It's 4th of July weekend, and for a lot of Bay Area cooks that means heading outdoors and firing up the grill. Forum talks BBQ and grilling techniques, and compare notes on favorite foods prepared by fire.

Host: Dave Iverson

Guests:
• Amanda Gold, food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle
• Chris Ying, editor in chief for Lucky Peach Quarterly, a new journal of food writing published by McSweeney's
• Eric Markoff, chef at Anchor and Hope in San Francisco and developer of the BBQ program at Town Hall Restaurant
• Ryan Farr, owner, chef and butcher for 4505 Meats

Original Broadcast: Fri, Jul 1, 2011 -- 10:00 AM

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Grilled Pizza

It's that time of year again -- the grills are uncovered, fireworks stands [used to] start popping up near busy intersections, and everyone and their mother is digging through cookbooks in search of Fourth of July recipes. This week, kids will be running around with sparklers while mom and dad solidify plans for their annual Independence Day barbecue.

While grilled goodies are usually at the top of everyone's mind on July 4th, there's still the all-important matter of dessert. It seems like every year, someone makes the traditional sheet cake that looks like the American flag. You know the style: It's huge and white with a square of blueberries for the star portion of the flag, and row upon row of strawberries and frosting dollops to make up the stripes. It's a good cake, one that I've eaten and enjoyed countless times. Yes, I said countless. Which means I'm really, really bored with the same old flag cake, which I've been eating for 30-something years.

This year I decided to shake it up a little. I eschewed the white cake for something richer (chocolate! ganache!). Since it's Independence Day I decided to keep the red, white and blue decorations, but I sat down and thought about the best way to go about using these colors without recreating the hackneyed flag design (to you lovers of the flag cake, really, no offense). After a few days of pondering I decided to create a layer cake for a more interesting look, with half of the fruit on the inside of the cake, peeking out the sides.

I think you'll like the end result: A rich, smokey cake with light, colorful accents of summer fruit and whipped cream. Kids will love the headiness of the chocolate, and adults will appreciate the departure from the norm.

A Tower of Chocolate: The Three-Layer Fourth of July Chocolate Cake
Makes: One really thick 9" cake, which will be cut into three layers servings
Prep time: 60 minutes, including decorating
Cook time: 50 minutes

While making this cake, I decided to go the lazy route and used a 9-inch cake pan that's 3-inches deep. I poured all of the batter into one pan and then sliced it into three thinner layers with a cake leveler. There is also a gluten-free version of this Fourth of July cake.

Ingredients

For cake:

• 2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chopped
• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 6 tablespoons hot coffee
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup sugar, divided
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 large egg whites

For decorating:

• 4 cups of whipped cream
• 1 carton fresh strawberries, cleaned, cored, and sliced in half
• 1 handful each of fresh blueberries
• 1 handful each of fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup chocolate ganache, warmed and ready to pour

Instructions

To bake the cake:
1. Butter single 3-inch deep, 9-inch cake pan, lining the bottom with a round of parchment or wax paper (trust me, this will make your life much easier). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Over a double boiler, melt both kinds of chocolates together with the 6 tablespoons of coffee. Stir until smooth, then set aside until the chocolate reaches room temperature.
3. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and 1 1/4 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. While beating, slowly drizzle in the melted chocolate, following with the egg yolks one at a time.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
5. Mix half of the sifted dry ingredients into the creamed butter, then add the buttermilk and vanilla. Follow with the rest of the dry ingredients.
6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
7. Fold half of the egg whites into the cake batter to lighten it up a bit, then fold in the rest, stopping just when there's no trace of egg white visible. Do not overbeat or you will flatten the batter.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan with a parchment round in the bottom. Smooth the top of the batter with your finger and bake for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
9. Cool cake completely before decorating.

To decorate the cake
Note: If you're going to slice your cake horizontally, I'd recommend putting it in the refrigerator overnight (or at least a few hours) to firm up before slicing. The firmness of the cake will allow for more effective slicing. I highly recommend the use of a cake leveler, though a serrated knife will work in a pinch.

