I just came back from our semi-annual library sale, and this time I didn't buy many cookbooks, and I didn't have any "finds", but I think I did OK. I got:

-The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian: Recipes from the New and Old Worlds, Simplified for the American Kitchen

-The Foods and Wines of Spain by Penelope Casas

-Ethnic Cuisine: How to Create the Authentic Flavors of Over 30 International Cuisines by Elisabeth Rozin

-Cocina tradicional mexicana by Blanca Nieto

I also got two children's cookbooks:

-Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook - 1997 edition

-Kids' Party Cookbook! by Penny Warner

and finally, a food writing book:

-The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection

They are all in pretty good shape, and I'm quite happy.

This is a list of the cookbooks I want. I have them on swaptree, but apparently none of the books I have for trade are good enough to get any of these :-(

A16: Food + Wine

Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook

Argentina Cooks!: Treasured Recipes from the Nine Regions of Argentina

Bouchon

The Complete Robuchon

Cafe Boulud Cookbook: French-American Recipes for the Home Cook

How to Cook Everything

Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook

Pintxos: Small Plates in the Basque Tradition

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook

I've been reluctant to try to capitalize this blog in any way, but given the financial situation I thought I'd give google ads a try - at least to help a bit with my bead obsession. So I'm giving it a try and putting a small, discreet, but not-endorsed-by-me (I don't get to chose the ad, and I can't even filter ones that I don't like) ads at the bottom of the left margin. Please click on them :-)

A small mini-mart opened a little while ago on the corner of Estabrook and Washington, behind Cafe Americano. Today I finally checked it out.

The store is small and carries staples (including some Asian ingredients like coconut milk and canned lichees) and fresh vegetables. Their selection of the latter is quite good. Everything is reasonably priced. While their inventory is not too vast right now, they are planning on increasing it.

As the store is only a block from my house, I expect I will be going there when I'm out of one or two items and don't want to go to Safeway. While I love Grocery Outlet, you can't expect to find something specific there. Plus their vegetable selection is not very good and it's not that cheap. Plus I like supporting the little guy. :-)

So, if you live in the neighborhood, check it out.

Marina Market
2150 Washington Ave., Unit A
San Leandro, CA
510-351-4000

I just realized that I have never reviewed the Mutt Hut, a humble restaurant with an exclusive menu of hot dogs, which is just around the corner from my house.

The Mutt Hut is a small place, they have 3 or 4 tables inside and perhaps a couple outside. They have hot dogs, polish sausages, hot links and a couple of other varieties. There are a variety of toppings (cheese, bbq sauce, etc.) but not much more. You can get chips and drinks and that's about it.

The hot dogs are good, but not extraordinary. This is basically a convenience place, where you can get a quick, cheap lunch. The owners are very friendly, there is always a newspaper around to peruse while you wait/eat, and the place is very clean. We come from time to time.

The Mutt Hut
1904 Washington Ave
San Leandro, CA
(510) 352-7794
M-Sa 11 AM - 5 PM

I have just learned that Biggie's Brazilian BBQ has closed, just a few months after opening. I'm quite sad about it (I hope my review did not have much to do with it), it's horrible when people put their dreams and sweat on a business, only to see it fail after a short time. Plus, I really liked the food when we visited.

I learned about Biggie's closing only a couple of days ago when I got an e-mail from restaurant.com - I just called to confirm and their number has been disconnected :-(

I made this epicurious.com recipe for Chicken with Black-Pepper Maple Sauce for dinner tonight. It was awesome. Or rather, the sauce was awesome. The chicken was OK, the skin was great, of course, but not much flavor penetrated into the flesh. But the sauce was incredible, even though I forgot to add the two tablespoons of butter needed to finish the sauce. As Mike put it "I'd eat anything dipped in that sauce".

I followed the recipe pretty closely but I used a 5.5 lb chicken instead of a 3-3.5 lb one. I'm sorry, but it's unrealistic to feed a family of 4 (and we were one more tonight) with just 3.5 lbs of meat. The 5.5 pounder fed the five of us well, and we have a couple of leftover pieces. The problem, however, is that it took longer for the chicken to cook (about half an hour longer), and the breasts overcooked a bit. Next time I'd use chicken pieces instead of a whole chicken, and I'd remove each part when it is ready. I increased the sauce ingredients by one-half to accommodate the larger chicken, but if I was going to make it again, I'd at least double the sauce recipe. It's that good.

I served the chicken with couscous and green beans. The sauce went incredibly well with the couscous and I'd recommend the pairing.

I should note that I only used about 1/2 Tbsp of peppercorns, rather than the required 1 1/2 Tbsp. As it was, the sauce wasn't in the least spicy, so next time I might increase the amount.

