Well happy Pride weekend and all that.

Frankly, I had conveniently managed to forget about it until my friend Sean mentioned that Cloris Leachman was to be Grand Marshall in this weekend's big parade.

I've never much cared for Pride Weekend. It's not that I don't enjoy being gay, because I do. I can reference old movies with abandon, not worry about child support payments, and get away with saying things that most straights would never dare to.

And, of course, I am proud of the fact that I know who Cloris Leachman is. I think every homosexual is required by law to quote freely and liberally from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I love being gay. I just don't love big parades-- they make me wonder how I'm supposed to get across town. It's kind of like how I feel about Christmas. I love the spirit of the thing, but I hate the clothes, the crowds, and the decorative motifs.

So no pink today, no Sarah-Tucker-there's-a-rainbow-on-your-table.

But there is fruit.

That's the best tie-in I can think of for clafoutis.

Clafoutis

Many of you know this dessert already-- it is, at heart, baked pancake batter dotted with fruit. There are recipes for apricot clafoutis (delicious), clementine clafoutis (if you don't know how I feel about clementines, please visit here), and eggplant clafoutis (?). If you can stick it into pancake batter, it's probably been made into a clafoutis.

A traditional clafoutis, however, is to be made with cherries. Amen.

Some folks run with the pancake theme, serving them warm and puffy and fresh from the oven for breakfast like one would a Dutch Apple Pancake. Do what you will, but the flavors blend together and texture becomes more custard-like if you have the patience to allow it to spend the night in your refrigerator.

The clafoutis is sort of like a Pride weekend trick-- if light and fluffy, fresh and hot is your thing, go for it. Out of your life and on to the next dessert, as it were. I just happen to prefer my clafoutis after it has hung around my kitchen for a little bit and settled down.

And I'm kind of proud of that.

Cherry-Almond Clafoutis

Serves: 4 to 8-ish, depending upon how you slice it.

This charming, no-fuss little number hails from the Limousin region of France, located not quite in the heart of the country, but more or less where the liver might be located.

Traditional clafoutis calls for leaving the pits in the cherries, the wisdom being that the pits lend a pleasant almond-like flavor to the dish. Of course, there are so few people left living in the Limousin region and those who remain are mostly elderly, that chipping a tooth is not considered much of a risk.

Ingredients:

1 pound of cherries (or enough to populate the surface of an 8-inch pan without touching each other), pitted or not pitted. The choice and the risk is yours.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

3/4 cups heavy cream (you can get away with using milk, but the day-after texture will suffer greatly, I promise).

6 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/3 to 1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Powdered sugar, for dusting

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F

2. In a blender, combine eggs, flour, cream, salt, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Blend well, scraping down the sides of the blender from time to time. Or whisk aggressively. Your choice. When blended, add half the slivered almonds to the batter and stir them about.

3. In an 8-inch cast iron skillet or heat-proof baking pan, add butter and 2 tablespoons sugar until all is melted, slightly nutty-smelling, and syrupy. Add cherries; cooking and coating them for about two minutes.

4. Pour the batter gently into the pan around the cherries. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the and pop into the center of your oven.

5. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until sufficiently browned and puffy, remove from the oven and let cool.

6. If your clafoutis is not sufficiently browned and puffy, do as I both say and do-- sprinkle the remaining almonds over the top and pop it under the broiler. Works like a charm unless you burn it.

7. Dust with powdered sugar for garnish just before serving with crème fraîche, lightly whipped cream, or all by itself.

Chocolate chip heaven

Ah, the chocolate chip cookie. A classic. An American icon. A comfort so versatile, it is as satisfying raw as it is baked.

I'm sure we've all sampled our share of this pervasive sweet treat, from those that were passable (but got the job done), to those that reached heights of heavenly decadence.

Chocolate chip cookie, unflattened golf ball version

I had one such cookie lately that made me wonder: What makes the ultimate chocolate chip cookie?

After deep introspection, I came to the conclusion that it must satisfy a trifecta of textural perfection. It has to be crunchy, chewy, and gooey.

I was reminded of David Leite's fantastic chocolate chip cookie article that came out almost a year ago in the New York Times, in which he described this much sought after "bull's-eye" of cookie greatness. When you first bite into the cookie, the crisp outer ring should break with a nice crunch, giving way to a satisfying chew, and progressing to near gooeyness in the center of it all. If done right, you should still be able to feel the sugar granules of the cookie dough on your tongue here.

