Recently on a wine tour through the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits areas in the Burgundy region in France, we stopped to admire the Romanée-Conti vineyard, one of the smallest (barely 2 acres) but one of the most expensive ($4,500+ a bottle!). Our tour guide appeared with a bottle of Burgundy Cremant (a sparkling wine made in Burgundy with about half the pressure of champagne so many less bubbles) and a basket of gougères, those wonderful cheesy, light puffs of dough that meld perfectly with a bubbly Champagne, Cremant or Sparkling Wine. Though as my friend Emma says, everything goes well with Champagne. I must agree.

I spent the past few days with Emma & Don on their barge cruising down the Loire River in the Burgundy region. The first time I visited them last year, for some bizarre reason, they (and I) thought I could cook...mistake #1. I made gougères that came out like hockey pucks. Should they have mistakenly been thrown at someone, they could easily have put an eye out or I could have become the official supplier to the NHL. Luckily neither happened. Needless to say, I was very hesitant to repeat this fiasco but Emma insisted so I obliged. There must have been a gougères angel on my shoulder as they came out beautifully: light, airy, crisp outside, not soggy, golden brown. And to drink with it...Champagne of course! :-) Cheers!

Gougères

250 ml (9 oz) water
110 g (4 oz) butter, cut into small pieces
pinch of salt
140 g (5 oz) flour
4-5 eggs
110 g (4 oz) Comte cheese, shredded
1 egg + 1 tbsp milk (or water) for egg wash

* this is the exact same recipe for pâte à choux. to make gougères, you simply add cheese!

1. put the water, butter and salt into a pot and bring to a boil.

2. let the butter melt over a low flame, then bring it to a boil. when the mixture reaches a boil, take it off the heat and add the flour all at once and stir to incorporate with a wooden spoon. it is important that you don't let the water boil too long as this recipe is all about the liquid to dry proportions.

3. put the pot back on to medium heat and stir vigorously for 30 seconds to a minute or until the mixture thickens and forms a ball that pulls away from the pan. continue stirring for another 1-2 minutes. the point of this is to cook out the moisture so that the dough can absorb as much of the eggs as possible.

4. take the pot off heat and move mixture to a clean bowl.

5. add the eggs one at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon, fully incorporating it before the next egg is added. you can also use a mixer with a paddle (we couldn't in cooking school so we all had very tired arms). the mixture should be firm but smooth and it's done when you can run your finger through the batter and it leaves a channel that fills in slowly. stir in most of the cheese. leave some to sprinkle on top.

6. Pipe or spoon, depending on the size and shape you want, onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. I use a spoon for gougères and make them more rustic looking.

7. brush the choux gently with egg wash and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. (optional)

8. bake at 400°F/ 200°C/#6 for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.

9. turn down oven to 300°F/ 150°C/#4 for another 5-10 minutes to dry out. remove from the oven when they feel dry, light and hollow. let cool.

bon appetit de paris!

$4.25 for a small bottled water. Four dollars and twenty-five cents. For WATER. And tap water is not an option. By the end of the night, I was a little irritated by the exorbitant prices of such standard-bearers. After visiting nearly every booth, kiosk, stand, and counter asking for a cup to fill with water, and being repeatedly turned away, I gave up and just drank my fill at the tiny water fountain that we found in a tucked away corner behind the beer stand. (I believe one of the two was even out of order.)

Where was I, you ask? Walking the promenade level of the Ballpark on the Bay. I think right now they are calling it SBC Park, and prior to that it was called Pac Bell Park. (What's up with that trend anyway...can't we just call something by a name that sticks? What ever happened to Candlestick Park or Fenway Park or Wrigley Field--or is that named after the stick of gum? Okay, I'm veering WAY off subject now.)

Occasionally, not too often, the ballpark hosts concerts, so there we were, enjoying the antics of the Black Eyed Peas and the melodic musings of the Dave Matthews Band, and strolling (at times weaving) through the crowd, taking in the variety of food options which I had heard were over and above what you typically get at most concert venues. There was the Doggie Diner, which seemed to offer the standard foil wrapped steamed franks, fries, and overpriced mass-market beer, as well as other walk-ups offering more or less the same items, burgers, pizza (if you want to call it pizza but I won't go there), corndogs, even turkey burgers and I think I saw veggie dogs at one place. But the Gilroy Garlic Fries walk-up stood out in the crowd (two locations on the promenade level).

