I grew up at the beach. While other kids were making do with garden hoses and sprinklers, I was cooling off in the salty waters of the Atlantic, whose surface shimmied a mere 15 minute drive from my house in suburban Virginia. I had my first swimming lesson when I was 10 months old, and I learned to body surf in the ocean by piggybacking on my dad's shoulders, tiny hands grasped firmly around his neck. (It's a wonder we didn't both drown, but this was in the risk-laden 1970s, an era before seatbelt laws, bicycle helmets, and common sense.)

Come summertime, my parents found that the best entertainment for three young kids was also the cheapest. Every weekend morning, my mom would wake up, slip on her swimsuit and beach coverup, and go downstairs to make lunch. While she spread white bread with peanut butter and jelly, pimiento cheese, or pepperoni, lettuce, and mayonnaise (my sister's invention), my dad would haul the old red cooler from the garage and fill it with ice. In would go enough sandwiches to keep us happy all day long, cans of coke and sprite, and pieces of just-ripe fruit. She'd grab a bag of Doritos and some napkins, fill up her sandy beach bag with Coppertone suntan lotion and meat tenderizer (in case anyone had a run in with a jellyfish) and bundle us all into the car along with beach chairs, a big umbrella, and enough pails and shovels for an entire elementary school.

We'd arrive at the shore early in the day and set up camp. The first order of business was to anchor the 400-pound beach umbrella in the sand. (It felt that heavy, anyway.) The closer you got to the water, the easier it was to do because of the way the water seeped into the sand and created a firm foundation. But you had to weight that against the danger of the tide, which was bound to come up up up as the day wore on, and wash away your toys and supplies if you weren't careful.

Once we were ensconced in our little patch of sand, the Most Horrible Part of the Day was upon us: the application of sunscreen. I don't know which of us sqiurmed the most, but none of us liked it. "Mom!" we'd all wail. "We need to get in the water!" These were days when we were happy to swim and play for eight hours at a stretch. While my dad would dig holes to China, we'd hunt for sand crabs, chasing them out of the sand near the waterline and squealing as their scrambling legs tickled our palms. We'd take turns burying my dad beneath rivers of sand, and fashion stalagmite turrets for our sandcastles by dribbling beach mud a bit at a time onto the ground below.

Our tummies always told us when it was lunchtime, and we'd rush back to the cluster of beach chairs and towels, plop down dripping wet, and reach for sandwiches with wet and sandy fingers. Even when we were older, no matter how much we cleaned up before hand, the sand got into the sandwiches, but we ate them anyway. I hated PB&Js, and ditto slimy cold cuts, so pimiento cheese was the way to go. Cold green grapes, misshapen pears, and bruise-colored plums were the fruits of choice, and we ate them with the sticky juices running down our chins.

When the sun was beginning to falter in the sky, we'd pack up our belongings, usually with several woeful pleas for one last swim in the ocean. Every attempt was made to dry off our feet before stuffing them back into our shoes, but inevitably we walked back to the car squashing all the way. We'd spread out the driest towel on the back seat, and once we were home, hose off before traipsing inside through the garage door. No matter what I did, my swimsuit bottoms were always heavy with beach mud, most of which ended up in the bathtub despite my best efforts. We'd shower off, taking care to avoid any sun-scorched skin, and look forward to doing it all again the very next day.

Catherine's Pimiento Cheese
Yield: 1 1/4 cups

It was only last year that I realized -- with a shock -- that many people, namely those who grew up north or west of the Mason-Dixon line, have never heard of pimiento cheese. You're missing out. This spreadable cheese is made with sharp cheddar that's been grated, then sweetened and spiced up with sweet red pepper and cayenne. It's great piled on to whole wheat crackers, inside a grilled cheese, or smooshed into a celery stalk, and it's especially good for beachfront picnics.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons chopped roasted red peppers (you can buy them or make them yourself)
1 cup grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
cayenne pepper to taste (I suggest 1/8 tsp for the faint at heart, 1/4 tsp for the moderately experimental and 1/2 tsp or more for the bold)
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. In a food processor (or a big bowl, with a spoon) blend together mayonnaise, cream cheese, and red peppers until combined.
2. Add cheddar cheese, cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper. Pulse (or mix) again until spreadable but still slightly chunky.

When a new restaurant opens, it's hard to know ahead of time how things will turn out. Some places get a lot of buzz but never live up to it, others turn out fabulous food but can't make ends meet. Some places are packed night after night, even if the food isn't anything to scream and shout about. Unless you have a trusted crystal ball in front of you, sorting out a restaurant's fate is usually the job of Father Time.

But with Laiola, even before I stepped inside I knew that the place was going to take off. Mostly, because a mere four days after opening -- without a liquor license, no less -- it already had.

