I lined up plates in the order they appeared on the menu. This trick helps cooks plate food with speed and efficiency during a busy service.

Last week many of you participated in having a bit of fun with your food. You played The Plated Dessert Menu Game! Although it began as a lark, I must admit I might make this a regular thing if I get another pastry chef job in a restaurant. Many of you created a menu the likes of which I would not have thought of myself! Thank you! (I hope, of course, that it means you are adventurous eaters as well, supporting dedicated pastry chefs wherever you eat...)

Every day since the dessert tasting/job interview, my phone voicemail and email inbox has been full of one question, "So, how did it go?" But I don't know what to say. They sat, I plated, we ate, we talked, I left. There were 6 of them and one of me. The chef I've been discussing this position with for the last 4 months asked me to speak about what was on the table, another chef asked a lot of questions, a few comments were made and now it's all about the waiting game.

I did get to be really nerdy when it came to talking about the history of butterscotch, and why a graham cracker is called that, and why one need understand osmotic reciprocity when attempting to cook rhubarb. That was extremely fun and satisfying!

And it was amazing to see desserts that had been living in my head, as ideas or a dizzying array of free-floating components, come together on a plate, be set forth in front of humans, and eaten as if they were finished sentences, cohesive concrete visions. Like digital photography, plated dessert making can produce immediate results, an on-the-spot culmination of the conceptual and the actual.

Of course one hopes that one's desserts will also be delicious.

Without further ado, I give you The Menu presented as my dessert tasting on Monday May 14, 2007, 12 noon, at an undisclosed downtown San Francisco restaurant for the purpose of trying out for a pastry chef job:

Butterscotch Pot de creme with Pecan Shortbread
-- Extra component: chantilly.
Cherries & Cream, a Napoleon with Poetic License
-- Double vanilla shortbread, carnaroli rice pudding infused with California Bay Laurel, cherries reduced in cherry vinegar and pitted cherries au natural.
Ricotta Cheesecake with Crunchy Poached Rhubarb
-- Served with rhubarb-rose geranium sauce.
Warm Milk Chocolate with Various Chocolate Textures and Malted Ice Cream
-- El Rey milk chocolate veloute baked atop Devil's Food Cake lifted by cocoa meringue, warmed by hot fudge sauce and garnished with malt ice cream sitting on candied cacao nibs.
Hot Doughnuts with Blushing Sugar and An Egg Cream Chaser
-- Pate a choux doughnuts rolled in sugar made with mesquite flour, fleur de sel and ground cacao nibs served with vanilla bean egg cream.
Bright Lemon Baked Alaska, Brown Butter and Shuna's Famous Graham Crackers
-- Shuna's famous graham crackers sitting against lemon sherbet and brown butter ice cream hiding under torched Swiss meringue.

The cherry Napoleon.

Warm Milk Chocolate with Various Chocolate Textures and Malted Ice Cream.

I've written about a number of plated dessert tastings I've done in the past few years. Interested in knowing more? Click here.

Thank you, all of you, for playing last week's game, reading, imagining, and coming along for the ride!

One of the first cookbooks in my collection is also one of my favorites: Polish Heritage Cookery. I came across this heavy tome at a quirky bookstore that once lived on Polk Street, before a fire ravaged the floors above and water rained down upon its randomly, precariously stacked books. The store's hours were irregular, and those who paid in cash received half off new cover prices. While it was the absolute last place a claustrophobe would want to spend time, Books and Co. was heaven for lovers of books about art, history and food. It epitomized the browsing experience at its most enjoyable.

Polish Heritage Cookery has the voice I miss in old recipes, where strong opinions and sometimes random advice were sprinkled in among the teaspoons and tablespoons. The authors, Robert and Maria Strybel, gathered an impressive 2,200 recipes covering a wide expanse from vanilla sugar to air-dried Pomeranian pork sausage. While illustrated with helpful drawings for the more complicated recipes, the book is free of photographs. Instead, the recipes unroll in story-like paragraphs and Polish names add poetry to every title. Old World classics and their multiple variations reveal Lithuanian, Italian, French, Jewish, Bohemian and Bavarian influences and trace a fascinating culinary history of Eastern European food.

