And it might very well be part of your dining future.

My feelings toward it are mixed, at best.

I am historically resistant to technological change. I quietly mourned the compact disc's triumph over the long playing record; I didn't see the necessity of a laptop computer when my desktop one worked perfectly fine; I was forcibly enrolled in Twitter by a friend; and the only reason I purchased a cell phone was because I would not be able to find my boyfriend in a crowd of 20,000 people 500 miles from home without one.

And yet I have come to embrace all of these technologies. In fact, I am physically embracing my computer as I type this on top of my lap. With my phone in my pocket. Playing downloaded music. The Twitter feed, however, is turned off. I have my limits.

I have the feeling that ordering from a touchscreen menu is one of those limits.

It isn't as though I haven't done it before. Anyone who has taken a Virgin Airlines flight has seen these screens. We pull up the food menu, place our index fingers to the screen to make our choices, then swipe our credit cards along the bottom of the tablet. Shortly thereafter, a flight attendant appears with what we have ordered. It isn't exactly magic, but it is certainly efficient.

However, I do to miss being asked the question "Chicken or fish?" I may get my cold falafel sandwich quickly, but I never feel very good about it. There's a subtle but important difference between being handed a tray of food and being served it.

The people at E La Carte state that their menu tablet isn't meant to replace those who serve. Rather, it is "meant to make the hospitality experience more convenient, social, and fun for the guests and more profitable for the restaurant operator."

With the tablet, guests can "order, pay, play games, and give feedback straight from their seats."

According to the product's makers, there are three main benefits for the restaurant:

1. Boost average check size by up to 10% through up-selling, pictures, and impulse orders.

2. Improving customer retention with easy-to-use loyalty and survey interactions.

3. Improve service by quick payment, retaining customer order history, and games at the table.

How on earth can a computer up-sell better than a human being? I think I need this explained to me.

When my friend Roy alerted me to this new piece of technology, my first reaction as both a career server at a fine dining establishment and someone resistant to new technology was to view the E La Carte tablet as vilely impersonal and a threat to my profession. Over the last 24 hours, however, I have calmed myself as I weigh what I imagine the cons-- and the pros-- are of this particular piece of equipment.

There are three important components a good restaurant must supply in order to provide its guests with a great dining experience (just pick up a Zagat guide and look at their rating criteria if you don't believe me):

1. Great food

2. Congenial décor

3. Excellent service

Though the menu tablet aims to provide photos of all the menu items, I am wondering if its creators have taken into account the fact that someone is going to have to style, photograph, photo edit, and upload a photo every time a new dish is created.

Substitutions? E La Carte states that guests can make alterations to their chosen menu item through this product. Simple enough when a guest might prefer mashed potatoes to french fries with their Porterhouse, but what about more complex-- or outrageous-- requests? Is it time then for a server to appear at the table with the bad news?

Computer says no.

As for décor, I get irritated when the people I eat with leave their smart phones on the table. I don't want a 7 inch piece of electronics shining at me as I dine. A candle on the table and the smiles of my companions are all the glow I need, thank you very much.

And what about the human component of the dining experience that this gadget swears it is not intended to replace? As a server, one of the most important parts of my job is to form a personal connection with my guest. Argue all you like, but there is a certain amount of server/guest bonding that happens within the first few moments of interaction. When I say hello and ask someone if they'd like a drink or if they just want to settle in a moment and catch their breath, I'm not just offering to go fetch them something-- I'm giving them the sense that they are going to be well taken care of.

The nuances of human vs. computer interaction are too many to get into in this post.

I understand that both restaurant owners and restaurant guests can benefit from such a menu in cases where one is looking merely to satisfy one's hunger quickly and efficiently, like at a corporate chain restaurant such as Applebee's (which is rumored to be adopting the tablets). Such venues already have standardized menu items that are photographically illustrated.

Touchscreen menus might also be a terrific boon for people who, for varying reasons, are unable to communicate well with spoken words. I've seen what an iPad can do for kids with autism. Could such interactive menus also help them gain confidence in ordering dinner? It's an idea that intrigues me.

They may also be helpful to those unfamiliar with a particular cuisine and/or language (ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant and felt entirely helpless?). The idea of a computer with a built-in glossary of terms and ingredients (or a translator) is an intriguing one.

And just think about how it could transform a wine list. 86'ed items could be immediately removed from the menu. Can't remember what grapes are in that Grüner Veltliner? (hint: it's Grüner Veltliner, but you would be spared the humiliation of asking such a question if you could simply click over to a glossary or related link.) Of course, the drawback is that one could get so lost in so much information, that one might never be able to choose. Or put the damned menu down.

I think a tool such as the E La Carta has some excellent possibilities, but not in the way it's being marketed. In addition to the ideas previously mentioned, I think that such a product used as a menu would cut down on the need for paper menus that must be thrown away or otherwise recycled every time they are either dirtied or in need of updating.

But then you should give your order to a human being and remove the electronic device from the dinner table. Talk to him. Ask for her opinion. Just interact. Technology can be a wonderful thing, but not at the expense of interpersonal exchange. It has its time and its place.

The other day I was riding to work on the bus. When I had taken my seat, I reflexively pulled out my iPhone to play a game of cribbage or stare at Facebook updates or do something-- anything-- to shut out my surroundings. Then something wonderful happened:

My battery died.

I was alarmed by how helpless I felt and my immediate thought was "Now what am I supposed to do?" And then I felt like a fool. I looked at my fellow passengers on the bus. Every person on it my age or younger was using their smart phone. None of them were smiling. It was just the old Chinese ladies at the front who were chatting and laughing away. I had no idea what they were saying, but they seemed to be doing perfectly fine without a touchscreen at arm's length.

It struck me then that this is precisely what we're all doing when we can't manage to pull our eyes away from our gadgets-- we are keeping people at arm's length. And that personal computers aren't, well, personable.

We spend so much of our time in front of computers-- I know I do. Working as a waiter is a marvelous antidote to technology because every night I am forced to talk to people I've never met before. I ask them questions like "How are you?" and "Where are you from?" Granted, I get paid to do so, but it's something I actually look forward to. It pulls me out of myself and, for a few hours every evening, my focus is on the welfare of other people.

And I look for the same thing when I am the one who is dining. I want to feel welcomed as a guest, not merely a customer. However much of a fantasy that might be at times, I want to believe it. I want to thank the person who placed that martini in front of me. I want to talk to a human being, not press buttons (unless they happen to the the emotional buttons of my dining partner). I want to feel as though I am being taken care of.

I just don't happen to think that's possible with a computer.

What are your thoughts? Like the idea? Hate it?

Which is pretty much what I wound up doing this year. Not noticing, I mean. I somehow managed to see only one Oscar-nominated movie over the past twelve months and I am not about to make a heaping pile of grits to celebrate it, no matter how much I enjoyed the film.

So instead of discussing the current cast of award hopefuls, I thought I might celebrate those marvelous singers of Academy Award-winning singers of yesteryear.

I mean, why not?

As I ran down the list of songs, I realized that there were a handful of artists who introduced not one, but two Oscar-winning tunes to the world: Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, disaster film songstress Maureen McGovern, Barbra Streisand, Bing Crosby (who sang a record four), Fred Astaire (if you count his whistling to The Continental), and...

Irene Cara. Remember her name?

I thought long and hard about which singer to single out and pay tribute to. Judy Garland? Too obvious. And the only thing I could think of doing for her was making a meal comprised entirely of pills, which is beyond my scope as a home cook. Bing Crosby? I suppose I could have taken some young, tender chicken, beaten it mercilessly, and marinated it in Minute Maid® orange juice, but I didn't have the stomach for it. Barbara Streisand? I worried that whatever I chose to make would spring to life from the counter top and try to wrest from me total creative control.

I almost gave up.

Then I remembered the Cara Cara orange and how every time my chef would utter its name, I would say quietly insert two "Irenes" into his sentence, as in "I'd like to have the Irene Irene Cara Cara orange salad, please." My chef seems to love this fruit so much, he says things like, "It's so nice, they named it twice."

Twice.

And, since Miss Cara sang an Oscar-winning song not once but twice, I just had to go with it.

When I realized that she was one of the original cast members of the best children's show of my generation, The Electric Company*, there was nothing else I could do but pay this woman tribute.

So I set about to make an Irene Irene Cara Cara sorbet.

