I have owned several kitchen timers over my 20+ years cooking, but none have lasted very long. Now this may be because invariably I've bought the cheap kind, or it may be because timers today are not made that well.

For the last couple of years, though, I've been using my grandmothers old Magic Chef timer - which I would guess (by the style and my grandmother's last trip from Argentina to America, where she bought it) dates from the 50's or 60's, for the last couple of years and I love it. It works perfectly every time, it runs neither quick or slow and it doesn't stop. It has a loud but not annoying ring and I'm just happy with it.

The kitchen timer is not in the best condition. It's rusted in the back and the front plate is sort of lose. It's lasted 50 years and I hope it'll last a couple of more decades. I hope.

I was reluctant to use the timer at first, just as I am reluctant to use any of my grandmother's kitchen utensils. I brought them with me from Argentina after my adored aunt Gladys died because of the emotional attachment I had to them. I grew up seeing Granny and Gladys cook and bake with them, and when I look at them (the utensils) I can feel the warmth of their kitchen, and remember those sweet moments. But there is some sweetness in using the utensils, it's almost like maintaining the connection between Granny and Gladys and I. So for the time being at least, I'll continue using my timer.

Every year I put a bunch of cooking stuff in my Xmas list - and this year Santa (aka my friends/family) have obliged.

My friend Lola got me a copy of the Bouchon cookbook - which I've wanted for a long time. I've never been to Bouchon (one of the restaurants of acclaimed chef Thomas Keller), but I've been to the The French Laundry, albeit many years ago, and that was definitely the culinary experience of my lifetime. My friend Regina got me The French Laundry Cookbook a few years ago, but the recipes there were impossible to make for the home chef. I didn't even try.

I am looking forward to cooking from this book, though. At first glance, the recipes seem approachable; Bouchon is a bistro and thus it serves bistro food, which (to a limited extent) I know how to cook. The book, however, suffers from the disability of being *big* and *heavy*. According to Amazon, its dimensions are over 11" x 11" (closed) and it weights over 5lbs. It's also beautiful, which may make me think twice before using it in the kitchen. But, I do have one of those multi-use printer/fax/scanner thingies, so I may just photocopy the recipe I want to use and leave the book on the coffee table :-)

I got three other culinary gifts.

My brother got me a set of beautiful serving-size wooden bowls. They are very pretty and serviceable - and I'm aghast that my brother actually has such good taste.

My sister Kathy got me a Knife Sharpener (Farberware Platinum), which I asked for because last year I got a couple of nice knives, which have not been sharpened since. Mike, meanwhile, got me a J.A. Henckels International Classic 10-Inch Sharpening Steel. As far as I can tell, a knife sharpener /sharpens/ knives, while a sharpening steel keeps them sharpened, so it's useful to have both things. We'll see how they work out.

And I think that's it.

A good Xmas loot, all in all - now I have to clean my kitchen from Xmas Eve dinner/Xmas breakfast so I can actually start using the stuff I got :-)

I don't know why it's so hard to find brisket in this part of the Bay Area - or even find out if it's available. It's Hanukkah, brisket is traditionally made for Hanukkah, you'd think stores would understand that, but noooo.

The Safeways in San Leandro don't carry it, the Lucky's in San Leandro & San Lorenzo were out of it, Al Lunardi & Co's, a local meat company, had it at $2.50 lb, but each brisket was between 12 and 15 lbs. Galvan's, another local butcher, didn't have it. The meat departments of P & W in Castro Valley, Draegers and Farmer Joe's wouldn't answer the phone. Sheesh!

I finally found it (the flat kind) at Smart & Final in Hayward. The smallest brisket was 9lbs, but it was only $1.80 a lb, so I can't complain. Now I'm not sure if I want to cook it all at once or cut it in two and freeze one half. I like having leftovers, but if we have too much we probably won't eat it. Decisions, decisions!

For the last few days we've been having fruit flies pestering us. First they were after some fruit, then after some strawberry jam, and then after whatever they could find. Annoying.

Last night I unwittingly left out an opened bottle of Charles Shaw Sauvignon Blanc and woke up this morning to a fruit-fly-free kitchen. It seems that the little fruit flies are fatally attracted to this wine. A waste of $2, of course, but at least now I know how to get rid of fruit flies the next time they attack.

Yesterday, a guy came to my door with some story about delivering meat somewhere and being left with a lot of stock on his truck (all sorts of things) that he was selling for cheap. He, of course, offered to sell me some - I, of course, declined.

Why, I can only wonder, would anyone buy meat from some stranger from a truck? Can the bargains be /that/ great, that someone would be willing to risk the possibility that the meat be contaminated, had been kept badly, be ready to go bad, come from sick cows, or just be less than tender? And who the hell are these people and where did they get that meat?

If anyone has any clue as to the last question, please let me know. I'm intrigued :-)

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 ;-)

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'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 factor I didn't consider when I made my menu plans for the week (I'll be cooking Colombian and Costan Rican food, and trying to make desserts from the Baleares, Bordeaux and Croatia). Fortunately Ramadan lasts a whole month, so I have time to get in the spirit of the season :-)

I'll be cooking a Chinese Muslim dish next week, the only one I could find, and then I'll look for some typical Ramadan food. I remember that when I was in Morocco (over fifteen years ago), the iftar menu was pretty standard. It had some lentil soup, a hard boiled egg and a very sweet pastry - I don't remember if anything else. I'll look it up and try it.

If you know traditional Ramadan food from any other country, please let me know.

You've heard it over and over, from both expert cooks and people who have barely stepped into a kitchen: "never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink". I think few commands have frightened people off the kitchen, or at least off cooking with wine, than this one. While there are many drinkable wines under $5-10, it's hard to predict whether the one you chose will be one of them, so if you follow this mantra chances are you'll end up spending much more money on the wine that you'd otherwise want to. And all for nothing, because the truth is, cheap wine makes GREAT cooking wine.

I've been cooking with 2-bucks-chuck pretty much since it came out. I won't drink it unless I have to, but I find it perfectly fine to flavor sauces, braises, stews and marinades. I very seriously doubt that anyone would be able to tell the difference between a dish cooked with a $20 award winning wine and one with chuck - once you heat them up and combine them with other flavors, cheap wine improves magnificently. Indeed, that's what NY Time food writer Julia Moskin found out, when she decided to test the premise by making identical dishes both with good wine and cheap wine - she couldn't tell the difference in the finished dishes.

And it's not only cheap wine that makes great cooking wine - old wine is also good for food. I pretty much never finish a bottle of wine when I open it - so I keep the leftovers in the fridge for when the muse inspires me to cook. In my experience, wine will still be good for at least two weeks after you open the bottle. Just make sure to put the cork back before you put it in the fridge.