Resist the temptation to eat all of this cookie dough and you will be handsomely rewarded

And then, of course, there is flavor.

The ultimate cookie must envelope you with all the homey flavors of butter, sugar, vanilla, and rich chocolate. Generous, copious amounts of quality, semi-sweet chocolate in each bite, please!

Now, I've made dozens upon dozens of chocolate chip cookies before, but how come mine just never seem to reach the ultimate level of amazingness that my favorite bakeries achieve? What is their secret?

As I learned from Mr. Leite and his arsenal of choco chip experts, it's all about patience. The trick is to let the dough rest between 24-36 hours before baking them!

I mustered up all the self restraint I had, gave it a shot, and was amazed at what a difference it made. As predicted, my cookie had a richer golden color, better texture, and had a significantly more complex flavor. The extra time allowed all the egg, butter and sugar to meld and soak into the flour so that when they baked up, the toffee caramel notes bloomed. Plus, a sprinkle of sea salt at the end adds an extra dimension to the sweetness.

Use the best ingredients you can. I went with my old faithful, unsalted, European Style Sweet Butter from Straus Family Creamery, and E. Guittard’s 61% Cacao Semisweet Couverture wafers. The quarter-sized baking discs melt well and cool with a pretty sheen. They also make for gorgeous, thin strata of luscious chocolate throughout the cookie.

Use an ice cream scoop to create golf ball sized mounds of dough that are all even. I experimented with flattening versus not flattening the mounds before baking. With the ice cream scoop mounds, not flattening resulted in a prettier cookie that was a little cakier.

My favorite batch resulted in using a ½ cup scoop, creating baseball sized mounds, and flattening it slightly so that the cookie spread a bit. The final product was a cookie with wow factor. BIG wow factor. The perfect thing for a special birthday care package.

Jumbo chocolate chip cookie, flattened baseball version

Now that's the ultimate chocolate chip cookie.

Recipe: NYT Chocolate Chip Cookie, Adapted from Jacques Torres

I've currently got Paris on the brain. I'm about to invade that city for a week of eating and drinking and wandering and thinking.

So, naturally, the first thing to pop into my head for today's post was, "Oh, I should do something German."

Because that's how my mind works.

Oh, it's not what you're thinking. My mind has been on the Franco-Prussian War, naturally enough, since I'm currently re-reading The Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne.

Paris is a city that has been, at least historically, in perpetual turmoil. It started with the Norsemen pillaging and burning the town until they were bought off with a big chunk of land in the North (Normandy). Only to see those same Normans a couple of centuries later restyling themselves as Englishmen and setting the country afire during a little conflict known as The 100 Years War.

Then, of course, there were several plagues, internal revolts, sieges, and revolutions-- 1789, 1830, and 1848 (twice in three months), World Wars I and II, and a near-revolution in 1968.

But never did the city of Paris suffer more than during what the French refer to as L'Année Terrible, 1870-1871.

The Year in Review

A sickly Emperor Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 19th, 1870, hoping to distract people from the problems at home in his dying Empire. It was a bad move, but one made with characteristically Gallic flair. The French were trounced, the Emperor was captured six weeks later at Sedan, and that was pretty much that.

Or so the Parisians thought. They celebrated the fall of the Empire with a lot of cheering and declared The Third Republic two days later. The war was lost, but at least it was over.

Or not. The Prussians, with the iron-willed, iron-fisted, all-around Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck forging policy, kept on coming. The French, Bismarck felt, needed to be taught a lesson.

So they marched on Paris.

Surrounding the city, the Prussians sought to starve Paris into capitulation. For five months, the only contact Paris had with the outside world was via hot air balloons floating up and over the enemy filled with letters and dispatches from those trapped inside. The only messages in came from an occasional carrier pigeon. Rats, horses, house pets and nearly every animal in the zoo (one exception being monkeys because, apparently, the Parisians embraced Darwinism) were consumed by the hungry Parisians in their effort to fend off starvation*. By the time the French surrendered, Germany had united over the near-dead body of France and declared itself an empire. At the palace of Versailles, of all places. Nice touch.

But that wasn't the worst part.

As happened so often in Paris, the working class sparked a revolt, leading to a government take-over. In a nutshell, The Paris Commune was set up, socialist reforms were attempted and things went generally crazy. The Tuilleries Palace was burned to the ground, the Vendome Column toppled, even Notre Dame barely escaped destruction-- it's benches had been piled up and doused with kerosene but was saved at the last minute.

