Pagan Restaurant with Melanie

Last night, I took a quick cab ride home from Bourbon and Branch, where I had gone to have a drink from the amazing Martin Cate. Cate was the genius behind Forbidden Island in Alameda until a few months ago. He is fighting the good fight -- keeping the tradition of impeccably executed Tiki drinks alive. The cry that you heard around the Bay Area sometime around January was his fans freaking out when we found out that he was leaving Forbidden Island, and we did not know where he would be going next. He is doing a guest stint at Bourbon and Branch and you can try his drinks tonight (March 31) along with the throngs. It's a rare night that I happily wait in line 45 minutes for a drink, but last night I waited (and waited and waited) to try a delicious Port Light -- a drink with bourbon, passionfruit and honey that was originally made at Trader Vic's. If you choose to go tonight, you don't need a reservation -- Cate is set up in the Library (entrance on O'Farrell).

Anyway, back to the cabbie. We got to chatting -- about food, of course -- and I found out that he is Burmese. "I am Burmese and I like Mexican men, I must be honest about that," he said as we giggled. On Sunday night, I had gone to the Burmese Pagan Restaurant in the Richmond for the second time. He corrected my pronunciation of the restaurant (it's like 'Ba-Gone' with a short 'a' sound) and laughed as I told him that I want to eat ginger salad right before I die. "You must like very strong, spicy flavors," he said.

The cabbie went on to describe Burmese food in general and said that it is very influenced by the countries around Burma -- Thailand, India and China. Burmese cuisine has lots of salads, some curry dishes, and features some fermented and sour flavors. More than anything, my exposure to Burmese cuisine has been highlighted by dishes which have many layers of complexity and are delicious in their balance of flavor.

Pagan Restaurant has been open for a little over a year, and has become popular among food lovers for its comfortable space and delicious food. San Francisco is lucky in having several Burmese restaurants, including Burma Superstar, Larkin Express Deli, and Mandalay Restaurant, and Pagan is now being listed in the same breath when talking about great Burmese food.

If you decide to check out Pagan restaurant, consider trying these dishes:

Ginger Salad (Gin Thut). Most people who have been to Burmese food have tried Tea Leaf Salad (Lap Pat Thut), a delicious salad tossed with a mixture of tea leafs -- almost in a pesto-like form. While I like the tea leaf salad, my heart is with its gingery sister. Gin Thut features nuts, garlic, dried shrimp, some legumes, and a pile of dried, pickled ginger. Everything is carefully tossed and each bite is a delicious mix of heat from the ginger, along with salt from the nuts, and acid from the dressing.

Samusa Soup This soup has falafel and samosas in it, along with cabbage and lentils in a complex, spicy dark broth.

Pan-fried okra with prawns. I was surprised by my reaction to this dish. The prawns were frozen and not very good, however that did not detract from my love of the flavors in the rest of the dish. The okra were crunchy and only lightly cooked. And the spicy sauce was fantastically delicious and balanced.

Shwe Taung Kauswer (#43, Coconut Chicken Curry). The curry here is more savory than sweet, but delivers very little heat. I almost thought of it more as a complex gravy than a curry as I have learned to know. This was served with noodles and a generally comforting dish.

Related Links:
A wonderful primer on Burmese cuisine on Chowhound
Pagan review, Chronicle

Bourbon and Branch
501 Jones Street (at O'Farrell)
San Francisco
415.346.1735

Pagan Restaurant
3199 Clement (at 33rd)
San Francisco
415.751.2598

Once upon a time, hens took a break during the winter, waiting for the arrival of longer, warmers days to lay their eggs and hatch their chicks. Although we've entrapped them in an endless summer of egg production, it's good to stop occasionally and remember that so many basic foods, especially the ones we take for granted, are still wonders of nature.

Yes, I know. If I were truly reverent, I would be a vegetarian or a vegan or, in the end, a breatharian. But I am weak.

And I love to eat.

Everything.

So when a dozen eggs recently made their way from a friend's chicken coop in Petaluma to my kitchen counter, I knew exactly how I would enjoy each and every one.

One of my favorite, work-a-day breakfasts is a couple of fried eggs over rice or, in the classic Saigon fashion, sunny-side up with a hunk of baguette, a drizzle of soy sauce and lots of cracked black pepper. To celebrate this week's very special acquisition, however, I fell back on a somewhat fussy but deeply comforting dish that I make whenever I have an abundance of supremely fresh eggs.

It's a blend of techniques I've gathered together over the years from various purist recipes for The Perfect Scrambled Eggs. The two key trucs are: 1) a garlic clove impaled squarely on the tines of a fork and 2) a double boiler set over barely simmering water. The first adds just a hint of depth without masking the egg's natural flavor, and the latter insulates its silken curds from the toughening abuse of direct heat.

