Fruit, glorious fruit, now is your time. The farmers' market doesn't come alive until the strawberries and cherries show up, and now with stone fruit season in full, chin-dripping swing, we have months of glory ahead. Perfect timing, then, for Plum Gorgeous, by Romney Steele, subtitled Recipes and Memories from the Orchard.

These recipes are as much inspirations as instructions, of the why-didn't-I-think-of-that variety. Once you read a description like Strawberry, Nasturium, and Cucumber Salad, Heirloom Tomatoes and Peaches with Burrata, or Honey-Baked Figs with Lavender and Wine, you almost don't need to bother with the cups and teaspoons; the idea is enough. Which is how the generous, bohemian-spirited Steele wants you to cook, anyway. Get the adorable but steely-hearted Miette bakery cookbook for your Louboutin-wearing, alpha-domme gal-pal, the one with the pink KitchenAid mixer, unchippable nails and spotless counters. Plum Gorgeous is a little more messy, much more colorful and a lot more forgiving. Starting with great fruit, it would be pretty hard to screw up any of these unfussy, casually delicious dishes, both sweet and savory, all seasoned with a dash of whimsy. The chapters follow the fruit of California's seasons: winter's citrus, spring's berries, the stone fruits of summer and the figs, apples, quinces, grapes, and pears of autumn.

Strawberry, Nasturtium, and Cucumber Salad. Photo: Sara Remington

Leafing through the book, it’s impossible not to be charmed at first sight. Read it cover to cover, though, from chirpy, service-y headnotes to poetic musings, and you might see how the whole thing risks falling into the sugar-coated, envy-making genre I'd call how nice for you. In her previous book, My Nepenthe, Steele told the story of her grandparents, the founders of Big Sur's fabled restaurant Nepenthe, and her family's involvement with the place through the decades. She alluded, gracefully and with the lightest of touches, to the challenges and complications of combining business, family, and the coastal counterculturalism of the 60s and 70s. Here, though, there's almost nothing but sweetness. Not every cookbook needs to be a memoir, especially not one whose ostensible purpose is simply fruit and fun. But without revealing a real story, a backbone of truth, writing that's aiming for a romantic, color-drenched poetry of the senses can end up reading like advertising copy, breathless and aspirational.

The photographs, by Sara Remington (who also shot My Nepenthe), are absolutely gorgeous, ravishingly styled and lit to look perfectly effortless. I wanted to live in the place captured by these photographs, and I also wanted to know if the cute skirt and candy-colored wellies on page 15 came in my size, and if there was express-shipping for polka-dot red dress blowing in the breeze on page 106. Was this a cookbook, or the latest Anthropologie catalog? The more Steele pushes the poetry of the idyllic years she spent raising two children in a mountainside cottage, surrounded by fog, flowers, and fruit trees, the more the reader notices how much she's assiduously sponged out. No sharp edges, no stress, just children spooned in the same bed "warm and tender like new-rising bread." Whispers run throughout: a murmur of returning home to Big Sur both "discontent and comforted by the coziness of home," of “closeness being at once beautiful and a challenge, heartbreaking and poetic.” But what happened? How did she end up, presumably a single mother, in that tiny house? A little more heartbreak explained might have balanced all that honey.

Kumquats and Toasted Couscous with Halloumi. Photo: Sara Remington

Maybe I'm just being crabby, envious of those azure Big Sur mornings and her memories of baking tarts surrounded by the lemon-yellow walls of Henry Miller's kitchen. Or perhaps it was too many lines like this one: "By this time we were drinking wine and nibbling on the last of the kumquat and couscous salad—just photographed for the book—under the shade of a grapefruit tree in the garden as the sun went down, and lavishing spoonfuls of rose petal jam onto toast with runny cheese for dessert." Well, how nice for you. This is the sort of thing that can take a lot of Raspberry Ratafia to swallow. Honestly, I could deal with the grapefruit tree, the sunset, even the kumquats. But did the jam really have to be "lavished?" Wasn’t a spoonful enough?

Of course, no one’s buying cookbook-memoirs called My Trip to Safeway for Another Box of Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies. Every book like this, however based in real experience, is packaging a fantasy where the grapefruit trees are shady, the jam lavishly spread, and the kumquat salad always ready for its close-up. So enjoy the view, whip up the Rhubarb Mustard, Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Moscato Apricots, Plum Blackberry Sorbet, or Tomato-Grape Ricotta Flatbread, and imagine you’re in a cottage overlooking Big Sur. Now where I can find that perfect polka-dot dress?

Plum Blackberry Sorbet. Photo: Sara Remington

Up until a couple of recent events, I'd almost given up consuming seafood in this country, saving my shellfish and finfish feasts for my annual visits back home to Australia, where eating sea creatures seems somehow less loaded and certainly more local.

Then in May I was fortunate to attend the Cooking for Solutions Sustainable Foods Institute, a media powwow hosted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium (creator of the Seafood Watch pocket guide). At the event everyone from fired up media mogul turned bison farmer Ted Turner and actor-activist Isabelle Rossellini to chef Cindy Pawlcyn and author Paul Greenberg -- along with Seafood Watch scientists and sustainable fishing advocates -- schooled me in the latest research and thinking on eating fish.

That two-day sustainable seafood cram session was followed by a visit to Omnivore Books in June to hear Seattle-based seafood chef-writer Becky Selengut joke about how she caught crabs on assignment for a magazine and, more seriously, dish out advice on how to buy and cook local seafood in her new cookbook, good fish.

Seafood consumers and home cooks should consider this post a companion piece to my Bay Area Bites colleague Denise Santoro Lincoln's sustainable fish primer from February, which is full of good tips and reliable resources on this very subject. Check that post out and then come back here. I'll wait.

Okay, let's get the bad stuff out of the way, shall we? Buying fish is confusing and challenging because you're concerned about species extinction, pollution problems, bycatch issues, and health concerns, right? And you should be. While seafood is an excellent source of lean protein and heart- and brain-friendly omega-3s, it can also be laden with mercury, which can do a nasty number on the brain and nervous systems of vulnerable populations (think nursing women, children, and the unborn). Add to that persistent organic pollutants (also known as POPS) which, despite the cute acronym, are hormone-disrupting neurotoxins that can wreak havoc on humans, and it's a wonder you're not hungry for a slab of farmed salmon or wild tuna cooked quickly on the grill.

Then, of course, for the ethical environmentalists among us, there's the sad realization that we're coming to the end of the line seafood-species wise. We've done a good job globally of depleting fish stocks to worrisomely low levels, with Atlantic cod and bluefin tuna on a fast track towards extinction. Throw in the real problems with certain farmed fish businesses (think waste-disease-pollution) and the anxiety around GMO-salmon and the dreaded Frankenfish, and it's enough to make a seafood lover switch to some other protein source.

