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.

Golden opportunities

Lunar New Year celebrations boast deep-fried dumplings and steamed cupcakes, too. We can not resist either and get to enjoy both.

Still-life with oranges

We try our hands at artistic. We are impressed.

On the table

My mother cooks to mark the Lunar New Year, the start of the Year of the Rabbit. Time flies when we eat. Just yesterday it had been the Year of the Tiger.

Who knew?

NPR has an interesting piece on Lunar New Year's feasts in the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

"(In) Trinidad, Chinese food is staple fare," Ramin Ganeshram writes. "We eat fried rice once a week. Chow mein is as common as a casserole. Stir fries with calabaza pumpkin, taro root and hot pepper are everyday foods, and soy sauce is a regular ingredient in brown stewed meats."

We never suspected.

Sugar, fat, salt

"Countless new foods have been introduced in restaurants, and most of them hit the three points of the compass. Sugar, fat and salt are either loaded onto a core ingredient (such as meat, vegetable, potato or bread), layered on top of it, or both...

"Potato skins, for example: Typically the potato is hollowed out and the skin is fried, which provides a substantial surface area for... 'fat pickup.' Then some combination of bacon bits, sour cream and cheese is added. The result is fat on fat on fat on fat, much of it loaded with salt...

"Buffalo wings start with the fatty parts of a chicken, which get deep-fried. Then they're served with creamy or sweet dipping sauce that's heavily salted. Usually they're par-fried at a production plant, then fried again at the restaurant, which essentially doubles the fat. That gives us sugar on salt on fat on fat on fat...

"Salads contain vegetables, of course, but in today's restaurants they're more than likely to be smothered in a cream-based ranch dressing and flavored with cheese chunks, bacon bits and oily croutons. (Call this) 'fat with a little lettuce,' although there's salt in the salad as well. Even lettuce has become a vehicle for fat."

David A. Kessler, in "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite."

So Sarabeth

In the beginning, Sarabeth Levine made fruit spreads, jams and preserves, and sold them in specialty shops. Shortly thereafter, she opened a bakery and café "on what was then a distinctly inelegant Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan's Upper West Side."

These days, the James Beard Award-winning pastry chef has grown her brand and her business significantly, running bakeries and restaurants in a number of New York City neighborhoods as well as in Key West, Florida.

Food writer Mimi Sheraton, among her longtime fans, considers the shop's rugelach "the best rugelach in New York and the best I have ever had this side of my grandmother's kitchen."

In her first cookbook, "Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours," Levine gives a brief introduction to Sarabeth's history and describes the baked goods and sweet treats she and her staff now produce regularly. There are substantial chapters, for example, on morning pastries, muffins, breads, pies, cakes and cookies.

Although recipes that call for homemade puff pastry or croissant dough (e.g. Apple Turnovers, Pains au Chocolat) might prove too complicated for average home cooks, they could provide a decent challenge to those eager and ambitious to up their overall game.

Sections on spoon desserts such as crème brulee, chocolate pudding and bread pudding; ice creams and sorbets; and so-called spreadable fruits, the items that helped Levine launch Sarabeth's three decades ago, also add to the great appeal of this comprehensive volume.

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

Sundae Sunday

A peppermint and chocolate ice-cream sundae from Fentons. Because the diet can start tomorrow.

Christmas gifts

A toast to the holidays.

I eschew an extended-family get-together for some time home alone. It is my gift to myself.

The cherry on top

If the Henri Cartier-Bresson photo show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is the sundae, then "How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now" has to be the cherry on top.

The exhibit, up through April 17, looks at contemporary wine culture and the role big-name architecture, for example, has played in its evolution. It highlights, among other things, wineries in Northern California and around the world, calling to mind buildings by designers such as Herzog & de Meuron, Mario Botta, and Zaha Hadid.

It makes a good day in the galleries with a friend even better.

This time this year

This time last year, we were in London eating, exploring food shops and outdoor markets. This time this year, we are not.

