Cook Here and Now

So you want to host a Cook Here and Now event?

Buongiorno. Since the Food & Wine article about Cook Here and Now came out in the Thanksgiving issue, people from all over the US have been sending me enthusiastic emails asking how to start Cook Here and Now events in their town like the ones I'm organizing in San Francisco. To which I say: Fantastico! I started Cook Here and Now as a group open to all, free of charge, with a copyrighted model that's easy to reproduce whether you're in Chicago or Asheville. Just ask, and I'll be happy to grant permission to start Cook Here and Now chapters that meet these basic chapter requirements:

• The events must be free and open to everyone. I created this group because I feel there's a need for a place for people passionate about food to meet, cook together, exchange practical tips and find new inspiration for daily meals at home, without the exchange of money. Once money changes hands, it alters the social dynamic - expectations change, and some people who really love the idea of cooking with local ingredients could be left out because of the cost. Cook Here and Now brings people from all backgrounds together into a single kitchen, and the feasts we've made together prove that memorable meals don't have to be expensive - pure passion and good company is all you need. If you have to rent a community kitchen, you can divide the cost among the participants.

• Cook Here and Now is not a potluck nor a restaurant: We cook, eat, and clean together. We don't show up with finished dishes, though occasionally people prep ingredients for lengthy recipes at home. This is an opportunity to watch other people cook, lend a hand to your fellow cooks, and trade tips and stories about favorite dishes and new discoveries. Cooking and cleaning together also helps break the ice among repeat participants and newcomers who respond to the open call for participation.

• All Cook Here and Now events must be organized via Cook Here and Now blogs. I'll build you a localized CH&N blog for your chapter (see CH&N Austin for example) where you can post and organize your local events. Posting events online ensures that membership remains open to newcomers, and helps inspire cooks around the world to come up with their own event and recipe ideas. Designate from 1 to 5 authors for your chapter's blog, then contact me to get it started. There's no charge to the group to build a chapter blog, but I do ask for a $14/month contribution to cover basic hosting costs.

• The focus of the events must be on seasonal and local ingredients and sustainable meats and seafood. This leaves a lot of room for creative themes, like our February Lunar New year meal featuring dumplings stuffed with free-range pork and seasonal bok choy, or a winter squash event to explore the soup, salad, main, and dessert possibilities of those versatile vegetables. Whatever theme you choose, it should be tied to your local, seasonal harvest. I'm sure you already know the foodie credo: Cooking with local, seasonal, sustainable ingredients  is often cheaper, tastier and more nutritious than stuff flown in from far away and kept in cold storage forever. Plus, it connects you with wonderful local farmers and producers, and gives them incentive to keep growing the good stuff while protecting your natural environment. What's not to like?

• Cook Here and Now is a non-competitive group. There are no winners, prizes, or Iron Chef-like contests - so you should feel free to try out a new ingredient, or stay true to your grandmother's classic pie recipe. All kinds of cooking are welcome, and trust me: when your dish disappears and fellow cooks clamor for the recipe, that's the ultimate reward.

• Be prepared to share. Please be generous with your company and expertise at the events and post your recipes in the Forums, so we can all benefit from your presence and bring the  inspiration home.

• The most important part of the experience is the interaction we have with others, not the food. This is what I believe is most important, and why I chose to do this without charge on such a regular basis. You might already be able to cook a fabulous meal all by yourself, or at least order one at a restaurant - but how often do you get to cook and share an adventurous multi-course meal with so many people as passionate as you are about food? Occasionally someone might make a dish you don't like, or doesn't bring enough of a good thing. No big deal. Try something else, and enjoy yourself.

Got that covered? Great -- contact me and let me know you're ready to set up a Forum for your Cook Here and Now chapter. Meanwhile, if you want to start brainstorming your first Cook Here and Now event, here are a few pointers:

