Time will tell how history views the current President and First Lady's legacy on the food front.

Though it's probably fair to say that the family now calling the White House home have never had their eating habits, food policy, or culinary preferences more thoroughly documented and photographed as Barack and Michelle Obama. For that coverage we have the prolific Eddie Gehman Kohan, the voice behind the self-explanatory blog Obama Foodorama, to thank.

Of course, for every pundit singing the praises of Obama's anti-obesity Let's Move campaign, the White House garden, and Sam Kass in the kitchen, there's a critic lamenting the Administration's rulings on genetically engineered salmon and alfalfa, worrisome stance on importing processed poultry products from China, a country not know for its stellar food safety record, or its ties to big biz players like global retailer Wal-Mart over the cultivation of small, local farmers.

And despite their healthy food stance, the Prez's favorite foods appear to be pizza, beer, and ice cream.

But since President's Day is about honoring leaders from history, we'll focus on the palate preferences and food initiatives of presidents past and offer a week's worth of food facts for today's holiday:

1. Founding Father's Food Challenge: By the time he was president George Washington (1789-1797) had lost most of his teeth and could only manage to eat soft foods, despite wearing hand-crafted dentures made from animal and human teeth. Washington also had a slave chef, Hercules, who has been described as immaculate, impeccable and a bit of a dandy. One wonders if he made apple sauce for the chomping challenged Washington, known to be a big lover of that fall fruit.

2. The Roots of a Holiday Food Tradition: Abraham Lincoln's (1861-1865) longest-running food legacy may well be the presidential pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey, a tradition that began when Lincoln spared a bird that had become the beloved pet of one of his sons.

3. Obesity Problem Nothing New: William Taft (1909-1913), who was a little too fond of rich, fatty food, has been the U.S.'s largest president to date, weighing in at a whopping 300 to 332 pounds. He got so fat he got stuck in the White House bathtub.

4. Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays: In 1917, Woodrow Wilson (1913-1917) urged all Americans to observe Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays to conserve food at home and help feed the troops fighting abroad during World War I. In recent years, the Meatless Monday campaign has been resurrected as a global health and environment initiative.

5. Victory Gardens: A response to the Great Depression and World War II when food was scarce, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) and his wife Eleanor encouraged people to grow their own food and preserve excess harvest crops for the lean winter months. Since history is destined to repeat itself, the Victory Garden concept has made a comeback in recent years. See a theme emerging here?

6. Veggie Bashing: At a news conference in 1990 George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-1997) was famously quoted saying: "I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli," clearly traumatized after being forced fed the nutrient dense green as a child. Needless to say, some folks in the produce lobby got a little steamed by this anti-veg outburst.

7. The Pleasures of the Table: Former movie star Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), delivering his Farewell Address from the Oval Office, pronounced “all great change in America begins at the dinner table” in the daily conversations between parent and child. That's the kind of sentiment likely to garner strong bipartisan support during any administration.

Resources for presidential political history buffs with a culinary interest who want to learn more:

Radio: Hercules and Hemings: Presidents' Slave Chefs (NPR) by the Bay Area's Kitchen Sisters focuses on some of the African-American cooks who have served in the White House, including the enslaved chefs of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Who knew that Sally Hemings, a Jefferson slave alleged to have had a relationship with the president, had a chef brother James Hemings? Also a Jefferson slave, James Hemings studied French culinary techniques and assumed the role of chef de cuisine in Jefferson's kitchen on the Champs-Elysees when he was minister to France.

Blog: The History Chef! by Suzy Evans, a lawyer in Newport Beach who holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and is working on a book about presidents' favorite foods. Her blog, which goes by the domain name lincolnslunch.blogspot.com, includes fascinating food factoids from the archives, like this one: Ronald Reagan asked for his favorite comfort food -- mac&cheese -- while recuperating from injuries sustained during an assassination attempt.

Book: All The Presidents' Pastries: Twenty Five Years in the White House: A Memoir by Roland Mesnier with Christian Malard (Flammarion, $24.95) dishes up White House dirt along with over-the-top desserts from the French pastry chef who served five presidents from Jimmy Carter to Bush junior during his 25 year tenure cooking for the country's top commander-in-chiefs.

Blog: Obama Foodorama: There's no food news related to POTUS and FLOTUS (that's Barack and Michelle) to minute to report on this site, which includes policy analysis, events, speeches, videos, recipes, menus, edible ephemera, and lots of food shots too. Eddie Gehman Kohan serves up side dishes of food news from the USDA and The Hill in a blog cataloged by the Library of Congress.

Cookbook: Capitol Hill Cooks: Recipes from the White House, Congress and All of the Past Presidents by Linda Bauer (Taylor, $26.95), a collection of dishes from appetizers to desserts from two centuries worth of policy wonks. Profits from the sales of the book benefit Homes for Our Troops, an organization that helps injured veterans build or adapt their homes for handicapped access.

