Mitch Rosenthal. Photo credit: Paige Green © 2011

Mitch Rosenthal is the chef and owner of three of San Francisco's most beloved restaurants, Town Hall, Salt House, and Anchor & Hope, as well as Irving Street Kitchen in Portland, Oregon. Mitch hails from Edison, New Jersey, and was a chef at the Four Seasons in New York City, Wolfgang Puck’s Postrio in San Francisco, and Paul Prudhomme’s K-Paul’s in New Orleans. Through the years and through many kitchens, Mitch developed an adventurous philosophy not bound to a single cuisine, blending Jewish deli roots with Southern-inspired comfort food, updated regional favorites and urban sophistication.

The recipes for many of his favorite dishes appear in his newly published cookbook, Cooking My Way Back Home (2011, Ten Speed Press), and reflect the Southern exuberance of Town Hall, the contemporary approach of Salt House, and the focus on fresh seafood of Anchor & Hope. The book draws upon Mitch’s 35 years of restaurant experience but is geared toward the home chef—he tested every single recipe in his own home kitchen. Readers can cook up one of the book’s recipes, the Cheesy Rosti Potato Cake, at the end of this piece. Mitch lives in Mill Valley with his wife, Mary, and two children, Eli and Athena.

What do you have planned for Thanksgiving?

We’re having 30 people over at our house, and the menu will probably be a little different this year. We’re thinking of doing the turkey porchetta style: boneless, rolled up with lots of traditional spices, and roasted. This way, we’ll have more time to do other things -- maybe a seafood paella. Both are untraditional for us, we’ve never done this before. Since we’re having a lot of people over and have a pretty small house, we can cook the paella outside over the grill and just roast the porchetta. The porchetta will take less time to cook and be much easier to carve than a traditional turkey. We’re still discussing sides, as the flavors from the fennel and other spices used on the porchetta will change what will go with it. For example, we’ll probably skip the cranberry sauce and use something like Italian mustard fruits instead. But my wife Mary will still make her apple-sausage stuffing, as she does every year.

Please tell the story of closing Salt House and using it for a special Thanksgiving...

It was a disaster. Fun, but a disaster. Originally it was supposed to be a dinner for close friends and family, but then we had people inviting others and suddenly there were about 70 people at dinner. We had to put all of our tables in the restaurant together to fit everyone. The menu was very traditional: roast turkey with all the trimmings, Mary’s apple-sausage stuffing, and cranberry sauce. We did have jambalaya, though, and my brother Steve made his chopped liver, which he does every year. We had a lot of wine. It was fun, but there’s a point when you’re cooking for a group where you start to feel like the hired help instead of the host. I never got to sit down. We had a good time, but it was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Any dishes that have special meaning?

The chopped chicken liver that my brother makes every year is our grandmother’s recipe. It’s in the cookbook. And Mary cooks a lot of recipes that were handed down -- her apple-sausage stuffing is from her mother. We also serve latkes with smoked salmon at Thanksgiving as an hors d’oeuvre, which I learned from Tom Plajanis, the chef at the Jewish deli I worked at in New Jersey. The latke recipe is in the cookbook as well.

How is the book tour going?

The book tour really just started, but I’m always surprised by how many people show up. The biggest surprise so far was probably earlier this month at Powell’s Books in Portland, which was my first big talk during a book signing. I was really nervous, but it was great -- I was able to go on for over an hour talking and had to cut myself off. It’s so easy to talk about food and the stories around it. The other big surprise has been all of the emails I’m getting from long-lost friends, lots from the East Coast. Ever since the cookbook was published, I’m hearing from some great old friends that I haven’t talked to in years.

How did your cookbook come about?

Honestly, I was pushed into writing a cookbook. Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson of Tartine pushed me into it -- they’ve been bugging me for years. The funny thing is that’s how I got into the restaurant business: my mother pushed me into it.

One of the biggest surprises to me while writing the cookbook was how little it affected my marriage. With Mary being a chef, we got into very few fights while testing recipes at home -- basically I just let her be the boss. The big thing about testing recipes at home was that it brought me closer to the overall experience of cooking at home, which was a first. I’ve spent my life cooking in restaurant kitchens, and cooking out of my house brought me closer to the home cook. But I’m hoping that the book will do the opposite for the home chef, giving people the skills for more restaurant-level cooking.

What are you favorite off-night food & drink spots?

The reality is that I don’t go out that often, but when I do, I love R&G Lounge for their salt and pepper fried crab. Or the original Shalimar restaurant in the Tenderloin, for their lamb and spinach stew.

Favorite date night spots?

We like to visit Redd, a friend’s restaurant, in Yountville for special occasions, and have actually been to Aziza a few times in the last couple of months. They have these great vegetable spreads made with charred eggplant and yogurt dill. I had calamari with a saffron sauce that was amazing.

What is your favorite meal to have with friends and/or family?

When I go out to eat we usually go out with my family. We love Tony’s Pizza Napoletana. I always get the Jersey Original, and we always order the meatballs -- they’re amazing. Our new favorite place to eat out as a family is Super Duper burgers. I get the Double. We also love Yank Sing for any of their dumplings -- my kids go crazy there.

Mitch Rosenthal. Photo: Paige Green

Guiltiest food pleasure?

I love it and it’s gross: a Jersey Taylor pork roll. The way they’re made is very specific. It’s pork on a Kaiser roll, topped with fried egg, ketchup and American cheese. You only ever see them in Jersey. They’re so bad for you that I rarely eat them anymore, but last time I was in Jersey I had one.

How did you and your wife meet?

Mary worked for me in the kitchen at Postrio. The longer story is that she went on to become chef at the Liberty Café, but we had a mutual friend, Robin, who cooked with us and stayed on in the kitchen after Mary left. Robin thought that Mary and I would make a great couple and told Mary that I kept asking about her, all the while telling me that Mary was asking about me. None of this was true, but she ended up setting us up on a date. True story.

Tell us about your kids? Do they have favorite foods?

My son Eli is 12 and my daughter Athena is 8. Eli’s favorite food is pizza. Athena is a big fan of any soup, especially brothy soup. When they come to Town Hall, Eli has the BBQ shrimp. Athena has a broader palate, and loves ribs, fried chicken and meatballs.

Any advice for cooks during the holidays?

Test dishes you’ve never made before. Like with the Thanksgiving turkey porchetta, which is something we’ve never done, I’m not going to wait until the day-of to figure out the details. Look through what you’re planning to cook and see what you can prepare a day or two early so you’re not cooking everything all at once. Start early, and have a cocktail. Or a beer. And invite people that you like.