• Find a kitchen to host. Sometimes community centers or churches have them available. If you're doing it at home, start very small: 6-8 people. If you have a large range with 6-8 burners, you can host 18-20 people.
• Post the call-for-participation in your City blog. Close the post once you have the people you want (plus 20% to account for cancellations). Start a waiting list post. Send the details just to the participants.
• Each person contributes a dish or beverages - no guest, spouse, or hot date shows up empty-handed! - and everyone helps with clean-up.
• Keep a few spots open for newcomers. New faces and fresh ideas always make for a more exciting event.
• Ask people to put on name tags. It makes mingling easier for newcomers and saves face for regulars who forget names.
• Get cooks to label their dishes with key ingredients and their names, so that they can be showered with praise for their dishes and answer questions about how they did it. If a dish has meat or nuts in it, you might want to mention it on the label so that vegetarians and people with nut allergies don't get any unpleasant surprises.
• Have people label the local wines and spirits they bring with the name and location of the vintner/maker and a description of the flavor. Drinks should be chosen as thoughtfully as the food ingredients, and pair well with the featured local ingredients.
• For our events, we gather at 2:30, and appetizers go out at 3:30, while we're still cooking the main courses, sides and salads. At 5:30 we sit down for dinner. No snacking - this is a proper sit-down dinner. Once the main courses are done, we rotate seating for dessert, so we can enjoy the company of a new set of cooks. Our San Francisco events are usually 35-45 people, and we like to mix it up at tables of 6-8.

Ecco, there you go - I hope that sparks ideas to get your local chapter started. Please post comments or email me if you'd like more input, and grazie for sharing your excitement. You're making me hungry just thinking about all those upcoming seasonal dinners, from Austin to Miami ...
Buon appetito,
Marco Flavio

Introducing: Foodie Trade

Buongiorno,
Now that summer travels are winding down and Slow Food Nation is over, I've been thinking about what's next, and here it is: Foodie Trade.

Most of us in this group spend more time in the kitchen in a week than most Americans do in a month, and we cook up a lot of food. I don't know about you, but I'm often left with a lot of extra jam or vanilla beans I bought bulk to get a good price. As tasty as it may be, it's more than we can eat, and I don't always have the time to invite people over to polish it off.

"Give it to me!" you're thinking. My thoughts exactly: I'm starting a section in our Forum where you can trade tasty stuff you've made for tasty stuff other people made. This way we can benefit from everybody's culinary skills, and not feel bad at the real possibility of the delicious food we produced going to waste.

Here's how it works: I just cased 30 sausages and I have 10 to spare, which need to be eaten within 2 months after they're frozen. So on the Forum I'll post in the Food Trade section that I have 10 sausages to trade. You can contact me in the Forum and tell me that you have a few jars of home-made tomato sauce to trade, and we'll swap sausages for tomatoes.

I will also post (and encourage you to do as well) ingredients that may be available in bulk, to see if others are interested in sharing the cost - not to mention being more eco-friendly by cutting down on shipping and packaging. For example: I've just been contacted by a woman who sells free-range lambs, but I can't buy even half  by myself. Where would I put it?! Maybe others may want to go in on it,so we can get the absolute best meat directly from the farmer, for a better deal where the producer gets more of the end price.

So let me be the first to start... go check out the Forum and see what I'm trading.
A presto!
Marco Flavio

Cross-pollinate your pantry.

I've always resented the annoying cable TV chefs that introduce an elaborate
dish or a 3-page recipe by saying: "I just go to the market and let the
ingredients speak to me." Yeah, I've tried that. I listened, but usually
what I hear is the sound of garbage trucks whizzing past on the freeway and
children clamoring for Kettle corn. Not quite the perfect ingredients for
the dinner party I had in mind.

When I'm really lucky at the farmers market, the ingredients speak to me in
a language I don't even understand yet. You know how it is: The fog of sleep
has barely lifted when you're greeted by the sight of some vegetable that
seems newly arrived from Mars. The lumpy item is a weirdly luminous shade of
green, smells vaguely of ginger, and hey, is that fur?

No, it's not an alien: it's a local crop of some vegetable that may already
be wildly popular in some other part of the world, and we're only just now
catching on. Cleaned and prepared a certain way, this vegetable may be a
staple of some diet half a world away, just as rice, potatoes or wheat are
in California. It could be the magic secret ingredient for an entire
cuisine, like tomatoes brought from the New World are for us Italians. But
how do we learn to speak its language?

At first I decided total immersion was the way to go. I boned up on cuisines
as far flung as Ethiopian, Cantonese and, obviously, Italian -- and soon
learned that I had to keep an incredibly expensive stocked pantry of elusive
ingredients to make many recipes work. I would use a teaspoon of tamarind
from a jar the size of a Slurpie and let the rest sit for a while. Then
awhile would turn into a year, and my industrial quantity of tamarind would
go into the trash. That was terribly wasteful and unsatisfying. It was like
learning Esperanto: I expended a lot of effort covering the basics of many
cuisines without ever really becoming fluent in any one.

