As some of you know, I was recently working at Aziza again as their pastry chef. As a fruit-inspired pastry chef I found it difficult to start in the middle of winter. Although here in the Bay Area we are lucky enough to have bustling farmers' markets year round, the fruit we see for months on end is not the easiest to work with in a plated dessert context.

Plainly said, winter fruit is not sexy. Sure pears are sensual and pomegranates are exotic, but the average restaurant goer orders chocolate desserts in winter. Pastry chefs look to nuts and tropicals and ingredients they forget about as soon as cherries and peaches hit the scene.

At Aziza, where the food is rich with intense spice activity, meats are braised for days and the traditional dish, B'stilla, is made with and covered in sugar, the dessert menu can be a tricky one. I tried to come up with desserts that would be refreshing after Mourad Lahlou's California-French influenced modern Moroccan cooking.

When I worked at Aziza before, from 2003-2004, I turned one of my favorite things, the Redwood Hill goat yogurt into sorbet. This year I wanted to turn it into something else. I'd made pannacotta and goat cheese mousse at Citizen Cake, incorporated it into an Alsatian goat cheesecake at Bouchon, and now it was time for a new frontier. A new texture.

In my perfect world I would not have sweetened it at all. But I know those who love the taste of plain yogurt are few among the American populace. So, as a compromise, I sweetened it with Agave syrup, both in an attempt to stay away from corn syrup, and to educate my palate on this "new" sugar.

It's always useful to use "an invert sugar" when making sorbet, granite or ice cream. A sugar that's liquid in its natural state will help lower the freezing temperature, and thus make the mouth-feel of said frozen treat smoother. I like to say it helps the ice molecule, which wants to freeze into a little cube, lie down and flatten into a malleable icy shard which will be more easily led to manipulation.

In order to get a similar effect many people add alcohol to frozen concoctions, but I'm of the school that if I want something to taste like a cocktail, I'll exacerbate that aspect of it, not hide it behind a lack of a knowledge about how certain liquids freeze and churn for the best outcome.

More than one customer compared the granite to eating snow. As cold as it's been in the Bay Area, sometimes it's better not to fight the chilly air, but go with it! After a meal of hearty stews, rich meat dishes, spicy saucy delicacies or take-out, it's lovely to have a sweet that's not so sweet as it is an inventive way to enliven plain yogurt. A trick up your sleeve, if you'll allow me.

REDWOOD HILL GOAT YOGURT GRANITE

1 Quart Redwood Hill goat yogurt
1/4 Cup Agave syrup*

*There are many brands available in health food stores or in the "Natural" section of your local supermarket. If you shop at Rainbow Grocery, they sell it in bulk.

1. Heat up Agave syrup and pour it into a medium sized bowl.
2. Whisk about 1/3rd of the yogurt into the bowl of Agave syrup.
3. Incorporate the rest of the yogurt into the bowl by whisking thoroughly.
4. Pour bowl's contents into a glass or stainless steel vessel (I use a Pyrex "lasagna pan.") and place it in the freezer.
5. Starting at the one hour mark, pull out container and, using a strong dinner fork, scrape yogurt all around to keep it from freezing solid.
6. After the first hour, "fork" your mixture every half hour until the granite looks like shards of icy snow.

Granite will keep in your freezer in a tightly sealed container for at least a month. If you've found that it is too hard to eat, or is too chunky, place container in your refrigerator for about a half hour to "temper" it back to a consistency you can "fork" up a bit more.

I served the Redwood Hill goat yogurt granite with Meyer lemon sorbet and garnished the bowl with chopped candied citrus peels, but it would also be lovely with pomegranate seeds, citrus segments, or plain, like snow.

I miss snow. Sure, shoveling the driveway ranks up there with washing third-floor bay windows, but building icy forts and sledding right past the edge of safety are among my favorite memories of being a kid. I loved the slow, silent flakes of winter's first snow, the magic of maple syrup candy, and the crunch of my boots breaking through the late season's deep crust. The very best, of course, were snowball fights with my sister.