Whey Soup with Rice (or the sweeter Whey Soup with Raisins), Roast Hare in Sour Cream Polonaise, Carp Baked with Apples, Carpathian Mountain Cake, Cherry Butter, and pages upon pages of pickle recipes include hints that only a grandmother might pass along. Adding skins from black bread helps "hurry-up" the curing of pickles. A glass of cold sour milk is recommended for the morning after "an overabundance of partying." At the end of a baked potato recipe, the authors note that adding a piece of kielbasa and a tomato would make a balanced meal, while on the next page, hearty Potato and Salt Pork Sausage is not recommended for "those with delicate stomachs."

The most stained pages in my own copy of the Strybels' cookbook span the pastry and preserve chapters. For the last two years, I've been hosting Doughnuts of the World brunches. A loose definition of doughnut allows me to experiment with angel wings, churros and beignets. Polish jam-filled paczki, however, would please even the most hard-core of the purists.

Below are excerpts from the Strybels' detailed description for making small paczki.

Homemade raspberry jam stands in for the rose-hip jelly, cherry preserves or powidla (thick plum butter) suggested in the original recipe.

"Although these luscious doughnuts are available year-round at Polish pastry shops, they reign supreme on Thusty Czwartek (Fat Tuesday), which begins the final fling of the Pre-Lenten karnawal of zapusty. More paczki are sold that day than at any other time of the year. You can try your hand at making your own by proceeding according to this recipe. Dissolve 2 cakes crushed yeast in 1 c. lukewarm milk, sift in 1 c. flour, add 1 T. sugar, mix, cover, and let stand in a warm place to rise. Beat 8 egg yolks with 2/3 c. powdered sugar and 2 T. vanilla sugar until fluffy. Sift 2 1/2 c. flour into bowl, add sponge, egg mixture, and 2 T. grain alcohol or 3 T. rum, and knead well until dough is smooth and glossy. Gradually add 1 stick melted lukewarm butter and continue kneading until dough no longer clings to hands and bowl and air blisters appear. Cover with cloth and let rise in warm place until doubled. Punch down dough and let rise again. Transfer dough to floured board, sprinkle top with flour, and roll out about 1/2 inch thick. With glass or biscuit cutter, cut into rounds. Arrange on floured board." [NB: I substituted 1 1/2 packets of dry yeast for the yeast cakes.]

The soft dough feels lovely. Still, some of my guests decide flat, American-style jelly doughnuts are easier to form and fry.

"Place a small spoonful of fruit filling (rose-hip preserves, cherry preserves, powidla, or other thick jam) off center on each round. Raise edges of dough and pinch together over filling, then roll between palms snowball fashion to form balls. Let rise in warm place until doubled."

The Strybel's write that Polish pastries like paczki "may be fried in vegetable shortening or oil instead of lard, but they won't be as tasty. The choice is yours."

"Heat 1 1/2-2 lbs. lard in deep pan so paczki can float freely during frying. It is hot enough when a small piece of dough dropped into the hot fat immediately floats up. Fry packzi under cover without crowding several min. until nicely browned on bottom, then turn over and fry uncovered on the other side another 3 min. or so. If fat begins to burn, add several slices of peeled raw potato which will both lower the temp. and absorb any burnt flavor. Transfer fried paczki to absorbent paper and set aside to cool, When cool, dust generously with powdered sugar, glaze or icing."

"Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken." -- Jonathan Swift

One sunny afternoon recently, I found myself in the Mission with a fork poised above a towering slice of double-crust apple pie. Before I could mangle the freshly baked fruit sculpture in front of me, my binging companion spoke up. "First you have to test the crust," she said, flaunting her culinary school education with a flick of the wrist. "A perfect crust is so flaky that it can be easily cut with the side of a fork."

The crust shattered nicely. With the pie cleared for landing, I sank fork-first into the dimpled depths of gently spiced apples, savoring one bite and then another before it was time to move on. Though my taste buds pleaded for just one more nibble, this was my first visit to Mission Pie, and I was staring down one small tart, two oversized pieces of pie, and an entire galette. I had work to do.

Mission Pie opened in January with a simple concept: to make good pie. After the "I'm so thin, you're so thin" 1980s and the anti-carb hysteria of more recent years, dessert is finally back in style. It's so in, in fact, that entire restaurants are devoted to nothing but sweet nothings, cafés dedicated solely to chocolate are popping up all over, and dessert tastings are available on more and more menus. In this environment, the pie café is an idea whose time has come.