Referencing a recipe for blood orange sorbet by the rather solid David Lebovitz (Solid as in his recipes. I have never once asked him to flex for me.), I did everything with precision. I measured my juice in milliliters and weighed my sugar in grams, I made a perfect little syrup, I added just the right hint of alcohol to make it scoopable.

I did everything right except allow my ancient ice cream maker's freezing element to get cold enough. When I set my sorbet to churn, it went round and round but, instead of firming up into a silky sorbet, all it managed to do was make itself dizzy. I would have thought three days in a cranked up freezer would have done the trick, but I think it decided do kill itself after bearing witness to my last ice cream experiment, which will more than likely never see the light of day on these pages. I was filled with the same emotion that was conveniently printed on label of the Campari whose content I had so tenderly splashed into my sorbet base:

What a feeling. I was also undeniably frustrated but, search as I might, that word was nowhere to be found on any of my ingredient packaging.

I had half a mind to just throw everything away and pour myself a drink, but I thought better of it. There was to be no drinking in my immediate future because my creditors depend upon my showing up to work sober.

And I couldn't let Miss Cara down. Her comeback is entirely dependent upon the success of this dessert.

So I placed my motion sick sorbet base into my refrigerator, and returned to it in the morning. I have to admit that I was rather pleased by the outcome.

Irene Irene Cara Cara Orange Granita

I don't care how much you groan at the name because it's a dessert as refreshing as Miss Cara's voice and as perky as those breasts of hers she so reluctantly showed to that guy with the video camera in the movie Fame.

As I have said before, this recipe is based upon the blood orange sorbet recipe of David Lebovitz, who has a much better ice cream maker than I do, but is nowhere near as perky as Miss Cara's Cara Caras.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 cups (500 ml) freshly squeezed Cara Cara orange juice
• 1/4 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons, plus 3 tablespoons (for soaking citrus segments) of Campari
• About 1/2 cup of Cara Cara orange flesh, hacked into little pieces

Preparation:

1. Put your sugar into a small, non-reactive saucepan. When one says "non-reactive" when referring to sauce pans, one means a pan that is made of a material that does not react adversely to acid, such as stainless steel, glass, or ceramics. If you think your saucepan is non-reactive simply because it shows no emotion when you fill it with ingredients and put it over high heat, you are either hopeless in the kitchen or you are an entirely fascinating, innocent creature and I would like to get to know you better.

Add just enough juice to saturate you sugar, then heat--stirring frequently-- until the sugar is completely dissolved and you have a lovely little syrup.

2. Stir this syrup into your Cara Cara orange juice. Add three tablespoons of Campari and stir well. Pour the mixture into a shallow dish and set in your freezer or the freezer of a good friend or neighbor who will allow you frequent access to his or her kitchen. Let stand in said freezer for about 45 minutes.

Toss your chunks of orange with the remaining Campari and place in your refrigerator to chill and marinate, covered.

3. When the juice mixture begins to form ice crystals, break them up with a fork, then leave it be for another 20 minutes. Fork the juice again. Repeat until all the juice is frozen. The texture should be grain, which is why the Italians call it granita.This should take roughly 2.5 to 3 hours, depending upon your freezer.

If you are lazy, you can simply freeze the juice into one, solid block and shave it up, but then it wouldn't be granita, it would be a sno-cone.

And everyone would know how lazy you were.

Or, if you're really, really lazy, don't bother to freeze anything at all, but simply pour the mixture over ice (which someone would have to have pre-frozen), but then it would be called a cocktail.

4. When you feel your granita is ready for its big night, stir in the Campari-soaked orange pieces, spoon into chilled glasses, and serve immediately.

And, as you and your guests are eating it and you are receiving their accolades, do your best to come up with ideas for a Maureen McGovern-inspired dessert. Clue: it should be served either flaming or upside down.

Do get back to me. And soon.

*That Electric Company was some sort of genius Oscar-winner mill. Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, Irene Cara. There is something to be said for groovy literacy programming.

I was curled up in bed one evening, enjoying a scene from the film Young Frankenstein in which Frau Blucher (cue whinnying horses) offers the good eponymous doctor first brandy, then warm milk, and finally Ovaltine before he goes to bed, much to his increasing irritation.

Ovaltine. I hadn't thought about it in decades. The next several scenes of the film played to a distracted audience because I was too busy (falsely) reminiscing about a malty, vitamin and mineral-infused powder and how delicious a hot, milky mug of the stuff would send me off to sleep at night.

So I went out and bought some then next morning.

When I returned home with my prize (secret decoder ring sadly not included), I heated up some milk and stirred in three heaping tablespoons, just as I was told to do in this commercial. I took a sip and remembered something important:

I didn't like hot Ovaltine as a kid. Thirty years later, I still felt the same way. Rather than spend the morning being a Sulky Sue, I poured myself a cup of hot coffee instead and remembered the way I truly enjoyed the official beverage of Captain Midnight: cold.

Really, really cold. I'd save my heaping tablespoons for sprinkling over vanilla ice cream and stir them in-- essentially making myself Ovaltine ice cream. More correctly, I was making myself an Ovaltine shake in a bowl because I'd stir it so much that it would soften and melt enough for me to ladle it into my mouth like cold soup.

Highly caffeinated and momentarily filled with energy, I decided to go ahead and make myself some Ovaltine ice cream then and there so that I could save precious time and energy later when I'd return home, brain-fried and exhausted from work, looking for something sweet and comforting when I no longer had the will to heap or stir.

And I thought it would make a lovely little Christmas treat to share with my readers. Something special that wasn't another god damned Holiday Cookie. I made the ice cream in no time, but I let it sit covered in my freezer between the half-finsished bottle of limoncello and 2-lb. bag of pecans to languish uneaten and un-photographed.

Why? It seemed too simple to share. It wasn't enough. Almost reflexively, I felt that, since this was the Holiday Season, it needed a little extra oomph. I needed to deck this ice cream's halls with boughs of something. But what?

Marshmallows were the first things that came to mind. It stood to reason that, if one would drink hot cocoa or Ovaltine garnished with cute little marshmallows, why not ice cream? It would make for a nice little trimming.

I thought about swirling marshmallow fluff into the ice cream, but I wanted the option of not having every serving marshmallow-laced.

What about a dollop of marshmallow fluff on top? For no discernible reason, the idea left me as cold as the ice cream shoved in my freezer. Instead, I thought I would make a marshmallow fluff whipped cream. I thought I was being brilliant, but I just wound up giving myself an ice cream-induced headache.

Or, rather, an ice cream garnish-induced headache. I went through five batches, each one better than the next, but still not right. Too sticky, not flavorful enough to match the ice cream, too absolutely irritating. I couldn't get my dessert spectacular enough. Or pretty enough. I was spending so much time, money, and energy on this whole marshmallow business that I was beginning to wish I'd never made the ice cream in the first place. I just wanted the whole thing to go away. I was stressing myself out over a dessert. I felt ridiculous. And I've never been a huge marshmallow fan to begin with.

Then I made an important connection:

The way I was feeling about my Ovaltine ice cream was precisely the way I felt about Christmas-- what was initially a simple, delightful, and comforting idea had transformed into something complicated, annoying, and stress-inducing. This little exercise in making a malted ice cream became, in it's own way, an unexpected gift-- I realized that it wasn't Christmas (or my ice cream, for that matter) that I had grown to loathe, it was all the other stuff-- the irritating marshmallowy fluff-- that gets in the way:

The wish lists; the awful sweaters; the cheesy and inescapable Christmas music; the garish decorations; the wasted money; the expectations; the enforced Holiday cheer; the sappy, sticky, saccharine sweetness that has fixed itself to the holiday. What was once a season of good will has transformed itself over the years into an overblown marshmallow world in the winter.

And anyone with sufficient marshmallow experience can tell you that marshmallows are hard, tasteless things when they get cold.

And then I realized another important thing: I'm being terribly hard on the poor old marshmallow. I had burdened an essentially innocuous piece of gelatinous poof with all the evils of Christmas Present. And I'm okay with that because this whole exercise has made me understand what is and is not important about both Christmas and desserts:

a) They should both be sources of comfort and joy.

b) They should both be shared with those you love.

c) Neither of them need an excess of trimmings. They are both at their best when approached simply.

All the rest is just fluff.

