Blame the rain, the 45 mph winds and the power outage that spread across two days.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I live among the redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  When the weather is great, it’s a glorious place to be.  When it’s bad, it’s miserable.  This week, the electricity went out just as I was preparing to publish this post on my desktop Mac.  So I’m later than usual.  My apologies.

Grapes called to me at the farmers market for weeks as I contemplated schiacciata all’uva, a Tuscan variation on foccacia, liberally studded with dark, juicy grapes and dusted with a blanket of sugar. Continue reading A grape surprise →

I’d been looking for a great new use for cocoa ever since Valrhona sent me some of its products for review late this summer.  The bars of solid chocolate from France are my first choice for baking and I always try to pick up a couple while shopping at Trader Joe’s just to keep my pantry stocked. But I generally think of cocoa powder, no matter the label, as a pale substitute for the real thing, dry and dusty rather than rich and silky.

Then I tasted a fabulous chocolate sorbet from SCREAM Sorbet at the Wednesday farmers market and inspiration struck.  Melted chocolate alone wouldn’t deliver that intense taste.  I needed a dark and dusky cocoa with an intoxicating aroma for an extra layer of flavor.  What better use for that stash of Valrhona?

The recipe for this sorbet began, as most good frozen desserts seem to, with David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop.” The cookbook author and former Chez Panisse pastry chef, now living in Paris, is a wizard with an ice cream machine.  To make his basic chocolate sorbet recipe my own, I added a sparkling citrus note from grated orange rind and a little kick from a couple of tablespoons of Grand Marnier.  The results were stunning.   Without an ounce of milk or cream, it was as thick and satiny as chocolate mousse, with an intensity unmatched by most commercial products.

Continue reading Ultimate chocolate sorbet →

There was a definite nip in the air when I took the dogs for their walk this morning.  We needed a flashlight to finish grilling on the deck last night and the evening was just cool enough to pull on a pair of socks after months of barefoot living.  No doubt about it, fall has arrived.

Summer lives on, however, in the beautiful peppers that have been stealing the limelight at farmers markets for the last couple of weeks.  Since this is California, we can expect to continue finding them through October.  There’s still time left to taste the fruit of months of sunshine and warm breezes. That’s cause enough for celebration.

Peppers are never so sweet as when they’ve ripened in the summer sun. And the selection is fantastic right now.  I counted seven different peppers, from the mild Italian Corno di toro to the spicy poblano, at the Live Earth Farm booth in Santa Cruz last week. Continue reading Peppers aplenty →

For years, I avoided  figs at all cost.  My childhood memories of throwing rotten fruit that had fallen from the tree in my best friend’s yard tainted any thoughts of actually eating one.  As far as I was concerned, figs were gushy, sticky and positively repulsive.

Then, as an adult and a food writer at that, I felt compelled to at least try one of these fruits that so many others had described as utterly ambrosial.  Plucked right off the tree, it was perfectly ripe and felt like a miniature water balloon in my hand.

I was a convert at first bite.  The flavor was mild and sweet as honey with faint undertones of vanilla.  The pink inner flesh glowed like a jewel.  It was silky and soft, all but melting in my mouth, and the seeds popped between my teeth like caviar.

It’s amazing how much difference it makes to eat fruit in its time.

Now I know why some people suggest the forbidden fruit Eve nibbled in the Garden of Eden really was a fig.  Few fruits are as sensual.

Continue reading Figs and raspberries, a perfect match →

This is my favorite time of year, when lush, sun-warmed tomatoes are everywhere in the farmers market.  Although I’m a devotee of heirlooms such as Cherokee Purple and Big Rainbow, I find it hard to resist any tomato plucked dead ripe off the vine.

When Molino Creek Farm in Swanton was saved from devastation in last month’s Lockheed fire, I was overjoyed – not only because it would be a tragedy for anyone to lose their home to wildfire, but also because some of the best dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes come from there.  Small and firm with a delightful balance of sugar and acid, they’re the perfect tomato for fattoush, the Lebanese riff on the more familiar tabbouleh. Continue reading Tomatoes get a Lebanese twist →

Summer is winding down and the stone fruit season is almost at an end.

Apricots are long gone. Peaches have passed their peak.  Still, plum lovers can rejoice. Some of the most complex and appealing varieties of this multi-faceted fruit are still flourishing.

Gorgeous elephant hearts, their lush burgundy flesh ready to burst out of pale purple skin, were irresistible at the Aptos farmers market last week.  Then Sunday I was seduced by cute little French prune plums, the original sugar plum, at the Live Oak farmers market.  Long before the dried version of the fruit became the butt of so many jokes that marketers changed the name to dried plums, they were a major cash crop in the orchards of Santa Clara Valley.  The French still treasure them, both fresh and dried, but they’re hard to find outside of farmers markets.

These extraordinary varieties taste nothing like supermarket plums, which usually are picked so early that their flavors never really develop.  They’re sweet but complex, much like a dessert wine.  The tart zing of the thin skin is fleeting and only adds to their interest.

Continue reading Plum terrific kuchen →

My kitchen is finished at last.  The sink is in and the stove works.  I’m in heaven.

A month isn’t that long to be without a kitchen in the world of home remodeling, I know, but I felt the deprivation sorely.  Mostly, I missed my oven.    It was easy enough to boil, steam, saute and grill on the camp stove and grill, but baking was out of the question.

Or so I thought for several weeks.  Then I remembered the wonderfully easy, fudgy brownie recipe that I stumbled across in journalist Linda Ellerbee’s memoir, “Take Big Bites,” a few years ago.  A microwave and a toaster oven were all I needed to get my home-baked chocolate fix.

Continue reading Fudge pie from a toaster oven →

As summer begins to wind down and the days get shorter, even dedicated cooks would rather spend less time in the kitchen and more time playing outside while we still can.

This colorful pasta, bursting with the bold flavors of ripe tomatoes, olives, capers, and – yes – anchovies, has become one of my summer favorites.  It’s super simple, versatile, and only requires enough time in front of the stove to boil a pot of pasta. Continue reading Fresh tomato pasta with bold flavors →

Some of my most dismal food memories are of hospital fare.  The few times I’ve  had to stay overnight in a hospital, the food invariably has been a disaster of soggy vegetables, mystery meat and Technicolor Jello.   Even my extraordinarily healthy appetite heads south in the face of such sad offerings.

The good people at Stanford Hospital & Clinics are on a mission to change all that.  Last week, they invited patients, staff and food writers to a tasting of their new Farm Fresh menu of wholesome food prepared with local, sustainable, organic and seasonal ingredients.

This carrot soup, sweet with apple juice and spicy with ginger and curry, won me over instantly.  It’s simple enough to be soothing while still complex enough to be intriguing – just the sort of dish to brighten up a hospital stay. Continue reading Carrot soup for your health and delight →

I’ve been obsessed by chicken wings all summer.  No, not the pepper sauce-drenched Buffalo-style wings offered by bars, franchise restaurants and fast food chains everywhere.  The wings of my dreams are served only  at the celebrated Pok Pok/Whiskey Soda Lounge  in Portland, Oregon.

Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings are like nothing I’ve ever eaten before – savory, salty, sweet, sticky and totally addictive.  From the moment I first tasted them in June, I knew I would have to find a way to make something similar at home.   I just can’t be flying off to Portland whenever I get the craving, after all.

Pok Pok is an eccentric, crowded and insanely popular restaurant serving Thai street food in a hip Southeast Portland neighborhood.  The wings, though, are Vietnamese through and through.  They’re based on a recipe from the homeland of the eponymous Ike, the daytime grill cook. Continue reading The wings of my dreams →