I rolled up to the old Pizza My Heart location on Chestnut Street near 8 pm on a weekday night. The narrow storefront is all windows, and it was packed full of P.Y.T.s, with more hanging around outside, madly texting friends to meet them there. A faint pinkish glow emanated from within thanks to the stunning pressed copper ceiling; it's a very flattering light for all the pretties (and the not-so-pretties, too).

When I walked in, I was smacked in the face by the cold, hard truth: Laiola couldn't serve any wine yet. I looked behind the bar at all the shiny wine bottles and sighed. The good news? They were waiving corkage, and Nectar Wine Lounge down the street was kindly selling their retail wines at 10% off. I turned to my friend Karen to discuss who would go fetch a bottle, when I got even better news: My friend Brett was just finishing his meal at the bar, and he had more than half a bottle of albarino left. Would Karen and I like it?

Let's see. Is Thomas Keller a perfectionist?

We plopped down next to Brett and, from our perch at the bar, watched one of the cooks drape thick slabs of succulent-looking slow-roasted piglet over a pile of gigante beans ($19). Plate after plate, the aroma was enough to reverse my unfavorable impression of roast suckling pig formed years ago in a heavy wooden-beamed restaurant outside Madrid. I vowed to try it again one day.

Laiola bills itself as a "California restaurant inspired by Spain" -- and it's heavy on the Spain. A glance at the wine list showed it's all Spanish-grown or Spanish varietals, with most offerings by the individual miniature carafe or the bottle. A clever touch, those carafinas, which hold one-third of a bottle of wine. They look to be a great value, too, hovering near $10 apiece. Rumor has it that cocktails created by Camber Lay (Range, Frisson) will rock the house soon.

Chef Mark Denham (42 Degrees, Hawthorne Lane, Manresa, Postrio) has created a flexible menu, with a small selection of house-cured charcuterie, a dozen appetizers, a handful of entrees, and a few quick desserts. We opted to share a series of tapas, and loved the spicy salchicon ($6), five fire-engine red coins of pork sausage served on a slab of wood. Laiola's website says it's made from "a mix of coarsely ground Niman Ranch pork shoulder and back fat seasoned with plenty of Pimenton garlic, chile powder and cayenne pepper." Mmm.

We also oohed and aahed over the marinated local sardines, garden vegetables in escabeche ($11), crisp local sardines roasted and served atop baby vegetables like carrots, shallots, and cauliflower, each pickled in their own brine. I'm calling this the dish of the summer. Like the equally good version at Nua, it alternates between salty and sweet, cool and hot, crisp and soft.

The deep fryer was down so we didn't get to sample the patatas bravas ($6), a classic Spanish dish comprised of thick wedges of potatoes dressed with spicy aioli. But the bacon-wrapped Medjool dates stuffed with chorizo, grilled, and drizzled with aged Balsamic vinegar more than made up for their absence. They looked like small brown lumps when they arrived, but they were so smoky-sweet and good that I didn't mind burning my fingers or my tongue to finish them off.

Service was adept, and our knowledageable waitress was full of passionate recommendations. Not all of them paid off -- the side dish of rapini, for example, was undercooked and fibrous -- but given that Laiola was only four days old and besieged by malfunctioning kitchen equipment, delinquent paperwork, and masses of hungry diners, I forgave them their trespasses.

We didn't have dessert, but I was sorely tempted, especially after watching Brett slather toast with thick chocolate ganache drizzled with fruity Arbequina olive oil and a dash of Maldon sea salt ($7). It's a dish I've had before, even made before, and I speak from experience when I say it is the epitome of divine simplicity.

When we left Laiola, it was still buzzing (still!) even though no wine could be sold on premises in this notoriously "thirsty" neighborhood. It is already a place to see and be seen, but it is also a place to eat -- and eat well -- and, like the patina on the copper bar, I expect it will only improve with age.

Laiola
2031 Chestnut Street
(415) 346-5641
San Francisco
*No reservations*
Open 7 days a week, 5:30 - 10:30 pm (bar open till 11 pm)

When I arrived at the San Francisco Chocolate Salon, I made a beeline for the Poco Dolce booth. Besides being madly in love with their salt-sprinkled burnt caramel and chocolate tiles, I wanted to say hi to chocolatier Kathy Wiley and her peeps since I'd recently written them up in Edible San Francisco. As I nibbled on a small bite of the aforementioned heaven, I decided to hit Kathy up for a recommendation on where to head next, since being caught in a large crowd that is slowly shuffling from side to side is my idea of hell. I wanted to get in, get the goods, and get out.

"Try the blue cheese truffles. They're in the back corner," she replied. My friend wrinkled her nose but I was off like a shot. (Or, given the thick swarms of humanity clustered around us, like a hippopotamus through mud. But a very fast and hungry hippopotamus on the scent of an unusual treat.) It wasn't that I thought the combination sounded good; the truth is, it sounded sort of horrible. But it also sounded interesting, and besides, if Kathy liked it, how bad could it be?

