Lidia Bastianich and her fabulous shows on Italian cooking have always had a special place in my heart. As an Italian American originally from New York, I love to not only watch Lidia cook up a storm but hear her talk about how Italian food has influenced American culture. Watching Lidia is something my mother and I do together when she visits, and her shows invariably lead to my mother telling animated tales of enormous family meals at her Neapolitan grandparents house in the Bronx and remembrances of my own grandmother’s take on various dishes. But more than that Ms. Bastianich inspires us to get into the kitchen and cook.

When I was a kid I didn’t realize that the food I was eating on a daily basis was not actually eaten in Italy. My mother’s Sunday Gravy was a cherished weekly event and I figured Italians were eating this dish not only in New York and California, but Naples and Palermo as well. Same with her tangy vinegar pepper Chicken Cacciatore and Christmas Eve black olive pizza. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized Italian American food falls into its own special category, full of ingredients that immigrants found after my great grandparents and others traveled through Ellis Island or landed at airports later in the century.

You see, it wasn’t until recently that ingredients like farro, San Marzano tomatoes and Parmigiano-Reggiano started to appear regularly in American grocery stores. Before this, Italian immigrants and their children were limited to using ingredients that were local to their new homes and often distinctly American in taste. So America’s love for beef led to the aforementioned Sunday Gravy, a rich tomato-based sauce full of meatballs, sausages and bragiolle that isn't made in Italy itself.

I have quite a few of Lidia Bastianich’s books, but I use them a little differently than my other cookbooks. While I might open up my new "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" by Suzanne Goin or the gorgeous "Tender" by Nigel Slater to drool over the photos and feel inspired to try something new, Lidia’s books are like visiting my grandmother’s and mother’s recipe files. So much is comfortable and familiar, but with the clear difference that they also provide well-detailed instructions -- something my mother and grandmother thought was covered by phrases like “cook until done” or “add a little of this and that until it tastes right” (all said with a heavy Bronx accent).

Ms. Bastianich’s new book “Lidia’s Italy in America,” which she wrote with her daughter Tanya Bastianich Manuali, is no different. The focus here is the unique ways Italian American immigrants interpreted dishes from their homeland throughout the United States. The book is broken down into the standard sections of antipasti, zuppe, pasta, etc., but within are pages that highlight specific specialties from different areas along with descriptions of the Italian American neighborhoods that created them. So in Poultry we find a vignette about Federal Hill in Providence Rhode Island but soon after follows a recipe for Roberto’s Chicken Piccante from a chef on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx (a neighborhood dear to my heart as it’s where my father grew up). The gamut of Italian American cooking is covered with descriptions of the people who make these neighborhoods distinct and some history as well.

Although I’ve never met her, Ms. Bastianich’s is sort of like my TV culinary mother. Sweet and nurturing while also firm with her advice and directions, I trust her to help me navigate the path of Italian cookery. I will admit that I have occasionally been disappointed, as I was with the deep dish pizza in this book which was more bread than pizza. I can’t really complain, however, as the recipe says “it is a cross between focaccia and a pizza," so she warned me. My suggestion if you make it is to cut the dough in half and add more filling to the top, but remember I’m a Neapolitan-American raised on thin crusts so I’m a bit biased. More often than not, however, I have been quite happy with the results. The baked Rollatini of Sole offered a delightfully lemony take on fish cooked with breadcrumbs and the Italian American Meatloaf is, without a doubt, the best meatloaf I have ever made. My kids and husband raved about it and we all had seconds. Note, however, that the recipe is so big it makes either one incredibly large loaf, or, if you’re like me, one for your own family and one to share with the mom who took your kids for the afternoon.

"Lidia’s Italy in America" has that type of easy cookbook style I like best when reading recipes I will actually use. The recipes are laid out clearly and are easy to follow. I also enjoyed her stories on American neighborhoods and their Italian citizens. My only criticism is that there are hardly any pictures of food (most are of the people in the neighborhoods she visited). I love recipe photos in cookbooks because it’s reassuring to know what dishes are supposed to look like when you cook them and I felt this book could have used a few more. But that is a minor criticism. As she’s done many times before, Lidia Bastianich has provided a solid compilation of Italian American recipes, this time with an emphasis on those that truly reflect the diverse and eclectic nature of the many types of Italian neighborhoods there are in America. So if you’re in the mood for authentic Italian American recipes from the embodiment of Italian mama-ness, pick up a copy of "Lidia’s Italy in America."

Italian American Meatloaf, salad and roasted potatoes. Photo by Denise Santoro Lincoln.

Recipe: Italian American Meatloaf (Polpettone)

One would think that meatloaf is very American, but its origins are actually in a German colonial dish of minced pork mixed with cornmeal. Italians serve it a lot as well, and in this rendition the cultures blend deliciously with the addition of a pestata, a paste of carrots, celery, and onions. Not only does the meatloaf taste delicious, but it is foolproof, moist every time. The leftovers reheat as if just cooked, and Italians love to serve it with roasted potato wedges.

Serves 10 or more

2 cups cubes of country bread with crust
1 cup milk
2 medium carrots, cut into chunks
2 medium stalks celery, cut into chunks
1 medium onion, cut into chunks
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 1/2 pounds ground pork
1 bunch scallions, trimmed and chopped
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano
1 cup marinara sauce or puréed canned tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Put the bread cubes in a medium bowl, and pour the milk over them. Let the bread soak until it is soft. Meanwhile, combine the carrots, celery, and onion in a food processor, and pulse to make a fine-textured paste or pestata.

