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.

I've never been to The French Laundry. Ever since my love for food evolved from outings to the Olive Garden to a lovely dinner at Oliveto, it has represented to me the pinnacle of haute cuisine in America. Several years ago, when I happened to be spending the day in Yountville with an ex-boyfriend, I asked him to slowly drive past the restaurant in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the chef (as we weren't able to get a reservation). And lo -- there he was, the celebrated Thomas Keller, standing in the bucolic backyard and chatting with one of his staff. I squealed loudly like a teenage groupie and my ex-boyfriend remarked, "Well, I can't compete with that."

I still haven't been to the restaurant. But after dining tonight at Benu, I almost feel that I have -- through one of its gifted progeny. Keller's former chef de cuisine of 4 1/2 years, Corey Lee, is the creative force behind this remarkable restaurant. He's been receiving loads of press, with renowned New York City chef David Chang recently declaring Benu, "the best restaurant in America." It's been open for a little over a year, and it's still possible to easily get a prime time reservation on a weeknight. (I'm sure that'll change as they were recently awarded with two Michelin stars.) With my friend Scott Spencer of Spencer's Pantry in tow, we headed to Hawthorne Lane in SOMA.

After you pass through the gate that leads to Benu's stone courtyard, you pass by a glass door on the right that offers you a glimpse of the spotless kitchen that emanates the same calm zen quality as the restaurant itself. The staff seems unhurried, working intently on their dishes at their stations.

The first thing I noticed about the spare, modernist interior after we sat down (designed by Richard Bloch) was the muted, gray tonality of the space that was gently illuminated with a neutral, balanced light. It reminded me of walking into an art museum at dusk or that first moment before a play is about to begin, with the house lights gradually dimmed before the performance. There's a cool stillness that evokes more of a contemplative mood -- rather than a romantic one -- in its atmosphere. With higher-end fine dining, I'm accustomed to walking into hushed, dark spaces lit only by candlelight and the other patrons shrouded in darkness.

Scott and I knew beforehand that we were going to order the 19-course tasting menu ($180 / person, which the whole table must order together). Yes, 19 courses -- and spoiler alert: each one was exquisite. I won't go through the entire tasting menu -- which you can see in the slideshow below -- so I'll just review some of the highlights.

The square black wooden tables, sans white tablecloths, offer an appealing backdrop that is both casual in its presentation yet still retains a formal quality. Each dish is served in a beautiful Korean ceramic vessel (made by KwangJuYo, seemingly crafted with each course in mind as they complemented the ingredients perfectly.) And most of the courses were eaten with a small silver spoon that lay on a stone rest. The service was impeccable; each dish was brought out by a rotation of different servers -- a nice touch that added a punctuation of freshness to each course -- who described the ingredients and the best way to indulge in the dish.

A single bite of oyster and pork belly that wonderfully melded together and was encapsulated in a sugar glass-like kimchi-infused wrapper was probably the most delightful thing I've ever eaten in my life. And to think that was only the second course; my mind was already blown by the combination of the crunchy kimchi glass giving way to the luscious oyster and pork belly in one rapturous, melt-in-your-mouth bite. Umami overload.

Do you know those colorful shrimp chips that sometimes accompany dishes at Asian restaurants? Benu reinvented this snack favorite with their "salt-and-pepper squid" dish by creating a large, peppery black chip topped with tender cubes of squid and jalapeno for a bit of a spicy kick.

And there were the soup dumplings. Not just any soup dumplings, but "foie gras xiao long bao." (I'll digress here for a moment and say that dumplings are one of the core elements of my being. I am obsessed with dumplings, to the point where I contemplated starting my own independent dumpling enterprise.) They arrived on an elegant white circular porcelain platter that's a nod to the steamed bamboo baskets commonly seen in Chinese restaurants. After taking a small bite to release the warm foie gras broth into the spoon, I slurped up the rich soup before eating the rest of the tender pork dumpling. I was rather forlorn that there were only two; it was over much too soon. (And I suppose, come next July, this dish will be off the menu.)

The "beef braised in pear, beech mushroom, sunflower seeds and leaves" -- like the kimchi glass earlier in the meal -- drew upon Chef Lee's Korean roots. One secret to creating tender Korean beef barbecue is to add pear to the traditional soy sauce, garlic, onions and scallions marinade to help tenderize the beef. And the succulent (and I'm guessing, sous vide-prepared) beef was heavenly.

The entire tasting menu unfolded like the four seasons, starting off with lighter bites and spring-like tastes, then ending with deeper, richer autumnal flavors towards the end. A gorgeous dessert of "fig, white chocolate, balsamic vinegar, sake lees (the sediment leftover after rice is pressed to make the alcohol)" resembled a delicate snowfall on a winter's day. It was accompanied with "malted rice tea, pine nut, pine needle honey"; you'd drink the sweet tea, then eat a soft custard at the bottom of the glass.

Three hours later, at the end of our feast -- concluded with fine chocolates from Napa-based La Forêt Chocolate & Confections -- Scott and I were in a state of serene bliss. The flawlessly executed dishes -- with several an homage to Asian home-cooking favorites -- inspired lively discussion between us about technique, ingredients, and our love of food. Benu is a temple to fine dining, and I will make another pilgrimage on another special occasion.