Last night the kids were at a sleepover and Mike and I went to see Julie & Julia. I had read great things about the "Julia" part of the movie, and I was vaguely interested in the "Julie" part, as my friend Lola had followed the blog way back then and really enjoyed it. Alas, like everyone else said, that part of the movie was pretty "blah". Julie looks for a gimmick for getting rich/famous as a writer, lucks into a good one, gets rich/famous as a writer while spouting some nonsense about being saved by Julia or becoming a better person through Julia. A pretty weak dramatic arch, if you ask me, and one that the actual Julia Childs does not seem to have bought into. Indeed, she seemed to think, correctly IMHO, that it was just a stunt. But hey, more power to Julie, right? Too bad she didn't wait until Julia was at least dead so as to not mock her on her face. But as Julie herself acknowledged in the movie, she is quite the egocentric person.

The Julia part, as everyone said, was wonderful - and yes, I hated not seeing Meryl Streep/Julia, more on the screen. I thought that Mery Streep was great in mimicking Julia's accent and joie de vive, though I'd like to have seen more complexity to the character - which I'm sure could have been shown if they'd cut the Julie story out of it.

In all it was a sweet movie, nothing if not fluffy, but enjoyable enough. I did not get out of it wanting to cook or eat French food (the way you drool over Mexican food in Tortilla Soup), though that duck at the end seemed like a fun challenge.

I've been enjoying watching Top Chef Masters - in particular this last show, in which the winners of the last six previous episodes competed against each other by making each other's signature dishes. Part of what I've enjoyed is getting to know the chefs, some of whom were completely unknown to me.

I've been rooting for Hubert Keller, the chef-owner of Fleur de Lys, a restaurant that I've gone to a couple of times. I loved the food last time, though the service and timing left much to be desired. In any case, Hubert is local and seems like a very cool guy, he has these big, puppy dog eyes and gives an aura of happiness. He is also clearly very secure on himself and his cooking, clearly he has mastered both technique and flavor profiles, and yet you don't ever see him boast. I think he is the true master.

And yet, I was very surprised on how well Rick Bayless has done. I've seen some of his shows and I have not been particularly impressed by him. Part of it is that I'm prejudiced about a non-Mexican becoming the voice for Mexican food in America - mostly through his television programs. It seems sort of unfair. It's difficult to believe that there aren't Mexican chefs that are just as accomplished. I'm also prejudiced against the true cooking abilities of television chefs. Clearly there are some who are marvelous cooks, such as Jacques Pepin - his techniques are so beautiful and effortless, you know the end result must be great. But others seem too young, too inexperienced to be the experts they proclaim themselves to be. And of course, some are truly grating (Joanne Weir in particular). Until this show, I would have put Bayless in that category. He seems quite arrogant about his knowledge of Mexican cuisine and enunciates too much when he speaks. But seeing him in the last two shows has made me change my mind. For one, I learned that he was in Mexico working on his PhD in Anthropology when he fell in love with cooking. That indicates to me that his primary interest is, or at least was, on the Mexican people - that he wants to know about them (even if through their cuisines) and that he probably does have a respect for Mexican culture that was not apparent to me before. In other words, maybe he is, indeed, paying an homage to Mexican cuisine by bringing it to this country, instead of just stealing it for fame and profit. The other thing that impressed me is that he clearly is a good cook who understands the fundamentals of cuisine. He won by making an Italian dish, after all, something you wouldn't expect from him.

My suspicion of TV chefs also made me wonder about Michael Chiarello; but I've been impressed by his modesty (even though he did say he was going to win the show). Clearly he understands his own limitations (while Keller, for example, doesn't seem to think he has any).

I was happy to see Anita Lo do so well. I hadn't heard of her before the show started, but it's nice to see a minority woman do so well (in particular given this). Her food seems really interesting as well. I think it's really hard to do fusion food well, it requires an intense knowledge of several cuisines, great technique and creativity, which I think many fusion chefs don't have. I'd love to go to her restaurant.

I have little opinion of the other two chefs. Suzanne Tracht didn't seem to have much of a personality. I loved Art Smith's personality, but I think I may be partial to teddy-bear gay guys.

Anyway, I can't wait to see what happens. And I'm still rooting for Keller.

Alice Waters has gotten into pr trouble by stating that she'd want her last meal to be shark fin soup - apparently unaware that sharks are caught, had their fins cut off and then are thrown back into the sea to die. Now that she knows, she's changed her mind.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mbauer/detail?entry_id=44654&tsp=1

It seems a bit surprising that she wouldn't know about the horrible treatment of sharks in the first place, but then again - how much of the food we consume is from animals that have been horribly treated? Sometimes I think the only ethical choice is to be a vegetarian - too bad I don't like vegetables.

I would never have guessed that they have cooking videogames, but apparently there are several out there. The skills they "teach" seem to be quite basic (e.g. how to shake salt into ground beef to make a hamburger), and I wonder how they can be in any way more helpful than watching a food show on TV. But hey, to each its own.

I was just thinking that one of the reasons that I like cooking so much is that I am a very careless person. I rarely pay much attention to the world outside me (a horrible trait for a mother), and I'm the opposite of meticulous. That means that I often skim through a recipe, missing ingredients and steps. Indeed, I seldom look at the directions for a recipe before I start cooking (I guess this also means I'm pretty confident in my ability to do anything the recipe would call for). And often I just glance at the ingredients, forgetting to buy one or two. Sometimes I send my husband to buy them (poor buy), others I just improvise or do without.

But cooking is forgiving, often very forgiving. Often times a missing ingredient will not make a huge difference, same thing for a missed step. Forgotten spices can be added later, salt fixes a thousand mistakes.

Baking is not so forgiving, some people insist that it calls for exactitude and sometimes that's true. But a few weeks ago I made a cheesecake that called for five packages of cream cheese and I forgot one. It was just as good. Still, I enjoy cooking much more than baking.

I've always wanted to have an herb garden. Herbs are impossibly expensive at the supermarket (usually around $2 for a package, and you can't buy them in smaller units) and you don't tend to use them that much. But I'm a terrible, neglectful gardener - or rather, I'm not a gardener at all, so I've just mumbled and grumbled about wanting an herb garden and never really did anything about it.

Then, a few weeks ago, my 7-year-old daughter Mika started saying she wanted to plant vegetables. I figured if she was planting, I could be planting too, so I cleared out a section of dirt by the front porch and planted some rosemary, sage, chives and basil, plus some thyme and oregano in a pot I already had. The kids, meanwhile, planted some veggies in the back yard.

We've been meticulous about watering them every day - and they are finally paying off. The herbs are doing beautifully and actually starting to expand. Hey, the moment may come when they fight each other off :-)

Here are some pictures I took this morning. We'll be cooking with our herbs all week long (tonight I'll be making some pesto). I'll post recipes, if warranted.

