Second-term pie

Whether we are better or worse financially, philosophically, socially or emotionally, we still need pie. And pie is what we have, without the meringue.

Sweet Potato Pie
from White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford

Dough

1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups flour

Filling

3 sweet potatoes
4 sticks cinnamon
5 star anise
1 orange, quartered
2 Tbsp. melted butter

Custard

3 cups crème fraiche
4 whole eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt

Honey meringue topping

3 egg whites
2 cups honey, reduced by half

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For the pie dough: Cream the sugar and butter. Add the dry ingredients and gently mix. Incorporate the vanilla extract, lemon zest and egg yolks. Form into a ball and let rest in the refrigerator.

Roll the dough to fit a 12-inch tart pan. Top with parchment paper and cooking beads and bake blind for 12 minutes. Set aside to cool.

For the sweet potato puree: Bake the whole sweet potatoes and all the aromatics on a sheet tray at 350 degrees F until tender. Scoop the meat and pass through a chinoise. Set aside to cool. In the meantime, mix the custard base and fold into the cooled sweet potato puree.

Pour into the cooked tart shell and finish cooking until set, about 35 minutes.

For the honey meringue topping: Whip the egg whites until stiff and incorporate the hot reduced honey. Top the cooked sweet potato pie and broil until the meringue gets a toasted color. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Lemon cake

"The room filled with the smell of warming butter and sugar and lemon and eggs, and at five, the timer buzzed and I pulled out the cake and placed it on the stovetop.

"The house was quiet. The bowl of icing was right there on the counter, ready to go, and cakes are best when just out of the oven, and I really couldn't possibly wait, so I reached to the side of the cake pan, to the least obvious part, and pulled off a small warm spongy chunk of deep gold.

"Iced it all over with chocolate. Popped the whole thing into my mouth."

Aimee Bender in "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"

A cupcake day

Any day when cupcakes are involved is a good enough day.

Weihachten in Deutschland

"There is no better place in the world to celebrate Christmas than in Germany. No country I know takes it more seriously. And no other place on earth is still able to infuse the holiday with such a sense of solemn tradition and beauty. Weihnachten in Deutschland still retains a sense of the sacred and the divine.

"Maybe it starts with the run-up to Christmas, the four Advent Sundays beforehand filled with endless afternoon teas with friends, crunching through all manners of homemade Christmas cookies or moist Stollen or dense fruit bread. 

"Perhaps it's because tradition here dictates that the Christmas tree not be decorated until the day before Christmas Eve, drawing out the thrill until the very last moment. 

"Maybe it's the brass bands at Christmas markets or the Christmas markets themselves, all lit up and smelling of warm Gluhwein and sausages. 

"Or perhaps it's the candlelight. In Germany, people still put candles, lit candles, with actual flames, on their trees instead of electric lights. (A bucket of water for emergency dousing lurks behind every tree.)"

Luisa Weiss, in "My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)"

More kale

Kale and White Bean Soup
from "Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best"


1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 ounces very thinly sliced pancetta, diced
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 medium to large bunch kale, washed, thick stems cut away and leaves sliced across into 3/4-inch-wide strips
1 tsp. coarse salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 cups homemade or reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup cooked or canned cannellini, navy beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart low-sided soup pot or Dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat. Add the onion and pancetta and saute until the onion is softened and both are browned, about 12 minutes.

Add the garlic, stir and saute until fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Add the kale and stir thoroughly to coat the leaves (and to de-glaze the pan slightly with their moisture).

Season with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.

Add the broth, stir well and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, lower to a simmer and cook until the kale is almost completely tender, 10 to 25 minutes.

Uncover the pot, add the beans and simmer for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice and turn off the heat. Ladle the soup into four shallow bowls. Makes 4 servings.

Blue Bottle eggs

Because we need food to go with those cups of coffee.