Nearly everwhere you went in the stadium, the pungent scent of garlic wafted over the crowd. After passing too many people to count balancing trays of the hot, crisp, garlic-coated potatoes, we decided to cue up and get ourselves some. The line was long, but we had beer. We made some friends in line. Finally, we got our own. They were good, but not great. Certainly better than most fries I've sampled at large events such as this. About half were crisp and speckled with just enough garlic and herbs, the other half were soggy and overwhelmed with garlic.

Continuing on our quest, we came across a small stand tucked away in a corner offering fresh sausages such as hot links, bratwurst, and Polish kielbasa. On a soft, sesame-studded bun, topped with sauerkraut or peppers and onions, all for $5, this was a steal! And it was pretty good too. The "brat with kraut" that I ordered was plump, juicy, and tasted like it had just been cooked.

Overall, the stands seemed to be the way to go. There were freshly roasted cinnamon nuts, microbrews and other quality beers (including Fat Tire, Prohibition Ale, and Lagunitas IPA), kettle corn, and the variety of sausages I mentioned previously. But personally, I think next time I'll eat in advance and spend my remaining calories on beer (that is, if I win the lottery...a bottle of beer cost upwards of $8 EACH!).

Thank you, San Diego and good night!

Seriously? Best meal in San Diego EVER! Wow. I didn't think I'd find a place like this here. I humbly apologize to all San Diegans for being faint of heart and of stomach, but I just didn't. Excluding Saffron's Thai roasted chicken, which, yum, Region is the place I can definitely say we're going to go back to again in the little time we have left here. I'm sitting in the corner hyperventilating over the idea of trying their "Trust the Chef" menu of four courses for $45.00.

As a last minute decision, we decided to check Region out on a Tuesday night. It's their Big Night night (and yes, we confirmed the name comes from the movie) where they have a fixed menu for $31.00. You get a choice of two starters, three entrees, and two desserts and you can't order anything from the regular menu. No problem there. I would have chosen the Big Night menu for the grilled octopus alone.

Before the starters, we were brought some crusty hunks of bread from the local artisanal bakery, Bread & Cie, which is our next San Diego Food Foray. Alongside the bread, instead of the usual lump of butter or dish of indifferent olive oil, we were given a chilled pot of citrus-braised summer tomatoes. After the first bite, my husband said (somewhat garbled as his mouth was stuffed), "You HAVE to learn how to make this." For me, braising conjures up pots of sulky stewed meat, which smell much better than they end up tasting. This was not the case with these tomatoes -- the yellow and red cherries were as bright and fresh tasting as though they had just been picked after spending the day being gently warmed in the sun.

God, that grilled octopus. I want it for an entree. I want it all night every night. I want it because of the wine corks. Wait. Let me back up a bit. Our waitress explained that the octopus is boiled with wine corks to reduce chewiness before grilling. Ingenious. After the cork boil (we didn't ask if they were new or used corks), the octopus is marinated in a whole mess of stuff, slapped on the mesquite-fired grill, and served with farm fresh greens and a big ol' lemon wedge. Whatever ancient chemical secret those wine corks import, man, that octopus wasn't tough at all. It wasn't soggy either. In fact, it was pleasantly chewy without the remotest resemblance to an eraser. But texture is nothing if it doesn't taste good, right? No worries -- the octopus was stupendous. We even fought over the red pepper-flaked tentacles -- each of us insisting that the other got a larger tentacle. Here's some trivia for you that I picked up a few years ago, the plural of "octopus" is erroneously assumed to be "octopi." Fowler, of the eternally snarky Fowler's English Usage tells us, "the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses." He deems the even more correct plural "octopedes" as being "pedantic." There's a little something for you to toss around at cocktail parties.

The other starter on the Big Night menu was a summer fruit salad. Now, this isn't your mama's lime Jell-O with bananas and mandarin orange segments. Well, it isn't my mama's lime Jell-O with bananas and mandarin orange segments. The plate was heavy with two kinds of melon, Japanese grapes, Brown Turkey figs, Chino Farm wild strawberries, drizzles of balsamic vinegar, and a sturdy flat wedge of Gorgonzola Piccante from Lombardy. The fruit composition was refreshing, obviously, succulently in season, and lovely with the spicy cheese and sour-sweet balsamic.

I'm not always a fan of peppers because they can overpower everything else they touch, but I was happily surprised by the grilled Australian lamb chops. The perfectly pink and juicy lamb stood up well to the three kinds of smoked peppers and gained significant depths of flavor from them. Normally, I love lamb nearly naked because I can revel in the lambiness of the chops, leg, or whathaveyou, but those peppers were a smoked stroke of heavenly genius.