There are many ways to change this dish, but the beauty of it lies in an utter simplicity of ingredients tempered with doting attention at the stove. The usual copious amounts of sweet cream butter are, of course, de rigueur. If you're feeling a bit more extravagant, a drizzle of truffle oil is entirely acceptable, or if you're way more moneyed than I, you can just shave the truffles right on top.

Strangely, I have never made this dish for anyone else. It's food that I enjoy in solitude, reveling in each private mouthful, free of the distraction of conversation or the worry of entertaining or the need to share.

Springtime Scrambled Eggs

Coordinate your bread toasting so that the slices will be ready just before the eggs are. With a dish this tender, choose a more delicate crumb and trim away the crusts. Anyone who insists on cooking the eggs until they are completely dry should not bother with this recipe.

Ingredients:
1 large clove garlic, peeled and halved
3 small eggs laid no more than 2 days ago
2 tablespoons half-and-half
Pinch of salt
Pinch of freshly ground white pepper
1-2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preparation:
1. Pierce the garlic halves securely with the tines of a fork. In a small bowl, beat together the eggs and half-and-half with the fork until the whites are well incorporated with the yolks. Stir in the salt and pepper. Discard the garlic cloves.

2. Heat a double boiler or a heavy bowl over a pan of gently simmering water; there should be only a few bubbles rising at the edge of the water. Melt the butter, then add the beaten eggs. Using a rubber spatula, slowly scrap the side of the double boiler as each thin layer of egg solidifies above the rising steam. Continue gently scraping and stirring with a folding motion to preserve the silken waves of the egg curds. Be patient.

3. When liquid no longer pools at the bottom of the double boiler and while the eggs are still moist and shiny, quickly spoon the scrambled eggs over the waiting slices of toast. Savor while still hot.

Via Eat Me Daily

I spend entirely too much time on the Internet. Sometimes I'm working, sometimes I go into a Facebook Scramble trance, and other times, I am taking a look at what other food bloggers are doing.

There are, for better or for worse, a dizzying amount of food blogs out there. And most of them are, frankly, unappetizing. The sinister flash photography, the "look-what-I-had-for-dinner" sharing, the heavy reliance on the exclamation point, the word "yummy" or the suffix "-icious." It's enough make me show you what-I-had-for-dinner. After I have eaten it.

And don't get me started on the number of cupcake blogs out there or I shall cry.

Fortunately, there are a few places of refuge: sites that sparkle like the Emerald City set against the background of a sky blackened by millions of flying, food blogging monkeys.

The following are my current web crushes, in no particular order. One is relatively famous and respected in the food world, one should be, and the other is just plain interesting. They are sites that always have me coming back for more. If you don't know them already, you should. Give them a little look-see. If you're anything like me, you'll be hooked instantly.

David Lebovitz

Photo by David Lebovitz

You probably already know him or, at least know of him. If you don't, you should. He's one of the most visible food bloggers around. And for very good reason. Lebovitz is a pastry wiz who made a name for himself right here in the Bay Area. Now an American in Paris, he shares his experience of living in a city that many Americans fantasized about without the irritating look-at-me-I'm-in-Paris tone of other writers, for which I am deeply grateful. In fact, he can even mention cupcakes without upsetting me. Of course, showgirls were a mitigating factor.

His recipes and food photography are solid and enticing, his writing style is concise and informative yet chatty and personable. David Lebovitz might heart Neufchâtel, but I heart his blog.

Ezra Pound Cake

Photo-- Ezra Pound Cake

Several weeks ago, while trolling about the Internet, I found a food photography website. I couldn't tell you the name. What I can tell you is that, as I was thumbing through the thumbnails of dessert photos and whatnots, I discovered that most of the images I was clicking on were taken from the same food blog. Ezra Pound Cake. I clicked on over to the website, just kicking myself for not having thought up that name before this particular blogger did.

Ezra Pound Cake. It's just plain brilliant. Rebecca Crump, the force behind the blog, describes the name as a "Wheel of Fortune-style Before & After phrase, like Toby Keith Urban or Whitney Houston Texas." It spells out her own "before" and "after" as a writer-turned-baker. And, man, can she do both.

Filled with a recipes culled from her favorite websites and cook books, Crump tackles them with charm, wit, and a healthy dose of pop culture references. She is a blogger after my own heart, except with better photography, baking, and naming skills.

Ezra Pound Cake isn't budging from my blogroll.

Eat Me Daily

Meat Bingo. Photo by Mike Zortman

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Eat Me Daily is a fascinating group blog that started doing its thing in October 2008. Almost pointless to describe, this website is primarily devoted to food-related media: visual arts, television programming and commercials, cookbooks, print ads, and news-related items.

From Martha Stewart to meat bingo to frog blancmange, this site really has it going on. It is, however, not for the squeamish or, as they put it "your mom (unless your mom is awesome)."

Meet me there for a daily dose of odd.