The Commune ultimately failed-- stamped out by the what was left of the French government and army in the bloodiest moment of the city's history-- 20,000 Parisians were slaughtered in just one week alone. The city was shattered.

Or was it?

What has always amazed me is the resilience of Paris. Each time it is beaten down, it seems to come back a little bit stronger. After a year of alienation, isolation, the pounding and ensuing humiliation by a stronger enemy, self-destruction, and thanks to a 5 billion franc war reparation bill, crippling debt, Paris rebounded into one of the most brilliant (or at least, fondly remembered) periods of its history-- La Belle Epoque, which lasted nearly 43 years. Solidly, it returned to and confirmed its status as the cultural capital of Europe, if not the world.

It's as though Paris can historically shake off its woes with its world-famous shrug.

So why the history lesson today?

Well, I'm coming out of my own p'tit année terrible-- one that strangely mimics the year Paris faced, but on a much smaller, human scale. So I'm off to see how the Parisians manage it; to do a little shrugging of my own, you might say. I will eat and wander and observe the natives in a place that is more than likely Bismarck-free both in terms of the pastry and the guy who brought Paris to its knees. Or the one who brought me to mine, for that matter.

And maybe I'm hoping for a little belle époque of my own to begin. 43 years? Yeah, I think that will do. That will do nicely.

I will be back blogging June 19th.

* On the bright side, the Parisians were never in any danger of running out of wine.

Bismarcks

Bismarck is the Canadian/American name for the German pastry Berliner, as in John F. Kennedy's famous declaration, "Ich bin ein Berliner." In Berlin, however, they are referred to as Pfannkuchen.

Call it whatever you like.

Apart from the time spent allowing the yeast dough to rise, these doughnuts are relatively simple to make. And delicious-- the unfilled pastry being light and airy and not especially sweet. Fill them with whatever you like, sweet or savory. Hell, toast one and use it to bookend a hamburger, while we're eating things named after German cities.

It's a good thing Kennedy wasn't in Hamburg when he decided to make that speech. Or worse, Vienna.

Makes: 12 Bismarcks

Ingredients
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 packages of yeast
4 tablespoons of sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
Raspberry Jam for filling
Powdered sugar for dusting

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan, bring milk to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in butter and sugar. Cool to lukewarm. Sprinkle yeast over the top of the milk mixture and leave it to bloom and reanimate for about 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to foam up.

2. Add this yeasty liquid to a large bowl in which the flour and salt have been patiently waiting. Stir and fold to combine into a sticky mess of dough. Cover with a damp, clean cloth and set in a warm place to rise for two hours.

3. With floured hands, turn dough onto a lightly-floured surface and roll to a 3/8-inch thickness. Cut into circles (I used a 3 1/2- inch cutter). Place them on a baking sheet or what-have-you and cover with the same damp cloth to rise for another 30 minutes or so.

4. Fry the Bismarcks in 350° F vegetable oil or lard for 4 minutes. I find flipping them every 30 seconds helpful for some reason. Drain on a paper towel-lined rack to cool.

5. If you are filling these pastries (and you should be or they're not Bismarcks), if you lack a pastry syringe, cut a small opening into the side of each bun and wiggle your knife or (what I used) scissor blade around the inside to create a small pocket into which the jam might find purchase.

6. Put jam into a pastry bag with a plain tip. Place the tip into the pastry's hole and pipe in the jam until it starts to spill out the side like some mortal flesh wound. The jam should be cold, like the blood of Bismarck himself.

Serve fresh, and not over anyone's white carpeting.

One of my favorite spring and summer desserts is a lemon tart with berries and whipped cream. This is one of those pastries where everything melds into the perfect balance of flavors and textures -- the lemon's tartness nicely contrasts the sweetness of the berries and the luscious cream ties it all together. If you have Meyer lemons, so much the better as they are sweeter and have a more complex citrus flavor then the standard variety.

Lemon tart with berries is also the ideal dessert for anyone wishing to make a dish from local and seasonal ingredients. Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are popping up in markets and backyards throughout the area. Meyer lemons are also in abundance right now. You can find them at most farmers' markets, and maybe even closer by in a neighbor's yard (or your own) as they grow beautifully in the Bay Area. If you don't have your own tree, but have seen one at someone else's house, I bet they'd share if you asked nicely and promised to bring over a nice slice of tart.