When the bread is soft, squeeze out the excess milk and put the bread in a large mixing bowl. Mix the pestata, ground meats, scallions, grated cheese, marinara sauce, parsley,salt, and oregano with the bread, using your hands to distribute all of the ingredients evenly. Oil a 10-by-15-inch Pyrex or ceramic baking dish with the olive oil. Form the meat mixture into a loaf in the oiled pan.

Place in the oven, and bake until browned and cooked through (the center of the meatloaf should read 165 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer), about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before slicing.

Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza. Photo: Lidia Matticchio Bastianich.

Recipe: Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza (Pizza Alta di Chicago)

One could call this dish pizza bread, and it is a cross between a focaccia and a pizza. In Sicily, they make a high pizza called sfincione, topped with tomatoes, oregano, and a few anchovies. It is sold in warm squares as street food from a cart. The idea for deep- dish pizza came from the early Sicilian immigrants that settled in Chicago, although the excessive toppings are not something one would find in Sicily.

Makes 1 pizza

FOR THE DOUGH
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 packet instant dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading the dough
1/2 cup fine cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for bowl and pan

FOR THE TOPPING
4 ounces provolone, sliced
4 ounces mozzarella, sliced
1 to 1 1/2 cups marinara sauce
2 ounces pepperoni, sliced
1/2 cup grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Pour 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons warm (90 to 110 degrees F) water into a bowl, then stir in the sugar and yeast. Let sit until the yeast begins to bubble, about 5 minutes.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour, cornmeal, and salt on low to combine. Pour in the yeast mixture and the olive oil to combine while still mixing. Once the dough comes together, switch to the dough hook, and knead on medium-high speed to make a smooth dough, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add a little more water or fl our as needed to make a soft dough. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled in size, from 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Punch down the dough, and press it into a 14-x-10-inch oiled baking pan or an oiled 12-inch cast-iron skillet, gently pressing the dough up the sides to make a shell. Fill the shell with an even layer of the provolone and mozzarella, then spread the sauce to cover the cheese completely. Top with the pepperoni, and sprinkle with the grated cheese and oregano. Cover with foil, and bake 45 minutes. Then uncover, and bake until the crust is deep golden brown and the pizza is bubbly, about 20 minutes more. Let sit about 5 to 10 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

Recipes excerpted from Lidia's Italy in America by Lidia Bastianich. Copyright © 2011 by Lidia Bastianich. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Related Programs:
• Watch Lidia Celebrates America -- Holiday Tables & Traditions on KQED TV tonight 12/20/11 at 8pm. View additional airtimes.

Stephanie Izard

Chef Stephanie Izard, of Chicago's Girl & the Goat made San Francisco the 13th stop on her Goat Tour. Her debut cookbook, Girl in the Kitchen - How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats & Drinks, co-authored with friend and food writer Heather Shouse, was released by Chronicle Books in October. Rather than a typical book tour though (what would be the fun in that?), Izard decided to travel the country, teaming up to cook with chef friends along the way.

Chefs Stephanie Izard and Jennifer Biesty

Stephanie joined fellow Top Chef alum Chef Jennifer Biesty last Friday at Scala's Bistro to cook up a special dinner benefiting Share our Strength.

Cauliflower Panna Cotta, Beet Caviar, Crostini

To start, we had an amuse bouche of creamy Cauliflower Panna Cotta topped with roasted beet caviar and crostini, and a glass of bubbly.

Seared Scallop, Goat Sausage, Goat XO

Next up, Stephanie prepared a Seared Scallop with Goat Sausage, topped with goat liver aioli and served with maitake mushrooms and winter squash in a smoky goat XO sauce. Airy, crispy pillows of cracker-like "pizza puffs" were scattered in the mix and added some unexpected crunch. I remembered this dish from a lunch Stephanie did with Chef Shawn McClain at Sage in Las Vegas a few months ago. I was happy to have an encore of it. Wine pairing: Pushback Sauvignon Blanc.

Fregula, Cherry Stone Clams, Calamari

Second course was a modern paella of sorts if you will, from Jen. A super sweet Cherry Stone Clam stuffed with calamari and a thin slice of Spanish chorizo over fregula studded with plump buttery Castelvetrano olives, almonds, and a shower of saffron threads. Wine pairing: DuMOL Chardonnay.

Goat Belly, Fennel Puree, Bourbon Buttered Crab

My favorite dish of the evening was Stephanie's Crisp Confit Goat Belly over a sweet fennel puree, topped with ribbons of shaved fennel, fine strands of lemon zest, and Bourbon Buttered Crab. The goat belly was crispy, fatty, and tender, and the bourbon buttered crab – seriously? To die for. The richness of this glorious fat-on-fat action was offset nicely by the fresh crunch of the fennel and a hit of acid from some lemon juice. Wine pairing: Fort Ross Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Chili and Chocolate Braised Wagyu Short Ribs, Parsnip Puree

Jen finished out the savory courses with a hulking Chili and Chocolate Braised Wagyu Short Rib garnished with pickled pear gremolata and candied fresno chilies over creamy parsnip puree. The chili-chocolate braise imparted a wonderful depth of flavor to the meat, but the unexpected delight were the creative garnishes. The pickled pear gremolata was full of sweet, crunchy, lemony herbaceousness and the brittle candied chilies had snap and heat to them. The parsnip puree was a welcome change to the typical mashed potato. I loved the sweet root veggie flavor and velvety starchiness of it. Definitely something I'll be trying at home this winter.
Wine pairing: Jason Pahlmeyer Red Blend.

