On the table

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

Who knew?

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

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

We never suspected.

Sugar, fat, salt

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

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

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

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

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

So Sarabeth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sundae Sunday

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

Christmas gifts

A toast to the holidays.

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

The cherry on top

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

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

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

This time this year

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

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

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

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

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

for the cake:

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

for the filling:

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

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Craving carbs

Nor can we resist good bread.

Sweet

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

Tasty Thai

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

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

The menu for Moab

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

Pizza pie

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

Jell-O shot

Because it is the official snack of the state.

Dining at Ruth's

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

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

Sweet Madeleines

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

Must-eats

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

In the Sunday paper

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

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

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

Memphis in Manhattan Beach

Geography matters. Or not.

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

Label us skeptics

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

From The New York Times:

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

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