In apology to the marshmallow and to show that I bear it no true ill will, I give you a little, fluffy bonus of holiday goo: Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra mincing about together singing "Marshmallow World." If these to Italians don't take it seriously, why on earth should I?

Oh, and Merry Christmas. Really.

Ovaltine Ice Cream

Though I thought up this ice cream on my own, there are several other people in this world who thought of it before I did. However, the recipe is my own, with a special thanks to my go-to vanilla ice cream base, courtesy of Mr. David Lebovitz, who seems to know a little something about ice cream making. So I've heard. The method for making this recipe I got from him. And I like it very much, thank you.

And p.s. As noted, I do not recommend using mini marshmallows for garnish for reasons already mentioned. They are placed in the photo for purely contrary reasons.

Serves 2 to 4

Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cups light brown sugar

A heavy pinch of salt (think "big man fingers")

2 cups heavy cream

5 large egg yolks (think "big chicken [insert body part of choice here]")

1/2 cup Ovaltine

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, sugar, and salt long enough to dissolve sugar. If the mixture looks a trifle curdled, do not panic, just blame the brown sugar and move on. There is straining involved later in this recipe and all will be fine.

2. Pour the cream into a medium-sized bowl and set a fine mesh strainer on top.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Gradually add some of the warm milk mixture to the eggs and whisk constantly. Pour the now-warm yolks into the sauce pan with the rest of the milk and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the sides and bottom of the pan with a spatula as you go. When the mixture looks like custard, it is precisely because that is what you have made. When it is thick enough to coat the back of your spatula, remove from heat and pour custard through the mesh strainer and into the awaiting cream. Stir in the Ovaltine and vanilla extract. Feel free to add or subtract the amount of Ovaltine recommended. It's your ice cream, so make it as intense or feeble as you dare.

4. Set your bowl of ice cream base into a larger, ice-filled bowl and stir until cool. Cover and refrigerate until completely chilled, then go ahead and freeze it in your ice cream maker (provided you have an ice cream maker. If you do not have an ice cream maker, return custard to your refrigerator until you have purchased one, then proceed) according to the manufacturer's instructions.

5. If you insist upon garnishing, I suggest adding a light dusting of both cocoa powder and Ovaltine powder for the finish. I do not recommend adding the mini marshmallows as seen in the above photograph. They are to be avoided for reasons twice mentioned or alluded to. If, however you still insist upon using marshmallows, I suggest placing your Ovaltine ice cream in a microwave for 90 seconds on high. When the ice cream is fairly bubbling, add marshmallows, then take a moment to seriously reconsider your priorities.

Of course I remembered. I even went as far as telling her the precise table and seat number at which she sat when she told me about it. I didn't go further-- to tell a lady what she ate last year seemed more than a little impolite.

When Roberta asked if I would like to celebrate the launch of the book at the home of its author, there was no way on earth I would have said no.

I am almost precisely half-Italian, genetically speaking: Sicilian-stock grandmother, Calabrese-gened grandfather. Both born in America. But it was my grandmother's family who dominated, which is always the way-- recipes and food traditions are typically passed down through the female line. As a result of this feminine dominance, the traditions and food ways of my grandfather's family were not so much diminished as they were totally ignored. I knew nothing about my Calabrese history. Nothing at all.

If one were to look at a map of Europe, Calabria is often looked upon as the toe of the Italian boot. It can be seen kicking Sicily, which appears as a large rock in Italy's way, further out into the Mediterranean. In my family, the rock had the last laugh. It more or less broke the Calabrian toe, taking it out of the game.

Thanks to Rosetta Constantino's My Calabria (written with Janet Fletcher) and the interest it has sparked in me, I feel as though the old toe is finally beginning to heal. The book is a long-overdue source of pride and celebration for those of us whose families emigrated from there. For those who are not of Calabrese heritage, it brings this remote area of Southern Italy closer; it sheds light upon the cuisine of a region that has been largely ignored by the rest of the world. Through its writing, recipes, and gorgeous photography by Sara Remington, the warmth of this previously mysterious land have been translated into words and flavors and images we can all understand.

It's little wonder I like to refer to this book as "My Rosetta's Stone."

"When I was young, I didn't appreciate how clever Calabrian cooks were in making so much from so little," says Constantino in her introduction. "Simplicity is the cuisine's hallmark, resourcefulness the Calabrian cook's signature and strength." When I sat down among the other guests on the terrace of Constantino's home in the Oakland Hills, simplicity and resourcefulness underscored the menu-- all of the vegetables prepared for the meal came directly from her garden: San Marzano tomatoes, eggplant, onions, zucchini, and peppers both sweet and hot. All those staples of Calabrian cuisine surrounded us and were, appropriately enough, ripe for the picking.

As I chatted with other guests, I found myself tucking into one of the many simple dishes that can be found in her book, Peperoni Fritti con Acciughe (Whole Fried Sweet Peppers with Anchovies, page 241). Tasting the ripe, blistered intensity of a sweet pepper paired with the salty umami boost of one, perfect anchovy slipped inside of it took was like taking a summer holiday to a place unknown but strangely familiar. That the plant which gave birth to the pepper I was chewing was brushing up against my leg made the effect all the more satisfying. And pleasurably surreal. I went back for more.

Near the end of the meal, when her guests were warmed by the enviable combination of sun, good food, and wine, all the friendly chatter momentarily stopped when Rosetta descended the stairs with dessert. As I tried to focus on the platter she was carrying, I squinted a moment, quickly assessed its content, and thought to myself, "Sugared peaches?" I wasn't so much disappointed as I was confused. To roll perfectly ripe peaches in sugar seemed wholly unnecessary and decidedly un-Calabrese in its lack of simplicity. But what did I know?

As Rosetta and her mother plated up the peaches with bowls of ricotta gelato (page 345) and began passing them around, the chatter among the guests returned. Upon closer inspection, the "peaches" were, in fact, little hemispheres of sponge cake held together by pastry cream, shaped and colored to fool the eye. I looked at mine before I cut into it and thought that, besides looking so peach-like, it reminded me of a human brain. It was that smart. And good. The ingenuity of these Pesche con Crema (page 333) made me think that, if the 'Ndrangheta ever decided to use their powers for good, the might do well to take a cue from the pastry chefs of Calabria by channeling their energies and trickery into the making of some rather fascinating desserts.

When the luncheon was over, I felt warm and full and connected to a cuisine that has so long been overshadowed by Sicilian food in my family. Rosetta signed my copy of My Calabria with the words "Keep our Calabrian traditions alive." I swelled with a pride I've never felt before for a place I've never been and I cuisine I had never tasted until that day. It was an odd, wonderful feeling.

I have no intention of ever giving up on the Sicilian traditions of my family. They will, however, have to make room for some new (to me) Calabrian ones. I'm planning on obeying the command of Rosetta Constantino by keeping the traditions of her family and mine (however distant) alive. Learning more about the culture and cuisine of my Calabrese side has provided a sort of balance, culturally speaking.

With one historic foot planted in Sicily and another more recently-secured one in Calabria, I like to think that I might, on occasion, bridge the two cultures, as they have been genetically brought together in me. Two similar yet very distinctive traditions; one no more important than the other to me. No Scylla and Charybdis preventing the crossover.

As odd or as hopelessly corny as it may sound, even though I'm only half-Italian, after cuddling up to My Calabria, I feel just a bit more whole.

No, really.

And though I have not yet gotten up the nerve to make those "peaches," I have made the roasted peppers with anchovies. In fact, I have followed Rosettas advice below and slipped them between two slices of crusty bread.

To put my feelings about it into plain Calabrese: Oy. Veh.

Peperoni Fritti con Acciughe*

It is worth seeking out elongated sweet Italian pepper for this recipe instead of bell peppers. Look for them in farmers' markets and specialty produce stores beginning in late July. The have thin skins that don't need peeling and relatively thin walls, so they soften quickly when pan-fried. The anchovy fillet tucked inside softens, too, seasoning the pepper flash with its saltiness. You can cook the peppers several hours before serving and keep them at room temperature.

We eat peperoni fritti as a side dish, but they're appropriate as part of an antipasto course and delicious tucked between two slices of crusty bread for a sandwich. Don't leave the stove while the peppers are frying or you could burn them beyond recovery. You really have to baby them.