From top left to right: Douglas Monsalud and wife Kimberly Stevens, Yigit Pura, Will Werner and girlfriend Sarah Logan, Richie Nakano.

It's no secret chefs don't get much time off--certainly not on holidays. And Valentine's Day is a biggie. Folks make reservations well in advance and snatch up flowers and confections to bring home to their loved ones. After chatting with some of my favorite local chefs, it became clear that Valentine's Day really is just another day and there are many occasions to sit down, toast one another, and prepare a special meal. I asked three simple questions to get to the heart of what a romantic day looks like in their world. Here's what I discovered.

Douglas Monsalud: Kitchenette SF
So Valentine’s Day. Or let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and your partner like to cook/eat together at home?
We LOVE to make food that takes a while to cook so that we can hang out, talk while we cook, and drink good wine ; ) With that in mind, we have cooked everything from bouillabaisse to pozole, porchetta to pot roast. You know...simple, rustic, one-pot meals that are comfortable and really make you feel like you are home.

Favorite dessert?
Wow, favorite dessert is a tough one. I like desserts that are lighter and fruity...like the goats milk yoghurt panna cotta with blood orange compote that we've served at Heart Wine Bar. Similarly, I have always loved creme brulee and a nice, flaky crostata with a scoop of ice cream always gets my attention.

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Aziza and Gitane ooze romance. They have great food and the atmosphere is at once exotic and warm. Also, I always think getting a dozen oysters from the Marshall Store up on Tomales Bay with a bottle of something bubbly and eating them on a bench overlooking the water is as sexy as it gets.

William Werner: Tell Tale Preserve Co.
So Valentine’s Day. Or let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and your partner like to cook/eat together at home?
We don't get to spend a lot of time together as of late-- so usually a romantic dinner would consist of something simple, to spend more time together than in the kitchen, more than likely, champagne, oysters with lemon, market greens, a risotto of mushrooms and nettles, and of course chocolate (Valrhona feves straight from the bag).

Favorite dessert?
Of the moment: kishu mandarins.

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Coi, for getting dressed and a luxurious, intimate evening of thoughtful food. Burgers and beer in the back corner booth at Bar Tartine for dressing down and hanging out.

Richie Nakano: Hapa Ramen
So Valentine’s Day. Or let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and your partner like to cook/eat together at home?
When we're eating at home we keep it pretty simple: farro with roasted chicken, or an easy pasta. We also get treats from Fatted Calf: charcuterie, cheese, olives. We have a 9 month old son, so there's not a lot of quiet romantic evenings these days, but we do like to unwind with a bottle of kruner or falanghina.

Favorite dessert?
Anything from Humphrey Slocombe, or we'll get something from Tell Tale Preserve Co. and save it for that evening. That stuff is sinful.

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Aziza always comes to mind, it's such a beautiful setting in there, and the food is really elegant. La Ciccia is really intimate also, but the sexiest place in town is the Flour & Water dough room. If you can snag a seat at a dinner in there...

Yigit Pura: Executive Pastry Chef, Taste Catering; Winner of Bravo's Top Chef Just Desserts
So Valentine’s Day. Maybe, like a lot of folks, you see it as any other day—but let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and a date like to cook/eat together?
I think any day is a good day to be romantic. I would cook what I know they love and tickles their soft spot, even if it goes against my grain as a chef. I find just showing you paid attention will always get you brownie points.

Favorite dessert?
As cliché as it sounds, you can’t go wrong with chocolate. And I know there are myths around it but I still love a great chocolate soufflé. Be it a professional or home chef, it still gets people excited. Take it another step forward and make a really lovely salted caramel ice cream, and put a small scoop straight in the middle. The contrast between the hot and cold is always very sexy!

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Lately I’m in LOVE with Barbacco. Modern and really beautiful ambiance, great service, and just really tasty bites, and very reasonably priced. Last time I ate there everything was so great, I am already looking forward to the next time.

Jessica Boncutter: Bar Jules
A typical romantically-minded meal?
That would have to be beef fillet roasted medium rare with salt roasted potatoes, baby carrots and horseradish cream.

Favorite Dessert?
Definitely finish it off with a chocolate pot de creme and a little Serge Gainsbourg on the record player!

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Romantic places in the San Francisco Bay Area are upstairs at Chez Panisse for lunch or Manka's in Inverness for the night or Tosca for a drink or of course Bar Jules is so romantic. Chez Panisse lunch during the week feels like you are playing hooky from work with a lover. Manka's, well you just have to stay there one night to experience it. Tosca is a classic always feels special no matter who you are with.

Chef and restaurateur Rene Verdon has died at his home in San Francisco. He was the chef for President John F. Kennedy, and, along with Julia Child, helped popularize French cooking in the United States. Verdon wrote five cookbooks and his San Francisco restaurant, Le Trianon, set high standards for French food.

Host Cy Musiker talks with chef Roland Passot, owner of La Folie about the mark Rene Verdon made on the American culinary scene.

