Like many of you out there in the land of food geekdom, I enjoy reading cookbooks. I do not enjoy reading all cookbooks, however. I am generally bored to tears by the big, slick coffee table tomes. Charlie Trotter? Forget it. It's nothing personal, they're just not my thing.

What fascinates me are the smaller cookbooks; those by someone's grandmother or, say, the Junior League of Salt Lake City. Those, to me, are fascinating. They tell a story without a publicist or, quite often, even an editor breathing down the creator's neck.

Perhaps even more fascinating to me are the collections of recipes published by larger-than-life or, at least, larger-than-my-life celebrities.

Over the past few decades, many a celebrity (and by celebrity, you must understand that I mean anyone who was capable of having their agent obtain them a booking on Match Game '74, Hollywood Squares, Battle of the Network Stars or any such show or better) offered up a recipe or two for a charity cookbook or an appearance on Dinah! Others seem to have been written by actors who aren't doing so much acting any more. Sometimes, the submissions are See?-we're-just-like-you-poor-non-famous-folk annoying or painfully (and by painfully, I mean amusingly) self-delusional and chock full of irony.

Such standouts include Paul Lynde and his Diet Waffles or even Tori Amos and her Glazed Turnips (the recipe given to her by her personal chef). Very few celebrities, by comparison, have managed to produce their own cookbooks.

And so... I present to you...

Liberace Cooks-- A Cookbook! The exclamation point is his, not mine.

I should note that this book was not written during his lifetime, but compiled by the people who love him the most-- those woman who unsmilingly devote themselves to his memory. Okay. That was bitchy. I was thinking of the stories I've heard about the women who work at the Liberace museum in Las Vegas who seem to think that the faithful, obsessive polishing of rhinestones might actually bring about his resurrection. This cookbook was published in 2003 by the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts. Any organization that has managed to award more than $5,000,000 in scholarship money to deserving students isn't going to get the harsh treatment from me. Not too badly.

The 59-page book(let) is filled with a wide array of recipes from the ethnic Polish Radish Salad to the what-was-fancy-in-the-60's-and-70's dishes Boeuf à la Mode en Gelée and Coq au Vin.

When I received this book as a gift from my friends Gary and Bill, I just thought it was a funny gag. It's still pretty amusing (you should see the photos of him with starlets mooning and drooling over his, um, cooking), but this feels like a real, personal cookbook. This man was in the kitchen a lot. These are dishes he actually made. These are recipes passed down from his mother, and we all know how much he loved his mother.

And now, here's a recipe published with what I can only hope to God was a wink and a nod.

Liberace Sticky Buns

What I find so wonderful about this recipe is that it is, without any trace of self-mocking humor, his own. It is very easy to make, I assure you. The only change I've made is in my choice of raisin, and that is only because I didn't feel like hunting for little boxes of white raisins (a dried fruit more popular in the 1970's that it is today). A friend assured me that red flame raisins seemed much more appropriate to use in this recipe, given that its creator was such a bright, shining star who burned out much too quickly. I must say that I agree with him.

If the preparation reads like a never ending paragraph, it is because that is exactly how it was written. I am as faithful to Liberace as I can be.

Ingredients:

1 cup white raisins (or, of course, flame)
1/2 cup light rum
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 pound (two sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and ginger
3 packages (18 buns) Pillsbury crescent dough.

Preparation:

Soak the raisins in the rum over a low flame. Set aside. Preheat oven to 325 F. In a saucepan, melt butter and stir in the spices and the brown sugar until the mixture becomes a bubbling syrup. Unroll the crescent dough, keeping each package in one flat place. Drizzle one quarter of the syrup over each individual piece of dough, reserving the last quarter for later. Sprinkle one third of the raisins and spread one third of the chopped pecans [Pecans? Liberace seems to have missed something fairly important in his ingredients list. Please excuse me while I go back to the store to buy some nuts.] on each of the three sheets of dough. Roll up each section of dough, jelly-roll style and cut into 1-inch pieces. Grease two eight-muffin pans or three six-muffin pans with butter. Put a scant teaspoon of the reserved syrup and a few whole pecans in the bottom of each muffin mold. Cover with the individual jelly-roll pieces, cut side up. Bake in preheated oven for the time recommended on the Pillsbury packages. While pans are still hot, invert them on a sheet of heavy aluminum foil allowing the buns to be released. Replace any of the syrup and pecans that cling to the molds on the individual buns. You should serve the buns while they are still warm and have that fresh-from-the-oven taste.

My notes:

Apart from the omission of pecans from the ingredients list, I might substitute water for butter in the making of the syrup. It would make for a much smoother, lighter and yes, stickier syrup. Otherwise, this was a freaking easy recipe. I'm not even embarrassed to have used Pillsbury crescent dough-- it's been far too long since I've experienced the joy of whacking that cardboard tube against the kitchen counter.

Well, I knew he was coming, but I didn't bake one. I bought one instead. Do you think I could make a cake as precious as the one below? Perhaps, but not under stress.

I thought about baking him a cake, but I've been known to impart too much meaning into such baked goods before. I thought about this one a little too much. So much so, that I ran out of time. So I bought one, which is nearly as good, meaning-wise, but less pressure, which is better.