Benu
22 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco CA 94105 map
(415) 685-4860
For parties of seven or more, contact Kathryn Douglass at (415) 685-4860 x116
Dinner service only. Tuesday-Saturday, 5:30pm to 9:30pm
Benu on Facebook

As I walked up the stairs to Kitchen on Fire’s spacious Berkeley loft, an inviting aroma of toasting cumin laid out an olfactory welcome mat. Chefs Olivier Said and MikeC., co-owners and culinary over-achievers, have a book coming out and a second location opening behind Berkeley Bowl West (both in November). They keep their kitchen fires burning in daily classes ranging from globetrotting one-nighters to a 12-week series. Fun seems to be an essential ingredient in every recipe as the two irreverent pros blend nutrition tips, science facts and knife skills in their engaging, hands-on sessions.

The class I attended was entitled Moroccan Vegetarian Delights for Couples (though not all attendees came in couples and most were not vegetarians). The menu included couscous, sweet tomato salad and a pungent green leaf and herb jam that disappeared as soon as it was spooned into the serving bowl. After an introductory lecture and demo, students converged on various stations to chop and sauté elements of the 6-course meal we would enjoy together at evening’s end. Chef “Olive,” a wiry French charmer, scampered around the homey coral kitchen in a blur of motion, lending a hand with seeding tomatoes, modeling how to slice rather than slaughter the greens, and sprinkling nutritional tidbits along the way.

International evenings include menus from: Korea, Spain, France, Italy, Vietnam and more, some featuring guest instructors. (Upcoming: November 8 - North Indian, November 11 - Greek, December 3 - Thai Vegetarian).

The folks I've met at ethnic cooking classes come to recreate meals from their travels, enlarge their cooking repertoire or just spend a pleasurable couple of hours that culminate in digging into exotic dishes. If you are similarly inclined, here are 9 more places around the Bay to feed your passion:

Photo courtesy of Brundo

Brundo -- Ethiopian

Oakland’s Café Colucci is a consistent award winner for its authentic Ethiopian cuisine. Brundo, Café Colucci’s sister store, organizes traditional balemoyas (chefs) to share classic Ethiopian delights (both fiery and sublime) in three-hour Saturday classes that include a main dish and several salads. Meals may feature messer wot or kik alicha, (vegetarian stews with red lentils or yellow split peas), begue wot (spiced lamb stew) or doro wot (chicken stewed in red pepper paste). Brundo supplies the organic herbs, seeds, grains and spice mixtures (such as berbere, the essential red chili pepper blend), all imported from Ethiopia.

In early 2012, Brundo’s Ethiopian cooking classes move to a West Oakland warehouse, allowing for an expanded class size and schedule, including injera-making—those flat, spongy disks with a pleasantly sour-ish flavor that serve as plate, utensil, and sauce-mopping bread.

Photo courtesy of Culture Kitchen

Culture Kitchen

Ever wish you had an Indian auntie to teach you her chicken tikka masala? Or a Thai grandmother to tell tales about taking odiferous durian fruit on the bus while showing you how to whip up a tasty Thai lunch in a wok? That’s exactly the idea behind Culture Kitchen, a recently launched enterprise that realizes the rich potential in immigrant women who have been cooking authentic family meals from their native cuisines for years. Pair these self-taught cooks with eager students in various Peninsula and San Francisco locations for a warm, informal gathering that offers more than just new recipes. Small classes encourage an intimate experience—like being at someone’s home—and provide cultural understanding through shared stories.

Cuisines represented include Columbian, French, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Peruvian, Ukrainian and Iraqi. (November 9 – Taiwanese)

Tante Marie’s

This venerable San Francisco cooking school offers two-hour Wednesday afternoon demos or daylong weekend participatory classes on ethnic themes, such as regional cooking of Italy, Mexican chili peppers, a tour of the Mediterranean and Southeast Asian street-food. Respected author and teacher Joyce Jue leads several Chinese and Southeast Asian sessions.

Azalina teaching Malaysian cooking at La Cocina. Photo courtesy of La Cocina

La Cocina

San Francisco’s celebrated and inspiring “food-business incubator” offers technical support and commercial kitchen space for low-income immigrant women to grow their businesses as food entrepreneurs. The light-filled Mission kitchen space is also home to a smorgasbord of classes, such as Russian piroshkis and borscht, Ethiopian and Nigerian foods and Malaysian cooking. On December 14, the popular tamales class will return, featuring three of La Cocina’s graduates guiding students in the traditional, labor-intensive process of filling the masa and wrapping with corn husks before steaming.

Chat Mingkwan of Unusual Touch -- Thai, Vietnamese

Born in Bangkok, this well-traveled author of a slew of cookbooks on regional Thai and Vietnamese cuisine teaches cooking classes all over the Bay Area (including Piedmont Adult School, Kitchen on Fire, Sausalito’s In the Kitchen) or at your private party.

