Once a year

"Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven."

W.C. Fields, quoted in Albert Jack's "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods"

Candy cane cupcake

Because it is Christmas Eve.

To start

It is a decent way to start the day.

Makin' a list

This time of year, when store shelves brim with cooking manuals and food books big and small, I begin to play matchmaker. I decide what to present to whom. Like Santa, I make a list and check it twice. I whittle down the gift-giving to eight.



The friend who relied on Ottolenghi, a mini-chain of prepared-food shops in London, for dinner parties when she last lived in the U.K. gets chef and Guardian columnist Yotam Ottolenghi's "Plenty."

Organized conveniently by ingredients, it pulls together more than 100 recipes featuring everyday items cooked in unusual ways.

Bell peppers, fava beans, tomatoes, artichokes and olives, for example, shine in an accessible paella. Roasted eggplant, sweet potatoes and zucchini combine with ricotta, feta and eggs for a savory Mediterranean-inspired tart. The book ought to help make her Stateside get-togethers now equally tasty and stylish.



To the sister who wanted to travel to Seoul but couldn't, I will present Marja Vongerichten's "The Kimchi Chronicles: Korean Cooking for an American Kitchen." It is the next best thing, a substitute to temper the wanderlust.

Done in conjunction with the PBS series of the same name, it is part memoir, part travelogue, part cookbook. Vongerichten describes early experiences with her adoptive parents in Virginia, and the reunion two decades later in Brooklyn with her Korean birth mother. The women connected over bulgogi and kimchi.

She visits South Korea, and plays with traditional foods and flavors when she returns home, experimenting with celebrity-chef husband Jean-Georges in their kitchen. They make a mean lobster roll, and grill sea bass marinated with Korean rice ale and doenjang, coarse miso paste.



I would surprise the guy who celebrated a milestone birthday at Chez Panisse not long ago with a coffee-table volume celebrating the Berkeley restaurant's own recent milestone anniversary.

Filled with photos, menus and reprinted event posters as well as recollections from former and current staff members, "40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering" captures the history and spirit of the iconic eatery, opened in 1971 by Alice Waters.

It sheds light on the bakers, farmers and winemakers who have collaborated with them, and describes The Edible Schoolyard, which teaches children about good food and healthy eating.



For the friend wowed by images in Rachel Saunders' "The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook," I would offer Romney Steele's "Plum Gorgeous: Recipes and Memories from the Orchard."

Like the former, it, too, features photos by Sara Remington, nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. The shots alone are plum gorgeous.

Steele, who grew up in Big Sur and lived in orchards throughout her life, showcases seasonal fruits in their simplicity. She uses them in everything from lemon curd and cherry salsa to peach gelato and apple butter. Meanwhile, Remington captures the colors, textures and shapes, evoking a romantic nostalgia.



To my fellow Anglophile, who likes the British author as much as I do and gleans as much from his stories as I have, I would give Nigel Slater's "Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch." At more than 600 pages, it is quite the read.

A popular food writer in the U.K. and longtime columnist for The Observer – I call him the thinking man's Jamie Oliver – Slater details time spent in his backyard garden in London's Highbury neighborhood.

He recalls successes and failures. He has always grown things, he says, tomato plants on a window ledge in a student flat, for example, or pots of herbs out on a fire escape. That he would turn a lawn into a vegetable patch was inevitable.

Slater's tone is confident yet wistful, smart yet down-to-earth.



I would give the guy with the grill Lourdes Castro's "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, from Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More." Organized by Latin American region, this book should bring different flavors to his outdoor meals, providing a nice change of pace.

Castro, a New York City chef and cooking instructor, creates menus that highlight popular foods in several countries, concentrating on meats as well as starters, sides, drinks and desserts.

Her Nicaraguan ranch roast, for instance, offers instructions for coffee-rubbed rib-eye steaks as well as grilled ripe plantains and a rum-and-guava cooler. The Chilean seafood cookout includes grilled clams and chorizo as well as bacon-wrapped scallops and a meringue cake.



The brother with a deep-fryer would benefit from Heidi Swanson's "Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen." I want to encourage him to prepare more nutritious meals instead, especially when I visit.

A follow-up to "Super Natural Cooking," the collection includes easy recipes for quick breakfasts, brown-bag lunches and weeknight dinners. Swanson relies mostly on whole grains and natural ingredients.

A spinach strata, for example, calls for milk, eggs, spinach, whole wheat bread and feta. It can be assembled the night before and cooked first thing in the morning. A tortellini salad combines ricotta-stuffed tortellini with asparagus, broccoli, sprouts and avocado. Swanson uses alfalfa sprouts. But other sprouts would work, too.



And for me, there is Albert Jack's "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods." Because at the end of the gift-giving day, even Santa needs some love.

Jack looks at the origins behind many of our favorite foods, including eggs Benedict, Salisbury steak, the Cobb salad and dim sum. The chapter on traditional desserts such as apple pie, crepes Suzette and trifle is particularly sweet.

The author examines eating and drinking rituals as well, explaining, for instance, the esoteric connection between the toast we have with jam and the toasts we make at the table with our wine glasses.

His prose is informative, his writing style breezy. Though others might consider a book on culinary inventions trivia, I find it fascinating, and believe it provides a different kind of sustenance.

(A version of this article appears on www.culinate.com.)

"Plenty"

"For me, every food can be special. I always think you can add beauty and luxury to a dish by adding lots of herbs to it.

"I think a huge platter always looks better than a small plate, so to make my guests welcome and feel special I put many beautiful platters with food, as I do in my shops, so it's quite a lot around, a lot to choose from.

"Once you've done that, you can make the simplest things in the world, and still everyone thinks you've gone to the longest of efforts, but actually it's as simple as that."

Yotam Ottolenghi, author of "Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi," on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday

Handy dandy

The thing that helps

"There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass a champagne."