I've tried numerous lemon custard recipes, but my favorite is the Tarte au Citron recipe in the Bouchon cookbook by Thomas Keller. And, as luck would have it, this recipe is freely available at Epicurious.com, so you don’t have to buy the book to get it (although if you're in the market for a gorgeous book full of amazing recipes, I recommend it). I love Mr. Keller's lemon sabayon because the consistency lies beautifully in the tart crust, it isn't too eggy and the lemon flavor really shines through. Also, don't let the fact that you need to cook the custard in a bowl over a pot of simmering water dissuade you. This is not hard to make.

The Bouchon recipe calls for a pine nut crust, which I have made in the past and liked. That said, I prefer to make a regular butter crust for my tart as I think the lemon and berry flavors are interesting enough on their own and don't necessarily need a nutty component.

This is a great dessert to prepare ahead of time and then serve chilled. Topped with some berries that have macerated in a bit of sugar and lemon juice, along with a dollop of freshly-made whipped cream, you have the perfect seasonal dessert.

Lemon Sabayon
from Bouchon by Thomas Keller

Makes: Enough for one tart

Ingredients:
2 large eggs, cold
2 large egg yolks, cold
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces

For preparation instructions, go to Lemon Tart recipe at Epicurious.com

Sweet Berries with Lemon and Sugar

Makes: Enough berries to garnish each tart slice

Ingredients:
2 cups berries, washed and stemmed
¼ cup sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice (preferably Meyer lemon)

Preparation:
1. Wash and hull berries. If using strawberries, cut into slices.
2. Place berries in a bowl and mix in sugar and lemon. Stir and set aside for at least ten minutes.
3. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Flaky Pie or Tart Dough
Adapted from a recipe by Kim Laidlaw

Makes: Enough for one 10-inch tart

Ingredients:
1 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
6 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 cup ice water + 1 tablespoon

Preparation:
1. To make the crust, in the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, and salt. Sprinkle the butter over the top and process for a few seconds, or just until the butter is slightly broken up into the flour but still in visible pieces. Sprinkle the water over the flour mixture evenly, then process until the mixture just starts to come together.
2. Dump the mixture out of the bowl onto 2 large sheets of plastic wrap. Press the dough together into a mound and then wrap with plastic and press into a flat disk. Refrigerate the dough until chilled, about 30 minutes or up to 1 day, or freeze for up to 1 month.

My birthday is this month, so I have requested a luscious and rich home-baked chocolate cake. And by chocolate cake I mean the kind you can put candles on, not the flourless variety. My husband has gallantly offered to make it, but if he gets too busy, I have no problems getting in the kitchen and whipping it up myself: my birthday, my cake, my prerogative.

I have tried many chocolate cake recipes over the years, always searching for the perfect one. But as with a search for anything great (say a life-changing novel or the perfect kiss), so much can go wrong. Some had a deep chocolate flavor, but were a little dry, while others just weren't chocolaty enough. Worst of all were the cakes the barely held together. Like sloppy kisses, they were well meaning, but a little too wet.

After many calorie-filled attempts, I have settled on a recipe that I feel is truly the ultimate for chocolate cake. Beatty's Chocolate Cake is made with good cocoa powder, buttermilk and freshly-brewed coffee. With an intense chocolate flavor that is both nuanced and bold, this flirt of a cake teases out its flavors and leaves you wanting more. I didn't create this recipe. Ina Garten, aka The Barefoot Contessa, gets all the glory; or, rather, her friend Beatty for whom the cake is named. Take note that the coffee makes the batter a bit soupy (which worried me a little), but in the end, its flavor accents the chocolate nicely and gives the cake a velvety richness it wouldn't have had otherwise.

Although I love Ina and Beatty's cake, I veer from their advice when it comes to the icing. Skipping the chocolate frosting Ms. Garten pairs with her cake -- as I find a chocolate on chocolate combo a bit overwhelming -- I instead went with a vanilla cream cheese frosting. I have found over the years that vanilla makes chocolate taste more robust, and this is definitely the case here. The frosting has the added bonus of having a thick but not stiff texture, so it lays evenly on the cake. It also takes only about three minutes to make and is delicious.