Then I tried learning cuisines the way I learned English: by repeated trial
and (ahem) occasional error. As long as I was constantly changing recipes in
the search of a better one from a worldwide repertoire, I wasn't really
taking the proper time to work up a recipe I could make my own. But before I
could present it to the oohs and aahs of my dining companions, I needed to
give myself time to experiment and make mistakes.

The good news is that it doesn't take as long as you'd think to get your
basics down. All you need to have guests over are three solid dishes. A
great place to start is from what you like, be it sushi, Thai noodles or
French soups. Buy a book, ask kitchen-savvy friends, and go from there.

To build culinary fluency even faster, build from what you already know.
Even in my immigrant eagerness to embrace my newfound home country, I hadn't
completely forgotten the simple guiding principle of my native Italian
cuisine: In the right proportions, a few basic ingredients can transform
into truly complex flavors. So I started mastering some traditional Roman
recipes -- bucatini all'amatriciana, rustic pagnotta, risotto, pizza
margherita -- and noticed how the flavors worked together in different
combinations. Soon I started having many recipes to offer to my guests I
could feel proud of, because I knew they were far more personal and
distinctive than you'd find in restaurants churning out meals to please the
masses.

Like knowing the Latin roots of English words, those basic flavor
combinations gave me a basis to learn from. Once I felt comfortable with the
Roman basics, I started adding ingredients that were completely new to me. I
hit the books to learn about Asian and Latin American ingredients, and
started buying and incorporating them one at a time in the dishes. One of my
recent favorites is a Pacific Rim dish: bok choy and champagne risotto with
lime-poached scallops. Last week I made calzones with sauteed organic mizuna
(Japanese mustard greens) and California-made mozzarella cheese. Not a
common dish in Trastevere, but let me tell you: They're missing out.

So these days when I encounter some utterly unknown ingredient at the
farmer's market, I instinctively begin to salivate -- my tastebuds know
they're in for a journey. Mind you, there will still be some missed
connections and lost luggage along the way, but there's no better way to
initiate a meaningful appreciation of our human differences than through
something as primal as food. The letter of cuisine no longer interests me:
it's the spirit that matters.

Enjoy,
Marco Flavio

Eating: Once more, with feeling

Right about now, people start ditching their New Year's resolutions -- and I say good riddance to all those diets that turn food into a form of punishment. In case you hadn't noticed, it's winter out, and the weather only looks bleaker after a meal that's all nutrients and no flavor. Think about it: If you are what you eat, who wants to be a cardboard-flavored Lean Cuisine? Whether it's piping hot pho from your local Vietnamese place, a (more and more elusive) home-cooked meal, or a piece of heaven otherwise known as 72% dark chocolate, a tasty morsel can add warmth to a bone-chilling day.

Evolution gave us the gift of having to eat frequently: Let's not treat it as a chore. Sure, we all have to watch our waistlines, especially in an edible landscape littered with trans-fats, high-fructose corn syrup and 39 grams of sugar in a can of Coke (that's over 12 teaspoons, in case you never did the math). But that doesn't mean that we must have in the back of our minds a caloric accountant reproaching us for every tasty bite, three meals a day. In a time when fad diets get debunked as fast as they become popular, all good things in moderation sounds like a much smarter idea. In Italy (as in France), we love our health, but we love our food just as much. We rarely give up something completely; we just balance our diet so that every indulgence is permitted, hopefully on a regular basis.

How much we enjoy our food can actually affect what we absorb from it. In a renowned 1970s study, a group of Thai women and a group of Swedish women were fed Thai food. The Thai women absorbed almost 50% more iron from their food. When the experiment was repeated with the same food pureed, the Thai women absorbed 70% less iron then they had when the food was whole. Researchers concluded that looking forward to what you're about to eat prepared the body to absorb more nutrients, increasing the production of saliva and gastric juices.

In these days of strange weather and stranger news around the world, food can provide a reassuring constant. Eating isn't just a reflex but a conscious effort to reconnect with our humanity, when essentials are remembered, flavors savored, vision refocused. We all deserve to enjoy our food. That's what tastebuds are there for.