Bette Davis

Lunch time

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles, quoted in Albert Jack's "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods"

Still life with pears

Squash squashed

Or squashed squash. Same difference.

The hot chocolate life

"When I've reached the bottom of my cup, fully sated, I head toward the door without any feeling of overindulgence, but fortified enough to handle the fiercest of Parisian winter weather. With a warm glow, I slip on my jacket, re-macrame my scarf around my neck, drop a few coins in the dish by the register, and leave. As I exit, I'm always careful to make a sharp ninety-degree turn just after I'm out the door so I don't inadvertently meet my maker. (Or my hot chocolate maker, although I'd sure like to meet him to pick his brain.)"

David Lebovitz in "The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City"

Hot Chocolate
from David Lebovitz's "The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City"

2 cups whole or low-fat milk
5 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
pinch of coarse salt

In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, chocolate and salt. Heat until it begins to boil. (It will probably boil up quite a bit at first, so keep an eye on it.)

Lower the heat to the barest simmer and cook the mixture, whisking frequently, for 3 minutes. If you want a thicker consistency, cook it another 1 to 2 minutes.

Serve naturel, or with a giant mound of slightly sweetened whipped cream. Sugar can be added, to taste. Makes 4 to 6 cups.

The glazed jelly donut

"He knew when to leave the boy's mother alone and how best to ask her for ice cream. Don't ask her too often and when you do, don't let her know how much you really want it. Don't beg. Don't whine.

"He knew which restaurants would serve them lunch and which would not. He knew which barbers would cut their kind of hair. The best ones, of course.

"The thing that he loved most about America, he once confided to the boy, was the glazed jelly donut. Can't be beat."

Julie Otsuka, in the novel "When the Emperor Was Divine"

Boo

Because it is Halloween.

Them apples

Because it is apple season.

The English breakfast

"To eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day."

W. Somerset Maugham, quoted in Albert Jack's "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods"

An apple (cake) a day

An apple (cake) a day. 'Tis not an altogether bad thought.

Craving curry

A Ferris wheel set up for the Treasure Island Music Festival reminds me in some way of the London Eye, you know, if the Ferris wheel had been many times larger, if the bay had been the Thames, the Bay Bridge the Westminster Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Yes, I am crazy.

But I think of London. I do. All the time. When the sky is overcast, I think of London. When it threatens to rain in Northern California, I welcome the wet weather. Bring it. When I hear an accent, from an actor or writer or broadcaster, I think of London. I am here, but I suspect I should be there.

I think of London and begin to crave curry. Any kind. When a head of cauliflower costs less than a dollar at the market, I grab one to make curry, using a straightforward recipe from Bon Appetit. I combine cauliflower with chickpeas, tomatoes and coconut milk, and cook it down. I eat curry with rice, basmati if I have some, medium grain white rice if I don't. At the table, I think of London.

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups chopped onions
5 tsp. curry powder
6 cups small cauliflower florets (from 1 medium head)
2 15 1/2-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
2 10-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 14-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat oil in large skillet over high heat.

Add onions and saute until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Add curry powder and stir 20 seconds.

Add cauliflower and garbanzo beans. Stir 1 minute. Add diced tomatoes, then coconut milk. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and boil gently until cauliflower is tender and liquid thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in cilantro. Serve over rice. Makes 4 servings.

Watching waste lines

I toss out fistfuls of feta, disappointed with myself for not having used it all quickly enough, before it got moldy. I throw out cooked green beans left over from the weekend's stir-fry after catching a nasty whiff of them in the Rubbermaid container.

That 10-pound bag of potatoes worries me, too. I had plans - big plans - when I bought it initially at the grocery store. Life unfortunately got in the way of those plans. Truth be told, I have yet to peel even a pound of potatoes.

And though I know the amount of food I put into the compost bin at the side of the house every week pales in comparison to the great amount people everywhere must just pitch carelessly and casually into landfills and Dumpsters every day, I still feel bad. We all need to watch our waste lines.

In "American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)," Jonathan Bloom looks at food waste in this country. With a journalist's attention to research and observation, and a do-gooder's sense of urgency, he tackles the issue from different perspectives.

He examines links along our national food chain, including farms, supermarkets, restaurants and individual kitchens. He shows us how and why most of our waste gets generated, and suggests ways in which we can bring about relevant change.

Bloom differentiates between food loss and food waste. It is a necessary, albeit slim, distinction.

"Certainly, some food loss is unavoidable," he says. "For example, there are many potential pitfalls, such as harsh weather, disease and insects invading the farmer's fields, that are outside of our control. And then there's storage loss, spoilage and mechanical malfunctions."

On the other hand, food is "wasted when an edible item goes unconsumed as a result of human action or inaction." I think of my feta cheese and green beans.

"There is culpability in waste. Whether it's from an individual's choice, a business mistake or a government policy, most food waste stems from decisions made somewhere from farm to fork. A grower doesn't harvest a field in response to a crop's lowered price. Grocers throw away imperfect produce to satisfy their (and, as consumers, our) obsession with freshness. We allow groceries to rot in our refrigerators while we eat out..."

In other words, there are factors beyond much of our control. But there are also plenty of factors we can control.

The author takes us to Salinas, Calif., for instance, where the majority of America's lettuce is grown, packed and shipped. Dubbed the "Salad Bowl to the World," the agricultural town along Highway 101 in Monterey County is home to large-scale producers such as Taylor Farms, Fresh Express and River Ranch Fresh Foods.

He brings us to nearby Crazy Horse Canyon Landfill, too. There, Bloom sees lettuce that was "still perfectly good - crispy, even - (thrown) away for various reasons. It may have been damaged in the warehouse or maybe it sat for too long to withstand shipping." It is an eye-popping fieldtrip.

Until it closed in 2009, Crazy Horse handled 200 tons of excess, rejected or misbagged produce every day. It closed because it was full, "an outcome hastened by that ceaseless supply of green waste."

