His life in restaurants

"I grew up in restaurants. I don't mean that my parents owned or ran them - my father was a Hollywood screenwriter, my mother a onetime ingenue turned housewife and society dame - but they practically lived in restaurants themselves, and when they went out to eat, they often took me with them.

"Some of my earliest memories are of perching on a booster seat in a red or green leather booth at a table covered in thick white napery and crowded with silverware and glasses, and being waited on and fed and plied with Shirley Temples and told to sit up straight.

"I can still summon up a sensory impression of those evenings, romanticized, of course, and with the particulars of each occasion blurred hopelessly together, but vivid nonetheless: the ceaseless motion all around me, a choreography of waiters and busboys, arriving and departing guests; the reassuring clamor that suggested room-wide concord and contentment; the aromas intertwining in the air - cigarette smoke, Sterno, sizzling meat, coffee, the iodine-scented whisky in my father's glass, the floral sweetness of my mother's best perfume. 

"It all washed over me, and never really went away."

Colman Andrews in "My Usual Table: A Life in Restaurants"

"Paris to Provence"

"Although my family only lived a little more than two years in Provence with the goats and making cheese before returning to California where my parents became high school teachers, we returned every summer to our old stone farmhouse, leaving as soon as school got out, traveling there by various routes, and once settled in, exploring our world with day trips to the sea, to lakes, and to neighboring villages and castles. 

"It was there, during those long, lazy summers with my family, that I learned the smells of the forest as we gathered wild herbs, the taste of truly fresh fish and vegetables, and the pleasures of lingering over the table.

"Thus began my journey from Paris to Provence, starting and ending in Paris."

Ethel Brennan (with Sara Remington) in "Paris to Provence: Childhood Memories of Food & France"

Down South

Defining Southern food – explaining all that it entails – can often be a tricky proposition. It is not simply one thing. It is many things. It is not confined to one place. It encompasses many places. It is both contemporary and traditional, incorporating a number of elements. It is ever evolving and rooted in history. It is inventive, inviting and honest. That Southern food cannot be easily defined is ironically among its defining characteristics.

In "Smoke and Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen," Edward Lee shows us what Southern cooking can include. Chef and owner of 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Kentucky, for the past decade, he melds personal influences and professional experiences with local resources.

Lee grew up in a Korean-American household in Brooklyn during the 1970s and '80s. He watched his grandmother prepare old-school Korean dishes, he says. At his friend Marcus's apartment, he had Puerto Rican plantains over rice. He hung out with Jewish neighbors, too, when his parents were at work, learning from them as well.

After college Lee opened a Korean barbecue joint on Mott Street in New York City, attracting hipsters, "entertaining celebrities and fashionistas and selling lychee martinis by the dozens." It eventually closed: "Three years of the restaurant had gone by in a blink."

Somehow he found himself in Kentucky in 2003 on the weekend of the Derby. He has lived there since, getting the chance to reinvent himself "through the lens of tobacco and bourbon and sorghum and horse racing and country ham."

Lee took instantly to the South and it in turn took to him. The foods around him, he realized, were similar in many regards to those he ate as a child with his grandmother. "Soft grits remind me of congee; jerky of cuttlefish; chowchow of kimchi. My Korean forefathers' love of pickling is rivaled only by Southerners' love of pickling. BBQ, with its intricate techniques of marinades and rubs, is the backbone of both cuisines."

In the cookbook, Lee combines familiar ingredients in previously unfamiliar ways. For a beef rice bowl, for example, he marries Asian-style barbecue – think bulgogi – with sautéed collard greens. He tops them with fried eggs and spoonfuls of corn chili remoulade, giving the dish further spice. He re-conceptualizes bibimbap.

For pulled pork, he eschews sweet Southern barbecue sauce for a saltier version made with items such as soy sauce, black bean paste and sesame oil. He serves the meat with cornbread and pickles, or tucked into hot dog buns with spicy Napa cabbage kimchi. Savory and sour notes contrast well.

Chapters on bourbon and bar snacks, and desserts also prove innovative. In the former, Lee focuses on the distilled spirit most associated with Kentucky. "I have sipped and I have slugged," he writes. "I have rollicked in the simple joys of a Rebel Yell and pontificated on the complexities of a Col. E. H. Taylor..."

In the latter, he gets creative with buttermilk affogato, for instance, chess pie with blackened pineapple salsa, and a whiskey-ginger cake garnished elegantly with pear cut the size of matchsticks. These presentations further exemplify his novel approach to Southern flavors.

The chef arrived in the South and discovered its pleasures later in his life. On the other hand, award-winning cookbook authors Matt Lee and Ted Lee were raised in the South and have long been schooled in the area's rich culinary heritage.

In "The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen," they celebrate all their hometown has to offer. They extol its virtues, showing us "not only what it's like to grow up here and learn to cook here," they say, "but also how we are continually inspired by this place." They describe the cuisine as well as the people – farmers, fishermen, chefs and bartenders – who help to make their community whole.

As they did in "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook" and "The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor," they concentrate on popular traditional items, including shrimp, okra, pecans, and boiled peanuts, around which they have built a mail-order specialty food business, too.

More notably, however, the brothers choose to feature several ingredients with which the region might not be immediately associated. They call attention to kumquats, for example, which grow throughout downtown Charleston. They use them to infuse gin for cocktails, highlighting their sweet-tart flavor – a mix of orange, grapefruit and lemon – in a kumquat sparkler with sparkling white wine, a kumquatini, kumquat margarita and kumquat-chile Bloody Mary.