When I arrived at the Lillie Belle Farms stand it took me a minute for my eyes to focus amidst all the pretty truffles. But the second I spotted the shimmering silver-blue packaging, I knew I'd found what I was looking for. I quickly popped a sample in my mouth, half expecting to spit it out a moment later. Instead, my entire body began to slowly quiver, overcome with a taste that was positively angelic and a feeling that was stronger than happiness and more powerful than simple satisfaction.

This was an absolutely perfect chocolate.

The San Francisco Chocolate Salon agreed, and awarded it best new product at the show. The truffle is made by a small artisan chocolatier by the name of Jeff Shepherd, who is also the farmer/proprietor of Lillie Belle, an organic berry farm in southern Oregon. He got his start making truffles in the kitchen at home and selling them at the farmers' market. Today it's a full-time operation.

The Smokey Blue Truffles combine organic milk chocolate, local Oregonian cream, and toasted almonds with award-winning "Oregon Blue," an artisan cheese from The Rogue Creamery that is smoked over hazelnut shells. The result is a surprisingly mellow chocolate. The texture is smooth and silky, and the blue cheese and chocolate blend harmoniously into a flavor that is ethereal, and far more than the sum of its parts. Though both the sweet chocolate and the tangy cheese are clear and strong, neither overpowers the other.

According to Shepherd, "Many people are skeptical at the beginning but after the first bite peoples' faces light up and they are immediately reaching for another one." That's exactly what I did. I promptly bought a box, tossed it into my purse, and greedily devoured the five truffles nestled inside at home later that night. It's hard to believe, but in the right hands, blue cheese and chocolate are a match made in heaven.

Lillie Belle's Smokey Blue Truffles are available for purchase online. $11 per box.

I have a love/hate relationship with wine bars.

On the one hand, I love a good one. Give me a glass of something silky and bold, a plate of nibbles, and a comfy seat where I don't have to read lips to hold a conversation, and I'm as happy as a paparazzo outside the LA courthouse.

But these days, the term "wine bar" is bandied about so frequently, it's lost its meaning. Too often it's just a marketing ploy to encourage folks to frequent the bar of a restaurant that doesn't have a liquor license.

So when Nua opened as a restaurant and wine bar, I was suspicious. And rightfully so: though the wine list is long and esoteric, it's more restaurant than wine bar (and they've since dropped the term from their website). But I've forgiven them for hopping on the bandwagon because the food is utterly superb.

Chef Anna Bautista takes her cues from the Mediterranean, hopscotching from Provence to Andalucia to Italy, and the laidback charm those places are famous for has rubbed off on the four-month-old restaurant. On two of our visits, we made a reservation at the last minute -- I'm talking 4:30 pm on Saturday for a 7:30 table that night -- and on the third we changed the time. (Twice. What can I say? I'm indecisive.) Every time they were accommodating, and even sat us early.

Nua is clearly cultivating a neighborhood vibe, and when the weather permits, they fling open the front windows accordion-style to better channel the energy of their North Beach surroundings. The comfortable interior is what I'd call retro-modern, with color-blocked orange and cream leather banquettes, and shades of cool blue, orange, and honey-brown throughout. The staff is friendly, they split plates and glasses of wine without being asked if they know you plan to share, and they're knowledgeable about the wine list. On each visit, we enjoyed unfamiliar wines, like a Spanish Crianza from Bierzo to a white wine from Greece. My only quibble with the wine service is that the pours were on the small side our first two visits, but by the third they'd normalized.

The food, however, is outstanding, and it's why Nua has become my new favorite restaurant. Each meal began with a small plate of foccacia bread and a pool of golden-green olive oil. The menu is loosely divided into small and large plates so you can go the appetizer-entree route, or graze on a series of small plates (though the waitstaff doesn't explicitly advertise that option).

We ordered the sardines escabeche ($10) twice. Two meaty slabs of fish were arranged on a landscape of crisp Blue Lake green beans, miniature cauliflower florets, sweet pickled shallots, and currants. The sardines tasted light and fresh, and the dish teetered pleasantly between crisp and soft, tart and sweet, surf and earth.

We also ordered the side of roasted cauliflower with capers, pine nuts, and parsley ($5) each time. If you aren't a cauliflower fan, a bowl of this will change your mind. Roasting caramelizes and crisps up the tiny white florets, and the zesty dressing of olive oil, capers, and parsley makes them positively addictive.

Initially I balked at ordering the endive salad with white peaches, blue cheese, and hazelnuts ($9); it just sounded humdrum. But one bite changed my mind. The peaches were Platonic examples of their species -- sweet, juicy, floral, and full-flavored. There was just enough champagne-tarragon vinaigrette to match the bracing blue cheese and bitter endive.