When we throw away food in such high volume, we also throw away the natural resources that go into growing, harvesting, processing, transporting and cooking that food. "Wasting that food squanders our supply of water, depletes nutrients in the soil and wastes the fossil fuels that are used throughout the food chain." The choices we make matter.

Supermarkets present a similar set of challenges. Hoping for further behind-the-scenes glimpses at waste in this country, beyond what executives told him their companies did, Bloom applied for a position in the produce department of a regional grocery chain and worked there for three months.

Ten minutes into his first day on the job, he says, he was discarding decent food. Instructed by his supervisor to cull out-of-code products, Bloom picked through shelves of pre-washed, pre-cut packages of fruits and vegetables, and removed anything with an imminent expiration date.

"I collected sliced mushrooms, cut peppers and diced onions. I pulled seven varieties of bagged salads and veggie trays of crudités with dip included... I tossed 24 pounds of packaged watermelon, pineapple and cantaloupe chunks that first morning." All of it had still been edible. All of it went out back to the Dumpster.

It is a situation with which Tristram Stuart is familiar. In "Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal," the British author talks at length about purchasing dates and deadlines. He clears up some of the confusion on the other side of the Atlantic regarding labeling laws and food-safety policies.

In the European Union, for example, pre-packed products are required to carry either a "use-by" date or a "best-before" date, he explains. Grocery stores and manufacturers, however, often also stamp merchandise with "sell-by" or "display-until" dates. These primarily "help shop staff manage stock and should be completely ignored by consumers."

Like Bloom, who touches on the topic in the United States, Stuart discusses recovery efforts in the United Kingdom as well. Or, sometimes, the lack thereof.

He commends Fareshare. The charity contracts with supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose to deliver pallets of excess food - everything from apples and broccoli to boxes of cereal and loaves of bread - to community centers and homeless shelters across Great Britain.

"In 2008, it redistributed 3,000 tons of food to 25,000 people in 500 different community centers and other organizations, with a further 5,000 tons that either ended up being diverted into animal feed, anaerobic-digestion plants, composting or other waste-recycling routes."

That said, "the amount the supermarkets donate still represents only a tiny fraction of their overall waste; the trend is promising but movement is still far too slow."

Manufacturers like Kraft in the United States and Kellogg's in the United Kingdom also cooperate with Feeding America and Fareshare, respectively, providing them truckloads of surplus on a regular basis. "These companies are beginning to do what all of them ought to do," Stuart says.

Unlike Bloom, who focuses primarily on waste in this country, Stuart takes a geographically broader approach. He expands his narrative beyond North America and Europe to include Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

He describes a brief, serendipitous visit with a traditional family, the Kawasakis, in Hakata in southwest Japan. Over dinner one night, they talked about growing food for sustenance - the father, Jingo Kawasaki, farmed the same fields his father and grandfather did before him - and the concept of mottainai.

It "cannot be translated, but it indicates a condemnation of wastefulness and squandering, and implies an endorsement of thrift and frugality. The word is used for anything from darning socks to scraping the last grains of rice from the bottom of a bowl."

Given its prosperity in recent decades, however, Japan in general has not been immune to the problem of waste. In fact, Stuart says, "the Japanese predilection for high-quality, extremely fresh food results in enormous levels of waste," approximately 19 million tons a year.

Of that, 6 million tons come from supermarkets and convenience stores, where lunch-box meals are easily and widely available. There are cooked noodles with vegetables, for example, trays of sushi, and meat-filled dumplings, all of which stay on the shelves for only a few days. What does not get sold gets thrown away.

Significant change can only come through concerted effort. The American government, Bloom says, should provide incentives to farmers to harvest all that they grow, leaving as little as possible in the fields. It should encourage donations and work more effectively with gleaning organizations to redistribute excess.

In an ideal world, Stuart says, we would learn to respect the food in our refrigerators, to buy what we eat and eat what we buy. "All unavoidable organic waste would go to feed either animals or the soil." These and other actions might not completely solve the current food waste situation. But they certainly would help.

(A version of this article appears in Gastronomica.)

Ready for their close-ups

Food on television seldom looks the same as food in real life. It looks better actually. For this, we have stylists, tabletop directors and special-effects riggers to thank.

The business section of The New York Times provides insight on people in the ad world "hired to turn the most mundane and fattening staples of the American diet into luscious objects of irresistible beauty."

From director Michael Somoroff, for instance:

"I make my living basically taking food and painting a reality with it... And if I succeed in a given moment, you're going to go buy that dish because you're going to identify with the experience we've created.

"To do that with something as banal as food is the challenge. I mean, it's easy to go out and shoot a beautiful sunset or a beautiful girl. They're beautiful, O.K.? I've got a noodle over here."

Making soup

The days get shorter and inevitably colder. I think to make soup, using Lisa Schroeder's recipe as a decent jumping-off point.

Manhattan Clam Chowder
from Lisa Schroeder's "Mother's Best: Comfort Food That Takes You Home Again"

2 strips bacon, finely diced
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 ribs celery, finely diced
1 leek, white part only, thinly sliced into half-moons and washed
1 medium green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 10.75-ounce can tomato puree
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups fish stock or 2 14-ounce cans clam juice
1 10-ounce cans baby clams in juice
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
5 dashes Tabasco sauce
3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Place a heavy soup pot over medium-high heat. When hot, add the bacon. When it starts to brown in spots, lower the heat to medium. Continue to cook until most of the fat has been rendered and the bacon is almost crisp, about 4 minutes.

Add the vegetable oil, onions, carrots, celery, leeks and green bell peppers. Saute, stirring occasionally, until very soft, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 2 minutes.

Add the diced and pureed tomatoes, bay leaf, thyme and potatoes.

Add the stock or clam juice. Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the potatoes are fork tender.

Add the clams with their juice and season with salt and pepper. Add the Tabasco and Worcestershire. Bring back to a simmer for several minutes.