Especially in winter, my strategy is to turn meals and preparation into a way of detaching from the demands life imposes, and connect to more basic pleasures. First there's a homemade breakfast with cappuccinos for two and hearty bread (my favorite meal of the day: Bring on the world!), then a sit-down break at midday, then espresso when afternoon energies wane, and finally dinner. If it's a particularly bad day, there's a snack at 10. Each meal gets my full and undivided attention. I believe that when we devote attention to what we do, we feel more satisfied and satiated by it. Choosing the best ingredients from what's in season locally, preparing the dishes from scratch as often as time allows, and keeping in mind who's sharing them -- it's all gastronomical foreplay that creates the emotional build-up released in a delightful meal.

And despite what you may have heard, bigger isn't necessarily better (at least in meals).  Binges can be nauseating, especially if you're eating mechanically. It's not about quantity, it's about appreciation. Complexity has nothing to do with it either: Familiarity and fondness bred by time and circumstances is what makes food genuinely heartwarming, not exotic ingredients.

Food is neither a need to be fulfilled, nor something to fear. That's why so many extreme diet resolutions fail -- we don't fail them, they fail us. Energy bars can keep you working, but they'll rarely give you the pleasure of your chosen comfort food when you're down, working late hours, children misbehaving, or just tired of the dark days and cold weather. An extra pound (or three) are not the worst thing that can happen to a person, although millions are spent to convince you otherwise. Just own what you love, and enjoy it. You know all too well how rare these moments of solace can be.

Enjoy,
Marco Flavio

Yes, it's been a harsh winter for California produce.

Buongiorno.
Without a doubt, this has been a difficult winter to eat local and seasonal produce in California. The worst freeze here in decades began January 11 and lasted several days, making $1 billion worth of California crops worthless.  What I've heard from farmers, vendors, and consumers in these past weeks has been very sad. Apparently unaware of the warming trend enveloping the globe, inclement weather brought to our sunny state freezing temperatures that have affected our economy and our meals. Very few vegetables have been spared, and the effects of this freeze will have economic and gastronomic repercussions that may last into summer and beyond.

For a few lucky West Coast farmers the freezing temperatures haven't been all bad: Peaches, cherries, apples and grapes are maturing nicely thanks to the chill. Something to look forward to!

Meanwhile, the cost of locally produced vegetables have gone up as supplies become scarcer, raising local produce to prices you find in parts of the country where produce is mostly imported from sunnier regions in winter. All that fuel doesn't come cheap, and we wind up paying for it with a premium on our produce.

The flavors and textures of frost-damaged vegetables are noticeably inferior to what they are when the weather behaves. Damaged produce may look damaged or stained, the texture will be dry and mealy, and flavors will tend towards the bitter or bland (or both, argh!)

But if consumers feel frustrated by all this, think how tough it is on producers. The people who are the backbone of our agricultural sector in California are migrant workers with very little job security, and thousands of families rely on the incomes from seasonal jobs harvesting and processing produce. For a month, these jobs have been lost to the freeze. What would you do without a month's pay?

At a time like this, I would urge you more than ever to continue buying local and seasonal food. It still has the highest probability of being flavorful, satisfying, and nutritious, since it doesn't spend weeks in transit. At our house we've been enjoying a gratifying variety of squashes, pumpkins, chard, bok choy, mushrooms, blood oranges and kiwis -- none of which (with a little discerning) have failed us -- and we feel great about supporting the people who work hard to provide us with the best the fields have to offer.

In these harder times, I'm realizing that eating according to the seasons isn't just about varying ingredients with the ebbs and flows of time: it means coming to terms with the unpredictability of the world, and finding a way of incorporating it in our lives.

Buon appetito!
Marco Flavio

Here's the breakdown of our current situation, crop by crop:

Citrus fruit
The crop has been decimated by the freezing temperatures, especially oranges and tangerines. You can easily figure that out by going to the markets and paying $1 to $1.49 for a navel orange, only to find it's fairly dry and tasteless. Some crops were picked early and stored, so citrus is still available -- but texture and flavor are highly unpredictable. Before buying a few pounds of something, buy one, taste it, then commit to more. You can also count on the price of orange juice going up soon, as some of our oranges are used for juice along with Florida ones.

There is one saving grace: Although the lemon crop was damaged, a new, undamaged lemon harvest scheduled for March could offset the 80 percent loss of the lemons in the Central Valley.