They talk about loquats, a tad smaller than golf balls and native to China. The fruits "emerge on trees throughout the Lowcountry in April (March, if it's been a warm winter), with furry skin enveloping a shallow layer of yellow-orange flesh." They use them for a vodka infusion to concoct loquat Manhattans.

Championing vegetables they realized not long ago had been harvested in South Carolina since the 18th century, the brothers also introduce things like salsify, a scraggly carrot-like root. They peel, cook and mash it as we might potatoes to create fried salsify "oysters" reminiscent of hushpuppies or falafel. They get us excited to return to the kitchen.

The Lees break every so often with profiles of women and men in the local food industry. They spotlight folks like Celeste Albers, a poultry and dairy farmer on Wadmalaw Island 18 miles south of Charleston, and Sidi Limehouse, "a prominent character, as much for his salty opinions and spicy backstory... as his fine produce."

They give them their fair due. The brothers know Southern cooking is only as good as the ingredients to which people have access. They understand Charleston's appeal, taking great civic pride in both its thriving food scene and the hard work required to sustain it.

Like Edward Lee, and brothers Matt Lee and Ted Lee, Susan Puckett pays tribute to the South. A Jackson, Mississippi, native and former food editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she, too, has long been schooled in the make-up of the region. She knows its colorful and complicated history. ("It birthed King Cotton, the blues, and the civil rights movement.") She studies its fascinating foodways.

Her volume "Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler's Journey Through the Soul of the South," equal parts visitors guide, handy cookbook and photo essay, takes a broad look across a couple of states. Puckett begins in Memphis, Tennessee, and works her way down Mississippi toward Vicksburg. She covers cities both big and small, spotlighting a few fancy eateries but focusing mostly on mom-and-pops. These businesses keep it real.

"Travelers expecting to indulge in home-style fried chicken and fresh, pond-raised catfish are rarely disappointed," she says. "Fine examples of those Delta stalwarts – with their requisite accompaniments of slow-cooked greens and cornbread – turn up in every small town, and even in country cafes in the middle of nowhere."

Unusual items appear often as well. "From one end of the Delta to the other, old-time tamale makers wrap cornmeal cylinders filled with spicy beef or pork... to sell from roadside stands or café lunch counters. Pit masters mix barbecue into spaghetti. Convenience stores sell giant dill pickles marinated in Kool-Aid as snacks to go."

In search of popular everyday foods, Puckett explores what folks at the Southern Foodways Alliance dubbed the Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail. She tries tamales at Blues City Café in Memphis, for example, and at Doe's Eat Place in Greenville, Mississippi, and Pea-Soup's Lott-A-Freeze in Indianola, Mississippi. She has her share.

Unlike tamales we get "in Mexican and southwestern-style restaurants, which can be dry and fairly tasteless," she contends, the ones found in the Delta are "savory cigar-shaped packages... dripping in oily, spicy juices." They are made in corn husks or parchment paper. And though they are sold all over the state, they are rarely seen outside of it.

Puckett also encounters Kool-Aid pickles – whole dill pickles soaked in powdered drink mix, sugar and pickle juice – in large plastic jugs. For decades, she tells us, children in poor black neighborhoods had been pouring Kool-Aid packets directly into pickle jars; they liked the tanginess. Grocers "refined the technique a bit, and started selling them along with other pickled soul-food standbys like eggs and pigs' feet."

When she can, she shares recipes from residents and restaurants as well, giving us opportunities to mimic flavors or try new dishes in the comfort of our own kitchens. In conjunction with snapshots taken around the region by photographer Langdon Clay, they help to reveal a strong sense of community.

For those of us born and raised on the West Coast, areas south of the Mason-Dixon Line can sometimes unfortunately be but a blur. (Areas east of the Rockies aren't always clear to us either.) The geography we learned in fifth grade fails us. We are simply not as familiar as we should be with that stretch of the country.

The authors, each in his or her own way, enlighten us further about the South – its food, land and people – giving visual representation to all we have imagined. They teach us about Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Whether bringing multicultural influences to Southern food, offering ideas on handling unique ingredients, or collecting observations traveling from one town to another, they imbue their discussions with nostalgia. They entice us with their cooking. Through stories and recipes, they document their love for the place they call home, celebrating its generosity and hospitality.

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

Hello, sunshine

Because it has been that kind of a week. From Sweet Bar Bakery.

Being French

"I really had no idea what was happening on the Paris scene, what was hot and what was not: all I wanted to do was to create a place that was the sum of all my best experiences. 

"I wanted to serve simple yet inventive food, using high-quality ingredients, in a laid-back bistro setting, with affordable prices, a menu that changed daily, and a short but exciting wine list. 

"I guess I was in the right place at the right time: the Paris 'bistronomy' trend was just starting, and the type of food and ambiance I had in mind seemed to be exactly what people were craving.

"Frenchie quickly received great praise from the public as well as the critics. The phone started to ring nonstop, and the reservation book was filled a month ahead. To this day, I still don't understand how it all happened so quickly."

Greg Marchand in "Frenchie: New Bistro Cooking"

Maple sweet

"March is the time of the year for maple festivals, where you can watch what the big boys do and sample all sorts of maple products. We've never been. We have our own maple festival nonstop for several weeks, and we seem to invent a new product every day. 