I have a visitor arriving this week. A rather special one. He hasn't spent much time in San Francisco and so it is up to me to show it to him. I'll show him what I consider to be my San Francisco. The tricky part is figuring out just what that is.

I imagine there are those of you out there who have faced this problem before. A guest arrives. Their idea of San Francisco dining might consist of eating chowder from a sourdough bread bowl. Or Rice-a-roni. Perhaps you're fortunate enough to have a guest who's heard about dim sum and is game for it. That's one meal out of the way. My guest will be spending nine days with me. That's twenty-seven meals together. Hopefully together, anyway. What about the other twenty-six?

The pressure has been building. Inside my own head, I mean. I know it's absolutely silly. I just want to show him, food-wise and other-wise, what it is I love about this city and what it has to offer. I will take him to a few of my favorite places, places that have meaning to me. I will offer him local foods that I love. The rest, I imagine will take care of itself. I will not be rigid. I will go with the flow.

To start things off, I've got a few of my favorite things already laid out for him when he arrives. Enter one Miette Sharfenberger chocolate cake, as pictured above. Also enter a selection of Michael Recchiuti chocolates as somewhat fuzzily pictured above. Nothing says "nice to see you" like a good sugar buzz.

We'll have our first dinner at Frascati. The constant clackity-clack of the Hyde Street Cable Car line just outside the front door will send a rather rhythmic, not too terribly subtle message that, well, he's not in Vancouver anymore (Such a world-class city!).

There are lots of other restaurants I want him to try, but time and budget won't allow us to visit them all. Three more we'll definitely be going to are:

House of Nanking, becuase I want him to get bullied by a waiter into eating great Chinese food.

Florio, because that's my favorite little neighborhood haunt and the chef is a man who made me like tripe.

Kokkari. My guest's family is Greek, so this visit is unavoidable. Besides, I want to eat smelt and lamb's tongue again.

The rest will play itself out. Cowgirl Creamery, Blue Bottle Coffee, breakfast at Tartine, studiously avoiding Delfina, all that stuff will likely follow.

I would like to hear some suggestions from you, dear reading audience (sound of crickets chirping). Hellooooooo?

Really.

What smacks of this city to you? What is your San Francisco Treat? I'd like to know. I've got a few more meal slots to fill.

As Shuna announced at the beginning of April, this is poetry month. Initially, that thought made me whince, but I enjoyed her poem and thought... hmm... perhaps I should contribute something. Ten days later, Amy mentioned a tofu haiku contest, which I entered (and will most likely receive an angry letter from the Soy Board). Now it's my turn.

I admit to having written poetry in college. Precious little, which is most likely a good thing. Somewhere in the universe, there are notebooks dotted with odd and pained verses brought on by reading too much Plath and listening to too much Bauhaus. I cringe at the thought of their discovery.

Last year, my friend Doralice handed me a copy of a poem I wrote in culinary school. I thought it was all but lost. You may wish it was, too, after reading it.

It was performed in front of our Safety and Sanitation class at the California Culinary Academy in early 1996. I was asked to give a presentation on, and here's what the 3 x 5 card said, "Interesting facts about fungi". It was read in a Dr. Seuss-like manner because, well, it has a Seuss-like rhyme scheme. I was surprised at the poem's reception-- no one threw anything at me or threatened to beat me up after class. Enjoy it or, at least, give me a fake smile and a polite golf clap. Letting the world read your poetry is no easy thing.

Fungus

With fungus, there's mushrooms,
There's molds and there's yeasts.
We've so much to learn
From these wee tiny beasts.

They aid in our whiskies
And hot steaming toddies.
They hide in our bathrooms
And inside our bodies.

There's fungus on puppies
And bunnies and cheeses.
There's fungus involved
In sexually transmitted diseases.

It lives where it wishes.
It grows where it pleases.
On the best petrie dishes
We find many diseases.

There's Cryptococcosis
And Histoplasmosis
There's ringworm and thrush
And Blastomycosis.

There's rusts and there's smuts
That grow in our grains.
There's even a fungus
That alters our brains.

Which fungus, you ask?
Please let me elucidate.
It's called Psilocybin.
It makes you hallucinate.

It's taken orally
Or it is injected.
(The legality of said fungus, however
The U.S. has rejected.)

I learned from the most
Reliable of references
That fungi abound
In all sexual preferences.

There's heterothallics
And homothallics.
(The latter you'll note
That I wrote in italics.)

When treading with naked feet
In gym showers,
Beware, for it's there
Tinea pedis flowers.

To cure it, make haste.
Use something fast actin'.
Most sufferers choose
To use Tinactin.

Mycotoxin (a fungus-tainted food derivative)
Perennailly bad-ish
Was considered by villians
A weapon quite faddish.

Biological warfare
Was used by Hussien
Who upon Kurds and Persians
Poured toxins like rain.

In the 1970's
Mycotoxins were got
By a genocidal despot
By name of Pol Pot.

In his part of Asia
He caused great commotions
B y using them on
Cambodians and Laotians.

Rhizopus nigricans,
Or bread mold, will thank
Any fool who puts bread
In a place dark and dank.

The truffle, one teaches,
Prefers it much damper--
Round oaks and some beeches
Where the truffle pigs scamper.

To many a man
There is no sight more dear
Than a woman in hot pants
Bringing him beer.