Related Links:
• Rene Verdon's obituary in the SF Chronicle
• NYTimes: René Verdon, French Chef for the Kennedys, Dies at 86

Oh, you modern Americans, what is wrong with you? Why do you recoil, as if from a snake, from the very muttered hint of mincemeat? Pie may be sneaking back into the spotlight, weary of being upstaged by all those pink cupcakes beehived with frosting, but still, you could look far and wide here and find nary a scrap of mince on our menus.

Once, mincemeat was our heritage, our honor guard, the leading light of American pie fillings. It was exalted at holiday time but consumed with gusto year-round, at Automats and church suppers, carried on Formica trays through cafeterias and paraded on gold-rimmed china in the dining rooms of downtown hotels.

The history was, of course, a British one, but the legacy of the dense, sweet-spiced, citrusy-raisiny-almondy filling stretches back at least a handful of centuries, when the line between sweet and savory was a much more porous one. Originally, mincemeat was made with both beef and beef fat, added to a rich mixture of dried fruits, spices, candied citrus peels, and almonds, preserved with a hefty dose of spirits. Over the years, the meat receded, although the fat (typically suet, the particularly pure fat taken from around the kidneys) remained, to give an unmistakable richness to the mixture.

You may think you'd hate it—prunes? suet?—but not so. This holiday season I passed around many of these tarts, filled with Delia Smith's unbeatable recipe for Homemade Christmas Mincemeat. Served up small and warm, in the late, lowering afternoon with a cup of steaming tea or after dinner with a glass of port, naught but lard-and-butter crust crumbs came back on the plate. (A word of advice, though: halve Delia's recipe, and you'll still have more than enough mincemeat to feed everyone you know.)

But now that the indulgence of the holidays has passed, mincemeat might be a tougher sell. Enter Black Tart, a lovely winter dessert based on a 17th-century recipe for "black tart stuff," which the eminent British food writer Elizabeth David praises in An Omelette and a Glass of Wine as "rich and dark without the cloying and heavy qualities of mincemeat." She also recommends it as having "a certain originality which provides a small surprise at the end of the meal."

Leafing through cookbooks heaped from shelves to floor, I can trace the roots of my own Black Tart to several recipes: David's 1969 recipe, itself a modern interpretation of Robert May's recipe from The Accomplisht Cook (1660); the Harvest Tart from the The Silver Palate Cookbook (1982); and the Winter Fruit Tart from the Bay Wolf Restaurant Cookbook (2001).

Mostly, though, it came from messing around with the memories of all these things in a friend's kitchen on a raw, gray afternoon, when we both wanted something sweet to eat without having to leave the house.

What was on hand in the winter pantry? Dried fruit and nuts, candied fruit peel left over from holiday baking, and plenty of liquor, likewise left over from holiday parties. Thus, Black Tart, a lazy-day sort of dessert that will warm the kitchen and perfume the house with a deep medieval scent of winter at bay--a whiff of whiskey, a breath of ginger and cinnamon, a Mediterranean sparkle of fresh tangerine.

The dried fruits aren't poached so much as steeped. After a slow warming, they sit on the back of the stove for an hour or so, soaking up the wine and spices, swelling up soft and plump as they absorb nearly all the liquid.

A cookie-like tart dough, a little sweeter and richer than regular pie crust, works particularly well here. To make it, sift together two and a half cups of flour, a quarter cup sugar, and a half-teaspoon salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in 12 tablespoons (one and a half sticks, 6 oz) of chilled butter, until mixture looks sandy and flaky, like dry oatmeal. Then, instead of the usual ice water, moisten the flour with two egg yolks, one teaspoon vanilla, and three to four teaspoons of water to form a soft dough. Chill for several hours while the filling is cooking and cooling.

Black Tart
This tastes best on the day it's made, but will last for several days if well wrapped. The recipe can also be used to made small individual-sized tarts. For the prettiest crust on small tarts, brush tart crust with milk and sprinkle with sugar before baking.

Ingredients
1 large apple, peeled, cored, and diced
1 cup dried apricots, chopped
1 cup pitted prunes, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
2-3 tbsp candied orange peel
1 cup red wine OR 1/2 cup port and 1/2 cup water
1/4 cup whiskey or brandy
1/8 tsp EACH cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, and ginger
Big pinch of freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar, or to taste
Zest and juice of 1 tangerine
1/2 cup toasted walnuts or almonds, chopped
Dough for two-crust tart (see above)
Whipped cream for serving

Preparation
1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, mix all filling ingredients except for walnuts. Warm over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let fruit absorb the rest of the liquid for an hour or so.

2. Divide the tart dough into two rounds and roll out. Line an 8-inch or 9-inch tart pan with first round.

3. Stir walnuts into filling. Cut remaining dough into 1-inch wide strips. Lay strips in a criss-cross lattice pattern to cover most of the filling. Cover entire tart with foil or waxed paper and chill in the fridge for an hour or so.