"Of course there are the usual suspects: pancakes, waffles, French toast, regular toast with a small beaded drizzle in the butter; but we also pour the syrup over ice cream, into ice cream, and can make sorbets and gelatos; use it in place of sugar in breads, cakes, and cookies; in homemade barbecue sauce, salad dressing, and mayonnaise; as a background to sauteed Thai chiles, pad Thai, and other stir fries; with fruit, yogurt, Kefir; alone, out of the jar, like a shot of whiskey on a rough day; shot with whiskey, like a sweet boilermaker, on a rougher day; as a glaze for chicken, salmon, pork, and shrimp; over oatmeal, with cinnamon and nutmeg in a pan sauce, like Madeira; in place of honey with strong cheeses. 

"The limits are your own apprehensions and the amount you're willing to risk wasting should the flavors fall into dissonance. The only way I haven't had it is as the Canadians do, dumped into a pile of clean snow on a cutting board outdoors and stirred up with a stick, then eaten, communally, with a spoon."

Paul Graham in "Sweet Spot" in "Best Food Writing 2012"

St. Patrick

"At home, Saint Patrick's Day is a religious holiday that celebrates Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century. It is observed with the same kind of reverence that Americans have for Thanksgiving, but more solemn...

"On Saint Patrick's Day, we don't drink green beer, we don't dye the rivers green, and we don't get really drunk. It is actually a stay-at-home day on which many pubs are closed..."

Cathal Armstrong and David Hagedorn in "My Irish Table: Recipes from the Homeland and Restaurant Eve"

Sweet harvest

"You could tell that Kevin was boiling when you arrived at the parking lot and saw the broad column of steam shooting through the sugarhouse roof. That steam was scented with maple, and as soon as I got out of the car and stood in the open air I encountered the sweet smell. I liked this idea of standing in a maple-scented mist at the top of a mountain."

Douglas Whynott in "The Sugar Season: A Year in the Life of Maple Syrup - One Family's Quest for the Sweetest Harvest"

Who knew?

"It was hard to say goodbye to Irina, my kind, precise Russian teacher, and to my journalist friends. I was sorry to leave the dazzling commentators I had interviewed, and also the Uzbek and Chechen women who sold me vegetables and homemade yogurt and honey at my local farmers' market. 

"Theirs were the best tomatoes I'd ever tasted. 'Tashkentsky!' the Uzbek women stated proudly, for everyone wanted produce from the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. Who knew you had to come to Russia for the perfect tomato?"

Irris Makler in "Hope Street, Jerusalem"

Feb. 14

What we would facetiously call a hearty breakfast.

Bugging out

Daniella Martin champions bug-eating in "Edible: An Adventure into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet," an engaging though sometimes over-the-top volume. 

Having spent the past 10 years studying insects, the entomophagist concludes that "we should all be eating bugs - as our ancestors did, as our global neighbors do, as our primate cousins do, and as we ourselves do constantly, by accident, without realizing it." 

She considers them viable alternatives to beef and pork, for example. Their environmental impact is comparatively small, requiring "little to no deboning, gutting, plucking, or butchering." Crickets, grasshoppers, ants and certain caterpillars also contain large amounts of calcium. 

With that said, however, Martin might still have difficulty convincing readers to actually eat these tiny critters. 

For those willing to entertain the idea of a bug banquet, she concludes with a handful of earnest recipes for items such as Salty-Sweet Wax Worms, Crickety Kale Salad and Sweet-n-Spicy Summer June Bugs. But many may still squirm at the idea of slugs. She never fully sells them on the taste or visual factor.  

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

Good tidings

For the Lunar New Year.

Sweet

Because it is apparently National Chocolate Cake Day.

Anthologizing

Editor Holly Hughes' annual anthology "Best Food Writing 2013" captures with some success the mood in today's food world. "The season of foam and gels has passed," she reflects in the introduction, "and the Year of the Pork Belly has given way to the Year of Kale." 

What follows is a collection of essays and articles by bloggers, journalists, big-name chefs and foodies alike all published within the last year.

People have also returned to slow foods, Hughes says, assuming they had previously left. 

In the meditative essay "Slow Cooking, Slow Eating," for example, Edward Behr encourages readers to take it easy both in and out of the kitchen: "Slowness really means living at the right speed for whatever you are doing, living more in the present moment, rather than looking always ahead to the next thing... It means you pay attention."

Further highlights include Michael Pollan's "Step Two: Saute Onions and Other Aromatic Vegetables," Jonathan Gold's profile of Kogi co-founder Roy Choi ("The King of the Food Trucks Hits Hawaii"), and Brett Martin's GQ article "Good Food Everywhere." They are topical, accessible and nicely done. 

The eclectic anthology would not be complete, however, without occasional paeans to questionable food items as well. 

Katharine Shilcutt, for example, writes about McDonald's in "I Ate My First McRib, and I Regret It." Dan Barry bemoans the Hostess bankruptcy in "Back When a Chocolate Puck Tasted, Guiltily, like America."

Pieces like these add lightness and levity to the volume as a whole. They provide necessary balance, making it informative as well as entertaining. 

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

Reason to feast

"My brother and I dressed up, though after all the hellos we did not figure much into the main social swirl. The women were dressed in rich hues of silk, and sandals slapped the back of their heels. Their black hair was swept up. Jewelry flashed. The men wore dark pants and white shirts, and their greetings included hearty laughs and shoulder slaps.