And here are some of Mika's veggies & fruits:

And finally, some blackberries we've let grow:

The last issue of Food & Wine magazine has an article about the "best new chefs" and a picture of 11 of them in the cover. Mika, my 7-year-old, took a quick look at it and noticed "there is only one girl". And indeed, she's right. There are also no noticeable minorities. Do you need to be male and white to be noticed as a chef in America? Or are only white men becoming chefs?

Top Chef, the Bravo TV reality series, seems to have little trouble finding a good number of women and minorities for its show (though most winners have been white males) - so I don't believe that good, new women & minority chefs are not there, perhaps they are just not cooking at the "bistro"-style restaurants where many new chefs establish their reputations. Or perhaps they are cooking more ethnic cuisine.

Food & Wine Magazine has an article in its latest issue on the question of whether meats should be salted before they are cooked. There are few issues that are as controversial in the area of cooking. Some cooks are convinced that if you pre-salt meat, it will dry out. Others think that pre-salting greatly enhances the flavor. Harold McGee, the food scientist author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, for his part, states that while lots of salt will dry meat, "the small amount of salt used to season food has a hydrating effect: Salt helps the cells hold on to water"

But that's all theory. What's actually the truth when you hit the skillet? Food writer Oliver Schwaner-Albright set to find out. He got some meat, salted some a day ahead, and the other right before cooking. Then he roasted chicken and pork ribs, seared steak and braised lamb shanks. The results? Inconclusive.

The pre-salted chicken was more flavorful and moist while the pre-salted ribs were awfully dry. There was no consensus on which steak was better, but the pre-seasoned lamb was definitely more delicious than the other one. So no golden rules, it seems that what works best will depend on the type of meat and preparation. Oh well, I'll have to continue salting by instinct (or recipe) :-)

I had been looking forward to my short trip to Barcelona almost as much for the food I was going to taste as for the places I was going to see and the people I was going to see. With the advent of restaurants such as El Bulli (where I have not been and which does not serve Catalan food) and Manresa (in the Bay Area), Catalan cuisine is achieving some sort of recognition in the US. My sojourn through Catalan cuisine was quite successful and I now wanted to see what Catalan dishes would taste like when cooked right. Alas, I ended up being disappointed, not as much as in the cuisine, as in my own experience with it.

The first problem was that for whatever reason I became a bit stomach sick after arriving in Barcelona - whether the culprit was airline food or a Burger King burger from Kennedy airport, I will never know - but the fact was that I didn't feel like eating anything my first day in Barcelona. A small lunch at Restaurante Taxidermista in Barcelona's Plaça Reial was my first introduction to Catalan food - but its brief menu only allowed me to taste pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomato) and some Catalan sausages. They were both very good, however.

I didn't eat again until the next day, when I ended up by accident (i.e. telling myself "I'll sit down at the next restaurant I find") at a Galician restaurant somewhere. Here I had some more pa amb tomaquet, some ravioli with sauce and some grilled quail - neither of which impressed me. Once again I skipped dinner that night.

The next day was the start of the meeting I was attending. I had lunch with my colleagues at Restaurante Mango, on Aveda. Diagonal 635, very near my hotel. Mango does not actually serve Catalan food, instead concentrating on pizzas, salads, pastas and paellas. I had the Tropix pizza (E12) and it was good, though nothing special. My colleagues seemed happier with their salads and pastas - so maybe pizza is not the way to go here.

That evening we had the buffet dinner at Restaurante Contraste, the restaurant of the Hotel Princesa Sofia, where we were staying. This was probably the best buffet dinner I've had. Though the selection wasn't terribly broad, everything they had was fresh and great tasting. I had a simple salad (beware that there are no ready-made dressings, though) and then two of the three pre-made entrees. I think one was cannelloni and the other some stewed meat, very good though a bit salty. There were plenty of desserts, I tried the crema catalana which once again did not impress me - but most of the other bites were quite good. They also have a grill station which I didn't try, my suspicion after several meals is that Spanish/Catalan beef is not particularly good in the first place. Other people seemed quite happy with their selections, though. I think the buffet is about E45-50, but we got a special group rate. In any case, if you want to eat at the buffet you may want to inquire whether it's cheaper if you pay for it when you register.

The next two lunches were at the University, where we were served 3-course meals which included wine! Leave it to the Catalans :-) The food was quite good though not terribly exiting. Our second dinner was at a popular restaurant in the Gothic quarter - unfortunately I don't remember the name. We had popular Catalan tapas/appetizers such as croquettes, tomato bread and several things I didn't recognize - but everyone seemed quite happy with them. I had the veal with brie, which seems to be a popular dish in Barcelona, and it was nice but also not too exiting - the veal wasn't as tender as you'd wish. I ate it assuming that baby cows are not mistreated in Spain the way they are in the US - I hope that's true.

Our last dinner was at La Botiga, also close to the hotel. It was also quite good.

So, what am I left with? Well, my impression now is that Catalan food as randomly served in Barcelona is good and solid, but not magical. My standards, however, may be too high - I've been cooking a lot of really good Mediterranean food lately (you'd be surprised at how many "C" cuisines are in the Mediterranean), and, if I say so myself, I'm quite a good cook, so it takes a LOT to impress me.

Mika made pancakes all by herself this morning! It's the second time she makes them, but last time she wasn't very clear about directions/proportions. She didn't relize that 1/4 cup of sugar was different from 4 cups of sugar :-)

This time we took out all the ingredients together (good thing, because I put something in a jar that looks very much like coarse sugar - I don't know what it is, but I suspect a dangerous chemical), and we went over the proportions (what is a cup, what is a tablespoon and what is a teaspoon). The result was that she did very well - she even remembered that we needed to include sugar, which I'd left out when I copied the recipe!

The pancakes came out great, very fluffy and great tasting! We didn't have any maple syrup (a visit to TJ's is in order), but we ate them with a strawberry sauce and whipped cream. The strawberry sauce was great, all I did was put a bunch of washed, cut strawberries in the blender, add a little bit of water and some sugar. How much of each will depend on your strawberries (how sweet they are) and blender. Mika really liked the sauce (I did too)! By itself, is also healthier than maple syrup - and cheaper! I learned the "recipe" in a cooking class on sauces I took at the Castro Valley Adult School.

This time I actually cooked the pancakes myself, I'm a little weary of letting her cook by herself now. She's still a bit too short to comfortable see and handle pans on top of the stove and, like her mom, she can be a little clutzy.

She wants us to have a tradition of Saturday morning pancakes. I know that traditions are really important for kids, and our lives are pretty disorganized, so that may be a nice thing to do.