Avocados
It seems we've lost 20%-30% of our crop, with the possibility of damage to the buds for next year's crop. We'll have to wait and see on this one.

Strawberries
There will be a delay on the current crop. If there's frost damage to the crop, we may have to wait a few weeks for new ones to be harvested.

Winter Vegetables
They've taken the freeze especially hard. We've had extensive lettuce and artichoke losses, and the temperature fluctuations may have altered the flavors. I was talking to an organic farmer from Fresno who explained that some of the affected produce is on the markets now, because they already fronted the costs to grow it, and need to sell it to recover at least some of the money. Buyer beware! As always, taste before you buy ... that's what farmers' markets are for.

Spring Vegetables
Sweet corn, bell peppers, lettuce, cantaloupes and watermelons have been affected. We'll have to wait and see how they develop.

Artichokes
Castroville-area artichokes are gone until March. There may be a few available from other regions, but they too are damaged. The California Artichoke Commission says we'll be getting new ones  mid-March.

Olives
We'll have to see about the damage, but a similar freeze in 1990 cut production by half. I'll ask around, but it all depends on the location of the trees.

Flowers
Flowers that were being grown for Valentine Day have been affected. Most flowers will be flown in or from greenhouses. (Chocolates, anyone?)

Other Crops and Bees
The freeze appears to have destroyed small blocks of tropical fruits such as guavas and cherimoyas grown in San Diego County.

Beekeepers are providing sugar water to their bees to make sure they have enough nourishment to sustain them through the cold weather.

Data is from the California Farm Bureau Federation.

Bread: Tastes like home.

Part of me remains tied to a city some 13,000 miles away from where I chose to live my life -- and that part happens to be my stomach. Memories battered by time and distance come flooding back at the table.

That connection is essential. Even with the best intentions, gaps in communication grow, until the time difference and all those miles seem impossible to overcome. Though living abroad is choice I gladly make, I can feel detached, distant, a bit lost, like a bee without a hive.

Anyone who loves food knows it not only keeps you alive, it keeps you social, creating memories and strengthening ties through shared gastronomic bliss.

The one food I miss most from home is bread, not only as the building block of the Italian diet but as a shared point of reference. Yes, (deceptively) simple, (never) plain, (always) thick-crusted, (truly) essential bread. Endless Italian proverbs and sayings revolve around it. My favorite: Non e' pane per i tuoi denti (It's not bread for your teeth) meaning you're telling someone they can't handle something. But my beloved Neruda says it best in his Ode to Bread. (Grazie Pablo: Where would I be without you to explain what matters most?)

Even while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel, we know he mostly ate rustic bread, some fragrant sheep's cheeses and (quite) a few bottles of hearty red Roman wine from the areas surrounding the city  -- that's when he wasn't risking the the Pope's ire by running off to Florence.

If you've been to Rome and had our rustic pagnotta (loaf) you understand why. Of all the extraordinary food we have in the United States, bread is still rather bland, though getting better. Let's face it: Even when paying $3-4 for a (supposedly artisanal) loaf, the crust is unsatisfactory and the flavor rather mild or yeasty. Perhaps that's to be expected from a culture where sandwiches reign supreme, and pre-sliced bread a paragon of excellence: the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then again, when a loaf is so soft that any attempt at slicing it yourself results in an accordion-like abomination, maybe that makes sense.

For anyone born in Italy or France -- where bread is an accompaniment to every meal and not just a platform for cold cuts -- bland white bread is quite a disappointment. I am cursed with that lineage.
That's why 10 years ago, in a stubborn search for what I craved, I decided: If I can't buy it, I'll make it.

I was determined to bake something that would cover the distance between here and there with its aroma alone ... a different kind of air travel. I'd read Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which captures the connection between our sense of smell and our memories, and studied enough science to know that most of the flavors we taste comes through the nose (remember having that cold and not tasting anything?) So I was ready to open the floodgates of flavor and memory, yet the how-to was unclear.

Two main hurdles stood between me and the bread I craved. First I had to acquire the technical expertise, and then I had to learn the patience. Guess which took longer? Right in the middle of the process, you have to step away and allow the yeast to slowly break down the carbohydrates and feast on the sugars that releases. The byproduct of the yeast feast is carbon dioxide, which the gluten in the flour catches, making the loaf rise like an air balloon. It's so primal, so simple... and so time consuming.