If said woman ne'er washes
Nor changes, at least,
Could be more than the beer's
Been affected by yeast.

In France and elsewhere
Sweet wines are got
By a wond'rous mold
That is called noble rot.

Botrytis cinerea--
Its true appelation
Dehydrates grape juice
Into high concentration.

Without such a beast
How then could we try
a glass of d'Yquem
or my favorite, Tokaj?

The gods are with you, fungus,
And so I am told
That when they made you,
They broke the mold.

Yes, I know. It's not April 1st. I'm not that stupid. I have a calendar in front of me. It tells me today is Friday, April 13th. I just choose to pretend it is otherwise.

April Fool's Day. I'd always wondered what was especially foolish about that particular day. I thought it might have to do with the first whiffs of spring in the air-- causing hormones to surge, making people do idiotic things. As it turns out, it has more to do with the calendar and boring papal policy change than anything else.

You can blame the French, if you like. They were the first country to switch from the Julian to Gregorian calendar in 1582. The new New Year's Day moved to January 1st from the previously celebrated April 1st. News did not travel fast in the 16th century and those who missed the email still celebrated the first day of the year in April. They were called fools.

Personally, I rather like celebrating the new year in Spring. It makes much more sense to me; the sun begins to warm us again and flowers begin to bloom-- all that fluffy, happy stuff that happens about now. I'm generally exhausted come January 1st, what with Christmas and all. I consider it a rather lame idea to celebrate the New Year when everything about us is cold and dead with worse to come. Call me a fool if you like. You certainly wouldn't' be the first person to do that.

In honor of this old New Year, I'll give you three guesses as to what I'm making.

Yes, a fool. No lame plays on words please. Although, since I am working from my own kitchen and not wearing gloves, there will most likely be traces of my own DNA in the dessert. Therefore, and quite truthfully, I could be able to say that I am indeed making a fool of myself. That's as far as I am willing to go.

The fool is closely related to the trifle and the syllabub. So closely related, in fact, that they are practically sisters. With parents who had an interesting talent for naming their children, of course.

The fool is possibly the oldest and certainly the simplest of the trio, dating back to at least 16th century England. It is whipped cream and fresh or cooked, pureed fruit. What could be more English than that? Okay, a couple of things, I'm sure, but it's still pretty English.

Here's my recipe.

Strawberry Rhubarb Fool

Ingredients:

For the puree:

1 pint strawberries, slices or chopped
2 stalks rhubarb, sliced in 1/4 pieces
2 tablespoons sugar, 1 for the strawberries, the other for the rhubarb, or to taste, depending
upon the sweetness of the berries.
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier, because I said so.

For the Cream:

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:

1. Place rhubarb, 1 tablespoon of sugar and perhaps (these things are never precise) 1/2 cup of water in a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until rhubarb is soft, releases its pink and is generally rather unattractive looking.
2. Put into shallow dish and cool.
3. Toss strawberries with 1 tablespoon of sugar and Grand Marnier. Let sit while the rhubarb cools.
4. Toss, or place gently, rhubarb and berries into a food processor and blend until smooth. The mixture doesn't have to be too terribly smooth, some lumpiness may be desired in certain dessert circles. Set aside.
5. In a bowl, combine cream, and buttermilk. Whip. About half way through the process, add sugar and vanilla. Whip until fairly stiff peaks form.
6. Combine half the fruit puree with the same amount of whipped cream and fold together. A real fool will have some streakiness to it, as though perhaps pressing matters of Empire might have gotten in the way of a thorough folding.
7. Into your selected glasses (parfait glasses are preferred, but I don't have any), place a tablespoon or two of the fruit at the bottom. Next, layer the cream and fruit mixture on top of that. I like a final layer of whipped cream on top, like the final flourish of non-dairy topping that finished off the Jell-o parfaits of my youth.
8. Cover and refrigerate for as long as over night. Garnish with fruit or mint or bullets or whatever you want.

Serves 4 to 6, depending upon the glasses you use.

For a slightly healthier alternative, do away with the cream entirely and substitute yogurt. It will be like fruit-on-the-bottom Dannon or Yoplait, except you know exactly what you put into that fruit and, therefore, exactly what you're putting into your body.

To learn more about the Fool and her sisters, please visit In Mama's Kitchen because mother knows best.

This year, the East (Greek and Russian Orthodox) and the West (Roman Catholic and its breakaway Protestant faiths) have booked the same banquet room, as it were, for Easter. The last time this happened was 2004. It will happen again in 2010. That date sounds marvelously futuristic. 2010.

As a child, I loved Easter-- it meant candy, cannoli, watching Judy Garland and Ann Miller and, quite possibly, money. My family's Easter rituals were nearly interchangeable with our Thanksgiving ones. We just traded in the turkey for a ham and wore brighter colors. Of course, there was one notable, Easter-specific activity...

The Easter Egg Hunt.

There was a certain lack of enthusiasm for the hunt at my house. My brother and sister were much older than I and, therefore, largely bored by it. While Betty Ford was busying herself on the South Lawn showing children how to roll Easter Eggs, the only things rolling at my house were the jaded eyes of my siblings. At least they were kind enough to humor me.