The piquillo peppers ($9) we ordered on visit two were stuffed with a whipped salt cod and potato brandade, flash-fried, and served with a sauce of garlic, shallots, and parsley as well as some frilly frisee fronds. They were good, but they didn't get my tail wagging as much as other things did.

The Parisian herbed gnocchi ($14) melted in my mouth, and the baby artichokes and mushrooms created an earthy stew around them. The best part about the gambas al ajillo ($11) weren't the plump shrimp, but the fiery broth they were bathed in. When the prawns were gone, I used the foccacia fingers to soak up the robust juices.

Housemade merquez sausage offset with a cucumber, fennel, and tomato salad ($13) tempted us on the first visit, and I loved the contrast of hot and cold layered within the dish. But the veal and pork albondigas ($8) may have edged it out as my favorite meat dish. The meatballs were soft but held their shape, and the flavor was so clean and subtle that I could almost taste the milk fed to the little calf. The almond bread sauce was a revelation -- no tomato to strongarm the delicate morsels.

Like the small plates, entrees are lighter than they are heavy, and bursting with flavor. A recent seafood risotto with corn ($20) tasted of summer, while the quail
was accented with a plucky plum sauce and crisp green beans. Though portions were generous, neither left us feeling like we'd overeaten.

The blueberry fromage blanc tart ($7.50) was a light, fresh way to end the meal, but it was the butterscotch pot de creme ($7.50) we found ourselves oohing and aahing over time after time. Unlike its beloved Zuni cousin, this is a plain pot de creme, flecked with vanilla and covered in a layer of rich, supple butterscotch sauce. The creaminess of the custard is the perfect canvas for sweet butterscotch, though they ought to think carefully about the cookies served alongside. The almond cookie complimented the butterscotch beautifully, but the rich chocolate brownie battled the sweeter pot de creme all the way.

At Nua, the food isn't flagrantly experimental, but it is flawless. The wine list is full of surprises, the staff is easy-going, and the atmosphere is pleasant. No matter what you call it, that's my favorite kind of place.

Note: This review was based on 3 anonymous visits.

Nua
550 Green Street at Columbus
San Francisco
(415) 433-4000
Open 7 nights a week

From the world of food writing, only a scant cup's worth of articles slip into my unconscious and remain there year after year. Sometimes they're so indelibly imprinted that I need no reminding they are there; it still smarts to think about Daniel Patterson's declaration in the New York Times that culinary creativity was all but dead in Northern California, and I have Bill Buford and the New Yorker to thank every time I look mournfully at my pot of pasta water knowing that, unless I boil batch after successive batch of noodles in it and accumulate all that lovely starch, I will never produce anything as good as they do at Babbo.

Other times, the things I read become stowaways in the deserted cargo hold of my mind. Just like I didn't know I remembered all the lyrics to Xanadu until my sister bought me the DVD last year, I hadn't the foggiest notion just how much my gray matter had absorbed of Calvin Trillin's ode to pimientos de Padron until I spotted a bag of the knobby green peppers at the farmers' market a few weeks ago.

In an instant, Trillin's words were dislodged much in the way that Anton Ego's first bite of ratatouille transported him years into the past. I felt some unknown force take over my arms and command them to reach forward, tossing bag after bag of bite-sized peppers into my carryall. Despite never once having enjoyed them late at night in a tapas bar in Spain, I sensed the sky darken to the purple of nighttime, and a warm summer breeze rustled past, carrying with it the faint music of espanol. I looked down, surprised not to see a glass of sherry in my hand.

What makes these humble peppers so magical? Well, biting into one is always a surprise; it could be sweet and nutty, or fiery hot. Only one in a dozen packs a punch, but you never know which one you've got until it's too late. They're also hard to find. In 1997, when Happy Quail Farms started selling them, they were the only grower in the country. They're still the only farm in the Bay Area that cultivates them.

When I got home, I fried the pimientos de Padron up in olive oil, tossed on a few generous pinches of salt, and bit in to one, still hot from the pan. A tingling heat flashed across my tongue -- the kind that comes from the power of capsaicin, not flame. I went in for another. The next few were mild, but it was the elusive spicy ones that kept me coming back, bite after bite.

Fried Pimientos de Padron

Ingredients:

olive oil
1 bag pimientos de Padron
coarse salt

Preparation:

1. Cover the bottom of a skillet with olive oil and heat over medium-high until very hot.

2. Toss the peppers in whole. Shake the pan occasionally. Once small black and gray blisters appear (about 2-4 minutes in) they are done.

3. Pour them onto a plate, sprinkle with plenty of coarse salt to taste, and serve hot.

Serves 2-4 as a starter

The thing that struck me speechless was the salumi.

I know what you're thinking. "Salumi?" you're thinking. "That is so, like, 2006." Maybe. But when it's as good as it is at Bar Bambino, it never goes out of style.