I just saw this video in Salon.com and I cannot get over the shock of seeing Padma Lakshmi, of Top Chef fame selling herself in this commercial for Carl's Junior (or another burger company, I can't imagine anyone paying attention to what the product actually is). If you are a guy, you'll probably think the video is really hot. As a woman I find it repulsive. Doesn't she make enough money on Top Chef, modeling and writing cookbooks, that she also needs to cheapen herself in a commercial like this?

I also just heard that she is Salman Rushdie's ex-wife - which doesn't surprise me, the guy may be a great writer, but he's also a publicity whore.

Last night I made a simple rice pilaf for dinner - using leftover lamb and a Russian spice mix that I really like. I also added grilled shrimp & turkey kielbasa for some variety.

Mika saw what I was cooking and said something like "but we already had that!". Why yes, we have had that a couple of times in the past, but it's been several months since I last made it. I was pretty surprised that she could remember a specific dish that I made so long ago and I was quite amused that she's gotten to expect something new every night. I do have dishes that I repeat like spaghetti & meat sauce and chicken and dumplings (not to say boxed mac & cheese), but pilaf is not one that I repeat often. And most other dishes I make are either part of my international cooking project, or recipes I find on epicurious or another such site to use up a leftover ingredient or to satisfy a particular craving - I seldom repeat these dishes.

Anyway, both Mika and Camila liked the food - or at least Mika ate the shrimp and Camila ate something.

Tonight I'm going to serve leftover lamb (I still have quite a bit) with Trader Joe's Yellow Curry sauce. I expect the sauce will be too spicy for the kids, and they weren't too keen on the lamb to begin with, so I'll have to figure out something to give to them (and let's not have it be mac & cheese!).

For some reason that I can't quite remember, my aunt Gladys gave me, quite a few years ago, the metal/plastic egg beater that belonged to her and my grandmother (Gladys never married, so she lived with her mother until the latter died). I don't know how old it is, it was probably bought during one of their more recent trips to the US, in the early 1960's, though it could be older.

It's a simple tool, an eggbeater like most others - though this one has plastic beaters. All the other ones I've seen have metal ones. Of course, plastic is not as sturdy as metal, and this one has a broken piece. It also has rusting metal. Still, 50 or 60 years later, it still works perfectly.

I don't know if I've used it since I got it, at least a decade ago. When I moved to this house, I put it on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet (the one I can't reach without standing on a chair). Whenever I've had to beat eggs, I've used an electric mixer or a whisk.

Yesterday, however, Camila and I were making flan together, and the recipe called for four beaten eggs. I didn't want to use the stand electric mixer for that, and yet I knew we weren't going to get far with a simple whisk (Camila now insists on doing everything, but she still doesn't have the skills to do everything well) - so I took it out. Camila had never seen one before, and I know it would interest her.

As I said, it works perfectly. What an easy, quick way of beating eggs! After we were done, I thought I should buy a new one (though they're about $13 at Amazon!, my friend Cynthia recommends looking for one at a thrift store, and I may still do that). I'm actually afraid of using this one - not just because it's rusting - but because I don't want to get it any more broken. I feel as if I had borrowed it, rather than inherited it, and I have to return it in as good condition.

It's not as simple as that, of course. I also have my grandmother's old Better Homes & Gardens cookbook - that book that I perused so many times as a child. And I have their recipe book, where Gladys or Granny hand wrote so many recipes. I've thought about cooking from those books - trying to make that delicious sponge cake with lemon frosting, the white cake with chocolate-dulce de leche frosting, or the chocolate-mint cake, which along with pies, were their signature dishes when I was growing up. I haven't been able to do it. Granny has been dead for 30 years, Gladys died only 2 years ago, however, and I still can't think of her without falling into a well of tears. Perhaps using their stuff, cooking their food, is too strong a reminder that they're no longer here. I want to cook their food, but for them - and I never did, and I will never be able to do it now.

In addition to the eggbeater, I also have the kitchen timer that I grew up hearing ring at their home. I've started using it because all the other times I've had, have broken. It's good that I use it, right? It might get stuck otherwise. It hasn't broken in 50 years, it's not going to break now. Right?

How the hell do you open a coconut? I bought a peeled coconut today at an Asian market, thinking that it'd be easier to open as it didn't have the skin. Lord, was I wrong. It was too hard to cut through (I don't want to think about the damage I've done to my newish knives!). I ended up hitting it with a hammer, but could only make a smallish whole. Well, it was large enough to get my hand through it - and then I discovered that the sides were very soft! I guess it was a young coconut, but definitely they were not shredding material. I had nothing else, so I used them anyway. Let's see how dinner (coconut pork) turns out.

Today was not my day. I made both ribs and peanut butter ice cream, and both of them were a failure.

For the ribs, I used this recipe for Memphis Style Ribs, from the BBQ Bible, a book that has given me many a good recipe. However, either the instructions of how to cook the ribs were wrong, or I just didn't know how to follow them, for I completely burnt them. They were pretty much inedible. I still have a rack of spareribs and I will have to find another method for cooking them.

The problem with the peanut butter ice cream was not the recipe, but me. I just overcooked the custard base, This created a heavy custard with almost (but not quite) a chalky consistency that would not aerate or freeze properly. The results weren't bad per se - it tastes good - but it doesn't quite have the consistency of ice cream. Still, I'm finishing it. I may try the recipe again sometime, though I'll probably look for a simpler one.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day and I'm planning on cooking several things (burgers, chicken, potato salad). I'm a little apprehensive now. Wish me luck!

I spent yesterday cooking. It'd been a long time since I'd spent much time in the kitchen - I haven't had a dinner party in a very long time. I didn't last night either, but I made a whole Cameroonian menu for Mike and I (the girls, of course, did not want to touch anything but dessert, and they had chicken noodle soup instead). It was only 3 courses and fairly easy to make.

Harder was the boeuf bourguignon I made following Julia Child's recipe. It wasn't hard per se, just took a while. Same thing for a bolognese sauce I made that I will serve over pasta later this week (tonight we're eating the beef).

I still have more cooking for this week - I'm planning on making a chicken dish with prosciutto and rosemary as well.

Recipes for all as soon as I put them up.

I've been in Kenya now for 2 1/2 days and four meals. Not enough to say much about the local cuisine, but lack of information has never stopped me before.

My first lunch here consisted of stewed beef served with cabbage and chopped tomatoes over rice. It was pretty good, reminding me of a homemade stew that could have come from anywhere in the non-eastern world (by which I mean, it wouldn't be at home in the cuisines of the subcontinent and of north and southeast asia). It was tasty and familiar food, and I enjoyed it. And it's a good thing I did because it seems that the variety at the kitchen that serves the building where the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (where I'm working) is located, does not serve a wide variety of food: beef, vegetable curry, bean curry and rice and beans seem to be the extent of their menu. It is, however, super cheap. I think we got two beef curries and three soft drinks for $6. One single sandwich at a local delivery place would have cost at least that much. The one thing I do have to note is that the meat is pretty fatty and tough - no idea why that should be so.