Saturday night was spent breaking out the Paas egg dyeing kit, creating two-toned eggs and trying to somehow work the accompanying decals onto the eggs without tearing them. My brother sometimes attempted to create narrative tension on the surface of his eggs, which is a challenge when pastel colors and bunnies are involved. I believe one year my sister dyed one egg blue and painted the original movie poster from Jaws onto it. If anyone could make an Easter egg look menacing, it would have to be my sister. Once finished, we would admire our handiwork until the nausea induced by the acrid smell of the Heinz white wine vinegar wafting up from the egg dyeing cups finally drove us away. And then, at some point during my sleeping hours, the eggs would go into hiding.

I never really understood why the eggs felt the need to hide themselves-- it's not as though anyone in my family really enjoyed eating hard boiled eggs. They were in no real danger. I would have preferred to decorate my bookshelf with them or plant one in the back yard and pray that something interesting grew from it. Perhaps they were afraid of being buried alive.

So they hid. Usually in the same places every year. One always found its way into the piano bench, another in the chandelier which I could never quite reach. We always made an even dozen. When ten or so were found, the already low level of enthusiasm would wane. My mother always stepped into the Judas role, betraying the hiding place of one of the eggs. Eventually, one hiding under the living room sofa or concealed in a recycled Country Crock margarine container would betray itself by its own putrefaction. Usually sometime in May. Or June.

This year, thanks to my new-found interest in things Greek (or, at least, my interest in one particular Canadian of Greek descent), I am embracing the Greek Easter egg. I made a dozen of them yesterday. Why I keep making an even dozen, I'll never know. I suppose it would be more correct to make thirteen, since there were thirteen people present at the Last Supper and that, it would seem, is what got this whole Easter ball --or egg--rolling. Remind me to do that next year.

The traditions involving the Greek Easter egg are much different from our own, and much more no-nonsense than, say, the Russians'. The Russian Easter egg is far too expensive to be produced yearly, but they are a good investment if you have the money. The Greeks don't bother to hide their eggs. Why hide food you know you're going to eat later? Unless, of course, one is re-enacting an historical event and therefore hiding it from the Turks or the Germans. No, they just dye them blood red and put them in the middle of their dinner table. There's more to it than that, of course. There's a power game involved.

What to do when confronted with a Greek Easter egg.

1. Show no fear. This egg will most likely be presented to you by a Greek person. They can smell fear almost as well as they can smell lamb or a bargain. Just keep calm, smile and say "Kalo Pascha."
2. This egg now in your possession will be given to you after a dinner of spit-roasted lamb and many glasses of wine or ouzo. Take it and partake in a symbolic and faintly violent game of egg smashing.
3. One person will turn to another participant seated next to him and say something in Greek. The other person will respond, also in Greek, and they will smash the pointed ends of their respective eggs together. The participant whose egg emerges uncracked moves on to his next victim.
4. If that next victim is you, he will say to you "Christos Anesti!" (Christ is risen!) to which you must respond, "Alithos Anesti!" (He is truly risen!") and smash your egg into his.
5. If you are victorious, repeat this process until all eggs except one are cracked. If that egg is yours, it means that Jesus likes you better than anyone else in the room and that you will have good luck throughout the year.

What it all means.

The red coloring of the eggs represents the Blood of Christ to the Greeks. I just happen to think they are highly attractive.

The cracking of the egg symbolizes Christ breaking out of his tomb as he rises from the dead. If this is true, then I don't really understand why the person with the uncracked egg is favored. If there is a crack anywhere, in my opinion, it is in the logic of this game. Perhaps the others are simply masking their grief for the damned soul of someone who is now certain never rise to heaven.

If you decide to play the game but are somewhat uncomfortable with so much Jesus talk, you might try substituting your own ritual call-and-response during the game. Something non-religious, yet still meaningful. One person shouting out a love for corduroy while his challenger announces his preference for suede is one such suggestion. I find the Greek tradition of being in such strong verbal agreement with each other while engaging in such aggressive behavior unconvincing and lacking in any real dramatic tension. I suppose if the first person shouted out the usual "Christ is risen!" and the second person responded "Actually, I think he's still napping" or "Christ was a Turk", there might be some tension. It is undoubtedly to my own advantage that I don't know how to say those things in Greek. But it might be exciting to witness, nevertheless.

How to make Greek Easter eggs if no one else is willing to make them for you:

First off, I must implore you not to follow my example. I read the badly translated instructions off the back of a Greek Easter egg dye package, which called for a cold dyeing. I was unwilling to go out and buy more eggs and dye them properly. I already have more hard boiled eggs than I know what to do with. As a result, my eggs look more like the pocked surface of Mars than the pure life force of a Savior whose blood is said to have come directly from King David on his Mother's side and, well, whatever flows through His Father's side of the family.

Here is a better recipe:

Ingredients:

12 uncooked eggs
Water
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 package of Greek Easter egg dye
Olive oil

Preparation:

1. Carefully wash and dry each egg (I missed this part, so it must be important).
2. Set a large pot of water to boil. Add egg dye and vinegar to the water and bring to a boil to dissolve dye.
3. Set water aside and let cool. Refrigerate for all I care. It seems that every recipe I've read calls for putting uncooked eggs into boiling or near-boiling water. This sound plain crazy to me. Perhaps it is some odd, Greek act of faith. Perhaps it is precisely because I lack that faith that my eggs came out spotty.
4. Set now-cooled water over stove and carefully add the eggs. Bring water to a boil and turn off heat.
5. Let eggs sit for 10 minutes, remove them carefully and allow to cool and dry.
6. Wipe eggs with olive oil-soaked paper towels.
7. Wipe now with a clean, dry soft cloth to remove excess oil and to polish.
8. Place them on your Easter table and let the fun begin.