The Bay Area is full of beautifully baked fresh bread. From small operations like Tartine and La Farine, to bakeries with larger distributions, freshly baked bread can be found in almost every neighborhood. Even Cotsco has an aisle selling fresh Acme bread. I cannot stress enough how lucky we are. When I was growing up in North County San Diego, crunchy fresh bread was an exotic treat, only obtainable when we traveled to New York or sometimes Los Angeles, but nowhere to be seen in the near vicinity of my house. Yet although a fresh loaf can be found within a five-minute walk from where I live now, I still like to occasionally bake my own bread.

Like most people, I love the smell of freshly-baked bread. I'm a smelly person. Not smelly, as in I smell bad (at least I hope not), but smelly, as in I am very olfactory-driven. This is both a blessing and a curse. While I am able to smell hints of lavender or citrus not always discernible to others, smells I hate – such as disinfectant or what it disinfects -- seem to shoot through my nasal passages and into my brain (right below my right eye). So making bread is an act to not only feed my family and myself, but to nourish my nose as well. Homemade bread fills the house with the most wonderful lingering aroma, and as a bonus I also get to eat it.

One bread I enjoy making at home is focaccia. In addition to thinking it's one of the easier breads to bake, I also love that it can accommodate a variety of toppings. Although it is most often baked with sea salt and rosemary, you can easily add thyme or sage instead, not to mention goat cheese, caramelized onions, olives, garlic, nuts, anchovies, and fresh tomatoes.

Focaccia is a traditional Italian bread; its recipe dates at least as far back as ancient Rome, when it was called panis focacius. Like pizza, it is made from a simple yeast dough that is often cooked with olive oil. The dough is pretty straightforward and easy to make. Best of all, making focaccia at home will fill your kitchen with warm and comforting smells, which is something you can't buy at Costco.

Following is my recipe for caramelized cipollini onion focaccia. The onions add a sweet flavor that plays off the salt nicely. Feel free to use chopped kalamata olives instead, add goat cheese, or just use herbs and salt. Whatever you do, your house will smell delicious.

Caramelized Cipollini Onion Focaccia

Makes: one loaf

Ingredients:
2 packages of active dry yeast
1 ½ cups warm water
1 tsp sugar
4-5 cups of flour
1 ½ tsp sea salt
5 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp coarse sea salt
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary, thyme, or sage
1 cup carmelized cipollini onions (see recipe below)

Preparation by Hand:
1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in the warm water. Let sit for five minutes or until the mixture becomes foamy.

2. Stir 4 cups of flour, 1 ½ tsp salt, and 3 Tbsp olive oil into the yeast mixture and then stir thoroughly until you can make a rough ball. You will probably need to use your hands.

3. Sprinkle flour onto a work surface (either a solid countertop or large wooden board) and turn the dough out onto the floured surface.

4. Knead the dough for at least five minutes, adding the last cup of flour as needed to prevent the dough from getting too sticky. You may not need the full cup. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth.

5. Set the dough in large bowl coated with olive oil. Cover with a dish towel and set in a warm draft-free spot for at least an hour or until the dough doubles in size.
6. After the dough has risen, coat the bottom of a large cookie sheet with the remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil.

7. Turn the dough onto the oiled cookie sheet and press down so it fits into the pan. If the dough does not stretch, let it rest another five or 10 minutes covered with the dish towel.

8. Cover with a dish towel and let rise for another hour.

9. Press your fingers into the dough to dimple it. This will help the dough bake evenly and prevent it from inflating too much when baking.

10. Sprinkle the course salt, herbs, and onions onto dough.

11. Set dough in a preheated 450 degree oven.

12. Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Note: Be sure to check the bread after about 10 minutes if using a convection oven.

Preparation with a Stand Mixer Using the Bread Dough Attachment:
1. In your mixer's bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in the warm water. Let sit for five minutes or until the mixture becomes foamy.

2. Add 4 cups of flour, 1 ½ tsp salt, and 3 Tbsp olive oil into the yeast mixture. Using the bread dough attachment, mix until a rough ball forms.

3. Sprinkle flour onto a work surface (either a solid countertop or large wooden board) and turn the dough out onto the floured surface.

4. Knead the dough for at least five minutes, adding the last cup of flour as needed to prevent the dough from getting too sticky. You may not need the full cup. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth.

5. Set dough in large bowl coated with olive oil. Cover with a dish towel and set in a warm draft-free spot for at least an hour or until the dough doubles in size.

6. After dough has risen, coat the bottom of a large cookie sheet with the remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil.

7. Turn the dough onto the oiled cookie sheet and press down so it fits into the pan. If the dough does not stretch, let it rest another five or 10 minutes covered with the dish towel.

8. Cover with a dish towel and let rise for another hour.

9. Press your fingers into the dough to dimple it. This will help the dough bake evenly and prevent it from inflating too much when baking.