Living half a continent away, I've had to figure out other ways of sending her my love. White chocolate truffles are not as hard or as cold or as painful as a frosty, well-aimed projectile, but I guess they'll have to do.

SNOWBALL TRUFFLES

The original, quick-and-easy recipe from Gourmet (Dec 2000) skips the whole nuts, the fleur de sel, the excess rum and the butter bath that you'll find in the recipe below. I obviously like booze, crunchiness and that sweet-salty thing, but both versions are equally yummy. The most important part is to splurge on the best white chocolate you can find. Burlingame-based E. Guittard's wafers are among my favorites. As you can tell from the yield, this recipe was designed for sharing.

12 ounces macadamia nuts, lightly toasted
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons rum
1 pound good-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel (coarse sea salt)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 cups desiccated coconut (unsweetened)

1. Line an 8-by-8-inch pan with plastic film.

2. Select 64 whole nuts and set aside. Pulse the remaining nuts in the processor until finely ground.

3. Heat the cream and 1/4 cup rum in a heavy saucepan over low, swirling occasionally, until small bubbles rise. Remove from the heat, add the white chocolate and stir until smooth, returning the pan to a very low flame if needed to melt the chocolate completely. Stir in the ground nuts.

4. Pour half the mixture into the lined pan and spread evenly. Arrange the whole nuts in an 8x8 grid over the surface of the chocolate. Sprinkle the fleur de sel over the whole nuts. Carefully spread the remaining half of the chocolate over the nuts with an offset spatula. Cover with plastic film and chill until firm, 4 to 6 hours.

5. Invert the chilled chocolate onto a cutting surface. Cut into 64 cubes, centering a whole nut in each one. Roll each chocolate cube into a ball between your palms.

6. After all of the balls have been formed, stir together the butter and remaining 2 tablespoons rum in a small bowl. Dip each ball into the rum-butter mixture, and then roll the ball in coconut to coat completely.

7. Chill until firm, letting the truffles return to room temperature before serving.

Makes 64 snowballs.

Last Friday my friend Lyle and I were driving around town, the French cheeses we had recently scored from work stinking up the car, wondering what the hell we were supposed to be doing with ourselves and generally unclear about where life was taking us. We were on our way to Rainbow Grocery when we took a wrong turn onto 15th Street from Potrero-- a dead end, if you are familiar with that particular part of town. We were looking for fresh fruit and organic liver drops, but what we found instead were McVitie's Hobnobs and clotted cream at The British Grocery. I decided it was God's Will that we should pay a visit, bad dead end metaphors be damned. It was one of the pleasanter wrong turns of my recent memory.

The British Grocery has served ex-pat Brits and Anglophiles alike in procuring some of their favourite (yes, I added a "u") foods from Great Britian since 1973. Marmalade, lemon squash, black pudding-- things I have seen the English ingest from spending entirely too much time watching Eastenders and other BBC programmes are available for the (paying for and) taking. Tea services, marmite, British candies, fruity HP sauce, Devon cream, crumpets, Curly Wurly bars, the occasional reminder of royal weddings gone awry. Some of you may already be familiar with the store. If so, you might understand my delight in finding it-- they have spotted dick, for God's sake. How can you not love a store that sells such things?

The business may have existed since just before Glenda Jackson won her second Oscar, but the actual store has only been open to the public since "around 2000", says owner Patrick Alexander. The bulk of their business is done through internet orders. Though many items appear to be available through their website, I would recommend visiting the store itself, because there are some things that just have to be seen. I'm still kicking myself for not purchasing a teapot which, to me, looked either to be Danny Bonaduce in a perambulator or, more likely, a baby with a severe case of rosacea. Whichever the artist's intention, the teapot is a steal at $14.99.

When paying a visit, make sure to ring the clearly labeled, correct doorbell for assistance. For more infromation, visit their website: Britshoppe.com or call them at (415) 552-4399.

Before Hawaii, macadamia nuts always came out of little cylindrical cans from Mauna Loa. The cans were aqua, the nuts were big, and they were soft on the crunch as mac nuts should be. Also? They were fabulously greasy.