Like most non-vegetarians, I buy my ground beef already ground. It's easier and requires the washing of fewer dishes. It's not necessarily cheaper, however - apparently you can make good, lean ground beef from London broil, which is often on sale for less than $2lb.

In any case, an article in today's New York Times has convinced me that I should give up that practice. The article recounts how common is the contamination of ground beef by e-coli and how opposed to any testing of the product are both meat producers and processors (though specially the former). They don't want liability, so they don't want to test. Even when they do, it's very infrequently.

E-coli can be quite dangerous - lead to uremic hemolitic syndrome and to death. My own sister got the syndrome when she was 9-months old and has since then had three kidney transplants and a life that revolved around hospitals. It only takes a few e-coli cells to make you virulently sick, and e-coli multiplies every few minutes. Moreover, it doesn't go away by being cleaned with simple soap and water - you need to use bleach to disinfect your cutting boards to get rid of it. In other words, it's very easy to get infected.

It's not clear to me how dangerous is the handling of non-ground beef (what they call muscle meat), but it's surely safer than ground beef. So I'm going to try grinding my own in the food processor - specially when London broil is on sale.

I am a bad mother. There is no denying it. Today I helped Mika make peanut butter cookies from the Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook that I got at the library sale yesterday. But despite the fact that the nutritional information was displayed quite prominently on the top of the page, I failed to read it until now. And holy shit! Each regular-size cookie had 247 calories and 14 grams of fat. WTH? Who in their right mind can feed that to a child? And how am I now going to prevent her from eating them (the recipe made 60 cookies)? Well, I'm taking them to a tea today, so hopefully I can abandon any leftovers there :-)

As for the cookies, they are quite good, a bit dry but tasty. I'd make them again had I not looked at the nutritional info.

I had this recipe for fondue in my old food blog (no longer in existence), and for some reason I never copied it anywhere where it could be found. It's really good. You can, of course, use kirsch instead of calvados. I used the latter because I didn't have kirsch around.

-1/2 lb Havarti
-1/2 lb Gruyere
-1/2 lb Emmental
-2 tbsp. cornstarch
-2 cloves garlic, cut in two
-1 glass white wine
-3 tbsp. Calvados

Shread the cheeses, put in a bowl, add the cornstarch and mix together. Set aside.

Rub the garlic on the interior of the fondue pot and leave in. Add wine and heat until boiling. Add the cheese, a handful at the time, stirring until it melts. When all the cheese melts down, turn down the temperature and add the Calvados. Take to the table.

I served it with: mini-meatballs (I'll post the recipe separately), vegetarian tortellini (from Trader Joe's), organic broccoli, apple slices (it was REALLY good) and fresh Sourdough bread.

Chocolate fondue is SOOO extremely easy to make that I have to wonder why they sell "chocolate fondue" kits at the supermarket. You basically need only three ingredients: chocolate of some kind, cream of some kind (condensed milk also works if you use unsweetened chocolate) and alcohol of some sort. I think the key is to use good quality chocolate.

-1/2 lb semi-sweet chocolate (shredded, chopped or chocolate chips)
-1/2 lb milk chocolate (shredded, chopped or chocolate chips)
-1/2 cup heavy cream
-Chocolate Liqueur, Kalhua and Bailey's to taste.

Heat the cream in the fondue pot. Add the chocolate and stir until it's all melted. Add more cream if necessary to get the right consistency. Add the liqueurs, take to the table and serve.

Serve with cubed cheese cake, cubed pound cake (Sara Lee's), sliced bananas and mixed berries, or anything else you like.

Note, you can used the cooled chocolate fondue as a great filling for cakes and other pastries.

According to an article in today's LA Times, a new federal regulation explicitly requires bloggers who receive cash or in-kind payment to review a product to disclose the fact that they were compensated. Such posts are considered an endorsement of that product. Bloggers are allowed to receive a sample of the product for review, provided that it's not too expensive (e.g. like a car).

Personally I think it's appalling that anyone would review a product for compensation and not disclose that fact. Who can trust a reviewer that gets paid by the manufacturer/establishment to write that review? I even think that it's unethical (though it perhaps should not be illegal) to not disclose it when you get free samples, it's hard to write a critical review when someone was nice enough to send you a box of cheesecakes (and yet, I think I managed to be so). But when you get paid? No way you will be objective.

Unfortunately the regulation does not have any penalties associated with it. At worse, the culprit can get a cease-and-desist letter and be taken to court if he does not abide by it. But how likely is that to happen?

I got this incredibly simple recipe from Highlights High Five magazine (a wonderful, if very expensive, magazine for preschoolers). Camila (my 4.5 yo) decided she wanted to make it today and she managed quite well by herself. I did do the blending (I used my rocket blender) and put the cups in the freezer, but she did everything else.