Fiona Cairns, though, takes us back a bit to England. Her company, set in Leicestershire, supplies fanciful desserts to British department stores such as Selfridges, Harrods and Waitrose.

The cookbook "Bake and Decorate: Charming Cakes, Cupcakes & Cookies for Every Occasion" lets us re-create many of her sweet treats in our own kitchen.

In it, we find recipes for cakes with penguins or gingerbread men, and cupcakes that resemble butterflies, ice-cream cones or flower pots. What interest us most, however, are her directions for a simple Victoria sponge.

Victoria Sponge Cake
from Fiona Cairns' "Bake and Decorate: Charming Cakes, Cupcakes & Cookies for Every Occasion"

for the cake:

1 1/4 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. organic sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

for the filling:

1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup raspberry or strawberry jam
confectioners' sugar, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

You can choose to cook this cake either in one or two 8 x 1 1/2-inch round cake pans. Butter the pan or pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper. If you use just one pan, line the sides with a 3-inch high collar of parchment paper as well, to allow for the rise.

For this batter, I use an electric mixer and beater attachment, but use a food processor, or a bowl and an electric whisk, if you wish.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl, then add the butter (cut into tablespoons), the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Beat together until thoroughly blended, about 2 minutes on high speed. Scrape the batter into the pan or pans and smooth the top.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes if you are using two pans, or 30 to 35 minutes for one pan, until the cake springs back to the touch or a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let cool for a couple of minutes. Run a knife around the rim to loosen the cake from the pan and turn out onto a wire rack. Peel off the paper and cool completely.

Lightly whip the cream until just thickened into soft peaks. If you have baked the cake in one pan, slice horizontally with a serrated knife. Fill with jam and cream and sandwich together, so the cream forms the upper layer.

If you have baked the cake in two pans, be sure to sandwich the flat bases together. Sift confectioners' sugar on top. Makes 8 servings.

Craving carbs

Nor can we resist good bread.

Sweet

We are attracted to chocolates like bees to honey. Sweet.

Tasty Thai

It is perhaps not the tastiest Thai food we have eaten. The flavors could pop that much more. But in a pinch, in Moab, it is tasty enough.

In the land of the blind, as they say, the one-eyed man is king.

The menu for Moab

A day spent hiking in the heat calls for an evening eating and drinking.

Pizza pie

We eat it out of the box in our hotel room after a day's worth of driving. A paradox. It tastes pretty darn good.

Jell-O shot

Because it is the official snack of the state.

Dining at Ruth's

The second oldest restaurant in Utah - we haven't a clue as to the first - Ruth's Diner in Emigration Canyon is housed in an old-school trolley car. We like the vibe and the decor.

With baked macaroni and cheese, a grilled portobello mushroom sandwich, and a classic chocolate malt pudding, we also like the menu.

Sweet Madeleines

I am not certain how it is pronounced, but the kouing aman from Les Madeleines patisserie and cafe in Salt Lake City is interesting. The French pastry is crispy and buttery, sticky and sugary.

Must-eats

We seldom heed guidebooks, winging it on the road instead. When it comes to food, however, we can not resist local recommendations. We like to see what other people eat, and do not mind the hunt.

In the Sunday paper

Though we know him for the chocolates, John Scharffenberger apparently has done and now does considerably more. The San Francisco Chronicle details his pre- and post-chocolate endeavors:

"His food businesses have been nothing short of diverse. Besides having produced Champagne-style bubbly, high-end dark chocolate bars and now gourmet soy, Scharffenberger is also juggling a small sauerkraut enterprise and has teamed up with his hog-farmer neighbors to market cured hams."

Alas... if only we liked tofu - he is CEO of Hodo Soy Beanery in Oakland - half as much as we liked chocolates.

Memphis in Manhattan Beach

Geography matters. Or not.

We go to see Phoenix at the Hollywood Bowl. Tonight, we travel to Memphis in Manhattan Beach, where we order catfish and crab cakes, a bison burger and fried chicken. When the food arrives, we pass the camera around the table. It is a habit we have developed. We eat and swoon.