8 long sweet Italian-style peppers, red, green, or a combination

8 flat anchovy fillets

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

With a paring knife, cut out the stem and core of each pepper, leaving the seeds and ribs inside. Insert one anchovy fillet into the cavity of each pepper.

Put 1/4 inch (6 millimeters) olive oil in a 12-inch (30-centimeter) skillet. Add the peppers in a single layer. It's okay if they fit snugly. Turn the heat to moderately high. Cover and cook until the peppers are blistered on all sides, about 10 minutes, turning every 2 to 3 minutes. To minimize splattering, remove the pan from the heat before you uncover it to turn the peppers. Keep a close eye on the peppers to prevent burning.

Transfer the peppers to a serving platter and sprinkle them lightly with salt, keeping in mind that the anchovies are salty. Drizzle with a little olive oil from the pan. Serve at room temperature.

Serves 4

*Reprinted from My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy's Undiscovered South by Rosetta Costantino with Janet Fletcher (c) 2010 by Rosetta Costantino and Janet Fletcher. Used with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

If you were to turn the phrase "You are what you eat" on its ear and attempt to eat what you are, what exactly would you be eating? What would it look like if you laid bare all those little bits of yourself-- your own, personal ingredients, I suppose-- and put them on a plate for all the world to see?

And what would you taste like? Would everyone want a piece of you? Would you wind up as bland and dry as Zweiback toast? Or would you be so off-putting that you'd just sit there, scorned, like a half-melted aspic on a cruise ship buffet table? It's a little unnerving to think about.

Unnerving, but interesting.

At least, to me it is.

Discovering My Inner Dish

Wandering into work one evening not very long ago, I grabbed a little food and sat down to eat in the back of the restaurant at the long, oaken table where my co-workers were doing likewise.

My friend Amelia, who was sitting across from me and quietly folding napkins, looked up said in a sing-songy voice:

"Uh-oh, Procopi-o's."

And then she went back to folding. It was just her silly way of saying hello.

"Uh-oh, Procopi-o's?" I repeated.

"Sure, just like Spaghetti-o's, but more Procopio-ier." In all my years on earth, no one had ever set my last name to a commercial jingle for canned pasta, nor had anyone ever used the adjective "Procopio-ier".

Amelia alternately suggested I might make a lovely breakfast cereal of some sort, but I was more enamored with the idea of becoming pasta. Perhaps if she had pitched the breakfast food idea at one of our pre-lunch service meals, I would have been more inclined to see myself as coated with sugar and drowned in milk.

All evening, I kept hearing her voice in my head singing that little, highly-personalized jingle, which made the instance when she came up behind me to sing it in my ear all the more wonderfully disturbing. I may have been chatting with my guests about goat stew and fried cheese, but all I could think about were Procopi-o's.

I needed to get them out of my system. And, according to my own, special brand of logic, getting them out of my system could only be done by getting them into my system. I decided to make myself some Procopi-o's, whatever those might be. I would take little bits of myself-- metaphorically speaking-- and put them into a recipe. I was going to find out what I was made of, throw it all together, and see how I turned out.

In essence, I was going to eat myself.

I tossed the idea around for days. Pasta? Of course. And said pasta would have to be circular because, after all, I was making Procopi-o's. But what to serve them with? How should they be dressed?

I wanted something cheesy and saucy and spicy, but with a little bit of ham thrown into the mix. I thought about adding a bit of bitterness to the dish but, upon second thought, I decided to remain intentionally self-delusional and opted instead for a little bit of flat-leafed parley-- purely decorative, which is how I like to see myself on my better days.

But there was something missing. "Oh, it needs a little booze," I thought. Not to function, mind you, but merely to loosen things up.

I would look up recipes, because I allow myself to be influenced by others. I would sift through them and filter them to suit my tastes. And, being the genetic mutt that I am, I would hybridize: Pasta alla Vodka meets Pasta all' Amatriciana. Boozy, hammy, and biting.

How appropriate. How perfect.

Or so I had hoped.

There was one small problem with this idea-- I have a low opinion of vodka. To me vodka: a) It doesn't taste like anything and b) serves no purpose except to make fruit juice boozier (see: girl drink drunks). I'm a gin man, so gin it would have to be. But would gin actually work in a pasta sauce?

Why not? It would certainly add a little note of interest that vodka could never provide. And, before you ask: yes, I do like to think of myself as interesting. Doesn't everyone? I think it's part of how we all get through the day.

Putting Myself Through The Wringer

I'd never given much thought to pasta-making, but when I pulled out my grandmother's old machine, I realized three important things:

1. I haven't made pasta since the late 20th Century

2. I lost the little clamp that holds the pasta maker in place at some point during the 21st Century.

3. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to form my pasta into cute little "o" shapes.

And then I thought to myself, "This is exactly why you should make this-- you never really sure of what you're doing anyway, so just do what you always do and make things up as you go along."

I hunted around the kitchen looking for a way to make "o" shapes. At the back of a little drawer where all the small, unused cooking implements go to die, I found my grandmother's cannoli forms. Those would do very nicely, I thought.

The making of the dough was simple enough: two kinds of flour, some eggs, a little olive oil, and a splash of water. Make a little well, mix it all up, and knead, knead, knead. Rather than knead by hand, I remained true to my own laziness and let my stand mixer do all the work. I thought about how that little machine was working so hard at developing the dough's gluten. And then I thought about how it has been more than a year since I've been to the gym. I took another drag off my cigarette and continued to watch.

I turned the dough out onto a floured cutting board and shaped it into a disc and let it sit, covered, for thirty minutes to let it rest. I followed its lead by crawling back into bed for the same amount of time with a collection of James Thurber's short stories.

You know, for inspiration.

After the dough and I were sufficiently rested, we met up again in the kitchen. I fed it bit by bit into the pasta maker, holding onto the machine with my free hand so that it didn't fall over onto the floor and onto my feet, all the while imagining myself being put through that same wringer. "Well this feels familiar," I said to the dough as I thought of the ghosts of boyfriends past.

I managed to achieve the shape I wanted for my pasta by rolling it around the cannoli forms, but worried how the pieces would perform when thrown into hot water. Would they hold up or would they fall apart? It amused me to think that nearly every step of this whole food preparation process had some sort of glaring corollary to my own life.

There was nothing to do but plunge the Procopi-o's into hot water. It was mildly discomforting to stand over a pot of boiling pasta and stare into it as though one's life depended on it. But, there they were-- those little bits of me slowly floating to the top of the foaming water, surviving. And mostly intact. I scooped those babies out of the pot with a little bit of their bath water and let them cool. Then I tasted one of them.

I was disappointed.

It's hard to imagine what it was I expected from a small circle of flour and egg. It tasted like pasta. Of course, it was pasta-- a little doughy, but pasta, nonetheless. I was disappointed not because it was bad, but because it wasn't perfect. I caught myself staring at a bowl of pasta-- one that was supposed to represent me-- with scorn.

"Well, there you have it," I thought, "So self-critical that I'm shaming myself over a fucking bowl of pasta." Was I really so upset that it wasn't perfect? Temporarily, yes. I stepped back for a moment and thought how ridiculous I was being.

And then I thought back to what a friend of mine said to me the other day. He left a comment on one of my previous blog posts stating that he was a little relieved I couldn't come to a party was throwing, because I would have "spotted the flaws" in his desserts. He was nervous about "having a gaggle of food bloggers" standing around, judging them. In response, I wrote the following:

Dear Honky,

But here’s the thing… I adore flaws. Flaws are like fingerprints; they express an unavoidable individuality. To me, a home made dessert with a little flaw thrown in is infinitely preferable to the factory-made, calibrated sameness of anything that is store bought.

Long may the flawed flag wave.

Well, helloooo, hypocrite! Suddenly, I thought of a little song and hummed it to myself, though not as tearfully as the little girl below:

I tend to give others (or so I like to think) very good advice, but I very seldom follow it myself. I'm flawed. You're flawed. Everything that's worthwhile is flawed. If anyone on this earth were perfect, he or she should probably be whisked up into heaven like Jesus's mother because there would be nothing left to do or learn here.

Flaws are what make people interesting, myself included. If I were perfect all the time a) everyone would hate me and b) I would be a complete bore. And since I consider being a bore a major character defect, we'd just be getting back around to being imperfect, now wouldn't we?

Flaws are what make us individuals.