I never thought about how the addicting nut came from a dark and leafy sweep of mac nut trees, I didn't consider the harder-than-hard shells, and I certainly didn't wonder how the nut got from those shells into my happy mouth. However, as soon as we stumbled upon a Cryovac bag of very special mac nuts at a tiny Whole Foods-ish natural foods store on Hilo's boardwalk, that all changed.

Unlike the familiar Mauna Loa's, the Hui Mac macadamia nuts weren't so covered in salt that you found yourself empathizing with Lot's wife. However, even without all that salt, the Hui Macs still had that same distinctive mac nut flavor that you know and love. They still give that very slight resistance before falling away into velvety halves when your molars apply pressure. Additionally, unlike the Mauna Loa brand, Hui Macs aren't covered in a mysterious and somewhat worrying powder that brings to mind Tom Daschle's Capitol building office in 2001.

What makes them so different is that Hui Mac macadamia nuts go through a unique and patented process when their are cracked.

Conventional crackers crush the nut between rollers or blades. This typically requires drying the nuts down to 1.5% moisture content before cracking to reduce cracker damage to the kernel. The drying process can take several weeks in large forced hot air dryers.

Insights patented technology exploits the resonant frequency of the shell. We can crack at moisture contents of 10% to 20% which preserves the natural flavor and does not require expensive pre-crack
drying.

Did you read that? Hui Mac nuts are cracked with SONIC WAVES! How awesome is that? Now, you might well ask, "Why in the world would I care about that?" Well, aside from the coolness factor, there's this:

Less damage to kernel: High moisture content kernel is much less susceptible to mechanical damage from shell separation and material handling equipment than dry kernel. This leads to fewer chips and increased recovery.

Significantly reduced drying costs: Drying kernel takes much less equipment and energy than drying wet-in-shell. For example, it typically takes 14 days to dry WIS prior to cracking. Drying high moisture content kernel only takes about 4 days.

Improved product quality: Cracking at high moisture content removes the kernel from the shell while still fresh. Coupling this with low temperature kernel drying preserves the nutrients and great natural flavor of the macadamia. Drying in shell drives the tannins from the shell into the kernel resulting in a "woody" flavor.

Hui Mac calls this patented process "Starcracker." It's an interesting name isn't it? All sorts of connotations can be conjured up, like that January 2000 Cameron Diaz cover of Vanity Fair, for instance. She's sitting on a beach and clearly showing her starcracker.

And now -- if I haven't put you completely off the nut -- you, too can enjoy the deliciousness of a sonic wave-cracked macadamia nut. Check 'em out!

Hui Mac
P.O. Box 11421
Hilo, Hawaii
1-808-929-9755
1-808-756-3844

When I was little I remember asking my mom if people could be vegetarians, could they also be meatatarians? No, she said, you mean carnivores and no, people cannot be carnivores. I remember a feeling of disappointment. I really was hoping the answer was yes.

The thing is, my mom was a really good cook, especially when it came to main dishes, she just wasn't very adventurous when it came to vegetables which were served steamed and plain. I say was, because she backed away from the kitchen the day my father retired. She cooked lots of wonderful dishes that were favorites of mine, Greek Stifado, eggplant parmesan, meatloaf with hardboiled eggs in the center and of course, Party Perfect Chicken. Now in case you haven't had it, Party Perfect Chicken has many odd ingredients in it, such as coconut, curry, ketchup and bacon. Ahhhhh bacon.

Not only can bacon make chicken taste better, it can make just about any vegetable taste better. I think if my mom had made vegetables with bacon I might have been more enthusiastic about them. In Seduced by Bacon, surely one of the best cookbook titles ever, there are several vegetable and side dishes with bacon. I like the idea of incorporating bacon into dishes like Rapini with Pine Nuts and Currants, Creamed Spinach and Glazed Pearl Onions, but my favorite might be Stir-Fried Brussels Sprouts, Shiitakes and Scallions. The dish is described as the "perfect antidote for people who way they hate brussels sprouts."