Catalan Eggs with Braised Greens and Tomato Sauce
from James Freeman and Caitlin Freeman's "The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting and Drinking, with Recipes"

Tomato Sauce

3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14-ounce can tomato puree, or about 1 1/2 cups pureed fresh tomatoes
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Greens

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 pounds chard, chicory, kale, escarole or a combination, cut into ribbons about an inch thick
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
grated hard cheese, such as Parmesan or Pecorino Romano
4 poached eggs

To make the tomato sauce: Heat the olive oil in a medium nonreactive skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and saute until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Then add the tomato puree and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes taste and smell sweet and less acidic, about 20 minutes for canned tomatoes or 10 minutes for fresh. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To make the greens: Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Carefully add the greens, watching out for popping oil. If using a mixture of greens, start with the sturdier greens, such as kale, and add more tender greens, such as chard, a minute or two later. (Escarole takes even less time.)

Stir to wilt the greens evenly and make more space for more greens. Cook until the greens are emerald green and wilted but still crunchy, 5 to 7 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To assemble: Divide the greens evenly among 4 plates, making a nest of each. Put a poached egg on top. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Then spoon the tomato sauce over each. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Slowing down

"No matter what I cook, I always take with me the core lessons that traveling and cooking in Italy have taught me: a respect for flavor and quality, the habit of supporting communities of artisan food producers, and the craft of cooking, from making pasta to curing meat.

"Yet the most important lesson is appreciating the value of spending an entire day (or three) cooking one meal, and then slowing down to savor every bite."
 
Matthew Accarrino in "SPQR: Modern Italian Food and Wine"

Skating

"To get to work, some days I'd skate uptown first and cut back through Central Park, sailing through the aromas wafting from the chestnut-roasting vendors, the hot dog and shawarma carts, the syrupy burnt sugar of the peanut and cashew men.

"Other days I'd dip down into the thirties so that I could skate through Koreatown, with its smells of kimchi and its modest barbecue joints in the shadow of the Empire State Building...

"If I worked the early shift, I'd take off after lunch service and skate down the east side of the island, stopping in the Indian groceries to wander through the spice aisles, once in a while treating myself to something unfamiliar, like the pungent, gummy asafetida, which went from having a truly objectionable stink when raw to a pleasant garlic-meets-leeks vibe when cooked.

"One week I'd try yellowtail sushi in the East Village, and the next week I'd save up money to sample the tamarind-dipped crab rolls at Vong..."

Marcus Samuelsson in "Yes, Chef: A Memoir"

Passion for pie

"On Thanksgiving, I discovered pie. Until then, I had only known apple pie, but Neda's grandmother baked rhubarb, sour cherry, pumpkin, and peach, taking each out of the oven just when the fruit was bubbling around the edges. Not surprisingly, it became my favorite holiday and the beginning of a lifelong passion for pie."

Donia Bijan, in "Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen"

Boo

Because it is Halloween.

 

To cook

"As I said, you don't have to cook. You can get through life perfectly comfortably without lifting so much as a wooden spoon. Fine. Do that.

"What I want to say is that if you do decide to go through life without cooking, you are missing something very, very special. You are losing out on one of the greatest pleasures you can have with your clothes on.

"Cooking can be as passionate, creative, life-enhancing, uplifting, satisfying, and downright exhilarating as anything else you can do with your life. Feeling, sniffing, chopping, sizzling, grilling, frying, roasting, baking, tasting, licking, sucking, biting, savoring, and swallowing food are pleasures that would, to put it mildly, be a crime to miss out on.

"Add to that the buzz, the satisfying tingle that goes down your spine when you watch someone eating something you have made for them, and you have one of the greatest joys known to man."

Nigel Slater in "Appetite: So What Do You Want to Eat Today?"

Live things everywhere

cutting greens

curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.

Lucille Clifton, quoted in Kevin Young's "The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink"

Sweet victory

 

When the home team wins the division, we bake in celebration. 

We head into the kitchen and pull together a pear and cranberry oatmeal crisp, a fall favorite. It is the least we can do.

The dessert proves entirely sweet, like victory itself.  

Fair food

Grains on the brain

Oh, what I would do for access to a waffle maker.

Among the first things I would try to make: cornmeal and oat waffles from partners and prolific food authors Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

Cornmeal and Oat Waffle Mix
from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough's "Grain Mains: 101 Surprising and Satisfying Whole Grain Recipes for Every Meal of the Day"

4 cups coarse, whole-grain yellow cornmeal
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cups spelt flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup baking powder
4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Whisk all the ingredients in a large bowl, taking care that the baking powder is evenly distributed throughout. Spoon or pour the whole kit and caboodle into a large container and seal tightly. Store up to 3 months in a dark, cool pantry.