Enough with the horror stories from the open seas. There are still ways to get a seafood fix, it just takes a little education, thought and planning. But if you've read this far you're probably willing to go the extra mile for mussels or work a bit harder for halibut. Chances are, you've likely already done that as far as fruit and vegetables are concerned (local, organic, seasonal) and meat (grass-fed, humanely-raised, thoughtfully slaughtered).

Some suggestions for making healthier, more sustainable seafood choices, gleaned from the experts above:

• Think small: Americans are conditioned to thinking bigger is better. Not necessarily so when it comes to fish. Sardines and anchovies, those little, oily bottom feeders of the sea, revered in other parts of the world, are delicious, nutritious, and affordable, and carry a lower risk for toxins than big fish like tuna.
• Buy seasonally and diversify: Would you expect to buy great tasting, local, organic tomatoes in January? Apply the same sensibility to your seafood shopping and pick shellfish and finfish during their peak time for freshness, taste, and price. Dungeness crab is harvested in the fall and winter, for instance. When in doubt, ask. Most Americans who eat seafood choose salmon, shrimp, or tuna. Check out Arctic char or Pacific halibut for a change.
• Reconsider frozen and farmed fish: A properly frozen fish (landed gently, bled, and quickly chilled preferably at sea) can be a high-quality, carbon-foot print friendly option, if handled well, says Selengut. While hook-and-line wild fish is a better bet than seafood caught by dredging or trawling, which can produce a lot of bycatch (accidentally caught species unintentionally killed in the fishing process), farmed fish are a wise choice in some circumstances, adds the cookbook author. Farmed fish may be a more sustainable choice for fish lower on the food chain that are either vegetarian or require only small amounts of fish protein to produce flesh. Find an example of a farmed fish that may be gentler on the environment in a recent Time magazine story on a western Massachusetts-based outfit farming barramundi, a fish much loved in my homeland.
• Find a fishmonger you trust: Local picks include the year-old San Francisco-based online sustainable seafood supplier i love blue sea, co-founded by Martin Reed, a panelist at the recent Sustainable Foods Institute. I love blue sea doesn't sell any of Seafood Watch's red-listed fish and ships via FedEx across the country. (Bay Area residents can pick up directly, avoiding the expense and guilt associated with air freight).

  Newcomer Siren SeaSA founded by Anna Larsen, offers a CSA-like option for seafood lovers: For six Saturdays starting July 16, subscribers can pick up an assortment of seasonal, sustainable seafood in San Francisco or Petaluma. Catch of the day may include wild king salmon from Bodega Bay, squid from Monterey, wild-caught Pacific sardines, Miyagi oysters from Tomales Bay, and hook-and-line caught black cod. Limited to 100 members for its trial run, a six-week subscription is still available at a cost of $255 for seafood portions calculated to feed four people. Larsen plans to continue the program beyond this initial summer launch.

  A Community Supported Fishery (CSF) program is also running this summer out of Half Moon Bay. And a very new online resource Local Catch, promises connections to CSF members via a zip code search function.

• Frequent seafood restaurants with a sustainable seafood rap: Top picks from San Francisco's "Good Fish, Bad Fish" story by Erik Vance this year include The Basin in Saratoga, Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park, Nettie's Crab Shack, Nopa, and Tataki Sushi and Sake Bar in San Francisco, Revival Bar & Kitchen in Berkeley, and Zazu in Santa Rosa. See how 18 other big name Bay Area restaurants fared on the sustainable seafood front in the magazine's story.

Learn more about sustainable seafood:

Read Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg, which documents the tenuous outlook for salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna.

Follow the reporting of sustainable seafood writers such as former Gourmet scribe Barry Estabrook of Politics of the Plate and freelance food writer Clare Leschin-Hoar.

Watch Isabelle Rossellini's entertaining, educational, and amusing Green Porno series, which documents the plight of sea creatures and other animals.

See the seafood documentaries The End of the Line and Red Gold.

Cook Find Mark Bittman's simple recipes for serving white fish fillet a dozen ways in the New York Times. Check out acclaimed seafood chef and National Geographic Fellow Barton Seaver's new cookbook For Cod and Country or Selengut's good fish, which features fifteen types of Pacific Coast sea creatures (including clams, crabs, char, cod, salmon, scallops, squid, and sardines) in 75 recipes. Check out the instructional online videos from the private chef and cooking teacher, who also blogs at chefreinvented.

Got a sustainable seafood resource to share? Add your voice below.

We may be a nation of individualists, every man and woman a maverick in his or her own heart, but you'd never know it to read our recipes, so rigidly do we adhere to a generic, codified blandness in laying our how-tos.

By contrast, those stiff-upper-lip Brits kick over the traces when they start to mix and fry. Nigella Lawson, Sybil Kapoor, Tamsin Day-Lewis, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Dan Lepard, even éminences grises like Elizabeth David and Patience Gray: not for these writers the strict nothing-but-the-facts-ma'am method of American cookbooks. Across the pond, lively verbs and their adverbial companions shimmy freely in recipe methods. Even adjectives get their due. My favorite? Moreish, because whatever it is, you must have one more bite. Where Americans are folksy, British writers are droll.

Granted, I tend to read those written by authors with literary or journalistic backgrounds, who sift and measure their prose with as much diligence as they do their self-rising flour and diced courgettes. (Ah, those courgettes! Those aubergines! That black treacle! All almost the same as zucchini, eggplant, and molasses, but linguistically shifted just enough to nudge the reader into a right-hand driver's seat.)

And one of the best is Nigel Slater, whose latest work Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch was just released in an American edition by Berkeley's Ten Speed Press. This beautifully designed, chocolate-brown clothbound volume (complete with silvery place-keeping ribbon) is a celebration of the production of the slim but plant-packed garden of Slater's London townhouse. As dedicated an organic gardener as he may be, Slater makes no pretensions to urban self-sufficiency in his smallish backyard. As he writes,

"I have sown somewhat more than I have reaped. But as somewhere to watch things grow, a place to tend and nurture, to sit and eat, to drink and think, to taste and smell, and most importantly to understand the unity of growing, cooking, and eating, it is a monumental success. At least it is to me."

Slater, a longtime columnist for The Observer and the author of 10 cookbooks, is known in this country (if he's known at all) for his two most personal books, The Kitchen Diaries, a week-by-week seasonal calendar of what he was cooking and eating at home, and the childhood memoir Toast--The Story of a Boy's Hunger. His writing style is vivid and individual without being exactly personal. Reading this book is like wandering though an idiosyncratically decorated house: this lamp, this shell, this book reveals taste and history more succinctly than any long-winded curriculum vitae.