Scala's pastry chef Tim Nugent, a Top Chef Just Desserts alum, prepared our dessert for the evening, a roasted Pear with Huckleberry Crepes served over a spoonful of mascarpone cheese. Wine pairing: Beringer "Nightengale" Botrytised Semillon.

After our meal I had a chance to sit down with Stephanie for a bit and chat. Here's what she had to say about her new book, goats, second restaurant, guilty pleasures, and sriracha.

Tell us about your new cookbook Girl in the Kitchen.

Girl in the Kitchen just came out in October. I wanted it to be very much for the home cook. We're already working on a Girl & the Goat cookbook, which will still be things you can recreate at home, but maybe a little more challenging (because goats are hard to find). But for this one, I got all the ingredients at Whole Foods or my local market, tested all the ingredients in my home kitchen in Chicago, which is like four square feet, and I had to do all the dishes myself, so I kept everything really simple. And I had friends come over and watch me cook so they could ask questions like, "What is bearding mussels?" or "What do you mean you're sweating the vegetables?" Things that I take for granted or are just second nature, but that maybe home cooks don't know the answer to. So we put little tips and tricks inside the book. And then there are just funny stories. I think it's a fun book and I have a lot of chef friends that obviously aren't going to cook the recipes because they're chefs, but they've sat down on the couch and read the little stories. I think there's a little bit of something for everyone.

Do you have a favorite recipe in there?

There are a few recipes that people ask for from Girl & the Goat, like our green bean recipe. People love our green beans. There's a halibut dish with a pork ragu – that's if you wanted to take a little more time to make a few steps. Also, the apple and pork and bacon ragu – so simple, it takes hardly any time to make, but adding the apple into the bacon and pork just makes it tasty.

The name of your restaurant comes from your last name, Izard, which is a type of mountain goat that lives in the Pyranees Mountains. Both of your dishes tonight featured some delicious goat. Can you talk a bit about cooking with goat – something not many people are familiar with?

We get 8-10 whole goats a week from Kilgus Farms, its about 1 1/2 - 2 hours south of the restaurant in Illinois and we actually get our dairy from Justin Kilgus's dad, who owns a dairy farm. It's just amazing goat. We taste-tested goats around Illinois before we picked that one. I had never cooked goat until we were getting ready to open, and I figured I should probably figure out how to cook it. I remember the first event, we got a couple legs and we braised them in cherries and beer and smoked it, and it came out great, and we were like, "Oh, goat is good!" and so we've just been playing around with all sorts of stuff. We have ten or so different dishes that we rotate on the menu. You can do everything with goat that you can do with pig, it just takes a little bit more thought because goats aren't blessed with as much fat as pigs.

You're working on opening a second restaurant, right?

We're opening a diner. It's going to be, well hopefully better than Rutti Tutti Fresh and Fruity breakfast, but it'll be diner. A lot of people say "diner," and then they're like, "Oh, look at my foie gras burger," and well, that's not gonna be at a diner…We bake all our breads in house, we're moving that across the street, so I'll have a bakeshop and then a cookie classroom upstairs, and private dining so people can rent it out for private events.

What's your guilty pleasure?

I just like ranch dressing a lot. We made ranch dressing the other day for this dish we're doing, but I didn't even call it ranch. I just called it buttermilk dressing, because it's delicious, but nothing like Hidden Valley Ranch.

Sriracha -- trend or staple?

I love sriracha. We have it in our kitchen all the time. Sriracha and sambal. All the time. I would say every dish at The Goat has one or the other, at least a little bit, in it. But I'm a spice wuss, so I can only have a little bit.

ADDRESSES

Girl & the Goat
809 W Randolph St
(between Halsted St & Green St)
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 492-6262

Scala's Bistro
432 Powell St
(between Post St & Sutter St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 395-8555

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Set aside.

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

Top with the caramelized onions.

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

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

Photo credit: France Ruffenach © 2011

Collage by Wendy Goodfriend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

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

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

Happy foraging!

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Note: Photos courtesy of the fabulous Holly Heyser)

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

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

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

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

About a month ago, I received an email from a woman named Roberta Klugman asking me if I remembered the conversation we'd had more than a year ago about an upcoming cookbook called My Calabria when she came to lunch at my restaurant.

Of course I remembered. I even went as far as telling her the precise table and seat number at which she sat when she told me about it. I didn't go further-- to tell a lady what she ate last year seemed more than a little impolite.

When Roberta asked if I would like to celebrate the launch of the book at the home of its author, there was no way on earth I would have said no.

I am almost precisely half-Italian, genetically speaking: Sicilian-stock grandmother, Calabrese-gened grandfather. Both born in America. But it was my grandmother's family who dominated, which is always the way-- recipes and food traditions are typically passed down through the female line. As a result of this feminine dominance, the traditions and food ways of my grandfather's family were not so much diminished as they were totally ignored. I knew nothing about my Calabrese history. Nothing at all.

