admit my secret pleasure of downing a dark, syrupy, heady Lezak in Prague at U Fleků (the oldest brew pub in the world, circa 1499). But beer seems to be moving the same way wine did 20 years ago: Lots of new entrants, the emergence of "beer geekery"...and the growing popularity of monster, high-alcohol beers. And while big brand beer sales may be slipping, craft brewers' sales have been rising about 12% annually according to some estimates. This is a trend hard to ignore. Most beers are between 5% and 6% alcohol, but the new big bruisers run from 7%-14% and are very much in demand. Robust India Pale Ales are leading the charge along with high-alcohol stouts aged in oak barrels -- often previously used for bourbon. India Pale Ales' popularity indicates a shift in Americans taste preference -- a shift toward bitter, which we also have seen in food and in the popularity of craft-made bitters in cocktails. Small producers, stronger products and a bit of snobbery -- they all remind me of bread thirty years ago, when a great restaurant roll was hard to find until local bakers began showing people what a great product was like. And, like beer today, there suddenly erupted a bewildering variety of breads and consumers have discovered that "sour" was a good thing and now those idiosyncratic efforts are being rewarded. Indeed, sour beers (in the positive sense) are catching on, almost all of them local.

Draft beer is on the rise because much of craft brewers' output is sold locally and sold on tap. About 1/3 of craft beer sales are on tap vs. 10% for big national brands. This means growing representation of local beers and it fits nicely into the locavore trend. Consumers are discovering that good local beers selling at $5-$7 a glass are great bargains compared to mediocre wines that, at $10-$15 a glass, restaurants are clearly overcharging for. (This fact alone could begin to sway me!) Just two days ago, Starbucks announced that it is expanding its beer and wine program to Southern California, Chicago and Atlanta after testing it in Seattle and Portland. It is not alone: Burger King, Sonic, even White Castle, are serving beer (and sometimes wine) in a limited number of stores -- all hoping to boost their evening sales. Newfangled beer gardens featuring dozens of craft beers instead of mediocre swill are opening across the country and establishing themselves as new gathering places. Some, like the Batali/Bastianich 10,000 square foot rooftop Birreria in New York City are all-weather affairs and they're transcending the old notions of pretzels as typical "beer food." You'll find curated selections of cheese and charcuterie along with a full menu of lusty main courses like quail with Sambuca-braised fennel, homemade sausages (the cotechino is to die for); and pork shoulder braised with beer and apricots.

And then there's Jimmy's No. 43 in Manhattan, run by the affable Jimmy Carbone. He is a bear of a beer lover and has sanctified the yeasty brew with a calendar of riveting events and even his own radio show devoted to beer experts and on-air tastings. (You can listen every Tuesday on Heritage Radio Network.) Coming up? There's a Beer Cocktail Brunch-Off (big trend); a Farm + Beer Expo (held at the Brooklyn Brewery); and on Valentine's Day, a tasting of beers that pair with chocolate. Jimmy cajoles his disciples to "Keep Your Resolution to Drink Great Beer This Year (of the Dragon.)

Beer and bread are lifestyle products that reflect a growing desire for the hand-made, the strong-flavored, the distinctive. I'm reminded of the time that Joe Baum, the legendary restaurateur, decades ago, planned a chain of beer bars called Brew Ha Ha. Clearly, its time has come.

Tastes of the Week

Tastes of the WeekJan. 16 through Jan. 22, 2012

Trend of the moment: Escarole -- you heard it here first. You will find it braised, grilled, steamed, stir-fried, in salads, shredded, roasted, stuffed...everywhere.

I just love, love, love Bon Appetit's "faux shrimp" cocktail made with -- no, not surimi -- but with a head of fresh cauliflower, in the new February issue. Not sure why it tickles me so, but I can't wait to try it. The recipe comes from Chef Kevin Roberts from "The Black Sheep" in Richmond, Virginia. According to the chef, it is a dead ringer for the real thing: Cauliflower florets are briefly poached in water seasoned with crab boil spices, onions, garlic and lemons, and then served with cocktail sauce. The recipe alone is worth the price of the mag.