Recipe: Cheesy Rösti Potato Cake with Roasted Garlic and Thyme

Serves 6 to 8

2 heads garlic
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large russet potatoes
4 ounces fontina cheese, grated
1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F.
to roast the garlic, cut the top off of each head of garlic, about 1/8 of an inch to expose the cloves. Put in a shallow pan and drizzle a tablespoon of the olive oil over each, season with salt and pepper. Cover the pan with foil and roast in the oven until cloves are soft and creamy, about 45 minutes to an hour. When done, and cool enough to handle, squeeze the cloves from their papery skin and set aside.

to steam the potatoes, place a collapsible metal vegetable steamer basket in a large heavy-bottomed pot with an inch of water. Bring the water to a boil, add the whole, unpeeled potatoes and steam for 16 minutes. Set the potatoes aside to cool.

It is important that the potatoes are completely cool before continuing. When they are, peel the potatoes and grate on the largest hole of a box grater and season with salt and pepper.

In a bowl, toss together the grated fontina and Parmesan and set aside.

to make the rösti, heat one-half of the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium heat. Add half of the grated potatoes and distribute them evenly, pushing them down with the spatula and shaping them to the form of the pan. Next layer the roasted garlic cloves evenly on top of the potatoes. Then, layer the grated cheese over the garlic and potatoes in an even circle, leaving about 1/4 inch from the edge of the pan. Pack the cheese down with the spatula, and then sprinkle with the chopped thyme, and cover with the remaining half of the grated potatoes, making sure to cover the garlic and cheese completely and evenly. Pack it down and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the potatoes are crispy and golden brown. When ready, turn the rösti over. This can be accomplished using either a spatula, a quick flick of the wrist, or by turning it out onto a plate, and then back into the pan. After it has been flipped, cook for 5 more minutes, then slip the pan into the oven for another 5 minutes. Slice and serve immediately.

“Reprinted with permission from Cooking My Way Back Home: Recipes from San Francisco’s Town Hall, Anchor & Hope, and Salt House by Mitchell Rosenthal, copyright © 2011. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.”

There's a new family member in 4505 Meats' "Swine So Fine Product Line" making its debut this month. Aside from their transcendental chicharrones (pillowy clouds of fried pork skin that melts in your mouth), turduckens, spiritual t-shirts, letterpress posters, and the masterminds behind the best burger in the Bay Area (if not the country, aside from Peter Luger's in Brooklyn), they're releasing their visually stunning, prodigious tome of meat wisdom: Whole Beast Butchery: The Complete Visual Guide to Beef, Lamb and Pork.

I've been an ardent fan of chef Ryan Farr since my fellow KQED colleague and I attended a panel discussion UC Berkeley titled, "The Art of the Butcher." We watched in awe as he proceeded to expertly break down an entire side of a pig in front of the audience. (And later on, when hunting for a caterer to roast a whole pig at my wedding, I knew who to call. Ryan and his talented crew prepared this amazing porchetta for our picnic reception several years ago.) Since then, I've also seen him work his magic at various street food festivals and his weekly lunch gig at the Ferry Building.

Ryan Farr holding his book "Whole Beast Butchery" at Eat Real Fest 2011. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

With the release of "Whole Beast Butchery," he's adding author to his list of talents. Ryan teaches butcher and sausage-making classes, but as they're sold out for the rest of the year -- this is the next best thing. This hefty book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs by Ed Anderson that comprehensively depicts the labor-intensive process of cutting up whole slabs of beef, lamb and pork. This short video from Chronicle Books gives a great overview of what you'll find inside.

Whole Beast Butchery starts off with an introduction that outlines why there's an increased interest in taking this ambitious culinary step.

"Home butchering is the next logical step for those who raise their own vegetables and chickens, preserve the bounty of the land and field of off-season meals, and care deeply about what they feed themselves and their families. When you decide to butcher a whole animal or a part of one by yourself, as I hope you will, you are almost always going to be buying that animal locally. By doing so, you are supporting a local business as well as your community."

Ryan then outlines the basic tools you'll need to get started: a hatchet, an array of knives, bone saw, hooks and other accoutrements to break down an animal. But the best advice he gives is to plan ahead -- partner with other families to share the labor and costs of a whole animal, and decide ahead of time how you want to butcher the meat.

"You will need to understand all the different options in order to make the best decision based on your needs. Not every cut of meat with which you are familiar can physically come from the same animal...If you want tenderloin medallions or filet mignon, you won't be able to cut porterhouse or T-bones from the same side of the animal."

Ryan also advises to follow "whole-animal utilization," which is "not just about using all the parts of the animal -- including the offal, the lesser-known cuts and organs -- it's also about making sure there are no scraps left behind, which is also a great way to get the most value from your whole animals. Use the best scraps to make sausage and other scraps to make stock. Then poach your sausage in the stock. Then reduce the stock and make a sauce."

There's loads of recipes in the book how to prepare your cuts of meat once you're done butchering (or if you're just interested in cooking), from spice-cured beef brisket with curry to crispy pork shoulder with shank. Here's one for smoked pork sirloin if you want to prepare yourself a decadent breakfast.

Smoked Pork Sirloin
Serves 4

Master Brine, completely cold - 8.5 cups (67 oz, 1900 g, 28.7%)

Boneless pork sirloin or cowboy "ham" steak - 1 whole (27 oz, 766 g, 71.3%)

Rendered pork fat for cooking (optional) as needed

1. In a nonreactive container, brine the sirloin, fully submerged, in your refrigerator for 24 hours. Rinse well under cold water.

2. Prepare a smoker with about 2 cups / 8 ounces of apple or hickory wood chips. Insert a probe thermometer into the center of the sirloin and smoke the meat, ideally at about 230°F / 110°C, until the internal temperature at the center reaches 150°F / 65°C. (The smoke will peter out after a while; don't add more chips, or the meat will be too smoky.

3. Let the meat cool, the refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut into thick slices and fry until crispy and golden, adding a little rendered pork fat to the pan, if you like. Enjoy for breakfast (or anytime of day).

Master Brine

Yield: 4.73 liters / 1 gallon and 1 quart

This recipe is a starting point, but there are many possible variations. If you're not a fan of hot flavors, go ahead and omit the chiles. Always use a tall, narrow nonreactive container only just large enough to hold the protein, so the brine will go up as far up as possible. The brine must cover the protein completely, so scale the quantities here up or down as necessary.