If one were to look at a map of Europe, Calabria is often looked upon as the toe of the Italian boot. It can be seen kicking Sicily, which appears as a large rock in Italy's way, further out into the Mediterranean. In my family, the rock had the last laugh. It more or less broke the Calabrian toe, taking it out of the game.

Thanks to Rosetta Constantino's My Calabria (written with Janet Fletcher) and the interest it has sparked in me, I feel as though the old toe is finally beginning to heal. The book is a long-overdue source of pride and celebration for those of us whose families emigrated from there. For those who are not of Calabrese heritage, it brings this remote area of Southern Italy closer; it sheds light upon the cuisine of a region that has been largely ignored by the rest of the world. Through its writing, recipes, and gorgeous photography by Sara Remington, the warmth of this previously mysterious land have been translated into words and flavors and images we can all understand.

It's little wonder I like to refer to this book as "My Rosetta's Stone."

"When I was young, I didn't appreciate how clever Calabrian cooks were in making so much from so little," says Constantino in her introduction. "Simplicity is the cuisine's hallmark, resourcefulness the Calabrian cook's signature and strength." When I sat down among the other guests on the terrace of Constantino's home in the Oakland Hills, simplicity and resourcefulness underscored the menu-- all of the vegetables prepared for the meal came directly from her garden: San Marzano tomatoes, eggplant, onions, zucchini, and peppers both sweet and hot. All those staples of Calabrian cuisine surrounded us and were, appropriately enough, ripe for the picking.

As I chatted with other guests, I found myself tucking into one of the many simple dishes that can be found in her book, Peperoni Fritti con Acciughe (Whole Fried Sweet Peppers with Anchovies, page 241). Tasting the ripe, blistered intensity of a sweet pepper paired with the salty umami boost of one, perfect anchovy slipped inside of it took was like taking a summer holiday to a place unknown but strangely familiar. That the plant which gave birth to the pepper I was chewing was brushing up against my leg made the effect all the more satisfying. And pleasurably surreal. I went back for more.

Near the end of the meal, when her guests were warmed by the enviable combination of sun, good food, and wine, all the friendly chatter momentarily stopped when Rosetta descended the stairs with dessert. As I tried to focus on the platter she was carrying, I squinted a moment, quickly assessed its content, and thought to myself, "Sugared peaches?" I wasn't so much disappointed as I was confused. To roll perfectly ripe peaches in sugar seemed wholly unnecessary and decidedly un-Calabrese in its lack of simplicity. But what did I know?

As Rosetta and her mother plated up the peaches with bowls of ricotta gelato (page 345) and began passing them around, the chatter among the guests returned. Upon closer inspection, the "peaches" were, in fact, little hemispheres of sponge cake held together by pastry cream, shaped and colored to fool the eye. I looked at mine before I cut into it and thought that, besides looking so peach-like, it reminded me of a human brain. It was that smart. And good. The ingenuity of these Pesche con Crema (page 333) made me think that, if the 'Ndrangheta ever decided to use their powers for good, the might do well to take a cue from the pastry chefs of Calabria by channeling their energies and trickery into the making of some rather fascinating desserts.

When the luncheon was over, I felt warm and full and connected to a cuisine that has so long been overshadowed by Sicilian food in my family. Rosetta signed my copy of My Calabria with the words "Keep our Calabrian traditions alive." I swelled with a pride I've never felt before for a place I've never been and I cuisine I had never tasted until that day. It was an odd, wonderful feeling.

I have no intention of ever giving up on the Sicilian traditions of my family. They will, however, have to make room for some new (to me) Calabrian ones. I'm planning on obeying the command of Rosetta Constantino by keeping the traditions of her family and mine (however distant) alive. Learning more about the culture and cuisine of my Calabrese side has provided a sort of balance, culturally speaking.

With one historic foot planted in Sicily and another more recently-secured one in Calabria, I like to think that I might, on occasion, bridge the two cultures, as they have been genetically brought together in me. Two similar yet very distinctive traditions; one no more important than the other to me. No Scylla and Charybdis preventing the crossover.

As odd or as hopelessly corny as it may sound, even though I'm only half-Italian, after cuddling up to My Calabria, I feel just a bit more whole.

No, really.

And though I have not yet gotten up the nerve to make those "peaches," I have made the roasted peppers with anchovies. In fact, I have followed Rosettas advice below and slipped them between two slices of crusty bread.

To put my feelings about it into plain Calabrese: Oy. Veh.

Peperoni Fritti con Acciughe*

It is worth seeking out elongated sweet Italian pepper for this recipe instead of bell peppers. Look for them in farmers' markets and specialty produce stores beginning in late July. The have thin skins that don't need peeling and relatively thin walls, so they soften quickly when pan-fried. The anchovy fillet tucked inside softens, too, seasoning the pepper flash with its saltiness. You can cook the peppers several hours before serving and keep them at room temperature.

We eat peperoni fritti as a side dish, but they're appropriate as part of an antipasto course and delicious tucked between two slices of crusty bread for a sandwich. Don't leave the stove while the peppers are frying or you could burn them beyond recovery. You really have to baby them.

8 long sweet Italian-style peppers, red, green, or a combination

8 flat anchovy fillets

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

With a paring knife, cut out the stem and core of each pepper, leaving the seeds and ribs inside. Insert one anchovy fillet into the cavity of each pepper.