"Our table was covered from side to side with steaming dishes of rice, chicken curry, aloo copi, and shrimp cutlet. Mom had been in a cooking mood, so chops lined a long glass dish as well. Women standing near the platters dazzled me in their colorful dress, as did the array of foods: red tomato chutney, snappy green beans, golden dal..."

Nina Mukerjee Furstenau in "Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America's Heartland"

Sweet start

It is a sweet and savory Sweet Bar start to the new year. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Food fantasy

"I have a food fantasy.

"When Iris is six, I'm going to take her to Tokyo. Just the two of us, dad and daughter, in the big city, kickin' it Japanese-style.

"Laurie will stay home, because - this is her only fault - she doesn't like Japanese food. Sometimes she comes along for sushi, but she says it makes her feel like a philistine, because she only eats the easy bits, like tempura.

"So, while Laurie eats whatever it is she eats when we're not around, Iris and I will eat at a skeezy yakitori joint and enjoy char-grilled chicken parts on a stick. We'll go to an eel restaurant and eat several courses of eel, my favorite fish. Iris's favorite is mackerel, so we'll also eat plenty of salt-broiled mackerel, saba shioyaki, tearing off fatty bits with our chopsticks. We will eat our weight in rice..."

Matthew Amster-Burton in "Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater"

Old-school

Bring us some figgy pudding and bring it right here...

Figgy Pudding

from Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell's "The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook"

softened butter for the pan
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 pound plump, dried figs, stems removed, cut into small bits
3 Tbsp. orange liqueur
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned into cup and leveled off)
1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
3 large eggs
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs (white or whole wheat)
ice cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter an 8- to 10-cup tube pan or metal steamed pudding mold with a top.

In a small saucepan, combine the water and figs. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a bare simmer, cover, and cook for 20 minutes, or until the figs are very tender. Remove from the heat, but don't drain. Stir in the orange liqueur.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt.

In a bowl, with an electric mixer, beat together the eggs and granulated and brown sugars until well combined. Beat in the butter and bread crumbs. Stir in the figs and soaking liquid. Fold in the flour mixture. Scrape the batter into the pan. If using a tube pan, cover the top with a double thickness of foil and place a pot lid that will fit snugly on top. If using a steamed pudding mold, close the top.

Place the pan in a roasting pan and pour hot water to come halfway up the sides of the pan. Bake for 2 hours, or until the pudding is firm and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Remove the pan from the water bath and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Run a spatula around the sides and center tube and invert the pudding onto a serving platter. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream, if desired. Makes 12 servings.

Priorities

"And I had but one penny in the world. Thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread."

William Shakespeare in "Love's Labours Lost"

Winter white chocolate

White Chocolate-Cherry-Carrot Cookies

from Michelle Obama's "American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America"

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups (packed) light brown sugar
1 Tbsp. mild honey
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup toasted chopped macadamia nuts (optional)
2 ounces white chocolate, chopped into small pieces, or white chocolate chips
1 cup finely grated carrots

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the rack in the center of the oven.

Sift together the flour with the baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, honey and vanilla until smooth. Add the eggs and mix until well combined. Scrape down the bowl.

On low speed, add the cherries, nuts and chocolate. Scrape down the bowl.

Stop the mixer and add one-third of the flour mixture. Turn to low speed and combine. Stop the mixer again, add the rest of the flour mixture, and combine on low speed.

Add the carrots, and mix on low speed until incorporated. The batter will be stiff.

Using a standard ice cream scoop or a heaped tablespoon, drop batter in mounds, 2 inches apart, onto a parchment-covered cookie sheet.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool completely before removing them from the cookie sheet. Makes approximately 24 cookies.

Sweet ginger

Because it is apparently National Cupcake Day.

Beyond gold

"There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

J.R.R. Tolkien in "The Hobbit"

Soup is good food

When people in the Northwest talk about the incessant rain, I look out my window and curse the blue sky. More sun in California. I long for wet winters in Oregon and the afternoons I spent years ago in my studio apartment cooking soup. A pot would last a week.

I am reminded of the energizing chill in that corner of the country, the smell of the air outside after a night of hard rain and the red scarf that helped to keep me warm. Soft and thick, it was one of my favorite items of clothing. It now sits neatly folded near the bottom of a dresser drawer, mostly untouched.

When friends in New England speak of the biting cold, I sympathize. They grumble about the low temperatures and slick pavements; I worry about their health and safety. But I envy them as well. When they describe the icy weather, I think of the small, cozy kitchens to which they will eventually return.

I imagine the steam rising from the bowls of soup they will undoubtedly enjoy: hearty chowders prepared with russet potatoes, chopped clams and heavy cream, spicy gumbos simmered with chunks of seafood, meat and vegetables. I get nostalgic for places I am not.

On cold days in the Bay Area, when close friends and neighbors complain about falling temperatures and increasingly wet roads, I smile surreptitiously. Deep down, I welcome the wild weather. Finally, there is an excuse to make soup. Craving things like split pea and barley, I eagerly dig into recipes collected from books and magazines.

One rainy afternoon, I consider making a pea and ham soup by Australian food writer Donna Hay or a squash, parma ham hock, sage, onion and barley broth from British chef Jamie Oliver. In the end, I settle on hamburger barley soup, made from a recipe given to me years ago by an older sister. It promises to be easy and satisfying, tasty and comforting.