Stir-Fried Brussels Sprouts, Shiitakes and Scallions
serves 4

4 slices bacon, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
10 ounces Brussels sprouts, trimmed and sliced
3 ounces shiitake or oyster mushrooms, wiped, stems removed and discarded, cut into thick slices
8 scallions, including most of the green parts, trimmed and sliced
2 Tablespoons medium sherry
1 12/ Tablespoons soy suace
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
Pinch red pepper flakes

1. In a large wok, hea the bacon over medium heat until the fat covers the bottom of the pan, 2-3 minutes. Add the Brussels sprouts and stir-fry until they are bright green, 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Site in the shiitakes and scallions and stir-fry for 3 minutes more.

2. Add the sherry and soy sauce, raise the heat to high, and cook for 2 minutes longer, sitrring often. Stir in the sesame oil and pepper flakes and serve.

Recipe from Seduced by Bacon, by Janna Pruess with Bob Lape, The Lyons Press 2006.

With a rapidly approaching trip to Vietnam, most of my spare time lately has been focused on anything and everything Vietnamese. San Francisco has some wonderful Vietnamese restuarants, and I am excited to compare what I've eaten here with foods in Vietnam to see how the Bay Area stacks up.

Out the Door is the casual little sister to Charles Phan's renowned restaurant Slanted Door. While the Ferry Plaza's Out the Door is just a small stand with four or five seats, the new OTD at the Westfield Centre seats nearly 100 and features a takeout counter as well as full-service dining. The dining room is comfortable and efficient, and I enjoyed a great meal there recently. Just beware of the shedding napkins -- I was the friend wearing black mentioned here in Leah Garchik's column recently.

Cookiecrumb at I'm Mad and I Eat wrote about the Bahn Mi at Them Ky in the Tenderloin declaring them to be "Best Sandwich Ever". Bahn Mi are Vietnamese submarine sandwiches, made with baguettes and typically with barbecued pork or pate, and a mixture of pickled carrots, daikon, onions and cilantro.

Bodega Bistro is a well-loved Vietnamese restaurant on Larkin in the Tenderloin. The Bunrabs give the restaurant three carrots out of four, saying that "the prices are great for such fun and delicious chow." Robert Lauriston at SF Weekly says that the papaya salad is a standout and the deep-fried crab and black mushroom rolls (nem cua) are as good as those at Slanted Door.

Yummy Yummy on Irving is the place where I learned to truly love pho, the Vietnamese traditional noodle soup. While I have eaten pho at many other restaurants, Yummy Yummy's is a standout because of the broth which is bright, clean, and full of flavor.

Mai's Vietnamese Restaurant on Clement is a quiet, casual restaurant where you can eat lunch for around seven dollars. The pho here is very good, and they are known for their delicious imperial rolls. If you don't feel like crossing the part to go to Yummy Yummy, Mai's is a decent alternative.

What are your Vietnamese favorites?

To find more recommendations you can check out Chowhound or browse on Yelp.

Bodega Bistro
607 Larkin Street
(415) 921-1218

Mai's Vietnamese Restaurant
316 Clement Street
(415) 221-3046

Out the Door
1 Ferry Plaza OR The Westfield Centre
(415) 861-8032

Them Ky
717 Ellis Street
(415) 441-8525

Yummy Yummy
1015 Irving Street
(415) 566-4722

pork loin stuffed with dried apricots and cranberries in Sauterne and tied with dental floss...

No culinary disasters to speak of occurred this holiday however it was not without its hair-raising, stress-inducing, blood-vessel-bursting, screaming-for-wine moments. Bare with me here....

Freak-out #1: 4:30pm Start cooking for 11 people who are arriving at 8:00pm. Yes, start. Luckily, we had already shopped...well sort of. Two more people joined the festivities at the last minute so that morning I ran to the market for more veggies, to Pascal the baker for the baguettes and brioche, and to my blue-eyed butcher Serge for another pork loin. We were all tres jetlagged so an afternoon nap was a must to get through the night. I re-woke up around 4:15pm, and began chopping and blanching and peeling and melting and whisking and grating like a mad woman.