I love food. I think the fact that I maintain a food blog might hint at that. I also happen to love film. If we suspend our disbelief for a moment and pretend that food and film were women and that I were somehow straight, my relationship with the two of them would go something like this...

Film was my first love. She was wild, emotional, larger-than-life. We dated through high school and most of our university years, but we'd grown apart by our senior year. We loved each other but just couldn't commit ourselves to a serious, exclusive relationship.

Along comes Food, who'd been there all along, to console me. Stable and nurturing with both feet planted firmly in the earth, I thought "Oh, how blind have I been not to have seen her all my life?" She moved in with me and we started planning our future meals together.

Several years later, Food and I are still together, but part of me misses Film and always will. I confess sneaking off to see her every once in a while. Food pretends not to mind too much when she finds the theater stubs in my coat pocket. We've talked about my problem in couples therapy and, to my surprise, she confessed that she's always wondered what it felt like to be on Film.

Food, Film and Me. That's my idea of a three-way.

Are you nauseated? No? Then continue...

Food on Film. That's the topic for today. Yes, we've all seen Babette's Feast (30 times), Like Water for Chocolate, and Eat Drink Man Woman. All of these films appeal to us (or, at least me) for one reason or another. Food is center stage. Appetite as metaphor for human desire, etc. Another thing these films have in common is a central character for whom food is his or her primary outlet of expression. Cooking is action. They are, all of them, cuisine-driven cinematic heroes.

What has interested me lately are films in which cooking is not the central theme. I like to watch people who are not supposed to be food professionals preparing meals. For me, watching characters not known for their cooking abilities attempt to bake or boil is far more fascinating and often more telling. Think of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. If you own it, watch the scene in which Holly Golightly attempts to make dinner for Paul Varjak. Perhaps I read too much into things, but notice the way she tosses the salad. She doesn't know what she's doing. She's in over her head, which is entirely appropriate, considering the character. It's actually rather heart-breaking. The tension of the scene finds release when the contents of her pressure cooker ("Chicken and saffron rice with chocolate sauce, an East Indian favorite.") explode all over her kitchen. So the foreshadowing and symbolism are a little heavy-handed. Food-focused people get the sense of what's about to happen.

This week's pick comes from the rather odd little 1970 Jacques Demy musical, Donkey Skin. Based on the the fairly tale of the same name (well, the french Peau d'âne) by Charles Perrault. I saw this film with my friend Dan a couple of years ago. Sadly for him, I associated the name of the film with his own. Po' Dan. I don't' remember who dragged who to see it, but I'm grateful to either one of us. It is marvelously bizarre and wildly anachronistic (the resident Fairy Godmother descends in a helicopter, naturally). And then of course there's not one, but two Catherine Deneuves in a musical baking number.

A film could not be more up my particular alley.

In the scene below, Deneuve (the Princess/Donkey Skin) prepares a "love cake" for the object of her affection, a lovesick prince. The importance of this cake is illustrated by the fact that she feels the need to don her dress "the color of the sun" to prepare it. It matters little if you understand French. I just want you to take note of her baking skills. And, possibly, the movement of her full, lace-trimmed sleeves as she works. Whether Demy intended it or not, Deneuve's unconvincing technique speaks volumes. Remember, this is a fairly tale and a French fairy tale musical at that. The suspension of one's belief is critical. How else can Catherine Deneuve baking in that gown be explained? Of course, my belief has been suspended for so long that I am convinced that she can do just about anything, like turn Susan Sarandon into a vampire by merely rolling around half naked with her and exchanging fluids.

Enjoy the clip.

First of all, it's doughnut not donut. Let's give this pastry the respect it deserves. I suppose Mr. Doughnut is a bit much-- this treat is far too familiar to most of us for such formality. By familiar, I mean taken for granted. We've invited doughnuts into our homes often enough and spent endless hours with them in coffee shops, but what do we know about them? Have you ever bothered to ask one anything about itself? Of course not. They've infiltrated our children's schools, yet I doubt any County Administrator has ever bothered to do a background check on a single one.

Well, I have. Sort of.

You can say dank u to the Dutch. While you're at it, you might also want to thank them for cobbler and the koekje (cookie, if you couldn't figure that out on your own). The Dutch brought their recipe for olykoeks with them to the New World, where the name easily translated to "oily cakes"-- balls of sweet dough fried in pork fat. Sound like heaven on earth. Sweet dough and pork fat. I'm not kidding.

Somewhere in history, the oily cake hired an image consultant and changed its name to doughnut, most likely because they were, quite simply, little nuts of fried dough. Washington Irving mentions them as early as 1809. He seemed to know a lot about Dutch Americans.

There are a few tales, some of them tall, about how the doughnut got its hole. The best and most famous is that of one Captain Hanson Gregory whose mother sent him off to sea with-- what else?-- fried pastry. During a violent storm, Captain Gregory needed both hands free to man the wheel of his ship, so he impaled his doughnut upon the top spoke of the wheel, thereby creating the center hole.