First, I brown the beef. Ground turkey could substitute well, too; I make a mental note for the future. Using a pot instead of a frying pan helps to facilitate cleanup. Into that large pot, I add chopped tomatoes, tomato juice, water, vegetables, seasonings and barley, saving the carrots and potatoes for later. When things come to a boil, the heat gets turned down.

As the soup simmers, I work on other things. I write. I wander through the house, tidying up the living room and bedroom. I flip on the radio. I surf the Internet.

Roughly 45 minutes later, back in the kitchen, now warm and fragrant, the colors in the pot are impressive: deep reds, dark and light greens, sprinkles of black. Carrots and potatoes go in next, giving the dish additional colors and textures.

While the ingredients continue to cook, I grab my keys, my coat and my red scarf, and head for the front door. I go for a walk around the neighborhood. The chill in the air outside keeps me alert. Life is good, I tell myself, wiping a raindrop from my forehead. When I return, there will be soup.

(A version of this essay appeared originally on www.npr.org.)

Turkey Day

Because it is silly and so over the top.

Taking it slow

"You're living a slow life when you gather seashells along the shore, feed a campfire, visit a nearly empty museum on a weekday morning, talk late into the night, read an ink-on-paper book cover to cover without stopping to do much else, and, I would say, if you take the time to be bored. 

"Part of being civilized is not just being slow but occasionally coming to a stop, establishing a point of reference for the moment when you start moving again. When you stop you aren't really stopping, of course, because that's often when good ideas rise to the surface..."

Edward Behr in "Slow Cooking, Slow Eating" from "Best Food Writing 2013"

Ramen done right

"In Japan, ramen is much more than a tasty bowl of noodles - it borders on an obsession. Forget that cheapo 'cup ramen' you downed to fuel college all-nighters. What we're talking about is perfection in a bowl: a rich broth labored over for hours; fresh, springy wheat noodles; savory, mouthwatering seasonings; and toppings like slices of tender braised meat and creamy soft-boiled egg. 

"But ramen isn't some high-concept cuisine, and that's the beauty of it. These noodles can be one of the most amazing things you've ever tasted, but this dish is about as down-home and down-to-earth as it gets." 

Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat in "Japanese Soul Cooking: Ramen, Tonkatsu, Tempura, and More from the Streets and Kitchens of Tokyo and Beyond"

Frightful

Because we couldn't resist.

Noodle pull

"I knew that I wanted a bright, modern place, but it had to be unmistakable as a ramen shop. I was a gaijin trying to break into the highly scrutinized, carefully documented, publicly policed world capital of noodle shops. There would be people ready to harp on every missed detail. 

"We ultimately decided to keep the bones of the old shop, but jazzed up the counter with a dark wood-grain laminate, squared off the corners, and added steel trim. We added lighting above and below the bar.

"Most ramen shops have stools for seating, and generally they're the most uncomfortable stools you can find. Ramen shops are all about fast turnover, and owners don't want customers to feel like they can hang around.

"But I wanted my business to be focused on service, just like Lutece had been all those years earlier. I bought nice comfortable stools with backs and decided to worry about shooing customers out the door later."

Ivan Orkin in "Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes from Tokyo's Most Unlikely Noodle Joint"

Mac and cheese 2.0

Point Reyes Original Blue with Pecans, Figs and Shells

from Stephanie Stiavetti and Garrett McCord's "Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese"

1/2 cup pecans
3 Tbsp. butter
12 ounces whole wheat shell pasta
4 ounces Point Reyes Original Blue, coarsely crumbled
3/4 cup chopped mission figs
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Place the pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast in a 350-degree F oven for 7 minutes. Set aside to cool. Once they're cooled, chop the pecans coarsely.

Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat. Add the butter and cook. The butter will foam and then subside. Eventually, lightly browned specks will form on the bottom of the pan. The butter will turn a light brown and begin to smell nutty. Be sure to keep an eye on it, as it can go from brown to black in an instant. Remove from the heat immediately and pour into a bowl.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain through a colander. Place back in the pot with the heat still on. Combine the noodles with the brown butter and Point Reyes Original Blue and gently toss until the cheese has softened and melted a little. Add the pecans and figs and continue tossing. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve. Makes 4 servings.

Provence

"It was the question of France that loomed largest, and meant the most, for all of them. The very idea of transcendent cooking, of cooking as an art form, the rituals of haute cuisine, the luxury and decadence of a bearnaise sauce or mille-feuille pastry, the wit of the seminal gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the knowledge of chefs Marie-Antoine Careme and Auguste Escoffier - that was all French, and always had been.

"But a seismic shift was in the offing. And there was no better place to see it coming, to feel the looming, moving fault lines, than in the steep, rocky hills of Provence in late 1970."

Luke Barr in "Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste"

How sweet

Because the morning - cold and hazy and moody - calls for something sweet.

Autumn apples

Low-hanging fruit.

Shocking

Shocking Pink Pasta

from Clotilde Dusoulier's "The French Market Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes from My Parisian Kitchen"

12 ounces beets, peeled and diced
1 cup light whipping cream or unsweetened non-dairy cream alternative, such as soy or rice
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. whole cumin seeds or 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 pound pasta, such as spaghetti, bucatini or linguine
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
2/3 cup almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

In a food processor or blender, combine the beets, cream, garlic, salt and cumin. Process until smooth.

Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot. Add the pasta and cook until it's a minute shy of al dente. Drain, return the pasta to the pot, and fold in the sauce. Return to medium heat and cook until heated through and al dente, about 1 minute.

Divide among warm bowls, sprinkle with pepper, and top with the parsley and almonds. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

"Notes" from Nigel

"We can either treat food as nothing more than fuel or relish its every quality. We can think of preparing it as something to get done as quickly and effortlessly as possible or as something to find pleasure in, something to enrich our everyday life, to have fun with...

"I am not a chef and never have been. I am a home cook who writes about food. Not even a passionate cook (whatever one of those is), just a quietly enthusiastic and slightly greedy one. But, I like to think, a thoughtful one. Someone who cares about what they feed themselves and others, where the ingredients come from, when and why they are at their best, and how to use them to give everyone, including the cook, the most pleasure..."

Nigel Slater in "Notes from the Larder: A Kitchen Diary with Recipes"

Autumn linguine

Linguine with Mushroom Bacon Sauce

from Michelle Obama's "American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America"

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
4 slices bacon, cut into small pieces
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken stock
1 14-1/2-ounce box whole-wheat linguine
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt
freshly ground black pepper

In a large saucepan over medium heat, drizzle in the olive oil and add the butter. Add the bacon and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and onion and cook until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes, until fragrant, stirring occasionally.

Add the half-and-half and chicken stock and let simmer for about 10 minutes.

While the sauce is cooking, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta for about 8 minutes, until al dente.

Drain the pasta and add it to the saucepan. Add the lemon zest and juice, parsley and Parmesan. Toss the pasta with the sauce until thoroughly coated. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately on a warmed platter. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Making meat

"On the shelves of the Fatted Calf charcuterie, you'll find buckets brimming with salt and stacked containers crammed with whole spices. Tubs of garlic, onions and shallots are stored underneath trays of drying lavender, thyme and oregano.

"Baskets of chanterelles and bins of herbs and citrus are kept in the cooler. Stashes of dried apricots and porcini sit alongside jars of dried arbols and cayennes. Meat makes up the core of the charcuterie, but our pantry provides us with a palette of flavors with which to work."

Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller in their book "In the Charcuterie: The Fatted Calf's Guide to Making Sausage, Salumi, Pates, Roasts, Confits and Other Meaty Goods"

What we eat

"A certain logic dictates why we eat three meals a day, not two or four; why table manners are standard at dinner when hardly any social rules apply to breakfast; why we consume orange juice in the morning and sandwiches at lunch; why people snack on peanuts at circuses and hot dogs at baseball parks.

"There are even reasons for garnishing casseroles with potato chips and calling TV dinners 'TV dinners,' even though manufacturers did not originally intend for consumers to eat them in front of a TV. This book is about those reasons."

Abigail Carroll in "Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal"

The cheesiest

Homeroom in junior high school was a bust, from what I remember. But Homeroom, the mac and cheese place in Oakland, is a little gem of a restaurant. Co-owners Allison Arevalo and Erin Wade have put out a little gem of a cookbook, too, with tons of recipes.
 
Tuna Mac
 
from Allison Arevalo and Erin Wade's "The Mac + Cheese Cookbook: 50 Simple Recipes from Homeroom, America's Favorite Mac and Cheese Restaurant"
 
for the pasta: 

1/2 pound dried elbow pasta

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until a little less than al dente. Drain, rinse the pasta with cold water, and drain it again.

for the tuna salad:
 
16 ounces canned tuna in water, drained
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 Tbsp. drained capers
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper  

To make the salad: 

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients until they are incorporated and evenly distributed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

for the Mac Sauce:

3 cups whole milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. kosher salt or 1 tsp. table salt  

To make the sauce: 

Heat the milk in a pot over medium heat until it just starts to bubble, but is not boiling, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from the heat.  

Heat the butter over medium heat in a separate, heavy-bottomed pot. When the butter has just melted, add the flour and whisk constantly until the mixture turns light brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Slowly pour the warm milk, about 1 cup at a time, into the butter-flour mixture, whisking constantly. It will get very thick when you first add the milk, and thinner as you slowly pour in the entire 3 cups. This is normal.  

Once all the milk has been added, set the pot back over medium-high heat, and continue to whisk constantly. In the next 2 to 3 minutes the sauce should come together and become silky and thick. Add the salt.

The Mac Sauce is ready to use immediately and does not need to cool. Store it in the fridge for a day or two if you want to make it ahead of time. It will get a lot thicker when put in the fridge, so it may need a little milk to thin it out a bit when it comes time to melt in the cheese. Try melting the cheese into the sauce first, and if it is too thick, then add milk as needed. Makes 3 cups.
 
for the Mac:

2 cups of Mac Sauce 
2 cups grated Havarti cheese
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup crushed potato chips or crushed oyster crackers, for topping (optional)
 
To make the Mac: 

Add the sauce, the Havarti, 1 cup of the tuna salad (save the rest for a sandwich or whatever else you'd like), and the peas to a large, heavy-bottomed pot and cook over medium heat. Stir until the cheese is barely melted, about 3 minutes. Slowly add the cooked pasta, stir, and continue cooking while stirring continuously until the dish is nice and hot, another 5 minutes.

Spoon into bowls, top with crushed potato chips or crushed crackers, and serve. Makes 4 servings.