My husband is allergic to scallops. He loves them but he's allergic to them. Not in the deadly anaphalactic way, you understand, they just tend to seriously upset his stomach. Every five years or so he tries a bit of scallop at a reputable establishment to see if he's outgrown the allergy. It hasn't quite been five years since his last test at Ming Tsai's Blue Ginger, but as fate would have it scallops were on the menu at Region. The Big Night menu originally had a choice of three entrees, the lamb, the scallops, and braised beef shortribs with pasta. By the time we got there, they were all out of the shortribs. If you see my above opinion on braising, this was not a problem for me. However, since I'd be able to sample both lamb and scallops and my husband could really only eat the lamb, I felt sort of bad. But not bad enough.

After staring hungrily at my plate of seared Maine Diver scallops resting lazily on top of a bright red tomato and arugula salad, Mark stabbed at a few tomatoes. He also managed to snag some of the basil salsa verde and a few leaves of arugula. I slowly and sighingly made my way through the fat scallops, savoring every mouthful of dense flesh accented by the salsa verde and the tomatoes. I had a smallish piece of scallop on my fork when my husband couldn't stand it any longer. "Hand it over," he ordered, staring at my fork. I did. He ate the bite, rolled his eyes backward, and smiled. His stomach is still fine today.

Region is a gem of a restaurant and one that would easily be at home in the Bay Area. They are devoted to free-range meat, farm fresh produce, sustainable fish, and are a member of the Slow Food Movement. To quote from their own newsletter, "Region was founded on the idea that the best food is that which is grown close to home -- in this climate, in this season. We do not rely on a major, national industrial food supplier to unload an 18-wheel truck at our doorstep. Instead, we believe in cultivating relationships with local farmers and producers...not only do we get incredibly fresh vegetables harvested from the earth that morning but, more importantly, we know the people who are growing our food." Amen and *burp*!

The knowledgeable and gregarious staff told us that Chef Michael Stebner recently took them on a field trip to San Francisco. They supped at Chez Panisse, Zuni, and Oliveto because Chef Stebner wanted his crew to understand what inspired him. All I can say is that was money well spent. Not only do the staff know their food down to the last salt flake, but they are excited about it and -- even more impressive -- they SHOULD be excited about it. This is DAMN good eats.

Region
Farm Fresh Cuisine
3671 Fifth Avenue
San Diego, CA 92103

Dinner: Tuesday-Sunday 6 to 10 PM

I'm a girly-girl. Ask anyone who knows me. I don't like sports. I can easily spend $20 on a lipstick and my wardrobe is heavy on the pink. I mean a whole lotta pink. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that I like pink wine. I'm not talking about "white zinfandel", but rosé.

The reason I like ros&eacute really has less to do with the color than the the fact that it pairs well with food and is often quite reasonably priced. Like hip hugger jeans ros&eacute has been out of fashion for so long that it's finally cool again. Even more so in the Summer when it is wonderful served chilled.

While my knowledge of wine fits fairly neatly into a wine glass, I will nonetheless share what I know about pairing food with ros&eacute. The reason it works so well with food is that there is not just one style of ros&eacute. There are sparkling, dry, fruity, light, medium and full-bodied ros&eacute. A sparkling ros&eacute makes for a wonderful aperitif, a dry ros&eacute is great with seafood, especially shellfish and a full-bodied ros&eacute can work with meat, even steak.

Jeff Morgan's new book Ros&eacute A Guide to the World's Most Versatile Wine is a great book to familiarize yourself with the different types of ros&eacute and the regions where it is produced. The book has a tasting guide that includes 200 wines and as an added bonus there is a whole section of a dozen or so recipes designed to pair well with ros&eacute. The recipes lean towards the more hearty than delicate with offerings inspired by the cuisines of France, India and Mexico. I'm planning to try the Fish Soup with Aioli next week and I will make a mental note to pair pasta and pesto with ros&eacute as Morgan suggests. Proving once and for all, you don't have to be a girly-girl to drink pink.

The moon is new! We have moved into the lunar phase known as the Wort Moon in 16th Century England. Wort is the old fashioned, Old English word for herb. Late summer was the time of year when medicinal and culinary herbs would be harvested, dried, and stored for the winter. Tinctures would be made, herbal ales would be brewed, and medicinal lozenges, jellies, candies and spirits would be processed. It was a time to refill the medicine chest for the year.