Believe it. Or not.

A more likely explanation is that the center of the pastries had been notoriously hard to cook thoroughly. They usually ended up a doughy, oily goo. By punching a hole in the center, more surface area is created, therefore allowing for faster, more even cooking. But if you prefer to believe the first explanation, by all means do.

For a really good read about doughnuts, please visit Mr. Breakfast. I think he might be my new hero.

The Dutch, and through them, Americans, are not the only people on earth in love with puffy fried dough. The Argentines have their facturas, the Austrians love a good krapfen (giggle, it's okay), the Chinese go for youtiao (though it is not sweet), and the French, of course, are dating the beignet.

Wherever in the world you may eat them, eat them warm and fresh. A doughnut made yesterday dunked into this morning's coffee might be fine, but it really cannot compare to a doughnut still warm from the fryer. I almost typed friar, which might say a lot about me.

The last time I made doughnuts was in June of 2001. I must have been in love or something. I was going to my boyfriend's cousin's annual oyster party on Limantour Beach. I wanted to make a favorable impression on them and, for some reason, doughnuts seemed the perfect thing to make. Perhaps I had hoped that, had the wind kicked up a bit too much, no one would notice the sand that would stick to the pastries, camouflaged as they would be by their coating of granulated sugar. My boyfriend thought I was crazy to go to so much trouble. Maybe I was, but everybody still remembers the doughnuts.

Try making a batch for yourself. They're really easy. I mean it. You'll need a good thermometer though. The temperature of the oil is key.

Buttermilk Doughnuts

What I like most about this recipe, which has been borrowed from Epicurious.com, but altered slightly, is that the sweetness is rather subtle. I'm just not a super-sweet fan. I tend to regard these doughnuts as, well, cakes, though hopefully not oily ones. I like these served up on a plate with a bit of fruit sauce. Blueberry compote works really, really well. It's sort of like a lazy man's version of a jelly doughnut. Or, looked at in a more positive way, a healthy (or healthier) man's version.

Servings: Makes about 10

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening, room temperature
3/4 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 tablespoon almond extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Vegetable oil (for frying)

Powdered sugar

Preparation:

1. Place 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 1/4 cups sugar in large bowl.
2. Add buttermilk and next 7 ingredients.
3. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until just smooth.
4. Beat in remaining 1 cup flour.
5. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 6 hours.

6. Turn dough out onto floured work surface; roll to 1/2-inch thickness.
7. Using 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut dough into rounds.
8. Using 1-inch round cookie cutter, cut hole from center of each round, making doughnuts.
9. Gather scraps and reroll dough, cutting additional doughnuts until dough is used up.

10. Pour oil into heavy large pot to depth of 5 inches. Heat oil to 350 degrees Farenheit.
11. Add 3 doughnuts at a time to oil and fry until golden, turning once, about 6 minutes total.
12. Using slotted spoon, transfer to paper-towel-lined rack to drain. Repeat with remaining doughnuts. Cool.
13. Sift powdered sugar thickly over doughnuts.

My friend Lyle is mildly obsessed with coffee. If it's daylight outside, there is usually a paper take away cup filled with the black, caffeinated liquid within a two-and-a-half foot radius of him. I haven't measured his wingspan. I'm just telling you it's nearly always within his reach. Or nestled in a cup holder inside his car. The other night at work, he announced he was going to The Blue Bottle Coffee Co. the next day and was taking orders. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked what the big deal was. He mentioned that they happened to serve the best frigging coffee in the city. Only I am not certain he used that precise word.

The next afternoon, after a little bit of directional confusion for which I blame my own genetics and short attention span, I found my way to tiny Linden Street, the block known unofficially as The Artists Alley. I saw a crowd of about fifteen people not-too-neatly queued up in front of what looked like a garage. Lyle was there, off to the side reading a magazine; the remnants of something brown and foamy making its way gradually to the bottom of a little glass in front of him. "Order a Gibraltar," he said. That's what he had been drinking while waiting for me. I did as I was told, but I wanted to try their coffee, too. The line wasn't terribly long-- I waited about five minutes for my Gibraltar (which is basically a very short latte with just a titch of foam and, I believe, named after the glass in which it is served) and my cup of drip coffee (one size only, thank you). I threw in a few cookies for good measure and snapped a few photos.

The Gibraltar was good. Very good. I carefully sipped at it a couple of times-- creamy, well balanced and rich. I was happy. I thought about swirling it about in the glass as I one might do wine, but the glass is too small and I worried about the likely coffee stains down my shirt and crotch. I headed back to my apartment with Lyle to drink our drip coffee in relative comfort. By relative, I mean in a chair. By chair, I mean a piece of furniture with four legs and perhaps a bit of padding-- Blue Bottle has one plywood bench that I believe may have at one time been a seventh grader's midterm wood shop project. Such is the Blue Bottle's charm. I can't say I can blame them for not encouraging people to lounge-- the demand for their coffee can be fierce (they regularly sell out of their bags of whole beans)-- especially on weekends.