Mission Pie is an offshoot of Pie Ranch, a non-profit educational farm in San Mateo County that works with Mission High School students. "The original idea was to create a food business as an urban anchor point for Pie Ranch so the youth we work with would have a place in town to come to," said Karen Heisler, co-founder of both Pie Ranch and Mission Pie. "Pie seemed like the obvious choice."

In addition to their farm duties, teens ring up purchases and whip the cream by hand with wire whisks. Right now, the pies are baked at Destination Baking Company by Joseph Schuver, a principal in both businesses, but plans are already underway to build an on-site bakery that will be operational by next March. Then the students can start turning out flaky crusts layered with banana cream or apple themselves.

Most of the ingredients are organic and many are local. Pie Ranch supplies things like pumpkins and berries when in season, while other items -- Sierra Orchards walnuts, for example -- are grown nearby. Scones, savory Mystipies, and organic fair-trade Taylor Maid coffee are also for sale. The café is small but inviting, with pies displayed on bright pink and orange cake plates and daily selections advertised on a colorful chalkboard outside the entrance.

Pies here are refreshingly old-fashioned. On our visit, I fell in love with the walnut tartlet ($2), a miniature variation on pecan pie that layers caramel-colored walnuts with sweet curd that's a little bit jiggly, a little bit firm. My partner in pie suggested pairing bites of walnut and apple ($3.50) so I greedily piled some of each on my fork. Genius. The open-faced strawberry galette ($5.50) was a bit too tart after the sweeter choices, but I liked how the jammy fruit was sprinkled with crunchy oats and sugar crystals, and the egg white-washed crust was near perfect. A thick slice of sweet potato pie, decorated with a gigantic blob of whipped cream, tasted lighter and brighter than pumpkin.

We managed to eat most of our gargantuan order, and I took home the rest to my boyfriend. He ate the leftovers with eyes closed and when he was finished, he pushed the plate away, patted his belly, and smiled. Proof positive of Kathy's observation: "Pie is a make-people-happy kind of food."

Mission Pie
2901 Mission Street (enter on 25th Street)
San Francisco
(415) 282-1500
Open 7 days a week

Note: A write-up of any restaurant that has been open less than a month is considered a "First Impression." Meaning, we want to bring you the latest and greatest from around SF but acknowledge that new spots may have some kinks to work out. We keep that in mind, and you should, too.

Is Peruvian the new "it" food? Judging by the slew of articles written about it in the last year, the answer is a resounding si. From the New York Times to USA Today, from Gourmet to the Washington Post, it's getting a lot of buzz. Nuevo Latino cooking isn't new to San Francisco; we've been enjoying Fresca and Limon for years. Nevertheless, three weeks after Piqueo's opened, I found myself winding my way up the pockmarked hills of Bernal Heights to see what the city's newest Peruvian place had to offer.

If the swarms of hungry locals are any indication, Piqueo's is already a full-blown success. When my friend and I walked in, it was still light outside and the restaurant was only half-full, but for the better part of dinner, I watched the seemingly never-ending crowd on the sidewalk outside replenish itself every time a lucky group sat down. Undoubtedly, one of the secrets to Piqueo's instantaneous popularity is the mere virtue of its existence: this is a part of town with very few chic restaurants. Chef/owner Carlos Altamirano and his wife Shu (who also own Mochica) put a lot of care into making the space sophisticated and inviting. Arched doorways divide the restaurant into three rooms, and the many windows keep it feeling light and airy. Vivid photographs of modern-day Peru hang on brick red walls, and a lemon tree blooms on the granite bar in front of the petite open kitchen.

Piqueo's bills itself as "contemporary Peruvian cuisine," which seems to mean a mix of California-grown ingredients and items flown in from Altamirano's native Peru -- the giant corn that appears in nearly every dish, for instance -- combined in authentic Peruvian preparations. The menu is divided into piqueos (small plates), ceviches, and entrées. Every meal begins with a small bowl of what they call picadillos, a mixture of fried whole garbanzo beans and dried corn kernels showered with flecks of tomato, red onion, cilantro and queso fresco. It was served with a spoon and nothing else, so we ended up eating it with our fingers. If heroin is anything like these zingy niblets, I can see how you might not notice when Social Services takes your kid. Thank God my friend was dieting -- I got to eat most of the bowl myself.