Ladle into bowls and serve with crusty bread or crackers. Makes 7 servings.

Food court fare

The dining options at Westfield Century City take food court fare to a whole other tastier level. There is sushi and ramen, Italian and Chinese, cupcake and yogurt. I could get used to this quite easily.

Sugar bomb

Would you like a cookie with that frosting?

What I like

What I like most about Korean restaurant meals: the variety that makes its way to the table.

Even exchange

"From the New World to the Old came amaranth grain, avocados, various beans, bell peppers, blueberries, cashews, chile peppers, cocoa, vanilla, corn, papayas, peanuts, pecans, pineapples, white and sweet potatoes, pumpkins, quinoa, and tomatoes.

"In turn, the Old World sent to the New apples, artichokes, asparagus, bananas, barley, black pepper, cabbage, carrots, coffee, lemons and limes, garlic, lettuce, oats, millet, olives, peaches, peas, rice, rye, soybeans, sugarcane, tea, and, perhaps most important, wheat."

John Mariani, in "How Italian Food Conquered the World"

Powdered donuts

"As the miles shifted into days and Texas ranches became Tennessee hills and Tennessee hills became historical Pennsylvania, I too began to shift. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. I ate snacks. I immersed myself in life's essentials: food, drink, shelter and warmth.

"I thought about miles and inclines, flat tires and rain. I thought about the strength of my body and the strength of my spirit. I pedaled, grinding my history, its lessons, and the countless times I'd willed it gone into my muscles and joints, until they became a part of my fiber.

And somewhere in New York state, about two to three cycling days west of Syracuse, I sat contentedly outside a convenience store eating mini-donuts. My back rested against the standard bland beige color of the cement wall and I felt the heat of the sun on my already toasted face.

"I popped a donut, the white-powdered kind that leaves white traces around your lips, into my mouth and washed it down with chocolate milk..."

Michelle Hamilton, in "The Long Road," from the anthology "Her Fork in the Road: Women Celebrate Food and Travel"

Easy as pie

It is often easier to eat pie than it is to slice and serve pie intact. The filling is sweeter than I would have liked. But it is nothing a small scoop of vanilla ice cream afterward can not temper.

Burger bliss

The U stands for Umami, by far the best burger in Southern California I have eaten today.

Like magic

The tree by the side of the house is sprouting apples again, if sprouting is the right word for apples on a tree. The thing is, I haven't cared for it all year. I haven't given it any special treatment. I haven't pruned it or fertilized it. Nothing. Like clockwork, autumn approaches. The apples return. Like magic, time shifts.

What sugar is

"What sugar is and what it means changes according to where we happen to find it. It's a wholesome ingredient blended into down-home confections or it's the non-nutritive additive dumped into junk food. It's the pure and natural sweetener in fruity retro-chic sodas, or it's the stuff of evil lurking in cereal, baby food, and juice. It's a woman's food, in chocolates and cupcakes. It's a man's food, the stuff of sodas, energy drinks, and nutrition bars.

"It's troubling, these multiple lives. As an equal-opportunity lover of all things sweet, I'd like to think the best of them. I'd like to believe they do no harm when enjoyed in moderation and offer only the most excellent things in life - if not good health exactly, then certainly good spirits, good times, and a sense of freedom that takes us back to our youth. But in reality, the taste of sweet can have positive effects and negative effects depending on the kind we eat, how often we eat it, and what else we're eating with it. Those choices we make color other people's perception of our level of sophistication and our wealth... They highlight the disparities between the haves and the have-nots, and between the strivers and the lucky ones who are already where they want to be."

Joanne Chen, in "The Taste of Sweet: Our Complicated Love Affair with Our Favorite Treats"

The cool down

I see directions for a vegetable paella in a cookbook, and think to tackle the dish myself. I saute onions and bell peppers, but mess up on the spices. The heat is just a tad too intense. Not to worry. There is peach ice cream to finish.

The alumni network

A restaurant does not stay in business for four decades without graduating a few fascinating food folks.

The San Francisco Chronicle's story on Alice Waters and Chez Panisse highlights, among other things, the Berkeley eatery's impressive and far-reaching network of alumni, which extends "to high-end restaurants, artisan bakeries, ice cream shops and cafes - not to mention the pages of dozens of cookbooks throughout the years."

It includes:

Alison Barakat, co-owner of Bakesale Betty in Oakland.

Paul Bertolli, former executive chef of Oliveto in Oakland, and founder of Fra' Mani, a handcrafted salumi and sausage company.

Mary Canales, co-owner of Ici ice cream in Berkeley.

Diane Dexter, co-founder of Metropolis Baking Company in Berkeley.

Suzanne Goin, chef and co-owner of Lucques in Los Angeles, and cookbook author ("Sunday Suppers at Lucques: Seasonal Recipes from Market to Table").

Joyce Goldstein, former chef and owner of Square One, and cookbook author ("Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Salad Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings").

Rick Hackett, chef and owner of Bocanova in Oakland's Jack London Square.

Charlie Hallowell, owner of Pizzaiolo, and Boot and Shoe Service in Oakland.

Paul Johnson, president and founder of Monterey Fish Market in Berkeley and San Francisco.

David Lebovitz, cookbook author ("The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City").

Lili Lecoq, founder of La Farine in Berkeley.

Deborah Madison, founding chef of Greens, and cookbook author ("Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone").

Russell Moore, chef and co-owner of Camino in Oakland.

Mark Peel, opened Campanile in Los Angeles.

Gayle Pirie, chef and co-owner of Foreign Cinema in San Francisco.

Claire Ptak, owner of baking company, cafe and cake shop Violet in London's East End, and cookbook author ("The Whoopie Pie Book").

Judy Rodgers, chef and co-owner of Zuni Cafe in San Francisco.

Amaryll Schwertner, co-owner of Boulettes Larder in San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace.