Label us skeptics

A corn syrup by any other name is still artificially sweet.

From The New York Times:

"The Corn Refiners Association, which represents firms that make (high-fructose corn syrup), has been trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn.

"Now, the group has petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to start calling the ingredient 'corn sugar,' arguing that a name change is the only way to clear up consumer confusion about the product."

Meat and vegetables

"A piece of bacon here, a chicken wing there, all eaten out of hand, fingers licked afterward. The sun is heading toward the horizon now; the small bit of beer in the bottom of my bottle is warm. Sunday is coming to a close and we've done nothing all day but grill and eat meat - which sounds absurd but feels sublime..."

Tara Austen Weaver, writing about barbecue in "The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis."

Peach fuzz

"In trying to save my Sun Crest peaches, I discover that they are more than just food, they are part of a permanence, a continuity with the past. People who enjoy my peaches understand what juicy, sweet ones taste like. Biting into one may send them back to the orchards of their childhoods and that warm sense of constancy of family found in their memories. Individuals leave for the city, but the memories of farms stay behind to anchor personal family histories. My peaches find a home with these folks, a touchstone to their past."

David Mas Masumoto, in "Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm."

Food art

Because sometimes the display is simply too beautiful to ignore.

Keeping it Real

When Real Madrid arrives for a friendly against the LA Galaxy, when 89,000-plus file into and out of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on a sunny afternoon, we look for icy drinks to cool us down.

Horchata

2 cups boiling water
3/4 cup rice powder or rice flour
4 cups lowfat or whole milk
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
a few drops vanilla extract

Whisk the boiling water into the rice powder or rice flour until incorporated. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until the milk dissolves. Chill for several hours, or until quite cold or at least cool. Stir and serve over ice. Makes 6 servings.

Lunchtime pie

"Nobody makes strawberry chocolate pie the way you do. Wednesday is my favorite day of the week because I get to have a slice of it. I think about it as I'm waking up. You could solve all the problems of the world with that pie...

"Just a pie? It's downright expert. A thing of beauty. How each flavor opens itself one by one, like a chapter in a book.

"First a burst of exotic spices. Just a hint of it. Then you're flooded with chocolate, dark and sweet, like an old love affair. And finally strawberry, the way strawberry was always supposed to taste but never knew how.

"In fact, I tell you what, forget all the other stuff I ordered. Just bring me the damn pie. That's all I want. I don't care if it's not a well-balanced meal. Just bring me the pie..."

Joe (Andy Griffith) talking about Jenna's (Keri Russell) special strawberry chocolate oasis pie in the film "Waitress."

Good Stuff

The July issue of Food & Wine includes a story on Spike Mendelsohn, whose Good Stuff Eatery in Washington, D.C. is a 15-minute drive from the White House, and whose menu features a heart-healthier Michelle Melt, "a turkey burger flavored with sauteed apple and celery."

What intrigue us most in the piece, however, are the recipes:

Michelle's Turkey Burgers with Lemon Mayonnaise

3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup finely chopped Granny Smith apple
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 small canned chipotle in adobo, minced
1 1/2 lbs. lean ground turkey breast
1 Tbsp. minced flat-leaf parsley
2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
1 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. chopped thyme
4 whole-wheat hamburger buns, split and toasted
4 iceberg lettuce leaves
4 tomato slices

In a nonstick skillet, heat 1 Tbsp. of canola oil. Add the sliced onion and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until golden and softened, about 25 minutes. Transfer the onion to a bowl. Wipe out the skillet.

Heat 1 Tbsp. of canola oil in the skillet. Add the celery, apple and scallions and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add the chipotle; let cool.

Stir in the turkey, parsley, 1 tsp. of lemon zest, 2 tsp. of salt and 1/4 tsp. of pepper. Shape the mixture into four 1/2-inch-thick patties.