Since ceviche is a signature Peruvian dish, we started with the ceviche mixto ($14). Like nearly everything we ordered, it was dramatically plated. Two mussels on the half-shell and a tangle of raw red onion sheltered chunks of halibut, squid, and prawns. The lime marinade was brash and spicy thanks to aji limo and rocoto, red Peruvian chilies, and we found ourselves wishing for a spoon to better lap it up. The bright coral prawns were the best part of the dish, and if I went again, I'd simply order the ceviche de camarones.

After one bite, I dismissed the choclo peruano ($9) as too much like the picadillos to be worth ordering separately. But the cold salad of giant Peruvian corn, chunks of queso fresco, tomatoes, red onions, and lemon-oregano dressing eventually won me over. Though its flavors are indeed similar -- it's practically the same dish, except for the fried garbanzos -- it provided a cool and spirited contrast to the warm dishes we ordered. Word to the wise: it's hard to avoid palate fatigue when so many dishes are seasoned with the same spices and flavors, so order carefully.

Our waitress raved about the anticuchon ($10), skewered sirloin brochettes drizzled with sweet and spicy BBQ-style panca sauce, but we found the meat overcooked and the sauce salty beyond reason. I simply couldn't finish what I put on my plate. It was also one-dimensional, save for the delectable puddle of avocado crema, which might have rescued a properly seasoned rendition from monotony.

Other than the picadillos, our favorite dish of the night was a plate of fried plantains in an orange-cinnamon glaze ($7). I'm not much for bananas, but I have adored plantains since I first tried them in an El Salvadoran restaurant with a heap of black beans and tangy sour cream on the side. As our waitress warned us, these are sweet enough to be dessert, so we decided to eat them last. From the caramelized sugars in the sauce to the slightly sour, creamy mash of the platanitos, every bite was bliss.

Unfortunately, we'd forgotten about the garlic shrimp ($10) still coming our way. After dessert, it was hard to go back, and when I woke up with vampire-slaying breath the next morning, I sort of wished I hadn't. Still, the shrimp were nicely cooked and the griddled bread was the perfect sponge for all that garlicky sauce.

Our waitress was knowledgeable and friendly, and any small flubs in service -- the lack of changed plates between courses, the traffic jam of dishes sent out too quickly by the kitchen -- should work themselves out as Piqueo's gets through opening month madness. Even if they don't, I'm already craving those picadillos.

Piqueo's
830 Cortland Avenue
San Francisco
(415) 282-8812
Open for dinner 7 nights a week

When it come to ginger ale, I've had only one opinion: drink it when you're fluish. Since that was the childhood application for me, it's pretty hard to separate fever, nausea, and vomiting from those emerald green bottles.

Until now.

After my last Fever-Tree musing, I was invited to participate in intimate Fever-Tree event at Perbacco. Not only did I get to meet the charming Tim Warrilow, the Fever-Tree "plant hunter," but I got to experience side-by-side comparisons of Fever-Tree mixers against the leading brands.

I had already done the tonic water comparison myself. The only difference was that I had completely ignored the idea that Canada Dry tonic was even worth the plastic it was bottled in. To me, Canada Dry tonic water has a sweet, glue-like smell and an even worse flavor. At the tasting, it assailed my tastebuds with high fructose corn syrup and choked out my throat with unctuous spittle. Not attractive.

However, the ginger ale taste off was a completely different matter. Canada Dry's offering smelled and tasted like Sprite. Fine, but not really ginger ale, right? Schwepps' offering smelled like a cleaning product and tasted like practically nothing. However, Fever-Tree's ginger ale not only spiced my nostrils with raw, sliced, heady ginger but it actually tasted like ginger. In the past, I have held firm that ginger ale in cocktails is nothing compared to ginger beer. That is has to burn going down and make you sneeze after one sip. When it comes to Fever-Tree, I stand corrected. For this particular brand, I might actually relax my ginger beer stranglehold.

Fever-Tree's ginger ale, like all of Fever-Tree's mixers, are made from "all natural ingredients, sourced from around the world. A blend of natural botanicals, spring water and a touch of can sugar, Fever-Tree mixers are free of artifical preservatives, ingredients, sweeteners and coloring." Specifially, Fever-Tree Ginger Ale is made up of three different kinds of ginger: fresh, green Ecuadorean ginger, Cochin ginger from India, and Nigerian ginger from Africa.