To make 3 waffles, scoop 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons of the mix into a bowl. Whisk in 1 large egg, 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons nut oil (walnut, hazelnut or pecan) or 2 1/2 tablespoons melted and cooled unsalted butter.

Mix well and set aside for 10 minutes while the waffle iron heats. Then make the waffles in the iron according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serves about 24, with a heaping 9 1/2 cups of mix.

Kale and onion quiche

Because we could all benefit from more kale in our diets.

Sprouting

Flipping through Sara Forte and Hugh Forte's cookbook "The Sprouted Kitchen," I am most intrigued, I think, by soba and salmon. It is what I gravitate towards. It seems I am a noodle girl at heart.

Soba Bowls with Tea-poached Salmon 
from Sara Forte's "The Sprouted Kitchen: A Tastier Take on Whole Foods"

3 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
2 Tbsp. tahini
2 Tbsp. agave nectar
grated zest and juice of 1 lime
3 Tbsp. tamari or soy sauce
2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
1 bunch broccoli
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
pinch of sea salt
3 bags green tea
1 Tbsp. peppercorns
1/2 cup mirin or dry white wine
1 1/4 pound wild salmon fillet
1 (9.5-ounce) package soba noodles
4 green onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup white or black sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a small bowl, whisk together the sesame oil, tahini, agave nectar, lime zest and juice, tamari and grated ginger until smooth. Set aside.

Cut the broccoli into small florets, including some of the stems. Combine the broccoli in a bowl with the olive oil, garlic and salt, and spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven.

In a saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a gentle simmer. Turn the heat down to low, add the tea bags and peppercorns and steep for 3 minutes, then discard the tea bags. Add the mirin to the poaching liquid.

Gently slide in the salmon, skin side down. Cover, and cook until the salmon is just barely cooked in the middle, 8 to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillet. If in doubt, it's better to undercook the salmon a bit rather than overcook it.

Remove the salmon to a plate and flake it with a fork (you will notice a natural grain). Set aside and loosely cover with foil.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the soba noodles according to package instructions or until al dente. While the noodles cook, chop the roasted broccoli. Drain the noodles.

In a large bowl, toss together the warm noodles, broccoli, dressing, green onions, and half the cilantro.

Divide the noodles among four bowls, top with a portion of the salmon, and sprinkle the remaining cilantro and the sesame seeds on top. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Bacon poetry

We spot this in a market on Haight Street in San Francisco, near the meat counter no less, and have to laugh out loud.

Aisle 8, Baking

"The next night, I'm smack-dab in the middle of grocery. Aisle 8, Baking Supplies, a.k.a. Ground Zero for the Holidays. Here sits nearly every baking ingredient known to America.

"My aisle's off-white tile stretches from the hip-deep freezers of meats to one of the store's Action Alleys - a kind of shopping-cart thoroughfare, clogged with a holiday baking center display.

"On the right are salts and spices; sugars white, brown, artificial, and unrefined; Jell-O products ranging from gelatin and pudding mixes to No-Bake Cheesecake kits and pudding cups; marshmallows of different flavors, colors, shapes, sizes, and, with the inclusion of Fluff, consistency; nuts in varying degrees of dismemberment; graham cracker crusts, chocolate cookies, and shortbread; canned pie fillings of fruit and pumpkin; chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and baby M&Ms; dry milk powder; flaked coconut; cocoa; and canned milk that's been evaporated or sweetened and condensed.

"The left-hand shelves start out savory, with cornmeal, flour, gravy thickener, bread crumbs, and multiple variations on Shake'n Bake; veer into sweet with cornmeal muffin mix, nearly limitless cake mixes, cookie and bar mixes, flavor extracts, leavening agents and cornstarch; and terminate in fats with lard, shortening, and oils."

Tracie McMillan in "The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table"

"Eating Well, Living Better"

Michael Fenster, a cardiologist and trained chef, puts his profession and passion to work in "Eating Well, Living Better: The Grassroots Gourmet Guide to Good Health and Great Food." It is a practical, if somewhat overblown, volume.