Pierre arrived back around 6pm and I immediately started barking orders. "Toast the brioche, juice and zest the lemon, mix the blue cheese, assemble the endive, help me tie up the pork, turn off the carrots, make the potatoes, oh and by the way we are out of olive oil, butter and Roquefort and it's Sunday night and no stores are open. AAAAAK!" John made two market runs before the first guests arrived. I don't know why I stress over these things. Two years ago, we didn't shop for food until 6pm that night(!!!) and everything turned out great. Pierre and John are so low-key in the kitchen I should just follow their lead but I guess it is the perfectionist or more likely the control freak in me coming screaming out...

Freak-out #2: 8:15pm First guests arrive and I am still in the kitchen in my big, brown, fuzzy robe (one of Oprah's "favorite things" and God love her for it) and matching big, brown, fuzzy slippers, resembling a bear more than a human according to Pierre, with wet hair and no make up. Not a sight I would wish on anyone. I heard one of the guests in the hallway ask "Should I bring the wine in the kitchen?" to which I promptly replied (read: screamed) "NOOOO!" Needless to say, no one dared approach the kitchen until after I had slinked (slunk? slunked?) off to my room to get ready.

toasted brioche cooling on the dish rack :)

A few minutes into drying my hair, I realized that I needed to relax if I was going to enjoy the evening so I opened my door and called (read: screamed) to John for a glass of wine, emphasizing the "now" part of the request, as in "Can you please bring me a glass of wine... NOOOOW?!" Five minutes later no wine and still cranky, I stomped down the hall, still bedecked in Oprah's favorite things with half a head of wet hair, to secure my glass of happy juice. I went back to my room, cranked iTunes, sipped my wine, finished drying the other half of my hair, and attempted to make myself look presentable...

Now in spite of what you have just read above, John, Pierre and I actually have a great time cooking together and it's always a collaborative effort of some sort usually involving much laughter and many cocktails. We had three pork loins (filet mignon de porc) so we decided to make it two different ways. John makes an ethereal herb-mustard pork tenderloin while I thought I'd try something new (new for me anyways) and stuff it with dried apricots and cranberries cooked in Sauterne. It was dental floss to the rescue, again, as I discovered I had used all my twine to secure my suitcases over the past few months of travel. Pierre held the meat together as I tried to keep the fruit from gushing out while tying knots with the slippery floss. It wasn't pretty but it got the job done.

John browning the pork and Eric the Actor mugging for the camera as usual...occupational hazard I guess :)

John made a sauce of the mustard-herb "sucs" (from my cooking school workbook, sucs are the caramelized proteins that form on the bottom of a roasting or saute pan as items are browned) from the roasting pan and cooked it with a healthy heaping or two of creme fraiche. Sublime. I cooked my pork loins in 2 cups of sauterne surrounded with the rest of the dried fruit. I made a sauce of the cooked fruit with a little more, ok a lot more Sauterne, some water and a few tablespoons of flour to thicken. Both were spectacular, mine much to my amazement!

New Year's Eve dinner kicked off with a delicious pepper foie gras made by a small farmer who sells his treats at a fromagerie off rue Montorgueil. The label reads: foie gras, sel (salt), poivre (pepper). C'est tout! That's all. No nitrates, coloring, etc. Pure, silky, meltingly fabulous foie gras speckled through with black pepper. We served it with grilled baguette slices and sides of oignon confit and fig confit along with a smooth Sauterne to lasso all the flavors and textures into a surreal 'degustation'. We were so hungry we forgot to take photos.