We were entertaining out-of-town guests this weekend and decided to go to Junior's in Times Square for a certain kind of New York experience. Before going, New York food maven Arthur Schwartz mentioned that the hamburgers were awfully good. Would never have imagined but my burger was fabulous! A perfectly-cooked rare cheeseburger with smothered onions. Juicy beyond all get out, great flavor, affordable. Good beets, pickles, slaw and a very nice waiter. And while the cheesecake at Junior's is excellent -- and certainly famous -- we were lunching with another famous baker... Anne Kabo from Margate, New Jersey.  It is her recipe for cheesecake that is featured in Radically Simple. Check it out; it's sublime.

Am enjoying a crate of honeybell oranges sent to me by my friend Evan Nisenson. The oranges come from Florida and are seductively sweet, intensely perfumed and actually silky in texture. I can think of no finer gift in the middle of winter and I am very grateful. I eat at least one a day. (And I share them, too.) The season is almost over (Jan. 30th) so hurry, hurry.

The finest "bruschetta" in the world is found at abckitchen. It is chef Dan Kluger's kabocha squash and goat cheese seasonal offering -- and that is almost over, too. Hurry, hurry.

Had a lovely authentic "tea" at the Colony Club with a dear friend who is a member. Fireplaces and a wonderful harpist. It reminds me what a wonderful way this is to entertain and so I think you should consider it. Little sandwiches, wonderful scones and clotted cream, tiny pastries. Tea.  (Currant-oatmeal scones based on a recipe from Joanne Rosen, lawyer and baker extraordinaire- under January 2012 recipes)

Instant party: Go to Barbounia (corner of Park Avenue South and 20th Street) and order the grand mezze of dips and spreads with freshly-baked Middle Eastern bread (more like Turkish pide than pita) and olives. Drink some Greek wine or a Spanish txakoli (from the Basque region) like we did last night.

Good friends told us that they had an amazing meal on Saturday night at the Gentleman Farmer on Rivington Street on the lower east side: Rabbit cassoulet; venison bourguignon, and a lusty cod dish with a root vegetable puree. Ostrich, wild boar, snails, are available, too. 20 seats only.

Dying to go back to Tony Zazula's Commerce restaurant (we had our Thanksgiving there) and to Drew Nieporent's Corton. Also eager to try Danny Meyer's newest venture -- North End Grill with super-star chef Floyd Cardoz at the ovens. I want their Grilled Clam Pizza now!

Happy tastes of the week to you.

The Vodka Table

I'm a convert. A trip to Sweden convinced me that nothing -- not even your favorite champagne -- goes better with caviar than an ice-cold shot of good vodka. The same goes for all kinds of herring, smoked eel, gravlax and smoked salmon, crayfish and sharp, spiced cheese...the stuff a Swedish smorgasbord is made of. A chilled snaps prepares the palate for these salty or smoked delicacies, smooth but neutral alcohol cuts through the fat and balances the salt. Several years ago, bacon-infused vodka made a big splash, lending panache to a category of "carnivorous cocktails."   This year, Vivid Vodka, filtered through 12,000 pounds of virgin coconut husks, touts crystalline purity and is apparently a headliner in Vegas. But for me, the most interesting thing about vodka, is the food that it accompanies:  Ergo, the history of the smorgasbord. In New York City in the '60s, my idea of heaven was to go with my family to the Scandia, or Stockholm restaurants and eat until I could eat no more.

A capsule history:  In the 15th century vodka was a medicinal product. It was mixed with herbs and spices whose selection depended on whether you were curing a person or a horse. By the close of the 17th century, Swedes were consuming vodka as their natural beverage. It was a terrific social lubricant and they "drank" it out of a bowl with a very large spoon. Skal -- cheers -- means bowl. Snaps means to swallow quickly; a shot.