His tone is occasionally too folksy. "If you've come this far, dear reader (and even if you were to put this book down now this very instant and walk away, you are still a dear reader)..." And his reliance on medical studies and statistics might alienate a general audience.

But Fenster pulls no punches and goes for the goal: a sustainable, healthy and delicious "food program." It is admirable. He calls junk food "weapons of mass consumption." His advice on healthy eating and portion control hold merit.

By including four chapters' worth of cooking tips and recipes, Fenster gives readers something tangible, too.

He relies on natural spices to wake up the palate, incorporating garlic, ginger and thyme, for example, in a Caribbean-inspired broccoli and cauliflower dish simmered in coconut milk; cayenne and black pepper in pumpkin cornbread; and a lemon-curry hollandaise in a smoked salmon pizza.

For those willing to look past Fenster's verbosity and philosophizing, this book is full of tried and tested advice and delicious dishes.

(A version of this review appeared originally in Publishers Weekly.)

A is for apple pie

"A is for apple pie. The nursery rhyme lives with us from our earliest years and culinary memories. As does the scent of autumn apples steaming in a pie; pouring hot, silky, vanilla-flecked custard over thick gluey-appled pastry triangles; pushing a clot of thick yellow cream on to the sugared pastry top with your fingers; or dropping a cold scoop of the best homemade vanilla ice cream over the summit, the hot beating the cold into melting submission.

"Apple pie is the alpha and omega of pies - well, at least of sweet pies - and there are, I'm sure, as many versions as there are cooks, but that is the joy of it.

"From cheese crusts and spices to crumble tops and gooky molasses-sugared tops punctuated with scrunched walnuts; from the plainest pie to the traditional winter welter-weight warmer, apple hat; from rhubarb and apple to apple and quince, apple and raisin, blackberry and apple."

Tamasin Day-Lewis, in "Tarts with Tops On or How to Make the Perfect Pie"

Thai one on

Restaurant art

Hashing it out

We like corned beef hash as much as the next fellow. And we always like a good poached egg. These inevitably get us going.

Talking "Taco"

"Mexican food is at our state dinners, in elegant presentations. Mexican food is in our school cafeterias, packaged as chimichangas or in bags of Fritos, in convenience stores heating on rolling racks, waiting for the hands of hurried customers.

"Mexican food sponsors college bowl games such as the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and buys naming rights for sporting venues such as the Taco Bell Arena at Boise State in Idaho. Mexican food commercials blanket television airwaves hawking salsa and hard-shelled taco packets and high-priced tequilas and imported beers promising a day at the beach.

"Mexican food fills our grocery aisles, feeds underclassmen, sits in our freezers and pantries, is the focus of festivals, becomes tween trends or front-page news - and if you don't know what I'm talking about, ask your kid about spaghetti tacos.

"That wonderful culinary metaphor the melting pot has absorbed Mexican in this country just like so many immigrant cuisines of the past - but in a demanding way, unique from other traditions that have penetrated the American palate.

"While there are more Chinese restaurants than Mexican in this country, Mexican food is the easier sell... While pizza is the best-selling and farthest-reaching item of Italian-American cuisine, its rise and that of pasta and subs is only relatively recent; the United States, on the other hand, has loved Mexican food for more than 125 years - bought it, sold it, made it, spread it, supplied it, cooked it, savored it, loved it."

Gustavo Arellano, in "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America"

Hunger

In his empathetic account "The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change," former Wall Street Journal reporter Roger Thurow ("Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty") focuses on a group of smallholder farmers in western Kenya, "a paradoxical region of breathtaking beauty and overwhelming misery."

Without modern equipment and valuable fertilizers, these farmers struggle to feed their families throughout the year and produce enough crops to make money to send their children to school. They believed "education was the surest route out of poverty."

They try hard to stretch their food supplies from one harvest to the next. The time in between - when prices soar with shortages "and parents scramble for whatever income they can find and scrounge whatever assets they can sell to afford daily nourishment" - is known as "wanjala," the hunger season.

In chronicling their plight, the author also discusses the efforts of the One Acre Fund, founded not long ago by Andrew Youn, a social entrepreneur with an MBA from Northwestern University. The organization works to provide farmers with "access to the seeds and soil nutrients and planting advice" that would normally be unavailable to them.