For the baby carrots, I simply blanched them first then a quick saute with butter to glaze them and warm them through. The haricots-verts I also blanched then finished sauteing with toasted sliced almonds and tossed with a snow flurry of Roquefort. I froze the Roquefort that easily grated on my microplane, resulting in a bunny slope of blue and white fluff. For the Gratin Dauphinois, I peeled and cut while Pierre assembled the layers of potatoes interspersed with blobs of creme fraiche (we later added cream to thin it out and make it more spreadable) and shredded Comte cheese. Baked for an hour, we gave it a final shot under the broiler to brown the top layer of ooey gooey cheese. I ate it for the next two days! Dessert was my standard flourless chocolate decadence hearts with raspberries, once again too frenzied to take a picture but you've seen it many times here before. Bonne Appetit et Bonne Annee 2007!

Bonne Annee! Happy New Year!
31 decembre 2006 - 1 janvier 2007
chez Laura, John et Pierre

Veuve Cliquot Champagne

Tomates Cerises, Noix de Cajou et Amandes - Cherry Tomatoes, Cashews, Almonds

Saumon Fume sur Brioche Grillee avec Citron Creme Fraiche - Smoked Salmon on Toasted Brioche with Lemon-Creme Fraiche

Endive au Roquefort Creme Fraiche et Framboises - Endive with Roquefort Creme Fraiche and Raspberries

Sauterne

Foie Gras au Poivre
Baguette Grille, Oignons Confit, Figues Confit

Vins de Bordeaux

Filet Mignon de Porc aux Fruits Secs avec Sauce aux Fruits Secs et Sauterne

Filet Mignon de Porc aux Herbes de Provence et Moutarde avec Sauce a la Moutarde et Creme Fraiche

Gratin Dauphinois

Carottes Sautees avec Beurre - Sauteed Carrots with Butter

Haricots-Verts avec Amandes et Roquefort - Green Beans with Sliced Almonds and Roquefort

Gateau Chocolat avec Framboises - Chocolate Decadence with Raspberries

et plus de Champagne......

Cheers! Happy New Year! Bonne Annee 2007!

(FYI, this menu above was proof-read by a real French person so please refrain from any snarky comments about my French spelling or grammar. Accents I can't help, tell blogger.com)

Filet Mignon de Porc aux Fruits Secs

I made this up on the fly so take my instructions with a big grain of salt, pun intended.

1. Cut pork loin in half but not all the way through and leave about 1-2 inches on each end.

2. Fill with chopped apricots and cranberries. Tie with kitchen twine or dental floss in a pinch. sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3. Place in roasting pan and spread the rest of the dried fruit around it and add 2 cups of sauterne to the pan.

4. Roast in a 400F oven for 20-30 minutes.

5. Take out and set roast aside to rest. Scoop fruit into a small sauce pan.

6. Add a cup of Sauterne and water each and reduce. Add 1-2 tablespoons of flour slowly to thicken.

7. Remove string (or dental floss) from pork. Slice pork on the bias and spoon fruit sauce over each piece.

Gratin Dauphinos

1. Peel and slice potatoes about 1/4" thick

2. Grate cheese (we used Comte) and thin out creme fraiche with a little bit of cream.

3. Layer potatoes then cheese then creme fraiche. Repeat until about an inch from the top of the dish. Stop with the cheese on top.

4. Cook in a 400F oven for an hour. If the top isn't brown and bubbly, put it under the broiler for a few minutes to brown the cheese.

Bonne Cuisinez!

Molasses isn't necessarily slower in January than it is in December. Just ask any Bostonian over the age of 85.

Apart from a possible spike in interest after bizarre, molten tragedies, I doubt many people have taken the time to note the subtle variations in velocity of room temperature molasses from one month to the other.

I attribute the phrase "as slow as molasses in January" to the fact that the only activity in which it might passively engage after Christmas is its sad return to the back of the pantry cupboard. There it will remain, stuck in its own ooze next to the rosewater and gifted holiday chutneys until the need to make gingerbread men grabs hold of us once again. Or, gingerbread woman. I don't have a lady-shaped cutter, so I opt instead to make the occasional gingerbread k. d. lang, which I never have the heart to eat.