Lindsey Shere, opened Downtown Bakery & Creamery in Healdsburg.

Peggy Smith, co-founded Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station.

Steve Sullivan, founded Acme Bread in Berkeley.

Jeremiah Tower, chef and co-owner of Stars in San Francisco.

Jonathan Waxman, chef and owner of Barbuto in New York City, and cookbook author ("A Great American Cook: Recipes from the Home Kitchen of One of Our Most Influential Chefs").

Picking a peach

"Consider where the fruit came from. If it came from 3,000 miles away, then bear in mind that it was probably picked at a much more immature stage, and it's not going to be as ripe and delicious. If it came from a neighboring state, it's probably a whole lot riper."

Desmond Layne, Clemson University peach specialist, on NPR's "All Things Considered"

"The Giant Peach"

"It was quite a large hole, the sort of thing an animal about the size of a fox might have made.

"James knelt down in front of it and poked his head and shoulders inside.

"He crawled in.

"He kept on crawling.

"This isn't just a hole, he thought excitedly. It's a tunnel!

"The tunnel was damp and murky, and all around him there was the curious bittersweet smell of fresh peach. The floor was soggy under his knees, the walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

"He was crawling uphill now, as though the tunnel were leading straight toward the very center of the gigantic fruit. Every few seconds he paused and took a bite out of the wall. The peach flesh was sweet and juicy, and marvelously refreshing.

"He crawled on for several more yards, and then suddenly - bang - the top of his head bumped into something extremely hard blocking his way. He glanced up. In front of him there was a solid wall that seemed at first as though it were made of wood. He touched it with his fingers. It certainly felt like wood, except that it was very jagged and full of deep grooves.

"'Good heavens!' he said. 'I know what this is! I've come to the stone in the middle of the peach!'"

Roald Dahl, in "James and the Giant Peach"

A human noodle vacuum

"You're gonna slurp those noodles. You're not chewing them. You're not cutting them up. You're trying to inhale them like a human noodle vacuum. And they should slurp in a pleasing way...

"And then that broth that they're served in, it should dress the noodles. It should coat the noodles. It should flavor the noodles. It seems like the simplest thing for a bowl of noodle soup to do. But when you're in front of a bowl and that's happening... you're most of the way there..."

Peter Meehan, co-editor of Lucky Peach, on a proper bowl of ramen on NPR's "All Things Considered"

Finger-lickin' good

For Nigel Slater, the best part about honey-glazed chicken wings comes toward the end of the meal.

"Like watching the credits rolling after a film, the licking of fingers is when you get to savour what you have just enjoyed..."

The British food writer serves up another damn fine read in The Observer. Without fail, he makes us hungry.

Bagels on the brain

One minute I am reading about bagels in Britain, reminiscing, for example, about Brick Lane Beigel Bake in London.

"Anyone who has visited an authentic bagel shop will know the steamy, burnished aroma of bagels made in small batches... Freshness is the core philosophy in this place, and the ovens are on the go continually. Under the glossy crust, the dough is dense yet tender, slightly sweet with a beery yeastiness..."

The next minute I am toasting a bagel for breakfast and slathering it with cream cheese. It doesn't take a whole lot of convincing. I am easy like that.

Hard to resist

"Then the Tour started. And it was impossible to resist. It always is. It sits there like a slice of key lime pie or the last piece of fried chicken, mocking will power. Cycling may punish you later, but it's so seductive in the present. That is what the sport knows, why it perseveres, despite its repeated, maddening mess-making..."

Only in The Wall Street Journal perhaps can a sports writer compare the Tour de France, "already stuck in a queasy fog," to key lime pie and fried chicken. Oddly enough, though, the references work.

Peeling the banana

Who knew the banana could be such a complicated fruit? Or, perhaps more accurately, who didn't know? Really.

Dan Koeppel's book "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World" is fascinating.

"The more I researched, the more it became clear that there's nothing we eat - that the world eats - more paradoxical than the banana," he writes. "The humble treat we pack into our lunchboxes is among the most complex crops cultivated by humans. In ancient times, the fruit helped the earliest farmers put down roots and establish communities. In the modern era, the banana - literally - has destroyed nations and ruined lives."

Koeppel's segment on "Science Friday" with Ira Flatow on NPR is equally fascinating.

"Plum Gorgeous"

This is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams, quoted in Romney Steele's "Plum Gorgeous: Recipes and Memories from the Orchard"

Cookie coincidence

I could not let the moment in Manhattan Beach pass without a picture.

Pass the passata

Ever since a friend in London mentioned passata in a curry recipe from his mother's kitchen, I have wondered about it. Is it essentially pureed tomatoes?

The Telegraph talks about San Marzano tomatoes in a piece on store-bought passata, used in this case to add depth and texture to weeknight pasta sauces. It provides some enlightenment.

Kabuki before Carmageddon

On a Thursday in Southern California, we navigate the 405 one last time before Carmageddon strikes over the weekend.

The sushi at Kabuki in the Howard Hughes Center is worth the drive. We enjoy the food and the company.

All-around goodness

Breakfast might or might not be our favorite meal of the day. That remains a toss-up. It does, however, give us an excellent reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Travel + Leisure offers a compelling look at hotel breakfasts around the world. There are dumplings in China, for example, and parathas in India. There are bangers and bacon in Britain, and biscuits and beignets in the U.S. There is goodness everywhere.

Food and family

When friends in the United States ask about her native Singapore, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan often tells them she misses "the food first and then my family. They think I'm joking." She assures them she's not.

She misses the complexity of dishes influenced by Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and European flavors. The availability of seafood and a love of spices, for example, gave birth to chili crab, "a signature Singaporean dish of crab fried in a vermilion, egg-streaked gravy."

In "A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family," Tan charts her affection for items she grew up eating. She describes her recent return to Singapore to cook with relatives, and to reconnect.