By documenting their collaboration, Thurow paints a sobering but ultimately hopeful picture of a continuing food crisis in Africa and some of the things people are doing to mitigate it.

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

Crumble, her sweet

"Five minutes later, a generous slice of rhubarb-apple crumble arrived, warmed in the small kitchen and served with a side of fresh cream, whipped staunchly into a thick, puffy cloud.

"I sat for a minute, contemplating the crumble's imperfect bumps and dull brown color. The pale pink and sometimes green slices of rhubarb poked out of the sides and lumps of rogue topping decorated my plate.

"Where the crumble had baked against the dish, a sticky crust of caramelized fruit juice and sugar had formed. It looked like a tarte that had done a somersault in its pastry box and arrived bruised and battered. There was nothing perfect about it.

"Except its bright flavors. Except its comforting warmth. Except that it was exactly what I wanted and needed. I savored each juicy-crunchy bite. It was wonderful."

Amy Thomas, describing dessert in "Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate)"

Fava bean Friday

The fava beans go from this

 to this

to this

in the span of a Friday afternoon. It is time well spent.

What the French do

Part cultural study, part memoir, part children's food guide, Karen Le Billon's "French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters" is a breezy, useful volume for hurried parents looking to keep their kids well-fed.
 
A mother of two young girls, Sophie and Claire, the author recalls the year her family moved from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Pléneuf Val-André, France, her husband Philippe's hometown on the Brittany coast.

She compares North American eating habits to which they had been accustomed (e.g. fast-food consumption, constant snacking) to French norms they needed to learn along the way.

"French parents gently compel their children to eat healthy food. They expect their kids to eat everything they are served, uncomplainingly. They ask them to spend long hours at the table (where they are expected to be extremely well behaved)..."

In due time, Le Billon (Eau Canada) drafts a set of rules for her daughters, strategies she believes readers can easily follow as well. Parents should "schedule meals and menus," for example. "Kids should eat what adults eat: no substitutes and no short-order cooking."

Her tone is straightforward, generous and gentle. That Le Billon concludes with a small collection of kid-friendly recipes - including a Five-Minute Fish en Papillote and Clafoutis (sweet cherry soufflé) - helps make this foodie manifesto all the more accessible.

(A version of this review appeared originally in Publishers Weekly.)

Producers and purveyors

In an effort to highlight local producers and purveyors, Seattle resident Leora Y. Bloom talks to a cross-section of people in the eye-catching volume "Washington Food Artisans: Farm Stories and Chef Recipes."

Meet Stina Booth, for example, and her husband, John Richardson, who run Booth Canyon Orchard near Twisp. They "take turns driving their truck across the Cascades to bring their apples and pears to Seattle so that someone is always at home taking care of the trees." 

Or Pete Knutson of Loki Fish Co. in Seattle, who resembles "a Norwegian fisherman... movie-star handsome, aging with craggy wrinkles in all the right places." He is similarly attached to his trade - when he's not fishing, he's teaching at Seattle Central Community College. Knutson is "an activist in the fishing industry" as well.

The author also collects recipes ranging from spiced albacore tuna with stone fruit chutney to goat cheesecake with pears and honey. They will have denizens of the Northwest and beyond drooling - most ingredients can be sourced nationwide.

Clare Barboza's sumptuous landscape and food photos complement the narrative nicely. They give sight and sound to an admirable group of people committed to the health and well-being of their customers and their communities.

(A version of this review appeared originally in Publishers Weekly.)

Without question

Because in life there should always be cake.

You and me

A visit to Umami Burger yields a port and stilton burger, topped with port-caramelized onions and blue cheese. It proves an excellent yield.

"Mycophilia"

Mushroom hunting, Eugenia Bone reminds us, isn't simply traipsing through the woods after weeks of wet weather, eyes to the ground. It requires a decent amount of patience, fearlessness, skill and "knowledge both of the organism and of its habits and habitats."

In "Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms," the journalist and noted food writer sheds light on groups of fungi aficionados from around the country and chronicles her own growing interest in the field over the past decade. She introduces us to a distinct subculture.