The Wort Moon coincides nicely this year with the month of August, when I am involved in a campaign to encourage people to eat as locally as possible. More than two-hundred people have signed on to take a significant step towards eating within their foodshed. Here in the Bay Area, we've drawn a 100-mile radius around the city of San Francisco, and we're making an effort to eat food grown from within that circle.

Eating locally is nothing new to me. Ever since I returned from cooking school eight years ago, got a job as a chef, began learning about sustainable agriculture, and found myself shopping at the wonderful Bay Area farmers markets, I have been eating more and more foods grown near to where I live. For a few years I have found myself not wanting to buy any produce at the grocery store--even the organic produce at my neighborhood natural grocery store. Part of it is that I am spoiled by buying vegetables and fruits that I know were picked that morning on the farm, and are still filled with all the life-force of the Earth. Another part of it is that I feel a moral obligation to put as much of my money as possible directly into the hands of the farmers who grow the food. Local organic farmers who see themselves as stewards of the land are really local heros--people out there keeping alive an approach to growing food that has been all but obliterated by corporate agribusiness.

The numbers are all against them. Land prices are too high. Labor costs are too high. Food prices are too low. The topsoil has been too depleted of nutrients and needs too much time and energy put into it to rebuild its fertility. The culture is too in love with technological gadgets, big cars, and the idea of wealth without work to really value farming or give farmers the respect and honor they deserve. It is only because people like me go out of our way to shop at the farmers markets, cook at home, and spend our money on food rather than car payments or cable tv that local farmers are surviving at all. But people like me are often characterized in the mainstream society as foodies, snobs, and liberal elitists who can make a fetish of eating organic, seasonal, local food grown by small farmers because we can afford to.

Some people who shop at farmers markets are wealthy--but so are some people who shop at Costco. Many of us aren't wealthy, we're just willing to spend a larger chunk of our income on food and a smaller chunk on other things because we feel food is important enough to do that. Some of us don't spend any more on food at farmers markets than we would do at supermarkets--we economize and bargain hunt and cook at home and are generally frugal, but just make sure that the money we do spend on food goes straight to farmers instead of to large multinational businesses. Some people feel that investing in nutritious food saves them money in other areas. One father I know reduced his family of four's health coverage to catastrophic only, and is investing all the money he's saving in feeding his family a more nutrient-dense diet. In the long run that is probably a prudent financial choice.

There is another factor in this equation: cheap oil. Our entire food system has been built on the premise of a consistent and inexpensive supply of petroleum. Gasoline or diesel fuels power the equipment that we use to plant, water, spray, and harvest our crops. Fertilizers and pesticides are synthesized from petroleum products. We rely on petroleum and its derivatives to transport crops, process them, and package them as products. Plastic, used throughout the entire system, is derived from petroleum. The average plate of food travels 1500 miles to get to our table--every mile is fueled by petroleum. Even cooking at home--whether using natural gas or electricity--depends on petroleum somewhere along the way. In other words, in just the past sixty years--a blink of the eye in human history--we have built a new global food system that is entirely dependent on petroleum. As we begin to run out of oil, the crucial problem facing humanity is not how we will get to work each day, but rather how we will feed ourselves.

Right now it might be more expensive to buy food from local, organic, small farms and humane grass-based ranches than to shop at the supermarket. But as the petroleum costs go up, the cost of factory farming will go up, the cost of shipping will go up, and imported and store-bought foods could once again become the expensive luxuries they once were.

Right now eating foods that were processed on an artisanal or small scale might seem costly. Processing them ourselves at home might seem time-consuming. But these foods may someday soon be far more economical and practical than their petroleum-intensive, factory-produced alternatives. They are already more sustainable. If the ecological crisis becomes really dire, knowing farmers in your area, maintaining a garden, knowing how to kill, pluck and dress a chicken, knowing how to cook, being able to store foods without refrigeration and to make medicinal teas and ales from local plants will once again be critical survival skills.

In the back of my mind, I've been thinking about the exercise of eating local foods for the month of August as a bit of a rehearsal for such an eventuality. What would my diet look like if imported foods were just too expensive? The fact is, it wouldn't look too different from my diet of the past few years, but there are some exceptions. Both coconut products and bananas are a part of my daily diet, and they'd be off the list. But the thing that I'm missing the most is my daily pot of green tea. Last year I managed wean myself off of coffee and onto green tea, which still gives me a lift without all the jitteriness and hyperactivity of coffee. I have found that it is lovely to start the day with a small pot of steaming Genmaicha--a Japanese tea with toasted rice in it--and have become almost as attached to it as I was to my morning cappuccino. While the tea plant--Camellia Sinensis--can be grown locally here in the Bay Area, no one is doing it on a commercial scale. The tea we get here is all imported from Asia. And since I didn't get my act together to buy a plant, put it in the ground, and figure out how to harvest it, I am having to do without for a month.