After the tasting, I scuttled home to try out a new and very simple cocktail. Full disclosure: while Fever-Tree did give me tonic water samples, which I totally didn't need since my husband and I had just stocked up on a recent trip to BevMo, they did not give me ginger ale samples. Those I already had in the house, just for kicks.

While on the same aforementioned BevMo trip, I picked up a bottle of gin that had been a curiosity to me for quite some time. Tanqueray Rangpur gin has all the clean notes of regular Tanqueray, but has the added kick of being distilled with Rangpur limes. We first sampled the gin in a very dry straight-up martini, but the aggressive lime tones convinced me I was drinking some old l'Occitane verbena perfume. However, when combined with the Fever-Tree ginger ale, the lime was slightly muted but, like Eddie Murphy in Coming to America, still very happy to be there. The ginger sung out spicy and strong without being overly sweet, and the fragrant lime just played right into its piquant hands.

It's a great summer-time sipper that can be enjoyed when the weather gets hot again.

Rangpur and Ginger

2 ounces Tanqueray Rangpur Gin
Ice
Fever-Tree Ginger Ale

The Shake:
In an Old Fashioned, add the gin, ice, and fill to the top with ginger ale.

This year fresh strawberries are positively delicious. If you haven't eaten any yet, what are you waiting for? Go get some now!

Strawberries are one of the fruits you should defintely buy organic. According to some reports, strawberries in California are treated with more than 300 pounds of pesticides an acre. As a comparison, conventional farming currently uses about 25 pounds of pesticides an acre. Strawberries have been found to have the highest level of hormone-affecting pesticides, including benomyl, vinclozolin, and endosulfan. Not surprisingly there tends to be more chemical residue in strawberries than in most fruits and vegetables. Chemicals are even used to enhance the color of strawberries as well as to preserve them. One day "conventionally grown" will be organic, but until then, make sure you are choosing wisely.

My favorite thing to do with strawberries is to slice them, sprinkle them with sugar and to serve them with crepes and plain yogurt. It makes a terrific breakfast.

Here's my recipe for crepes:

Basic Crepes

2 large eggs (or 1/2 cup of egg replacement product)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 pinch salt
1 cup milk (any kind is fine including nonfat)
1 teaspoon oil

Throw all the ingredients into the blender and blend away! The batter only needs to rest 15 minutes or so (to reduce bubbles) then heat a non-stick crepe pan over medium heat and spray lightly with cooking oil. Ladle approximately two tablespoons of the batter into the pan and tilt the pan to cover the bottom with a thin, even coating. Cook the crepe until small bubbles form on the surface and it is barely firm, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Flip and repeat until crepe is done.

Every Mother's Day, my family gathers in a park in Long Beach and has a raucous celebration of mothers, family, and food. It started over 20 years ago when my godmother and her sister used to go out to a local park early and stake out spots for us. I would go with them sometimes, and I think that they used it as much as an excuse to hang out and chat as a way to save us a spot. Both of them passed away years ago, but it is a great tradition that we continue. It's now the day that the largest contingent of our family gets together -- our version of an annual family reunion.

My mom's side of the family is all of Mexican descent and rather large, so the picnic usually has an attendance of at least 50 people -- most of whom are related to me in one way or another. The family tree can get a little confusing, and we all laugh as we try and remember if people are actually related to us or if they have just been friends of the family for so long that we think they're related.

Grandma Lupe

My grandmother, who just turned 88 two weeks ago, is the matriarch of the family and so she plays a special role in the day -- greeting everyone as they come, kissing the new babies, and generally holding court as everyone comes by to talk to her.

What started as a fairly casual food tradition has more fanfare in recent years. The general "rule", if you could call it that, for the picnic is that everyone brings lunch for their own families. But mom likes to bring enough food for grandma to be able to offer food to anyone who wants it, so while most families would bring food for 4 or 6 people, we end up feeding around 25 people.

Mom has an additional rule of trying not to repeat a picnic meal too often. In the past, we have served barbecued beef sandwiches, chili, and fried chicken. This year, we finally decided on carne asada burritos after several days of discussions. We then built the rest of the menu.