The small salumi plate ($9.50) was the first thing my boyfriend and I settled on during our inaugural meal at Bar Bambino. The selections, which change daily, were chosen for us by Alex Potter, Bar Bambino's salumi guy. He and his batons of porcine goodness occupy a small corner of the main dining room, just to the right of the bar, where he works feverishly to keep up with the plates that circle 'round and 'round the room.

Clad in an impeccable white chef's coat, Alex himself delivered a wooden tray to our table that glistened with creamy pork fat. It was stacked five rows deep with three kinds of housemade salame as well as prosciutto and pancetta. He walked us through each one so that there was no doubt what we were eating -- an oversight too many good restaurants make.

"This is the ciauscolo," he said, pointing to the one farthest from me. As owner Christopher Losa explained via email, ciauscolo comes from the Marche region of Italy, just south of Emilia-Romagna on the eastern seaboard. "Ours is done in a bit firmer form than most (it's traditional in the Marche to have ciauscolo spreadable, not unlike French rillettes) because I like to have the purity of the meat flavors and seasonings be fully accessible and not competing with bread," he wrote. Bar Bambino flavors their version with garlic and allspice.

Next there was a salame toscano, made with red wine and black peppercorns, and a finocchiona, distinguished by fennel seeds, lavender, and other aromatic herbs. I picked up a sliver and held it up to the light. It was sliced so whisper thin, I could have read the menu through it.

We happily munched our way around the plate, letting slices of barely crisped pancetta melt on our tongues and fighting over the last slice of finocchiona. Christopher says that all of Bar Bambino's own salame is made from Duroc pork that is raised naturally in Iowa. "But we recently found a Duroc-mix locally (Sonoma) that our next batches will be from. I'm excited to see how the local pig fairs [sic] from a taste/consistency perspective."

In addition to Bar Bambino's housemade salumi, all of which is made in a curing room in Geyserville, Christopher offers a sopressata from Salumeria Biellese, a New York-based artisan producer that's been around since the roaring twenties, and plans to expand his selection by offering goodies from other like-minded producers.

"I am an avid supporter of the renaissance in cured meat artistry that is occurring locally and I want to offer the best of Italian-style cured meats that we can source," he continued. "Just as I can't make the best wine, cheese or bread to offer my customers, I know that somebody can do more than we can alone."

My boyfriend and I enjoyed the rest of our meal equally well, from the "al ginepro" bruschetta ($8.00) -- creamy chunks of chicken liver enlivened by a sprinkling of fleur de sel -- to the polpette ($14.75), meatballs in a light sauce of tomatoes, onions, and chard. My only real complaint was the chintzy wine pours (I noticed punier than normal glasses at Nua, too -- a disturbing new trend?). As annoying as it is to pay good money for a Lilliputian glass of vino, it's even more frustrating to be constantly waving down your server.

But the meal was lovely, and the salumi some of the best in the city. This little piggie cried "whee, whee, whee" all the way home.

Bar Bambino
2931 16th Street
San Francisco
(415) 701-VINO
Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday

I have always been a snacker. When I was a kid, I preferred white bread spread with cold butter and folded in half, or an oatmeal creme pie. In high school, my snack varied according to whether or not I was on a diet; when I was, I munched Wheat Thins and grapes, and when I wasn't, I was partial to eating ice cream cakes right out of the box. Regardless of the menu, though, I always had a snack between lunch and dinner.

Now that I am older and my metabolism no longer operates at the speed of light, I am constantly looking for healthy alternatives. I've tried foregoing the afternoon snack altogether, but it's impossible. Like a newborn baby, I simply cannot go for more than a few hours without eating.

Over the years, I've thought a lot about what constitutes the perfect snack. I've whittled down the list to four key components:
1. Tastes great.
2. Fills you up.
3. Takes a long time to eat.
4. Salty, not sweet.

Let's examine these in reverse order.

Salty, not sweet. This criterion is self-explanatory. It just comes down to personal choice. If you want to get phreaked on a sugar high at three o'clock in the afternoon, knock yourself out.

Takes a long time to eat. I have read time and again that it takes 20 minutes for my brain to realize that my belly has had enough to eat. On top of that, I'm a supersonic eater. All together, that means that if my snack is a string cheese, it's gone quicker than you can say mozzarella. When that happens, I have a choice: I can either spend the next 19 minutes listening to my tummy buckle and howl, or plant myself in front of the fridge and desperately shovel in anything that isn't stuck to the shelf. That's why it's crucial that the snack eating itself can last a long time. That might mean a snack with lots of individual parts (popcorn) or one that demands constant reassembly (cheese and crackers).

Fills you up. The whole point of the snack in the first place is to keep me out of the kitchen until dinnertime, so it's no good eating a handful of carrots or grapes (see also: face-stuffing fridge scenario, above). On the advice of my personal trainer, I started working in some fat or protein, and that helps a snack stick with me. So does eating triple-digit calories.