A recent Vietnamese street food class I attended began with a demonstration of several uses for lemon grass, tips on choosing the best fish sauce, and a bit of historical explanation about why fresh herbs (including mint, cilantro, basil) are such an essential part of Vietnamese cuisine. After preparing all the ingredients, students rotated among four stations to assemble our own fresh bowls of chicken soup, plates of beef noodle salad, spring rolls and rice crepes, just like a street food vendor. Mingkwan also offers classes in dim sum, decorative fruit and vegetable carving, sushi and kaiseki, and leads culinary tours of Thailand.

Spain at Home

Seafood paella has always been my favorite edible treasure hunt. Each forkful uncovers a prize of mussels, shrimp, clams or vegetables amidst a bed of saffron-scented rice. With the help of a Spanish chef and a gang of friends equally smitten with this glorious dish, we turned my kitchen into a classroom and created our own feast. Chef Raquel Hermosilla, made her culinary house call wearing chef whites, rolling in a cart laden with all the ingredients we would need to make, as she put it, “Spain’s gift to the world.” First, she set a festive tone, passing out Flamenco-inspired red and black polka-dotted aprons. Then she got serious and erected the crucial piece of equipment in the middle of my kitchen: a paellera, the wide shallow pan with its own ringed-gas burner that ensures the essential socarrat or crusty rice shell at the bottom of the pan.

Hermosilla, who grew up in Madrid, efficiently doled out tasks, and while my friends and I sliced red peppers, de-veined shrimp and squeezed out squid’s innards, she shared the history of her national dish along with her mother’s cooking tips. Finally, she guided us in fashioning a massive mosaic of shellfish and red peppers, with lemon wedges artfully perched on the pan’s rim.

While Hermosilla’s home base is the South Bay, she is willing to travel. Her business, Spain at Home, now in its tenth year, also includes catering for small to large groups. Seafood paella is her most requested offering, but other paella variations and a score of tapas are also available.

Photo courtesy of Linda Tay Esposito

Flavor Explosions -- cuisines of the Pacific Rim

Linda Tay Esposito grew up in Malaysia and treasures her native cuisine with its use of fresh herbs, such as galangal, fresh turmeric and lemon grass. She even incorporates the kaffir lime leaves from a potted plant growing on her San Francisco balcony. This self-taught cook leads classes all over the Bay Area, offering an extensive choice of menus, which either focus on a specific dish interpreted into several Pacific Rim culinary accents (Pan-Asian Noodle Bar) or an in-depth exploration of a single cuisine (East Coast of Malaysia).

Esposito teaches regularly at The Cooking School at Cavallo Point in Sausalito as well as privately in Bay Area home kitchens and weaves in a discussion of spices, regional vegetables and cooking traditions. No matter what the focus of the lesson in her private classes—from dim sum to Malaysian desserts—she supplies everything needed (traveling woks, steamer baskets and professional knives).

Photo courtesy of Nalini Mehta

Route to India –– Ayurvedic Vegetarian Indian cooking

To Nalini Mehta, cooking is a spiritual journey that nurtures the mind, body and soul and a crucial element in the Ayurvedic tradition of creating balance. Mehta works as a cooking teacher and caterer and leads culinary tours to India.

In her San Francisco classes, she shares her wisdom as well as her recipes in an evening of mindful cooking and eating in accord with Ayurvedic principles. Her classes, single or 4-class series, focus on seasonings and techniques, always incorporating a palette of colorful spices.

One of Mehta’s most popular classes centers on dosas (fermented South Indian rice-flour and lentil crepes with savory fillings). Students make the batter and the filling (perhaps with potato, onions, cilantro and spices) and practice forming the dosa disks on a hot griddle. Other regional Indian cooking classes feature an entire menu with dal, pilaf, soup, vegetable and dessert.

The Cooking School at Cavallo Point

For the ultimate indulgence, combine an Italian or Asian cooking class with a relaxing stay at Sausalito’s Cavallo Point Lodge. The 3-year old luxury hotel, at the former Fort Baker military site, features spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge and offers a choice of historic or modern rooms. Several cooking classes are held each week on a range of topics and while most attendees drive up for the day, a room discount is available for cooking students.

Classes are held in an airy, light-filled kitchen, with hardwood floors and retro glass cabinets. Italian cooking is taught by Viola Buitoni (yes, that Buitoni—whose family has been in the food business for generations). The former caterer and Italian food expert was born in Umbria and shares her culinary heritage, aiming to highlight authenticity, translated for the local market. In “Bitter is Better,” on November 17, Buitoni will explore the preparation of traditional greens and make handmade orecchiette.

Other ethnic cooking classes at Cavallo Point include Mexican Sauces from Scratch and The Asian Melting Pot series. On November 26, Linda Tay Esposito will showcase a menu of Spicy Sichuanese specialties.

Chef/Restaurateur Michael Mina may have his roots in San Francisco, but with 18 restaurants across the country now, you don't have to be in the Bay to taste his food. In fact, with the opening of American Fish, his latest venture at the sleek ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Sin City now boasts one more restaurant from Mina Group than even San Francisco (for those keeping score, the count is 5-4).