So I am developing a new morning ritual. Because it is the Wort Moon, my herb garden (wortyard) is in full bloom. The Echinacea is covered with big purple flowers, the Mullein is about eight feet tall and has three spikes dotted with yellow blooms, and the Yarrow is a cacophony of white inflorescences. First thing in the morning, instead of opening a tin of loose tea, I go out to the garden with my scissors and trim a small handful of yarrow flowers, a leaf of stevia, and few leaves of lemon verbena, and put them in my pot. I pour boiling water over them and once it has steeped I taste the slightly green, slightly bitter, gentle lemony sweetness of my homegrown brew.

I find it an interesting fact that in my effort to eat locally for the month of August, I am eating less of the foods that I consider 'bad' for me, and more of those that are healthiest. Caffeine, refined sugar, and many of the carbohydrates I normally consume are off of my plate and out of my cup. The most convenient local foods are eggs, meats, vegetables, fruit, and dairy products. Instead of porridge or toast for breakfast, I am eating hard-cooked eggs. And for a sweet, nighttime treat the other night, I drank a glass of warm frothed milk sweetened with honey and flavored with a few spritzes of rose hydrosol distilled by one of my favorite local farmers--something I may never have tried making if I wasn't keeping vanilla extract and maple syrup off limits for a few weeks.

The plants of the wortyard are really the flavors of home. Before northern dwellers had a steady supply of cinnamon, chocolate, nutmeg, cloves, lemons, vanilla, and cumin, their foods were scented and spiced with what they grew in their gardens. Sorrel, lovage, nettles, savory, and borage all enhanced the dinner table; dandelion blooms, elderflowers, and rose geranium leaves helped to give sweetmeats a delicate fragrance; and Labrador tea, dandelion root, and chicory would be brewed as hot beverages. These old-fashioned plants can hardly compete in today's world with the bold flavored imports from the tropics. But I for one am thoroughly enjoying my wort moon tisane of healing yarrow, as well as those few moments spent in the garden in the morning.

Just a few feet away from the yarrow we are in the process of putting in a raised-bed vegetable garden. Next year on the Wort Moon I may find that I am able to eat much of my produce from within a 100-foot radius of my house, and look to the 100-mile radius for meat, dairy, and eggs. Each step brings me closer into contact with the Earth, makes me feel more connected to my ancestors, and gives me rays of hope for a future that is grounded in what makes sense and what feels right on a deep level. I can't help feeling that our current society is like a house of cards, and one of the cards near the bottom is petroleum. If we pull out that card--what will happen to the rest of the structure? Isn't it time to begin thinking deeply about how we will live and thrive into the future, and begin building the foundation for a house that can weather the coming storms? I believe it is.

On the Wort Moon, I wish you the blessings of knowing where your food comes from and some of the people who spend their days growing it for you. I wish you delicious meals seasoned with basil, oregano, sage, thyme, lavender and the other fragrant herbs of the wortyard. I pray that we may all be touched by the wisdom of plants, who know the great value of having a little spot of Earth that they can call home.

Goose barnacles. What the hell are goose barnacles? That's what I was thinking when the chef of Sea Salt leaned across the counter and said, "You two look adventurous, try these!" They looked like little iguana feet. He explained how to eat them. I was intrigued. Always willing to try (almost) anything once (um, I am not Anthony Bordain and I won't be eating rotten shark from Iceland anytime soon as he described on Letterman recently), I peeled one back, and popped it into my mouth. Yum! The salty little sea creatures were perched atop a lovely salsa verde of cilantro, jalapeno, and cardamom (or at least that's what I surmised they were perched atop), and they were surprisingly delicious.

This was my first foray into the month-old Sea Salt, the latest addition to East Bay restaurateurs Haig and Cynthia Krikorian's treasure chest of successful eateries. With Lalime's, Fonda Solana, and Jimmy Bean's under their belt, and the anticipated T-Rex barbecue set to open this year, Sea Salt was a surprising little twist to the empire.