In the skillet, heat the remaining 1 Tbsp. canola oil. Add the burgers and cook over moderately high heat, turning once, until no longer pink inside, 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise with the remaining 1 tsp. of lemon zest, the lemon juice and chopped thyme and season with salt and pepper.

Spread the lemon mayonnaise on the top halves of the buns; set the burgers on the bottom halves and top with the caramelized onions, lettuce and tomato. Makes 4 servings.

White House Honey-Oat Muffins

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. honey
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix the oats with the whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, coriander and salt.

In another bowl, whisk the honey with the buttermilk, canola oil and eggs. Pour the honey mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups and bake for about 18 minutes, until they're golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.

Let the muffins cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer them to a rack. Makes 12 servings.

Comfort cooking

In the months before my grandmother's death, my mother cooked.

She bought pork and lamb at the store, glad to take advantage of grocery specials. She marinated beef to roast in a hot oven. She trimmed Chinese greens. She chopped and braised, steamed and stir-fried. She spent time in her kitchen with the television on but often ignored.

My mother cooked not for my grandmother, who by then hardly ate, cancer stealing the best of her appetite. She cooked not for my father. He would be fine with simple soups and porridges. She cooked not for my sisters, brothers or me. Though we dropped by on weekends, we could only eat so much. Imagine the leftovers. She cooked, I believe, for herself.

At the counter or the sink, my mother stayed busy. She prepped chicken perhaps or removed scales from a fish. She gave herself these things to do. Meanwhile, her mind wandered.

She thought about the food she did not have growing up in China and the access she enjoyed when she arrived in California. She recalled years of scrimping to send money back to family across the Pacific and the relief she finally felt when her mother arrived in the United States as well. She cooked and cried.


We talk of comfort food: a scoop of ice cream, for example, or a slice of cake, a barbecued pork bun or an egg custard tart.

Jonathan Reynolds wonders whether the term is redundant. "All food is comforting," he says in the memoir "Wrestling with Gravy: A Life, With Food," "or we'd be eating nothing but hot dogs at Shea and warm tar (indistinguishable in a Times blind-testing), with possibly a few vitamins thrown in.

"Unless you're... undergoing a fraternity initiation or briefly lapse into Joan Crawford territory with one of your sons, there is no such thing as 'punitive food'."

I suspect there is the idea of comfort cooking as well, the notion that kitchen work can help to reassure us, that time in front of a stove can keep us centered. My mother cooked, it seems, for the same reason others might ride a bike or read a book. She needed the diversion.


The moment my mother spied my grandmother in hospice care, the day after my uncle had admitted the woman, she ran to hold her. It was something I had seldom seen my mother do: openly embrace anybody. It felt like a clip from a Chinese-language soap opera.

Outward displays of affection had been rare in our house. Hugs and kisses were things other people traded. My mother demonstrated her love through food instead.

She treated scrapes my siblings and I got playing in the back yard with a little Bactine and a lot of candy. She marked our achievements with dumplings and broth. She greeted our returns from college with dishes we favored: braised eggplant, tofu and beef, vermicelli with egg and barbecued pork. She wasn't about big gestures but small everyday concerns. I realize this now.

"When am I going to get better?" my grandmother asked, her voice a soft but steady whisper. "I don't know when I am going to get better. Maybe this time I won't."

A friend told me once her heart grew three sizes the day her daughter was born; my heart broke into a hundred pieces that afternoon at the foot of my grandmother's bed.

My mother insisted that if my grandmother simply ate more, her health could improve. "If you don't have the nutrients," she reasoned, "how would you ever get well?"

I knew enough Cantonese to understand this exchange. From talks earlier with doctors and relatives, I also knew the truth: That no matter what or how much my grandmother did or did not eat, she wouldn't get better. The disease had taken a toll, wreaking havoc on her pancreas, stripping her body of the energy it required.

My mother punctuated her visits to the hospice with trips to Safeway or Trader Joe's nearby or to Chinatown, recognizing the severity of the situation, I'm sure, but needing still to collect ingredients for her own meals. In this way, she continued to live as my grandmother was about to die.