10. Sprinkle the course salt, herbs, and onions onto dough.

11. Set dough in a preheated 450 degree oven.

12. Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Note: Be sure to check the bread after about 10 minutes if using a convection oven.

Caramelized Onions

Ingredients:
1 cup sliced cipollini onions
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar

Preparation:
1. Heat olive oil in a medium to large pan.
2. Add onions and sauté on medium low for about five minutes.
3. Add the sugar and stir.
4. Cook the onions until they are soft and a light golden color.

Pickles, SF

From the sundrenched views of the brand spankin' new enclosed heated patio, it looks like Pickles is settling in nicely after reopening about a month ago.

Pickles interior

Located within a Clown burger's throw of the Transamerica Pyramid, my sources tell me Pickles – previously known as Clown Alley – used to be the FiDi's golden goose of hangover cures.

Pickles Bacon Burger

Have no fear boys and girls. The golden goose is alive and well. Hide those bloodshot eyes behind your Ray Bans and ease that queasy-stomach with some thick slab bacon and beer battered Vidalia onion rings.

Beer Battered Vidalia Onion Rings

And of course, never underestimate the healing properties of a good burger. Pickles makes theirs with organic meat from Prather Ranch. Juicy and full of fresh beefy flavor, the quality of meat really shines through in the medium-rare grilled burgers (although mine could have used a little more seasoning).

3 oz. Sliders

The spiffed up modern diner feel of Pickles fits in well amongst the Financial District/North Beach locale, and menu items like the harissa spiced Deviled Eggs topped with onion strings and chives are a nice change from standard burger joint fare.

Harissa spiced Deviled Eggs with Onion strings and Chives

Apparently, the advertised "East Coast style soft frozen custard" is not available yet…the Shake Shack addicted New Yorker in me is waiting with bated breath.

Starting April 1, the restaurant will be extending their service beyond lunch hours to 10:00pm on Tuesday through Thursday and 3:00am on Friday and Saturday. I have a feeling this means many a party people will be taking some late night, pre-emptive measures against the morning spins.

Pickles
42 Columbus Ave
(at Jackson St)
San Francisco, CA 94111
415-421-2540

I am sure I am not alone in examining all parts of my budget during this time of economic strife. (In fact, this post was late because I am in the midst of epic research on how to cut down my phone bill.)

Since I believe so strongly in buying good, sustainably raised food from local purveyors, it can sometimes be a challenge to reign in spending. On the Eat Local Challenge website, we have talked a lot about eating within a budget and have proven that it's possible -- it just takes a little more planning than average, a little more cooking than average, and a little more preserving of food than average.

So how does one go about eating sustainably on a budget? I have a few ideas, but would love to hear what tricks you are employing to keep your family's budget down.

Eat fruits and vegetables that are in season.

When fruits and vegetables are in abundance in the farmers market, the prices go down. There may be sales, and you are getting the vegetables at their peak of flavor. When you just have to have a bunch of asparagus out of season in August, you're going to be paying top dollar for it. Right now, in the middle of asparagus season, you may find a deal.

Put foods up when you find a bargain.

Start working on canning, drying, preserving, and freezing your food as you find it on sale. There is nothing that's better for the budget and the tastebuds than pulling a bag of peas that were frozen in their peak out of your own freezer, or using your own jarred tomatoes that were purchased in September and canned. Learning to can is a bit of a process, but the resurgence in interest means that there are a lot of resources available. Start with the Ball website for step-by-step instructions.

Menu plan.

You may remember that in January I mentioned that I would be menu planning in order to cut down on food waste as part of my 2009 resolutions. It's been going quite well, and has in fact given way to a new project with a friend where we menu plan for the week and cook together. You can read the first part of the series on Serious Eats. I know that this is the key to keeping my budget in check, but I have to admit that it's been quite a switch for me to menu plan and to eat at home as much as I have been.

Look for unpopular cuts of meat.

Meat definitely takes up a large percentage of my budget. I've taken to combing through a meat vendor's selection for cuts that are less expensive -- oxtails, tougher cuts of meat that need to be slow cooked, or different meats like goat -- in order to find a bargain. It seems to be working out somewhat, and I am also cutting down on my meat consumption.

I'd like to ask you, readers: What have you been doing to cut down on food costs?

Though I'm making great strides in this arena, I feel like there are other things I can be doing to cut down on costs.

Related posts:
Inexpensive Family Meals

Chuck Hayward from The Jug Shop

I'm a wine devotée, so I'm also a habitué of wine shops, and a seeker after their treasures. The best stores are often cool, warehouse-like spaces, with cases of wine stacked precariously, row upon row. The wine shops where I've worked--in Northampton, Mass., New York City, and San Francisco were all modest establishments, but in each one a customer could find a small masterpiece, a miracle of art and nature.