Granulated sugar - 2 cups (13.6 oz/385 g / 6.5%)

Kosher salt - 2.5 cups (20.4 oz / 578 g / 12.7%)

Whole black peppercorns - 1/4 c (1.2 oz / 34 g / 0.7%)

Whole coriander seeds - 6 tbsp (0.8 oz / 24 g / 5%)

Dried bird's-eye chile or Thai chile - 3 small ( 6 oz / 17 g / 0.4%)

Water - 16 cups (123 oz / 3500 g / 77.1%)

Combine everything in a large pot and bring to a boil. Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, remove form the heat. Transfer to a tall nonreactive container that will fit in your refrigerator and let it sit uncovered to cool. When the brine is at room temperature, refrigerate until it is completely cold. Add the meat, and brine as directed.

Whole Beast Butchery: The Complete Visual Guide to Beef, Lamb, and Pork by chef Ryan Farr and Birgit Binns. Photographs by Ed Anderson. Published by Chronicle Books.

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If there's one cuisine that I'd love to be able to cook like a native at home, it would be Moroccan. Why? For the seductive spicing that scents the kitchen like a bazaar; the dried apricots and dates nestled up lush and luscious next to slow-cooked lamb; the crisp brik pastries; the fiery smear of harissa; the unexpected matches of sweet and savory, even the delicate, gold-rimmed glasses poured theatrically full of hot, achingly sweet mint tea out of the held-high spout of an intricately decorated silver pot.

I had my first Moroccan meal—a platter of couscous piled with meat and soft-cooked vegetables, ladled over with flavorful broth and shared by everyone at the table—in a small, cozily dim neighborhood restaurant in Paris in 1983. I was a teenager, and no stranger to New York and New Jersey's various ethnic restaurants, thanks to my culinarily-adventurous parents, but the flavors of North Africa were utterly new to me. Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, which brought descriptions, at least, of tagines, couscous, preserved lemons, and ras el hanoot to American kitchens (getting authentic ingredients was something else), had been published ten years before, but author Paula Wolfert's caftan-wearing bohemian taste hadn't wafted to our corner of the East Coast yet. I had to get to France, with its large post-colonial population of North Africans, to taste scorchingly hot merguez (lamb sausage) and the pigeon pie, called b'steeya, whose savory filling was wrapped in shatteringly crisp, sugar-dusted pastry leaves.

Now, decades later, San Francisco has its own mini-neighborhood of inexpensive Moroccan and Tunisian restaurants along a five-block stretch of Polk Street. And then there's Aziza, the swanky destination with the unlikely Outer Richmond address, as much like these casual couscous joints as Kokkari is to a gyros shop on Telegraph Ave. Run by Mourad Lahlou, the tattooed, Moroccan-born chef who came to San Francisco in 1985 to go to college at SF State, Aziza is a contemporary restaurant first, with Moroccan roots but a menu dedicated to modern techniques rather than classic interpretations. Because, as Lahlou writes in his new book, Mourad: New Moroccan, why shouldn't Moroccan food evolve, just like California cuisine has? As he writes about his childhood memories of growing up in Marrakesh with a large extended family,

But the thing is, I don't long for that world. I cherish it, and I cook from it every day. And so, dish by dish and year by year, my food evolves. I started at Kasbah [his first restaurant, in San Rafael] with a somewhat obsessive attitude about showing people real Moroccan food, done the authentic way. But there we were in California. It's just not possible. The ingredients are different—even the ones flown in from Morocco don't taste the same by the time they arrive...So, before long, I was doing the Moroccan version of what so many inventive northern California chefs have done. I adapted what I knew and loved to make it work with the beautiful ingredients I can get here, and then just followed my nose, my heart and my palate."

Mourad Lahlou. Photo: Deborah Jones

Mourad's food here in the Richmond is an expression of both his own and his customers' restless taste. His book, gorgeously photographed in that lavish minimalist style familiar to readers of European and Australian food magazines, in which single items are shot in mouth-watering, brilliantly detailed close-up, surrounded by tons of expensive-looking white space, sells the not-quite-established celebrity appeal of the handsome Mourad as much as it does his food. The book is gorgeous and spot-on contemporary; if you want a chic cookbook to give your have-everything loft-dwelling pals for the holidays, this is it. (And to ensure an invitation to the cocktail party where they try out the recipes for harissa bloody marys and Berbere-cured chicken liver mousse.)

But can you cook from it? For DIY obsessives, the most crucial parts are the opening chapters, which focus on the spice-driven building blocks of Mourad's cuisine. He mentions, casually, that his restaurant staff makes five different ras el hanout blends for different dishes, but putting together the one 23-ingredient version he offers should satisfy, especially if you, the home cook, follow it up with the sexy 22-ingredient vadouvan blend, for which it helps to have a dehydrator as well a tablespoon or so of an additional 10-ingredient curry mix. There is a long, leisurely section about hand-rolling your own couscous from coarse semolina, salt, water, and flour, and an even longer one about making tissue-thin sheets of warqa, Morocco's version of phyllo, with the up-to-date help of a little xanthan gum.

Once you move onto the main dishes, success, as always with chef- and restaurant-driven cookbooks, depends on your affinity and patience for long ingredient lists and multiple sub-recipes. Restaurants, as surely as any TV watcher now knows, spend all day, every day, making the many different items that come together on your plate. One guy makes the stocks. Another guy takes those stocks and turns them into sauces. Someone else chops the onions or toasts and grinds the spice mixes. Even if it looks like you're getting protein, vegetables, and sauce on a plate, do a little real analysis and you'll probably find a dozen different steps (or double that) that went into making your meal. And Mourad, 21st-century chef, likes his drips and drizzles, his frizzled herbs and sudden spice-drenched dabs of infused oils.

Of course, you can strip out the fancy stuff, and just make the still luscious-sounding entrees and surprisingly simple but alluring salads and sides. But if you want to get the full Mourad, you're going to have to do some serious spice-shopping, and get ready to divvy up multiple tasks, probably over several days, to crank out a full menu. To make that Lamb Shank, Spiced Prunes, and Brown-Butter Farro, be prepared to brew up a Red Wine Gastrique Lamb Sauce, make the Spiced Prunes, simmer up some lamb stock, dry your shanks in the fridge overnight, and then tend to them lovingly for at least most of an afternoon, including a nearly 3-hour braising time in the oven. (And if you happen to have some Activa RM around, you can follow the "Chef to Chef" tips and turn the meat into a sliceable log.)