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Unwrap tart and bake until crust in golden brown and filling is bubbling, 30-35 minutes. Cool on a rack. Serve with whipped cream.

Refugee Camp Restaurant, 1906. Photo credit: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

Christmas in San Francisco, and what's on the menu? Sweetbreads. Squab. Canvasback duck. Cardoons, flageolet beans, porcini mushrooms. A choice of German or California asparagus.

And let us not forget the oysters, lots and lots of oysters, or the sand dabs, frogs' legs, and Sacramento River salmon.

Such would have been your choices on December 25, 1910 at the Palace Hotel on Market Street, just a few years after the City's most devastating earthquake. At the Fairmont Hotel, on an ordinary evening in May 1908, the evening's menu was almost as elegant: East Coast blue point oysters, filet of striped bass, new potatoes, sweetbreads and squab, French peas, salad, ice cream, fancy cakes, and cafe noir.

Anyone thinking that a California cuisine didn't exist until Wolfgang Puck put smoked salmon on a pizza (or Alice dropped goat cheese on a salad) should head over to the San Francisco Main Library and get a mouth-watering education at San Francisco Eats, a delectably entertaining exhibit of historic menus, photographs, and other restaurant ephemera (matchboxes! matchbooks!) on display now through March 20, 2011.

Curated by Sheila Himmel, a longtime restaurant critic with the San Jose Mercury News, in conjunction with Lisa Vestal, the library's head curator, the exhibit pulled most of its items from the library's own San Francisco History and Historical Photograph Collections, with additional materials from restauranteur Pat Kuleto, the Cliff House, and the Alice Statler Library at City College, among others.

Being a former restaurant critic myself, I would have loved to have learned more about how the City's restaurant scene developed over the past century. Alas for restaurant geeks and city-history buffs, the commentary is limited to a paragraph or two on cards below each display case, along with a general introduction on the wall. (However, there is a great quote from Alice B. Toklas about the mad gustatory delights she and Gertrude enjoyed while dining out in the City.)

Still, there are small gems to be had: how lower Polk Street was known as "Polkstrasse" during the early half of the 20th century, thanks to its concentration of German restaurants and beer halls, or how pig's feet and lamb kidneys were common items, and how you could find both, along with Grape Nuts cereal, codfish in cream, and green tea, on the breakfast menu of the Clift Hotel, circa 1915.

Not all the menus are dated, but the bulk of them seem to date from the 1940s through the 60s, leading to much nostalgia on the part of the crowd on the exhibit's opening day. Blum's, the Magic Pan, Alfred's Steakhouse, Ernie's, Le Club, Le Trianon: you could see the years of shined shoes, hats and gloves, lipstick and martinis unspooling in memory.

Menus were big back then, tall and imposing. Open one and it covered your plate. A tassel might be involved, and a foreign language, probably French. A fancy night out meant this thing called Continental Cuisine, mixed up from a little French, a little Italian, maybe a dash of Spanish. Turtle soup, wine sauces, flaming desserts. Even restaurants that weren't exclusively French, like Masa's, often wrote their menus in French, connoting serious gastronomy (and perhaps, justifying their prices with a touch of Parisian glamor).

But what the exhibit shows most definitely is that San Francisco has always been an eating town, with something for everyone. There were chop-suey joints and elegant Chinese banquet halls, grab-and-go taquerias and gringo-ized Mexican places with singing senoritas, posh hotels and tiki lounges (sometimes in the same place), the Old Poodle Dog and the Koffee Kup.

It's interesting, of course, to compare prices, especially among the few contemporary menus; in 1997, an order of shaking beef (bo lu lac) at the Slanted Door cost $10.50; in 2010, it's $32.

Some places remain the same, even after decades of dishing up. Tadich's, Sears, the Cinderella Bakery, Zuni, even the Hayes Street Grill. Other places define a moment, then fade away.

During my decade as a critic, I probably ate in hundreds of restaurants all around the Bay Area. Only a few now-gone places still glow in recollection, the spots that made you feel like you were smack-dab in the exciting middle of things. Do I miss the actual place, or who we all were there, at that vibration in time? Still, it was easy to agree with chef and Bay Cafe host Joey Altman, during in a short panel discussion moderated by Himmel.

Asked about San Francisco restaurant trends then and now, Altman pointed out, a little wistfully, that the City still has nothing to equal Stars in its splashy, 1980s, Jeremiah-Tower heyday, when Altman was a young chef in the kitchen.

"Stars was incredibly relevant for the dining scene then. There's no one 'holding court' anymore like Jeremiah did. My friends and I, we'll still say, 'I wish there was a Stars to go to.' "

The San Francisco Eats exhibit is on display at the San Francisco Main Library in the Jewett Gallery on the Lower Level and in the Skylight Gallery on the Sixth Floor through March 20, 2011.