I can't disclose the cake's recipe here -- it isn't mine, after all -- but can share my frosting recipe. So if you're having a birthday soon, or are just in the mood for a good old-fashioned chocolate cake, it's time to indulge.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes: Frosting for one cake

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter
1 box of powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Preparation:
1. Combine all ingredients together in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer until smooth.
2. Frost cake and devour.

So you thought you could put away the sweaters and pull out the tank tops, did you? Well, no whining. Remember all that basking you did in January? We need this rain, and it's also the last wintery chance to hunker down inside with a fat book and something really good burbling away on the stovetop. Something belly-filling and sturdy, like lentil, black bean, or split-pea soup, all started with a little pancetta or a chunk of ham hock.

Or, for oomph without the oink, a spoonful of Spanish pimenton (smoked paprika) and a handful of Tierra Vegetables' dried smoked onions--what they've dubbed "vegan bacon" for their savory, smoky punch. (Look for them at their farm stand in Santa Rosa or at their booth at the Ferry Plaza farmers' market on Saturday.)

Once you've got your soup, of course, you need bread. Now, the Bay Area is just lousy with fabulous bread. All by itself, the counter of Acme Bread can bring tourists to tears, or at least pitch them into a levain-noshing frenzy. But for the sweetest, most warming, baby-it's-cold-outside experience, you have to make your own. Now, in a future post, I'm going to tell you about baking locavore bread, using a levain starter made from Eatwell Farm's locally-grown wheat, with all the ingredients, even the salt, easily sourced from not too far away. But my starter is still a baby, only a few dozen hours old, its yeasty colonies not tough enough to lift even a little tiny pancake yet.

Until then, what you want is something distinctly non-local, as East Coast as a Red Sox cap or a lobster roll spilling from a toasted Pepperidge Farm bun. Yes, I'm talking about Boston brown bread. Hardly any of my San Francisco pals know from this old-fashioned treat; they're too busy chomping asparagus foccacia or folding injera around their spicy doro waat. By comparison, Boston brown bread is homely, a little dumpy, even. Like any recipe that uses an empty coffee can instead of a baking pan, it has an undeniable whiff of 1950s Fannie Farmer to it.

But you know what? It's good. In fact, it's really, really good, and good for you, too, packed with whole grains and rich in iron and fiber. Because it's steamed, not baked, it comes out completely moist without any added fat. A good thing, too, since the best way to eat it is slathered in cream cheese. Think of like the best bran muffin you've ever had, then think of Amy Adams curled up in your lap, laughing at your jokes and feeding it to you bite by bite.

And did I mention that it's completely easy? Seven ingredients, one bowl, one spoon, and a couple of coffee cans. Actually, the hardest part may be getting the coffee cans, now that nothing but Peets/Blue Bottle/Four Barrel/Ritual Roasters will pass our lips. Then again, haven't you heard that Cafe Bustelo is the new PBR?

Admit it: you liked it back in your five-roommates-in-a-drafty-Victorian days, brewed up strong and cheap so you could make it onto the 33-Stanyan at any hour, day or night.

So drink up, then grease up. And remember to top each filled can with a little shower cap of foil or waxed paper, so it can rise without getting wet from the steam drips inside the pot.

Boston Brown Bread
Well wrapped, this stays tasty and moist for several days. It also freezes very well.

Makes: 2 loaves

Ingredients:
1 cup corn meal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rye flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk
3/4 cup molasses
1 cup raisins

Preparation:
1. Generously grease 2 clean 12-oz coffee cans. Fill a deep pot (big enough to accomodate both cans) approximately 1/3 full with water. Bring to a boil over high heat.

2. While water is heating, stir dry ingredients together. Add buttermilk, molasses, and raisins. Stir gently until you have a thick, smooth brown batter.

3. Divide batter between prepared coffee cans. Top each can with a sheet of buttered aluminum foil or waxed paper, and tie down firmly with string or a rubber band. Put cans into pot of boiling water; water should come about half-way up cans.

4. Lower heat to a simmer, cover, and steam for 1 1/2 hours.

5. To test for doneness, remove 1 can from pot, remove foil, and stick a toothpick into the middle. Toothpick should come out nearly clean-if not, re-cover and steam for an additional 10 -15 minutes. When done, remove cans from water with tongs or two pot holders, remove foil, and let cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes before unmolding.