American Fish (ARIA, Las Vegas)

American Fish celebrates the bounty of America's great lakes, rivers and oceans. The menu features regional products prepared in four signature cooking methods: poached in ocean water, griddled over cast iron, baked in sea salt, and wood grilled and smoked. The design of the space impossibly melds soothing nature with Vegas glitz. Displayed behind the elevated bar is an infinity forest of birch trees, a blue-lit installation above brings to mind salmon running upstream, copper and wood tones glow throughout the dining room, and a gleaming showcase kitchen spans the length of the room.

While I was in Vegas for the Food & Wine All-Star Weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with Chef Mina, taste some of his food, and chat about American Fish, techniques you can bring into your own kitchen, inspiration, and of course, great food. Here's what he had to say:

Michael Mina at American Fish (Las Vegas)

What particularly about the concept for American Fish made you want to bring it to Vegas?
You live in San Francisco so you know my background was Aqua and it was a fish restaurant. That's the first restaurant I brought to Las Vegas. As everything else, I think times change, and change is obviously good, but that era of fine dining, more and more, is becoming high energy. In the food, I think product and technique more than ever right now is the driving force, and what I mean by that is people are going back to simplicity. It's interesting because diners are going back to simplicity in dishes but with the highest level of quality of product that we've ever seen them be aware of, which is great. I was just in New York at ABC Kitchen and I couldn't believe it – I was like, what?! Jean-Georges is serving fried calamari with aioli and tomato sauce…but it was perfect. I mean it was perfect, it was delicious…more than ever now, people are looking for simplicity and familiarity, and that's what this concept is all about. This concept is about things like cooking trout in a cast iron pan over an open fire. As simple as it sounds when it's done really well people can relate to it and they enjoy it. And that was the idea. The ability to build a showcase kitchen like this and use those techniques and then feature a lot of product from America because there's such good product here now.

Is there anything on the menu that is your personal favorite?
The salt grill technique. That's definitely my favorite technique. I just love it because it gets both the wood flavor and it gets the salt flavor, and I like salt. I like that natural flavor of salt in the food where cooking it in rock salt gives it to you -- it's like finishing with a finishing salt, I love that flavor.

Something that piqued my interest from this afternoon was when you were talking about poaching the fish in ocean water. How did you come up with that?
I was doing an event in Hawaii, and I literally went and got buckets of water out of the ocean and I poached all the lobsters in it. I started with the lobsters in the shell because I was wondering how strong the flavor would take to it, poached them, then de-shelled them, and then finished them in that same ocean water with a little bit of butter, and it was amazing.

Did you sous vide it like you do here?
Actually at that point, I hadn't taken it to that level yet. I just did it in a pan, really really slow, poached in water and butter…and I was amazed at what the outcome was. And I was amazed at what people said. Then we got to a point where I actually made a sauce out of some of the water and butter the lobster was cooked in, so you really got that pop of the flavor, and it was great. Then I took it to the next level. As soon as I did that, it was just, every piece of fish I could find the rest of the time I was in Hawaii I was poaching it in ocean water. That's when I really started getting it. And then, like 99% of everything you do, you find out that it's been done. I came back to San Francisco and I was talking to my chef, and it was funny because one of the guys who works for me that's a food runner is from Peru, and he's like, "Oh, no, in Peru we do that."

You mentioned earlier that the ocean water used here at the restaurant comes from Monterey or Hawaii. So you're saying you actually buy ocean water?
I buy it in the sense that I have my fish company bring it when they bring everything else. It was funny because somebody wrote something once that I thought was really interesting. They wrote, "Why in the world would you bring water in?" And as I'm sitting here, drinking a glass of Fiji, I'm thinking to myself, that's the oddest thing to write. As you're writing that you're probably drinking a bottle of water. And, [the poaching technique] doesn't take a lot of water. It's not a big pot of it that you're throwing out every time.

Do you have to purify it?
Well, it's tested. We don't actually have to purify it. You just get really clean water. They test it for us.

If I wanted to try this at home, how would I go about getting clean ocean poaching water?
Boil it. You can go get ocean water, boil it, strain it, and then cool it down. That's the trick. And then use it the same way from a cold state and it'll be fine.

You've obviously done incredibly well in San Francisco. How is it opening up restaurants in different cities? Are you finding that your audience is different?
People who love food are people who love food. Price point depends on the city and what's accepted in that city, so you have to be aware of that. Also, I think you also have to be aware of the dining experience people are looking for. I know when I come to Las Vegas, and when other people come to Las Vegas, they have a big list of things they're going to do that night, so time is an issue. People do want to dine fast. I think overall, one of the things that really attracted me to do more restaurants in Las Vegas is what I fell in love with when I did Aqua at Bellagio. I fell in love with how people were coming to enjoy themselves, and you were a part of their enjoyment. It was great. It was such a nice environment. People come into the restaurant and they want to have a great time…and you know, so they're a little loud. But that's the piece that I came away with from early on was how much I enjoyed that. It fits my personality, it fits my company, it fits everyone in my company. You can do great food, great techniques, everything else, and you can do it in an environment where people are relaxed and enjoying themselves.