Some people, Bone says, gather mushrooms for the thrill as well as the taste. They join mycological societies that offer "lectures on fungal biology, slideshows of mushroom photography... (and) small guided walks." They take part in regional forays and festivals.

Like her, they look forward to spring, when morels – "probably the most fetishized of all wild edible mushrooms" – can be found in abundance. Getting good ones will reward them with delicious meals afterward.

But eating bad ones can send them to the hospital. One cap of an Amanita phalloides, for instance, "will make you very sick, even do you in, especially if you exhibit symptoms within six hours of eating." Telltale signs of mushroom poisoning include gastrointestinal pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

Other mushroom people forage for the money. Commercial pickers who hunt for chanterelles, truffles and matsutakes in the Pacific Northwest, for example, are part of a thriving industry that generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They sell the mushrooms they find in the wild to restaurants or distributors, following a trail from British Columbia in the summer south to Washington and Oregon in the fall and Northern California in the winter.

Made up primarily of Laotian, Cambodian, Hmong or Mien immigrants, Latino migrant workers and "white off-the-grid types," the workforce can get competitive. Stories abound of groups "staking out and defending territory in national forests with automatic weapons," the author tells us, "robbing each other of their mushrooms and robbing the mushroom buyers of their cash." There is an inherent danger to their search.

Bone, whose food books include "At Mesa's Edge: Cooking and Ranching in Colorado's North Fork Valley" and "Well-Preserved: Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods," nominated in 2009 for a James Beard Award, also touches on other aspects of mycology in the United States today.

Talk of fungi biology and molecular make-ups, of spore dispersal (the way in which spores ensure their survival), ecosystems and parasites get fairly heady. They prove a bit much for non-academics to fully comprehend.

Likewise, chapters on psychedelic mushrooms – "the black sheep of the mycological world" – and mycotechnologies can be challenging.

The former looks at physical and psychological effects hallucinogenic mushrooms can have. Bone recalls a trip to the Telluride Mushroom Festival where she tried some; it is among the few events that celebrate psychoactive mushrooms as well.

Meanwhile, the latter tackles advances in burgeoning scientific fields where fungi are used, for instance, to remediate oil-polluted soil or agricultural waste.

For the food-inclined, however, sections about white button mushrooms are fascinating. As are discussions on cultivated criminis, portobellos, oysters, shiitakes and enokis. They are varieties with which many of us are familiar.

Grown largely in Chester County, Pennsylvania – "the heart and soul of the American button mushroom industry" – about 30 miles west of Philadelphia, the white button is by far the most ubiquitous. Total mushroom sales in the U.S. in 2008-2009 topped 817 million pounds, Bone says. White button mushrooms accounted for 802 million pounds.

Seventy farms in the area make up roughly 70 percent of the mushroom farms in the country, all of which are family-owned and operated.

Fungi farming is both labor-intensive and time-consuming. Mushrooms "must be selected for size, cut, and trimmed, each one by hand." Italian laborers from a century ago were replaced in the 1970s by Puerto Rican workers. They in turn were gradually replaced by Mexican workers. Approximately 98 percent of the labor force on mushroom farms these days are Mexican workers.

By taking mushrooms out of the kitchen and into the forest and field, Bone gives us a greater understanding of these unique ingredients. Whether foraged in the wild or grown on a network of farms, they are part of an intricate and flourishing food system.

In this sometimes too technical but overall interesting examination, she introduces us to a few of the people behind the things we eat, and the remarkable work they do every day. She helps us appreciate their efforts.

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

Chocolate eggs

Because it is Easter Sunday.

An April fool

Because I am still a fool for rhubarb and yogurt.

Sweet on sweets

"Traditionally, all Indian desserts are made on top of a stove, whether steamed, simmered, boiled in syrup, toasted, panfried, or deep-fried, or sometimes a combination of all these techniques.

"The popular gulab jamun, for example, is a syrup-soaked fritter about the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Like so many Indian sweets, its ingredients are simple, essentially sugar and milk, but the recipe requires a great deal of precision, technique, and labor - again, like so many of the subcontinent's confections.

"The process begins by making mawa (also known as khoa or khaya), produced by cooking milk over a slow fire for hours to evaporate almost all of its moisture.