With that in mind, I tossed my little Procopi-o's into the gin sauce, put great spoonfuls of it into a bowl, topped it with its awaiting garnishes, and dug in. Not perfect, but warm and cheesy, a little smoky and a little spicy. And it did not smell of booze. It was oddly satisfying.

Just like me.

Pasta alla Gin

I hope you'll forgive me for not writing down the recipe for Procopi-o's. Like myself, the recipe needs a bit of work. Besides, very few of you reading this are real life Procopios anyway, and those of you who are more than likely won't be making "o"-shaped pasta any time soon. I suggest you find your own shapes and dishes- ones that better fit your own preciously flawed self.

The sauce, however, is worth making. Seriously. With gin. If you've got pancetta or guanciale lying about, you could certainly substitute that for the bacon but, other than one or two people I know, who has guanciale sitting in their refrigerator? I've used ingredients that are more or less easy to find because, well, I'm more or less easy to find.

Serves two to four of you. Or two to four of me. Given the subject matter of this post, it's nearly impossible for me to tell.

Ingredients:

1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes (San Marzano, if they're available to you)

1 pound of any tube-shaped pasta you like (penne, rigatoni, mostaccioli, etc.)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons butter, salted or unsalted (it really doesn't matter)

1 cup finely diced yellow onion

4 cloves finely minced garlic (garlic is minced, onions are diced-- please discuss)

As much crushed red pepper flakes as you dare.

1 teaspoon of salt (or more, if you feel it needs it)

1/4 cup gin, stirred, not shaken. And very dry, please.

1/2 cup cream

Freshly-ground pepper, as much as you please

About 1 cup of freshly-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Finely-chopped Italian parsley

4 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled, and chopped into adorable little chunks

Preparation:

1. Bring six quarts of salted water to a boil, which means turning the burner all the way up to "11". Dump pasta into the boiling water and stir. If you are using dried pasta, cook for 8 to 10 minutes (until al dente), if using fresh pasta, just cook it until it's done. You're a big boy/girl; go with your instincts. Save about 1/2 cup of the water, drain pasta, place in a bowl, and mix with the water (to prevent the pasta from drying out).

2. In a food processor (or food mill), purée the tomatoes. Stare at them for a moment or to for no other reason but that you think they're pretty and wonder that, if you stick your finger in for a taste and accidentally cut yourself on the blade, would any one notice? Would it change color? Would bleeding into the sauce take this whole "cooking myself" business a step too far? Add salt.

3. In a large skillet, heat olive oil and butter until hot and bubbly, but not so far as to brown it. Add onions and cook over medium heat for about two minutes. Add garlic and crushed pepper flakes. Cook for another minute.

4. Add your (blood-free) purée of tomatoes to the pan and stir. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add gin: 1/4 cup for the sauce, 1/2 cup for the cook. Continue to simmer for another five minutes or so.

5. Turn off the heat and add the cream, gently incorporating it into the sauce. Add ground pepper and about 1/2 cup of grated cheese and stir in. Taste again, adding more salt and pepper flakes, if you feel the urge.

6. Add pasta to the sauce, gently tossing so that each piece is coated thoroughly.

7. Transfer the pasta into either a) individual serving bowls or b) one, enourmous communal trough. Garnish with bacon (or pork product of choice), parsley, and more grated cheese.

8. If you are eating this dish alone, pour yourself a large glass of wine (or a martini, because it pairs nicely with this particular dish), pick up a fork, and slowly cannibalize yourself. If you are serving this pasta to guests, sit back and watch them dig in, all the while saying, in a quiet little voice, "Eat me."

And say it like you mean it.

More than thirty local eateries, such as Farina, Hard Knox Café, and Oola participated in the event, offering guests the opportunity to taste and talk about their wares.

I arrived at the City View Terrace at 6:30 sharp, hoping to beat the crowd of hungry event-goers I was certain would collect and form itself into tediously long lines. Even at that early hour, the queue to enter the event was already longer than one to any summer blockbuster the movie theaters below might offer.

Once inside, I scanned the room. It was already full of people standing about eating, drinking, and chatting in twos and threes. And then there were those who displayed the remarkable ability to eat, walk, and talk on their cell phones all at the same time.

The crowd was ripe for people-watching, with its delightful mix of food-lovers, the tragically hip, the merely tragic (feel free to ask me about a certain alarming combination of silicone, facial reconstructive surgery, and a gigantic purse with a working clock face), lots and lots of gay men (I am very comforted by the fact that it's become fashionable for us to eat again publicly), and a vast number of nice people looking to chow down for a good cause.

And then, of course, there were the roving hordes of foodies, who a twitter friend of mine once described as people who "would stand outside a mediocre sandwich place for two hours because of a Yelp buzz."

And that pretty much sums up the event.

The lines were very long for some of the more popular vendors. In fact, it was nearly impossible to distinguish one queue from another in some cases. I waited in one line for sushi only to find that I'd somehow taken a wrong step and wound up with a tiny cup of tomato bisque (which was lovely, by the way).

I made my way to the less crowded booths which, in hindsight, wasn't the brightest approach. At the Gussie's Chicken and Waffles table, I was informed by a charming and very apologetic woman that she had recently been so swarmed by the ravenous that she'd temporarily run out of food. Disappointed, I walked over to the almost-equally crowd-free Lark Creek Steak table in search of a little protein, which I received in the form of... butterscotch pudding.

As I fought my way through the crowd to get to the relatively peaceful oasis of the VIP lounge, which had been marked off from the rest of the room by curling boxwoods and a wrought iron trellis, I heard the Pama Pomegranate liqueur girls screaming their own name as a prelude to doing shooters, the sound of which reminded me of one of those odd little Japanese videos in which Japanese schoolgirls are encouraged to drink heavily and then made to do stunts.

It also reminded me that I was in desperate need of a drink-- the crowd was growing; it was getting harder and harder to move about the room.

Once inside the VIP area, I found myself at Bi-Rite's table, where I enjoyed a summer berry pudding made with angel food cake (my favorite food intake of the evening); wandered over to Masa's table, whose menu proclaimed that they were celebrating tomatoes, but whose offerings indicated that perhaps they were celebrating said tomatoes elsewhere; and then over to the Herradura tequila table where I chatted with a kind enabler who told me all about the Reposado I was about to drink.

I sipped at it and chatted about the event with a few people for a little while. The VIP room was getting as crowded as the rest of the room. As I was talking, I was trying my best not to imagine someone yelling "Fire!", which is what I typically imagine whenever I find myself in the middle of a crushing crowd-- especially a crowd that has been drinking.

I finished my Reposado, said goodbye, and left.

When I got out into the relatively fresh air of Mission Street, I realized I was still incredibly hungry. I'd been to a food event and hardly eaten a thing. "My fault," I thought. I'm just not the type of person who is willing to wait in line for ten minutes for a paper cup with lord-knows-what in it waiting for me at the other end. I can't stand crowds. I am not, as that Twitter friend classified, a "foodie".

And yet, I was actually really glad to know that SF DISH was as crowded (and successful, one hopes) as it was. It meant that they were going to raise a lot of money for something I consider a very good cause. The irritation I felt had nothing to do with SF Weekly's event, but rather with the choices some of the vendors made themselves. And with the crowds. But who in their right minds is going to limit the number of people they let into an event when there's a good cause at stake. I thought about all this as I made my way home.

And then I decided to go out for pizza.

My friend Shannon, who hates shopping, thought it would be a grand idea to ask along the one gay man in her universe that loathes the activity even more than she. I warned her that she was sorely testing the strength of our friendship, but I obliged because, after 35 years of trying, I find that resistance is futile. I nearly always bend to her will.

Fortunately, she's a pro at rewarding good behavior, so she dangled two carrots in front of me: 1) She told me that our friend Susan was coming and 2) I was promised a cocktail. The prospect of sitting down for a drink with both Shannon and Susan seemed worth the pain of having to stand around for hours pretending to be interested in jewel-toned gowns.

Fortunately, the hours of shopping were whittled down to about 30 minutes, thanks to Susan's laser vision and Shannon's desire to get the errand over with; the whole exercise was mercifully painless.

As the girls busied themselves with the seamstress in the dressing room, I occupied my time by snapping photos of particularly ugly evening dresses and then collapsed into an empty seat, giving my weariest look to the gentleman who occupied the next chair.

"She promised me a drink for putting me through this," I said, half pretending I was a much put-upon husband.