Slater can wax rhapsodic as Alice Waters about the dewy-fresh beauties of homegrown veg. But like his countryman Fergus Henderson, author of the excellent (and drily humorous) The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating, Slater has a well-honed wit and an unshakeable set of opinions about just about everything in and out of the kitchen, and he's not shy about telling us what he really thinks.

On spinach:

"When spinach is truly fresh, it squeaks as you rummage around in the pile, like the sound of wet Wellingtons on a rubber floor."

On carrots:

"Not for me the pile of buttered carrots on the plate. Too sweet, too orange, (too bloody cheerful more like it)."

On cauliflower:

"Sometimes I think it wouldn't bother me if I never saw one again."

On the box hedges surrounding his vegetable plots:

"Hedges, however neatly they frame your peas, beans, and swaying sunflowers, are also snail hotels, providing a home for hundreds of gastropods who come out at night, drink from your beer traps, then go on a drunken rampage."

Insults may be a cheap form of wit, but Slater also takes the time to point out the virtues of even his less-favorite things.

Despite the too-many snails who "have partied on [his] carefully nurtured seedlings," he's still a sucker for aesthetics. "I sometimes think the hedges would have gone long ago if it wasn't for the achingly beautiful sight of them covered in snow," he writes, and an accompanying photograph of their tidy snow-piled geometry proves his point.

Winter can also make even cauliflower worth eating. Just after slagging off this unloved brassica, he admits,"Yet I occasionally long for a simple white bowl of cauliflower cheese on a frosty day, especially when it has been made with love, and the sauce has been improved with bay and clove and the cheese is of the robust sort that makes veins on the roof of your mouth stand out." (And thank you, Nigel, for providing a new yardstick for judging cheese. "Ah, this Montgomery cheddar. Piquant, yes, but the veins on the roof of my mouth are unmoved.")

The book is part gardener's handbook, with growing tips and lists of his favorite, often heirloom, varieties to grow. There are useful lists of seasonings, accompaniments, and companions for each vegetable (cauliflower loves cream, caraway, juniper, anchovies, and gin), tips on harvesting, choosing, and storing, and lastly, delicious recipes for lovely-sounding things, like A Soup the Color of Marigolds (made from carrots and yellow tomatoes); An Extremely Moist Chocolate-Beet Cake with Creme Fraiche and Poppy Seeds; and Spinach, Melted Cheese, and Lightly Burned Toast. This is a vegetable cookbook, but not a vegetarian one; while many of the recipes are purely plant-based, there are plenty of dishes made to feature or accompany a whole steamed fish or a hunk of grilled lamb. The recipes are bold-flavored and straightforward, with a Middle Eastern touch there, a hit of Thai or Indian here, and some unmistakablly British comfort food (like that aforementioned cauliflower in cheese sauce, an English school-lunch dish if every there was one). It's a lot of how we eat now: lots of plants, geared towards the seasons, not too fussy, globally inspired. Moreish, I'd say.

Collage by Wendy Goodfriend

Do you remember your mother's favorite cookbook? My own mother, raised in the 1950s, married with children in the 1960s and 1970s, a working mom with a vegetarian husband and teenagers in the 1980s, had dozens of cookbooks on her kitchen shelves, each a talisman of a particular moment. To me, each of them is as much a part of her as her scarves and shoes, her Estee Lauder perfumes, the coral lipsticks and gold foil of half-unrolled tubes of Certs always in her pocketbook.

Now, I imagine, there are moms who love their books from Rachael Ray and Paula Deen, who gravy-stain their Emerils and their Inas. But I made my very first cookies "all by myself" from a recipe in the Joy of Cooking, the late-50s version that still had hand-drawn illustrations explaining how to skin a squirrel and decorate an Easter bunny cake. The recipe? Rolled Caramel Cookies, fussy, waferlike things that had to be swiftly removed from the baking sheet and wrapped into a curl around the handle of a wooden spoon while still warm. Even then, I wasn't happy in the kitchen unless I was trying out something just a little beyond me.

I watched, then helped, my mother make the perfect Banana Tea Bread from Craig Claibourne's New York Times Cookbook, whose austere layout was complemented by black-and-white photographs of an equally severe hauteur, presenting every veal roast like an affair of state, complete with bone-china consomme cups and silver candelabra. For dinner parties, we tried out the poached, stuffed sole with tricky beurre blanc from Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the chocolate mousse from The French Chef Cookbook.

Pretty soon, though, Mom loosened up, making homemade granola, whipping up Tiger's Milk shakes, and growing her own basil and tomatoes in the backyard. Now into the kitchen came The Seasonal Kitchen by Perla Meyers, circa 1973, which I loved for its earthy, oily-garlicky insistence on cooking what was fresh from the garden, and for its chunky, resolutely modern sans-serif typeface and brown-paper pages the color of a Bloomingdale's shopping bag. But I especially loved the photo of Meyers on the cover. The photographer had snapped her striding along, a confident brunette in orange turtleneck and black trousers, looking like Mary Tyler Moore if Mary had clutched a shopping bag bursting with organic vegetables instead of a plaid tam o'shanter.

It followed the New York Times' Natural Foods Cookbook (1971), in which the paper of record tried to get down with what those crazy kids were doing, with their whole wheat breads and their bean sprouts and their blackstrap molasses. Mom made her own mayonnaise, went to the vitamin-smelling health food store for cartons of brewer's yeast and wheat germ. She still keeps a plastic bag of soy flour in the fridge, the essential ingredient for the excellent Soya Coffeecake. And I still remember, vividly, the terrifying ("3 fruit bats, well washed but neither skinned nor eviscerated") yet fascinating recipe for Fruit Bat Soup, not to mention the groovy, Rousseau-inspired dust jacket.

Given that my parents were a lot more interested in health food than most of our suburban neighbors at the time, these books were shortly followed by Mollie Katzen's whimsically hand-written, cheese-heavy Moosewood Cookbook, then the equally whimsical Vegetarian Epicure (1972) by Anna Thomas, and Katzen's follow-up, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

Julia gathered dust while these went into heavy rotation when first my sisters, then myself, then my father all became vegetarians. Easy broiled lamb chops and chicken breasts were replaced by tofu nut balls and endless veggie chopping, much to my now-working mother's irritation. Having since tackled the multi-part, multi-page recipes in the The Greens Cookbook to impress my still-vegetarian sisters, I can understand her frustration.

