Of course you can grill hot dogs and hamburgers at the Fourth of July barbecue. That’s what most people will expect.

There’s a whole world of great grilling traditions to explore, though, if you’d like to try something new.  One of the best is Korean-style barbecue with its sweet and spicy rendition of beef short ribs known as kalbi.

These are the same tasty, tender ribs you may have cooked over a tabletop grill in a Korean restaurant.   They’re almost as easy to make at home and they’re guaranteed to wake up the palates of guests expecting the old standards at the annual Independence Day festivities.  We’re such a diverse nation, who’s to say what’s American food now? (more…)

It’s not a celebration in Mexico without pozole. The spicy, porky soup, laden with tender hominy corn and a fiery chile paste, is perfect for a crowd and just the ticket for a Cinco de Mayo party.

The trouble is it’s hard to find a really good recipe that you can make with readily available ingredients. I mean, who can find pork trotters without an exhaustive search?  Even the Mexican markets in my town don’t carry them.

Then there are the secrets that you’re not likely to know unless you grew up in the culture, cooking at your mother’s elbow. I struggled with the dried corn for which the dish is named through a couple of batches of soup before I understood that even the bags of corn in the Mexican market had to be boiled with slaked lime before washing and cooking.  The pozole tasted good but it was so rubbery and tough it was almost inedible. Cans of white hominy — many cooks’ standby — just didn’t appeal.

Luckily, I found the already treated — nixtamalized — corn at Steve Sando’s great online store, Rancho Gordo. Sando uses small Southwestern corn kernels for his posole (it can be spelled with and “s” or a “z”).  The treated kernels cook up tender and fluffy,  providing the perfect canvas for rich pork, lively chiles and the panoply of toppings that give pozole it’s festive character. (more…)

Every year I’m a sucker for those gorgeous days in mid-February filled with the promise of an early spring.  Then the sun goes back behind the clouds and it starts to rain again.  I have to remind myself that it’s still winter.

This is the perfect season for stracotto, an Italian take on a slow-cooked pot roast, steeped in red wine, mushrooms and aromatic vegetables.

My introduction to this gutsy and soul-warming dish came in the beautiful cookbook, “Organic Marin,” by Tim Porter and Farina Wong Kingsley (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 20080).  A fund-raiser for Marin Organic’s school lunch program, it’s filled with mouth-watering photographs and appealing recipes from some of Marin County’s best restaurants. The braised chuck roast was the contribution of Piatti Ristorante & Bar in Mill Valley. (more…)

Before we left on our recent trip to Alaska, I compiled a collection of recipes that I thought might work for car camping.  They had to be simple — based on ingredients we could find at most any grocery store —and require a minimum of pots and pans.  One skillet would be ideal.

At the same time, I wanted fresh flavors and appealing textures.  Canned goods and pantry items soon lose their charm when you’re traveling for six weeks.

Our favorite quick and easy meal turned out to be an updated version of Joe’s Special, the venerable San Francisco dish made with spinach, eggs, onions and ground meat.  Think of it as a deconstructed fritatta.  It takes a bit of chopping but it comes together fairly quickly and tastes terrific.

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Almost anything goes with chocolate, it seems.

Last weekend at the San Francisco Chocolate Salon, I tasted delightful chocolates combined with Guinness, jackfruit, bacon and genmai tea — in separate confections, thank goodness. Even the Van Gogh vodka infused with dusky Dutch chocolate, which I sampled with some trepidation, was lovely.

It shouldn’t be surprising then that dark chocolate and peppery extra virgin olive oil make such a stunning marriage in the almost flourless cake from Fran Gage’s just-released book, “The New American Olive Oil” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2009). The single-layer cake is at once dense, moist and amazingly light, with the silky smooth texture of velvet. Just enough of the oil’s pungent bite hovers in the background to highlight the chocolate’s subtly fruity character. I may never go back to butter. (more…)