We sipped at the Bella Donovan en route to my apartment. This is, according to Blue Bottle's website, their most popular blend; "the wool sweater of our blends." I could feel the caffeine taking hold of me. I was feeling a little light-headed when I go out of Lyle's car. By the time we got ourselves into seated position--cookies in hand, I had consumed half my coffee. I felt the end of my nose tingle and my cheeks begin to go numb. This is serious coffee. I don't think I had ever gotten myself this caffeinated before. I hadn't intended on drinking two Charles Atlas-strength coffees on top of my accustomed morning cup-and-a-half. I felt nauseated. I blame myself, of course, but I now see the warning sign so clearly hinted at in the blend's name-- drinking this blend is like snacking on digitalis; my heart raced wildly and, had I thought to look in the mirror, I am certain my pupils would have been enormous. I hope it made me look pretty.

In spite of my caffeine overdose, I find myself in agreement with Lyle-- this coffee is frigging good.

If you are a serious coffee drinker and have not been to Blue Bottle Coffee Company, I suggest you give it a go. In addition to the garage/kiosk at 315 Linden Street, you will find them at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and at the Berkeley Farmer's Market on Saturdays, brewing and selling their wares.

For much more information, visit their website. It's an amusing and informative read:

Blue Bottle Coffee Company

More about Blue Bottle on BAB:
Blue Bottle Coffee Redux: One Giant Step for Coffeekind

Coffee Breakthrough

"A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-- and Thou" -- Omar Khayyam.

I am not going to dissect that line from the Rubiayat today. I just placed it in this blog to somehow justify the fact that I chose to photograph a $3.99 1.5 liter bottle of Carlo Rossi Burgundy and put it into my blog.

Today, I am going to a wine tasting. It's for work, so I'll have to do a lot of spitting, sadly. My friends and colleagues, Saeed and Lyle, have kindly taken the time to share their wine knowledge (and our restaurant's wine cellar) with the rest of their co-workers. This week's session is loosely structured. Today, they are merely taking call-in requests-- we're drinking whatever the hell we want to drink. I think I'm a rather lucky fellow to have this opportunity.

Of course, this is work. I pretty much live in a restaurant. I talk about wine with strangers. And food, of course. It's what I do.

When I am dining out with friends or family or anyone lacking in wine-related gumption (and I am not talking about gumption derived from wine intake), the wine list is automatically handed to me. In my earlier, I-have-to-impress-everyone-by-my-wine-knowledge days, this was a dangerous act of trust. Hopefully, my ordering habits have mellowed like, well, something that mellows. Friends, please correct me if I am wrong. I am still feeling my way.

The road of wine education has been a long one, with lots of sharp learning curves. And wet, too. Wine tends to make everything slippery, you know.

And the scenery is not always pretty. There are photos to prove it.

I myself was introduced to wine at an early age. Sadly, my early experiences weren't shaped by early autumn harvests at my grandfather's vineyards in Piemonte. He was an auto mechanic from Philadelphia. He liked beer. Lucky lager-- the brand with the little concentration puzzles on the insides of the caps. My first taste of wine came with a threat from his wife. "You're not getting down from this table until you finish your wine." I was five. My grandmother didn't like to waste anything. I cut my Ernest (R.I.P.) & Julio Gallo with as much ginger ale as I could pour into my wine goblet-- the one with the etched glass grape vines-- and did as I was told.

My introduction to champagne was only slightly more romantic. At nine, I ran about the garden tables filling the hollows of plastic Korbel "corks" with "champagne" and sipping from them daintily-- pinky raised-- at my cousin Stephanie's wedding. I hope no one saw the pinky action. I have no idea who I was imitating. It just seemed the proper hand gesture for champagne drinking.

No wonder I preferred hard alcohol in my youth.

I mention these little snippets of my upbringing because I have the feeling I am not alone. I was not a wine savvy child. I didn't really know too much about it until I thirty-ish. Though wine drinking is becoming a fast-growing sport here in the United States, I believe that most Americans are intimidated by the stuff. Please take that "Oh, but we live so close to Napa" expression off your face. Admit it, most Americans still drink beer with dinner. Or coffee. Or ([big] gulp) Diet Coke.

Wine is (I know you still have that smirk on your face and that can stop right now, foodie) simply not part of our collective heritage. We are not comfortable with it as a nation as a whole. Thank you, Pilgrims. Thank you, Volstead Act.

It saddens me to watch people squirm when faced with ordering wine, because it is my job as a waiter to make people comfortable. Choosing a wine should not be a daunting task, but it appears to so be for many. Which wine do I choose? What if I pick the wrong one? What if I don't like it? When I ask people what they feel like drinking wine-wise, the answer is either Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc if they want a white and Cab or Pinot for red. No one ever seems to say the full name of either grape. Pinot? Noir, Meuniere, Gris, Blanc? One of these days I will blend all of these into one glass and present it to someone. One of these days. I often plead with my guests to break out of their neo-oenophobia and just try something different. Please. I suppose we may just have to wait for another sleeper-hit film to push people into trying another varietal.

I've been through this particular agony myself. The I don't-know-anything-about-wine-so-I-am not-even-going-to-try syndrome. Or even oh-God-the-waiter-and-all-my-friends-will-judge me-if-I-order-the-wrong-thing. My point, if I indeed do have a point today, is that drinking wine should be a pleasant experience. If anyone laughs at you, wine is the perfect thing to "accidentally" knock from the table and onto his or her lap. No one should make fun of you (to your face) when you order wine. Oh, that's my other point. Snobbish wine people are annoying, which makes me think of a certain Polk St. wine bar that needs a good investigation. Thank you for reminding me.

