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.)

"Plenty"

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

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

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

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

Handy dandy

The thing that helps

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

Bette Davis

Lunch time

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

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

Still life with pears

Squash squashed

Or squashed squash. Same difference.

The hot chocolate life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The glazed jelly donut

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

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

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

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

Boo

Because it is Halloween.

Them apples

Because it is apple season.

The English breakfast

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

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

An apple (cake) a day

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

Craving curry

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

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

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

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew

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

Heat oil in large skillet over high heat.

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

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

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

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