Thank god, then, for quiche, salvation of the 1980s busy mother. Already a dab hand at piecrust, she could whip up a quiche à la anything the night before, pop it into the fridge, and instruct my dad to put in the oven an hour before dinnertime, which he could just about manage, having learned from the infamous Roast Chicken Incident that our oven only worked when both knobs were turned on, one for temperature and the other for settings like bake and broil.

The Silver Palate's luscious chocolate fudge sauce was a much-loved indulgence in our house (over Haagen-Dazs vanilla Swiss almond ice cream, of course) and so the fabulous Silver Palate Cookbook (1982) quickly earned a place on the shelf. I pored over it, imagining a glamorous life of high-style dinner parties punctuated with goat-cheese phyllo triangles and seafood lasagna. As Paul Prudhomme became a celebrity chef on the strength of his blackened redfish and shrimp remoulade, my parents took jaunts to New Orleans, coming back with spiral-bound cookbooks full of recipes for gooey bananas Foster and gloriously messy barbecued shrimp, served swimming in bowls of tinglingly spicy sauce with yards of crisp-crusted French bread.

Although my father hadn't been to the Bay Area since shipping out for the Pacific during WWII, he nonetheless bought my mom a copy of the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, written by Alice Waters with then-chef Paul Bertolli. My mother never cooked from it (too much grilled squab and nasturtium-flower salads to make it useful for suburban New Jersey, circa 1982) but I read and re-read it endlessly. Alice Waters had escaped the suburbs of New Jersey to eat deliciously in France and re-invent herself in California; how I longed to do that, too!

Stir-frying, fueled by the wok craze and our own forays into the newly popular Hunan and Szechuan restaurants in New York City, came into my mother's kitchen through The Thousand-Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller (1984). Tucked inside the front cover was a soy sauce-spattered sheaf of printed recipes from Uncle Tai's, my parents' favorite Hunan restaurant, a fancy place in midtown with ice-blue wallpaper, tuxedo'd captains, and fantastic hacked chicken, sesame noodles, and lamb with scallions, worlds away from the greasy fried noodles dunked in sticky duck sauce at our local strip-mall Cantonese joints.

I still find the sight of any of these books--on the shelf of a used bookstore, or in the welcoming, pleasantly decorated kitchens of ladies in their 50s and 60s--incredibly comforting. A glimpse of the Silver Palate Cookbook or Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen (1984), buttressed by the twin volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking,and I feel like I've come home.

My mother watches Ina Garten's cooking shows now, and collects her bright, enticingly easy Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I tuck jars of homemade jam into my suitcase when I go to visit her in New York; she stocks up on goat cheese, bagels, salmon, and lamb chops. She's discovered panko crumbs and Prosecco, rainbow chard and pomegranate juice. I sneak downstairs in the morning, to get the coffee going before she gets up. We cook together, and she reminds me again of how, at 15, I threw her out of the kitchen so I could finish whatever I was making my own way. We laugh about this, and she points out my own three cookbooks, now on display in the wicker kitchen bookshelf. I tell her I learned everything from her.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Ruth Reichl is one of the most influential names in food. Her storied career includes stints at the Los Angeles Times as a restaurant critic and food editor, as well as the restaurant critic for the New York Times. She is also the author of five bestselling books, the recipient of six James Beard Awards, and spent 10 years as the Editor-in-chief of the now defunct Gourmet magazine.

But as any resilient woman will tell you, when one door closes, a few other doors open. She’s now an editor-at-large for the mega-publisher, Random House, is currently writing three new books, and on April 6th, will make her debut as one of the new judges on Top Chef Masters.

She was kind enough to carve out some time to chat with me while on a recent trip to Palo Alto for a speaking engagement. I asked her about how life has changed since the closing of Gourmet magazine, how she feels about food bloggers, and what she really thinks about Ruth Bourdain.

ELAINE: What was life like after Gourmet magazine shut its doors?
RUTH: At first I thought, “Oh my God, I’ll never have another job!” and I immediately made a deal to write three books, which I’m working on, and that’s great. I’m finishing my first fiction novel, and I promised to write a cookbook and then a memoir about my time at Gourmet and its closing.

But then about eight months after the magazine closed, I was literally getting a job offer a day. The most interesting is one I can’t talk about. Let’s just say it’ll be the food magazine of my dreams. I’m very lucky. (NOTE: We know now that Ms. Reichl will be running the Gilt Groupe’s “Gilt Taste” website.)

ELAINE: And you’re going to be on Top Chef Masters! What made you want to take that offer?

RUTH: I just thought it would be fun! I was kind of curious about how reality shows worked and it seemed like a learning experience. But I had already agreed to be a fellow at Dartmouth, so I’m not in every single episode.

ELAINE: What was the experience like?

RUTH: Top Chef Masters was such a surprise. They could not have been more passionate and respectful of the chefs, judges, guests and I loved every minute of it. And they take it all very seriously. I thought the judges would surely have to lean on the producers to make the decisions about who gets cut, and the producer probably would’ve liked a different outcome in some cases, but I never heard it from them.

And Curtis Stone (the new host) is so good looking, you’d think he had to be an idiot. But he’s so smart and has a heart of gold. He’s honestly one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. He insisted on cooking for the entire crew a multi-course meal after the show wrapped. He’s totally for real. I was so sorry when it was all over. It felt like family. You really get to know everyone. It’s very intimate.

ELAINE: What are your thoughts on the new Gourmet Live app for the iPad?

RUTH: …I’m not going to say. It is what it is.

ELAINE: What do you think about the new generation of food bloggers? Are they changing the landscape of food writing in general?

RUTH: A lot of them are really, really good. I think it’s changed for restaurant critiquing in particular. You can read 30 reviews and make up your mind yourself. A professional restaurant critic’s word shouldn’t matter that much. People should bring their own intelligence to it. What real criticism should do is give you a better way to appreciate food and give you the tools you need to enhance your experience, good or bad. And food bloggers have put the burden back on the professionals to be good educators and good writers, and maybe even be a little bit more humble about their own opinions.

ELAINE: You’re fairly active on Twitter. Why do you use it?

RUTH: I just don’t have time to keep up with so many blogs. But if someone I follow on Twitter tells me to read something on a blog, I will! I love the social and political aspects. There are people I don’t see much but I keep up with them on Twitter. And as a writer, I feel like there’s a voice that I didn’t know I had using Twitter. There’s a real discipline to putting something into 140 characters. I’m trying to actually make a word picture in 140 characters and it’s been really fun for me. It turns out to be a very natural voice for me.

ELAINE: What do you think of Ruth Bourdain getting nominated for a James Beard Award this year for Humor?

RUTH: I think it’s great! I agree with Tony Bourdain! If we can’t have fun with food, what are we gonna have fun with? I hope he/she wins so they’ll have to get up and accept the award!