The Season's First Cherries

I decided to put out a large bowl of cherries for the family to munch on throughout the day. I had been eating cherries during my whole week in Los Angeles -- they are one of my favorite seasonal fruits. The farmers' market cherry vendors in Southern California seem to be a couple weeks ahead of our Northern California crop resulting in fully sweet and delicious cherries right now. "First cherries of the season, make a wish," said my grandmother as she took a handful of them. They have always been a popular snack in our family and I have childhood memories of eating many plump, nearly black cherries at my grandmother's house in the height of the season.

As condiments for the burritos, mom prepared pickled carrots, green onion with cilantro, radishes, guacamole, salsa and marinated peppers. She reads blogs on a regular basis and printed out Anita's recipe for " 'Just like North Woods Inn's' Red Cabbage Slaw" and made it as a side salad. I personally think it went perfectly inside our burritos and gave a nice crunch in contrast to the soft carne asada meat.

Tamari marinated barbecued asparagus

As a vegetable, we prepared a family favorite: Tamari marinated barbecued asparagus. Making this asparagus simply involves marinating it in a ziploc bag with tamari and a small amount of oil for as much time as you can -- anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 day -- and then putting it on the grill for a couple of minutes. It's a dish that often changes the minds of avowed asparagus-haters, and those of us who love asparagus eat it prepared this way like it's candy.

Texas caviar

I made a dish that is loosely based on Texas caviar -- a black-eyed pea salad that is common in the South. I'd never made it before, and most of the recipes I could find online involved canned black-eyed peas, canned corn, and a bottled Italian dressing. I wanted to make it a little more homemade and seasonal so put together a salad with black-eyed peas (cooked from dried in a pressure cooker), red onion, green onion, parsley, celery, and small yellow chile peppers for spice.

I then made a vinaigrette using one part lemon juice to two parts oil, salt and pepper, and garlic. I kept combining the ingredients until I was happy with the result, making sure to let the vinaigrette and other ingredients meld together for a few minutes between each tasting and adjustment. I apologize for not having a formal recipe for you, but I think this is something that is easily done to taste. Make sure to leave the black-eyed peas on the slightly hard side so that they stay in whole bean form in the salad and do not turn to mush through the mixing process.

Jake and Lucy

It's amazing to have a tradition like this with such a large family. The yearly picnic marks a way to keep track of everyone -- new babies being born, spouses and significant others coming and going, the poignant abasence of those who have passed away, and children growing at astonishing rates. By the end of the day, we were exhausted yet content. Another Mother's Day picnic passed, and a new one to look forward to next year.

Anthony Bourdain hit the nail on the head in his iconic book Kitchen Confidential, when he said, "pastry chefs are the neurologists of the kitchen." We like things just so, and will stop only at premeditated murder, to make sure it stays this way. We are organized to the point of scary, and we guard our (often tiny) stations like junkyard dogs.

Pastry chefs like things clean, orderly, in excellent working order, and labeled. When I worked at Bolo in NYC, I would lock our station's chinois (fine mesh strainer) in my locker and would refuse the chef's request for it, even when he begged. I knew our pristine chinois would be introduced to garlic, or worse: a 4 oz. ladle. (If you must force something through this expensive, delicate piece of equipment, use the smallest ladle: 1-2 oz.)

As some of you know, I've spent the last seven days baking up a storm for a major plated dessert tasting I have today at noon. I'm working primarily out of restaurant kitchen in San Francisco, which is great because, in my one bedroom flat in Berkeley, I don't have a walk-in refrigerator. Nor do I have a row of burners and any number of ovens for various sensitive custards and buttery shortbread.

But working out the details has been a logistical challenge. Lists and lists and lists get made, sometimes twice a day. I'm arranging time sensitive batters, freezing times, a fight for space in an extremely busy establishment, and I want the seven people eating my desserts today to taste the freshest of flavors! I've only been able to be in said kitchen from @ 6:30-9/10 AM a few days, and the rest of the time I'm testing components in my home. I've also wanted to build in time for testing, tasting and re-making if needed. Disasters always take more time than we think they will.