Put 1/4 inch (6 millimeters) olive oil in a 12-inch (30-centimeter) skillet. Add the peppers in a single layer. It's okay if they fit snugly. Turn the heat to moderately high. Cover and cook until the peppers are blistered on all sides, about 10 minutes, turning every 2 to 3 minutes. To minimize splattering, remove the pan from the heat before you uncover it to turn the peppers. Keep a close eye on the peppers to prevent burning.

Transfer the peppers to a serving platter and sprinkle them lightly with salt, keeping in mind that the anchovies are salty. Drizzle with a little olive oil from the pan. Serve at room temperature.

Serves 4

*Reprinted from My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy's Undiscovered South by Rosetta Costantino with Janet Fletcher (c) 2010 by Rosetta Costantino and Janet Fletcher. Used with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

I remember my first cookbook. It was Thrill of the Grill by Massachusetts-based chef and barbecue enthusiast Chris Schlesinger and former Gourmet editor John Willoughby. I was eleven or so, on the verge of vegetarianism, yet strangely fixated on the primitive allure of pit cookery -- a notable early contradiction in a life that has seen many. Before long, I graduated to a Jenifer Lang-edited edition of Larousse Gastronomique, Prosper Montagne's ancient and massive encyclopedia of (largely French) cooking techniques, traditions, and terms. I was learning French in school at the time, so dips through those thin, colorful, glossy pages dovetailed nicely with my foreign language studies. Other cookbooks followed -- Rick's Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, The Silver Palate Cookbook, and, of course, The Joy of Cooking. When I was moving out -- either bound for school, or for San Francisco, I hinted that I wouldn't mind taking a few with me. The Larousse, my mom informed me, was outside the realm of possibility; the Bayless, on the other hand, was doable.

We form relationships with cookbooks, even magazines. We read them for enrichment and entertainment, and we also use them for a purpose -- to prepare specific dishes we're compelled to try cooking. When we learn how to cook something, the dish becomes part of our lives, and we carry the memory of making it along with the memory of enjoying it. I associate particular volumes in my collection with distinct periods of my life. When I was fifteen or so, an old, half-shredded copy of Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook intrigued me with vivid descriptions of unfamiliar cuisines and ingredients. Simultaneously, it vaguely repulsed me with its weirdly unappetizing photographs. A year ago, I constantly flipped through Chez Panisse Vegetables; three years earlier, I pored over the gorgeous Silver Spoon, for the past 50 years, Italy's best-selling cookbook. My cookbooks -- some of them once my mom's, and a few of those perhaps her mother's as well -- are literally marked with the meals they enabled. Splashes of red and brown fleck a Marcella Hazan recipe for tomato sauce with mushrooms. The entire taco section of Mexican Kitchen looks like a grisly watercolor. They have been touched by hands and worn. Corners have been folded over; pen scribbles show that proportions have, for better or for worse, been adjusted. Someone I know writes the date next to a recipe when she's cooking from it, so she can look back at the book years later and see when she's cooked what. I usually try to sort that out by just dating the smudges. It's a field begging for an expert.

Current wisdom, however, holds that cookbooks are becoming obsolete. While food blogs and recipe-rich websites like Epicurious have been around, relatively speaking, for ages, most web-savvy cooks -- skittish about the potential havoc erupting pots and mishandled cutlery are capable of causing -- balk at positioning their precious laptops too close to a rowdy kitchen fray. Enter the iPad. I should say from the outset that I will never get one. They look ridiculous, too large and unwieldy to be truly convenient, and too small for comfortable typing. I am biased against it, but I cannot help but believe a significant portion of my skepticism concerning the iPad stems from having absorbed and rejected most vehemently widespread allegations that it's destined to revolutionize the universe of cookbooks.

Articles and blog posts salivating over the possibilities the iPad poses are hard to miss. Summarizing more than a few of those I've read would take a while. In late April, Gizmodo editor Wilson Rothman ably broke down the app onslaught in a New York Times Diner's Journal column, highlighting the best of what newly-minted iPad owners can expect from the warm plastic tablets: apps like Epicurious and BigOven brimming with grocery list-making functions and interactive aids paving the way for digital app-ified versions of seminal cookbooks.

While at least one person has proven enthusiastic enough to install an iPad in his kitchen cabinet, app-mania drives me a little nuts -- and not just because I can't afford to spend half a grand on a gadget. I can't deny that it must be nice to cook with such a wealth of information at one's greasy fingertips, but there's something so temporary and soul-less about technology's ability to put reams of information into a very small space. I can draw an obvious parallel to collecting vinyl. I own an iPod shuffle I bought for $50 three years ago, but I still purchase vinyl records, and won't stop -- even though digital music is, at this point, practically free. As a matter of fact, I don't feel like I actually own an album unless I have it on vinyl. It's not simply a proprietary longing; without the actual record, music feels ephemeral to me, as if it might suddenly blow away. The comparison doesn't entirely hold up though: Vinyl records actually sound better than mp3s of the same songs, whereas a recipe's usefulness doesn't depend on its packaging, particularly when an iPad can call up ingredient profiles, recipes, and instructional videos with a few brisk clicks. The truth is usefulness doesn't really encompass the point of a cookbook. Like album art, a cookbook can be stylish, beautiful, and evocative -- something people want to display, cherish and share. Any publishers of cookbooks banking on digital downloads down the road shouldn't forget this.