She contrasts situations in New York City, where, as a journalist, she always seemed to be on deadline, with adventures abroad alongside her mother, maternal grandmother and aunts. "I had slowed my life down so I could try to watch, to listen, to learn."

Tan reminisces about time she spent as a child with her father alone, after her mother and younger sister, Daphne, had gone to sleep.

They "huddled over late-night suppers of take-out noodles from Singapore's hawker stands... The slippery fried shrimp noodles we adored came sprinkled with chewy circles of squid. The noodles, wrapped in industrial-strength wax paper, were generally so greasy that the oil penetrated the paper, filling it with dark spots. I always looked forward to the moment when we would carefully peel back the wax paper and steam would rise, fogging up our glasses." It is a touching and evocative scene.

Over meals like these, she heard about her father's personal history and the pressures he occasionally faced. She learned of his work. They talked politics, sports and economics, too. He encouraged her ambitions, giving her the drive and confidence to leave home at 18 to attend college in America.

With humor and humility, Tan also recalls cooking lessons she received more recently from females in her extended family. She spent afternoons in their kitchens in Singapore making pineapple tarts, for example, the way her paternal grandmother made them decades earlier for Chinese New Year. They are small buttery shortbread cookies topped with a sweet, dense pineapple jam.

She sat anxiously with a camera and a notebook, she says, thinking it would be the best way to capture every detail. In the end, however, consistent and exact measurements proved elusive. The women around her worked quickly and instinctively.

While Singapore had been home to Tan, a place linked inextricably to her past, the Middle East becomes a new sort of home to Annia Ciezadlo. In "Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love and War," the New York City reporter shares her recent experiences living and working in Baghdad and Beirut. She describes the ways in which eating and cooking helped to settle her there.

Ciezadlo talks about the meals she had in Queens with her Lebanese husband, Mohamad, also a journalist, early in their courtship. They ordered baba ghanouj, for example, and stuffed grape leaves, something her Greek grandmother in Chicago used to make, something his mother in the Middle East still makes.

At his favorite neighborhood restaurant, they had "bolani kashalu, crisp oily little turnovers packed with soft potatoes and herbs and blistered brown on the outside." They had "banjan burani, charred, buttery eggplant slices buried under yogurt sprinkled with dried mint." They had chicken kebabs, basmati rice and grilled Afghan bread.

She writes of the couple's move overseas after he becomes chief of Newsday's Middle East bureau, and of their stays in Iraq and Lebanon. In unfamiliar locations, Ciezadlo says, she defaults to food.

"Some people construct work spaces when they travel, lining up their papers with care, stacking their books on the table, taping family pictures to the mirror. When I'm in a strange new city and feeling rootless, I cook. No matter how inhospitable the room or the streets outside, I construct a little field kitchen."

In Baghdad, for example, Ciezadlo plugged a hot plate into an electrical outlet in the hallway of their hotel. She shopped in local markets and prepared whatever she could find: green almonds, black figs, chicken.

She cooked, she says, "to comprehend the place I've landed in, to touch and feel and take in the raw materials of my new surroundings... (and) for that oldest of reasons: to banish loneliness, homesickness, the persistent feeling that I don't belong in a place." In terrific, deeply affecting prose, she speaks to the inherent pleasures of food and the necessities that transcend geography.

Ciezadlo met her in-laws in Beirut, too. She was tense in the beginning, fearful perhaps of what they might think, but soon realized she needn't be. Mohamad's mother, Umm Hassane, welcomed her with a large pot of zucchini stew. "The whole place smelled like garlic, beef stock, simmering vegetables, and lemons; to me, it smelled like home." She knew everything would eventually be all right.

Whether returning home to reconnect or venturing forth to strengthen bonds, whether in New York City or Singapore, Baghdad or Beirut, Tan and Ciezadlo celebrate the value of eating and cooking in their lives. They honor the role food plays in relation to family, the one they are born to as well as the one they marry into. They recognize what's important.

(A version of this review appears on www.culinate.com.)

Red, white and blue

Because it is the Fourth of July.

Grillin'

"One of the extraordinary things about grilling, it's a public event. It's a theatrical event. It's a social event. People do not gather around a stove to watch a pot of soup simmer, or an oven to watch a cake bake. But when you grill, instantly, you have a crowd."

Steve Raichlen, author of "The Barbecue! Bible," on NPR's "Morning Edition"

Cookie cake

Leave it to me to bypass meat and seafood recipes in Lourdes Castro's latest cookbook "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, From Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More" and hone in on dessert. Or more specifically on alfajores.

"Found all over Argentina," she writes, "they are made up of dulce de leche sandwiched between two cakey brown sugar cookies. The sandwich is then either dipped in chocolate or coated in confectioners' sugar."

Castro streamlines the cookie effort with an Alfajor Gigante, a dulce de leche cookie cake. Hers is an interesting take.

Dulce de Leche Cookie Cake (Alfajor Gigante)
from Lourdes Castro's "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, From Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More"

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup dulce de leche
confectioners' sugar, for dusting (about 1/4 cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. You will be using two oven racks, so make sure one is placed on the lower brackets and the other in the center.

Cut out parchment paper circles to fit in the bottoms of each of two 9-inch round cake pans. Butter the bottoms of both pans, top with the parchment rounds, and butter the tops of the parchment rounds. Set aside.

Using a handheld electric mixer or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Add the eggs and vanilla and continue beating for another 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. If necessary, scrape the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to fully incorporate the ingredients.

Place the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and stir with a fork to combine. Add about a quarter of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar-egg mixture, beating until fully incorporated. Continue adding the flour in batches until it's all mixed in. The batter will be slightly thick. Be careful not to overbeat the mixture as this will result in a tough cookie.

Pour half the batter into each cake pan. Using a rubber spatula, carefully spread the batter toward all sides of the pan, making sure that the thickness of the batter is level throughout. This is necessary to ensure even cooking. Bake for 20 minutes, or until an inserted skewer or toothpick comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes in the pans. Run a thin knife blade around the perimeter of the cakes and invert them onto a work surface. Peel off the parchment paper.