You can speed the process up by increasing the temperature in the room to help the yeast work faster, or increase the amount of yeast, so that more carbon dioxide is expelled and and the loaf rises more quickly -- but the result won't be the same.

To taste and smell right, I found that my rustic loaves need to rise for about 24 hours (about three rises). They are made from only five ingredients: organic flour, yeast, water, salt, and time. And you can't skimp on any one of those ingredients. Now when I let the yeast loose on the flour, I give it the time it needs to transform the dough from a sticky unmanageable mass into a crackling loaf.

These breads are finally the connection I was missing: From home, to me, to all the friends and neighbors who broke bread with me -- a benefit I hadn't considered at the beginning of what I thought would be a solo quest. Turns out this bread is best with a bottle of Zinfandel, a slice of Point Reyes blue cheese, and other wanderers like me.

This bread came from my roots, but it developed where I live. Maybe it's a little different from the original, but then so am I.

A presto, and eat well.
Marco Flavio

I am the walnut.

Coo coo ca-choo -- a fresh crop of walnuts is in!
They're firm-textured and impressively leaf-and-weather stained -- they have to hang in there through wind and rain to grow ripe for the table. When they're ready, they have a complex, aromatic, savory flavor: the ideal complement to a gorgonzola and roasted beet salad, a rich whole-wheat bread, or pancakes with a drizzle of amber-colored maple syrup.

In Italy, we've always had a profound attachment to this delightful nut. Since the ancient Romans lugged it all the way across the empire from Persia, where it was a food reserved for royalty, it's been part of our cuisine. The Persian walnut is now known as the English walnut, because the British spread it through their colonies, including the United States. Officially Romans called it the "royal acorn of Jupiter" -- but because of its suggestive shape when cut in half, it was popularly associated with Juno, the goddess of fertility. Women trying to get pregnant would carry walnuts.

But when you're popular, there's always someone who doesn't like you. As the 1700s story goes in Benevento, near Naples, there was a large walnut tree that the locals believed to be the site of Satanic rites and witches' gatherings. The local bishop tried to have it removed, roots and all, but the tree sprung up again -- tenacious as a true southerner.

December is when walnuts are harvested at their most flavorful. The ones you find in the market year-round come from storage, and their flavor is often weaker and less nuanced. Since walnuts are  oil-rich, they may even turn slightly rancid -- so make the most of what's available now.

Get that nutcracker we hear so much about about this time of year, and put it to use. Enjoy the primal pleasure of hearing the shell crack, followed by the initial whiff of the flavor to come. Extract the pieces, one chunk at a time. If you're lucky, the whole half of that butterfly-shaped kernel will come out in one piece. Chew it slowly: Let the aroma linger in your mouth. There's an initial astringency, followed by that distinctive rich flavor in the back of your palate. There it is -- subtle at first, like fog lifting. Exhale though your nose: That's when most of the complexity unfolds.

Nutritional Information
By now you've been bombarded with nutritionists' findings that Omega-3 oils are good for you, and told by vitamin salespeople that fish and flaxseed are the only worthwhile sources to fulfill our daily nutritional requirements. (Did they convince you to have a tablespoon of raw flaxseed oil every morning? I'm sorry...I did it once, but never again.)

Here's the good news: Walnuts are extremely rich in the Omega-3 department. A quarter cup of them delivers 90% of your daily requirement, plus a healthy dose of manganese and copper and several phytochemical nutrients, including the elusive antioxidant ellagic acid.

Selection and Storage
In storage mold may grow on walnuts, so check to be sure the stains are from weather exposure.  Smell them before you buy to make sure they haven't gone rancid from improper storage. Once shelled, you should store walnuts in the fridge. They'll be fine for about 6 months. If you need them to keep for the whole year, divide them in single-usage packets and freeze them.

Preparation
As with most nuts, walnut flavor is amplified by roasting. But because Omega-3 oils are very delicate and heat-sensitive (remember the flaxseed oil you were told to consume raw?) they should be roasted  at just 160-170°F (about 75°C) for about 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy,
Marco Flavio

Great meals from a crappy oven

Buongiorno,
I'm back from Italy, and I've been thinking about cooking with great ingredients using less-than-stellar equipment. When I was back in Rome, I had several meals at friends' houses where  the kitchens are small, the countertops are not granite, and the pots are not all All-Clad.  The equipment they used was nothing fancy, and standard in the majority of the world. Yet they managed to come up with  fragrant sauces, succulent slow-cooked roasts, and lightly sauteed vegetables bursting with flavor with that subpar equipment. Oh, and did I mention the pasta?