Let's talk culinary influences. What are big ones for you?
I love bold flavors. I love strong flavors. And in that sense I love Asian food because I like acidity, sweetness…I like that whole thing of acidity, sweetness, spice, and fat balance. I love balance in food. And so, Asian food in general has that. And then Japanese food, technique-wise and product-wise -- I'm glad it has become as popular as it has. We've all learned a lot from it. I'm classically trained in French cooking, I went to CIA, and the roots of a lot of that is French. So…those are all big influences. Also, Italian cooking -- I think that a lot of California cooking has come from rustic Italian cooking, so I always study and look at that.

What's the best advice you've ever been given as a chef?
Travel. Eat out. Taste. Never taking for granted how something tastes. You have use your palette and your mind at the same time to ever make a statement. You have to learn all the techniques and everything else, but you have to understand what you're going for in your food. You have to have a clear vision of what you're trying to achieve out of your cooking. And I think that traveling, eating out, has a lot to do with that because you learn so much in the kitchen that it's so easy to close yourself off to that…it's a completely different experience as a diner. I mean, I've had chefs work for me that I taste a dish and I'm like, "This is great!" And I look at him and I ask, "Have you sat down and eaten a whole dish?" As a chef, you have to eat the dish beginning to end. That's why entrées are so much harder than appetizers, because you have to keep somebody's interest, 25 bites into a dish.

What was the last great meal you had?
The last great meal I've had? Um…I have great meals all the time. Well I was just in New York, so every place I ate…I would say ABC Kitchen, just in the sense that it was unexpected. I had heard so much about it, but I didn't expect it to be the way it was, and I really did enjoy it. I really enjoyed the whole feeling. And, to me, any great meal is about your company, it's about the people you're eating with. Obviously the food and everything else, but it's the full experience.

What are some of the all-star dishes you had there?
Like I said, it was actually interesting because it was more about simplicity, so I had a toast with a chicken liver mousse, it was just great, and you know, maybe it was just because I hadn't had toast with chicken liver mousse on it in a long time, but it was delicious.

Any guilty pleasures? You know, when no one's looking that you're sneaking?
Yeah…too many, obviously (as he pats his stomach). Probably...I love barbecue. Yeah, I love barbecue.

Like, ribs?
Yeah, ribs, anything. I love it. Again, it goes to the whole thing of bold flavor foods -- acid, sweet, spice. Barbecue is my guilty pleasure.

Who makes the best barbecue?
Sonny's in Dallas is really good. The original. Only the original.

I know you have two sons -- do they like to cook as well?
Yes, constantly. They've been coming to the restaurant with me since they were four. I used to bring one on Friday, one on Saturday. Now they're big enough that they both can come at the same time. And they cook. They work all over the restaurant. I think I'm completely blessed. I can bring them to work. They really understand what I do. (Whips out his phone) I'll show you the little one making an ice cream sandwich. Anthony. He's actually very good, I'm just showing this because it's a cute video, but I've got him making tuna tartar. Sam is the older one. This is him grilling…

That's right, Chef, start them young.

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.

---

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

---

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.

Gabrielle Hamilton. Photo: Melissa Hamilton

Gabrielle Hamilton can write, there's no doubt about that. Craft infuses her recent bestseller, peppered as it is with references to both body and kitchen fluids.

Still, this writer was reluctant to read the memoir of this reluctant chef. When a book like Blood, Bones & Butter gets so much advance praise it's hard to believe it can live up to the hype.

Let's review, shall we? There was the excerpt in The New Yorker, a New York Times profile and laudatory reviews from the paper of record by Michiko Kakutani and Frank Bruni, along with glowing accounts in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Of course, the womens' glossies weighed in with pleasure, as did the blogosphere, including the Times (again), 5 Second Rule, and Bay Area Bites.

Top chefs chimed in too: Her book boasts bubbly blurbs from Bourdain, Batali, and Boulud.

Curious to find out what all the fuss was about, this reporter went to hear Hamilton speak at Omnivore Books in March, when she swung through town on book tour, and again last Thursday, when she appeared on stage in conversation with Kim Severson as part of the City Arts & Lecture series. Oh, and in between this reporter devoured her almost 300-page coming-of-age story.

The book is an indisputable page turner, but let's dispose of one major beef up front: The last section -- "Butter" -- feels rushed and not ready for prime time, in large part because the central concern -- the unraveling of her lonely marriage -- was not resolved in real time. No matter, the publisher wanted that memoir hitting the shelves pronto and mass marketing waits for no one. (Hamilton said Thursday that she's since addressed the marriage matter -- in life and on the page in an epilogue for the paperback edition, available in January.)

Clearly, the woman has a talent with pots and pens. The owner of Prune, a wildly popular little bistro in Manhattan's East Village, (the restaurant's title comes from a childhood nickname), Hamilton recently won a James Beard Award for best New York City chef after receiving nominations for the coveted title three years running. (Though some grumbled that the gal who serves Triscuits and canned sardines at the bar won more for what she represents than what she cooks.) She's written about the chef's life for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, and Saveur, where her sister Melissa Hamilton was an editor, and appeared in six volumes of Best Food Writing.