But I actually think it’s a “he,” and I don’t think it’s any of the people that have been talked about. I think all the theories about who this person is are all wrong.

ELAINE: As a former Bay Area resident, what do you miss about the area?
RUTH: At the moment, if you go to the farmers market in New York there’s not much. In the Bay Area you’re spoiled with fresh produce year round. I really miss that. And there’s an incredible energy with farmers and food producers here. There’s a great artisan food community here that you don’t get anywhere else.

If you ask me what my most frequently referenced dessert cookbook is, I'd tell you it's The Joy of Cooking: All About Pies and Tarts. This little book by Irma Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker shines with great American pie recipes and tips on foolproof pie dough, how to make hand pies, and finessing the fine art of latticework.

It's a keeper and I think that can largely be attributed to the fact that it's a concentrated tome that's devoted to one small subject and is researched within an inch of its life--not as common with cookbooks these days. From what I've gathered, it's now out of print, but there are many used copies out there; I snagged one at Green Apple Books so it's certainly not impossible.

What I love about the book is it's such a good starting point. All of the recipes in Joy of Cooking: All About Pies and Tarts are solid, from their Shoofly Pie to the Vanilla Cream Pie or Sweet Potato Pie. I always find myself starting here, exploring at least one other recipe and then making adaptations to come up with my own version. So why go to all this work in the first place? For many food bloggers who like to cite recipes on their webpage, adapting an original recipe is important for copyright and legal reasons. Many folks have written on this subject in thought-provoking and sometimes even contentious ways, including Diane Jacob and David Lebovitz.

But for bakers like myself, it's also important to adapt recipes to keep up with the times and trends of your customer. And your own tastes. Or those of your mom or your great Aunt Sally. You get the picture. A telling example is the Pecan Pie that appears in Joy of Cooking: All About Pies and Tarts. It's a very classic, common recipe that you're likely to see if you google "Pecan Pie." But it's a little too sweet for my tastes: it's got more of that ooey, goeey-ness going on than I prefer. In general, when working on adapting a baking recipe, I think about the following factors:

Adapting Recipes to Keep up With Trends
• Use less sugar whenever possible to allow the other ingredients to shine
• Use local ingredients when possible
• Use real ingredients (no margarine or Crisco unless when imperative for the end result)
• Pare down the number of steps and processes to make it as easy for your reader (or yourself) as possible.
• Always ask yourself, is there an easier/more commonsense way?
• Likewise, ask yourself: what about this recipe do I like and what must go?

So what I did with the pie recipe is add bittersweet chocolate and espresso powder to balance out the sweetness, took down the amount of corn syrup and sugar, and used my favorite flaky pie dough. And voila: now we're talking. I took a cue from the Baked Cookbook on grinding half of the pecans and laying the other half on top (they also use a dark chocolate in their pie) and got the espresso powder idea from the lovely and always spot-on Dorie Greenspan. So then what are we left with? A pie pecan pie fans love, but also a pie that has coverted many naysayers. Recently at the farmer's market, I traded a slice of this pie with one of the farmers for some meyer lemons and fennel. After one bite, he took a seat and said to me, "Now this is a 'sit down, close your eyes and enjoy' kind of pie." Hopefully you'll feel the same way. If you don't, adapt away! After all, that's what it's all about. We all start somewhere.

Recipe: Dark Chocolate Pecan Pie

By Megan Gordon

Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking: All About Pies and Tarts

Summary: This is a different take on your typical overly-sweet pecan pie, with the addition of bittersweet chocolate and espresso powder. You'll never look back.

Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 1 hour
Yield: 1 9" pie (6-9 servings)

The pie dough recipe below yields two disks and you will only need one for this recipe. I always freeze the other for later use. For this pie, I do think the quality of chocolate makes a difference. I use a 72% Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate.

Ingredients

• Pate Brisee for the pie dough
• 2 cups pecan halves
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Roll one disk of the pie dough to fit a 9-inch pan. Trim any overhang, roll the edges under, and flute the edges. Place pan in freezer while you prepare the filling.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F. Coarsely chop 1 cup of pecans by hand or in the food processor.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the corn syrup and sugars together. Whisk in the melted butter, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until you have a smooth mixture.
4. Add the espresso powder, vanilla and salt. Stir in the chopped pecans and chocolate chips and set aside.
5. Take pan out of freezer (and if you're using a glass Pyrex, be careful not to put it directly in the oven from the freezer--give it a few minutes) and fill partially frozen pie shell with the filling. Lay the remaining pecans on top in a decorative circular pattern.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes or just until the middle has puffed and no longer jiggles when tapped. When cooled, the middle of the pie will flatten out.

Store, tightly wrapped, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.

Somebody get Kim Severson a TV gig stat.

Seriously, The New York Times staff writer, currently the Atlanta bureau chief, is friendly and funny -- she reminds me a little of Ellen DeGeneres -- and a top-notch interviewer to boot.

And Severson knows food: She covers the beat for the Times and before that for the San Francisco Chronicle. Last year she authored Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life, where she sings the praises of a group of female food icons, including Alice Waters and Ruth Reichl, who have played an important role in her personal and professional life. In an increasingly overcrowded genre (food memoir) Spoon Fed stands out for both its authenticity and candor.

Severson was in conversation last night as part of the City Arts & Lectures series with cheese maker Sue Conley, the co-founder of the celebrated Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, and master baker Chad Robertson, co-owner with wife and pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt of Tartine Bakery and Bar Tartine in the Mission, where long lines can be found for the store's over-the-top baked goods, desserts, and Robertson's coveted rustic bread.

The baker's new book, Tartine Bread (Chronicle Books, $40), is a step-by-step guide to making his signature loaves -- complete with 29-page instructions for his Basic Country Bread. Queuing to buy may not seem as daunting as tackling his trademark crust. (Read a recent review of Tartine Bread on BAB by Megan Gordon.)

The topic for the evening? "On Artisan Food," which seemed fitting for two food purveyors known for their singular obsessions, turning out small batches of award-winning, high-quality products using premium ingredients. What could be a more fundamental food than bread and cheese? And yet these two craftspeople have elevated their chosen culinary pursuit to cult-like status.

Am I alone in thinking the Herbst Theatre -- with its bright lights, high-backed, stiff-looking chairs, Persian rug, and formal backdrop -- is not the warmest or coziest of places to curl up for a chat in front of an audience numbering in the hundreds?

Here's where Severson showed her craft. From the get-go she loosened up the crowd and her interview subjects with one well-placed quip after another. There was the nod to the news with a Charlie Sheen reference and the jokey asides; when Conley confessed that her adventures with cheese began when she fell for a Marin County park ranger Severson sighed: "Ah, that's where it always start." She asked the probing questions in a soft-peddled way, with queries like: "Is there a point in every small producers life where you just want to see your products on the shelves at Costco?" which played for good-natured laughs.