Place the cakes side by side with the bottoms facing up. Spread the dulce de leche over the exposed surface of one of the cakes. Invert the plain cake over the one spread with dulce de leche so that the sides of the cakes with the parchment are the insides of the sandwich. Carefully move the cake onto a serving platter.

Dust a generous amount of confectioners' sugar over the top of the assembled cake. Makes 10 servings.

Dulce de Leche
from Lourdes Castro's "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, From Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More"

It is not difficult to make your own dulce de leche; it just requires time and a little attention.

Place an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom of a very large pot filled with water. The can should be completely submerged.

Bring the water to a boil, turn the heat down, and allow it to simmer uncovered for 2 1/2 hours. Make sure the can is always covered with water and add hot water to the pot as soon as you see the water level skimming the top of the can.

Keeping the can submerged in water ensures that the milk will cook and caramelize evenly. While there is no danger if the water level drops below the top of the can, the can may burst if the pan goes dry.

Once the milk has finished cooking, move the pot into the sink and run cold water into it to cool the can. Take the can out of the pot and let it cool at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Open the can only after it has cooled completely in order to keep the hot dulce de leche from bursting out.

Japan drinks

In "Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan's Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments," Chris Bunting talks of sake and shochu, beverages long associated with Japan.

He also takes a substantial and welcomed look at the popularity of beer, whiskey and wine in modern Japanese culture. He provides context and suggestions on where to find the best and most of them, citing hours and atmosphere, for example, and offering directions to get there.

For what many might consider the dream assignment, Bunting "spent a wonderful year up and down the country meeting hundreds of brewers, distillers and bar owners..." He learned of technique and business philosophy. He tasted and took note of regional preferences.

"Today, if you look at a map of Japan's alcohol consumption, you will find the people of Kyushu (including Suye village) drink nearly twice as much shochu per person per year as the rest of Japan... The heartland of sake is the center and north of the main island... The same goes for other alcohols: Northerners like whiskey, Kyoto and Osaka are big on liqueurs, Yamanashi likes its wine. Two prefectures, Tokyo and Kokkaido, drink just about everything to excess..."

Bunting, a British journalist who has lived abroad for a while, celebrates ales and lagers in Japan as well. He sheds significant light on some of the smaller names going up against national brands such as Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory. He gives the country's growing craft beer industry its due, presenting insight and information useful to a variety of travelers, whatever their thirst.

(A version of this review appears in Publishers Weekly.)

"Man with a Pan"

"Other studies suggest that stress is countered by the smells of food cooking in a home, which are received by the brain's limbic system (the ancient part of our mind, which stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system); in other words, the smells of cooking relax us, put us at ease, though we are rarely conscious of it.

"Did you ever wonder why, at every party, the kitchen is the most crowded room? Why it's a pleasure to walk into a home when a roast is in the oven or a Bolognese is simmering on the stove? Bills are easier to pay when short ribs are braising. A working kitchen is a natural stress reducer."

Michael Ruhlman, in "How Many Parents Does It Take to Roast a Chicken?" from John Donohue's "Man with a Pan: Culinary Adventures of Fathers Who Cook for Their Families"

As is a bowl

"Cherries bring with them a certain frivolity, a carefree joy like hearing the far-off laughter of a child at play. Their appearance, in deepest summer, comes when life is often at its most untroubled. A bag of cherries is a bag of happiness."

Nigel Slater, in "Tender: Volume II, A Cook's Guide to the Fruit Garden"

Pie it is

And so pie it is.

Strawberries for cheap

I get a full flat of strawberries for cheap from the farmers' market, intending to share with people back at the house, relatives who had come to visit on a Sunday afternoon.

Since they leave unexpectedly before I return, however, I find myself with a whole lot of strawberries. Their loss is my gain. Just as well, I say, and dig into dessert books on the desk for inspiration.

From "The Grand Central Baking Book," for example, by Piper Davis and Ellen Jackson, I figure out how to devise a terrific filling for fresh strawberry pie.

From Jennie Schacht's "Farmers' Market Desserts," I am tempted to try a strawberries and cream cake roll.

And from "Rustic Fruit Desserts" by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson, I toy with the idea of a rhubarb cream cheese pie with fresh strawberries. The options, it seems, are endless.

Gloppy, soggy pie

Slate has a piece on pie. It is wicked, meant to turn readers off the sweet treat. But, of course, it has the opposite effect on some of us.

Among the highlights:

"Unlike the tart, which sits low and topless in a shallow pan with a svelte layer of topping, pie requires a hefty piece of bakeware with outward-sloping sides, practically dooming the pastry to collapse.

"And unlike a torte - a short and modest cake combining fruit and nuts in balanced proportions - most modern pies rely on giant reservoirs of loose filling or inches of piled custard and whipped cream.

"A slice of strawberry tart with coffee is the perfect overture to a postprandial drink, a late conversation, or a night of love. Eat an oozing slice of strawberry pie, and it's time to look for Tums and go to bed."

To hunt and gather

This I know for certain:

I will not forage. A walk in the woods for me is just that, a walk. I can not fish. I do not have the time or ability. I will not hunt either. I can not ever see myself picking up a gun and shooting something.

But I can appreciate Hank Shaw's efforts in doing so. And I can appreciate the meticulous way in which he writes about his favorite foods in "Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast."

On fruit, to wit:

"North America is home to so many native fruits that all but the most obsessive of foragers will never taste them all. There is the hackberry, the barberry, the mulberry, the mayapple and so many varieties of gooseberries and currants that even taxonomists have trouble keeping track of them all.

"There are, of course, wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries; these you know already. But they have friends, like the huckleberry, cloudberry, dewberry and thimbleberry.