Tastes great. This is a snack's most important quality. Healthy eating is all too often a sacrifice. Either you eat something delicious, but in such small quantities that it wouldn't satisfy an anorexic celebutante, or you eat a lot of something that tastes like salted cardboard, minus the salt. Since I'm a girl who likes to have my cake and eat it too, when I find something tasty that doesn't increase the likelihood that my thighs will be assigned their own zip code, I'm in heaven.

That's why I was so delighted to discover popchips, a brand new chippy snack that is popped rather than fried or baked. It meets all of my criteria and then some. They start with potatoes, organic white corn, or brown rice and apply heat and pressure to "pop" the chips without any oil. The crunchy nibbles come in nine flavors like Parmesan garlic (potato), cheddar (corn), and sea salt (rice). Each bag is a good solid serving, enough so that I don't have to resort to desperate measures like pouring the crumbs into my mouth or running a damp finger around the inside of the bag to snag every last flavor molecule. Each serving weighs in at 120 calories with half the fat of regular potato chips, and there isn't a single gram of trans fat, saturated fat*, or cholesterol to be found. There are no fake colors, flavors, or preservatives, either. In fact, the ingredients in the sea salt corn chips, for example, are all things I can understand: organic white corn, safflower oil and/or sunflower oil, and sea salt.

The company sent me samples of each flavor and I've been working my way through them. So far my favorites are barbecue (potato) and salsa (corn). The only one that I don't care for is wasabi (rice). I'm just not a big wasabi-lover, unless it's the real deal. But the others are compulsively delicious, with just the right amount of flavor locked into every crevice and cranny.

Is it snack time yet?

popchips are available at Bristol Farms, Mollie Stone's, Safeway, and online through Amazon.com

*Except in the cheddar corn chips, because they use real cheese and real cheese has trace amounts of saturated fats.

One sip is all it took to hook me. Intent on feeding my caramel fixation one recent morning, I stopped by the La Cocina stall at the Ferry Plaza farmers' market for some alfajores. As I made my purchase, culinary director Jason Rose handed me a miniature paper cup filled with steaming Morning Glory Chai.

Cue the (food) porn soundtrack: boom-chicka-bow-wow chicka-bow-wow. The chai was spicy with a soupçon of exotic sweetness, and almost unbearably creamy. It was, hands down, the best chai I've ever tasted. I had to learn more.

Chai means tea in several languages, including Turkish and Russian, but it also refers to the intoxicating blend of warm milk, black tea, and aromatic Indian spices that has become a familiar drink on coffee shop menus. Most chais incorporate cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, freshly grated nutmeg, and pepper into the mix; Morning Glory adds all of those, as well as less common seasonings like vanilla bean, coriander, and orange peel. But what really sets Morning Glory apart is the inclusion of Chinese herbs, which give new meaning to the term "pick me up."

According to Laura Smailes, a certified clinical herbalist and the San Francisco manufacturer of Morning Glory Chai, there is astragulus to build the immune system and galangal to increase circulation. Gotu kola is good for the brain and, in conjunction with ginkgo, adds oxygen to the blood. Foti is added for longevity. "The Chinese say it will keep your hair black," she explains.

The Morning Glory Chai recipe dates back 12 years, when Seattle-based herbalist Jessica Vidica-Neisus brewed the first cup. "She chose herbs that were safe for anyone to use. There are no contraindications in these small doses. It's a way to get medicine into a tasty beverage." Put simply: "It increases circulation, brain function, and digestion."

Laura and Jessica met while Laura was apprenticing at an herbal apothecary and working at the Chai House in Seattle. When she moved to San Francisco to study ayurvedic medicine, she was looking for a way to support herself.

"I realized there was no good chai in San Francisco," Laura says. "I started the chai business to put myself through school." Two and a half years later, her chai is served at places like Farley's, Ritual Coffee Roasters, and Bi-Rite Creamery, where it is incorporated into a hot drinking chocolate.

Laura makes each batch by hand. She starts by filling a 30-gallon pot with filtered water. Once it's boiling, she simmers the herbs and spices for 45 minutes, then removes them and adds fair-trade black tea and ginkgo. Finally she adds honey, vanilla, and organic maple syrup to sweeten the chai. (A decaf version is brewed without tea.)

Laura's use of natural sweeteners means the chai is safe drinking for people with blood sugar problems such as hypoglycemia. It's also dairy-free, which gives people a choice of how to drink it. "It's traditionally drunk with steamed milk in India," Laura says. But some people prefer it straight up.

And the name? It is named for a flower known to induce an alternate state of consciousness. As Laura says, "It's the tea of dreams."