One of my easy-to-achieve New Year's resolutions this year is to utilize my most seldom-used pantry items. This week, it's molasses. Here's a way to rid yourself of another three tablespoons:

Molasses-glazed chicken:

There are several molasses-based glazes for pork products, but precious few for chicken. I like this recipe. I even added bacon to it to play be on the safe side. Of course, I add bacon to pretty much everything.

Ingredients
4 whole chicken legs (use whatever pieces you like, I just think that the legs are better-suited--and cheaper-- than breasts)
1 large yellow onion, roughly sliced
3 strips thick-cut bacon, diced
3 tablespoons unsulphured molasses
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon allspice
2 scallions, green parts sliced for garnish
1 tablespoon cooking oil (I use olive oil)
salt

Preparation
1. Coat chicken with salt, cover and refrigerate for one hour (This step can certainly be omitted, if you are sodium-conscious. Of course, you can brine the chicken, too. Your choice). Rinse chicken under cold water. Pat dry with paper towels.

2. In a small bowl, combine molasses, maple syrup, allspice and mustard until a smooth consistency appears.

3. In a cast iron skillet, cook bacon on a medium flame, rendering as much fat as possible. When crispy, remove bacon pieces to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Ignore them for a while.

4. Add oil to the skillet. When the fats are hot enough, add chicken and brown on both sides. When sufficiently browned, turn the pieces skin side towards heaven and brush the molasses glaze over them.

5. Add in the onion. Put skillet and its contents into a 350 degree oven. Go do something else if you have to, but come back to the oven every few minutes to reglaze. Keep this up for about 45 minutes, or until you see what I am assuming to be the ankle socket of the chicken exposed. That, to me, says it's done.

Serve the chicken with caramelized apples. Or don't.

Spiced caramelized Apples:

Ingredients
2 large apples (your choice, but I would chose a variety that stands up to cooking--Red Delicious work well. I used Braeburn, which worked nicely, too.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preparation
1. Line a baking sheet or large platter with waxed paper. Mix sugar and spices in a medium-sized bowl. Toss half of the apple slices with the sugar mixture.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add sugar-coated apples. Cook until the sugar caramelizes and the apples are cooked through, turning often. About 4 minutes. Transfer to waxed paper. Clean surface of skillet with paper towels. Add clean oil and repeat steps with the remainder of the apples.

3. Place apples and onions from the chicken pan on a large platter. Add the chicken. Sprinkle with chopped scallion and bacon bits. Do try to eat it hot.

We didn't actually load up on our Kona-to-go coffee until the last day of our trip. A night flight out of Kona's completely open-air airport enabled us to have a full final day of dreaming and drooling. We drove through Waimea one last time, photographed the Waipio Overlook, and picked up souvenirs and gifts. Finally, with our borrowed copy of The Big Island Revealed guidebook open on my lap, we put ourselves on Highway 11 and set off in search of coffee. We agreed with author Andrew Doughty -- who hadn't steered us wrong our entire time on the Big Island -- that fifty-dollars a pound for Kona Joe coffee might be a bit steep for our vacation-thinned wallets. I know Kona Joe uses cutting edge (for the world of coffee) vineyard techniques by "trellising" their beans, but we decided to give them a pass this time. Instead we took Doughty up on his preference for Greenwell Farms.

Greenwell Farms' history goes all the way back to 1850 when Henry Nicholas Greenwell left the cold drizzle of England for the warm mists of Hawaii and started perfecting his Kona coffee. Critical payoff came when Greenwell's coffee was given a "Recognition Diploma" for his Kona coffee at the 1873 World's Fair in Vienna, Austria.

Upholding the traditions and standards set over a century ago by their British founder, the current owners of Greenwell Farms -- actual descendants of Henry Nicholas Greenwell -- now grow the coffee on "150 acres of the most productive land in the Kona District adjacent to Henry Nicholas Greenwell's ancestral home and purchase coffee cherry from over 200 selected farmers within the Kona region."