1. Level your cake by removing the rounded top where it rose in the oven. You can either use a long serrated knife or a cake leveler. I use the leveler, because it's a cheap tool that does the job very well, and it's a lot easier to make straight layers by walking the leveler in a sawing motion, instead of making crooked layers with a serrated knife.
2. If you poured all of your batter into a single 9" pan, cut it into three layers of equal thickness.
3. Place your base layer of cake onto a lazy Susan or other turnable decorating surface. Trust me, this will make your life easier.
4. Scoop whipped cream into a pastry bag, and using a large star tip of your choice, pipe a series of swirls around the edge of the cake, with a large swirl in the middle. It should look like this:

   

5. Decorate each dab of whipped cream by adding a piece of fruit into the middle. Do not add any fruit to the large swirl of whipped cream in the middle.
6. Using the pastry bag, add a small dab of whipped cream between each larger swirl. Top each dab with a blueberry. When you're done, it should look something like this:

   

7. If you have three layers, gently place the middle layer of cake on top of the decorated layer, making sure it's straight. Decorate with whipped cream as you did the first layer, so that they look the same.
8. Place final layer of cake on top of decorated layer. Pour 1/2 cup ganache into the center of the cake, and using an icing spatula gently push the ganache to the edges, allowing it to artfully dribble over the sides. NOTE: You don't want a lot of ganache flowing all over the place. You just want a few drips down the side as an accent.
9. Set the cake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes to solidify the ganache.
10. Decorate the top of the cake with more whipped cream and fruit, like you did the other layers. You can be as creative as you want here, so go all out! When you're done, push more fruit into the visible whipped cream between the layers where it needs a little color. You should have something similar to the photo below.
11. This cake should be put in the fridge overnight to tighten up the whipped cream, which may droop and run in hot weather. Refrigerator until about an hour before serving. If it's especially hot that day, leave it in the fridge until just before you cut it.

"On Independence Day, Americans will enjoy 150 million hot dogs, enough to stretch from D.C. to L.A. over five times."
--National Hot Dog and Sausage Council

My first reaction to this quote was "is there really a national hot dog and sausage council?"; while my second reaction was mild nausea mixed with a hankering for my own dog slathered in mustard and relish.

The all-beef American hot dog should not be confused with its namesake the frankfurter, which is a German regional sausage made from pork. Nor should you think it tastes much like an Austrian wiener, which is a pork and beef delicacy. Sure, frankfurters, wieners and hot dogs are all sausages, but there's very little that is European about a hot dog. Mass produced, precooked, and stuck in a bun it's as American as a food can get. Dirty Harry even eats one right before famously saying his "Do you feel lucky" line. So here's Clint, eating his dog, for you to enjoy.

Unlike Harry, my family and I don't eat a lot of hot dogs. Nothing against them; we just tend to eat more sausage when we want some sort of meat product in a tube, probably due to my Italian upbringing. I'm also not a big fan of processed foods. But there are certain occasions when a hot dog is the perfect meal, especially if you have a couple of hungry kids with you. Baseball games and the 4th of July top that list.

So in celebration of National Hot Dog Month, and also to better educate myself about American hot dogs, I have created an unscientific comparison of the major brands. Included in the list are organic, nitrate-free, and standard hot dogs that you can find locally. I am not recommending one frank over another as I did not try every brand, and, honestly, I've only tasted a few. Rather, I wanted to share the nutritional information and ingredients lists provided by the manufacturers so people can make their own educated decisions.

The following list is also limited to beef hot dogs as these are the traditional choice at block parties, backyard barbecues, and baseball games. Plus including chicken, turkey and tofu dogs would make the list ridiculously long. Please note that my inventory is in no way complete. I am not attempting to compare all the brands; just the ones I see most often. If I have missed something obvious, or something you really like, feel free to add the information in the comments section. Finally, I should say that I don't distinguish between kosher and non-kosher brands.

When comparing the hot dogs on the list, you should note that each brand's hot dogs vary in size. So while the Nathan's Famous beef franks look at first to have the most sodium, they are also twice the size of many of the other hot dogs, so be sure to look at the size column when comparing products.

Here are the lists. I have grouped the brands by type for easier viewing and listed the size, calories, calories from fat, saturated fat grams and sodium levels, along with ingredients lists. I was very interested by what I found. I hope you will be too.