"Just the one?" the man replied, "I think you're selling yourself short." I smiled and thought to myself how easy I had it compared to him. His wife had tried on at least four dresses since I'd been there and he had dutifully complimented her in each. I felt as though I should be buying him a drink.

With the shopping done, Susan, Shannon, and made our way to the nearest bar, which was conveniently located on the very same floor as the evening gowns.

We settled into our banquette at The Rotunda, ordered our respective drinks and got down to the business of catching up on each others' lives. I'd had a difficult week of working and general soul-searching, but when I listened to the goings on of my friends, I suddenly felt as if I'd spent the past several days at a holiday camp eating ice cream by comparison. Both were sucked into things they were more or less powerless to control, but their conversation was buoyed by so much good humor that we found ourselves able to relax and truly enjoy our surroundings and, naturally each other.

As we waited for our much-needed drinks to arrive, a server stopped by to present us each with a warm popover and a little ramekin of strawberry butter-- a fine Neiman Marcus tradition which is perhaps my favorite, since it has absolutely nothing to do with shopping. We three regarded each popover, noting which was the most attractive, which looked like horribly deformed genitalia. The drinks arrived and Shannon commented on how generous their pours were. Susan added that there was nothing especially generous about it; that the idea was to get people as buzzed as possible before sending them back out into the store-- kind of like Las Vegas casinos but without crap tables, just tables full of crap.

We sipped our cocktails, exhaled contented sighs-- for the pleasant dulling effect of the alcohol and ending of an unpleasant week-- and reached for our rolls that had cooled on our bread plates.

"Mmmm... popovers," Shannon moaned. She was referencing an old Warner Bros cartoon, but the sound she made was more Homer Simpson that Mel Blanc. All of us remembered the line, but none of us could recall from which particular cartoon it came nor who said it. It bothered me throughout the meal that followed, but not much. I was much too contented spending a precious, stress-free hour with my friends in the rarified air of a restaurant perched atop a department store I could never afford to shop in to really care. But I'll admit that, as I slowly sipped at my drink as we talked and tore at my bready free gift-with-purchase, I kept repeating to myself all the while, "Mmmm... popovers."

Porky Popovers and Blueberry Butter *

The cartoon in question is entitled Bye Bye Bluebeard, a wonderfully morbid little Porky Pig featurette from 1949 that includes such wonders as a ravenous mouse, a serial killer Russian Wolfhound (Bluebeard), and a guillotine. Most importantly, however, popovers-- or little bombs that look nothing like popovers yet are oddly mistaken as such-- save the day.

I should state clearly that these are not Neiman Marcus popovers. Since it was a Porky Pig cartoon that lead me to this post, I've decided to make them, well, porky-- butter has been replaced by bacon grease and the addition of chopped bacon to the tops not only gives a bit of added oomph but, like a Western Diamondback's rattle, serves to warn away unsuspecting vegetarian grazers. If I need to explain why I've made blueberry butter instead of strawberry, I might suggest you stop and think about it a little longer. And then go make yourselves some popovers.

Makes six pork-studded popovers and enough blueberry butter with which to lash them

Ingredients:

For the Popovers:

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 1/2 tablespoons melted bacon grease

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 slices of bacon, cooked, drained, and finely chopped

For the Blueberry Butter:

6 tablespoons softened butter, either salted or unsalted

1 tablespoon blueberry jam

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat oven to 450ºF.

2. Grease your popover tin (it may be worth it to buy one simply to be able to say you own one) with either bacon grease, butter, cooking spray, or other fat of choice.

3. Combine the softened butter with the blueberry jam until uniform in color. Transfer to a ramekin and refrigerate.

4. Beat together milk, bacon grease, flour, and salt until smooth. Then add the eggs, approximately one at a time (since they're already slightly beaten , this might not be entirely obvious to some-- just take it slow. And do not over beat).

5. Fill the popover cups 3/4 full, sprinkle the surface of each with chopped bacon, and bake immediately.

6. After 15 minutes of baking, lower heat to 350ºF and bake for another 20 minutes. If you are especially worried that your popovers will collapse when cool, you may not want to make popovers, because that's pretty much what popovers do. However, if you'd like to avoid this, I might suggest that you gently insert the tip of a sharp knife into each popover to allow steam to escape, then turn off the oven and let your little puffy friends dry out for another few minutes until you have summoned up the courage to remove them. Personally, I wouldn't bother because I love a dramatic collapse.

7. Eat them warm and slathered with the blueberry butter you've had the good sense to remove from your refrigerator. Consume with delightful friends over tea or hard liquor, depending upon the sort of day you've had.

* By the way, this will be my last regular posting for KQED's Bay Area Bites. I've enjoyed posting here every Friday but, after nearly four years, it's time for me to move on. I will, however, um, pop over here from time to time, just to keep my hand in. In the mean time, you can always find me at my own site: Food for the Thoughtless.

Cheers, and thank you very much for reading,

Michael Procopio

I like to call it Greek style. Or Greek-style, depending upon the activity.

Whatever they are doing, it is often loud and (sometimes irritatingly) proud. This brashness isn't particularly different from any other once-great culture who happened to spend centuries getting kicked around by other Empires-du-jour. It's just the culture I am surrounded by for thirty hours every week at work.

Five or six days a week, I see the Greek men who proudly show off my place of business to their dinner guests as if it were their own home. I count the little Greek flags pinned to their lapels, I bring them more food than anyone could possibly eat because, as one Greek said to me years ago when I quietly suggested he might be ordering too much food for his guests:

"Of course it's too much. I want these people overwhelmed. I can't have them saying they never got enough to eat."

Well, okay then. When I went upstairs to order the 27,000,000 plates of mezethes he demanded, I realized something: This guy may have been one of the richest men in San Francisco-- a self-made, honest-to-God Greek Tycoon, but he was also a child of the Great Depression who grew into an early manhood under the oppressive thumb of Nazi occupation and its resulting near-starvation-- a time when people survived on little more than boiled weeds (horta)-- a dish we also serve, but was conspicuously absent from his order.

The Greeks-- at least the old ones-- know about starvation. To let anyone who comes under their roof go hungry is to shame an entire culture. It would break the laws of philoxenia (hospitality) or, worse-- it would break the heart of their dear, sainted yia-yias.

Perhaps that last statement was a little melodramatic, but it's the Greeks we're talking about here. I mean, they invented drama. I can't say I blame them for overdoing it on the food.

The odd thing I find about Greek people versus Greek food is that, where the Greeks themselves can be frequently over the top in their hand gestures, speaking voices, clothing and just about everything else, Greek food is refreshingly, wonderfully simple. It is what it is, which is often straightforward, fresh, and unadorned. And totally delicious.

Maybe they avoid high numbers of ingredients for any given dish because they know they're going to wind up cooking enough of it to feed Alexander the Great's army.

Ah, those were the days. I can just hear an old Greek woman saying, "Now there was a great Greek man. Of course, he broke his mother's heart by not marrying a Greek girl and look what happened..."

Rizogalo

Greek rice pudding is just one of those delightfully straightforward, simple dishes.

However simple it may be to make, it is not so simple for non-Greek people to pronounce. And I feel strongly that this dessert must be pronounced correctly before one should be allowed to eat it. Otherwise, one is just eating some rice pudding that any other culture might make. And then it wouldn't be Greek, so what would be the point?

It didn't take me long grasp the need to tackle the difficulties of mastering Greek pronunciation. In fact, it was this particular dessert that made me realize that, if I was going to be working in a Greek restaurant, I was going to have to start saying things correctly in order to be taken seriously.

One evening as I delivered dessert menus to a sweet, elderly, Old Country Greek couple, I mentioned that our Ree-zo-Gah-low was delicious. The woman blanched and said to me, "You are not Greek!" and then, took my arm and uttered the correct way to say it, pulling down as if to tear my limb from its socket at the correct moment of emphasis.

"Ri-Zho-gha-loh!"

She then let go of my arm, ordered some Greek coffee and asked,"If you are not Greek-- and you are not Greek, where are your people from, because you look like you could be Greek."

"Well, my dad's family is Sicilian," I answered, not wanting to explain that my father is, in fact, only half Sicilian.

"Sicilian?" she said as she looked at her husband. "That's okay, isn't it?"

To which he replied, "Una faccia, una razza." One face, one race.