In that relaxed "island time" and decidedly uncaffeinated way, Greenwell Farms' tour leader and tasting expert invited us to sample every single coffee they had warming in carafes. We tried about ten -- including mac nut and chocolate mac nut-flavored coffee, which was like drinking dessert -- and finally stocked the Medium Roast and the Private Reserve. The tasting expert smiled when we "oohed" and "ahhed" over the Medium Roast because it happens to be the blend he warms his mug with all day. He also revealed that San Franciscans always seemed to favor that particular coffee.

Once we got our treasured beans home, we ground them, measured them, and brewed them. The resulting coffee was so smooth, so pure, so clean that I didn't need my usual load of sugar or milk. Here was a coffee I could actually drink black. For me, this was an amazing thing. It wasn't that long ago that Blue Bottle weaned me off of highly flavored coffeehouse drinks, but I was still blanching* my coffee with fair amounts of milk. In those months that celebrated our first reign of Greenwell Farms Coffee, milk actually spoiled in our fridge for lack of use.

We ran through our treasured Kona in too short a span, but Santa fragranced my stocking with a few more pounds of the Greenwell Estate Private Reserve, ensuring that every morning I return to Hawaii.

*I don't use the term "blanching" here in its popular culinary definition, but in and older definition which means to whiten or to pale. As in, "When Lady Arabella realized the extent of Count Dooku's perfidy and how she had compromised her reputation for all of Rotten Row to behold, she blanched and fainted dead away."

Greenwell Farm
Hwy 11 at 112 and 111 mi
Kealakekua, HI 96750

Last year my New Year's resolution was to eat more whole grains. While I might have purchased more whole grains, I'm not sure I really ate more with the exception of brown rice. Once I learned that brown rice, which takes forever to cook, could be frozen after it was cooked I made double batches and that made it easier to incorporate into my diet.

This year I am going to do much better. How can I be so sure? Because I have the latest book from Lorna Sass, Whole Grains Every Day Every Way. This book is a perfect whole grain primer where you can learn about grains like amaranth, barley, buckwheat, millet, quinoa and more. Did you know that amaranth was available whole, in flakes, puffed and in flour? I didn't.

In addition to photos of the recipes there are also photos of the grains themselves which is helpful for those times when you forget to label a jar and find yourself with "mystery grain". Recipes are divided into stand-alone soups and salads, main courses, side dishes, breakfasts, desserts and baked goods.

Surprisingly for a book on whole grains, many of the recipes are not vegetarian. Very few of the recipes sound like something you would find in a crunchy health food cookbook that emphasizes health over taste. The seasonings and ingredients are readily available, with the exception of some of the grains themselves. Fortunately mail-order sources are listed in the back of the book. I have a feeling most of the grains would be available at health food stores in the Bay Area.

Farro Soup with Kale and Cannellini
serves 6 - 8

1 cup farro, picked over and rinsed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight in ample water to cover
1 can (15 ounces) diced tomatoes, with liquid
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1 bunch kale (about 14 ounces)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil or parsley
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Set farro in a large bowl or spouted glass measuring cup and add ample cold water to cover. Set aside while you cook the beans.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large. heavy pot over medium-high heat. Stir in the onions, carrot and celery. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the onion is lightly browned, a few more minutes.

Drain the cannellini beans and add them to the pot. Add 8 cups of water. Bring hte liquid to a boil , then cover the pot and simmer until the beans are almost tender, 40 - 60 minutes (depending on age and storage conditions).

Drain the farro. Add the farro, tomatoes, and salt. Return the pot to a boil, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the kale: Discard a few inches of the tough root ends. Thinly slice the stems and coarsely chop the leaves. RInse well by dunking it in a large bowl or sink full of water. Drain well.

When the farro has simmered for 10 minutes, stir in the kale gradually, adding more as each batch wilts. Cover and continue cooking until the beans, farro, and kale are tender, usually 10 to 20 minutes more., Add the remaining tablespoon of oil, the basil, cheese, and slat and pepper to taste.

From the book: WHOLE GRAINS EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY
by Lorna Sass © 2006 by Lorna Sass. Published in November by Clarkson
Potter/Publishers, a member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.