Organic and Grass Fed Hot Dogs
These hot dogs are all made from organic, and often grass-fed, beef. No nitrates are used for organic hot dogs.

view larger version of table

Nitrate-Free but not Organic Hot Dogs
Non-organic beef but no nitrates are used.

view larger version of table

Standard Hot Dogs
The hot dogs are all beef and the meat has been preserved with nitrates and other preservatives.

view larger version of table

The 4th of July is a huge event in our house. My daughters classify it as the third best holiday, after their birthday and Christmas. Yes, I realize their birthday isn’t a holiday, but try telling that to them.

My daughters’ enthusiasm is due in large part to the fact that our city, Piedmont, goes a bit nuts on July 4th. The day starts off with a pancake breakfast hosted by the fire department (which actually we’ve never attended, but it’s there for all to enjoy). Later, we have a homespun parade, complete with Scottish Highland bands, dog brigades, soccer teams marching, and the Oakland Raiderettes. There’s then a big party in the park with a band, hot dogs and shaved ice. Later in the day, the small streets of Piedmont become no-traffic zones as the majority of neighborhoods settle into their annual block parties.

Each neighborhood’s party is a little different -- there are those with bounce houses for the kids, while others have potato sack races -- but the common denominator for all are hordes of kids running, scootering, and cycling around what becomes a parking lot of garden chairs in the road filled with adults of all ages. Some may think our parties are a bit hokey, and they may be right, but there’s really something to be said for breaking bread (or rather a hot dog roll) with your neighbors at least once a year.

My favorite part, however, is that there is serious food to be had. Although the parties offer the standard hamburgers, hot dogs, and veggie burgers you see throughout America on July 4th, this is by and large a potluck affair where every family brings a dish. I love scoping out the tables to see what everyone has brought. Sure, some people bring the Safeway platter of cut fruit, but more often than not, my lovely neighbors bring something homemade, which warms my heart and makes me feel less irritated later in the year when I hear their dog barking all night or when a buzz saw wakes me up at 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday because someone has decided to put in a new planter box (Oh wait. That was my husband.).

As our neighborhood’s party just happens to land right on my doorstep, I’m lucky to have the main food table literally touching my front yard. I love checking out the selection and finding out who brought what. We start with the appetizers, brought by families with last names from A-G. These usually include some freshly made guacamoles and salsa, deviled eggs, and prosciutto and cheese plates. Each year, a mother and her daughters bring homemade lychee, maraschino cherry, and lime gelatin in Dixie cups. I barely know this family, and I’m not a big fan of gelatin, but I admire their spirit of culinary experimentation. When I catch a glimpse of them throughout the rest of the year, I fondly recall that they’re the Jell-o family.

H-O families then bring the salads. There’s usually a great range of these, from Capreses and mixed greens, to taco salads and Asian cole slaws. I find it impossible to choose only one or two and so usually opt for small tastes of each.

Finally, the P-Z families bring the desserts. Homemade berry pies are the real stars here, although I am also quite partial to the coffee cakes with brown sugar toppings and freshly baked cookies as well. Sure, some people bring see-through plastic containers of hydrogenated store cookies, but these are always left to linger while the neighborhood discusses recipes and unabashedly debates which dessert is the best.

I am technically an “L,” and so therefore should bring a salad. But, for many years I was an “S” (as in Santoro), and my signature block party dish was always my peach crisp with vanilla ice cream. When I got married, a neighbor asked me to stick with dessert because she looked forward to eating my crisp each year. Since then, I have brought my crisp, even when I had infant twins and just wanted to sack out in a garden chair.

I love this crisp recipe because it’s huge, feeds a crowd, and is ridiculously simple to make. You will see that the directions are a bit vague, but that’s the beauty of this dessert. It’s something you throw together and then share with the neighbors, much like we do with ourselves at the block party.

Block Party Peach Crisp

Serves: 10 people (or thereabouts)

Ingredients:
Filling
4 - 5 pounds of peaches or enough freshly sliced peaches to fill a 9x13” baking pan
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup flour

Topping
1 cup flour
1 cup Instant oatmeal
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter

Preparation:

1. Slice enough peaches into 1/4 inch slices to fill a buttered 9/13” baking pan to the top
2. Mix in sugar and flour
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal and brown sugar.
4. Incorporate the butter until it is broken into small chunks (you can do this in a food processor, but I think it comes out better if you just squish the butter with your hands)
5. Set the topping on top of the filling in the pan, spreading evenly.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until the topping is browned and you can see the peach filling bubbling inside.
7. Set aside to cool a bit and then serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.