Another thing I admired: Severson didn't use the stage as an opportunity to flack her own book, which is just plain tacky. Trust me, though, I've been to enough of these kinds of evenings to witness such bad behavior. At a recent book event the interviewer in question used his allotted time with the audience to talk up his own tome as often as possible, and while he promised to ask the author sitting next to him about his own work it never happened. Cringe worthy.

Severson teased out interesting tidbits that engaged both her fellow stage members and the audience. Who knew Robertson's wife is gluten-intolerant and can't eat wheat? Or that Cowgirl Creamery stopped selling its popular quark (a spreadable, creamy cheese) because it didn't pass muster with a then 80-something taste tester searching for the soft cheese of his German youth.

There was plenty of talk about cheese rinds, bread starts, and what it means to be a food artisan too. Also discussed: Conley's self-described epic fails and Robertson's new-found fascination with ancient whole grains. And there was Severson's running gag about resenting waiting in line for "100 hours" for Robertson's bread ("I'm not bitter."). The entire program is scheduled for broadcast on KQED on Sunday, May 1 at 1 p.m. Take note: Robertson offers frustrated food lovers a tip about how to avoid the crowds at Tartine too.

To see Severson's schtick in person, stop by Omnivore Books tonight at 6 p.m., where she'll be reading from and signing copies of Spoon Fed.

Photo Credits: Chad Robertson (Tartine Bakery), Sue Conley (Cowgirl Creamery), Kim Severson (kimseverson.com)

If there is ever a nuclear war or our food system completely falls apart, I'm heading to Hank Shaw's house. Besides being an avid hunter and gardener, Hank is a highly experienced forager -- which means that he's likely to be one of the few people who continue to eat well when the world is on its last legs (assuming we haven't destroyed all plant and animal life, too). Lucky for us, he chronicles his adventures on his blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, and is about to release a cookbook/wild food guide, Hunt Gather Cook.

I'm excited to interview Hank about his new book and learning to forage in the Bay Area, an area that is teeming with wild edibles. He was also generous enough to provide a recipe for Fennel and Tomato Pasta Sauce, which you will find at the end of the interview.

Happy foraging!

How do you define "foraging?" What sort of things do foragers do?

I think of foraging as the gathering of wild plants and mushrooms, and, to a lesser extent, shellfish such as clams and mussels. For me, foraging is when you go looking for things that don’t run away. Hunting and fishing involves catching more mobile fare.

Foraging can be as easy as eating the weeds around your house -- you’ll likely find dandelion, wild lettuce, chickweed, plantain, wild mustard and possibly wild onions and salsify root in vacant lots and yards around the Bay Area. Or, foraging can be as tough as digging giant geoduck clams (pronounced gooey-duck), which live three feet under the sand and are only accessible at extreme low tides a few times each year. Picking berries is easy. Picking owl limpets off storm-tossed rocks in Bodega Bay is not.


Foraging has become more popular over the past few years. Any ideas why?

People are yearning to be closer to their food, to know where it comes from and to eat with a sense of place on the plate. To eat abalone is to be Californian. To eat wild rice is to link yourself to the great Northwoods of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Nothing is more local, more seasonal -- and, when done responsibly, more sustainable -- than incorporating wild food into your diet.

Foraging gets you out into the world, into the fresh air and into close contact with Nature. We are all so busy that maybe the simple act of hiking with a purpose provides the spark we need to get the hell away from the computer, whether it’s to bring back huckleberries for a pie or a deer for a full winter’s worth of meals. Foraging allows us to flirt with the wild.

I can walk nearly anywhere and spot edible plants and animals. Knowing that not everyone possesses that skill is a heady, powerful rush. I know I am not alone in that feeling, and many new foragers describe something similar to me when they find a good stash of nettles, or morels, or butter clams.


What can a Bay Area person find in their area? Any ideas for tasty things the average Joe or Jane should keep an eye out for? 


"Yard weeds" are a great place to start. I wrote a primer on lawn foraging a while back that runs through the basics. Mostly these are salad greens, and right now is prime time for them all.

Blackberries are a good one. Everyone knows what they look like, and they are everywhere. Put on some gloves and get out there in July and August. We also have great huckleberry picking around here. Huckleberries are a lot like blueberries, only a little spicier, a little more tart. There are other berries around, too.

Fennel is another easy one. Fennel is native to the Mediterranean, but it was brought to California by Italian immigrants a century ago and has naturalized here. It is the same fennel you get in the store, only denser and more flavorful; it will not have big, fat bulbs, though.

Are there any dangerous foods that locals should avoid? What are your thoughts on the general dangers of foraging? 


Everything has its dangers. Mushrooms, especially. I came very close to poisoning myself recently. I thought I had a fried-chicken mushroom: It met every descriptor, except the spore print. Had I been foolish enough to not take a spore print, who knows what might have happened? That said, chanterelles and morels are pretty easy to identify. Buy a good guidebook (I recommend David Arora’s All that the Rain Promises and More), learn it, and go slow.

This is also true for plants. There are lots of good guidebooks for West Coast foraging. Pick one up and study it, and then bring it into the field with you. Never eat something you cannot absolutely identify.

You will also meet up with ticks, bees, wasps, and, occasionally, rattlesnakes. It’s an occupational hazard. Bears and lions are around in the mountains, too, but they will not generally bother you. I’ve seen both animals several times while foraging. I gotta admit I was a little unnerved by the kitty, though.

Say a person wants to learn more about foraging before setting out on their own. Where should they go for more information? Should they take lessons or go on foraging walks? Where can they find such a thing? 


I know that some people do conduct foraging walks, but I have not been on one since I was 11 years old -- and that was in New Jersey. I’d contact Iso Rabins with Forage SF for more on that one. As for me, I learned everything I know from experience, from books, and from being with knowledgeable friends. If you are into mushrooms, however, there are several excellent mycological societies around the Bay Area. Join one, go on a foray, and learn. It’s a cool experience.

Can you tell us a little bit about your book? What topics does it cover? Will a Bay Area person be able to put it to good use? How about a person in other parts of the country? 


The book is called Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast, and it is intended as a guide and cookbook for anyone who wants to make wild foods part of their diet -- or for someone who already does fish, forage or hunt, this book will help expand their knowledge. A lot of people just forage, but don’t hunt or fish. A lot of hunters don’t know much about foraging, and a lot of anglers don’t understand hunting. This book brings it all together, with recipes at the end of each chapter. Some of those recipes are basic, like buttermilk fried rabbit, but others push the edges of wild game cooking, like wild boar liver crème caramel.