Like many of you, I'm a fan of the scientific methods of the Equipment Corner at America's Test Kitchen. Thanks to them, I now know that of the 28 garlic presses available for purchase, only two or three will actually do the job consistently, self-clean, and have a hinge that won't break in three months — wish I'd read that before I bought the first six. But in the US, have we taken reliance on the latest, greatest equipment too far?

Consider our oven at home in San Francisco: 12 years old, brand-less, seals poorly, and cooks unevenly. I put a pizza stone in  it to stabilize the heat, but still I have to rotate baked goods for  even cooking. I also invested in a good oven thermometer to monitor the  temperature (this is a must, even for really good ranges — don't rely  on what the handle says). In this dented white pile o' tin, I've managed over the years to cook  endless amounts of muffins, breads, focaccias, cookies, pizzas,  braised meats, roasts, and most other items that require diffused heat. I'm sure that with a better oven, things would be easier, but it still gets the job done. And let me tell you: The flavor has not been  wanting. (Many of you who've tried my foccacia at Cook Here and Now dinners can vouch for that.)  I count on the love I have for food and sharing it, experience with local ingredients, and knowledge of where and when to find the best produce to make up for our rickety old equipment.

Too much technical information and emphasis on really high-end tools can be paralyzing. Same with all these cooking shows where elaborate meals requiring 4 skilled Santoku-wielding prep cooks are presented to a chops-licking hungry audience that applauds on cue. Then when you make the dish at home you think: how come I can't julienne like that? And where is my applause?! We can't always take our cue from professional chefs. Most of us have somewhat limited time and budgets, and limited space in our apartment kitchens for the latest appliances — let alone room for a studio audience.

Some people come back to their homes equipped with the latest and  greatest, yet buy their ingredients from the local chain store, even  when farmers' markets or a CSA are an option. They store their groceries for a week  in those marvelous Sub-Zero fridges, and most of their recipes come  out... well...

I'm no technophobe (hello, I'm a blogger) but like many home chefs I swear by my most tried-and-true equipment. Teflon pans come and go in our house, but nothing makes cornbread like a cast-iron skillet. Let me tell you, Kitchen Aid mixers are built like tanks: mine has walked right off our too-narrow counter many times and has the scrapes to prove it, but it hasn't let me down yet. Knives that need constant sharpening,  pots that burn anything unless you constantly stir, ranges without  convection, plastic wrap that does not seal perfectly can still deliver what we so fondly desire. Again and again.

So be fearless: Pick a handful of recipes and master them with what ever tools you have handy. An upgrade here and there can be necessary,  but don't let product-peer-pressure stop you. Practice the recipe, using the freshest ingredients you can find, and make it yours.

A presto,
Marco Flavio

Eggplants: What you need to know.

Buongiorno.
Already we’ve talked about one fruit that staked its place among the vegetables in the kitchen: the tomato. Now let’s talk about its cousin, the eggplant.

The two fruits arrived in Europe about the same time, in the 1500s, although the eggplant came from East Asia instead of the New World. But both belong to the Solanaceae family, which makes them relatives of Deadly Nightshade. With such a nefarious family and natural bitter flavor, the eggplant was not initially welcomed in Europe, and even believed capable of infecting its eaters with insanity and leprosy.

The eggplant soon became such an important part of Mediterranean cuisine that its name, color and luster immediately bring to mind the complex, aromatic dishes characteristic of early fall. Growing up I was never particularly fond of its flavor or texture, but that has changed dramatically now that I’ve witnessed its starring roles in many outstanding Chinese, Japanese and North African dishes. The weird name eggplant belongs to the variety that was first imported in the English-speaking world, due to its egg shape (see photo).

So now the question is: which ones to buy?
Buy shiny, firm, unbruised ones. No dark spots or wrinkling should be present on the skin (that means it's already decaying). The stem should be bright green (purple in the Japanese variety): The more wilted and brown or discolored it looks, the longer it's been since it was picked. Press on the fleshy part: if it bounces back, it’s ripe. If not, try another one. If you have the option, select small to medium eggplants rather than large ones, especially for the European variety. They usually contain fewer seeds and have a sweeter, less bitter, flavor.