The trick to plated desserts is to create a menu that is all things to all people. Desserts need to be:
Both comforting and innovative, cold and hot, soft and crunchy, smooth and toothsome, sweet and a little salty, a balance of acid and fat, pretty to look at, right-sized and worth the price (don't get me started on this), eaten only with one utensil, have a pronounce-able name on the menu, sweets the waiters like, something you want to eat after that which came before, have a plating style which matches the aesthetic of the dining room/savory food/the diner's outfits, seasonal or mostly chocolate, flavorful or too sweet, dumbed down or esoteric and conceptual.

As you can see, it's a tall order.

Pastry chefs are responsible for feeding you your last morsel. We can help you to leave happy or discouraged. We can save a mediocre meal or confuse a good one with awfulness. We can give you more of what you've been eating since the 80's: creme brulee, warm molten chocolate cake, apple tart, lemon bars, hot fudge sundaes and mint leaf garnishes. Or we can introduce you to fruits at their peak of flavor, subtle herb infused ice creams and pot de cremes, seemingly savory ingredients infiltrating the last course, and allow your imaginations to soar as we push the envelope for you.

If you trust the pastry chef, you can take virtual trips to sights unseen and explored! Beyond your wildest imaginings...

The pastry chef's prep lists at Coi.

To this end, I bring you a game. The Plated Dessert Menu Game.

I give you 6 mains, and a list of possible components. Each main needs at least 3 components to comprise one cohesive plated dessert. You can take creative license with one dessert and add a component that's not on the list, but you have to say why you chose to do so.

Mains:

1. Butterscotch pot de creme 2. Carnaroli rice pudding 3. Warm milk chocolate veloute 4. Ricotta cheesecake (this has no crust) 5. Pate a choux doughnuts 6. Lemon Sherbet

Components:

Crunchy poached rhubarb dice, Vanilla Egg Cream, Chantilly, Malt ice cream, Cherries, Brown Butter ice cream, Candied Citrus Zests, Mesquite flour, Rose geranium, Pecan shortbread, Warm chocolate sauce, Cherry vinegar, Double Vanilla Shortbread, Cocoa nibs, Fleur de Sel, Dacquoise, California Bay Laurel gelee, Shuna's Famous Graham Crackers, and Swiss meringue.

GO!

As we draw smaller and smaller circles around our food community, we often forget the power of recipes to connect us to each other.

Nancy's "Benz Cake" recipes in her baker's shorthand.

Recipes in the personal sense. I'm not talking about the results of a keyword search or a formula in that latest best-selling cookbook, not the pasta-of-the-month at the back of a magazine or the marketing copy on the back of a box. Along with vegetables grown by farmers with real names and faces, a local food system includes dishes with memories of people we actually know.

It's difficult, I know. Epicurious is a bookmark in my browser, and one of my favorite pastimes is decorating cookbooks with little sticky notes. I can't argue against the lure of convenience, the promise of infallibility or the excitement of the exotic.

Like with many lessons in life, however, it took a hard loss to remind me of what's important. I took for granted personal recipes until that fateful day when I couldn't find the torn, black pocket folder that had followed me from home to home. In it were recipes collected from years of Christmas cookie exchanges, letters from my mom transcribing dishes we ate together in Vietnam, my college roommate's family's tortillas, how to ferment injera from my DC neighbor, my babysitter's microwave chile. Notes to myself, notes to share with others.

Recipe cards sent -- along with said cake and chocolate sauce -- to celebrate a long-distance birthday.

You don't have to spend all your days in the kitchen to value recipes. We need kitchen messengers as much as we need cooks. The next time you hear yourself saying, "This is soooo good!" ask for the recipe. Then pass it along, often and with love.

It's Mother's Day. Ask the favorite mother in your life (yes, it's not always our own...) for her story of a dish, any dish. It could be a lifeline from the war ration years or a treasure enjoyed only once a year or the soup that gets her from Monday over Wednesday to Friday. Get the recipe and add it to your stash. Then someday soon, give it away.

Notes on the back of a napkin, the curious cook's antidote to NDAs.

Bonjour mes amis! Apologies for going AWOL on y'all the past few months. I've been contending with some health issues including emergency surgery here in Paris but I'm finally getting my energy back and am ready to cook!