But I think the most important, the most unique piece of this book is the hunting section. Very few books have ever been written for adults who want to start hunting but have no idea how to go about it. Most intro-to-hunting books are geared for little kids. I include extended chapters on everything from hunting rabbits to deer to waterfowl, wild boar and upland game such as pheasants. Not a week goes by when I don’t receive an email from a reader of my blog who wants more information about how to start hunting. This book is an attempt to help.

As for the Bay Area, it is an integral part of my blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, and since the book is an outgrowth of the blog, it follows that anyone living in the region will get a lot out of the book. There is not one chapter that is not relevant to someone living in NorCal.

That said, I have lived (and fished, hunted and foraged) in New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and I have visited many other states in search of wild food. Just as there is no chapter that excludes California, no chapter excludes the rest of the country as well. Sure, there may not be highbush cranberries here in NorCal, but the Midwest doesn’t have manzanita or madrone. I write about all of them.

When does the book come out, and where can we get more information? 



Hunt, Gather, Cook comes out May 26. It is already available for pre-order on the various online booksellers such as Amazon.com and Powell’s. Once the book is released, I will be setting up a series of events in the Bay Area and beyond -- cooking demos, readings, even fishing and foraging trips. You can get updated information about both the book and where I will be doing events on my blog, Honest-food.net, and by following me on Twitter under @Hank_Shaw.

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Fennel and Tomato Pasta Sauce
By Hank Shaw, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

Tomatoes and fennel pair well together, and this recipe is wonderful with the baby fennel that is sprouting all over the Bay Area right now. The sauce gets an added anise hit with a splash of Ouzo or Pernod, just to liven things up.

It is a great vegetarian sauce to serve with pasta, ideally a long pasta like spaghetti, bucatini or even homemade tagliatelle. Once you make the sauce, it will store in the fridge for 10 days or so. You can also freeze it.
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup wild fennel, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/4 cup ouzo or other anise-flavored liqueur
1 quart tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon mint or lemon verbena, chopped
Salt to taste
Pecorino cheese to garnish

Instructions:
1. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a wide, deep pan or a large pot. When the oil is hot, add the fennel and onion and saute for 4-5 minutes, until the veggies are translucent. Don’t let the veggies brown — turn down the heat if you need to. Add the garlic and saute for another minute or two.

2. Pour in the ouzo and let this boil until it is reduced by half. Add the crushed tomatoes, honey and mint and mix well. Taste for salt and add some if needed. Let this simmer gently for 30 minutes.

3. Put the sauce into a blender or food processor and puree. Pour the blended sauce back into the pot and bring to a simmer. You’re ready to serve. This is a powerful sauce, so use less than you think you need at first.

(Note: Photos courtesy of the fabulous Holly Heyser)

The holiday season brings us blockbusters in the world of cookbooks--the big glossy show stealers. It's easy to get caught up in the Ad Hoc's and Noma's (for good reason). But recently I'm being drawn to the quieter cookbooks, the smaller-scale cookbooks without all the gloss or the high-profile chefs but with a whole lot of soul. Here are three of my current favorites.

Alice's Cook Book by Alice Hart
Quadrille Publishing has begun a very cool series called "New Voices in Food." Alice's Cookbook is one of them, and while it's written by a young woman in her 20's and is geared towards the 20-30 something crowd, I find it quite universal, imaginative, and substantial. Alice Hart ran the hit pop-up restaurant, The Hart and Fuggle, in London. Now she has a 1972 VW camper van with an actual kitchen where she finds much inspiration and quiet time to prepare meals. The book features chapters that are organized around occasions like Sunday Lunches or Camper Car Picnics and the photographs by Emma Lee successfully tell a story of a rustic, homemade life and capture Alice's spirit perfectly. In addition to recipes, Alice includes little segments such as "Quick Breakfast Ideas" (Scotch pancakes, Bloody Mary's) and practical tips on meal timing and scaling quantities. In terms of purchasing online, it's currently only available on Amazon's UK site, although Globe Pequot is slated to start distributing it in the U.S. come April. Want it sooner? Good news: Omnivore Books has ordered it and it has arrived! Give them a call or stop in to say hi to the lovely proprietor, Celia.

My Kitchen: Real Food from Near and Far by Stevie Parle
My Kitchen is another addition to the "New Voices in Food" series, this time by a young man and avid traveler who is interested in ingredient-driven cooking. Stevie Parle is a young chef who has worked at the River Cafe and now runs and cooks at the Dock Kitchen in Portobello Docks. His book is part storytelling from his vast travels, part anecdote, part culinary lesson, and large part simple recipes that celebrate the seasons and don't try to reinvent the wheel. Within each chapter, there's a "Master Class" where Stevie aims to teach his readers skills like "How to Slow Cook" or "What to do With Porcini Mushrooms." A very likeable, very unique book. Again, it will also be appearing on the shelves of Omnivore Books very soon.

Communal Table: Curated and Illustrated by Caroline Hwang
As curator Caroline Hwang puts it, Communal Table is about "sharing the love of eating and gathering together." First, in an effort towards full disclosure, I met Caroline through our blogs (hers is a mutual effort with Lisa Butterworth called the Num Num Chronicles. It's great fun. Check it out) and I'm actually included in the first issue of Communal Table, entitled "A Casual Setting." But I wouldn't recommend the project, obviously, if I didn't believe in its spirit wholeheartedly. And I do. Caroline is a Brooklyn-based illustrator/artist with a love for cooking and eating. She has illustrated for The New York Times, Real Simple and has shown in galleries internationally. The first issue of Communal Table includes contributions from folks like Cathy Erway, Tom Mylan and The Jewels of New York. With great contributors, Caroline's brilliant illustrations, and all the proceeds going to a food-related organization, there's not much to dislike. The proceeds from "A Casual Setting" will go to The Food Trust, a Philadelphia-based non-profit providing nutrition education classes for inner-city children, families and the public. I'm particularly excited to check out the "Dinner-Appropriate Frittata with Kale, Olives, and Taleggio." And even more excited to see more and more small-scale cookbooks like the ones featured above appearing on the shelves of my favorite local bookstores.

Fact: Bay Areans are a book-loving bunch. Fact: People here are huge food fans.

So is it any wonder, then, that this neck of the woods has a thriving cookbook club culture?

There are differences in how each group operates, but here’s what they all have in common: A desire to share good food and good books about food.

Omnivore Books on Food owner Celia Sack has a theory about the resurgent interest in breaking out the cookbook collection and making meals at home.