Hamilton has worked hard and overcome obstacles to get to the top of her game, in two creative fields no less. She survived a largely feral childhood followed by a drug-fueled, unsupervised adolescence, turned to cooking to find family, home, hope, structure, and salvation and wound up, on a whim, running a restaurant of her own.

She's not interested in glamorizing either pursuit. If anything she has a tendency to martyrdom: Hamilton recounts cleaning human excrement off the restaurant stoop and deposing of a dead rat riddled with maggots found on the back steps. She turns hundreds of eggs on the breakfast line, while major-league pregnant and, later, with babies clinging to her breast. Her autobiography, a decade in the making, is scribbled on brown paper between services, on subway rides, and while putting those babes to bed. There is never enough time or sleep.

Professionally, Hamilton is a big talent and a huge success. Her personal life, as she reveals in her book, is a bit messier. Estranged from her mother for decades, she identifies as lesbian but ditched the sisterhood for a clandestine affair with an Italian man she ends up marrying. He is the father of her two boys, though from the beginning of their coupling trouble is brewing. For starters, Hamilton seems more in love with his mother and summer visits to the Italian clan's compound than her actual husband.

These personal revelations would seem meaty subjects for seasoned interviewer Kim Severson in her City Arts & Lectures discussion with Hamilton. But Severson -- now the New York Times' Atlanta bureau chief who appears to keep her hand in the food beat and her heart in San Francisco -- was in a tricky situation. Just days before Hamilton landed in town the New York Post had dropped a bombshell about the celebrity chef's love life.

Of course, who Hamilton sleeps with is really nobody else's business, except that her memoir includes revelations about her adventures in the sack as well as an apron. And Hamilton talks a lot about the value of being honest and authentic in the kitchen and on the page. To top it off, the New York Post item on Hamilton was recycled in the local food media the day before her appearance.

Severson gave a nod to the matter early on in the chat: "I'm going to ask you the question on everyone's minds, [theatrical pause] How do you keep your skin so dewy?" That set the tone for an evening of mostly softballs from Severson, who made a running gag about not being "bitter" that Hamilton's memoir was a better read than her own, Spoon Fed.

The Times staffer did try some shock value, noting the book's unusual intimacy, which a friend described to Severson this way: "I feel like I know every fold in her vagina." But she quickly found herself in the role of comforting colleague, after an earthquake literally shook the subdued Hamilton, who looked like she wanted to bolt from the stage when things started rocking.

A few sips of wine later, however, Hamilton regained her composure and temporarily shut down Severson, as she meandered through her self-described cliched questions. Case in point: "What's the last taste you would want in your mouth before you die?" Surely not the first time Hamilton's fielded that query.

"I thought we were going to have an intelligent conversation about writing and you want to know if I keep lube in my bedside table," Hamilton scolded at one point. Note to Linda Hunt: Not all KQED subscribers may be amused by the repartee between these two, who wondered if any couple, regardless of orientation, can keep sex alive in a long-term relationship -- though, it must be said, the crowd at Herbst Theater ate it up.

During the audience Q&A fans gushed about how much they loved Hamilton's book, even if they hadn't finished it, and her restaurant, even if they hadn't eaten there yet. In such an environment, this reporter felt it would have been a hostile act to ask the writer-chef if she cared to comment about the recent allegations in the press. Instead, she opted for the more discreet email follow up to both Hamilton and Severson, neither of whom jumped at the opportunity to explain why the subject wasn't broached on stage.

Hardly surprising. Hamilton made it clear at her book signing at Omnivore that she's selective about what aspects of her private life the public get to know about through her writing. Her mantra: If it's not in there, it's not tellable -- readers don't get all of her. Fair enough.

It's this kind of contradiction -- the tell-all that keeps secrets -- that makes Hamilton such a fascinating creature. She's full of inconsistencies -- aren't we all? -- only hers are on display for all the world to see and hear. Hamilton often says she loathes being called "a female chef" and yet when TV came calling looking for just such a demographic, she jumped at the chance to take one for the team.

Similarly she thinks the term "food writer" is demeaning; she's simply a chef who is also a scribe and cooking is what allowed her to come to the party. Yet, when asked what readers can expect next from the literary writer she responds: A cookbook.

During the talk Hamilton mentions the moms at her sons' school, who she says look at her disdainfully as she drops off her kids. Her children eat poorly and often in the car on the way to school, she confesses. And yet, one can't help but get the impression that the 45-year-old looks down her nose at them. Severson counters that perhaps the other moms are intimidated or awed by the successful chef with the best-selling memoir but Hamilton dismisses this notion out of hand.

And the Beard Award is silly, Hamilton says, until she wins it, and then it's the most important culinary honor a chef can earn. Thankfully she has a sense of humor about all this flip-flopping.

One gets the sense that Hamilton doesn't give a hoot if you like her, agree with her opinions, or want to read her book. It's what makes her intriguing and may well be an essential part of why she's so talented on the page and in the kitchen. She's just doing her own thing and not seeking anyone else's praise or approval.

During the course of the 90-minute City Arts & Lectures dialogue she laments the fetishization of food (the cult of farmers' markets, home cooks with sous vide machines), discussions of gender issues in restaurant kitchens (snoozeville), and the plethora of social media around food culture. Reading about food online, she says, is like eating at McDonalds. "You end up feeling hungry, undernourished, tired, and full of self loathing."