Can I just say, first of all, what a great idea. How many seafood restaurants can you name that aren't odes to tourism, temples of terribly overpriced seafood, typically frozen, fried, and not even close to fresh and local. Yet here is a neighborhood gem devoted to top quality, sustainable seafood, with plenty of local offerings like fresh plump grilled sardines, house-cured salmon roe, and California squid.

Settled in to our plushy countertop stools, overlooking the cooks hard at work (as well as listening in on their discussions of the tweaky problems with the deep fryer that night), we were immediately enamored with the environment surrounding us. In hues of blues, with an exposed brick wall and soaring beamed ceilings, the space has an airy, comfortable urban feel. It actually once housed the legendary Brick Hut Cafe (a women-owned and operated restaurant and art space that had a run of 20+ years), and more recently Cafe Talulah. Comfortable banquettes, picnic tables, and counter seating make up most of the restaurant's 86 seats, and if you wander to the back, you'll discover a lovely little garden, perfect for a lazy weekday lunch or an elusive warm Berkeley evening.

From raw oysters and clams on the half shell, smoky clam chowder, and oyster po' boys with house-made potato chips to Dungeness crab cakes perched on gazpacho veggies, buttery lobster rolls, and grilled yellowfin tuna with salt roasted potatoes, the menu is a melange of fish and seafood made for sharing.

After whetting our appetites with the goose barnacles (I could have eaten a hundred of those little things), the chef offered up another gift: house-made potato chips with a dollop of creme fraiche and a spoonful of glistening house-cured salmon roe. Neither of these gems was listed on the menu, and I was starting to feel special, like I was in on a secret. Or at least part of the inner circle (of course, we were not alone in receiving these little offerings, when we looked around nearly everyone was exclaiming in delight over receiving such unexpected surprises).

Happily, we moved on to the grilled local sardines, served with a sweet roasted pepper salad and drizzled with an heirloom tomato and mint vinaigrette. Smokey and lightly charred, the fresh sardines were plump and meaty, and paired well with the sweet tang of the peppers and vinaigrette.

The steamed clams were served in a large wok-like bowl, strewn with sweet bright-red cherry tomatoes, in a broth pungent with cilantro, jalapeno, and cardamom. The clams were sweet, succulent, and perfectly cooked. The pairing of flavors was excellent, although I found the broth to be a tad too salty.

We then moved on to the fish and chips, a mound of thick-cut fries and cornmeal-crusted rock cod, served with a light and tangy coleslaw and two sauces: malt vinegar aioli and Thai ketchup. The cod was extremely fresh and flavorful, although it, like the fries, seemed to have been compromised by a fryer on the fritz (as I mentioned earlier, because we had kitchen seating we overheard that they were having some issues getting the temperature high enough on the fryer). The crust, while tasty, was just not very crisp, and the fries, which looked gorgeous, tasted, well, a little old. The malt vinegar aioli was wonderful, although a bit bland, I didn't even really detect the vinegar, and the Thai ketchup had a bit of a strange flavor on its own, but was nice when used along with the aioli. All in all, it was good, but will probably be stellar once they work out the kinks with the fryer.

Even though we were stuffed to the gills by this point, we had to try dessert. The special that night was a coconut panna cotta with caramelized pineapple and a coconut tuile. This was everything a panna cotta should be--barely held-together cream with a smooth, light texture. The coconut was the perfect tropical touch, not at all overpowering, but still announcing its presence. Paired with the sweet pineapple, it was almost like a decadent pina colada, but even better. A perfect ending to the meal.

While the restaurant does not yet have it's beer and wine license, we were able to order a fantastic bottle of Alsatian Pinot Blanc from the nearby Caffe Trieste, although our waiter let us know that they could have their license as early as this weekend. They are also working on getting a full liquor license in the near future.

For only being open a month, this restaurant is already packing in the crowds, which is frankly, no surprise. I'll definitely be back.

Sea Salt
2512 San Pablo Ave
Berkeley, CA 94702
510-883-1720

Open Monday-Sunday 11:30am-10pm

It no doubt sounds strange, a fondue recipe in the summer, and my friend's husband immediately laughed and rolled his eyes at my very gauche faux pas of a dinner selection (did I mention he's French?) but it was chilly out, I was in the French Alps, and dammit I was going to have fondue! When in Rome...

I have been expressly forbidden to reveal the name of the town I stayed in, suffice to say it looks out on the entire majestic Mont Blanc mountain range and has a population of eight or nine hundred give or take, one Englishwoman and one American. I also made the huge mistake of saying the town looked like Switzerland. I was nearly sent packing. You see Switzerland actually looks like France. Don't ask, back to the fondue...