“Every time there are major industrial advances, there is a push-back to older ways that are hands-on, and one way to achieve that is through food,” she notes, citing the Industrial Revolution from which the Arts & Crafts movement was born. “Today we have the Internet and smart phones to make virtual connections but spending time with family and friends making food is an easy way to make an actual connection.”

Sack recently launched a cookbook mail order club. Four times a year members receive a new, signed cookbook selected by Sack from the culinary titles that fill her shop. Begun as a gift-giving idea over the holidays, Sack says her list of sign-ups is running about half-and-half between people treating themselves to the latest from, say Madhur Jaffrey or Amanda Hesser, and those sending a gift to someone else. Membership costs $160 a year and can be customized (vegetarians can skip the meat tomes, for example.)

Each of the five cookbook clubs below has its own flavor. You’ll also find advice from a seasoned cookbook club organizer about how to start your own group.

My Calabria, written by Rosetta Costantino (with Janet Fletcher) and photographs by Sara Remington

Cooks’ Book Club — Berkeley

Three fixtures of Berkeley’s chi chi shopping strip on 4th Street — Books Inc., Cafe Rouge, and The Pasta Shop — have joined forces to create a monthly meet up mixing food, wine, and conversation. The club kicks off this Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Cafe Rouge with Rosetta Costantino’s cookbook My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking From Italy’s Undiscovered South. (Read an earlier BAB post on My Calabria.) Subsequent events will be held on the fourth Tuesday of the month, rotating through the three locations.

Costantino will read and share recipes, including stuffed pizza with chard and dill, salt baked sea bass, and cauliflower salad, all paired with Southern Italian vino. Books will be on sale, dishes and drinks sampled, ingredients made available, and discussion will no doubt follow. The event costs $20; admission prices may vary some for each program, depending on what food and wine is on offer.

Up next for the Cooks’ Book Club: Gordon Edgar, author of Cheesemonger: My Life on the Wedge, on February 22 at The Pasta Shop, followed by dessert diva Alice Medrich, author of the Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies on March 22 at Cafe Rouge.

Fresh by Susanne Friedberg is the book of choice for February's Food Lit Club at 18 Reasons

18 Reasons Food Lit Club — San Francisco

Heather Knape decided to convene a Food Lit Club at 18 Reasons just over a year ago when someone at her regular book group suggested she might want to pick some non-food books for the group to read. The life-long food and farm lover, who blogs about feeding her family at eating dirt, realized she needed a different club to dish about all things edible.

Members make a three-month commitment to the club, after which you can decide whether you want to continue or choose to give up your coveted spot to a newcomer.

Books can be bought from Omnivore Books (20 percent of profits go to fund the work of the nonprofit food group 18 Reasons) or you can bring your own. The group gathers on the third Sunday of the month from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 18 Reasons. It’s a B.Y.O. nibbles kind of deal, typically a rotating snack roster or potluck affair.

Each quarter the group reads something old, something new, and something local, so authors can come too. This month the group discussed Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. February’s pick is Fresh by Susanne Friedberg, followed in March by An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher by Anne Zimmerman, who will put in an appearance. Previous picks include Cheesemonger, The Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms by Nicolette Hahn Niman and Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg.

Knape moderates the meet ups and sends out discussion questions in advance.

Kristine Kidd's book Weeknight Fresh + Fast is the featured cookbook in February at Williams-Sonoma

Williams-Sonoma Cookbook Club — Los Gatos, Monterey, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Walnut Creek

The high-end kitchen store Williams-Sonoma’s cookbook club offers cooking classes by in-house chefs showcasing recipes in a cookbook featured each month, often one of their own titles.

The classes cost $75, and include cooking tips and techniques, a three-course tasting menu, and the cookbook. Reservations are required and space is limited; class times vary by store location.

Last month the store featured Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys by Lucinda Scala Quinn, next up is the Williams-Sonoma Weeknight Fresh + Fast by Kristine Kidd, the former food editor of Bon Appetit, followed in March by Williams-Sonoma Good Food to Share by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, founder of the popular cooking site The Kitchn.

At 101 Cookbooks Heidi Swanson's library allows food lovers from around the world to connect over cookbooks

101 Cooks books Library — Anywhere and Everywhere

You don’t even have to leave home to connect with other cookbook lovers. Heidi Swanson’s home-grown food blog 101 Cookbooks recently launched 101 Cookbooks Library, where readers can connect in cyberspace with fellow food aficionados to review cookbooks, highlight their favorite dishes, and offer recipe tweaks based on their own kitchen experience.

A couple of standout reviewers have emerged on Swanson’s site, which draws an enthusiastic, healthy cooking crowd with culinary smarts. It’s early days, but Swanson says cookbooks published long ago could experience a revival with a new generation of cooks through her forum, which attracts participants from as far away as Australia and Amsterdam. “I love seeing the interaction between members,” says Swanson. “You see friendships emerging and people helping each other, often from opposite ends of the globe.”

Wine Country chef Cindy Pawlcyn's Big Small Plates was picked by other culinary professionals for discussion by the Napa Cook/Book Club

Cook/Book Club — Napa

Started five years ago by Napa Valley Register food columnist Betty Teller, the Cook/Book Club has a pretty impressive professional pedigree, with just a few civilians in the mix. We’re talking cookbook author Janet Fletcher, pastry chef Annie Baker, chefs, foragers, Slow Food folks, wine guys — even a registered dietician who works with The Biggest Loser TV show. The group meets every two months to dine and dish. Everyone picks a recipe from the featured cookbook to make and during the dinner each person describes what they made, and offer their thoughts on the recipe and the book in general. The conversation flows. One hard and fast rule: No recipe tweaking. Tough for veteran chefs.

Local authors whose books have been featured by group members have even joined the festivities, including Joyce Goldstein (Italian Slow and Savory), Flo Braker (Baking for All Occasions), Joey Altman (Without Reservations), and Cindy Pawlcyn (Big Small Plates). “As the group has evolved –and no one has dropped out — this has become a truly great dinner party with phenomenal food and excellent company, that has its basis as a book club,” explains Teller. “We have our theoretical discussion questions which we largely ignore.”

Teller’s group isn’t taking on any new members. She encourages people to start their own.

Her advice for beginning cookbook club organizers:
• Invite a mix of people who don’t all know each other well to keep things interesting.
• Include singles and marrieds but think long and hard about couples, which can change group dynamics.
• Find people equally interested in cooking, and if you’re going to cook too, with fairly similar culinary skills.
• Seek out folks with similar edible interests — whether omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free.
• Consider size: About 15 is a good number, so if people miss a meeting there’s still a critical mass.
• Give it time to grow. It can take a few meetings for things to gel and people to commit to coming.
• Keep track of who hosts, what books are chosen, and create a calendar for the year for planning purposes.