The eggplant growing seasons lasts from July through October, so buy them only then. They love the sun, and if you indulge their tanning cravings, you’ll taste the difference. Eggplant is a truly nutritious vegetable, laden with antioxidants in its flesh and in its skin, so don’t peel it unless it’s very large and has tough skin. It's also very good source of dietary fiber, potassium, manganese, copper and thiamin (vitamin B1), vitamin B6, folate, magnesium and niacin.

You can keep them in the refrigerator inside a plastic bag for up to 5 days, but they are most flavorful and least bitter when fresh. Don't say I didn't warn you.

How do I prepare it?
European variety eggplants must be salted before use, as this will remove their bitter juices (the sweeter Japanese and Thai ones don't need it). Cut them in 1/2 inch round slices, place a layer of them in a colander, sprinkle a nice layer of salt on top of them, then lay down a paper towel and another layer of eggplant slices, salt and so on until you’re done. Then put a small weight on top of them for about 30 minutes to purge them of those evil-inducing juices… or at least that bitter flavor. Once the 30 minutes have elapsed, remove them, rinse them slightly, and leave them in the colander to dry a bit until needed.

The salting process will also make them absorb less oil during cooking, giving you a lighter morsel. If you’re going to fry them, you should dip the slices in a coating of flour, egg and bread crumbs before frying to lessen oil absorption. Remember that brick-heavy fried eggplant dish? The one that seemed tasty at the time, but afterwards you couldn't sleep a wink? That’s the fault of the spongy texture, meant to absorb whatever they are mixed with. It’s also the reason they are so versatile and go with so many other flavors.

If you’re using the eggplant diced in a recipe, cut right before adding, as the flesh discolors quickly once exposed to air.

Eggplant can be baked, roasted in the oven, or steamed. If baking it whole, pierce the eggplant several times with a fork to make small holes for the steam to escape. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 to 45 minutes, depending upon size. That will give you a most versatile and savory pulp that can be transformed into many dishes, including the delicious eggplant caviar … stay tuned for the recipe next week.

A presto,
Marco Flavio

First day of Fall: New ingredients for old friends.

Buonasera.
First day of fall: the season of cool air, warm spices, and the start of life indoors. Shorter days lie ahead, rain perhaps, and the sense of doom of having to find a costume for Halloween or a destination for the Thanksgiving feast — not to mention navigating the vegetarian/vegan main course options if you’re hosting. Yet the turn of life toward home also means we have our friends over more frequently, to enjoy those long evenings over full-bodied red wine and hearty meals. So I want to take this opportunity at summer’s end to remind all of you (and myself, are you listening Marco?) that in moments of change, seasonal and otherwise, we crave things that are consistent and fulfilling. Cooking for friends and loved ones is just that.

You don't need an occasion. Just make a phone call, and put a pot on the fire. It doesn’t have to be a big production. A couple of steps above chips and onion dip, and you're set. In these short days when time is our most precious commodity, always racing the fading daylight, an invitation to unwind over dinner is most welcome. In time we may forget what we ate, but the warmth of feeling remains. You know what I'm talking about.

It’s also time to reconsider our menus, to incorporate these warm and savory flavors in everyday dishes. I’m adding nuances to breads and muffins with different flours, molasses, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla. My baked goods are relinquishing fresh fruit, and embracing the pungent spices that will be with us until spring. Cinnamon and cloves are coming out of their jars, staking their claim to the most-used spots on the kitchen shelf. Shy saffron threads have come out of hiding on the spice rack, having heard shitake mushrooms might be in the house.

Back home we have a term to describe going to Rome in October, so lovely it is: Ottobrata Romana. The air is crisp, brisk, pushing towards cold, and our sky is a serene, brilliant ultramarine blue — a striking contrast to the browns and reds of our natural stone and the chaos of the bustling Romans, who have a hard time resisting the appeal of the crowd, cold and traffic be damned.

Here in San Francisco, where the seasons are sometimes too mild-mannered to state their arrival above the hum of daily life, I count on the market to give me a subtle yet unmistakable nod. Aside from the different crispness of the air and the cooler tone of the light, I noticed the first pale-seeded pomegranates, fragrant mushrooms, orange-hued squash, and satisfyingly sweet Fuji apples on a few farmers' stands. So take notice, welcome the shift, and don't forget to share. We all gain from it.

A presto,
Marco Flavio