in praise of sardines

On diamonds and olive oil

My question was met with silence, so I repeated myself in broken Spanish.

“Do you know where the diamonds dwell?”

My question, which made perfect sense to me, caused the man's eyebrows to rise in perplexed bemusement. I’d seen that look often in my travels through Spain. It’s a facial expression familiar to anyone who has ever ventured outside her home country and made an attempt to speak with the locals using the local language. You know the look. The one that perfectly conveys that the person you’re speaking to thinks you have the IQ of a parrot.

My wife, who speaks Spanish much better than I, came to my aid. “Los Diamantes. It’s a tapas bar.”

After the man regained control of his giggles, he encouraged us to keep walking further down the street, Calle Navas, to number 28.

The sun shone hot as a pizza oven on that day a few summers ago. We were in Granada, a city in Andalucía famous as the home of the Alhambra, the fourteenth century Moorish palace. The city is not renowned, however, for its food. After two days tolerating mediocre chow, we decided to venture outside the romantic yet touristy Albaicín area in search of a decent lunch. On a tip from a friend, we headed to the nearby business district. The streets were nearly empty and all the shops were closed.

When we finally arrived at Los Diamantes, we were stunned. It seemed that every single worker on lunch break had descended upon this tiny bar the size of a shot glass. Customers spilled out of the bar onto the streets. In appearance, the bar is unremarkable, similar to any working class tapas bar anywhere in Spain. On warm summer days, the owners take advantage of the bar’s corner location by opening up both the front and side of the building to the street so that it effectively has just two walls. Along one wall is a long bar, which is standing room only. As far as I can recall, there were not even tables or chairs on that day. Along the shorter wall in the back is the diminutive kitchen.

My first attempt to penetrate the rugby scrum of a crowd proved useless. I generally don’t fare well in crowded bars. Much to my mother’s consternation, I take after my calm and quiet New England grandparents more than my mother, who was raised in New York City. I just don’t have it in me to elbow my way to the front of the line to place a drink order. Cocktails don’t provide adequate incentive for me.

Tapas bars, however, are another story. If there’s fried fish as a reward, I’ll happily toss elbows with a roomful of Arnold Schwarzeneggers (as a liberal San Franciscan, that’s an especially terrifying vision). Fortunately, I didn’t have to, because N noticed there was a gap in the crowd at the far end of the bar by the kitchen.

There was virtually nothing separating the bar from its kitchen. Just a wide open window. From the perspective of a local, the spot next to the heat of the kitchen was the least desirable place to stand. As a hungry traveler hoping to learn about Spanish cuisine, that was exactly where I wanted to be.

As is typical in Andalucía, the kitchen at Los Diamantes is dominated by the fryer. Andalusian cooks are masters in the art of frying. A friend who spent a year as an exchange student in Sevilla told me that he knew lunch or dinner was approaching whenever he heard the sound of oil beginning to bubble in his host family’s kitchen.

With the fryer about 12 inches from me, I could see that the frying cauldron was filled with olive oil. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as the landscape on our train trip between Sevilla and Granada seemed to be populated by nothing but olive trees. However, cookbooks and food authorities had always warned me to avoid frying in olive oil, because its smoking point is relatively low, between 375 and 410 degrees Fahrenheit (190-205 degrees Celsius). The food that emerged from the fryer at Los Diamantes (and many other tapas bars throughout Andalucía and Madrid) reminded me, once again, not to trust those who anoint themselves as authorities.

The two fried dishes we had at Los Diamantes were amongst the best fried food I have ever eaten anywhere. Everything was perfectly greaseless and nicely crispy, despite the relatively pale blonde color of the final product. If N hadn’t stopped me, I could have eaten 10 platefuls of the berenjenas fritas, lightly battered paper-thin slices of eggplant. The coating reminded me of tempura batter. Each bite shattered like the top of a crème brûlée. We followed that with the surtido de pescados fritos, a plate of anchovies, hake, and tiny squid that had been dusted in flour before their quick dip in the olive oil jacuzzi. Bliss.

The other two dishes we ate, chopitos a la plancha (baby cuttlefish cooked on a griddle) and the house ensalada, also dwell high on my culinary pantheon. The salad, a version of which will be found on the menu of my future restaurant, Olallie, simply consisted of little gem lettuces cut into quarters and dressed with fantastic local extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, fried slivers of garlic, and lots of salt. So much more refreshing than the ubiquitous mesclun salad!

In the end, at least from a gastronomic point of view, I guess I did discover where the diamonds dwell.