The original recipe calls for little paper glasses and popsicle sticks - I didn't have either so I used small plastic cups and the handles of plastic spoons. They came out great, the kids loved them and they couldn't be easier.

I also didn't have vanilla yogurt, so I used plain yogurt, added a couple of drops of vanilla essence and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.

• 1 1/2 cup strawberries
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

Put strawberries and yogurt in a blender and blend well. Pour mixture into 4-6 small cups. Place in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Put popsicle sticks in the middle of the popsicles and continue freezing for 2-3 hours.

I usually shop at Safeway rather than Lucky's, as Safeway is closer to me. However, I saw that lamb chops were on sale at Lucky's for $3lb and figured I'd give them a try. Bad idea. They were soooooo bad, so full of fat that there was barely any meat to eat. Even cutting around the fat was a pain in the neck.

So yes, I learned my lesson, there is a reason why Lucky's is cheaper than Safeway.

Last night I made Sumac Skirt Steak with Pomegranate Reduction from an epicurious.com recipe. It was a fairly quick recipe to make, but I wasn't thrilled with it. I did overcook the pomegranate juice somewhat, but my biggest problem is that the flavors of the spice rub and sauce hid those of the meat.

Mike really liked the dish, though. I'm mentioning it here, but I won't cook it again.

My kids, like all other American kids, love mac & cheese. They are usually not very discriminating, they'll eat the Kraft stuff, the Safeway stuff, the Annie stuff, whatever we put in front of them. What they haven't been willing to eat - until now - was homemade mac & cheese. Well, this is no longer the case. Mika, my 7-yo, has been begging me to make it again. Camila, my 4-yo, wasn't as enthusiastic, but she really liked it as well. Alas, I'm not sure that nutritionally this recipe is any better than the regular mac & cheese (which now comes with whole-grain pasta). It's definitely much less friendly to my pocket book. But I'm sure I'll make it again.

The original recipe called for sharp cheddar but I used a mixture of pre-shredded Mexican mixture and home-shredded muenster, as that's what I had at home.

Mac & Cheese

• 12 oz small elbow macaroni
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 2 slices bread, crumbled
• 4 tbsp. flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• 3 cups (packed) grated cheese
• salt & pepper to taste

Cook the pasta on salted boiling water until tender but firm. Drain and put in a 9" x 13" baking pan.

Meanwhile, pre-heat broiler.

Also meanwhile melt the butter in a medium-size saucepan. Put the breadcrumbs in a small bowl and mix in 1 Tbsp. butter. Set aside.

Add the flour to the butter in the saucepan and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Gradually add the milk and broth, continuing whisking. Bring to a boil and add the green onions. Continue cooking and whisking for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and mix in the grated cheese. Stir until it's completely incorporated.

Pour the cheese sauce onto the macaroni and mix well. Season with salt and pepper if necessary. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top of it. Broil until the crumbs brown, about 2 minutes. Serve.

Marga's Best Recipes

An article in today's still extant San Francisco Chronicle reveals the Bay Area restaurants that have received Michelin stars this year. The French Laundry was, once again, the only restaurant to get three stars. Two stars went to Coi, Cyrus, Manresa and the Restaurant at Meadowood, and 34 restaurants got one star. Unfortunately only two restaurants in the East Bay got that coveted star - Soizic in Oakland, which had it one time, no longer does.

I'd love to try the 1 and 2 star restaurants, but given the economic climate I doubt that will happen. Indeed, two of the restaurants who received one Michelin star have already closed, which tells you we are not the only ones that have to be very careful with money.

I admit it, I'm prejudiced. Not prejudiced about everyone and everything, but definitely about some categories of people and things. For example, I'm prejudiced against cuisine from the American heartland, cuisine that includes processed ingredients (cream of mushroom soup, ketchup) as well as canned or frozen produce. While this recipe comes from Bon Appetit (courtesy of epicurious.com), I think it might best belong to the pages of Parade magazine (there again is my prejudice).

Still, it was a different recipe for short ribs (one that did not include celery, carrots or wine) and one that got amazing reviews on epicurious. With nice looking short ribs at $1.99lb at Lucky's I had to try it. And, my non-existent God, I'm soooo glad I did. This may very well be the best recipe for short ribs I've made so far. I loved it because the flavors penetrated into the meat, making the sauce a nice addition but ultimately unnecessary. I also like sweet meats, this is definitely not for those adverse to fruity flavors on their beef.

I followed the recipe closely, but I did make some changes based on the reviews and convenience. I'd definitely would make it as I did - though I'd try to braise the meat the day before so I had time to cool and de-fat the sauce before serving it (for the life of me, I don't understand how to use a fat separator). I served it with mashed potatoes, but I don't think it was a good marriage. Next time I'd try couscous.