The good bottles, and there were always more good than bad, captured the sun and warmth of a fall day, and the full ripeness of the harvest. Open a bottle, and the wine tells a story about geography and weather, about a winemaker and his or her passions.

In New York one year, we sold 1973 Chateau Mouton Rothschild for just $11.99 a bottle. Not a great vintage, but still a great value-- a wine of grace and power. The bottles bore a label featuring a drawing by Pablo Picasso, one of his last commissions. That was the year Mouton won long sought "first-growth" status, the only promotion ever granted after the 1855 classification. See: not just a bottle of wine, but a piece of cultural history.

So I'm writing today about wine shops, and what I look for in them, now, as a customer. Please submit your comments, noting your favorite wine shops, or warehouses, and why you like them.

Chuck Hayward from The Jug Shop

For example, I like The Jug Shop on San Francisco's Polk Street, because Chuck Hayward and his staff are such a gas. Hayward says a good retailer "has an incredible thirst for knowledge, and an incredible thirst." He talks very fast as he says that, and then explains how he began specializing in wines from the Southern Hemisphere in the early '90s, to distinguish his store from bigger chains. Now he's the man to see for hard to find New Zealand Pinot Noirs, and Australian GSM wines (that’s Aussie Châteauneuf-du-Pape: Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourvèdre).

"We have to be like record shops and book stores, and come up with unique offerings."

I especially like Hayward's disdain for wine snobbery, what he calls "The piss down approach to wine sales. If you don't like the wine I recommend, you're stupid."

Instead he flatters his customers. "They're very smart, he says, they know good wine, but these days they're looking for the $10 wine that tastes like $20; and the $20 bottle that tastes like $40."

I asked for two recommendations, a red and a white, for the modern, budget minded shopper; say someone celebrating landing a half-time job just good enough to pay the rent. He showed me a bottle of 2006 Sebastiani Sonoma Unoaked Chardonnay, a crisp, golden delicious apple of a wine, and a deal at $9.99. For a red he suggested The 2006 D'Arenberg Stump Jump, an Australian GSM wine full of raspberries and spice for $9.99.

Hayward and his staff host a lot of tastings (recently they coordinated the first Twitter tasting of Pinot Noir I've heard of), and that's also the mark of a great wine shop. It's one reason I stop in often at Farmstead Cheeses and Wines, with its two East Bay locations, Alameda and Montclair Village. Wine makers and wine brokers stop in on Friday (Montclair), and Saturday (Alameda) to pour in the back of these two tiny shops. You can taste upward of half a dozen wines (Your $3 is reimbursed if you buy anything; there's no cost to wine club members), before choosing what you want for dinner. It's very civilized.

Jeff Diamond owner of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines

Owner Jeff Diamond is a warm, effervescent man, a former publicist for arts groups and nonprofits. He embraces the scholarly connoisseur looking for St. Joseph from Yves Cuilleron, or Viognier from Alban Vineyards, as well as the picnicker upgrading from White Zinfandel. His motto: "Relax, it's just food." In fact, he got into the wine business to offer an alternative to elitist stores. "I would buy wine and come home really angry," Diamond says. "And my wife, Carol, would ask, 'Why are you so upset?' And I'd say, 'I just spent $1000 and I had to put up with someone else's agenda.'"

Diamond says Farmstead has one advantage over other shops, "Wine and cheese speak to each other." He often has California burrata (a kind of mozzarella with a creamy center). So on a Saturday afternoon, you can stop by the Feel Good Bakery, housed in the same Alameda Marketplace as Farmstead, and buy a baguette to rival any in the East Bay, then taste wine and cheese at Farmstead, tearing off pieces of your baguette to wash it down.

I challenged Diamond, as I did Chuck Hayward, for two wallet friendly wines, bottles to stave off thirst while preparing my taxes. He responded with the 2007 Morandé Terrarum Sauvignon Blanc from Chile ($10). It features fabulous lemon grass and grapefruit aromas, and leaves you wanting more and more. His favorite value in reds (this week) is the 2007 Monte Oton from Spain's Bodegas Borsao, a raspberry and black pepper treat made with grapes from 50-75 year old Grenache vines ($10).

You can't beat the attention and care that Diamond and Hayward take as they match their inventories to the tastes of their customers. But I confess I also buy wine at Safeway, which features utter commercial dreck next to incredible values. This week I'm drinking the terrific 2007 Ménage à Trois California Red from Napa's Folie a Deux ($7.98). They blend Zinfandel, Merlot, and Cabernet into a wine that's full-bodied, spicy, and gulpable. For a white, I grabbed the 2007 Clos la Chance Unoaked Chardonnay ($6.98). It's crisp and lemony, and without another thought in its head. These are great bargains, but you won't find interesting imports at Safeway, or knowledgeable staff to help to match the wine to your meal.