The world's first salad bar: The smorgasbord, Sweden's gastronomic treasure, evolved out of something called the "aquavit buffet" or the "vodka table."  From ancestral roots almost 300 years ago, the smorgas -- literally a slice of bread -- and bord -- a table -- grew into an elaborate presentation of 60 to 70 dishes that, after an international odyssey, evolved into today's enormously popular salad bars. In the 1700s when the tradition began, a social evening in Sweden began with men drinking branvin ("burnt wine") -- a name that included all distilled spirits but specifically vodka and flavored aquavits. While men waited for the women to adjust their clothing after a hard ride across country, they assembled around their host's "vodka table," drinking branvin and nibbling on a multitude of herrings -- sort of a Swedish tapas bar. As time went on, the vodka table become a competitive social phenomenon, with hosts straining to create the most lavish, largest presentations. So much so, according to an executive of V&S Vin & Sprit AB, the company that launched Absolut into the world, a royal decree was issued by the government to end the ruinous competition.   Even at the turn of the century in restaurants in Sweden, "the vodka canteen" -- an elaborate silver fantasy dispensing several flavors of "branvin" -- was displayed at the center of the smorgasbord and guests were encouraged to eat and drink as much as they wanted. The canteen was affectionately known as Fritz. Vodka was included in the price of a meal -- but it was considered bad form to slug down more than half-a-dozen snaps.

How branvin became vodka: The stuff that Swedes were slugging down with their herring in the early smorgasbord days was pretty low in quality and high in bothersome impurities. Spices, usually caraway, were added to make such snaps drinkable. A bright fellow named Lars Olsson brought from France a method of "rectifying" or cleaning branvin's impurities by continuous distillation: he produced a spirit that needed no flavoring (not even bacon!) and was free of objectionable fusel oil. In 1879 he created the brand "Absolut Rent Branvin," meaning absolutely pure branvin. It was only in the 1950s that the Swedes started calling the stuff "vodka" -- taking their cue from Smirnoff, which was the first company to market the spirit internationally.

Putting on the "fritz": In this day of high operating costs and speedy business lunches, the smorgasbord is now more a symbol of Sweden than a reality, and you won't find many in America's cities, either. Stockholm is down to just a handful -- the most famous being the Operakällaren (the Opera Cellar.) After all, according to the Stockholm Restaurant Academy, a proper smorgasbord must have at least twelve preparations of Baltic and Atlantic herring plus graved laks (literally "buried salmon") and other smoked and poached salmons. Then comes the smoked and cured meats, the hot course, and dessert. Each trip to the table should be accompanied by a clean plate and at least five trips should be made.   That's far more costly than a crayfish taco. The Guinness Book of Records certified that the world's biggest smorgasbord measured over 1207 feet long with less than two inches between the serving dishes. Imagine the fun.   And while vodka producers continue to duke it out with claims of virgin birch charcoal filtration and aroma-therapy flavors, I say, bring back "Fritz" -- and you'll sell more vodka than one thought imaginable. Skal.

Tastes of the Week

January 1 to January 8, 2012 A home-style Chinese banquet: What better way to welcome the tastes of a new year than at a Chinese banquet.  Not in a restaurant, mind you, but in the comfort of someone's home. And so, just a few days ago, our friends and neighbors, Simon Liu and Susan Goldberg-Liu, invited us to a "dumpling fest" at their gorgeously restored brownstone. Along with their son Max (just home from Paris) and daughter Emma, our daughter Shayna learned to fill and fold her first dumplings (see photo), while Simon tended to his homemade chicken broth in which they all were poached. We had dumplings of shrimp and sausage, some of "just sausage" as Shayna's still shy of seafood, along with some naked fishballs. They reminded me of Italian gnudi, which are ravioli without the ravioli skin. Rounding out the meal were roast duck, pork and cuttlefish purchased in Brooklyn's vibrant Chinatown, where Simon has his art-and-restoration studio. It was all washed down with a rioja from Spain and a sauvignon blanc from Argentina. Everyone said no thank you to the barrage of chocolates and gingerbread men that followed, and then, of course, we ate them all.