If their cookbook lending library is any indication, the owners of the newish Local Mission Eatery, on 24th St. near Folsom, probably feel the same way. For an annual fee of $35, members can borrow a book a week, providing they follow a highly generous set of rules. With titles like Ferran Adria's A Day at El Bulli, Grant Achatz's Alinea, and a multitude of Craig Claiborne volumes, possibilities run the gamut from fanciful and fantastic to immensely practical. Importantly though, the library applies a dose of community consciousness to the cookbook form, emphasizing that the sharing of a valued text among members of a community makes for shared experiences too. It localizes and articulates a larger phenomenon. When you borrow a cookbook and cook a recipe, you're immediately tied to everyone else who cooks that recipe. Yes, there are apps for that too -- features that illuminate what people in close geographic proximity are cooking -- but those are poor substitutes for dripping sauce on the same page.

Two years ago, my girlfriend and I combined our cookbook collections and stacks of food magazines along with our books and records. Since leaving home, I've bought cookbooks of my own to supplement those pinched from the old homestead. Lately, I've bought some with my girlfriend too. In time, the collection will swell further, and the rows of books will require more shelves. Big, heavy cookbooks take up a lot of space. They don't blink, come to life, or talk to you. They're just cardboard and paper -- fusions of inanimate ingredients that readily fall apart and rot. Still, I imagine they'll still last longer than an iPad's hard-drive -- in every sense.

Blackberry Cornmeal Muffins from my blog, A Sweet Spoonful

There's something about this time of year. I find myself baking much more frequently, leaving the Kitchen Aid out on the counter instead of storing it in its proper winter-time home, and bookmarking dessert recipes right and left. Then I start thinking about opening a bakery...but that's a whole different post. On my own blog recently, I've made very special muffins (above) and Jim Lahey's whole wheat bread. And I have big plans for some cupcakes for a party I'm attending this week. So I'm certainly not lacking in the inspiration department. But you've got to be prepared with everything you need, the recipes that inspire, and a few extras just for fun. So here are some of my favorite things to help kick start your time in the kitchen this spring:

Batter Bowls

Some love them, some hate them: you either find them useful in an 'Oh, my mom used those for our pancakes' kind of way or you're not quite sure what to do with them. But batter bowls are actually fabulous: you can mix batters right inside the bowl and neatly pour into your cupcake tins, waffle-maker, or cheesecake pan. I also use them to help pour eggs for omelettes and I might occasionally mix and pour cocktails in my batter bowl. Yes, you heard that right. You can get them many places, but I find Stonewall Kitchen's batter bowls to be very sweet--nice spring colors and a generous handle.

Prettiest Apron You'll Ever See

I can't get enough of Ice Milk Aprons. I actually don't own one yet, but I gawk frequently online. They're a small family company that does heirloom aprons that are super simple and inspired by the founder's grandmother who always wore an apron when she fixed a dinner of waffles, fresh fruit, and ice milk at home. They do full traditional aprons, but they also do a gorgeous "Rolling Pin Waist" style that is more life a half apron with a sash up top. In many ways, they're almost too pretty to really muck up in the kitchen--but that hasn't stopped me from hinting to friends and family.

Baking Supplies

While I obviously support going to your local cookware shop, I have found the folks at Layer Cake Shop stock some interesting baking accoutrement that you may not be able to find as easily all in one spot. I love their simple paper tags that come in a variety of colors--great for labeling desserts. And they have all different colors of bakers twine and an incredible variety of little muffin and cupcake cups. Useful and inspiring.

Cupcake Toppers

Once you make those cupcakes, you're going to want to decorate them. And this is where on one recent Sunday morning I got sucked down the Etsy rabbit hole. You know the one I'm talking about--the one where you start looking at one shop and all of a sudden you've lost two hours of your life. Well I took a liking to these vintage-inspired cupcake toppers. The seller scanned in prints of the 1950's ladies from her vintage cookbook collection and mounted them on a sturdy bamboo stick. She'll also work with you on different colors of backing or increased quantities for larger parties.

Good Quality Vanilla (and other extracts)

No cutesy aprons here folks. For your spring baking projects this year, be sure you're using really good quality vanilla--whether it's an extract, a vanilla bean, or vanilla paste (my absolute favorite discovery of the year). Nielsen Massey not only stocks incredible vanilla, but they also do harder to find extracts that I'm excited to experiment with. They have chocolate, coffee, and a really nice lemon extract. You can check out their online site and they'll guide you to shops in your area that stock what you're looking for, and they have great information on the history of vanilla and how to choose which product is right for you.

Three Book Suggestions
Now this isn't a formal review because I only own one of these books. But here are a few recent baking books that have come out that I'm eager to get my hands on. If you're looking for a little baking inspiration, look no further:

• Deborah Madison's Seasonal Fruit Desserts: I'm a huge Madison fan, and have made many of her vegetarian entrees in the kitchen, but I'm even more excited to try out some of her well-regarded dessert recipes. She's the master of seasonal recipes, and this is no exception.
• Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain: I've leafed through this book and the photos by Quentin Bacon are truly stunning. But even more important--the recipes are really exciting. Boyce makes baking with whole-grain flours (not always an easy feat) look approachable and second-nature. And we're not just talking whole-wheat flour: she experiments with teff and amaranth and twelve different kinds of other whole-grain flours. I can't wait to start baking from this book.
• David Lebovitz's Ready For Dessert: If you're tuned into the food blogging world, there's been a lot of talk about this book ever since it came out. I have Lebovitz's other books so initially I was hesitant to purchase this one, but there's something appealing about having the best recipes all within easy reach (plus, those photos!). For those who aren't familiar with his recipes, this is the perfect book for you. From relatively easy cookie recipes to Lebovtiz's incredible sauces--inspiration abounds here.