Here in Northern California, we have dozens of other fabulous stores (and I hope you, my readers, will tell us about more of them). K&L features a dazzlingly deep selection online and in its three stores (San Francisco, Redwood City, and Hollywood). The East Bay features Kermit Lynch, arguably the most influential shop in the U.S., but narrow in its focus (France and Italy), and pricey. North Berkeley Imports has carved out a niche for its exclusive imports from Burgundy and Champagne. Solano Cellars pours oodles of good wine at its wine bar, and Paul Marcus shows off his impeccable taste at his store in Rockridge Market Hall.

The best thing is finding a store in your neighborhood-- (it's nice to walk home, not drive, after tastings!), where they get to know you, in the same way your barber or hairstylist knows you. And if you say you want a fruity red, with a little off the top, they know just what your palate needs.

Next time, I'll talk about buying online.

So, the Obamas are planting that organic edible garden on the grounds of the White House after all. It looks like a lovely melting-pot of flavors and cultures, too, with tomatillos and Thai basil, chiles and cilantro, chard and arugula.

But where's the beet? First George Bush dissed broccoli; now Barack has put the kibosh on beets. Frankly, beets don't need any help in that direction. Many otherwise rational, veg-loving folks still recoil from these little magenta orbs as if from a snake, San Francisco's endless parade of beet-and-goat-cheese salads notwithstanding.

Now, I used to be that way, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in solidarity with my fellow beet-haters. But I had good reason.

My mother, to her credit, never tortured us with canned beets. We went to a local New Jersey farmstand and brought home perfectly nice fresh beets, but they only ever got cooked one way: boiled, then covered in a slippery, cornstarch-thickened sweet-and-sour glop of vinegar, sugar, and cloves. These she called Harvard beets. They must have been something her own mother had cooked for her, 1950s home food for a 1970s woman who otherwise made stir-fries and homemade granola. And I loathed them, and blamed the beets.

Well, moving to San Francisco revealed that an Ivy League pedigree wasn't the only way to go. Beets that were roasted instead of boiled had a lush, jelly-like texture and a slight but alluring smokiness. When I discovered pomegranate molasses--a tart, intensely fruity syrup used throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, made made from the boiled-down juice of sour pomegranates--I knew I'd found my beets' soul mate.

Beets now star in two of my Jewish-holiday menus: as part of a thick, wintery borscht served alongside the Chanukah latkes, and in this blood-orange salad, always served for the Passover Seder in springtime It's not that there's a particular affinity between beets and Jews; it's just that, with a lot of guests on hand, I can count on more conversions.

This salad has flipped--for good!--many a self-avowed beet hater. Right now is a great time to try it, since both late-season blood oranges and early-season beets are available. Why blood oranges? Well, the beets are going to stain everything magenta anyway, so why not start with something that already matches? Also, there's a fruity-berry quality to blood oranges that matches the tart, almost winey flavor of the pomegranate molasses.

I've made this for my mother, and she likes it, well enough. But not as much as she still loves her Harvard beets.

Ruby Beet Salad
Adapted from The Astrology Cookbook: A Cosmic Guide to Feasts of Love, by Stephanie Rosenbaum.

Ingredients:
1 bunch beets (3 or 4 beets), unpeeled, stalks & leaves removed
2 oranges, preferably blood oranges
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses*, or to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

* You can find pomegranate molasses at Haig's Delicacies in San Francisco or at Indus Foods (1920 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley) in the East Bay.

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Rinse beets and place them, still wet, on a square of aluminum foil. Fold the foil around them to make a nice little package. Pop in the oven and roast until you can slip a knife easily through both beets. If there's any resistance, let them roast some more; the more tender, the better. Remove beets from oven and let cool in packet. When beets are cool enough to handle, slip off skins. Cut into wedges and set aside.

Grate the rind off one of the oranges, tossing the grated rind with the beets. Cut the now-bald orange in half and squeeze the juice over the beets and rind. Drizzle on pomegranate molasses, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss and taste for seasoning. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Just before serving, peel and slice remaining orange and add to salad.

Last week, I accepted a dinner invitation from an ex-boyfriend to dine with two old, out-of-town friends at Bar Crudo. It would seem that I can be lured nearly anywhere by the promise of raw shellfish and wine.

It was an oddly comfortable dinner. There was none of the awkwardness that typically accompanies former couples who find themselves momentarily placed in the situation of acting as partners again, even though the partnering has been limited to the dinner table. Dining-- especially from shared dishes-- is an activity that is unmistakeably intimate. I decided to not focus on the obvious questions like why on earth would he invite me to dinner to meet two of his oldest friends or why I had accepted the invitation. Rather, I decided to focus on his friends and the platters of seafood that had been so carefully placed in front of us.