"Crab apples are native, as are Juneberries and hawthorn. There is wild plum, goose plum, beach plum and Canada plum. There is a sweet cherry, sandcherry, chokecherry and chokeberry..."

The list is mind-boggling.

Shrimp on the brain

Edited by C.J. Jackson, director of the Billingsgate Seafood Training School at Billingsgate Market in East London, "Seafood: How to Buy, Prepare, and Cook the Best Sustainable Fish and Seafood from Around the World" is a comprehensive volume with more than 300 classic and contemporary recipes. It checks in at a remarkable 400 pages.

I find myself flipping past sections on tuna, trout and scallop, for example, but hone in immediately on shrimp. I have two-pound bags of shrimp in the freezer waiting to be cooked. I have shrimp on the brain. I begin to think of shrimp gumbo with okra and bell peppers, of pan-fried shrimp with olives and tomatoes, and of spicy shrimp with garlic. And I smile.

Shrimp Gumbo
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

6 Tbsp. butter
2 1/4 pounds raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
4 Tbsp. crab meat
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
4 ounces okra, trimmed
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 14-ounce cans tomatoes
4 1/4 cups shellfish stock
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of thyme
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp. file powder
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the shrimp in batches and stir-fry over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until cooked. Lift onto a plate to cool.

Add the crab and flour to the butter, cook over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes or until the flour is golden brown. Add the cayenne, onion and garlic, and cook for a further 3 minutes.

Stir in the okra and bell pepper. Pour over the tomatoes, stock, herbs and lemon zest. Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes until thick.

Stir the shrimp into the gumbo to warm through, add file powder, and season to taste. Serve with rice and Tabasco sauce. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Pan-Fried Shrimp, Olives, and Tomatoes
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
12 large raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined, tail left intact
splash of dry sherry or dry white wine
6 tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped
large handful of mixed olives, pitted
salt
freshly ground black pepper
handful of basil and flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, and saute for about 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a few seconds, then add in the shrimp and cook over high heat, until they are just turning pink.

Add the sherry and continue cooking for 5 minutes, stirring, until the alcohol has evaporated. Add the tomatoes and olives and cook for a further couple of minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes start to break down. Season well, and stir in the herbs. Serve immediately with fresh crusty bread. Makes 4 servings.

Spicy Shrimp with Garlic
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

4 Tbsp. olive oil
6 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. dry sherry
9 ounces raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook gently for 2 minutes.

Add the sherry and shrimp, increase the heat and stir for 5 minutes, or until the juices have reduced by half. Season and serve with crusty bread and a crisp salad. Makes 4 servings.

Cake and company

Because sometimes we just need a slice of cake. (And, apparently, onion rings.)

Meals on wheels

Heather Shouse does the legwork so we don't have to. In "Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels," the Chicago resident chases down a number of meals-on-wheels in cities across the United States.

She talks to the women and men behind Curry Up Now in the Bay Area, for example, and RoliRoti, whose chicken, potatoes and porchetta I have yet to taste. She tracks down Roy Choi in Southern California, whose "fleet of four Kogi trucks reportedly did $2 million in sales its first year on the streets."

She goes to Portland and Seattle, too, to New York and Philadelphia, New Orleans and Austin, and points in between, giving us plenty of food ideas to pursue the next time we find ourselves in those places. She makes us hungry.

Seeing green

I am a sucker for orzo. And cooked broccoli.

So I find myself drawn to Heidi Swanson's Orzo Salad, from her second cookbook "Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen."

The dish promises to be light, tasty and healthful. It will work itself easily into the rotation. These days I have been seeing green. Happily.

Orzo Salad
from Heidi Swanson's "Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen"

fine-grained sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole wheat orzo
5 cups raw broccoli cut into small florets and stems
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup creme fraiche
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 small ripe avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt generously, add the orzo and cook according to the package instructions. Drain, rinse with cold water and drain well again.

In the meantime, cook the broccoli. Bring 3/4 cup water to a boil in a large pot. Add a big pinch of salt and stir in the broccoli. Cover and cook for 1 minute, just long enough to take off the raw edge. Quickly drain the broccoli in a strainer and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Drain well and set aside.

To make the pesto, combine 2 cups of the cooked broccoli, the garlic, most of the pine nuts, the Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice in a food processor. Drizzle in the olive oil and creme fraiche and pulse until smooth.

Just before serving, toss the orzo and the remaining cooked broccoli florets with about two-thirds of the broccoli pesto and the lemon zest. Thin with a bit of warm water if you like, then taste and adjust if needed. You might want to add a bit more salt, or an added drizzle of lemon juice, or more pesto.

Gently fold in the avocado. Turn out into a bowl or onto a platter and top with the remaining pine nuts. Makes 6 servings.

Eating meat

"In central Texas, you don't hear a lot of people talking about the piquancy of a restaurant's sauce or the tastiness of its beans; discussions are what a scholar of the culture might call meat-driven."

Calvin Trillin, in "By Meat Alone" from "Trillin on Texas."

(A review appears in Publishers Weekly.)

Dumpling diplomacy

"'You're the new smoking police,' I tell Thorne when he sits back down. 'From now on you can give out citations.'

'What is a citation?' he asks, and takes a drink of Sprite.

'A ticket,' Tony says. 'You can write up smoking tickets and hand them out on the street to anyone you see smoking.'

Thorne laughs, and then the dumplings come and they're boiled, not steamed or fried, and a little doughy on the outside and delicious. We dip them in a small round dish of soy sauce and vinegar that sits on the table, and our little ship is righted again."

Susan Conley, in "The Foremost Good Fortune: A Memoir."

Lemon like sunshine

We are not into chocolates, hearts or chalky Valentines. But we do find ourselves craving lemon doughnuts. With or without coffee. We want sunshine when the weather has been gray, dull and overcast. We want daffodils when all we have seen in a while have been brown and bare and boring. We want bright light and sweetness. We want spring.