I made a similar discovery that night, when we got together with a group of people from work. One of them, a Kenyan, had brought some roasted goat that he had made - and once again it tasted very good but it was tough and fatty. It was accompanied by what seemed to be a non-spicy red pepper and vinegar sauce, which also was very tasty.

The rest of the meal consisted of filled pastries bought at the supermarket. I had half a beef pie and I didn't think it was very good, though other people enjoyed it. I didn't partake of the samosas or eggrolls (at least they looked like egg rolls). A couple of pretzels where chewy and not too tasty.

What was much better was the pizzas we ordered. Thin crusted, Italian style, the cheese and toppings were flavorful and tasty. I don't want to know how much they cost, however :)

Yesterday we had leftover pizza/focaccia for lunch and Nico, the head of the No Peace Without Justice operation - who have brought me here - made pasta with tomato sauce. He is Italian :) It was quite good - though he complaint he didn't have the ingredients for it.

I will write more about my adventures eating in Nairobi, though it doesn't seem like the food will be too adventurous. It does seem like western food will be quite expensive, however. Yesterday I went to a couple of cafes in downtown Nairobi (not the nicest area of town) and a capuccino and a banana milkshake came to $6. Pretty western prices.

I was at home with the girls with no plans to go out, and I wanted to make something cool for them. I never have that many ingredients at home - no chocolate chips for cookies, nothing for a pie, no patience for ice cream - but I had just bought a bunch of eggs, so I thought I'd make this simple recipe for flan, that I'd very successfully made before. I'd double it so there would be plenty for everyone. Or that was the plan.

It wasn't until I'd beaten the eggs that I realized that I only had one can of condensed milk. The second can had expired in 2004 - and I'm not that adventurous. Yes, I could have just divided the eggs in two, but what would the fun of that have been? Instead I decided to substitute the can of sweetened condensed milk with an equal amount of dulce de leche. The results were just plain weird.

When I took the "flans" (and I do mean the quotation marks) off the oven, they had risen as if they were souffles! They fell as they cooled down. Even weirder was the consistency. I can't quite describe it. It was denser and nowhere as smooth as a flan - it lacked its bubbles for instance. And yet it was too smooth to be considered chalky or caky or even brownishy. Somewhere in between, I guess. The taste was sweet, not at all like flan and only a bit like dulce de leche. It wasn't bad, but I felt it was flat.

All in all, it wasn't an experiment worth repeating.

I just found out, by looking at my web logs, that a month ago Cary Tennis linked to my review of Lovejoy's from one of his columns. I think that's very cool because I love Car Tennis, he's by far my favorite advise columnist (not that I read that many advise columns, mind you). So I'm thrilled he read something I wrote - even if he was mildly making fun of it.

Once again I forgot to buy onions so I can't make the dish I meant to prepare for tonight. *Sigh* This happens to me too often.

I think I'll suggest that we go to Los Pericos for dinner - and buy some onions on the way back. At least I can prepare the food tomorrow.

Not actual cocoa butter if American manufacturers get their way. They want to be able to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil (yuck!) and still call it chocolate. And you know, that the Bush-appointed industry-friendly FDA will probably be all for it. After all, making our food less food-like is their whole mission. Well, this should be a reason *not* to buy American chocolate, just in case.

But you can still submit your comments to the FDA on this issue. You can find a link to it at Guittard's "don't mess with our chocolate campaign":

http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/

Guittard protests proposal to allow vegetable oil in chocolate

Today it was all about food. I don't think I consciously meant it that way - though I wanted to celebrate Mike's birthday - but I guess that's where my mind, and my kids, led me.

It actually started yesterday at the supermarket when I was deciding what to cook for dinner. Mike wanted pork chops, and that's what we got - but I saw some spareribs on sale and I suggested that for tonight's dinner. Then they had huge sea scallops on sale so I wanted to try those too. And then I thought of French toast - how long has it been since I've had French toast? And I love French toast, so... you get my drift.

If you are a fan of free range chicken hurry up and eat to your heart's content - because you won't be able to do it for much longer. A couple of days ago I was watching a German news program where they interviewed chicken farmers about the bird flu, which has already hit Germany. The flu has forced them to keep their chickens inside, and they don't anticipate they'll be able to let them out for a long time. Therefore the free-range chicken industry in Germany will be, for all intents and purposes, dead.

I can't imagine the same thing won't happen in the States. The bird flu hasn't hit here yet, but it's only a matter of time. When it does, it will be too dangerous to keep birds outside as well, where they can get in contact with flying birds carrying the virus. Sure they can keep them in large cages, but as the German farmer said, a cage is a cage, and you don't have free range chicken when you keep it in a cage.

So let's fill up on free-range chicken now, 'cause we may not be able to have it again.

A new Dutch study shows that consuming chocolate or cocoa products helps reduce blood pressure.

Ok, ok - it doesn't really, it just shows that healthy, elderly men who ate more chocolate had lower blood pressure than those who ate less. And as we all know correlation does not necessarily mean causation.

But other small studies have shown the same effect and cocoa beans contain flavanols, which are thought to increase nitric oxide in the blood and improve the function of blood vessels.

Arch Intern Med -- Abstract: Cocoa Intake, Blood Pressure, and Cardiovascular Mortality: The Zutphen Elderly Study, February 27, 2006, Buijsse et al. 166 (4): 411

I haven't blogged in a long time. I'm not sure why - or rather, it's become quite clear to me that I can no longer juggle all aspects of my life: house, children, family, husband, work, friends, entertaining, cooking, writing, reading, etc. I can handle a few at the time, but not all. I can't short change my family, but everything else must be put aside from time to time. Lately, I've done a good job of keeping the house clean, planned our upcoming trip to Argentina, threw a big Halloween party and a small screening of the Wal-Mart movie, and done quite a lot of other things. I haven't cooked much, though, and have done absolutely no writing. It's time for that to change.

So let me start by writing about turkey. I hate turkey.

I love the concept of turkey, don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful bird, perfectly golden it dresses a table as nothing else. I love the traditions around it, the idea that people all over this country are having variations of the same meal tickles my traditionalist bone.

I encountered my first turkey at my first Thanksgiving dinner, a mere month or so after first arriving to this country. I don't remember the food as well as I remember the discomfort of the situation. We were having dinner with the family of the husband of the sister of the nun who had taken care of my sister when she'd been a baby. They were people we didn't know and who, other than the sister, didn't speak Spanish. I was 12, an age at which I didn't want to be around adults, much less complete strangers. Still, it was a good introduction to the holiday.