She's also down on the rise of reality TV cooking shows, even though she's had her own turn in front of the camera. (She slayed Bobby Flay on "Iron Chef"). "It's starting to suck for all of us, since TV isn't about cooking it's about entertaining," says Hamilton. "It's impossible to be quiet or subtle with food on television because actual cooking is really quite dull and repetitive."

Plans for a movie based on the memoir are already in the works, Hamilton told fans Thursday. She jokes she'd like to see Robert Downey Jr. play her.

That seems about right. Hamilton has balls. And a muscularity to her convictions and craft that the actor could convey handsomely. Audiences with a taste for Hamilton's contrarian ways might just go for such gender-bending casting. Stay tuned.

Listen to the conversation between Gabrielle Hamilton and Kim Severson broadcast on KQED Sunday, November 27 at 1 p.m.

Boxing Room Executive Chef Justin Simoneaux. Photo: Liza Gershman

The Cajun and Creole dishes of his native Louisiana influence Chef Justin Simoneaux’s cooking at the recently opened Boxing Room. Simoneaux’s affinity for coastal Louisiana cuisine stems from growing up going hunting, fishing and enjoying frequent family seafood boils, fish fries, barbecues, pig roasts, and pots of gumbo. He absorbed recipes from his mother and grandmother and began cooking in a New Orleans seafood restaurant at age 15, where he worked his way up to line cook and then became kitchen manager by age 18. To gain more training and experience, the young budding culinarian enrolled in the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco in 2005.

He worked and was promoted to the position of sous-chef under Chef Robert Cubberly at the now-closed Le Petit Robert in Russian Hill. Simoneaux says Chef Cubberly set his foundation for cooking and was a great mentor. In 2007, Simoneaux joined Coco500 as sous-chef, working with Chef-owner Loretta Keller. She hired him as her chef-de-cuisine to open The Moss Room at the California Academy of Sciences in 2008. The restaurant garnered three stars from Michael Bauer at the San Francisco Chronicle, and was a “Top 100 Restaurant” in 2009. Chef Simoneaux was also named a San Francisco Chronicle “Rising Star Chef” that same year. At the Boxing Room—named for the box factory that was once housed there years ago—many of Simoneaux’s personal favorites are highlighted on the menu: Cajun boiled peanuts; Louisiana seafood gumbo with brown rice and house-made Tasso; deep fried alligator; and New Orleans-Style stuffed artichoke. Michael Bauer said in his two and a half star August review of the restaurant that: “You'll get excellent fried oysters, fried alligator, fried chicken and fried seafood in the po' boy, but it's far from a greasy spoon because the kitchen takes a light, fresh approach.”

Simoneaux lives in the Haight and is dating Lynn Silva, who is a cook at Spruce. “We met while working at The Moss Room. Started out as friends and then realized we enjoyed a lot of the same things and fell in love.” The chef said that he would soon get some R&R via a New Orleans trip for Mardi Gras and his brother’s wedding.

On food
“This kind of food takes time. For example, to get the right color of roux to make our gumbo, you need about an hour… and that’s before anything else hits the pot.”

Where do you source ingredients?
“Most of my vegetables come from Mariquita Farm and Star Route Field to Family Farms. For seafood, I get oysters and a couple of items from the West Coast but most of it comes from Louisiana.”

Favorite 2-3 food & drink spots?
“Alembic: I love their cocktails. Even if I’m not hungry I always find myself ordering the duck hearts and a slider, no matter what kind they are serving.

Absinthe: I go there after work since it’s only a block away. For a perfect late night snack, I go for the soft garlic pretzel and spicy pork meatballs. The cocktails are always great.

Recently, I’ve found myself at Wing Wings on my days off. I love their wings and usually wash down the spice over a cold beer at The Gold Cane.”

Date night favorites?
“The lady and myself are suckers for sushi. Our favorite go-to spot would probably be Domo in Hayes Valley.”

What’s your guiltiest food pleasure?
“I’ve been known to whip up a packet of Top Ramen. I don’t know why, but it is good.”

What is your favorite meal to have with friends and family?
“It would have to be a classic crawfish boil with all the fixins’ -- potatoes, corn, mushrooms, sausage, artichokes and ice cold beer (which I have all of this tattooed on my arm). My friends are all in the business, so we mostly cook together at one of our houses or in the park.”

Justin's Tattoo

Gosh the Brits know how to do misery, don't they? Miserable weather, miserable class distinctions, miserable food, circa 1960s at least. (The Anglophiles among us need not get their knickers in a twist: Word that there's now fab fare to be found in Britain has leaked out.)

But the grim, gray food of an earlier generation is on full display in the autobiographical film "Toast," based on the memoir of the same name by popular English cookbook author, food writer, and TV show host Nigel Slater. (Regular readers may recall a recent review of his latest tome, Tender, an homage to the humble veg, in a delightful Stephanie Rosenbaum post.)