This recipe introduced me to Chili sauce, which, as far as I can tell, is a kind of ketchup, it definitely tastes like it. I doubt it has any chilis and it's not in the least spicy.

Pineapple Short Ribs

• 4-5 lbs beef short ribs
• salt & pepper to taste
• flour for coating
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 onions, quartered
• 1 8 1/4 oz can pineapple chunks with juice
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1/2 cup Heinz or similar chili sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 4 garlic cloves, minced.

Preheat oven to 275F. Cut excessive fat from short ribs. Season to taste and lightly coat with flour. Heat oil in a dutch oven or another lidded oven-safe wide pot. Add the ribs and brown well on all sides. Add the onions, pineapple with juice, broth, chili sauce, honey, Worcestershire sauce and cloves. Mix well.

Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook covered for 3 hours, then remove the lid and cook for another hour. Take out of the oven and carefully remove the short ribs, keep warm by covering them with a towel. Place the cooking pot on the stove and boil the remaining sauce until it reduces to about 1 1/2 cups. Strain and discard the vegetables. Serve short ribs accompanied by the sauce.

I've never been a big fan of Scharffen Berger because I'm not a fan of dark chocolate. Give me milk any time. Well, apparently Scharffen Berger has, unbeknown to me, been making milk chocolate for a while. Today I found their 3oz bars at Grocery Outlet here in San Leandro. The bars are $2 - they sell for $5 at Scharffen Berger's website. Of course, these bars are close to expiration (January 2010), they were made at the Berkeley factory
which closed in January 2009.

Well, my verdict is that Scharffen Berger milk chocolate is (or was) by far the best milk chocolate I've ever tasted. The chocolate taste is very intense, it has layers of complexity and it's just delicious. I imagine that Scharffen Berger will not/has not been able to keep its standards at the new factory - so I'll probably hurry and buy a bunch of these bars at Grocery Outlet.

I probably shouldn't make fun of this but today the Vatican beatified father Carlo Gnocchi, a military chaplain during WWII who went on to dedicate his life to the disabled. It's not clear what miracle father Gnocchi is said to be responsible for (you need to have performed one miracle to be beatified - the first step on being cannonized) - but I want to believe that it was something to do with food. Perhaps a bad cook somewhere prayed to him to make a good Bolognese sauce? Yeah, I doubt it too - but with a name like that I think it'll be hard to not associate saint Gnocchi with food and perhaps today, as I attempt a boeuf bourguignon recipe based on Julia Child's, I'll pray to him ;-)

This is not a recipe as much as a method for cooking spare ribs in the oven. It results in delicious, fall-of-the-bone ribs. The best part is that you don't need either to boil or grill the ribs. Use any sauce you like with these ribs - go Asian with a soy sauce/vinegar/honey sauce (Mike specially liked this one) or use a very-American BBQ sauce. If the latter, you may want to start brushing the sauce in the last 15 minutes. The cooking method comes from someone who commented on this recipe

Oven-roasted spareribs

• 1 rack of spareribs
• salt & pepper
• your choice of seasonings or rubs (optional)
• your choice of sauce

Preheat oven to 250F. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil.

Cut the spareribs into individual serving pieces. Season with salt and pepper and any other seasonings or rubs that you might like.

Place ribs on the pan, cover tightly with aluminum foil and roast in the oven for 2 hours. Remove and turn oven temperature to 375F.

Remove the ribs from the pan and drain off all the liquid. Return ribs to the pan and brush with sauce. Return them to the oven and roast uncovered for 30 more minutes, basting two times and making sure that the sauce doesn't burn. Serve.

I made this epicurious.com recipe for Linguine with Pears and Gorgonzola Cheese using spaghetti but otherwise faithfully following the instructions. We found the sauce pretty good and appreciated the texture element that the pears brought to it - but all in all we found it an unnecessary element. Next time I'll just skip them. I'm typing up the recipe because 1) epicurious.com has this habit of changing the urls of their recipes and 2) after the closure of Gourmet I'm concerned about how long epicurious.com may be around.

Pasta with Gorgonzola sauce

• 12 oz pasta

• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
  
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
  
• 1 cup chicken broth
  
• 5 oz Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
  
• 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
  
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
  
• salt & pepper
  
• 1/3 cup chopped roasted pecans
  

Boil water and cook the pasta. Drain.

Meanwhile, melt butter over medium heat in a large, deep skillet. Add the rosemary and cook for 1 minute, stirring.

Add the chicken broth, Gorgonzola cheese, Parmesan cheese and cream. Mix well. Simmer until the sauce is somewhat thick, about 6 minutes, whisking occasionally. Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the pasta and the pecans. Mix well and cook for about 3 more minutes.