You won't find xanthan gum in Paula Wolfert's clay-pot-lined kitchen. In the nearly 4 decades since her first Moroccan cookbook came out, Wolfert, who lives in Sonoma, has become perhaps the American expert on traditional Mediterranean cuisines. Given the Bay Area's affinity with all things olive-oiled and bay-leaved, it's rare to find a kitchen not stocked with at least one of her cookbooks around here. (Those that don't usually have a few by Joyce Goldstein instead.) Wolfert, now 71, still finds a thrill in capturing authenticity, in ferreting out obscure or lesser-known dishes or methods, often unique to a particular region or place. She's especially drawn to those that she feels are in danger of disappearing, as cooks give up (perhaps with a sigh of relief) traditional labor-intensive methods and ingredients.

Back when Wolfert first started her cookbook-writing career, her books were more for armchair travelers than hands-on cooks. Finding fresh purslane, nigella seeds, or cubeb pepper was almost impossible; there was no busy-mom instant couscous on the shelves at Safeway. But slowly, book after book, Wolfert made a difference. Now, leafing through The Food of Morocco, her decades-later update of that first couscous book, a Bay Area cook would be hard-pressed to find an ingredient that she couldn't source between a handful of well-stocked international-foods shops.

Wolfert's book doesn't look as striking as Mourad's; the design is busier, the serifed typefaces fussy, the colors a little washed out. Still, after all these years, Wolfert still has the enthusiasm to sit down with her readers and start right at the beginning. The first 50 pages are lists, techniques, and explanations that explain all the basics and then some, from The Ten Most Frequently Used Spices (with descriptions), to her own long and enticing description of ras el hanout, and how it can include up to a hundred ingredients, even the poisonous, irritating, supposed aphrodisiac known as Spanish fly. There are questions and answers about how to grate a tomato, why and how to grate an onion, how to make saffron water, even how to peel chickpeas. Wolfert makes no assumptions about the sophistication or hipness of her readers; you can't imagine her labeling a chapter on couscous "Here's How I Roll," as Mourad does. In the recipes, the flavors are familiar, even comforting, rife with almonds, eggplant, cumin, cilantro, turmeric, ginger, olives, lemons, and honey, but the methods just different enough from a typical California sear or grill to twist the results into something altogether different.

So which cookbook will get more spattered in my kitchen? When I'm cooking for myself, I'll trust Wolfert. Cooking to impress? I'll ask the tattooed guy over, and hope he brings a bunch of friends with sharp knives and plenty of time.

Some grocers offer recipes and coupons. Others offer recipes for a socioeconomic-savvy food system and a mean pear skillet cake.

For the food shopper who thinks, the positively indispensable Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food: A Grocer’s Guide to Shopping, Cooking, and Creating Community Through Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough (Ten Speed Press) released this month is the holy reference guide/blue book that clues consumers in to the real value of what’s on the grocery shelf. At a time when so much is being written about atrocities in our broken food system, consumers looking for sound, actionable advice on making grocery store purchasing decisions will appreciate this neatly compiled background check on everything from canned tuna to flour, fresh meat, fish and milk, and every manner of produce under the sun.

And note that this cannot be dismissed as a mere starter’s guide. As a veteran food nerd for decades, I thought that I knew a something about eating mindfully, ecologically, locally, and sustainably. But a primer on avoiding genetically modified organisms, and a full list of foods that are most commonly GMO? I am edified (sugar, milk and dairy, oils, corn and soybeans -- page 12). The pleasures of the texture of bronze die-cut pasta? I had no idea how this aspect of artisan pasta production can be essential for clinging sauce (page 37). And a list of all of the product acronyms on European foods that signify it is a product of protected origin (such as true, regionally-specific Champagne as opposed to methode champenoise) -- AO, DO, AOC, DOC, DOP, PDO, and IGT, page 47. And that’s just chapter one, people.

Just as one pushes the cart down the grocery aisle, the uber-brainiac education rolls through every department, well-captured in France Ruffenach’s bright, busy photography that conveys what it feels like to shop in Bi-Rite on a sunny Saturday afternoon or at the 5pm dinner rush. Mogannam and Gough give faces to food throughout the book as well, introducing readers to the likes of his brother Raphael, grocery buyer; farmer for the store’s self-grown produce and produce buyer, Simon Richard; and a smattering of farmers that are enmeshed in Bi-Rite’s business and mission -- some, like Drakes Bay Family Farms, purely as retail partner; others, like Soul Food Farm, pet investments to help propel local and sustainable agriculture.

The Eat Good Food shopping information stands alone as a necessity for any kitchen bookshelf. But the tome is also comprised of recipes from the Bi-Rite deli and beyond which, while well written to induce drool and craving, they feel awkwardly placed and difficult to find plunked at the end of each chapter. As a frequent Bi-Rite shopper, I was excited to finally crack the code on their addictive Mujadareh (see recipe below), and their heavenly and rich deli counter summer staple, Sergio’s Gazpacho. Even Delfina’s spaghetti makes a cameo, simple and delicious and part of the book’s neighborhood charm. And thumbing through I quickly found a new favorite, Mom’s Pear Skillet Cake from, you guessed it, Sam’s mother, which yields results that far outshine the effort, and is the perfect thing to be doing with pears right now.

Another challenge of the book is that it’s so much information, it’s nearly impossible to remember the essentials when you’re actually cruising down aisle six. Seafood shoppers striving to do the right thing really benefited from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s wallet card guides to sustainable seafood and then later, their mobile apps. But when pondering the entire grocery store of everything from coffee to celeriac, tri-tip to crème fraiche out in the trenches -- well, we could really use an app for that.

In my favorite cookbooks, encyclopedias, or reference books, I turn down page corners and make notations freely, and my copy of Eat Good Food is already remarkably dog-eared. Essential as a shopping list, I’ve no doubt that it will continue to serve as reference and advisor. And that’s far more valuable than a coupon.

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Recipe: Mujadara

Serves: 4 to 6 as a main course, 
or 6 to 8 as a side

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked black or green lentils
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 medium or 2 large onions, diced (about 41/2 cups)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice, such as jasmine 
or basmati
2 tablespoons mild curry powder

Instructions:
Rinse the lentils and pick out any stones or foreign objects. Put in a bowl, add water to cover by 1 inch, and soak for at least 2 hours or up to 6 hours. Drain the lentils and set aside.