His friends were smart, charming, and very enthusiastic. Dismay was expressed by his friend Lindsay over the prospect of eating raw oysters-- an activity in which she had never before engaged, but was willing to give them a chance, nevertheless. I ordered the smallest, sweetest ones on the menu, to make the exercise as easy as possible. She gave them a go, declared them good, and then immediately turned her attention to the one half of a Dungeness Crab carcass lying lifeless on the pile of ice that both separated and united us.

When she saw crab on the menu, her eyes went wide behind her glasses. When our waitress explained that there was only one half of a crab left in the restaurant, her eyes got even wider, as a mild panic set in. "We want that crab." There was no raised voice or exclamation point to end those four words, but the sense of urgency with which they were imparted caused our server to move more quickly than we were to see her do for the rest of the evening.

"You don't understand," she told me, "We live in Texas now. You can't get fresh crab in Texas." Enough said. I decided not to wonder aloud if the crab was actually local.

I sat there staring at the cold, dead crab for a minute, remembering the two pounds of crab meat that lay ignored and shivering in my freezer between the ice cream and bottle of Limoncello that had been equally forgotten. I looked back at Lindsay, who was so delighted by the sight of just a fraction of what I had taken for granted at home. I felt instantly shamed, and said as much when I offered her my share of the crab. It wasn't so much generosity as it was penance.

When I got home, I opened my freezer door to pay my respects to the crab meat. I waved at it briefly and offered it my apologies. Why had I been avoiding it? Why had I put two pounds of crab meat out of my head?

And then I understood. My expectations had been too high. When the crabs fell into my lap unexpectedly, I was excited, full of high hopes and grand plans. I wanted them to be shared in any number of fun ways with people I cared about, since one should never eat crab alone.

My crab-eating reality, however, was different from my crab-eating fantasies. I was sick with a stomach virus and working a lot. Circumstances had stacked themselves between myself and the crab. What was once alive and fresh and full of possibility wound up wrapped and thrown into a dark place to freeze over. Like so many other things.

And then, of course, I thought of the man who invited me to dinner. Our relationship was rather like the crab in my freezer-- something once regarded as a source of grand plans, the sweet meat of it hard to get at through the tough shell, but thoroughly worth the effort. A seasonal item with a very short shelf life. I'd wrapped that up tight and thrown into a dark, cold place where I didn't have to look at it along with the damned crab.

Well, I've taken the crab meat out of the freezer. It may no longer be fresh but it's still there and my feeling is that what is left should be put to good use-- it's just too precious a thing to let go to waste. Something good can and should be made of it.

It does, however, take a long time for something that cold to thaw.

Crab Rangoon

I'm not quite certain why I chose to make this dish. I could have made something fresher, something that showed off the crab a little more. I suppose I just wanted to try something a little different this time around. And it suits me. It suits me just fine.

Crab Rangoon is dish whose origins and ingredients are as fanciful as its name. I very much doubt the current military government of Myanmar (formerly catalogued as Burma by English Colonials) would ever allow such a recipe into the country. Unless, perhaps, they changed its name to Crab Yangon, tortured it a bit (it is, of course, boiled in oil), and then slapped a uniform on it after it had been sufficiently "retrained."

Nope, Crab Rangoon is a uniquely American concoction-- one that takes a little bit of this culture (wontons are Chinese), and a little bit of that one (A-1 Steak Sauce is English, cream cheese is a Northern European invention) and serves it up in a way that is universally acceptable (fried). Hopefully, none but the truly naive are fooled by the name.

There are two schools of thought relating to the genesis of Crab Rangoon. The first tells of its debut at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904-- a year the city has never since exceeded in terms of global attention or charm. The claim is dubious-- more so than the other "firsts" of the Fair, like cotton candy, peanut butter, or the hamburger. I'm willing to give them Dr. Pepper and the ice cream cone, at most.

The second, most likely story is that the dish was created in Oakland, at the original Trader Vic's. According to their website, "Trader Vic employed what was becoming the ever-present hallmark of all his food and beverage recipes: a light touch, meant to enhance but never disguise nor overpower the fine original taste of his main ingredients."

Given that this is a fried dish with cream cheese and, according to the original Trader Vic's recipe, A-1 Steak Sauce and garlic salt, that's about as colorful as one of the one-legged Vic's legendary tall tales.

Fortunately, the dish is much easier to swallow than his stories.

This is an adapted, non-traditional recipe. I figured if Vic could come up with a "Polynesian recipe" and name it for a city nowhere near Polynesia, I could take a few liberties, too.

Makes about 30 pieces.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound fresh crab meat, preferably, but canned crab meat may certainly be substituted.

1/3 pound cream cheese at room temperature

4 tablespoons of finely chopped red onion, more or less according to your own tastes

1/2 teaspoon finely chopped garlic

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon or more of chopped cilantro

a few dashes of Worcestershire Sauce

as many wonton wrappers as you can fill

1 egg yolk, well beaten with a teaspoon of water

vegetable oil, for frying

Preparation:

1. Combine crab meat with cream cheese, onion, garlic, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and cilantro. I find mixing the ingredients with clean hands to be immensely satisfying. Refrigerate if not using immediately.