Over the next few months, I intend to drone on about wine varietals I think you should be drinking and why you should be drinking them. I'll walk you through the geeky horrors of blind tasting and, not surprisingly, I'll pair up some victuals I'd like to eat with some wines I'd like to drink. Isn't that exciting? Say yes, even if you don't mean it. I'm fragile.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some serious imbibing to do. Over the next week, I expect you to get out there and drink something you've never drunk before, even if it's Bull's Blood of Eger. I expect a full report.

Twice in the past month, I have come face to face with the marshmallow.

The first instance was about three weeks ago. Rained out of what I had hoped to be a glorious weekend camping out at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur, my camping mates and I decided to have a campfire dinner at home. Any excuse to drink wine, light a fire and prevent a gallon of vegetarian chili from going to waste. I was asked to bring ingredients for s'mores. I did as I was told. The marshmallows were of the Campfire brand, which seemed appropriate enough. Upon tasting them-- and I do not consider myself a grand connoisseur of sticky, gooey sweets-- I was disappointed. More silky than Marshmallow Peeps certainly, but not what I would call satisfying. Can a marshmallow truly be satisfying?

The second time was earlier this week. I dipped into a hot bath on Tuesday in response to the heavens dumping their dishwater all over the Bay Area. Cold rain makes me run for hot water-- I find it's an excellent antedote. Depending on my bathtime mood, my drink of choice is either a) a dry martini (because it's all about balance for me) or b) a cup of hot tea. Either tend to work brilliantly at soothing the mind. Or dulling it. This particular Tuesday, I wanted neither. I craved instead hot cocoa. Hot cocoa with marshmallows. I didn't have any marshmallows in the house, so I thought, "Why not just make some?"

Why not just make some? I didn't know the first thing about marshmallow making, but that has never stopped me before. I admitted my ignorance as to what was even in a marshmallow except air and goo. I looked it up.

I was mildly fascinated by what I learned. These factory-produced confections have been with us, in one form or another, for thousands of years. We can thank or blame the Egyptians for their creation. Marshmallows (althea officinalis) grew wild in the marshy wetlands of Egypt. Though I had indeed heard of the marshmallow plant, it is difficult to connect this machine-made treat to anything even approaching organic, but there you go. I had this image in my head of little kohl-eyed children frolicking in the marshes, picking the candies like berries and placing them in their little reed baskets. There was more to it than that, as I'm sure you might have guessed. It is the mucilaginous root of the plant the Egyptians were after. Once extracted, the sap was mixed with honey to make the candy.

In the 19th century, doctors created what we might actually recognize as a marshmallow to use as a medicinal candy. The sap was cooked with egg whites and sugar to make a meringue that was used to soothe children's sore throats. Medicinal properties? Apparently, the (real) marshmallow is useful as a cough suppressant, immune system booster and wound healer. The thought of rubbing marshmallows on one's self if something I had imagined only existed on adult websites. I learned something new.

The marshmallow as we know it has no known healing properties, since the actual eponymous ingredient has been replaced, like everything else it seems, by modified corn products. Marshmallows are now, in fact, known to kill on occasion. Every played Chubby Bunny? No? Neither have I. I would not recommend you that you play, unless I really don't like you.

I would like to actually get my hands on some real marshmallow sap and try making them the old fashioned way. Until my Southeastern contacts locate a reliable source (the plant grows wild in the American Coastal South), I will have to satisfy my infrequent cravings with this. It's a good and easy-to-do recipe.

I can't wait to see if they explode in my microwave.

Marshmallows

This recipe calls for a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. I dropped a cast iron skillet on mine, so I ended up using what was available-- an 8 x 8 inch pan. Yes, there was waste involved.

Ingredients:

about 1 cup confectioners' sugar
3 1/2 envelopes (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

Oil bottom and sides of pan and dust bottom and sides with powdered sugar.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or, lacking a stand mixer, a plain old large bowl. [or, lacking and old bowl, a new one will do just as well]), sprinkle gelatin over cold water and let stand to soften. It will form a semi-solid gelatinous mass but don't worry, that's supposed to happen.

In a 3-quart heavy saucepan, cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, hot water and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil the mixture, without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240 degrees F (about ten minutes). Remove pan from heat and pour the syrup over gelatin mixture, stirring until the gelatin is dissolved. At this stage, I found the whole mixture to smell of an unclean cow's ass. I suppose it was the gelatin.

In a stand mixer, beat the sugar/gelatin mixture at high speed until white, thick and tripled in volume, about 6 minutes. If using a hand-held mixer, this should take about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, using clean beaters, beat egg whites until they just hold stiff peaks. Beat whites and vanilla into sugar mixture until just combined. Pour mixture into baking pan and sift 1/4 of powdered sugar evenly over the top. Place pan in refrigerator and chill, uncovered, until firm-- at least three hours and up to one day.

Run a knife around edges of pan and invert onto a large cutting board. With fingers, loosen marshmallow and cut into desired shapes and sizes. Sift remaining powdered sugar into large bowl and add marshmallows in batches, tossing evenly to coat.

Will keep for one week in an airtight container.

Makes about 96 marshmallows. I didn't get that many out of it. I like them big.