In a Dutch oven or soup pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Add half the onions and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and translucent and golden on the edges, about 4 minutes. Add the lentils, rice, curry powder, 
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add 3 cups water, increase the heat to high, and bring the liquid to a boil. Then lower the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cover the pot. Cook until the rice and lentils are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. At this point, it’s okay if there’s still a tiny bit of bite to the lentils; they will continue to absorb water. Remove from the heat and let rest with the lid on for 10 to 
15 minutes.

While the rice mixture is cooking, caramelize the remaining onions: heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add the remaining onions and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally at first and more frequently as you go, until the onions are soft and almost at the brink of burning, 9 to 11 minutes (lower the heat if the browning seems to be progressing more rapidly than the softening).

Set aside.

To serve, fluff the rice mixture with a fork and transfer to a serving platter.

Top with the caramelized onions.

Serve hot or at room temperature. You can make this up to 2 days ahead. If desired, reheat in a covered, shallow ovenproof dish in a 350°F oven for about 
30 minutes.

Reprinted with permission from Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam & Dabney Gough, copyright © 2011. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.

Photo credit: France Ruffenach © 2011

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Full disclosure: Karen Solomon is the volunteer host of the Jam It Salon at 18 Reasons, the non-profit art and food organization that is part of the Bi-Rite family of businesses.

Joe Yonan in his home kitchen. All photos: Ed Anderson

Devotees of the NBC sitcom 30 Rock may well remember a scene in an episode that goes something like this: Liz Lemon, the perennially single character played by Tina Fey, is at home on the phone talking with her boss Jack Donaghy (played by public radio fan Alec Baldwin). Donaghy asks, somewhat unkindly, what Lemon did last night. She responds: "Well, I was going to go to my cooking for one class but my instructor committed suicide." Cue laugh track now.

Joe Yonan, the James Beard Award-winning food editor of The Washington Post, recalled that scene at a recent book signing at Omnivore Books, where he talked up his adventures in cooking for one, which he documents in a monthly column of the same name at the Post, and in his recent cookbook Serve Yourself (Ten Speed, paperback, $22).

Spend even a few minutes with Yonan and you'll figure out he's one funny guy. But Yonan isn't terribly amused by those who mock singletons who make a meal for themselves. That's because, he tells folks at the event, it feeds into people's perceptions that it's not worth "bothering" to make something delicious when "it's just me." He says such sentiment makes him tear up a bit and you believe him. He simply discounts the commonly held notion that cooking for one is depressing or sad. Alone and lonely are not synonymous in his mind. He's living proof: As the youngest of eight kids he has a highly developed sense of narcissism, he admits, and never ever thinks "it's just me." And you believe that, too.

That kind of secure thinking is worth imitating. Yonan's feed-yourself-well mantra boils down to this: Standards for what goes on the table shouldn't slip because there's only one place serving. That territory has been covered in other recent recipe books on eating alone, including those by culinary legends Judith Jones, Deborah Madison, and Joyce Goldstein, as well as an anthology of essays on the subject edited by Jennie Ferrari-Adler. (For reviews on these see my colleague Megan Gordon's piece on same, as well as her post on the lighter side of eating alone.)

Still, Yonan thought there was room in the genre for his male perspective (hello taco chapter) and his easy-to-make recipes aimed at food-fancying singles -- the fasted-growing segment of U.S. households. Young ones are waiting longer to get married (if at all), while many older folks who survive their spouses are healthy enough to live independently.

Serve Yourself is full of useful tips, walking readers through the three concerns of single amateur chefs: portion size, shopping, and spoilage. (In short: the freezer is your friend (cooked rice, broth, or pizza dough, can form the beginnings of many a meal), as is the fridge (condiments like chutney, kimchee, and salsa can brighten lots of dishes), and the pantry (dried beans, pasta, or grains, can get things started at the stove). He offers solutions for storage to minimize waste and recommends that soloists make it a goal never to have to stop at the store on the way home from a long day at work, which sinks many home cooks, regardless of how many mouths there are to feed.

Yonan views cooking for one as an opportunity to take a few risks and diversify one's repertoire, since there's no performance anxiety issues at play, like those that can surface when cooking for a crowd. There aren't any unknown eating quirks or allergies to cater to either, he notes, there's only your sweet self to satisfy.

Cooking for yourself is literally a way of taking care of yourself, adds Yonan, who's quick to acknowledge he frequently cooks for and eats with family and friends. But there's no question that learning your way around a kitchen makes you less dependent on others, whether paid or not, to provide you with nourishment. It's both a selfless and selfish act. It's certainly cheaper and healthier than eating out or ordering take out every night.

There's a growing audience for this book. "Lots of people become single later in life because the relationship or marriage goes south, and I've run into lots of those on book tour," says Yonan. "Some of them are a little more open to the idea of cooking for themselves than you might think, because they see it as something of sweet revenge -- finally getting to make the things that they've wanted to, things that damn partner never wanted them to make. Some find it soothing to nurture themselves when they're heartbroken, of course," he explains. "And some are ready to move on, big time. I had one recently single gentleman slip me a note at a signing that read, 'If you're ever ready to cook for two, you know where to find me.'"

Yonan's cookbook includes over 100 recipes for both weeknight dining and more complex cooking projects for weekend meals, when time is potentially less a factor. Not surprisingly eggs feature prominently (there's a whole chapter on these portion-controlled, versatile, long-lasting, fast-cooking, protein-filled friend of the single cook) and it's good to find another eggs-for-dinner advocate. Pizza gets a chapter too and Yonan reveals his Texas roots with his fondness for salsas, beans, and those tacos. Bonus: The man is a sweet potato fan. Dishes that sound worthy solo endeavors include Mushroom and Green Garlic Frittata, Sweet Potato and Orange Soup with Smoky Pecans, Catfish Tacos with Chipotle Slaw, and Smoked Trout, Potato, and Fennel Pizza. Meat lovers will find pulled pork, short ribs, and sirloin steak, no worries. And there are desserts too, like Cappuccino Tapioca Pudding with Cardamom Brulee.

The only drawback to solo cooking, as far as Yonan is concerned: There's no one to help with the clean up after dinner, which, since he lives alone, he often leaves until the morning, as there's no one to nag about dishes in the sink.

Yonan needs to send a copy of Serve Yourself to Tina Fey pronto. With his enthusiasm for the pleasures of cooking for one, even the cynical Liz Lemon might be won over.

Cappuccino Tapioca Pudding with Cardamom Brulee

Makes 6 (1/2-cup) servings

3 cups milk, preferably low-fat
1/3 cup small pearl tapioca
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
2 egg yolks, whisked to combine
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Pour 1 cup of the milk into a heavy saucepan. Add the tapioca and let soak for at least 30 minutes.