A New Year's leg of pig: I often make an extra turkey on Thanksgiving because, in my opinion, it's not a party without copious leftovers for guests to take home. With that in mind, I encouraged my husband to roast an entire leg of pig for New Year's Eve even though were only eight for dinner and even though he pointed out that, after allowing for the bones, we'd have over two pounds of pig per person. Dutifully, he cut deep slits into the meat and stuffed them with a chop-up of fresh rosemary, sage, thyme, hot peppers, sea salt and an immeasurable quantity of garlic -- these being the seasonings for a classic Italian porchetta. The resulting roast looked like a bronzed sculpture sitting on our kitchen counter, and after he'd carved enough for double portions it still resembled a Henry Moore. No matter, I simply invited another shift of friends for lunch on New Year's Day and after slicing off food for a dozen guests, there it was, slightly diminished, but still hulking. Eternity has been described as "two people and a ham" (perhaps by Dorothy Parker). After a couple of meals of leftover leg, a roast pork ragu with penne rigate and several sandwiches of garlicky pork, sriracha, sliced tomatoes, arugula & pickled red onions, we just tonight saw the last of it -- except for stock made from the bones, which reside in our freezer waiting for a day in some uncertain future when our appetite is at last restored. Mozart and Sausages: No more flowers for me. Instead send me pork products from La Tienda and regale me with marzipan candies that evoke days gone by. Such were the gifts from my brother and sister-in-law last week. Part birthday gift, part holiday tidings, these edible treasures were firsts for me. First the candy: Known as Mozart Kugeln, packed in a delightful red tin with tiny portraitures of the composer, these are deluxe confections exquisitely filled with marzipan, made from "fresh green pistachios, almonds and rich hazelnut-nougat, enrobed with delicious milk and bitter chocolates." They have been made in Germany for more than 150 years and delighted my guests who unwrapped each elaborately-foiled candy with great affection. Add to that, a selection of Spanish sausages so fine as to make one swoon. From La Tienda, a family-owned company who gleans the best artisan products from Spain and ships thousands of order per week to homes across America, came three amazing products -- one entirely unknown to me -- sobrasada Mallorquina, a semi-soft chorizo that is meant for spreading on crusty bread. It is superb. Add to that, a cured sausage Sorio made with smoked paprika, and a Spanish-style salami flavored with black pepper instead of the more typical paprika.  (www.latienda.com)

Arthur Schwartz's Pasta and Lentils: A vegetarian gift to all for the New Year. In Italy, lentils are good luck for the new year and so this is my wish for all. Made by the maestro himself, we enjoyed it tremendously on New Year's day. Click here for the recipe. 

One hunded wine glasses: We washed at least this number by hand. A variety of shapes and sizes, for champagne, wines, moscato passito di Pantelleria, and Liquore Centerba, a digestif made with 100 herbs -- which was very helpful at the end of such a week.

Here's to a delicious 2012.

What We'll be Eating in 2012

For decades I have tracked trends, and as a chef, author and consultant, have created many of them. Some have lingered longer than most marriages, yet others still hover around obscurity or are merely a reflection of personal wishes. Some were so ahead of their time as to be forgotten or "invented" by someone else. That said, as we embark upon a new year of eating, cooking, shopping, blogging, ipad-ing, app-ing, reading, listening, watching, and drinking, here is my list of predictions: Kibbutz-style entertaining:   Have a party, invite a bunch of friends, tell them to bring something. Who needs to show-off any more? Generosity begins the minute you open your door. You set the table, provide the booze and make a main course. Your friends can build the menu around it. You do the dishes. Fun, right? It's the best way I know to get together with your friends more often; take the pressure off cooking, and focus on the conversation around the table.