Wedding season is upon us! Well, almost. When it comes to wedding cakes, there are lots of choices starting with the type of cake. According to wedding cake specialist Gabrielle Feuersinger of Cake Coquette, there are several different major categories to choose from.

1. European cakes
These cakes include the very traditional fondant wrapped cake with a bow, Princess cakes with marzipan and St. Honore cakes with pate a choux puffs. Most standard bakeries can do these cakes. Plan on spending at least $4-5 per slice.

2. Art cakes
These cakes feature painting, fondant cut-outs, piped buttercream and other elaborate types of decoration. They are more likely to be unique. Popular sources of inspiration for these cakes comes from the venue, dress details, or the theme of the wedding. At a minimum expect to pay $7 per slice and up.

3. Sculpture cakes
The popularity of these cakes has grown, due to television shows like the Ace of Cakes. What sets these cakes apart is their 3-d structures made to look like almost anything imaginable from the Eiffel Tower to a high heel shoe. Prices are $8-10 per slice, minimum.

4. Alternative cakes
When is a cake not a wedding cake? When it's a stack of cupcakes, doughnuts, or even individual cakes for each guest. The prices for these can vary greatly. Some options are less expensive than a traditional cake, some are more.

Wedding planners suggest contacting a bakery or baker at least five months before the wedding. Popular bakers like Feuersinger often get booked six to nine months ahead and say for popular dates such as New Year's Eve, three day weekends or auspicious Chinese dates, plan a year ahead.

Tips:

Make sure the cake tastes as good as it looks. Fondant will create a smooth finish but is not as tasty as buttercream. Plan on about an hour for your cake tasting, and be sure to bring fabric swatches, photos of cakes and anything else that will help your cake designer get a feel for what you'd like.

Decide on a theme for the wedding before deciding on the cake. This will make it easier to design the perfect cake. The trend in wedding cakes is personalization, a cake like no other. Find an architectural element, a special cake topper or even a monogram.

Got a wacky idea for a cake? Consider using it for the groom's cake, a Southern tradition that has been growing in popularity.

Find out what the cake cutting fee is before finalizing your budget. Many venues charge between $5 and $10 just for cutting and serving.

Two cakes are more economical than one. Get the wedding cake of your dreams in a smaller size and have a back up sheet cake for up to half the guests. Sheet cakes can cost as little as $2.50 per slice and no one will know the difference.

Another money saving tip: Make your own cake stand and work with a florist to decorate the area around the cake.

A cake with columns for height, filled in with flowers, is impressive but likely to be less expensive than a heavily decorated cake.

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.

With winter's pantry almost empty and the green promise of Persian New Year just days away, it was time for a trip to Fremont's Little Kabul to stock up on Near/Middle/Far Eastern supplies.

It's a ritual now.

1. Get up early on a Saturday.

2. Clear out the back of the station wagon to make room for bread.

3. Call fellow eater-travelers to make sure they're awake.

4. Decide which bridge to cross this time around.

5. Stop first at De Afghanan Kabob House for slabs of potato-filled bolani, each huge round rolled and cooked to order under a battalion of bacon weights. Order juicy lamb chops and chicken kebabs along with a minced chapli patty. Load leftovers into car.

6. Shop at the farmers market for real cilantro, the kind with purple stems and small, sweet leaves and every thick, gnarly root intact. (The leaves become chutney; roots go into the freezer for making Thai curries.) Load produce into car.

7. Head to Maiwand Market to watch their halal butchers cut goat after goat in half. Load meat into car.

8. A few steps away, watch the Maiwand bakers gently pat bread dough until each loaf is 3 feet long and 1 foot wide and half an inch thick. Order 4 loaves and watch them go into the oven. Chat with folks in line for 5 minutes. Claim my loaves, wrapped in paper torn from flour bags. Load bread into car.

9. While the bread cools, fanned out in the back of the car, continue shopping.

Throughout the day, other must-have foods will find their way into my bags -- chewy sun-dried mulberries, sabzi herb mix (with mint, cilantro, leek and fenugreek leaves), flowery pussy willow water, gold-green raisins, whole dried limes or flaky butter cookies stuffed with dates. Thus does my pantry fill back up. Over the course of the next few months, I'll be able to enjoy the exquisite flavors of Afghan, Persian and Parsi cooking.

One corner of Maiwand holds neatly ranked bins filled with dried essentials: chickpeas, aged basmati, walnuts, almonds, sliced orange peel and bright-sour sumac berries. The opposite corner houses a halal butcher. You need a trunkful of lamb or goat? No problem. The butchers will even carry the carcasses to your car for you.