In the following years, my dad would sometimes get a turkey for Thanksgiving. Supermarkets often given them out for free, and my parents are not people to reject a free gift. I ate leg meat and in general I was fine with it. At least I don't remember any differently.

It wasn't until my last year of college that I cooked a turkey myself. My best friend had come for the long weekend and for whatever reason we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner. We were joined by J., another friend from Egypt, and an Egyptian friend of his. I found a recipe in the newspaper for orange glaced turkey, and even though it was my first big meal, I had no problem following it. The results was a perfectly cooked turkey with the yummiest, most beautiful skin ever - and turkey-tasting meat underneath ( to make the glace mix orange juice with honey and brown sugar and baste the turkey every 20 minutes for the last hour or so). But hey, the skin was worth it.

In the years to come I roasted turkeys a few more times and continued to be unexcited about the meat. I also ate turkey cooked by others with the same reaction. A couple of times my friend Lola made goose for Thanksgiving, and I loved it - but the times I tried to cook it, I didn't do a very good job of it. When I went back to hosting Thanksgiving dinner a couple of years back, I forwent the turkey altogether and made a Basque dinner featuring chicken instead (along with foie gras and other goodies).

Then last year I decided that I had to give turkeys one last try. I wanted to get a Heritage turkey, but I didn't order on on time and instead I bought an organic free range turkey. I brined it, made a good recipe and the turkey was good - for a turkey. But it was still a turkey. And no matter how much I want to like turkey, it's still a dry, tasteless bird.

Needless to say, this year I'm not making turkey.

I do want to make something special, however. I like the idea of celebrating Thanksgiving with something that I'm not going to make at any other time of the year, something that will have us all look forward to it all year. Like turkey - but actually good. I want it to be something big, that can make a great centerpiece at the table, and that I can make year after year.

Prime rib roast could be a logical choice, but I made that last Xmas eve and I think it'll become our Xmas eve tradition. I first thought about making lamb shanks - a braise seemed like a logical thing for this time of year and I've yet to cook lamb shanks at all. Plus, they could be served with all the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. But hard as I tried I couldn't get excited about lamb shanks. They are not big, they are not rare and they just don't scream "special occation" to me. So I decided to make a lamb rack instead. It's not particularly big but it's high price tag (about $13 a pound for a cut that is mostly bones) guarantees that I won't be making it often (indeed I have yet to make it, precisely for that reason). And it can have a beautiful presentation. So I looked up recipes on the internet and I settled on the following menu:

-Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Lemon and Saffron
-Rack of Lamb with Red Currant Wine Sauce
-Toasted Israeli Couscous with Pine Nuts & Parsley
-Sweet Corn Tomalito
-Green Beans Almondine

and some storebought dessert

I tasted an amazing Jerusalem artichoke soup at Aziza last year, and I'd love to try it again. The lamb recipe got high accolades at epicurious - and I'm pretty fond of sweet sauces in general. Which such a delicate meat and sweet sauce, however, traditional Thanksgiving side dishes wouldn't work so I spent quite a while figuring out what to serve (now that Camila won't let me read while I feed her, I have plenty of time to think of things as she nurses herself to sleep). Couscous is my starch of choice when serving sweet dishes, and the one time I had Israeli couscous I loved it. Plus it's pretty popular now when regular Maghrebi couscous has become passe. The corn tomalito is another sweet yet gentle dish that I love but have never made, and while it won't look too different from the couscous, it'll have a completely different flavor. Asparagus might work best as the vegetable - but Mike doesn't like it, so the very simple green beans almondine seemed like the best choice.

The menu seemed both mouth watering and well balanced and I was excited about cooking it - until today. Today, is when I went shopping for the ingredients.

It would probably have been a better idea to have Mike drop me off at the different supermarkets while he did something else with the kids. As it was, they were both very tired, very grumpy, and very loud. I usually like shopping, but tonight it was sheer torture. So much so that I realized that I'm just not emotionally ready to cook a big meal on Thursday.

I always look forward to cooking as something fun and relaxing. I often try to do too much so it seldom is (and soon I'll blog about my Halloween party, when this became very clear), and often time it becomes stressful rather than fun. Though usually I can revel on the fruits of my efforts at dinner time. But still, I haven't started cooking yet and I'm tired and stressed - that's how I'm supposed to feel at the end of the cooking day, not the day before! Of course, part of the stress is that I couldn't find some of the key ingredients: the Jerusalem Artichokes, the Israeli couscous and the rack of lamb. OK, they had the former, but I thought the ones at Costco looked better so I was planning to send Mike to buy it tomorrow.

So I decided I have to simplify things. Instead of doing a rack of lamb, I'll do a leg of lamb. That's something that we make during the year, but I have a recipe which is both simple and delicious. Plus I can serve it with the typical Thanksgiving dishes, so my new menu is:

-Persimmon soup (as I have so many persimmons)
-Armenian Roast Leg of Lamb
-Sweet Corn Tomalito (already bought the masa)
-Garlic Mashed Potatoes
-Baked apples & yams (maybe, if I have time, for the girls)
-Stouffer Stuffing ('cause it's easy and I like it)
-Green Beans almondine

Some Safeway bought dessert.

and that's that. Won't be grand but I'm sure it'll be better than turkey.

My friends and I are now getting together monthly for tea. In May, we celebrated my birthday with tea at the Ritz. In June, Regina was supposed to host but she was too busy (poo poo her!). In July, we celebrated Lotty's birthday at Lovejoy's and this month it was time to celebrate Vienna's birthday at my house (we are out of birthdays for September!).

Our experience at Lovejoy was so positive that I modeled my menu after their own. Of course, I knew I wasn't going to be able to replicate those incredible fluffy scones, so I decided to make a ginger scone recipe that has been getting raves in the Craigslist food forum. They were very, very good, even though I overbaked them a little bit. I served them with European-style butter, clotted cream (available at Joaquin Deli), orange marmalade, raspberry jam, lemon curd and dulce de leche. The dulce de leche was by far the most popular toping (ha!). I was glad that I got to use the little bowls that I bought at the Japanese restaurant again.

I also served three types of tea sandwiches: cream cheese & cucumber, chicken salad and Stilton and apple - all inspired by the offerings at Lovejoy's. The cucumber sandwiches were the least popular, apparently traditional cucumber sandwiches have cucumber and butter, not cream cheese. Next time. The chicken salad ones were great and the Silton worked very well with the thin apple slices. I'd originally meant to make them with pear, but the pears available at Safeway are just not very tasty this time of year. I used white sandwich bread to make them and cut the crusts myself, which made them look not very neat. Unfortunately, Safeway no longer stocks Ironkids Crustless Bread, which I LOVE. Does anyone know a source?