"Ideally the result should be fairly dry with a delicate golden color and a taste hinting of caramel. Mawa is used in numerous Indian desserts. (Some cookbook authors suggest substituting milk powder for the mawa, but then all the complexity is lost.)

"Once the mawa is ready, the cook mixes it with flour and more milk or cream, forms the batter into balls, then deep-fries them. Finally, they get a soak in syrup.

"The resulting gulab jamun is part doughnut, part baba rum with a pleasantly bitter edge from the twice-caramelized milk sugars. Most Americans find it too sweet. Indians adore it."

Michael Krondl, in "Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert"

Green with envy

For the inner leprechaun, a cupcake with green frosting.

For an early morning kick, coffee with Baileys Irish Cream.

Good taste

"Start to view your quotidian breakfast as a sensory event. Observe a full sixty-second moment of alimentary appreciation before lifting a single utensil or eating a single bite.

"Put the newspaper aside for a day and simply pay attention to your breakfast and see how it changes the way you start your day.

"Visually inspect it as if you were seeing it for the first time. Smell it deeply before putting a bite in your mouth. Wait until you get to the office before checking your e-mail.

"If you must eat during the commute, find a carpool or use public transportation. Friends don't let friends eat and drive."

Barb Stuckey in "Taste What You're Missing: The Passionate Eater's Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good"

Nice and slow

Jim Weaver, a restaurateur in Princeton, New Jersey, describes the work he has done in recent years with the Slow Food movement in "Locavore Adventures: One Chef's Slow Food Journey."

He helped to found a local chapter in 1999 to be part of something larger, he says, and "to support authentic food that's been grown and enjoyed as close to its source as possible."

He pays tribute to a network of organic farmers and artisanal producers in the Tri-State area. He presents Eran Wajswol, for example, a real estate developer turned cheesemaker who "(gave) up his wingtips and pinstripes for a hair net, black rubber boots, and overalls with suspenders, his daily garb for churning out memorable cheese." Wajswol runs the Valley Shepherd Creamery in Long Valley.

Weaver writes of Pegi Ballister-Howells, an early supporter of Slow Food who maintains the website for the New Jersey Vegetable Growers Association and manages the Tri-County Cooperative Auction Market in East Windsor. "People need to understand that family dinners are critical, and kids need to know that fresh food is good," she says.

And he visits Salumeria Biellese, a deli, catering and salumi shop in New York City that offers terrifically cured meats. "The company makes its products properly: everything is handmade using all-natural ingredients and the meat from specific breeds... and then naturally aged."

The author provides a compelling look at food people and places in his corner of the country. In doing so, he reminds us to pay attention to the remarkable folks in our own corners as well.

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

Sweet or savory

"Is there anyone who doesn't inwardly melt at the sight of a golden glazed pie crust, with its little cottage chimney of steam wafting the scent of buried juices, the auguries of delight of what lies beneath?

"There is something so recondite about making a pie, and yet its image is dainty-dish, nursery-rhyme redolent of comfort and simplicity, 'as American as apple pie', 'as easy as pie'.

"The image of the pie is somehow quaint, romantic, one we feel nostalgic for; it is old-fashioned, welcoming, the cosiness we imagine when we are homesick, lovesick.

"The prinking and crimping and rolling and baking, the making and shaping by hand, the crafting of the crust are all about feeling, smelling, touching and tapping."

Tamasin Day-Lewis, in "Tarts with Tops On or How to Make the Perfect Pie"

Sweet tarts

"Once inside, there was nothing especially quaint or ye olde about Patisserie Tante Marie: just a few plain tables, a freezer full of homemade ice cream, and a long display case of cakes and tarts. But what cakes and tarts!

"Lumpy golden fruit tarts oozing golden nectar were lined up beside fudge-brown disks floating above clouds of mousse. Sheets of almond sponge barely contained a lava flow of coffee cream. Lemon tarts, the color of butter, almost shivered with fragility."

Michael Krondl, in "Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert"

In Claire's corner

Claire Criscuolo, who owns and runs Claire's Corner Copia in New Haven, Conn., with her husband, Frank, looks back at decades of vegetarian cooking in "Welcome to Claire's: 35 Years of Recipes and Reflections from the Landmark Vegetarian Restaurant."