The heart of the market, though, is its bakery. Fresh loaves of nan afghani emerge every five minutes all day long, all week long. While modern deck ovens have replaced the clay tandoor, the bread retains its distinctively long, narrow slipper shape and its finger-rippled surface. A mixture of wheat flour and white flours gives the nan a nutty flavor yet tender bite, a perfect foil for savory kebabs and rich qormas.

The bread freezes beautifully and warms to a crisp in a toaster oven within minutes. Along with a plop of full-fat yogurt or some fresh cheese, that's about as easy as you can get for breakfast. If I'm in a savory mood, I'll drizzle the yogurt with cilantro chutney. If I'm feeling sweet, a smear of butter and raspberry jam makes the bread an excellent accompaniment to a cup of afternoon tea.

Or, if I've recently returned from a Fremont expedition, I'll eat the nan with heaping spoonfuls of khashk, a creamy, buttery, faintly caramelized fresh cheese magically thickened from the whey left behind in Middle Eastern cheesemaking. There's nothing else quite like khashk, and I've fallen completely, helplessly in love with it.

Maiwand offers a house-made version packed in cartons like ice cream. It's so good that I eat it straight from the container. There are less perishable, totally acceptable versions in jars, but if it's your first time, please do go for the homemade carton. And if you've made it all the way to Little Kabul, you might as well grab a jar of that lovely cilantro chutney by the register, too.

The best day to visit Maiwand is on a Saturday, especially during the spring and summer when the Centerville Farmers' Market across the street is in full swing. The bakers will be mixing, forming and baking bread throughout the day within full view, so you'll be able to watch up close a centuries-old tradition. On the weekends, expect to stand in line with families buying a week's worth of bread. A few of the older buyers insist on pinching the corner of each loaf to check its freshness. Some request no seeds; others ask for darker or lighter loaves. Most walk out with a stack of eight or more cradled against their chest.

Surely, contentment is an armful of bread still warm and fragrant from the oven.

Maiwand Market
37259 Fremont Blvd.
Fremont, CA 94536
(510) 796-3215
Map

De Afghanan Kabob House
37405 Fremont Blvd.
Fremont, CA 94536
(510) 745-9599
Map

Happy (post-) Purim. I should have written this post last week but, frankly, I forgot all about Purim this year. I'm not good with dates. And I'm not a Jew, though I have been told many times by Jewish friends that I am, in fact, Jew-ish.

And that makes me exceptionally happy.

Now, I bet you are wondering, "Why the photo of the lady with the enormous décolletage and the even more enormous hat? What on earth does it have to do with Purim or those delicious, Purim-related delicacies, Hamantaschen?"

Please let me explain...

Nine years ago this month, I had never even heard of Purim until I received a phone call from my friend Tricia.

"Are you free tonight?" she asked. "Want to go to a Purim party?"

I said yes, of course. And then I asked, "What the hell is a Purim party?"

She admitted that she really had no idea. As a Mexican-Scottish agnostic, she wasn't exactly up on Jewish religious tradition. Her fiancé was, however, in his second year of Rabbinical school and she was boning up on her holidays. She told me that, unlike Yom Kippur, this was one of the fun holidays, where people dressed up, ate, drank, and made a lot of noise. Being rather good at all of the above, I became rather excited about it-- especially when she told me we needed to go in costume.

I had approximately six hours to come up with costumes for the two of us to attend a party at a temple in which I'd never been, celebrating a holiday I never knew existed. I did a little research, called her back and said, "Just show up here at six in a black turtleneck."

For those of you who still don't know what Purim is about, let me explain as briefly as possible.

Purim, for Dummies

Purim is a rather joyous holiday-- one celebrating the Jews' deliverance from extermination by the King of Persia's evil advisor, Haman. Haman despised the Jews because of their otherness-- they refused to bow to him, the king, or anyone but their own God.

Fortunately, the king's favorite wife, Esther (who was the adopted daughter of Mordecai, a man who once saved the the king by revealing a plot against his life) was a Jew, though closeted at the request of her father. When Esther learned of Haman's plans to exterminate her people, she revealed herself as a Jew and argued that, should Haman have his way, both she (his favorite wife) and Mordecai (his savior) would be murdered as a result. Tables were turned, Haman was himself killed, and the Jews were allowed to exact reprisals upon Haman's people-- essentially freeing themselves from their famous Babylonian Captivity.