Pour the remaining 2 cups of milk into a mixing bowl or glass measuring cup, sprinkle the espresso powder over, let it sit for a minute or two, and then stir to dissolve.

Whisk the espresso-milk mixture into the tapioca mixture, along with the egg yolks, salt, and 1/3 cup of the sugar. Over medium heat, slowly bring the mixture just barely to a boil, stirring constantly; it will take 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce the heat until the mixture is barely simmering, and continue cooking the tapioca, stirring occasionally, until the beads swell up and become almost translucent and the custard thickens, another 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and let it cool. Spoon the pudding into 6 individual 1/2-cup ramekins and wrap each in plastic wrap, pressing the plastic directly onto the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled. It will keep it the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for up to 2 months.

When you are ready to eat, unwrap one of the ramekins of pudding (thaw it first if frozen), and sprinkle the top with 1 teaspoon of the remaining sugar and a pinch of cardamom. Use a small culinary blowtorch to caramelize the sugar on top, keeping the torch moving so you deeply brown but don’t blacken the sugar, then eat.

When a world-famous and beloved chef gathers together sixty years of the recipes he "love[s] the most" and stuffs them in a hearty cookbook that measures two inches thick, it's time to make room on the bookshelf. This fall Jacques Pépin publishes his newest cookbook, Essential Pépin, and gives his hungry fans over 700 of his favorite recipes culled from his six decades as an apprentice cook, professional chef, and cooking school teacher.

Always the perfectionist in and out of the kitchen, Jacques didn't go easy on himself when putting this book together. In his introduction, Jacques admits that he could have simply sent off all 700+ recipes to be published with no additional changes, however, he instead decided to reconsider each one and "adjust, correct, and retest [them] for a modern kitchen to make them usable, friendly, and current for today's cook, while retaining the spirit and flavor of the originals." Essential Pépin is essentially Jacques, and the recipes reflect his life in food from the fanciest French dishes to the homiest American comfort foods to his personalized approach to "fast food" cooking.

I don't know what Jacques' original recipe was for Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style, but this one did me just fine on a pre-Autumnal evening. As I swim my way through a practically tangible haze of slowly simmering onions and browning mountain cheese, I will say that I wish Jacques had been a little more specific about what port is "sweet port." To me, all port -- ruby, tawny, vintage -- is fairly sweet. It's not like sherry where one is clearly sweet and one is clearly dry. I went with ruby for this recipe, but might try tawny another time just to experience a taste comparison. Also, I didn't use canned stock. What with all the scary news about what is going on with canned foods these days, I buy cartons of stock not cans. Of course, that's an even better excuse to make your own stock, which is Jacques' primary suggestion.

Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style

Serves 6 to 8

15-20 slices baguette, 1/4 inch thick
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 medium onions, thinly sliced (about 4 cups)
8 cups homemade chicken stock or low-salt canned chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups grated Gruyère or Emmenthaler cheese
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sweet port

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until browned. Remove from the oven and set aside. (Leave the oven on.) Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and sauté for 15 minutes, or until dark brown.

Add the stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Push the soup through a food mill.

Arrange one third of the toasted bread in the bottom of an ovenproof soup tureen or large casserole. Sprinkle with some of the cheese, then add the remaining bread and more cheese, saving enough to sprinkle over the top of the soup. Fill the tureen with the hot soup, sprinkle the reserved cheese on top, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 35 minutes, or until a golden crust forms on top.

At serving time, bring the soup to the table. Combine the yolks with the port in a deep soup plate and whip with a fork. With a ladle, make a hole in the top of the gratinée, pour in the wine mixture, and fold into the soup with the ladle. Stir everything together and serve.

I also tried one of Jacques' pita pizzas -- the one with red onion, tomatoes, Herbes de Provence, chives, and Gruyère cheese -- and it's definitely something I'm going to try out on my toddler. In fact, my husband was so taken with the pizza that I had to make another one right after we scarfed down the first one. I was out of tomatoes, so my second rendition was done up with slices of red onion, Herbes de Provence, chives, Gruyère, and a handful olive oil-dressed watercress I tossed on the pizza after it came out of the oven.

If I recall from my work on More Fast Food My Way, Jacques' pita pizzas are part of his "fast food" oeuvre, and clearly the onion soup smacks of his classical French background, so I decided to round out my Essential Pépin sojourn with his roast chicken recipe, a classic American entry.

My experience with this recipe was somewhat rocky. While I loved Jacques' tip about not covering the finished chicken with foil (because the steaming that ensues makes the chicken taste reheated), I did struggle mightily to keep the stubborn bird on its side during part of the roasting process. I ended up lacerating one of the drumsticks during the balancing act, but since the drumsticks go to my toddler, it wasn't a huge loss.

As my husband and I stood over the warm chicken, tearing off crispy skin and strips of juicy breast meat with our fingers, he mumbled through a mouthful, "Best roast chicken you've ever made." I then whisked some Grey Poupon into the pan of unstrained juices, warmed it slightly, and poured it off into a bowl. We continued feasting, this time dipping our fingerfuls of chicken into the sauce. In this book, there's Jacques the Chef.

I leafed through the rest of the book, scanning other recipes, and suddenly realized I wasn't even reading the recipes because I completely enthralled by the illustrations. In this cookbook, there's no glossy photography showing rivulets of garnet juices running down a slice of steak, no crooked fingers of steam rising from hot-from-the-oven rolls, there's just a gratin pan here, a curly head of Boston lettuce there, an occasional plump chicken pecking in the dirt -- all lovingly rendered in watercolor by the chef himself. In this book, there's Jacques the Artist.

Early in the book is a 3-page "General Information About Eggs" section, which is seeded with smidges of new-to-me information. Here Jacques shares a great tip about freezing individual egg whites in ice cub trays and how raw unbroken egg yolks should be covered with cold water for optimal refrigerator storage. However, the egg tip I find most fascinating is the idea that it's not it's necessary to bring eggs to room temperature before whipping up their whites. The master chef's opposing opinion is that the texture of egg whites is "tighter, smoother, and better if the egg whites are cold, even though the volume after beating is slightly less." Tucked among the 700 recipes are other snippets of advice, like how to make your own proof box for baking and ways to improvise your own fish smoker out of an old pot or roaster and a screen.