Trader Vics Restaurant, circa 1950. Photo credit: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

I’ve always loved beef stroganoff. When I was a kid, my mom would make large pots of the stuff and I would happily eat leftovers for days. As an Italian kid, it was exciting to eat a dish whose name ended with an "f" instead of an "i." Stroganoff! Plus there was my mad obsession wondering what happened to the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia. I was convinced, in a way that only young girls can be, that she had eluded execution and was living an undercover life somewhere. Taking small bites of beef mixed with egg noodles and sour cream, I would daydream about the life I imagined she had after escaping the terrible fate of her Tsar father and family, murdered by Bolsheviks. Did she marry a farmer and everyone but her husband was ignorant to her true royal identity? Was she living in Paris under an assumed name? The list of possibilities was endless and oh so very romantic to a young girl wishing to escape her own reality of a stucco house in North County San Diego.

But the beef stroganoff of my youth was vastly different than anything they served in Russia when Anastasia was alive. After all, my Neapolitan mother who had been raised in the Bronx hadn't even heard of the dish before she was at least 30. Like many Americans, the recipe for my first taste of this dish came from the back of a Campbell's soup can. Mixed with button mushrooms, sliced onions and sour cream, the mix of savory beef flavors and the velvety texture of the sauce both tingled and soothed my taste buds. Say what you will about Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, I loved every bite.

After awhile I forgot about this dish. I didn't eat a lot of beef in my adult years until I became pregnant (at which point I craved it constantly). But when my daughters were young, I remembered how much I loved this stew when I was a girl and so wanted to share it with them. Using Campbell's soup was out of the question, however. As much as I loved that dish as a kid, I knew there had to be a more authentic way to make it that also contained less sodium. I read somewhere along the way that a traditional stroganoff uses mustard. Although they probably used mustard seed back in pre-Soviet Russia, I started adding a teaspoon of Dijon to my dish instead, and was happy with the nice little kick it gave to the sauce. I then opted to use both dried and fresh mushrooms in place of the cream of mushroom soup. Dried porcinis are my favorite, but any dried mushroom steeped in water will infuse the dish with a deep and subtle earthy complexity needed to round out the flavors. And, although some recipes use heavy cream for the sauce, I've stuck with sour cream because I love the tangy flavor in the rich gravy.

Beef stroganoff has become one of my daughters' favorite stews -- like mother like daughters, I suppose. Last week, both my girls devoured every morsel in front of them and one even licked the plate clean -- I'm not exaggerating. As I watched them eat, I began to wonder if they knew of Anastasia's story or if they'd even care about it as much as I did when I was their age. But how could they not? The fated end of the Russian Tsar and his family combined with a hearty beef stew is an irresistible match and bound to capture their imagination. Maybe next time I'll have to share a little Russian history over dinner.

Beef Stroganoff

Makes: Enough for 6-8 people

Ingredients:
2 1/2 lbs beef chuck or tenderloin cut into strips or 1-inch chunks
1/4 cup flour
2 large white or yellow onions roughly sliced
1 cup dried porcini mushrooms
2 cups sliced mushrooms (I used a mix of brown and shitake, but you can use whatever you’d like)
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup Cognac or sweet wine (like Madeira)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
3-4 cups beef broth
2 tsp dried thyme or 1 Tbsp fresh thyme
1 tsp paprika
Salt and Pepper to taste
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
Freshly chopped parsley for garnish
Cooked wide egg noodles

Preparation:
1. Place dried mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiling water (enough to just cover the mushrooms). Let sit for at least 10 minutes.

2. Sprinkle salt, pepper and 1 tsp thyme on uncooked meat. Sprinkle with flour to lightly and evenly coat each piece.

3. In a large dutch oven, heat 1 Tbsp oil on medium high. When oil is hot, place half the meat in the bottom of the pan, being sure not to crowd the bottom (crowding will make the beef steam instead of sear, and you want each piece to brown to seal in the juices).

4. Sear meat on all sides without cooking through and then remove from the pan. Add another 1 Tbsp vegetable oil and repeat with the remainder of the meat.

5. Remove all the meat from the dutch oven and add in the last tablespoon of oil. Sauté the onions for five minutes.

6. Roughly chop the now hydrated porcini mushrooms and add to the onions. Reserve the mushroom water. Add the cognac or Madeira wine, Dijon mustard, paprika, the remaining 1 tsp thyme, Worcestershire sauce and a bit of the mushroom water if needed. Sauté for another five minutes.

7. Add the meat to the onion and mushroom mixture and then mix in the remainder of the mushroom water, 3 cups of beef stock and some freshly ground pepper. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze the caramelized goodness.

8. Bring the pot to a slow boil and then reduce heat to simmer. Cover pot and simmer for one hour.

9. After an hour, check stew and add the last cup of beef stock if the stew seems too dry. Add in the fresh mushrooms.

10. Simmer for another 30-60 minutes (the longer the better).

11. Cook noodles in salted water according to package directions.

12. Mix about 2 Tbsp flour with enough water to make a slurry and add to the stew. Simmer to thicken the sauce to make a glossy gravy.