My last Phenomenal Women Dinner was so heartwarming I thought I'd try it on the other side of the ocean so this winter when I was back in San Francisco, I gathered my posse for lunch and toasted to another group of phenomenal women....sans shoe. As I was planning the meal a few days before, I realized I'd left my fabulous chocolate stilleto back in Paris. Quelle horreur! What to do?! I needed something fabulous on the table to salute these fabulous women so rather than print the inspiring Maya Angelou poem, Phenomenal Women, on the back of the menu like I did previously, I decided to buy everyone the single poem book adorned with Paul Gaugin's "Woman with a Fan". Thank God for Amazon.com and 2-day delivery!

Of course a meal chez moi isn't complete without a culinary disaster and this one was no excpetion. The evening before I realized my immersion blender was back in Paris in good company with my chocolate stilleto. AAAAAAAK! How was I going to puree the soup?! I rushed off to the store minutes before it closed. They only had the cordless kind that plugged into the wall to charge. Fine. Whatever. Ring it up. I plugged the blender into the wall and went to sleep.

The next morning as guest arrival time was quickly approaching, we went to blend the soup and my trusty new immersion blender whirred for about 28 seconds then sputtered out. AAAAAAAK! It needed to charge for 24 hours. Damn! I dug out my 10 year old Cuisinart, washed off the inch and a half of dust and grime from 9-1/2 years of sitting in the box, and started blending in batches. Disaster averted. It was still too thick but at least it didn't look like cat hurl anymore. I topped the soup with a star shaped slice of beet and a drizzle of truffle oil. Et voila!

Dejeuner des Femme Phenomenale!
Phenomenal Woman Lunch!

Piper Champagne Brut Imperial
Gougeres de Comte - Comte Cheese Gougeres

Domaine de Viking, Vouvray 2000
Potage de Panais et Celeriac - Parsnip and Celeriac Soup

(not my plates!)

Salade des Coquilles Saint-Jacques, Salade Verte avec Vinaigrette des Framboises - Mixed Green Salad with Sauteed Scallops, Raspberry Vinaigrette

Asperges Vertes et Blanches - White and Green Asparagus

Savigny-Narbantons Premier Cru 2004 - Camus-Bruchon et Fils
Assiette des Fromages - Cheese Plate

Decadence de Chocolat avec Jus de Clementine - Chocolate Decadence with Odwalla Tangerine Reduction

RECIPES............................

Seared Scallops on Mixed Greens & Beets with Raspberry Champagne Vinaigrette - serves 4

20 scallops (5 per person)
olive oil
sea salt & fresh ground pepper
4 handfuls of mixed greens
roast beets (small beets quartered, large beets in eighths, 6 pieces per person)
1/2 cup champagne
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/2 cup raspberries, mashed with a fork
1-1/2 cups light flavored olive oil or vegetable oil

1. Make vinaigrette. Combine champagne, raspberries, shallot, salt & pepper. Smoosh raspberries with a fork. Slowly whisk in oil.

2. Heat a pan over medium heat with olive oil. Sauté scallops until golden brown on each side.

3. While scallops are cooking, toss greens and beets separately with vinaigrette. Season greens with sea salt & fresh ground pepper as needed.

4. Place greens and beets on half the plate. Place asparagus spears on the other half of the plate.

5. Place 5 scallops in a circle on greens and serve.

Roasted Asparagus - serves 4

1 bunch asparagus
1 tbsp olive oil
3-4 cloves chopped garlic
zest of 1 lemon
sea salt
fresh ground pepper

1. Heat oven to 400F.

2. Snap off bottoms of asparagus. Peel a few inches up from bottom with harp peeler.

3. Place asparagus on sheet pan with foil. Coat with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt, fresh ground pepper, garlic, lemon zest.

4. Roast for approximately 10-15 minutes.

5. Serve warm or let cool and serve at room temperature.

Timeline

1. set table night before
2. chill champagne, water
3. peel, cube and roast celeriac and parsnips
4. saute onions, leeks
5. cook soup
6. make chocolate batter
7. gougeres mis en place (set out all ingredients)
8. prep asparagus
9. reduce mandarin juice
10. prep beets (cut 10 stars, quarter the rest)
11. prep greens
12. prep scallops
13. make vinaigrette
14. make gougeres
(guests arrive. serve champagne, gougeres)
15. roast asparagus
16. warm bowls
17. serve soup
(saute scallops)
18. serve salad
19. serve cheese course
(bake chocolate dessert)
20. serve dessert!

Bon appetit!