We visited a nearby swanky ski town called Megève, founded by the Rothschilds and home to the glitterati d'Europe. Big glam Chanel sunglasses and fuzzy boots akin to a Shetland pony proliferate like snowflakes in a blizzard. We sat outside on the main square and I proceeded to order my Fondue Savoyarde, fondue from the Savoie region, or French Alps. Specifically we were in the Haute-Savoie region or Upper Savoie.

When the fondue arrived, we skewered the bread cubes and dove in. I could have bathed in it. I burned my tongue but I didn't care. The cheese was hot, sweet, tangy, gooey and just downright delicious. My friend's husband of course couldn't resist a bite or two. Bon appetit!

La Fondue Savoyarde d'Haute Savoie

400 g Comté (400 grams = 14 ounces, not quite a pound)
400 g Beaufort
400 g Emmenthal
2 garlic cloves
4 cups white wine, very dry, preferably from the Savoie or Alsace regions
1 cup Kirsch
3 baguettes, cut into 1-inch cubes. not too soft, you want some substance to hold the cheese

This recipe is for 6 hungry, cold people so vary the amounts accordingly.
1. Grate or cube the cheese
2. Peel and cut the garlic in half. rub the cut side all over the inside of a deep sauce pan. you can discard it but I prefer to leave it in. can't help it, the italian genes in me...
3. Add the white wine to the pan and heat on low until just barely bubbling.
4. Add the cheese and turn up heat to medium. stir with a wooden spoon until all the cheese has melted.
5. Add the kirsch and combine. voila! you have fondue!

So I was going to space these Saffron reviews out but dude, after thinking about that roasted chicken all week, we just had to go back on Monday and pick us up some take-out. I blame it all on Su-Mei Yu's own description: "I remember with great affection the little wooden huts lining the streets. From miles away we could smell the exquisite aroma from the spices used to marinate the chicken grilled under hot charcoal." As I read those words over and over again, I grappled for an extra drool cup.

In addition to reordering the Fantastic Egg Roll -- isn't the take-out container the most cunning little bit of Kill the Earth engineering you've ever seen? It's going to give our grandchildren cancer but it's simply adorable -- we got the Half Chicken Combo.

With the combos, you get heaps of sticky jasmine rice, Cambodian salad, and your choice of two sauces. See, that two sauces thing? Well, that was going to a problem for us. There was no way (NO WAY!) we were going to be able to choose TWO sauces from the five offered. No. We told the man we had to have all five. He didn't bat an eye as he rang us up our order that included all of the above plus an extra Cambodian salad.

I'd never had Cambodian salad and I was really looking forward to it and I was hungry because I hadn't eaten for four days straight and I recently learned that I had a tapeworm of unusual size that had been eaten by another tapeworm of even more unusual size...and...and...the truth is, my husband takes big bites and could very well have inhaled that entire Solo container of Cambodian salad in one go, so I felt a reserve salad was a good idea. Thank god I think ahead, because that Cambodian salad with the cabbage and the peanuts and the rice noodles and the sauce was something I could eat 24-7 and never get sick of it.

With our half-chicken order, we got a breast, a wing, a thigh, and a leg. I went right for the juicy white meat of the breast. Actually, I went right for the crispy spiced skin covering the juicy white meat of the breast. Oh, that skin! That meat! Those sauces!

We feverishly tore the chicken pieces apart (we gave up on spoons early in the meal and used only our fingers, which made me feel like Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much) and dunked the flesh and skin in the sauce containers. I think my favorite was the sweet pepper sauce. It was spicy and it made me sneeze but it was softened by a vinegar-y touch under the prevailing sweetness, which fascinated me. Mark adored the Siracha, the smokey hot pepper sauce that had been puréed to a bright orange and was reminiscent of Tabasco sauce. The peanut sauce was velvety and salty -- peanut sauce always is, of course -- but it was nothing new to Thai Hut-hopping me. Even the strangely Mexican salsa with fresh chopped tomatoes and cilantro was a good addition. Finally, I was fascinated by Su-Mei Yu's special homemade chutney. It was chunky, sweet, and sumptuous with the roasted chicken.

It probably would have saved space and time if I had just said that I liked all the sauces and would probably order all five again just to get that amalgam of flavors -- hot, spicy, sour, sweet, savory -- but then you wouldn't be craving Saffron Thai Grilled Chicken, would you? I'll tell you what: come visit me in San Diego and we'll dip a wing or two.