13. Remove some of the gravy from the pot and add it to a bowl along with the sour cream. Whisk together and then add it to the larger pot and mix in.

14. Set noodles on plates and then ladle on the stew. Serve with chopped parsley.

John, Paul, George & Ringo, a "super-sandwich" at Heimerhaus Deli in Redwood City

From tangerine trees and marmalade skies to yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye, the lyrical language of the Beatles is laden with talk of food. In a humorous study called "Eat the Beatles!" conducted earlier this year, Beatles super-fan and humorist Martin Lewis discovered that the Fab Four "actually recorded more overt references to tea than drugs!"

In its heyday, the Beatles were extraordinary hawkers of food products. Mitch McGeary, proprietor of the RareBeatles.com website, lists a number of treats that the group endorsed by name and sometimes image. It would seem that the boys were quite fond of carbohydrates, lending their credibility to products like cereal, potato chips, crackers, bread, and cookies. Junk food giant Nabisco even named a package of fudge sandwich cookies Ringos.

Cafés and eateries with Beatles themes exist across Europe, and even the Bay Area has a piece of the action. At Heimerhaus (601 Main St. at Veterans Blvd., Redwood City), "John, Paul, George, Ringo' is a popular "super-sandwich," a creation that actually looks like three sandwiches stuck together with the aid of corned beef, roast beef, turkey, Swiss and American cheeses, cucumber, cranberry sauce, pickle, coleslaw, mayonnaise, and mustard on rye. It's a feat of construction that is both intimidating and fun to eat. Never mind the avowed vegetarianism of three-quarters of the group.

In San Francisco, another deli, the Sunset District's Yellow Submarine (503 Irving at 6th Ave., San Francisco) doesn’t have any themed menu items but instead honors the group with colorful décor inspired by the famous Beatles cartoon. Across Golden Gate Park in the Richmond District, the Japanese restaurant Halu (312 8th Ave. at Clement, San Francisco) serves sushi and yakitori in a funky room covered with Beatles posters, toys, and other memorabilia, a drum set with the band logo towering in the loft above.

Beatles memorabilia galore at Halu, a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco

Across town, Connecticut Yankee (100 Connecticut at 17th St., San Francisco) makes a showy New York strip steak covered in crushed black pepper, flambéed in brandy, and crowned with green peppercorn sauce: Sgt. Pepper's Beef. The leader of the Lonely Hearts Club Band also features on a flat bread pizza at Blue Light (1979 Union at Buchanan, San Francisco) with bell peppers, pepper Jack cheese, and pepperoni.

This can all be washed down with a Blue Meanie (strawberry, blueberry, banana, and apple juice) or Strawberry Fields (strawberry, banana, and apple juice) smoothie at Rockin Java (1821 Haight at Stanyan, San Francisco).Strawberry Fields, a reference to the Beatles' 1967 song, is quite popular as a beverage name in San Francisco; it also pops up as a vodka cocktail at The Tipsy Pig (2231 Chestnut at Scott, San Francisco), a fruity green tea at Crown and Crumpet (900 North Point at Larkin, San Francisco), and, again, as a smoothie at Blue Danube (306 Clement at 4th Ave., San Francisco).

The legacy of the Beatles is long, vast, and occasionally delicious.

I recently met up with my friend Fatemeh for brunch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He would have approved.

Death in the Afternoon

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

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

Ingredients:

1 ½ ounces absinthe

4 ounces Brut champagne

Preparation:

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

Alice Waters photo by David Liittschwager

Alice Waters caught up with Bay Area Bites on the last stop of her In the Green Kitchen book tour recently. She greeted and hugged most of the guests at the designer (chi-chi) Carrots Boutique, where four hundred dollars buys a smashing chapeau. Cocktails were made up by handsome male barkeeps from the neighboring Bix Restaurant, and owner Doug Biederbeck seemed obsessed with the event flow--he was mulling over when and whether Waters would speak and wanted to be sure folks knew they had to pay for Waters' latest cookbook. Eats were radishes and fava bean crostinis.

Daniel Lurie was one of the hosts of the Carrots event, and said that "everyone loves Alice… clearly," as he watched her surrounded by loyalists. Lurie told BAB that he showed Ms. Waters how to ride the subway in New York City over a decade ago, when he was living there. No surprise that Waters demurred on answering SFist Editor Brock Keeling’s query, “What is your favorite junk food?” However she did eventually agree to share her favorite Bay Area food-related faves with BAB. Waters has lived in North Berkeley, "a short walk away from Chez Panisse, for over 40 years."