There's no sugar coating it: Slater's early years were incredibly sad and lonely. The untimely death of his beloved mother, a simply awful cook who adored her boy and he her. Her only culinary saving grace: Toast with lashings of butter served up for dinner after another canned-food failure. Slater had a difficult relationship with his father, who made cheese sandwiches for days on end after the death of his wife. Something of a bully, the father also made it clear his son was a huge disappointment to him. Add to this equation the evil stepmother, played with trollopy gusto by Helena Bonham Carter, who wormed her way into their lives, first as an obsessive cleaner and then with her culinary (and, we're given ample evidence to believe, sexual) prowess.

The woman may have been cheap as chips but she knew how to cook -- and bake. Oh my, that lemon meringue pie!

In the film, with screenplay by Lee Hall who wrote "Billy Elliott," the adolescent Slater (Freddie Highmore) is locked in a culinary clash with his despised stepmother for the attention and affection of his father. He loses, of course, and blames his stepmother for the early death of his father. Moviegoers will get the sense she literally fed him to death; the cakes, pies, and roasts just keep coming out of the oven.

Victoria Hamilton as Nigel's mother and Oscar Kennedy as young Nigel Slater.

The role of food in families -- as both a comfort and a weapon -- is at the heart of this movie, which makes great use of the anguished music of Dusty Springfield for its soundtrack. Dinner time in the Slater household was a desperately unhappy affair. Still, the young Slater finds refuge in food, sneaking cookbooks under the covers to read up on recipes, excelling in his Home Economics class, and triumphing over his stepmom by perfecting his own lemon meringue pie, which pops off the screen as a bright yellow gelatinous mass with a mound of white peaks expertly browned on top.

As in many children's fairy tales, his stepmom also provides his liberation: Following his father's death he simply walks out of her life and flees to London, where a future in food is his for the taking, and he never sees her again.

In a sweet end note, Slater appears in a cameo as himself, reassuring his younger self, who is desperate to find a kitchen job (at the Savoy Hotel, no less) that everything will be fine.

Fortunately for the food world, it is. Slater is the author of ten books, many bestsellers, including Real Fast Food, Appetite, and The Kitchen Diaries. A food columnist for The Observer for almost two decades, Toast the memoir, which won several major awards, including British Biography of the Year, began marinating as a column.

Ken Stott as Nigel's father and Oscar Kennedy as young Nigel Slater.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the adult Slater is not fond of fussy food, he prefers simple suppers made with care and thought, using quality ingredients. And despite his upbringing, he believes that making something good to eat for yourself or for others can lift the spirits in the way little else can.

(In an interesting twist, the daughters of Slater's now deceased stepmother denounced his portrayal of her in the British press earlier this year. The very different accounts of their childhood years serves to remind us that every person's version of the truth can vary wildly. On this much, though, all parties seem to agree: Slater's early years were full of rejection and loss. Indeed the subtitle of his book "A Boy and His Hunger" is both a nod to his need for real, nourishing food and genuine, nourishing love.)

When asked what's missing from the movie, Slater responds without missing a beat: The sex. "Toast is a sexy little book, there's a lot of adolescent sex in those pages and they form an integral part of the story," he said in an interview yesterday. "It doesn't really matter in the movie but honestly I would have liked to have seen a bit more of it. "Toast" was made for prime-time viewing in Britain at Christmas, and I think they wanted a film that the whole family could watch, not something adolescent boys might squirm at."

The movie only hints at the teenage Slater's emerging sexuality; it reveals his crush on a family gardener and a first kiss in the woods with a local boy.

Fans of the food writer's memoir should not hold their breath for Toast: The Second Slice. Here's why: "I'm a very private person and tend to keep to myself, in part because I don't think I'm that interesting," Slater said. "That memoir was the most intimate of memoirs and to this day I don't really know why I did it. But I was writing as a little boy and I was somehow able to differentiate it from my adult self. I stopped at 18 and I've protected myself ever since, I went back into my shell."

There's more. "In practical terms, if I were to do a second book, it would be more a conventional memoir," he said, adding, "and I'd have to write about other people's lives, people who are still alive, and I don't want to intrude on their privacy."

At a time when many of us wax on about the pleasures of the table (this writer included), "Toast" reminds us that food can cause major misery in many people's lives. Audience goers will likely find themselves reflecting on their own childhood food memories while watching the film. Thankfully, this being a decidedly British film, there's a lot of black humor amid the sorrow.

Just as well, too, because this writer, who wanted to rush home and bake her teenage son a cake after seeing the film, found herself wincing at the pain of it all at times.

"Toast" opens in Bay Area cinemas this Friday.

This tribute video was created to honor Jacques Pépin and was shown at the 4th Annual New York City Wine & Food Festival Tribute Dinner on October 1, 2011.

Jacques Pépin's new national TV series Essential Pépin begins airing October 15 on KQED. The series is based on his new cookbook Essential Pépin which is a collection of over 700 of Jacques' favorite recipes from his career that has spanned six decades.

The new Essential Pépin website just launched and you can view four complete episodes before the program premieres as well as view entire episodes one week before they air on TV. Over 75 recipes are available online, which include large color photos not available in the book. You can also connect with Jacques on Facebook and Twitter as well as view a behind-the-scenes slideshow from the taping of the series.

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.