His wife beamed. She took my same arm, but this time, she patted it. She gave me a barely perceptible nod and then said, "You're okay. We like you, but learn to pronounce Greek!"

Serves 4 to 6 old greek men, a mere scraping of the bowl by their standards.

Ingredients:

4 ½ cups whole milk

3/4 cups arborio rice, washed

1 cinnamon stick

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or more to taste)

1/2- 3/4 cups of granulated sugar, depending upon your love of sweetness

Powdered cinnamon for garnish.

Preparation:

1. In a medium saucepan (why is it that I feel as though I begin everything with "In a medium saucepan?"), pour the milk and add the cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, then let simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add rice and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently (think of it as a very loose risotto-- you want to release the rice starch).

2. Temper your awaiting, lightly beaten egg yolks with some of the hot milk, then add the yolk/milk mixture to the simmering rice. Stir in sugar. Stir everything. Stir Crazy, for all I'm concerned. Continue to cook until the you can draw a line in the custardy sauce on the back of a wooden spoon (see: above photo). Add Vanilla extract. If you like your rice pudding loose and very creamy, stop cooking now. If you like it firmer and drier, continue to cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

3. Pour out into a large bowl to cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

4. To serve, spoon the pudding into little yogurt glasses you bought for breakfast at the little grocery store in the Marais and then took home with you because they remind you of someone from a Greek family who makes you very, very happy whenever you think about him. Garnish with cinnamon.

5. Eat.

I had every intention of it being a long, lingering meal-- the type one anticipates when one is finally presented with a rare open day and the opportunity to spent a good chunk of it with someone one has known on the edges of his social circle, but has high hopes of getting to know better.

We ordered our food and a round of bacon-studded bloody marys, talking about mutual friends and sharing stories as we tried to figure out the best way to extract the fatty bits of pig from our drinks. The food was middling, but the conversation was excellent.

After we'd filled ourselves and I had given up fishing for identifiable pieces of food that had given up on life and drowned in my bowlful of gravy, we decided to order a second round of cocktails. Fatemeh considered her options and settled on a Ramos Fizz. I asked for a Death in The Afternoon.

The choice was simple, if indeed there was any choice involved at all. I was spending a Saturday afternoon with an interesting, beautiful woman. I was drinking cocktails. I wanted to appear louche, dissipated. Though I have never in my life felt especially Ernest Hemingway-ish, I felt that no other drink would do.

Given the name of the beverage I was consuming, it isn't surprising that our conversation turn to the subject of death and grieving.

As we shared about our families and our personal losses, I began to talk about my brother in a way that I had not allowed myself to do in a very long time: the illness, the denial of illness, the slow and painful wasting of his body in the last year and a half of his short life.

I'd fought against thinking of him in that way for years. I had always thought it would serve him better if I could remember him as the handsome, shy, quirky young man I'd worshipped as a boy-- the Douglas who shared his fetish for over-the-top, Technicolor MGM musicals with me, not the Douglas who sat in his darkened room alone, listening to tape recordings of the same films, avoiding the light that seemed to hurt his eyes.

But there, the middle of the afternoon, I was discussing the horrifying final act of his life. I wondered if our conversation could possibly take on a more upbeat tone after a talk of such loss- of fathers and brothers, of how different people approach coming to terms with that loss-- but it did. Fatemeh, it seems, is not only a serious and thoughtful woman, but possesses the wonderful gift of buoyancy that both I and my meal were currently lacking. She went down into the depths of my pain and somehow lifted me up out of it again.

As I walked home from our encounter, I thought about my brother and realized that it would have been his 49th birthday this weekend. I remembered all of those birthdays we'd shared and the sometimes frustrating sameness of them: the fudge-marbled birthday cake, my mother's Beef Stroganoff, his unwillingness to tear wrapping paper because it was so nice that he might want to use it himself.

And then I thought about my cocktail and how it lead me to my current state of mind. A Death in the Afternoon is made of champagne--the drink most closely associated with celebration, and absinthe-- the drink of forgetfulness. I thought it an odd combination; a conflict of emotions in a glass. And that damned drink had the opposite effect on me-- it lead to the dredging up of painful memories that I certainly didn't feel like celebrating. It is a drink that caused me to become acutely aware of what was absent from my life.

I made that connection when I came home and looked at the bottle of absinthe a friend of mine bought me for my own birthday last year. In large letters, there it was, just staring right at me:

I put the bottle down and noticed the nearby model of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Doug had once given me. I then went into the bathroom and stared at his India ink drawing of a plus-sized woman sitting on the beach, reading a book called Les Femmes de Picasso, with a lobster approaching her with no small amount of menace and her feet buried neatly in the sand. He could never manage to draw feet.

I was comforted by the thought that, though he might no longer be physically present, he continued to exist in the details of both my apartment and my life. I decided that alone was worth celebrating. I took the bottle of good champagne I keep for emergencies out of my refrigerator, poured myself a glass, and bypassed the absinthe altogether. I sifted through my dvd collection and opted to watch, for the 147th time, Singin' in the Rain-- a film he (and countless film critics) deemed "possibly the greatest musical ever made."

I crawled into bed with my glass of champagne, got lost in two hours of Arthur Freed music, and quietly celebrated a person who I have deemed "possibly the greatest brother ever made."

He would have approved.

Death in the Afternoon

The name for this drink is derived from the title of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It is he who, coincidentally, is credited with the creation of this cocktail for a book of drinks created by writers for the 1935 book So Red the Nose, or, Breath in the Afternoon. The recipe and instructions are Hemingway's own.

Makes one cocktail. However, I would advise you to make two of them at a time: one for you, one for a friend because one should not drink-- nor experience death-- alone.

Ingredients:

1 ½ ounces absinthe

4 ounces Brut champagne

Preparation:

Pour 1 jigger of absinthe into a champagne glass. Add iced champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly."

"It's green. Is this normal? I didn't think it would be this... green."

I had always imagined Morocco clad in the colors of sand and dust. I'd allowed for certain man-made outbursts of color-- the blood red of the flag, the ornate vibrancy of their pottery and woven goods, but that green caught me completely by surprise. It was like some sort of unexpected welcome gift.

Though exhausted and thoroughly disoriented by travel, I was excited by the prospect of spending the next three weeks in a country about which I knew precious little and, after a good night's sleep, I couldn't wait to find out what other surprises Morocco would show me.

That is, of course, if the Customs official would let me into the damned country. In filling out the line that read "occupation," I wrote "waiter" in what I thought was clear block printing. The man who held the key to my entrance-- the passport stamp-- misread my job. It was as though The Spellbinder from The Adventures of Letterman had changed the "a" in "waiter" to an "r." The official scrutinized me.

"You are a writer? Do you plan to write of your visit to Morocco?" When I told him that I was a waiter, not a writer, and that I did not plan on writing about his country, he seemed skeptical.

"You are a writer who says he will not write?" He then muttered something in French to his partner, who was now looking at my passport. Oh, yes, I thought. French! I can explain to them my situation in French and clear things right up.

"Je n'suis pas ecrivain," I told them. And then I couldn't remember the word for "waiter" in French. "Moi, je... je... j'habite au restaurant." In my bad, nervous French, I told them that I lived in a restaurant, which wasn't too far from the truth.

Whether they believed me or felt sorry for me or both, I will never know. Once I promised them that I was in their country strictly for pleasure and that I would not write about it (or them), the man with the little stamp finally inked my passport.

So here I am, four years later, writing about it. Did they know something I didn't?

As my friends and I piled into the bus that would take us to our hotel, we began to wonder aloud what our guide would be like. We had bought out a tour group excursion and would have said guide all to ourselves. How old was he? What would he look like? Would he be hot? When we got to the hotel, we were all looking for our idealized tour guide-- an attractive 30-something Moroccan man.

And then I noticed that the only person hanging about outside the place was a young blonde woman with a clip board. She introduced herself to us. Her name was Summer. The disappointment of my little group was palpable.

"Her name is Summer? You've got to be (expletive) kidding me," whispered one friend. She was 25, from Southern California. This was her first time leading a group of tourists. It was just her luck to get handed a group of smart-assed gay men ranging in age from 34 to 50.

I knew she was going to be eaten alive. I felt sorry for her. She whisked us off to dinner and a little orientation. We followed, hungry, tired and very skeptical.