It's amazing how freeing coming out of the closet can be, whatever one's secret. In this case, quite literally.

Oh, It Needs a Hat

I was at a loss as to what to wear to the party. How many Esthers, Mordecais, and Hamans would show up? I imagined people with a poor grasp on historical costuming showing up in togas or basic burlap. Thanks to a little time and Googling, I came across several recipes for Purim cookies, or Hamantaschen, which are supposed to represent Haman's hat or, as some would argue, ears.

As a literal-minded man who loves to put things on his head, I found the notion of making a hat-inspired cookie into a cookie-inspired hat rather delicious. I spent the rest of the afternoon making giant Hamantaschen headwear.

Dressed as The Hamantaschen Twins, Tricia and I were a hit at Temple Sha'ar Zahav. After the noise-making and game show-themed events, the evening culminated in costume judging. We came in second place, much to our delight, beating out the less-inspiring costumes and, inexplicably, a woman wearing a giant vagina suit. I have since blotted from my memory the costume which stole our thunder.

We celebrated by strolling into the Castro wearing our hats. Most of the people on the street looked at us with utter confusion. A few people, however, smiled and gave us the thumbs up sign. "Jews," we thought, "They dig us."

We settled into a bar table at Harvey's, where I drank my first, second, third, fourth, and last ever Lemon Drop. Why? Because we were wearing big hats, that's why. We chatted up a table of gay softball players next to us. I was rather (unsuccessfully) fixated on one fellow there celebrating his birthday. Tricia was occupied by another, more interesting gentleman. When a drag queen handed us pencils and stapled sheets of copy paper, we realized it was trivia night, so we in our giant hats joined tables and forces with the jocks.

And, this time, there was no second place for us-- we won, even though none of us could name more than one porn star out of the many represented on our test papers. Fortunately, we were good at geography and disco hits of the 1970's.

I went home that evening rather high from all the contest-winning and Lemon Drops, but I came away with much more than that-- I met one of the best friends I've ever had that night chatting and playing trivia games, all the while savoring the time I was able to share with one of my oldest friends-- a girl who, at 13, I asked to go to Europe with me as gravely as any other shy boy might ask another girl to go to the prom.

And all thanks to our giant, conversation-starting Hamantaschen hats.

The hat was somewhat worse for wear by the time I gave it to my next door neighbor-- a Jew who loved playing dress up more than any straight man I've ever met. God only knows whatever became of it. Or him. Fortunately, the friendships are still around, however tattered and frayed by life and stress and distance they may have become at times. They are sometimes shelved, but they are always there. A little more glue or glitter or TLC, and they are as good as new-- more durable than any styrofoam, brown paper, and satin that a hot glue gun could ever put together. I'd be a fool to give those two away like I did that damned hat. I don't care how many cookies you offered me.

Hamantaschen

In German, the word tasche means "pocket", which is essentially what these cookies are all about-- there is a pocket made for jams or other pastes like those made of poppy seeds or prunes (lekvar). How they are meant to represent a hat worn by Haman, I have no idea. Three cornered hats were favored by European gentlemen of the 18th Century C.E., not Central Asian ones in the 6th Century B.C.E.. The European Jews of the 18th Century may not have had much of a knack for historically-appropriate head gear, but they did come up with a rather delicious cookie.

While trawling for recipes, I landed on the one that sounded the most delicious (to me)-- that of a very popular food blogger who shall not be cited here. There was something about her non-traditional use of both butter and (especially) cream cheese in the dough that told me these were the ones to bake.

They didn't turn out so well.

While they were as delicious and tender as I suspected they would be, I followed the recipe too blindly as I am wont to do whenever I bake anything new. I should have read all the comments attatched to the post before my baking venture to get a little more insight. For example, the dough should have been rolled more thinly, too much jam (even for this jam lover) in the center, the oven temperature was not high enough, and the baking time, which was suggested at 20 minutes, was more like 30. Oh, lots of problems, but that is another blog topic altogether. Sadly, the walls of these little Jerichos came tumbling down with the weight of all that bubbling confiture. Some of them looked remarkably like gaping wounds. But, like I said, they tasted rather good.

Of course, it could have been my own, simple lameness. But I very much doubt it.

I should have stayed with Mark Bittman.