The next recipe I'm most looking forward to trying is the Grilled Squid on Watercress. Grilled squid is a dish I always order (sometimes in multiples) if I see it on a restaurant menu, but I've never had sufficient courage to try at home. With Jacques by my side, guiding me through each step, I think I'll finally be able to attempt it. In this book, there's Jacques the Teacher.

Packaged with the book is a 3-hour DVD of Jacques' techniques, which really deserves its own review. The very first technique Jacques demonstrates is the proper way of tying your apron to insulate yourself against burns, and attaching your towel to your apron for attractiveness and ease of retrieval. Genius. There are other worthy techniques, of course, and some are difficult -- making butter roses and gilding them with paprika for color -- and some are easy, like peeling broccoli stems for cooking.

Also not to be missed is KQED's 26-episode TV show, Essential Pépin, which starts airing on October 15th. KQED's specially designed website will feature 2-4 printable recipes from each episode along with delectable photographs of the finished dishes. The website also enables you to watch full episodes online a week before they air on TV.

So it's time to make a meal, and you're bored with making the same old dishes. It's time to recharge your repertoire.

Back in the day before the dawn of the online era, you'd just snag a new family recipe from a relative with some culinary chops, or tune into the wisdom of Julia Child. But the mega-popularity of The Food Network has since ignited an unrelenting avalanche of food-related media, and now you can find endless numbers of resources on television, newspapers, cookbooks, blogs, discussion forums, and even smart phone apps.

So where to go in the midst of this media overload? There are some excellent new sites that offer a curated collection of recipes that will help you sift through the onslaught of available resources.

If you're a fan of food porn, the following two sites will catch your fancy. Punchfork aggregates recipes from a number of popular food websites that rank highly in the social media sphere. According to their website, "Punchfork uses real-time data like tweets and Facebook shares to measure which recipes are grabbing the attention of users. We uncover the latent sentiment in sharing patterns on social networks." You can see which recipes have top-ratings with the foodie crowd, what's new, and of course, what's trending. Each recipe is easily sharable with folks on your own social networks, too. Learn more about this innovative new site in this interview with Punchfork's founder, Jeff Miller.

Then there's Gojee. Be sure to click on this site after you've had a snack, because the glossy photography will make your stomach instantly growl with hunger. You have to register to view the recipes, and then you're greeted with a stunning portrait of a dish that you'll want to make right away -- like Penne with Corn & Brown Butter.

The user interface is quite personable, allowing users to search by ingredient for what you "crave," what you "have" in your pantry, and what you "dislike." And when you type in search terms, witty messages such as "Almond joying myself, are you?" pop up as you wait for the recipe to pop up. And they bring careful attention to their curatorial process, as mentioned in this Forbes.com article: "You could call us a high quality, hand curated, easy to use Google for food blogger recipes. Every recipe on our site is manually chosen by our team," says founder Mike Lavalle.

Then there's Foodpress, which has a roster of featured food bloggers that contribute recipes. You can click on popular keywords that are listed in a handy sidebar, or check out sections such as, "Today's Specials" and "Featured Posts."

But if you'd like to dive into the online juggernaut, there are comprehensive sites such as Yummly, Google Recipe View (and if you're using their new Google+ social network, their "Sparks" feature includes recipes. However, you'll see it filters through articles as well as plain recipes when you scroll through.)

And of course, don't forget to check our Bay Area Bites's extensive archive of great recipes.

Jessica and Joshua Applestone's story is, by now, a familiar one. Vegetarian/vegan couple gets interested in sustainability, organics, and the implications of ethical eating. They start reading and going to farms and farmers' markets, realize that the staff (and signage) at most big food retailers--even the ones that tout their eco-friendliness--are uninformed and unreliable. Who to believe? How to make a difference? What to make for dinner?

This is where the Applestones' story veers off from the typical hipster vegan-turned-ethical omnivore trajectory. They didn't just find a meat CSA and fill their freezer with grass-fed hangar steak and pork belly destined for homemade ramen or home-cured bacon. That's what might happen now, in 2011, here in San Francisco. But this was 2004, only a couple of years after Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation had been published. Michael Pollan's New York Times Magazine article, Power Steer, which followed the short, unhappy life of one young, burger-destined steer in a Kansas feedlot, had just made millions of beef-eating Americans realize that most of the corn- and soy-stuffed animals they were buying had never come near a blade of grass. Grass-fed meat, what little there was of it, was hard to find, and usually available only shipped frozen from the Midwest. So what did they do? They started a butcher shop in New York's Hudson Valley selling only pasture-raised meats, a butcher shop that bought only whole animals from small farmers and ranchers they knew. Joshua, still vegan at the time they started the business, learned the butchery side, a trade plied by both his grandfather and great-grandfather. They called the shop Fleisher's Grass-Fed Organic Meats, from Joshua's family name. They got advice from dozens of retired butchers, almost all of whom told them that they were crazy, that they'd be out of business and worse, divorced, in a matter of months.

Now, some 7 years later, their business (and their marriage) is not just intact, but thriving. This fall, they're opening their second shop, in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, with a third one planned for the Upper West Side. (Take that, Zabar's!) The food culture has caught up with them, and "grass-fed" and "pasture-raised" have entered the common dialogue of more than just a few provenance-obsessed food folks. This week, Joshua and Jessica made the trek West for a series of events promoting their new book, The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat: How to Buy, Cut, and Cook Great Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry, and More. I caught up with them at an after-party at Bernal Heights butcher shop Avedano's, following their book-signing at nearby Omnivore Books and their on-air appearance on KQED's Forum with Avedano's butcher and co-owner Tia Harrison. (Harrison is also the chef at Sociale and a co-founder of the Butchers' Guild.)

Like a lot of New Yorkers, Jessica has a San Francisco connection; while she was raised in Long Island, her father grew up here, and she lived in the city from 1989-1991, working at the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Mercury Press before moving to Tokyo and New York City. "I miss the real foodie culture here, the diversity of ethnicities. And the Mexican food!" she said as we stood near a candlelit platter of ham. She and her husband have dubbed Kingston, NY, where they have their shop, "Park Slope North" for the number of Brooklynites from that Berkeley-ish neighborhood who spend their weekends up in their locale. Woodstock (yes, that Woodstock) is close by, as is New Paltz, a busy college town whose young mayor made headlines in 2004 for issuing marriage licenses and performing civic weddings for 25 same-sex couples, six years before gay marriage was legalized in New York. Without customers from these bourgeois-bohemian enclaves, she admits, much of their painstakingly sourced, meticulously cut meat wouldn't get bought, week after week. Although their learning curve was steep (says Jessica, "We didn't have a learning curve; it just went straight up from the minute we started"), their butcher shop has become, amazingly, something almost exactly what they envisioned: a source not just of meat but of community, a place where the butchers know their customers by name, and where people chat and ask questions, take classes, share recipes and swap neighborhood gossip, and in the process, use their food dollars to support a whole network of local farmers, ranchers, slaughterhouses, and more.