Saturday mornings Lee and I are often glued to the TV watching cooking shows. We each have our favorites and Lee's is anything with Martin Yan. I can't really blame him. Martin Yan is a real character. He zips around the kitchen like crazy and he never misses an opportunity to whip out the cleaver...chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop!

Lee likes to do Martin Yan impressions. You can too, just try out any one of several catch phrases:

"look at this, look at this, look at this!"

"add a little bit of this and a little bit of that"

"cut it like this, like this, like this, mmm!"

"set it aside and it's done!"

But while I have watched his show for years, I really haven't experimented much in my own kitchen when it comes to Asian cuisine. With so many choices just minutes from my door I'm more likely to choose to go out rather than cook Asian style at home. While Yan is always able to whip up a recipe in no time on the air, I can see a lot of prep is done ahead of time and sometimes he resorts to "the magic of television" to get recipes completed. Finally the lists of ingredients often seem to include a couple of items that I don't have.

I have to admit, I'd never cooked one of his recipes until I got the companion book to the PBS series, Martin Yan Quick & Easy. Quick and easy is my style. Not only quick and easy to prepare, but there are many dishes that make for one-dish meals or need only a simple side dish to make a meal. No 10 course banquets!

The first recipe I tried was Tea-Smoked Salmon and not only did I have all the ingredients but this is a dish that can be prepared in under thirty minutes, start to finish. You marinate the salmon, make a mixture of tea, sugar and rice and smoke the fish in a stir fry or frying pan. Because the smoke mixture sits on a bed of tin foil there is very little clean up. Yan's instructions were easy to follow and the resulting dish was great. If you've enjoyed watching Martin Yan or just always wanted to try cooking some Asian recipes, this book a good place to start. If you'd like see a few of the recipes, click here.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a piece about hosting a wine tasting. This past week my tasting group got together and tried the wines, coming away amazed at the versatility and elegance of a grape that is hardly seen at all in California.
Around these parts, Chenin blanc suffers from too much heat. Our wonderful summers typically leave this grape lacking in acid and robbing it of its delicate aromas. In the Loire, however, I discovered that it can produce wines with elegance, complexity and intensity to rival some of my favorite German Rieslings.
All of the bottles for my tasting came from K&L Wines. The staff there was kind enough to help me select wines for the flight in light of my lack of familiarity with the region, and they did a great job.
My favorite dry wine of the flight was the 2003 Domaine Fouet Saumur Blanc. Although it might be a little on the lean and steely side for some tasters, this was what I had always imagined Chenin to be like. Delicate and lilting aromatics laid over a framework of stout acidity with hints of the region's trademark flint flavors just begged for oysters or any other fresh catch. And at $11.99, a great bargain to boot.
Although I found the dry wines of the region intriguing, the off-dry and the sweet bottles were downright amazing. With just enough sugar to balance the generous acidity, the 2002 Domaine des Baumard 'Clos Ste.-Catherine' was a knockout. Floral aromas mixed with flint and honey to bedazzle the nose, and the interplay of sugar and acid on the palate was perfectly in balance. This bottle contained everything I look to German Riesling for, but landing just on the delicate side of a Spatlese. At $39.99, perhaps not as inexpensive as you might be able to find from the Mosel but well worth trying. Excellent.
And finally, what was perhaps the star of the evening: the 1995 Philippe Foreau Vouvray Moelleux. The term 'moelleux' comes from the French term for bone marrow, 'moelle', and indicates softness or richness. In the Loire, it indicates a rich, sweet wine, possible only when the weather conditions are cooperative enough to allow the fruit to hang on the vine long enough in order to produce the requisite sugar for this designation. Our bottle was heady stuff. To the nose it was rich from the moment of pouring, with honeyed notes and a rich, nutty, almost Oloroso Sherry character. All of this continued to evolve and change over the course of the tasting, at times revealing delicate floral aromas and other times offering pure, crystalline fruit. On the palate, it offered an amazing interplay between the luscious, voluptuous sweetness of its residual sugar and the firm acidity which kept the wine structured and in balance. The finish went on and on, managing somehow to be both sweet as well as crisp. No cloying sugary aftertaste which can be the worst part of an out-of-balance sweet wine here; this was just beautiful.
Previously offered at $42, this elegant bottle has been reduced to $30 and, if you beat me back there, you might still find a bottle.

Thank you again to the staff of K&L Wines for helping me put together a wonderful tasting filled with wines I'd never tried before. Their knowledge and expertise made my experience as the tasting host a happy one.