She talks of inspiration and their "commitment to using organic and local foods," and the joy with which they have served generations of students and professors.

Their restaurant, at Chapel and College streets, is on "undeniably the most beautiful corner in the city," she writes. "It's the place where you can see the first daffodils of spring as they pop up from the land surrounding the Yale campus... the place where you can feel like you're in the center of the city."

Criscuolo ("Claire's Classic American Vegetarian Cooking") divides the book into seven convenient sections, including breakfast; soups, stews and sandwiches; and desserts.

The first contains recipes for apple-maple muffins, chocolate chip-and-walnut scones, and healthy fresh fruit smoothies.

By far the largest chapter, though, is the one on appetizers, salads, dressings, dips and salsas. It showcases everything from black bean-and-sweet corn quesadillas to pan-grilled vegetable fattoush, a Lebanese bread salad. Criscuolo also notes dishes that are gluten-free or vegan, or can easily be made so.

In this substantial volume, she rewards longtime customers with satisfying favorites and introduces the rest of us to a slew of delicious possibilities.

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

Mindful eating

"He opens the door, and enters
a dark room. Silent men and a few
little boys are eating supper. Someone
hands over a rice bowl and chopsticks,
and gestures eat eat. The food
is leftovers of leftovers. Even
the child monks practice eating meditation,
mindfully selecting some unrecognizable
brown vegetable, chewing it many times,
tasting it, identifying it, thinking about
and appreciating who grew it and cooked it, grateful
to them, and to the sun and the rain and the soil,
and all that generates and continues all."

Maxine Hong Kingston, in "I Love a Broad Margin to My Life"

Talking about pie

"The expression as easy as pie, meaning very easy indeed, is a curious one. Why should a pie be easy, after all? It seems that the ease of the pie is in the eating rather than the making of it, as in the similar expression nice as pie. Both originate in nineteenth-century America, where likening something to a particular pie is also archetypally American - as American as apple pie, in fact.

"Something described as pie in the sky is essentially a good idea but unlikely to amount to anything in reality. The phrase comes from a trade union parody of the hymn 'The Sweet By and By' that was often sung during the years of the Great Depression early in the twentieth century...

"Moving back across the Atlantic, to have a finger in every pie is an expression commonly used to describe a person who has an interest in many things, especially business-related. It would be easier to understand if the phrase read 'a finger in making every pie,' which would rid us of the image of somebody going around poking their finger into other people's peach crumble, thereby suggesting an interfering meddler. The expression has been in use for over four hundred years and is applied to anybody with wide and varied business interests. It is also used by some people to describe themselves in an attempt to appear mysterious and interesting when in fact they've probably never had their finger in anybody's pie."

Albert Jack, in "What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods"

The Lunar New Year

Because it is the Year of the Dragon 4710. And it promises to be fierce.

Why ask why?

Peach pie.

Everything everywhere

"Sabine had never seen a kitchen like the one at La Villa Fernand. It was a nightmare. There was too much of everything everywhere. Forty wooden spoons stuffed into one drawer. Cake and butter molds in the shapes of rabbits, elephants, swans, crosses, trees, stars, moons, countless different variations of Saint Nicholas, several fleur-de-lis, and an assortment of lions and lambs.

"And there were molds for petit-fours, tarts, madeleine, brioche, tartlett-croustade, dariole-baba, parfait, charlotte, bombe, ice cream loaves, poundcake and terrine a pate.

"There were larding needles, salamanders, a cocotte and a conical, pyramid-shaped, of course. And there were so many multiples of potato ricers, mashers and whisks of every size and shape that they tumbled onto the countertop with the slightest provocation.

"Porcelain dishes and pottery bowls were stacked and stuffed into every available space along with boxes upon boxes of silver serving spoons, plates and bowls that Escoffier had bought at estate auctions for use at his restaurants. And - perfect or chipped, some matched and some not - there seemed to be enough dinnerware to feed several armies, and then some.

"Each pot and pan, each tin, every spoon and plate - was part of the history of Escoffier's life and it was all gathering dust."

N.M. Kelby, in the novel "White Truffles in Winter"

Lucky peas

Because it is New Year's Day.

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.)