Boulette's Larder
1 Ferry Building #48 Map
(415) 399-1155
Hours: No table service on Saturday
Breakfast Monday-Friday 8AM to 10:30AM
Lunch Monday-Friday 11:30AM to 2:30PM
Brunch Sunday 10AM to 2:30PM

Waters: My Saturday morning trip to the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market is one of my most beloved rituals--I stop by Boulette's to get my English muffins and eggs for breakfast. For a weekday lunch I order a simple, perfect salad or pulled pork sandwich.

Primavera at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
1 Ferry Plaza Map
NO PHONE
Hours: Saturday 8AM to 2PM

Waters: I love their authentic, organic handmade tortillas--they also have incredible special dishes from all the regions of Mexico.

Flatland Flower Farm at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market
1 Ferry Plaza Map
NO PHONE
Hours: Saturday, starting at 8AM

Waters: I buy wonderful plants here for my garden--vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers--as well as deliciously crisp, dry-farmed apples in season.

Swan Oyster Depot

1517 Polk Street (between California Street and Sacramento Street) Map

(415) 673-1101

Hours: Monday-Saturday 8AM to 5:30PM

Waters: I come here when I’m craving freshly caught crab or oysters on the half shell--the place is small, but grab a spot at the cool marble countertop bar if you can.

Sebo
517 Hayes Street at Octavia Street Map
(415) 864-2181 –-no reservations taken
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 6PM to 10PM
Sunday 6PM to 11PM

Waters: This Japanese restaurant is incredibly tiny--and so, so good! It serves the best sushi I’ve tasted in San Francisco.

Zuni Café
1658 Market Street (between Franklin and Gough)
 Map
(415) 553-2522

Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 11:30AM to 11PM
Friday-Saturday 11:30AM to midnight

Sunday 11:00AM to 11:00PM
Closed Monday


Waters: My home away from home for 25 years. The roasted chicken with bread salad is one of the truly great dishes of the Bay Area.

Blue Bottle Café
66 Mint Street (between Jessie Street and Mission Street) Map
(415) 493-3394

Hours: Monday-Friday 7AM to 7PM
Saturday 8AM to 6PM
Sunday 8AM to 4PM

Waters: This is the coffee we serve at Chez Panisse--it’s organic, and has incredible flavor. Their café on Mint Plaza has several unique ways of brewing your coffee--all of them delicious.

Omnivore Books
Omnivore Books Map
3885 Cesar Chavez Street (at Church Street) Map
(415) 282-4712

Hours: Monday-Saturday 11AM to 6PM
Sunday 12PM to 5PM

Waters: A tiny store that sells new cookbooks and vintage, hard-to-find editions. It also hosts special tasting events and book signings.

Acme Bread
1601 San Pablo Avenue (at Cedar Street) Map
Berkeley CA 94702-1317
(510) 524-1327

Hours: Monday-Saturday 8AM to 6PM
Sunday 8:30AM to 3PM

Waters: This is the finest bread in the Bay Area, period. And it’s all made with organic flour and using only solar energy!

Pizzaiolo
5008 Telegraph Avenue (at 50th Street) Map
Oakland CA 94609
(510) 652-4888

Hours: Monday-Thursday 5:30PM to 10PM
Friday-Saturday 5PM to 10:30PM
Closed Sunday

Waters: Wood-fired pizzas, a superb bar, and a great big patio out back.

Ajanta Restaurant
1888 Solano Avenue (at The Alameda) Map
Berkeley CA 94707
(510) 526-4374
Hours: Monday-Sunday 11:30AM to 2:30PM, 5:30PM to 9:30PM

Waters: This lovely neighborhood Indian restaurant uses organic produce and has an ever-changing, seasonal menu.

The Cheese Board
1504 Shattuck Avenue (at Vine Street) Map
Berkeley CA 94707
(510) 549-3183
Hours: Monday 7AM to 1PM
Tuesday-Friday 7AM to 6PM
Saturday 8:30AM to 5PM
Closed Sunday

Waters: For over four decades, this workers’ collective across the street from our restaurant has been serving seasonal pizzas, fresh sourdough baguettes, and divine cheeses to all of Berkeley.

I have this thing that I do.

Some people find it annoying; others, fascinating.

People tell me when they were born, I tell them who won Oscars that year.

It's one of my little quirks. And a rather lame party trick, if you ask me.

When I tell someone he's A Man For All Seasons, I mean that he was born in 1966. And then that same person will look at me and ask, "Why the hell do you even know that?"

I just do.

When I was 11 years old, I came down with a very nasty strep infection, which is not typically good subject matter for a food blog, but stay with me here. My tonsils were so swollen that, at one point, I could feel them touch each other at the back of my throat. I couldn't eat or drink without discomfort, nor could I sleep because, every time I swallowed heavily, I would wake up in pain.

Those were good times. No cable television, no computer games to distract me, no talking, no singing of show tunes. Whatever was a pre-Information Age boy to do?

Fortunately, my father came to the rescue. He stopped by the house to see how I was doing and gave me the book that was to set me on a remarkable path of trivia absorption from which I have never strayed: 50 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards by Robert Osborne.