What I've been up to lately

First I'll begin by saying I've never been one to eat out at restaurants alone. I know there are people out there who are unphased by that sort of thing, but I'm not one of them. Now coffee or lunch is one thing--but sitting at a restaurant for a solo dinner isn't my cup of tea. One summer when I was finishing up graduate school in Boston, I decided to treat myself to a week at a Bed and Breakfast on the Cape. It was going to be my solo, independent adventure--and during the day, it was. I lounged on the beach reading book after book, strolled the different little towns looking in antique stores and eating ice cream cones, and rented a cruiser bike to explore the marshy trails. And then the sun set and the anxiety kicked in: what to do for dinner? What to do that night? I couldn't possibly go out by myself.

A friend gave me a little perspective, telling me not to be so taken with myself: you really think people are even noticing you or the fact that you're by yourself. Everyone has to eat. No one cares if you're doing it alone. In fact, no one in the restaurant cares about you period. Ouch. But she had a point. I was thinking that people would stare or wonder or feel sorry for me when, in fact, they were just enjoying their fish and chips like everyone else. So that helped. But still--I enjoy sharing a meal with someone else. Period. This goes for eating out in restaurants, but I've recently discovered it also goes for preparing meals at home.

And this brings me to the present moment--the moment in which I tell you that my relationship of twelve years recently ended. I'm thirty-one, so that was essentially my entire adult life. Suffice it to say, I've never really lived by myself for any extended period of time and here I find myself in a new apartment in San Francisco alone. Not exactly what I'd planned, but I suppose that's how those things usually work. So once again I remain quite busy during the day, but then I arrive home and stare into the fridge. I've been getting creative with bagged salads, chicken sausages, soup, or pasta. Breakfast for dinner has been a winner lately as are quesadillas with heaps of homemade guacamole. And ice cream, of course. Oh, and peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread. I've discovered it's kind of magical if you make it into a warm panino.

So when I wrote about the difficulties of cooking for one on my own blog recently, many of my readers chimed in with menu ideas, book suggestions, and general encouragement. These are the moments I cherish the time I spend on the blog--it truly is a little community. After seriously considering each comment, I decided to take their advice, checked out some of the books from the library and even purchased one that I really came to love. For this week's post, I thought I'd share with you the ins and outs of some solo eating and cooking books so, in the case that you should find yourself alone in your painfully over-priced apartment, you won’t be staring at an empty fridge or relying solely on Trader Joe's taquitos. Those can get old after awhile.

"Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam" –Laurie Colwin, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant" from Home Cooking

Solo Suppers: Simple Delicious Meals to Cook for Yourself by Joyce Goldstein
This book was recommended to me by my blogging friend Janet Gardner of Pretty Green Girl, and it's downright likeable. Goldstein doesn't lament the fact that you're eating alone. In fact, the premise is simple: singles represent the fasted-growing segment of the U.S. population (7) yet there are few cookbooks geared towards actual gourmet recipes for one. We see many books geared towards young singles cooking on a budget, but Goldstein wanted to talk about sauces, and Sicilian swordfish, and risotto with mushrooms and peas. Leafing through the book, I found many dishes I wanted to try. And the ingredient list made perfect sense: the quantities were small; I didn't have to sit down with my calculator and cut the recipe down by 2/3 (and often recipes don't reduce all that precisely). Her section on Stocking the Pantry is useful and I loved her Sauce Chapter (Romesco, Peanut Sauce, Mango chutney…). She also mentions ways to recreate each meal into a "New Creation" using leftovers. This seemed a little too planned out and a bit depressing to me for some reason, but I get the idea. It's just, how many days a week can a girl eat pork loin used in different ways? I giggled while reading her suggestions on looking for smaller bottles of wine. Really? Isn't this a time when we should all be drinking more? Much more? While I'll admit that my spinach sometimes will go bad, my wine never does. But all in all, this is a useful and relatively timeless book to add to the collection.

Going Solo in the Kitchen by Jane Doerfer
This book was written in 1995 and lets be honest: in many ways, you can tell. While there aren't any photos and while there's a lot of "fluff" at the beginning of the book (Selecting a Market, Dealing with the Butcher), it is a good basic primer for someone who is looking for quite simple, approachable recipes. Doerfer was also ahead of her time in that the focus of the book is on seasonally available recipes using good fats. She's written an incredible Salad chapter with options ranging from Greek Salad to a Couscous and Sweet Potato Salad. And she also has nice entrée ideas that I have yet to see parceled out for just one--dishes like Turkey Pot Pie and Crab Cakes.

In her introduction, Jane notes, "We may begin solo cooking for different reasons, but we end up with the same reality: Nothing tastes quite as good as a meal you've thought about and taken the time to prepare and enjoy." Again, I like the fact that she doesn't judge or lament or become too emotionally invested in the fact that her readers are in a situation where they're eating alone. Instead, she cuts to the chase. She does do the whole leftover rigmarole, too on recycling meals over and over. Not only does this seem like a bummer but it's confusing: if you're using smaller proportions to cook for one, why would you have so much leftover in the first place?