On change

"I'm also the girl who took the same lunch to school every single day for the first fourteen years of her life. Every single day. The contents of the brown bag were as follows: carrot sticks, two cookies, and Peter Pan creamy peanut butter on whole wheat bread. There was no jam, no jelly, no crunchy peanut butter, no natural peanut butter, no white bread, no seeded bread, and no change.

"Sometimes I think my taste buds may be the eighth wonder of the world. How they survived such monotony is one of the great mysteries of our time...

"I am happy to report, though, that in recent years, I've been working on getting friendlier with change, and with its cousin, flexibility. Growing up has helped a lot... It's a lot more fun this way. No one ever got laid because they wrote it into their day planner.

"Which, I guess, brings me to a larger, more serious point: that it's hard to love someone, I've found, when you're preoccupied with holding your entire world firmly in place. Loving someone requires a certain amount of malleability, a willingness to be pulled along, at least occasionally, by another person's will..."

Molly Wizenberg in "A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table"

For keeps

"Cooking should be fun, empowering even, at least some of the time. 

"Put on your favorite music, pour a glass of wine, admire how a sharp knife slices through a ripe tomato, savor the aroma of a roasting chicken, congratulate yourself on how evenly you seared the salmon, dip some bread into simmering tomato sauce. 

"When you start to enjoy the process of cooking, not just the result, everything else gets easier, too."

Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion in "Keepers: Two Home Cooks Share Their Tried-and-True Weeknight Recipes and the Secrets to Happiness in the Kitchen"

Piece of cake

If only it was that easy...

Curly corn

Fusilli with Corn Sauce

from Joe Yonan's "Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook"

3 ounces whole wheat fusilli, farfalle or other curly pasta
2 ears fresh corn
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 large onion, chopped (about 3/4 cup)
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp. freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 fresh basil leaves, stacked, rolled and thinly sliced

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until it is al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, shuck the corn and rinse it under running water, removing as many of the silks as you can with your hands. Rub one of the ears over a coarse grater set over a bowl to catch the milk and pulp. Cut the kernels off the other cob with a knife; keep the whole kernels separate from the milk and pulp.

Pour the oil into a large skillet set over medium heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the onion and garlic and saute until tender. Add the corn kernels and saute for just a few minutes, until the corn softens slightly and brightens in color. Stir in the corn milk and pulp and turn off the heat. Cover to keep warm.

When the pasta is al dente, drain it (reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta water) and add it to the skillet with the corn sauce. Toss to combine, adding a little pasta water if the sauce needs loosening. Stir in the cheese, then taste and add salt as needed and grind in plenty of fresh black pepper. Stir in the basil, scoop everything into a bowl, and eat. Makes 1 serving.

Just because

Besides, it is too pretty to not photograph.

Apron strings

Back in the day, cooks at home — my mother among them — wore aprons.

She wore one in the kitchen when she peeled and chopped vegetables, prepped fish in the sink, and stir-fried meats in a well-seasoned wok, the ventilation fan whirling overhead. She wore one outside the kitchen when she brought plates of food to the dining table and cleared the dishes afterward.

My mother put on an apron automatically, like a second layer of clothing. She picked up a knife or a spatula with one hand, an apron with the other. She protected her dresses from spills and splatters. She alternated among four or five aprons and washed them in the machine with the rest of our laundry.

She wore floral prints in reds and yellows, and styles with flat fronts and decorative hems. In the pockets, my mother stashed Kleenex. She sewed her own aprons, customizing them to suit her small frame. (Back in the day, people at home sewed.)

These days, it seems, cooks at home seldom wear aprons. Not the ladies on the Food Network. Not when they chop onions on a board or grill meats on the stovetop. In front of cameras, under the lights, they hardly worry about spills or splatters.

Sandra Lee, Ingrid Hoffmann and the incessantly perky Rachael Ray tend to wear form-fitting V-neck or scoop-neck tops and tees in their television kitchens. They never get flour in their impeccably styled hair. They never spill a thing on their undeniably fashionable outfits. It is, of course, make-believe.

In my local newspaper a short while back, I learn of a great-grandmother in an Oakland suburb with a remarkable collection of more than 200 aprons.

The oldest, the reporter noted, is a flour-sack apron from a century ago. (I'm not sure what that is, really, but it doesn't sound entirely flattering.) One of the newest is a full-length barbecue apron with large pockets and the words "Sexy Senior Citizen."

"Put on an apron and tie it," the collector told the reporter, as gently and sweetly as a great-grandmother would. "The tighter you tie it, the bigger the hug."

But the article doesn't tell me everything. I do not know, for instance, how the woman acquires her aprons. Does she shop actively for them or receive them as presents? (Both perhaps.) Where does she keep them? How does she sort them? By color? Fabric? Which ones does she actually wear? Most of all, what does she cook?

Aprons, I realize, have long been synonymous with domesticity. They have been linked inevitably to physical work on farms and in kitchens.

"Homesteading alongside the men," Ellyn Anne Geisel writes in "The Apron Book: Making, Wearing and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort," "women tucked their dresses into apron waistbands to clear and plow the fields, then unfurled the aprons to carry grain to the chickens, gather eggs and harvest vegetables from the garden."

In the years following World War II, the garments grew increasingly popular among middle-class housewives, Geisel notes. The designs at that time reflected "their aspirations to be modern, social and stylish. Fabrics were bold with color, and adornments became more playful."