Eating in your Zip Code: Moving deeper into the locavore trend is that of eating food grown or produced in one's own zip code. It is a suggestion I made in 1993 in my first book Little Meals -- where I talk about growing herbs in my window box and planting tiny edibles in my back yard. Today, chef's are growing "dinner" on their roof tops, in school yards, and home cooks in Brooklyn are planting patches of dirt in their driveways. After all, it's hard to find cardoons in the supermarket. The gratitude grid: Since everyone is so confused about what to eat and not to eat, how to define organic, how to know which species are endangered, how to determine what is healthy and not, I say a wonderful way to begin is with Mindfulness. Mindful of what it took to grow your food, the life that was sacrificed so that you could have your food, and respect for the time and care it took to prepare your food. I promise you that your pleasure will be doubled in everything you cook or consume. Try "cooking in silence" if you'd like to really experience what I'm talking about. Write down the most meaningful or pleasurable food experiences you've had to make them last. (I always think I'm going to remember, but don't!)

Better breakfasts and healthy lunches:  I know a very big company longing to find the next big healthy thing for people to eat in the morning at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, etc. It's a noble start. And with programs like Edible School Yards and Wellness in the Schools, I know this year will bring about the change in school lunch programs we've all been hoping for. Real food = healthy food: I predict that a "real food" movement will accompany the slow food movement that has captivated chefs from all over the world.  More emphasis on eating whatever is real as opposed to eating whatever is healthy. Pure and simple.

Ingredients to try: Cardoons, parsnips, kale, Chinese broccoli, mussels (making a comeback), new varieties of fish (including cuttlefish and herring!), persimmons, red quinoa, unhulled barley (great in risotto), spelt flour, leatherwood honey, buttermilk, beef shin, fresh chamomile, long beans, fresh lychees, mangosteens, congee (hot rice porridge) for breakfast (or dinner), hibiscus, coconut (oil and water), Thai fish sauce (my secret ingredient).

New foods you'll soon see: Hummus made from everything other than chickpeas!, real Iberico ham from Spain, soft, spreadable chorizo, cross-cultural dumplings, pappa al pomodoro (instead of risotto or pasta), yellow marinara sauce (from yellow tomatoes and yellow peppers), Pão de Queijo (Brazilian cheese bread), cakes made with olive oil, good wine from Bulgaria, eating weeds and unknown edible plants, moss and lichens, jams and jellies made from vegetables, beans in everything (healthy and cheap), "bulgogi saucing" and "rendangs" ("dry stewing"), the dishes of Southern India, a few French classics making comebacks.

Upside-down foods: Using fruits as vegetables and vegetables as fruits; red wine from predominantly white wine regions and vice versa; sweet things in savory dishes, savory things in sweet dishes; frozen appetizers and hot desserts; legumes, grains, herbs and soups at the end of the meal; cakes made with beets, turnips, and winter squash; blueberry gazpacho; poultry marinated in fish sauce (it's amazing.)

"Pantone" produce: Every fruit and vegetable in the world will now come in a variety of colors. It's where food and fashion meet -- fashion words becoming food words and vice versa. Saw some real pretty orange eggplants and dark magenta carrots at the farmers market the other day. Nice. It's a rainbow out there.

The cupcake bubble burst: As soon as anyone prints the calorie content of a frosted cupcake, it will all come to a screeching halt. I won't be the one.

The Spice Trade: Food transformation with the world tapestry of spices. There's the spice man, Lior, in New York who is creating spice blends as though they were perfumes. There are nutritionists and herbalists who are prescribing spices instead of medication. I've long predicted that za'atar should be sprinkled on every piece of pizza. Sumac as the new salt (it's also tart), ground seaweed as a common flavor enhancer (lots of umami.) Turmeric as a health booster. Like that.

Radical simplicity:  I wrote the book (Radically Simple -- just voted as one of the most important cookbooks of the last 25 years.)

A woman chef for President: A decade ago I wrote a screenplay about a woman chef who runs for President. Could 2012 be the year some fabulous, personable, smart, focused, intelligent such person arrives on the scene? The plot of my screenplay presaged the tv show Commander in Chief starring Gena Davis and foretold the arrival of a woman chef at the White House. And it predicted the food movement and healthy eating as a political platform, i.e. that of Michelle Obama. Hollywood, are you listening?

Happy New Year. May it be filled with delicious things.