To brew at home: Combine equal parts chai and milk. Drink cold, or steam and serve hot. Once open, refrigerate and consume within three weeks. Refrigerate decaf chai immediately, whether open or not.

Available at Brickhouse Café & Bar, Farley's, MotoJava, Ritual Coffee Roasters. Also available in half-gallon jugs ($11) at Ferry Plaza & Alemany farmers' markets.

Last week, a friend from cooking class tipped me off to B Star Bar, the month-old offshoot of Burma Superstar that's located two blocks away on Clement Street. B Star Bar offers a blend of Burmese, Asian, and Western dishes, and though it doesn't outshine the Mother Ship, it's worth a visit if you can't bear BSS's legendary two-hour wait.

Though they don't take reservations for parties smaller than six, when I called they were kind enough to take one anyway for the three of us. A nice touch, I thought, and smart for a new restaurant that's trying to attract customers. There's no sign up yet, but if you look for a swash of yellow paint you'll see the words B Star Bar stenciled on the window. We walked in last Saturday night to find some friends killing time (and taking the edge off their hunger) while they waited for their table at Burma Superstar. "Order the croquettes!" they advised.

I didn't linger in the large, spare front room, but headed straight to the back patio, which is the place to be. Buddha statues and lush green foliage create an exotic, jungle-y feel for the dozen or so tables, and a few glimpses of the night sky peek out from the tent. There are enough heat lamps to keep everybody comfortable in shirtsleeves.

The menu combines traditional Burmese preparations with Asian and Western classics. Sometimes the dishes are a mix of several traditions, but more often than not each one sticks to its own. We started with spicy edamame ($3.95), a bowl of green pods slick with red chilies and chunks of garlic. They were fiery, and after a few bites my battle-damaged tongue begged for a break.

I was dismayed when everything we ordered arrived at once, and though the wait staff were attentive, the coursing made it clear both they and the kitchen are inexperienced. The Kabocha croquettes ($5.95) came three panko-dusted orbs to a plate. They're filled with Kabocha squash and seasoned with tomatoes and curry before being deep-fried. They were sweet, as was the addictive sticky sauce that accompanied them. Though the result wasn't quite one-dimensional, I wouldn't have objected to a bit more crunch.

I was eagerly anticipating the tealeaf salad ($7.95), a BSS classic. I was disappointed that it wasn't tossed tableside, and it was missing some of the complexity I loved due to the omission of dried shrimp and jalapeños. But the uniquely bitter tang of tealeaves was unmistakable, and we polished off every last bite. A desperate plea to the management: please, please, please, bring back the original.

We ordered two kinds of noodles, and my favorite dish of the evening was the kau soi ($8.95)- ramen-like noodles mixed with ground chicken and pickled mustard greens in a coconut curry sauce. The menu calls this bordertown food; I don't know if that refers to Bangladesh, India, China, Laos or Thailand, all of which butt up to Myanmar. It's similar to BSS's nan pia dok, a dish that I once said I would walk through crushed glass to eat, and I would do the same for the kau soi.

The other noodle dish was see jyet ($7.95), thin, long noodles with fried garlic, shredded duck, and cucumbers. It wasn't garlicky enough to wow me, or to surpass its virtuoso cousin, but my dining companions lapped it up.

The Asian Niçoise salad with grilled cod ($10.95) is one of the few creations that blends culinary traditions. Field greens were topped with lightly blanched asparagus, fanned avocado slices, shiitake mushrooms, hard-boiled egg, and grilled cod and tossed with miso dressing. My favorite part was the pile of handmade sweet potato chips on the side, but I'd probably skip the entire thing next time.

Short ribs with Hawaiian-style pineapple fried rice ($9.95) were hit and miss. The rice was built with juicy chunks of grilled pineapple and grains moistened by a slippery fried egg yolk. The kimchee was bracingly hot, but the short ribs were tough and fatty. If they'd upgrade the meat, however, I'd order it again in a heartbeat.

We brought our own wine, but they have some decent options by the glass, carafe, and bottle, as well as soju cocktails and the famous Burma cooler, beer spiked with ginger and fresh lemon. After gorging ourselves on noodles, we passed on dessert.

Though I applaud the Burma Superstar crew for wanting to spread their wings, by far the most successful dishes were the Burmese-leaning ones. If B Star Bar can tighten up the menu, incorporating intoxicating Burmese touches with better-executed pan-Asian and Western ideas, they could have a good thing going. For now, keep them in mind if you simply can't stomach the wait up the street.

Note: This write-up is based on one anonymous visit.

B Star Bar
127 Clement St. b/w 2nd & 3rd
San Francisco
(415) 933-9900
Open every day but Wednesday for lunch and dinner

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the culinary mafia had named Peruvian the new "it" food. With the mid-May opening of Essencia following closely on the heels of Piqueo's, it's starting to look like the pundits were right.