2. Heat at frying oil to 375 F. Give yourself some room-- do not stint on pot size and make sure the oil is at least three inches deep. Pre-heat oven to 200 F and line a baking sheet with paper towels for future oil drainage.

3. Working four wonton wrappers at a time, lightly moisten (sigh) the edges of the wrappers with egg yolk. Place a heaping teaspoonful of crab mixture in the center of each. To shape into blossoms, seal each corner together and gather in the middle like so:

If a little bit of crab peaks out from the top, as illustrated above, don't worry-- they won't come apart. Pinch and twist the corners, making certain that you are making flowers and not swastikas. This is important.

4. Fry the wontons. You may do this in batches if you like or one at a time, since the frying time is fairly quick-- about 45 seconds, depending upon the true heat of the oil. The dual goal is to get the wrappers to a crisp, bubbly brown and to heat the filling through. The filling does not need to be horrendously molten. Place each wonton on the towel-lined baking sheet to drain. When frying has been completed, place your newly-born Crab Rangoon into the oven to keep warm.

Best served immediately. And not piping hot, unless you actually are trying to give your guests mouth burns.

Serve with Chinese mustard, Red Pepper sauce like Sriracha, or fish sauce. Whatever you like. It's your Crab Rangoon, make it work for you.

While others were drinking green beer, making lamb stew, or boiling the pervasive corned beef and cabbage this week, I ignored all things Irish. My family was never one to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. As Italian Catholics, St. Patrick's Day was a minor religious holiday in my childhood house, and my proud Italian father couldn't comprehend how the nation turned it into a festive drinking day celebrating the Irish. This was particularly telling as he was never one to turn down a pint of beer, celebratory or not.

Half the time I forgot to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. Not surprising from the girl who brought meatball sandwiches for lunch, but a drag nonetheless as this meant I got pinched all day (a tradition, I am happy to say, that has been abandoned, at least at my daughters' elementary school). My family just didn't celebrate the day. We ate a normal dinner -- something like pasta with broccoli rabe followed by stuffed peppers. No corned beef for us. My mom just didn't cook Irish.

Ironically, my dad died on St. Patrick's Day two years ago. And then the day before the holiday this week, my maternal grandmother passed away. Now, what the nation celebrates as an excuse to drink beer and "get their Irish on" has become a time of reflection for me.

My father and grandmother were different in many ways, but one thing they could always agree on was food. Both were lifelong advocates of the southern Italian table. While my father never lifted a finger in the kitchen (he was a Sicilian male of the old school), he could correctly identify the vast range of regional dishes prepared, including what ingredients were used, and if they were fresh or not. My grandmother, on the other hand, was the quintessential Italian cook. Each day she prepared a Neopolitan dish that had been passed down from generation to generation. She got up around 4:00 a.m. each day, made a pot of coffee, and started cooking. Unfortunately, we were separated by 3,000 miles for most of my life (she in Long Island and me in California), so I didn't get to hang out with her in the kitchen as much as I would have liked. I have very fond memories of when we were together, however: her busy at the stove, talking with a New York accent sprinkled with Italian, and making the most heavenly dishes.

It was hard to get a recipe out of my grandmother. She was completely disconnected from the idea that food is often made using a list of ingredients with directions. Instead of actual recipes, I would receive a list of instructions that were more subjective than definite. She loved to write recipes (or at least her version of what a recipe is) down on note cards, which were full of comments like "add some milk" or "pinch the dough until it's right." It would drive me nuts when I would ask "how much milk?" and she responded "enough," as if that said it all. But when I was in the midst of making a dish, I found that "enough" was often a better direction than an exact measurement. She and my mom (who hands down recipes just like her mother) taught me to trust my instincts in the kitchen and that the look and feel of a mixture is what's important. My grandmother's recipes helped me learn more about technique, color, feel, and texture than any cookbook ever could.

So in honor of my father and grandmother, I made Italian gravy this week. I still can't tell you how my family makes this dish, although I will tell you how I made the bragiole.

Bragiole

Makes: 6 bragiole

Ingredients:
6 pieces of thinly cut beef (either 1/4-inch bottom round slices or flank steak work well)
2 hard-boiled eggs chopped
Minced parsley and garlic (enough to sprinkle on the meat)
Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
1. Tenderize the meat so the pieces are nice and thin.
2. Season each piece with salt and pepper and then top with the egg and parsley.
3. Add a little garlic to each piece (not too much, but enough to flavor) and top with some freshly grated cheese.
4. Roll each piece of meat up and place a toothpick in each one so it stays closed.
5. Brown in olive oil and then cook in your gravy.
6. Simmer for at least an hour and serve.