After all, my mother needed to pay attention to herself, too, did she not? She needed to look to the future and occasions she would inevitably get to spend with the rest of her family. Food - thinking about it, shopping for it, preparing it - provided a way for her to exert control over something when so much around her had been beyond her control. It was the happiness she allowed herself. In this backyard scrape, it was her candy.

The short market trips were also a way, I suppose, for her to fool death personally, to not let it follow her straight home from the hospice. She wanted to open and close car doors, enter and exit other buildings, walk up and down wide aisles, to ditch death randomly. She was superstitious like that.


In the months since my grandmother's death, my mother continues to cook. She shops for exceptional deals and brainstorms menu ideas. Her tears, however, no longer flavor the food.

She tells me about a visit with a friend to their neighborhood Lucky for 99-cent eggs. She wanted to limit herself to a couple of cartons. Her friend, however, dismissed the restraint.

"The people in the store know us," the woman said in Cantonese. "They see us all the time anyway. They know we're greedy. It doesn't matter how much we buy or don't buy." They shrugged, gathered four or five cartons each and headed to the register.

With joy I have not seen in a while, my mother tells me of the day she spent with a nephew from New Jersey. During a last-minute business trip to California, he made it a point to invite her out to eat.

In San Francisco, they came across a Chinese buffet. Though inexpensive, the food they spotted on people's plates seemed unappealing.

He placed his hand on my mother's back and guided her away from the entrance of the restaurant. "The two of us," her nephew said, gently and genuinely, "let's go eat something better. You and I, we deserve something better." She agreed.

My mother tells me these stories, peppered with humor, irony and insight, one night over dinner. I listen and laugh.

(A version of this essay appears on the website for The Atlantic.)

Why ask why?

Pie, pie, three-berry pie.

Though the crust is store-bought, the lattice is not. The filling, consisting of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, is totally summer.

Stars and stripes

Because it is red, white and blue.

One each

In a box of 15 macarons from La Boulange in San Francisco, we are down to the final four. One for each of us. We check out a jazz festival on Fillmore Street and uncover a French bakery on Pine Street instead. The cookies have all been excellent. We pass them around the table and think of getting more.

Berry love

The Guardian does a combination history, how-to pick, eat and store piece on strawberries. It is a light but informative read.

It seems to me the British strawberry season coincides nicely with the U.S., another reason I love England.

Much too much

OK now this has got to stop.

I survey the groceries and realize there is simply too much food in the refrigerator. There are tons of fruits and vegetables. It's crazy.

After the Mexico-Argentina game Sunday afternoon, I went to the Berkeley Bowl, where I got raspberries, blackberries and blueberries on the cheap. I don't want to keep them too long, though, so I make a crisp.

I got a bag of eggplants for 99 cents and think of a tomato-less pasta sauce with a recipe I saw on Salon. Or perhaps I should roast them for baba ghanoush.

I got six ears of shucked yellow corn for 99 cents. I got a bag of squash - zucchini and two varieties whose names I do not know - for 99 cents. I have not figured out entirely what to do with them but have a couple of days still, I think.

I got rhubarb, which I happened to see and, of course, could not resist. I love it and will need to cook that down for schloop (a word I made up). I can have it with vanilla yogurt and granola for breakfast.

I got kale just because. In hindsight, perhaps I should have put back the kale. I still have carrots, onions and lettuce leaves, too. I even wound up freezing a mess of sliced red bell peppers the other week because I could not use those immediately.

It is ridiculous, right? You'd think I was cooking and shopping to feed a football team. And this is all after the full flat of strawberries the other weekend from the farmers' market.

Oh, and shoot, running errands in Chinatown with my mother this morning, I got pluots, too. I know, I know. But they are in season, and I saw them.

Milkshake

"My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and they're like it's better than yours. Damn right it's better than yours. I could teach you but I'd have to charge."