When we sat down to dinner, she began the orientation. One of my friends muttered some bitchy remark which she was more than likely meant to overhear. And then, with barely a turn of her head, she countered the attack with something that not only cut the man down to size, but had him laughing at the same time (I wish to g-d I could remember what it was). The mood of the entire room changed in an instant. Within an hour of meeting her, she had all of us eating out of the palm of her hand, which isn't too far from the literal truth, since one eats nearly everything with one's hands in Morocco.

We adored her.

Over the course of those three weeks, she hauled us from souk to souk in cities like Meknes and Fes and Rabat; showed us Roman ruins and attack geese in the still-green hills of Voulibilis; organized a birthday party with magic tricks and Berber musicians in the arid plains of Midelt; allowed us to stop play in the snow of the Atlas Mountains; took us hiking in the Todra Gorge; had us ride mangy, horny camels into the Sahara desert to sleep in the dunes under a full moon; and had us doing about a thousand other fascinating things that would require too much time to write about today.

We were overwhelmed, exhausted, and very, very happy.

My only complaint was that every activity seemed to be fueled by the consumption of tagine, kefta, and "Berber whiskey"-- otherwise known as mint tea. As over-stimulating as our trip had been, the food had become monotonous-- a hand-washing, tea-pouring, couscous-eating bore.

Until, that is, we entered the town of Ouarzazate where we embarked upon one of the most delightful and surreal lunches in my memory. If one considers that Ouarzazate is the center of the Moroccan film industry, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. A city whose Atlas Film Studios has added footage to such films as Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, and Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra makes fantasy it's primary business. But our lunch had very little to do with the movies.

Instead, it had everything to do with a children's book.

"I saw a little French place down the road the last time I was here," Summer said," but it wouldn't be included in the tour price-- it will cost extra." A "civilized" luncheon at a French restaurant in the middle of the High Atlas plateau after days of hiking and sleeping on camel blankets seem appealing. We all agreed that we would pay for Summer's meal, too. We'd pay for anything-- especially if there was wine involved.

There was.

The "little French place" Summer had in mind was a shrine to Antoine de St. Exupéry, author of The Little Prince. My brother had sent me a copy of the book in the original French when I was a boy, hoping that I would someday be able to read it as well has he could. I never could keep up with him. However, that wasn't going to stop me from enjoying my lunch. I marveled at the randomness of finding such a treasure in a place that-- though very Big City to me after spending several days in the wildness of North Africa-- still felt a bit like the middle of nowhere.

As with most mysteries, however, randomness had nothing to do with it. We soon learned from the chef-owner of the restaurant, Jean Pierre, that St. Exupéry was an airmail pilot. His route took him from Marseilles to-- guess where-- Ouarzazate, Morocco. Though the mystery of its placement had been solved, that didn't make it any less marvelous in my eyes.

As we sat down to our lunch we were offered what most of us considered a minor miracle in Morocco-- a cocktail. We lubricated ourselves with gin and tonics and Americanos that were cooled with something even more miraculous, given our location-- fresh ice. In an area known as The Land of 10,000 Casbahs, I felt as if I had found just the right, need-specific oasis out of the other possible 9,999.

And while there was indeed tagine offered by Chef Jean Pierre, it was not of the customary chicken or lamb, but fresh camel. I was hoping one of my friends would order it so that I might try it and be able to honestly say that I had now ridden, smoked, worn, and eaten camel within the space of one week. I would have ordered it myself, but there was something else on the menu that held my attention:

Bastilla. Real bastilla made with real Moroccan pigeon. Of course, I thought that the pigeons caught and prepared for my meal might very well have been from some other country and merely had the misfortune of landing in the wrong spot at the wrong time, but I let that go. I was about to eat them baked with almonds, spices, and eggs into the flaky pastry of my favorite Moroccan dish of all time. And in Morocco, of all places, too. I longed to nearly suffocate myself under it's heavy layer of powdered sugar and cinnamon.

As we ate, I noticed one of the drawings from The Little Prince that hung across from me on the wall:

By the end of the meal, I knew exactly how that serpent boa felt after consuming an elephant. We gorged ourselves that afternoon.

We ate and drank and laughed. We toasted Summer, the Southern California chick who showed us more than our brains could ever process, who mothered us and kicked our asses, taught us how to say "No!" to the annoying street children who were always trying to sell us packets of facial tissue, and gave us an absolutely unforgettable experience.

So, shukran, Summer. Thank you very, very much. You were the nicest, most unexpected gift of all.

Bastilla

To the rest of you, I say bessah'ha, or "to your health." Eat up, habibi. The preparation of this dish is time consuming, but nonetheless simple to prepare. I couldn't find any fresh pigeon here in San Francisco willing to give up the ghost for me, as it were. Not that I'd want any of the locals to-- they all look as though they could use a trip to Lourdes. Chicken works (almost) as well. Give it a shot if you have the time and have your own Bastilla Day celebration.

There are a multitude of variations on the bastilla recipe. This happens to be one that I have culled from several different sources. As long as you've got chicken (or pigeon), turmeric, cinnamon, almonds, egg, and phyllo (Warqa is the dough traditionally used. Good luck finding it, however), you can most likely get away with calling it bastilla.

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

6 to 7 chicken thighs, bone and skin on

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

A good pinch of saffron

2 cinnamon sticks

About 1 1/2 cups water

3 whole eggs

1/4 cup currants, soaked in orange blossom water

1 tablespoons orange blossom water

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter

1 box of phyllo pastry (because you will invariable rip several sheet to shreds if you're anything like me.)

Powdered sugar

Powdered cinnamon

1 egg lightly beaten with about a teaspoon of water (for egg wash)

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized Dutch oven (historically, the Dutch have had no significant political or economic interest in Morocco, so this is a good, neutral vessel), heat olive oil and brown the chicken thighs in two batches over medium high heat. Remove chicken and add onions to cook briefly (but do not brown). Return all of the chicken to your pot, covering the onions. Add enough water to the pot to nearly cover about 3/4 of the chicken (we're braising here, not boiling), then add the cinnamon sticks, powdered ginger, turmeric, and saffron. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook for about 45 minutes, periodically rotating the chicken in the liquid.

2. When the chicken is tender enough to separate easily from the bone with a fork, remove and set aside, let cool and shred the meat. Remove cinnamon sticks and discard. Look at your fragrant, onion and chicken fat-dotten liquid. Smell it. There is no reason to do so other than the fact that it just smells really good.

3. Take your three eggs and beat them. Not as harshly as if they had, say, committed adultery, but more roughly than if they had simply snuck a bag of Cheetos before sundown at Ramadan. Gently scramble the eggs with about 1/3 cup of the fragrant chicken liquid. Cook until curdled, but not dry, since they will continue to cook when baked into the pie. Set aside.

4. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

5. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a medium sauté pan. Add almonds and fry them until golden brown. Remove, pat with paper towels and toss with a tablespoon of powdered sugar, about 1/4 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon of orange blossom water. Can you guess what you're going to do with these next? That's correct-- you set them aside.

6. Melt the remaining 1/2 cup of butter. generously brush the inside of a 9" round baking dish or sauté pan. Open box of phyllo pastry and place sheets between two lightly dampened (clean) kitchen towels to prevent their drying out. Fold one sheet of phyllo in half and center it in the pan. Let the overhang do just that-- overhang the sides of the baking dish. Brush with butter. Take another sheet that is folded in half and place it at a 90º angle. Brush with more butter.

7. Add the shredded chicken to the pan, making a good, solid bottom layer. Sprinkle the orange blossom water-soaked currants over the chicken. Next, add the lightly scrambled eggs to cover the chicken, then add the almonds to create a final layer.

8. Fold the overhanging sides of phyllo dough over the filling and brush with butter. Add one more sheet of folded-in-half phyllo over the top. Tuck in the edges to create a smooth top. Brush with butter and then brush that with egg wash.

9. Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until the pastry has turned golden brown. Remove from the oven. Generously dust with powdered sugar-- enough so that one might choke and cough is one stuck one's nose close enough to the pastry to inhale. Decorate in the geometric pattern of your choice with powdered cinnamon.

10. Serve to people who will look at you and say, "You made this? Wow, I didn't know anyone actually ever made this." If there is someone at your table who tells you he's not really into the sweet-and-savory combination, allow him to remain at your table because you wouldn't dream of insulting a guest in your home, but make a mental note to never invite him over again.