To both entertain myself and to keep my mind off the pain, I decided to play a little memory game. I wound up memorizing every Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, and Song listed in that damned book. Surprisingly, most of that information has never left this little head of mine.

And so... at some point I just started telling people who won Oscars the year they were born. I think you get the (best) picture. It's sort of like my own version of the zodiac. I'm a 1969 baby, so I see myself as a Midnight Cowboy with Maggie Smith rising. A little bit Goldie Hawn, a little bit Gig Young, but not a trace of John Wayne in me.

Of course, it got a bit boring being stuck with the same film year in, year out, so I started to look at my life in terms of films that won the Oscar for the year that correlated to my age. For example, I deemed my 39th year on this planet as my Gone With The Wind (1939) year because it was so full of melodrama and seemed to go on forever.

As for 40, though I could not afford the upkeep of a deranged housekeeper, I felt as if much of the year, in a sense, was spent coming into my own and out from under shadows of others, not unlike Rebecca's (1940) unnamed heroine.

On Wednesday, I turned 41 and, if I am to continue living my life according to Oscar, I must look to the film How Green Was My Valley to know just what this year will bring. I'm not certain what that's supposed to mean, but I fully expect to get very nostalgic and, perhaps, date a Welshman. I hope it doesn't mean I'm going to have an affair with a minister. Or die in a coal mine.

I am cautiously optimistic. And, for some reason, it has inspired me to bake something:

A Donald Crisp. No, really, it did.

And why a Donald Crisp. Why not bake a Donald Crisp? He won the award for Best Supporting Actor in 1941 as a stern-but-loving father (always Oscar fodder, if you ask me) in, conveniently enough, How Green Was My Valley. The decision to bake him into a dessert follows my own, particular path of logic. I could not have made anything else under the circumstances.

I considered other Oscar winners for that year, but they just didn't inspire cooking. Yes, I could have made a Sergeant Yorkshire pudding, but that seemed ridiculous. And under no circumstances was I about to make anything with the name Suspicion in it. In terms of baking, I firmly believe that anything Joan Fontaine-inspired is to be avoided, since the result will either be weepy or worse, too bitter to eat.

Truth be told, I'm a little disappointed that Barbara Stanwyck didn't win for Balls of Fire. I could have made something really, really interesting.

All this thought about how I am living my live according to the Oscars has really gotten me thinking about my future. For example, I can't wait until I turn 42 so that I might start suffering nobly like Mrs. Miniver. Of course, she had to deal with severe wartime rationing, so I'd better start saving my flour and eggs for next year's birthday recipe.

Until then...

Nectarine Donald Crisp

There is absolutely nothing about this crisp that screams the name Donald. Nor is there anything particularly Welsh about it either, but I wasn't about to put leeks into my dessert. It is what it is, which is good. And easy. Worthy of an Oscar, in my book. Or, at least a nomination.

You decide. Please submit your votes to Price, Waterhouse & Coopers. Thank you.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the fruit:

4 firm (but not rock hard) nectarines, pitted and sliced

1 tablespoon of sugar (taste the fruit, if it is sweet, add less. If not sweet enough, add more, got it? Good)

1 teaspoon of grated orange zest

1 tablespoon of Maraschino liqueur or kirschwasser.

For the frangipane:

3 ounces almond paste

3 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 egg

For the topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 white sugar

1 cup slivered almonds

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 tablespoons of butter, melted

Preparation:

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

2. Melt butter for the topping and let cool. Add all other topping ingredients and combine well. Place topping in the freezer as you prepare the rest of the ingredients, which will make it nice and clumpy, which is to be desired.

3. To make the frangipane, combine all ingredients until smooth. Set aside.

4. Slice your nectarines and toss in a bowl with sugar, orange zest, and maraschino liqueur. Look at bottle of liqueur. Notice that it roughly the same size as an Oscar. Clutch it to your bosom and practice your acceptance speech when no one is looking.

5. Arrange fruit in a shallow layer along the bottom of a small, oven-proof baking dish. Dot the fruit with spoonsful of frangipane, then top the whole thing with crisp topping, which you have sensibly removed from the freezer. There will be much left over topping, which you will want to have on hand when people command you to make more of this recipe.

6. Place your crisp-filled baking dish on a foil-lined baking sheet because the juices from the fruit will bubble and spill over the edges of your dish. If they don't then you don't have a proper crisp in my book. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until fruit is a-bubble and the topping is browned.

7. Serve warm on its own or with vanilla ice cream. Or eat it cold from the refrigerator for breakfast. It's even better-tasting the next day, though the topping will more than likely not be crisp, which might cause one distress, given the fact that the dish is called a "crisp." Feel free to rename it something else if this is a major concern.

8. Accept applause, but please keep your speech to less than one minute, otherwise the orchestra will try to drown you out and the teenage daughter of a celebrity will walk into your kitchen in a rented evening gown and usher you offstage.