The lyrics are taken from "Milkshake" by Kelis. The sign hangs at Trueburger on Grand Avenue in Oakland, where they serve hamburgers, french fries and, yes, milkshakes. It proves a nifty play on words.

Summer cake

Nigel Slater can not resist cake. I, apparently, can not resist Nigel Slater. The British author champions summer cakes in The Observer. I am smitten:

"Cake is my downfall. I can refuse a glass of wine, push away an opened box of handmade chocolates, spurn a toffee from the tin and turn my nose up at a HobNob, but I can never, ever resist a slice of cake.

"The feel of the soft, open texture of the sponge between my finger and thumb, the warm scent of vanilla, orange, lemon and almond. A slice of cake is both pleasure and vice and I sometimes look away as I walk past a particularly tempting shop window..."

(Photo credit goes to Jonathan Lovekin for The Observer.)

Food for my father

When we were growing up, my mother spent afternoons in the kitchen making traditional Chinese dumplings and pastries. Determined not to let us forget who we were, she poached chicken and steamed fish. She simmered pots of soup. She stuck with the familiar.

But my father liked to experiment. Having been in California long enough to taste other foods, he wanted to introduce us to all sorts of things. He asked my mother to serve asparagus the way many Americans did - with hollandaise sauce. He showed her how to bake russet potatoes in the oven. He fed us sour cream.

He allowed my sibling and me departures from Chinese food, rescuing us from what would become our mother's predictability. He injected new flavors into our weekly menus, bringing home burgers from a restaurant near his store in San Francisco, patties so thick they dripped with each bite, and deep-dish pizzas. He had these with glasses of beer, a practice I have long since adopted.

He took us to the grocery store. My mother shopped mostly in Chinatown. But my father preferred the American supermarkets. We went with him on Saturdays for staples such as milk and bread.

My sisters, brothers and I wandered the aisles and filled the cart with cookies while our father stayed in the meat department comparing packages of beef. We never asked permission for the items we chose. He never denied us the foods we liked.

So it is disheartening to learn now that my father, as he gets older, sometimes fails to eat, that he sleeps late and skips meals, that he's uninterested in the things my mother cooks. That his weight has begun to fall.


Nutritionists and psychologists talk often about the connections between age and health, mood and appetite. In articles and on Web sites, they write about the benefits of a balanced diet, offering suggestions for seniors to stay well.

Eat more whole grains, they say. Eat more fruits and vegetables, beans and nuts. Eat less fat, cholesterol and sodium. They tell me nothing new.

They look at the possible effects of treatment and medication on appetite. One influences the other, they say. But my father isn't on treatment. He isn't on heavy medication. He takes a pill a day and a couple of calcium supplements.

They look also at environment. Seniors who live alone sometimes find it discouraging to eat alone. They don't like to sit by themselves. But my father does not live alone. My mother is next to him, cooking morning, noon and night. How could he not be hungry?


Watching my father in the kitchen, I recall a time years ago when he ate heartily, when sumptuous Saturday evening meals, for example, were rewards for weeks of hard work, when holidays, both Chinese and American, were occasions for serious family feasts.

My mother would fill the table with my father's favorites: cellophane noodles, shrimp and vegetable stir-fry, sweet and sour pork, as well as crab or lobster when they were available. She'd top the menu with refreshing slices of oranges or sweet, ripened mangoes.

Eager to watch television, my siblings and I tried to tear through the food. But our father disapproved. Slow down, he'd say. Enjoy your meal.

He'd pick up a mouthful of noodles with his chopsticks, touch it to his lips and taste. The seasonings were perfect. He'd lick the sauce off a piece of pork or wok-fried crab, savoring its juices.

Half an hour later, my father would wipe his lips, push his chair from the edge of the table and gently pat his stomach. Good, he'd say, smiling discreetly. I'm full.

I wonder if that might happen again, if my father would find such peace and satisfaction in the things he ate.


One afternoon, aiming to give him a respite from Chinese food, the way he had done for my sisters, brothers and me when we were children, I set out to make a pot of chili for my father.