Finally, I got a tripple-mousse cake from Safeway, which was delicious.

Lotty brought crumpets, but we never got around to them.

The teas were Akbar Yellow Gold and an Orange Pekoe Tea that I got at the 99-cents store. Both are from Sri Lanka, and both were delicious. I suspect I drank too much, as Camila had a pretty restless night.

In all, we had a great time. The tea started at 3pm and went on until 8pm. It won't be my turn to host again for several months but I'm looking forward to the next time.

Once a week I take my little girls to a "field trip" somewhere that is Bartable and yesterday we went to Rockridge. Camila (6mo) is pretty cranky lately and Mika (3 yo) gets bored easily but all in all we managed to have a good time. We started by visiting Crepevine, part of a chain of restaurants serving sweet and savory crepes, sandwiches, soups, salads and pasta dishes. I had told Mika that we were going to a "panquequería" to have "panqueques" so when we got there she was disappointed that they didn't have any dulce de leche crepes, which is what I make (very occasionally) at home. Finally she accepted a banana with caramel rum sauce one. It was folded as an envelope and came with a large portion of whipped cream and ice-cream, which of course made her immediately happy. The crepe was pretty good, though I think a dulce de leche & banana crepe might be even better. It was nice sitting outside, even though it was a gray day, and there were other moms with babies. Still, Camila started to fuss and it was time for us to go on.

Our next stop was Rockridge kids, where I got a toy for Camila and Mika had a wonderful time playing with dolls and such. She's now past the age of playing with "babies" and more into grown up dolls - pretty cute.

We then went to the Marketplace to buy some cheese for my "salon" tonight. The french-accented attendant was very helpful and very knowledgeable, I pretty much went on his recommendations on what to get. We'll see the results tonight.

Mika was a pain at the store, she wanted to get into everything and those bins with pasta were irresistable - but I was able to bribe her (I hate doing that) with the promise of a cookie. We'd been there before with Mike and she'd gotten a cookie so of course she wanted one again. She's very much a creature of habits, do something once, it's become a tradition.

She was happy with her flower cookie (they also have butterfly ones), I got a chocolate chocolate chip one that I didn't like, it was too dry, and almost tasted stale. Eating cookies there won't be a tradition for me.

Then it was time to come home - Mika is already asking to go again. We'll see.

In Argentina, where I grew up, tea time is an honored tradition carried out by grandmothers and elderly aunts everywhere. Families with children usually have a merienda, a meal that consists of a hot drink (tea, a latte, chocolate milk, hot chocolate, mate cocido) with cookies, toast or pastries, perhaps relegating tea time for weekends or for when they have guests. But practically everyone has a tea pot and a nice set of tea china waiting to be used.

When I was growing up, I had tea time at my grandmother's house twice a week or so, when I visited her. By necessity it was at a little after 5, when I got off school, though the more usual time for tea was 4 PM. Everyday tea, served in a regular pot, was served, like a merienda, with cookies and toast or scones with butter and jam. On special occasions, most commonly when we had guests, special pastries (masas finas) and delicate sandwiches (sánguches de miga) would be bought and enjoyed by all. During our last visit to Argentina, where we enjoyed tea time at the house of many relatives and friends, we literally overdosed on these - variety is not the spice of life in Argentina.

When we came to the US we continued celebrating this tradition at home but I had to drop it after I got married. It just doesn't work well with an American adult lifestyle. Mike doesn't get home from work at least until 6 PM, a time more conductive to dinner than tea. He's not a huge fan of tea either. When my little girls are a little bit older - say 5 and 7 - I may re-establish this tradition, but for now I sip my tea alone, from a tea bag (gasp!), and in the morning.

But I still like the idea of tea and on a couple of occasions I've convinced friends to join me at one of the British-inspired tea houses in the Bay Area. There are more than you think. Some of the nicest tea-rooms are, as you might expect, in San Francisco, and in particular I've been wanting to go to the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel. From the pictures, at least, the room looks fabulous. Tea there is pretty expensive, starting at $30 per person, so I've been thinking of going there for my birthday, and strongarming some of my friends to join me.

Why, or so why, are leeks soooo expensive? $3.60 a pound, which means only 2 leeks! It's really absurd for things that are little less than glorified onions.

Last Sunday it was Camila's Welcome ceremony. I was going to make empanadas, but the store where I usually buy he shells was out of shells for baking, they only had the frying kind. My mom thought I should try them nonetheless but I figured it was easier to change the menu.

I decided to go with a Maghrebi theme and cook a couple of past favorites. The piece the resistance was a Chicken Tagine with honey and apricots. This was one of the first dishes I learned to cook, soon after I got married, and for many years was one of my staples at dinner parties. I've been on the cooking by the alphabet kick for several years now, so I hadn't made it in a long time, and I knew it'd be a hit. It was, though I overcooked it a little and the chicken was a tad dry. But the sauce is to die for!
I doubled the recipe, but used only 1 1/2 times the butter it calls for.

I also made an Algerian soup, from which I ommitted the chicken so it'd be vegetarian. It was a much less popular choice.

I also served bread, pita bread & crackers with hummus, brie, pate and salame and for dessert we had ice cream cake from Baskin Robins.

It's Xmas already and I've gotten several food gifts:

-Prashad, Cooking with the Indian Masters - a cookbook by J Indor Singh Kalra (from Mike)
-The Best Ever Indian Cookbook (from David & Dana)

-White and black truffle oil, directy from Italy (from Mike)
-A bottle of fresh olive oil from the Marin's farmers market (from Lotty)
-A garlic oil & vinegar set (from David & Dana)
-A huge bottle of cheap balsamic vinegar (from Mike)

-Soup plates (from Lola & Iggy)
-A whole silverware set (from Kathy)

-Aprons (from my Mom and Lola & Iggy)
-Potholder (from my mom)
-Dish towels (from my mom)

-A gift certificate to Bay Wolf!!!!! (from Regina & Boris)

Why, why, why, do soooo many restaurants in the Bay Area serve San Pellegrino as their only choice in bubbly water. San Pellegrino is sooo salty that I can only drink it when I'm otherwise dying of thirst. It's my friend Lola's favorite, so I buy it from time to time, but I'd never order it myself. Would it kill restaurants to offer both a highly mineralized water and a low mineral water? Or just some plain soda water, please!

I really have a bone to pick with GraceAnn Walden, who writes the Inside Scoop for the San Francisco Chronicle. In this week's column she writes about how Zagat's ratings may be compromised by online voting. Her evidence for it? The results. She just cannot understand how a restaurant such as Zuni's Cafe or Masa's, who are given top ranking for food, are not in the top 10 for popularity and how Zachary's Pizza is. I don't read her column often enough to know if she's just a food snob, a pizza hater or one of those few people in the world who do not like Zachary's (yes, they exist, there are even a couple of those among my friends), but she only had to talk to a few of Zachary's fans to understand the "mystery".