Eventually, there were theme aprons and holiday aprons, and aprons that matched potholders or tablecloths. There were aprons that sported cartoon graphics or witty phrases. There were casual aprons made of cotton and fancy aprons made of silk, organza or taffeta. There were practical aprons, like my mother's, and not-so-practical aprons.

Most home cooks these days, I suspect, prefer function to form. They would do without trims or ruffles, selecting comfortable, straightforward bib aprons in a range of colors.

I take an informal poll among friends my age. Some have aprons, others don't. Some wear aprons, others don't.

Sunah, for example, bought a cute apron a short while ago, but seldom uses it. She doesn't want to get it dirty, she says. I laugh. It is black and white with illustrations of fish, fruits and condiments. The creases of the original folds are still visible.

Cynthia owns a couple of aprons. On a trip to Italy last fall, she says, she bought another one as a souvenir. It has different breads across the front. But alas, she seldom wears any of them.

(This from a woman who collects recipes and cookbooks religiously, who has been known to make cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, and rugelach, brownies and chocolate-chip cookies for various potlucks — from scratch. Surely, she must put on an apron then, right?)

Jamie, for his part, says he doesn't wear a thing when he, ahem, cooks in the kitchen. He's got a wicked sense of humor, I remind myself. He tries to take the conversation to a whole other place. But I don't let him.

Do many my age eschew aprons? I wonder. Is it an either/or? Do we pride ourselves on not wearing aprons, occasionally not even owning one, as if domesticity was something to be frowned upon? As if our education and experience ought to keep us away from the stove?

Our hectic lives take us inside courtrooms and conference rooms. They chain us to our desks and chairs. They make us stay in front of our computers. Work we do now is often unlike work our mothers did, and work our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did before them.

Perhaps we don't need aprons in the kitchen if we're simply taking delivery pizzas out of cardboard boxes and putting them onto plates. We don't need them if we're moving plastic containers from freezers into microwaves. We don't need them if we're eating cereal for supper.

I, for one, like to think I can have it both ways.

Like my friends, I spend decent chunks of time at a computer, reading, researching, writing and editing, working. My mind is often preoccupied. I can't be bothered with food.

On the other hand, I am like my mother. Is this what I have secretly feared? In the kitchen, when I make it there, I do my best to not be wasteful. I reuse pieces of aluminum foil if I can and takeout containers when possible.

In front of the stove, at the chopping board, I wear an apron. Always. Not the floral prints or decorative hems my mother favored, but the simple patterns and solid colors I prefer. I reach for an apron on Wednesday nights, for instance, when I carve out time to try new recipes. I rinse my hands quickly and wipe them on my hips. I turn on the radio for company.

I pull one on over my pajamas bright and early Sunday mornings, before I've even washed the sleep from my eyes or brushed my teeth, to measure flour and sugar for cobbler or coffeecake. The anticipation builds. I reward myself at the end of a busy week and the beginning of another.

I make a mess on the counter without making a mess on myself. I tie the apron tight.

(A version of this essay appeared originally at www.culinate.com.)

On breakfast

The hobbits had it right all along, Heather Arndt Anderson says. Their lives in the shire afforded them six meals a day, "three of which (occurred) before lunch: breakfast, second breakfast, and elevenses..." J.R.R. Tolkien was onto something. 

In her literary paean to the morning meal, "Breakfast: A History," Anderson provides historical, social and cultural perspectives on breakfast consumption. She occasionally references foods traditionally eaten in other countries, looking at jook (rice porridge) in China, for example, and platters of "fresh-baked flatbread with spreadable yogurt cheese called labneh or crumbly feta cheese, olives, figs and cucumbers" in the Middle East.

For the most part, however, the author focuses on matutinal meals in the United States and by extension England. 

She gives beverages such as coffee, tea and orange juice their due. Coffee "as it is known today," for example, became popular in "Europe and the Americas by the mid-17th century."

She provides significant background on the cold-cereal industry and major players like Kellogg and Post, and describes many of the ways people like to eat their eggs in the morning, whether scrambled, fried or soft-boiled...

Further talk of where people actually have their breakfasts sometimes – in B&Bs, for example, coffeehouses, diners, mess halls and school cafeterias – enliven the narrative as well. They help to round out her well-researched but not overwhelming discussion, a nice addition to the ever-growing food-studies field.

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

Peachy keen

Usually a ripe peach in and of itself is perfect enough. Sometimes, though, a little dressing-up is equally fine.

One-Peach Crisp with Cardamom and Honey

from Joe Yonan's "Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook"

1 large ripe peach, halved and pitted
1 to 2 tsp. honey
1/8 tsp. ground cardamom
1/3 cup granola, preferably one with nuts and dried fruit
ice cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put the peach halves, cut sides up, in a small baking dish. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon of the honey and sprinkle with the cardamom.

If the granola includes dried fruit, pick out the fruit pieces and reserve them. Pack the granola onto the peach halves. If your granola isn't on the sweet side, feel free to drizzle on the remaining 1 teaspoon of honey.

Bake the peach until it is soft when you pierce it with a fork, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool for a few minutes, then sprinkle with the dried fruit reserved from the granola. Add the scoop of ice cream and eat it while it's warm. Makes 1 serving. 

Plum perfect

It is a plum polenta upside-down cake from Sweet Bar Bakery. It is sweet indeed. Plum perfect.