I select a recipe from my eclectic collection and cook ground turkey instead of ground beef. I want the dish to be heart healthy. I include tons of vegetables: diced bell peppers, portobello mushrooms, corn, zucchini and tomatoes. I want it to be nutritious. I throw in chili powder and red pepper flakes. I want it to have a significant kick.

At my parents' house that night, I serve the chili with steamed white rice, something my mother cannot refuse. I note the ingredients and encourage them to help themselves.

My mother thanks me for cooking, saving her time and energy. It is not a big deal, I reply, before turning to my father, who scoops a small portion.

I want him to like the food. I want him to have seconds. Thirds even. I do. He doesn't. In the end, I impress only myself.


Perhaps the nutritionists and psychologists were right. Maybe my father - like others his age - isn't thinking much about eating. At 80, he has different concerns. But does his decreasing appetite for food in particular mirror a decreasing appetite for life in general?

Does he believe, 15 years into retirement, that he has tasted all there is? It would be a shame. I want to convince my father there are tons of foods he has not tried.

So I will continue to encourage my father to eat today and tomorrow. He is the one who introduced us years ago to American favorites, who did not deny us the snacks we craved, who pushed his chair from the edge of the table after an especially satisfying meal.

I will help my mother keep their kitchen stocked with all sorts of good food - the chicken and fresh fish she likes, the cereals and bananas he likes - and provide them occasional departures from the usual.

And on mornings when my mother visits friends in the neighborhood, I will stop by the house to spend time with my father.

I will boil eggs for his breakfast. Twelve minutes, no more, no less, the way I learned to in college. They will come out perfect. He can have them with a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee.

It might not be the biggest or most extravagant meal in the world. It might not be fancy or expensive. But it will be a decent start.


(A version of this essay appeared originally in The Oakland Tribune.)

Coffee cake

"It was coffee cake; I hope that statement implies no sense of disappointment. Eaten warm from the oven, moist and crumbly, a nice coffee cake is pretty hard to fault. Coffee cake! I had made a coffee cake! Mysteriously, I thought, it contained no coffee.

"The velvet crumb business turned out to revolve around an impasto of butter, brown sugar, chopped nuts, flaked coconut, and a little milk that you spread over the cake after it came out of the oven. Then you stuck it back in the oven for a minute or two. Something wonderful happened to those five ingredients when you blended them and briefly subjected them to intense heat. The result was both smooth and grainy, crisp and chewy.

"Cooking, it turned out, was a magical act, a feat of transformation, a way of turning the homely and the familiar into something fine, like carving a pumpkin into a lantern."

Michael Chabon, writing of an early baking foray in "Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son."

Reason for cake

It is a sunset ceremony linking a girl I no longer know well to a boy I have never met. It is their wedding, their celebration, another reason for cake. As if cake needed a reason.

Baskets of berries

A visit to the farmers' market yields an armload of strawberries, three baskets full. They should keep me happy for the week. I eat them sliced with yogurt and granola for breakfast. I snack on them during the day.

My sister gets baskets of berries at the supermarket, too. As does my brother. The packages are BOGO, they say. Each wanted to surprise the other with an extra. They are twins. We go from none in the house to much too much.

With the surplus, I make strawberry bread using a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. It reminds me of the pastries my friends and I had in the college cafeteria, goodness that got us through groggy mornings in Providence. It takes me back.

Strawberry Bread
adapted from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine

5 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1 pint strawberries, rinse, hulled, quartered and mashed with a fork
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch by 4-inch loaf pan.

In a small saucepan, bring strawberries to a boil over medium heat. Cook, stirring, 1 minute. Set aside.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, ground cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add the flour mixture alternately with 1/3 cup of water, beginning and ending with flour. Fold in the reserved strawberries.

Scrape batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean, about 45 to 50 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in the pan. Run a knife around the edges; invert the loaf onto a rack. Cool completely. Makes 8 servings.