Yes, Masa's and Zuni's have great food (well, I haven't been to Zuni's, but I've cooked from its cookbook and the food was great) but so does Zachary's. And while you may go to Masa's once in a blue moon, you can visit Zachary's much more often. Indeed, while I don't often think of Zachary's as my favorite restaurant - I can honestly say that I can't think of a restaurant that I would miss more if it was to close than Zachary's.

I know I'm not alone on this. People keep voting Zachary's as their favorite pizza joint year after year. Their pizza is unlike any other, the stuffed pizza is more like a cheese pie than any other pizza I've ever eaten, and for devotees, like us, there is nothing better. Indeed, I'm amazed that Zachary's hasn't made it higher in the popularity list - I can only imagine this is because many of those surveyed are people from other parts of the Bay Area who haven't had the pleasure of trying it.

A larger issue with the article is the whole attitude that Zagat's guide somehow isn't good enough because it rests on people's impressions of a restaurant rather than critic's opinions. The arguments made are, in themselves, valid. There is the possibility for ballot stuffing, you can create different accounts and rate a restaurant you haven't gone to or as a restauranteur you can ask your customers to go and vote for you. But neither is very convincing. While it's possibly to change the vote, why would anyone bother? The potential for backlash is unlikely to be worth it for a restauranteur, specially the ones that are so succesful as to get to the top of the list. Indeed, the largest evidence that this is not happening is that the top-10 restaurants that she mentions are indeed very popular restaurants, which receive great write ups not just on Zagat but at other restaurant review websites and at discussion fora in general. At least that's the case for Bay Area restaurants. Obviously Ms. Walden doesn't think the opinion of anyone but herself matters, and she didn't bother to check what people are saying about these places.

Her attitude is more clearly conveyed in parragraphs such as the following:

"When a two- star restaurant that is "good" beats out places rated by professional critics as "excellent" or "extraordinary," you can hear restaurateurs scream from coast to coast."

But who decides what a two-star restaurant is? Michael Bauer? Why must he and other critics be the sole arbiters of what's good? In my own ratings I gave Zachary's an Excellent and Masa's (under prior management) a Very Good. Why? Because you have to rate a restaurant against itself (what it wants to accomplish) and others of the kind. There is no better pizza in the bay area than Zachary's. There are better restaurants than Masa's (the French Laundry being the clear case).

Her contempt for the dining public is most apparent when she says "If the Zagat results are truly vox populi, then perhaps in the future, the top restaurants on Zagat's popularity list will be McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's." It's not that she's necessarily wrong, if you look at the ratings in dine.com, a non-foodie oriented restaurant review website, you'll find that in some communities the top-spots in the ratings are achieved by fast-food joints. Indeed, in San Leandro Nation's, the burger chain which I've rated as Very Good, has achieved top honors. But Ms. Walden fails to understand that this merely reflects the quality of other restaurants in the area and, as I mentioned, the fact that restaurants must be judged vis a vis their peers and themselves. As burgers go, Nation's are great, in San Leandro there is no better place for burgers. And it's cheap, which makes it much easier to forgive its faults. Horatio's, the steakhouse which got the second highest honors, is also quite good - but given its prices you can fairly expect better. This issue of value has probably never occurred to Ms. Walden as she doesn't pay for her own meals - and apparently doesn't talk to anyone who does - but it's certainly in the mind of all of us who need to decide where to spend our dining dollars.

All this said, I neither like nor use Zagat's. For one, it's a paid website and I don't feel any need to pay for information I can find for free elsewhere, and for two, I'm much less interested in ratings than in actual reviews and Zagat's reviews are always too brief to be of much value. There are many better review websites out there. You can find links to many of these here.

Grapes are finally in season and I'm still amazed at how sweet they can be. Delicious, for sure. And of course, he didn't buy enough :(

I got peaches & plums at the farmers' market last Saturday. So sweet & delicious. Unfortunately I got too much fruit and some of it seems to have attracted fruit flies.

A friend of mine sent this glossary of foods, and I figured it may be useful to keep it here for future reference.

I had a salad from lunch. Just a garden salad from Safeway with some blue cheese topping. It's the third salad I have in less than a week. No salads for 35 years, and then 3.

It's interesting how our bodies can sometimes take over. I guess mine needs salad.

Do you, anonymous visitor to my site, have a foodblog or a food website you'd like me to link to? If so e-mail me (marga@lacabe.com) your url or post it in the comments area.

Hope I hear from you!

I haven't posted anything to this blog, or my other one, because I've been gone for the last week. Mike and I went down to Southern California, left Mika with my parents and took a 4-day cruise. It was relaxing and the food decent, though not actually good :) I hope to write more about the cruise and the food I've had lately, we'll see if I can manage the time.

Anyway, I just posted two reviews of San Leandro restaurants that I wrote before I left.

The Blue Dish is a small deli-like restaurant serving light American, Middle Eastern and Mexican menus. We tried the Middle Eastern stuff (prepared by a Latino cook) and our experience was mixed: Mike like his salad while I felt my shawerma was overwhelmed by the tahini sauce.

The Sandwitchery is, as it name suggests, a sandwich joint. They offer a large variety of sandwiches which are better, and more expensive, than those at the chains (there is a Subway and a Quiznos nearby) but otherwise not remarkable.

On a final note, I've heard that Cafe Zula closed. I'm not surprised given its out-of-the-way location and a menu that did not justify its prices. Unfortunately it isn't going to be replaced by another (better) restaurant, Trader Sports has expanded into that space.

My website and this blog have changed url's! From now on, you'll be able to find this blog at http://www.marga.org/food/blog/ and all my food pages at http://www.marga.org/food/ The old url's will be automatically redirected.

And you thought my blog obsession was over (at last count I have ten active blogs). Alas, it's not. My need to divide and subdivide, categorize and subcategorize is such that this blog obsession will only be over when MT (movable type, the company that creates the bloggins software) or someone else comes up with software that allow for subcategories. Now, wouldn't that be great? I could consolidate all blogs into two or three (one business, one personal, maybe one Spanish). Until then, more blogs it is.

And this one is on food. If you read my regular blog you know that I write a lot about food. Food is both a necessity and a hobby. As it's something that must be consumed daily, it's easy to obsess about it. As it's something that must be consumed daily, it's easily to de-obsessed. After all, it'll always be here.

With a new blog, I'll be able to categorize better. Recipes separate from restaurant reviews separate from restaurant reviews. Of course, it would be still better if I could subcategorize here as well, but c'est la vie. I'll keep dreaming.

So come on in, read my blog and tell me what you think.