Their book is an unintimidating, user-friendly guide for the home cook, one who's curious about this whole whole-beast thing but doesn't yet have the chops, or the knowledge, to get busy with a boning knife. It's a primer on primals, the "big cuts" that well-trained butchers break down into the more familiar chops, ribs, sirloins and roasts. This is no encyclopedia of meats; the type is big, there are lots of chatty sidebars and plenty of weekday-dinner recipes. Even if you never follow their instructions for butterflying a leg of lamb or frenching a crown roast, you can still learn a lot of useful basics to make you feel much more at home in front of a meat case. Particularly useful are the pages championing their favorite lesser-known butcher's cuts, like lamb sirloin (one of my favorites, and frequently on hand at Avedano's), the cuts that a butcher knows but rarely sells.

Jessica and Joshua Applestone. Photo by Jennifer May

While Joshua cuts the meat, Jessica talks to the customers, explaining everything from how grass-fed meat is a seasonal product to the best way to cook bacon (the details are in the book, but suffice it to say that you're probably doing it wrong. Low and slow, that's the ticket). You've probably seen the dotted-line cow or pig in a dozen cookbooks, segmented and labeled to show where the shank, loin, chuck roast or top round come from. Jessica discovered a faster way to teach customers why some cuts are tender, others tough: the dotted-line human. Just imagine yourself down on all fours, and you can feel where your tougher, working muscles are (like the shoulders, neck, and legs) and what's placid and fatty, like the belly, the back and the meat around the ribs. "I fought hard to get the human in the book!" she laughs, and while it's off-putting at first sight, it does the job. You're not likely to forget where a tenderloin comes from once you've seen it labeled right over a navel like your own.

Hard-core wanna-be butchers may find the book a little too basic for their cleaver-and-chain-mail tastes. For them, there's Ryan Farr's Whole Beast Butchery slated for publication later this fall. Farr, a butcher's butcher who started 4505 Meats, the man who made putting (artisanal) chicharrones on a (handmade) hot dog seem like the ultimate in porky deliciousness, will be offering more step-by-step photographs and specialized instruction, with no stinting on the tongues, ears, and brains. But as an introduction to being a thoughtful carnivore in the kitchen, The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat makes a fine argument for knowing your meats and knowing your butcher.

Joshua and Jessica Applestone will be participating in the Cochon 555's Heritage Fire event at Charles Krug Winery in Napa on Saturday, Aug 13. Tickets $100-$200.

Sustainable Meat and the Art of Butchery
In recent years, more chefs and consumers are demanding local, sustainable meats, driving some to raise and butcher their own livestock. KQED's Forum gets into the gristle with three butchers and talk all about meat, from what consumers should be asking at the counter to how to cook a whole pig in the backyard.

Original Broadcast: Wed, Aug 10, 2011 -- 10:00 AM

Host: Sydnie Kohara

Guests:
• Jessica Applestone, co-author of "The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat" and co-owner of Fleisher's Grass-fed & Organic Meats in New York
• Joshua Applestone, co-author of "The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat" and co-owner of Fleisher's Grass-fed & Organic Meats in New York
• Tia Harrison, co-owner of Avendano's Holly Park Market, executive chef and co-owner of Sociale restaurant and co-founder of The Butcher's Guild

Related Articles:
• A Tell-All Guide to Artisanal Butchery By Adriana Velez (Civil Eats)
• Events: Former Vegan and Vegetarian Write the Book on Sustainable Meat By Mollie McWilliams (SFoodie)

A big crowd gathered last night at the Make-Out Room to celebrate Mission Street Food's forthcoming cookbook, "Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas From An Improbable Restaurant," published by McSweeney's new cookbook imprint.

Unfortunately, the cookbooks were tied up at customs and so no copies were to be had for the foodie groupies. But there was music, free beer, a short and funny presentation given by MSF duo Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz and Popeye's fried chicken -- lots of it. Apparently this chicken holds a soft spot in their hearts, especially Anthony's.

Anthony and Karen also took time out of their busy schedules to answer a few questions via email about their new project.

1) You've had quite a journey in the past 3 years, from street food vendor, to Mission Burger, Commonwealth, Mission Chinese Food and now you're launching a cookbook. What was your initial inspiration for the cookbook?

Our editor, Chris Ying, suggested we write about Mission Street Food, because he was starting McSweeney’s food imprint. We hadn’t been planning to write a book—as you mention, the last few years have been a bit of a whirlwind for us—but actually, the process of writing has helped us make sense of everything that’s happened. The story of MSF’s evolution takes about as much space in our book as the recipes, because we wanted to show how the food came out of our peculiar circumstances as an ever-changing pop-up restaurant.

2) There are loads of Chinese cookbooks out there. What will folks come away with from the Mission Chinese Street Food's book that's unique?

In this book, we really focused on recipes from the Mission Street Food era, rather than Mission Chinese Food. The book’s cover is modeled on a classic American-Chinese restaurant placemat, because we wanted to reflect the way that MSF was contained within Lung Shan, though our food was inspired by culinary traditions from around the world. The recipes in our book reflect that international approach to cooking, so you’ll find our version of Peking Duck juxtaposed with our version of a Nordic dessert, and we happily admit that neither is “authentic.”

3) How would you compare the collaborative cookbook writing process to your food ventures? Was it harder, easier, and/or gratifying in other ways?

Writing the book was probably a little bit easier than starting Mission Street Food, because the hours were more flexible. We worked very closely on the book, and literally passed the laptop back and forth between us as we talked. Working in a restaurant can be so ephemeral—if the food is good, then it disappears—so it’s nice to have something so solid that we can point to, and say “We made this!”

4) What's up next for Mission Chinese Food? Any plans to expand?

Hard to say. We’re definitely bursting the seams of our current arrangement, but our priority has always been to make food that’s really personal, so we don’t have any plans to expand right now.

5) The book party for your cookbook served up Popeye's fried chicken. What's the connection to Mission Street Food?

Well, there’s no connection between Popeye’s and Mission Street Food, but we do discuss how Popeye’s deserves culinary respect for their combination of deliciousness and low price—part of a general open-mindedness towards various foods.