Home turf

"The seeds, these seeds that I had so carefully selected, were tangible proof of man's culture, of my culture, a continuation of a line. Even in this ghetto squat lot, I was cultivating human history. Watermelons from Africa. Squash from the Americas. Potatoes with a history in Peru. Radishes native to Asia but domesticated in Egypt. All now growing here in Oakland.

"Standing near the fence, I realized that not only did I make the garden; it made me. I ate out of this place every day. I had become this garden - its air, water, soil. If I abandoned the lot, I would abandon myself. When Jack Chan told me no building - no permanent structures - only garden, did he realize that by building the soil, perhaps I was making something more permanent than he could have ever imagined?"

Novella Carpenter, in "Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer."

In the Sunday paper

Pegged in part to the publication of her cookbook "In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart," the San Francisco Chronicle's piece on Alice Waters sums up much of her food philosophy.

"For nearly 40 years, 'St. Alice,' as she's been called for her unrepentant views, has touted the importance of eating local, organically grown food; emphasized the necessity of being good stewards of the land; and tirelessly advocated and funded nutritional meal programs in public schools..."

Getting sauced

Oliver Thring writes in the Guardian of HP Sauce, comparing it to both A1 Steak Sauce and ketchup. Like me, he favors one but not the others.

"It's almost shocking how delicious HP is. From its lowbrow reputation and unappetising hue bursts a remarkable aroma: complex, fuggy and fruity, like swimming through compost and Jif. It tastes better than it smells, too, a sweet-sour, subjugating blend."

Sating a thirst

Not until I met a guy in London who waxed nostalgic about Anchor Steam have I given significant thought to the iconic San Francisco brand, sold by Fritz Maytag to entrepreneurs Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio.

Only now have I developed a thirst for the beer.

The second pancake

A brother makes me pancakes. Without having to ask, he takes out a mixing bowl in the morning and heats a skillet on the stove. He whips up batter. I watch from a seat at the kitchen counter.

The first pancake does not come out right. No big shakes. I tell him it's like Katie Holmes' character in "Pieces of April." Something about how she is the first pancake, the first child in the family, the one who never turns out totally right. He looks at me funny.

My brother tries again.

And the other pancakes turn out fine. They are light and fluffy, served with slices of banana and strawberries, and scoops of vanilla ice cream. He spreads separate layers of Nutella and chunky peanut butter in between as well.

They are over the top and delicious. We take turns at the plate while drinking orange juice and Champagne. Is it any wonder he remains my all-time favorite sibling?

Waste not

"There are legal, fiscal and logistical measures that can be taken to reduce food waste... If we felt, as intensely as the desert-dwelling Uighurs do, that food is a finite, invaluable resource to be cherished, our situation would be very different.

"To experience just how different things could be, go to any landfill site in Britain, the US or countless other countries, and examine its contents. Among the mass of general detritus is an array of uneaten food... Some of it (has) evidently come from restaurants and individual households.

"But there are also entire crates of food that have clearly never seen the inside of a shopping bag: eggs, oranges, cauliflowers in sprawling piles like a scattered bag of children's multi-coloured marbles. The whole world is represented here... bananas from the West Indies, grapes from South Africa, rice from India or America. All of it has come from the earth, and to the earth it has been unceremoniously returned, now blended with plastic, paper and clapped-out furniture..."

Tristram Stuart writing in "Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal."

Going green

"Ulf's farm was a study in green. There was the lime green of Bibb lettuce and the arctic green of collards and the blackish green of Tuscan kale and the bronze green of mustards and the variegated green of cilantro, and many other shades of green, all set out in long, straight rows.

"The glowing pointillist dots of chiles and tomatoes and oranges were missing, for Ulf did not grow these things. He was a leaf man. He just grew greens."

Mike Madison, writing of a neighbor's farm in "Blithe Tomato."

Flannel cakes

"Funniest joke in the world:

'Last night I dreamed I was eating flannel cakes. When I woke up the blanket was gone!' "

Kurt Vonnegut, writing in "A Man Without a Country."