Anne Gingrass, one half of the duo behind the former Hawthorne Lane, has partnered with Juan and Carmen Cespedes, a husband-and-wife team originally from Lima, Peru to open Essencia, a 45-seat spot in Hayes Valley. The room doesn't feel small thanks to a nearly all-glass façade that allows for plenty of people watching at the bustling corner of Gough and Hayes. (It's also a great location for nabbing walk-in customers, and outdoor tables are already in the works.) Furnished simply with sustainably harvested red acacia tabletops, pale brown walls, and graphic orange and gold lampshades, the room provides a great backdrop for the folksy Peruvian landscape painting that occupies one wall.

Like the dining room, the menu is small. Gingrass designed it around Peru's home cooking and contemporary restaurant cuisine, but rooted it firmly in San Francisco by relying on local, organic ingredients (including hyper-local products from neighborhood vendors like Blue Bottle Coffee Company, Modern Tea, and Miette Confiserie.) Though some things will be imported, she is also working with Bay Area farmers to cultivate Peruvian herbs and vegetables here at home. The result is lighter food than you'll find at most of the city's other Peruvian haunts.

Peruvian cuisine is truly multi-cultural, drawing on Incan roots as well as Spanish, African, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Creole culinary traditions. Ceviche is practically a national dish, so we started with one of the three on offer: sliced Kampachi with creamy hot yellow pepper sauce ($12). This preparation might more accurately be called tiradito, which is distinguished from ceviche by two things: slices of fish rather than chunks, and a lack of onions. The sashimi-thin yellowtail was covered in spicy sauce and garnished with a salad of pickled English cucumbers, soft yam coins, and giant corn. Though I liked the cut of the delicate fish, the sauce completely overpowered it. My favorite part was the salad, which I devoured. I'd like a bowl right now, as a matter of fact.

Next we shared artichokes filled with quinoa salad and lemon parsley sauce ($12). The baby artichokes could have been trimmed better to eliminate all the tough outer leaves, but the salad itself was dreamy: cool quinoa topped with roasted red peppers, fried shallots, and a subtle, well-balanced sauce I'd love to eat, drink, and bathe in from now until the end of time.

For dinner, we went with heartier classics. My boyfriend ordered the "Lomo Saltado" ($26.75), essentially Peruvian steak frites scattered with cilantro and served with stir-fried onions and thick slabs of crisp yucca fries. A pink filet with a nicely charred coat was sliced thin and dressed in a sprightly sauce of beef stock, soy sauce, red wine vinegar, and its own savory juices. I plan to order this on every single future visit; it would be the perfect hangover cure if it were added to the lunch menu.

The leg of lamb simmered in cilantro sauce with peas and risotto ($25) tasted, of all things, Indian. I think it's easy to see why, given the ingredients. Though I ran across a few less than tender chunks, the sauce and the Parmesan-rich risotto more than made up for it. Whisked to the table in its very own miniature Le Creuset, the risotto was spooned up tableside. Since the wee pot kept it nice and warm, I compulsively nibbled on it long after my hunger was sated. Was it Peruvian? Not so far as I could tell. But it was damn good. And, like the steak, the portion was reasonable enough to finish without feeling stuffed.

Credit for the well-edited and well-priced wine list goes to Luis Maya, Essencia's unofficial sommelier. All the selections are imported, with the majority from Spain and Argentina, and their relatively low alcohol levels make them particularly food-friendly. We enjoyed a 2006 Laxas Albariño ($9) and a 2006 Sur de los Andes Torrontes ($7) to start. I loved the Torrontes, which is a grape more often used for blending than drunk straight up. It had honey on the nose but tasted surprisingly dry. We switched to reds for the main course, but the other real standout was the Pedro Romero Amontillado sherry ($7), which was a beautiful amber color and bright with citrus.

Desserts showcased a variety of Peruvian fruits like lucama and guanavana (also known as guanabana or soursop and similar to cherimoya). The latter is a creamy fruit with citrus and vanilla notes that was perfectly suited to Essencia's fresh strawberry-topped mousse ($6). But the real must-have sweet was the plate of alfajores ($4.50), buttery cookies stuck together with a sinful stamp of dulce de leche. One of the cookies incorporated fresh coconut into the ooey-gooey middle, but I preferred the luxury of pure caramel goodness.

What ultimately makes me prefer Essencia to the city's other Peruvian-inflected restaurants is the prevalence of lighter dishes. As a result, most of the flavors, both indigenous and imported, really shine. It's also the best kind of neighborhood restaurant: friendly, appealing, comfortable, and reasonably priced. Regardless what culinary traditions influence the menu, that's always a recipe for success.

Note: This visit was a first impression, and the meal was comped.

Essencia
401 Gough Street at Hayes
San Francisco
(415) 552-8485
Open Monday-Saturday for lunch and dinner