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
This book was recommended to me by my blogging friend Denise over at Chez Danisse, and it differs from the previous two books I've discussed in that it's much more literary and much less a How-To Guide or Cookbook. Sure there are a few recipes scattered throughout, but what Ferrari-Adler's done here is invite and solicit writers and food personalities to contribute to a collection dealing with the theme of eating alone. The back-story? Ferrari-Adler found herself living alone for the first time at twenty-seven while in the MFA program at the University of Michigan. She started cultivating a life of eating odd meals. Alone. But as she so quickly points out, "alone and lonely are not synonymous" (14). So in putting together the book, she notes: "Maybe I could break the silence and help men and women everywhere be less alone together" (8).

And I have to say, it's worked. The essays are all quite different in subject and scope and there is a nice grouping of men and women of various ages. The collection starts with Laurie Colwin’s well-known essay, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," originally published in her book, Home Cooking. If you haven't read the essay, Colwin details life in her tiny NY apartment with a kitchen that consisted of a hot plate, a metal counter, and a kids-sized small fridge. Colwin began adjusting to cooking with two burners (soup, spaghetti, and eggplant were big hits). Ferrari-Adler also includes one of my favorite food writers, Amanda Hesser, and her piece entitled "Single Cuisine." In it, Hesser writes about her last night home alone as a married woman and gives her recipe for truffled egg toast. There are lovely pieces by Dan Chaon and Steve Almond and a great essay by Haruki Murakami on "The Year of Spaghetti." As an English nerd and a fan of many of these writers, this compilation was a treat. In a few short pieces, you get a glimpse into each writer's personality, domestic space, and approach to food. A rich opportunity.

What we eat when we eat alone by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin
I was most excited to check out this book. I'm a big Deborah Madison fan and I'd heard it was lovingly illustrated (by McFarlin) with quirky pictures instead of traditionally photographed. I dove right in and with each flip of the page, was more and more disappointed. They begin by explaining what Patrick in particular began to discover as he spoke to people about their solo eating habits: "a portrait of human behavior sprung free from conventions, a secret life of consumption born out of the temporary freedom--or burden, for some--of being alone" (10). Hmm. Why did this passage leave a bad taste in my mouth? A secret life of consumption? Why so secret? It turns out the entire book is colored by this tinge of minor shame or embarrassment regarding eating alone--the last thing I want to read right now. There are odd tangents on gender differences: linguistically, apparently men use more active/violent verbs to describe cooking than women and women are more self-deprecating when talking about eating alone. OK, so what's the point?

Patrick McFarlin's illustrations

The book seems to struggle for a unified personality of purpose. Along with the gender digressions, there is a really odd collection of recipes--many of which I found to be completely uninspired. Bachelor Tofu Sandwiches? How about Breakfast Burrito for Day and Night? Then as much as I wanted to like the illustrations, many of them were of men in their boxer shorts or slippers haphazardly preparing a meal or staring into the fridge. Again, kind of makes me want to throw in the towel and head out to get some take-out--not what Madison was shooting for, I'm guessing. There are even anecdotes on Eating in Bed and Negotiating Eating on the Couch with a Cat. Seriously? For a book with a presumed audience of many solo eaters, I can't say that Madison or McFarlin have enticed us with recipes, the illustrations, or sentiment.

The Pleasures of Cooking For One by Judith Jones
And then, Judith Jones brings home the bacon. This book is sweet and substantial. It's a keeper. She doesn’t judge (although she does use the word "live alones" which kind of makes me want to slit my wrists. Yikes. When did I become a live alone?). She doesn't demean with lame watered down recipes. And that's probably because the premise of the book comes from such a genuine place of experience. Jones' husband passed away in 1996 and after his death, she's struggled with cooking alone. Like Goldstein, she begins with numbers: 51% of New Yorkers live alone, yet stores packages everything large and restaurants don't cater to single eaters (vii). Thus, her book was born.

Judith Jones' perfect blend of apt recipes, general kitchen advice, and genuine sentiment

Like many of the other authors, she discusses stocking your cupboards (sugars, flour, broth, canned tomatoes), your freezer (pesto, cream sauce, pastry dough) and your refrigerator (butter, eggs, mustard, sausage, jams). While I mentioned above that I'm not drawn to discussions on ways to recreate leftovers, Jones does have a likeable segment on the Nine Lives of a Turkey, detailing ways to recreate leftovers (turkey tetrazzini, waldorf salad). But what I really loved about this book are the substantial, inspiring, and challenging recipes along with the lovely photographs and her encouraging and precise tone. You won't find breakfast burritos here although you will find Beef Bourguignon, Red Flannel Pork Hash or a Filet of Fish in Parchment Paper. Now that's the kind of cooking I'm talking about.

To close, I've taken the advice of my family, friends, and readers and decided not to be too hard on myself. Cereal for dinner? Fine. Now's not the time to put the pressure on myself to make elaborate meals unless it feels right. But I'm also making a huge effort not to get too caught up in that anxious feeling I first met on a night in July in Provincetown when the sun began to set and I realized I was alone and hadn't yet eaten dinner. Let's just say I'm getting used to that feeling. In the introduction to her book, Judith Jones notes, "If you like good food, why not honor yourself enough to make a pleasing meal and relish every mouthful? (ix)" I'll raise a glass to that.