[Recipe after the jump]

I heart artichokes + a favorite way to prepare them

Last Saturday, the day before Easter, I was singing the blues. By that day, the Bay Area had endured far more than 40 days and 40 nights of rainfall (which might help to explain my extended break from blogging). I had started scouring the web to learn more about the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, convinced I must be suffering from it. After I grew bored with medical sites, I surfed over to ones picturing vacation rentals in Barcelona, hoping that Travel Porn would lift me out of my funk. No luck. Nothing could cheer me up, not even dunking chocolate covered Digestive biscuits into a cup of Earl Grey.

Then I made my weekly trip to the local farmers market and spied these.

Just knowing that something so gorgeous could spring up out of our sodden local landscape cleared away my gloominess in a flash, like the elusive burst of sunshine that I and everyone around me so desperately craved.

Feeling like a child who had just found a stash of brightly colored plastic eggs filled with chocolates, I picked 6 purple-tinged lovelies out of a basket of the Sicilian Violetto artichokes at Mariquita Farm's market stand. I was amused that about a third of the artichokes in the basket perfectly mirrored my previous foul mood: dark violet in color, they bore vicious long spikes as sharp as a wolf's fangs or claws. I was happy to leave those -and my blues - behind. I'd dealt with cases of those bastards a decade ago as an intern at Chez Panisse, daily returning home with a new collection of bandages. I figured this time around that I deserved to pluck the tamest looking chokes in the basket.

I am a sucker for sexy produce. Some might say to an unhealthy degree. Once, a few summers back, I was so absorbed by a display of ripe, juicy heirloom tomatoes in a rainbow of colors that I completely missed that a beautiful Hollywood celebrity was standing right next to me. I'm not making this up. She apparently even bumped into me and excused herself and I didn't even look up. In fact, I recall being rather annoyed. I only learned of it when, after she had left, the salesperson and my wife both exclaimed their excitement at the brush with celebrity. I was oblivious and thought they were making it up. Sadly, they were not. And N will never let me forget it. Yes, I have a problem.

Where was I? Ripe, juicy, sexy... oh, yes, artichokes! I have yet to find a way to prepare these prickly flower buds that I don't like. See Mark Bittman's article in yesterday's Dining section of the New York Times (on line free for a week) for how to stuff, pan fry, and shave artichokes raw into a salad. But stay here if you want to learn one of my favorite ways to tame this thistle, a method that draws out the vegetable's innate sweetness better than any other. For lack of a better term, I'll call it oven-braising.

You can use any size artichoke for this method, but try to use the smallest you can find. Regardless of the size, the challenge with these curmudgeons of the vegetable kingdom is always the same: getting down below the layers of armor and thorns to expose its tender "heart." Of course, as a loyal reader of this blog, you already know how to do that from my recipe for vegetable paella.

So, on to the recipe!

Secrets to creating fluffy gnocchi (+ stinging nettles! + rant!)

Before I became enamored of Spanish cooking, like so many American cooks my first "cuisine crush" was Italian. In the early 90s, when I was a vegetarian for 3 years, I felt particularly inspired to pour through the writings of Marcella Hazan and Lorenza de'Medici to glean wisdom that would help me make better risottos, pizza, fresh pasta, and - my personal favorite - gnocchi. Later, during my decade of slaving at Bay Area stoves as a professional, I gathered tips and hints from my fellow cooks and chefs. Like a forager picking mushrooms in a forest, I carefully tucked the tastiest morsels into my basket of tricks.

Although I never pursued my romantic notions to live and cook under the Tuscan sun, it seems virtually every other cook and chef in San Francisco did - so many that it seems as if our city is a colony of some new culinary Roman Empire.*

Perhaps the most successful of this cadre of Italophiles is Delfina's Craig Stoll. In part, I owe my mastery of potato gnocchi to his recipe (which you can find after the jump). The real secret to consistently turning out cloud-like gnocchi, however, I discovered on my own.

Potato gnocchi are made with 2 primary ingredients: potatoes and flour. Sometimes a third ingredient - egg - is added. Because there are so few ingredients, the quality of each cannot be overstated. First, for the potatoes, I prefer organic russet potatoes. I prefer the balance of starch and sweetness found in organic russets, but if organic are unavailable, regular russets are a great second choice.

Through following recipes and my own experimentation, I learned that I prefer the taste of gnocchi made with baked, rather than boiled, potatoes. The (for lack of a better word) potatoey flavor is more pronounced from baked potatoes, because they lose some of their water content through evaporation during the baking process. After baking the potatoes, I let them cool slightly, then I scoop out the insides and press them through a ricer and let the resulting potato cool completely.

IMBB#22: Orecchiette with Baby Turnips and their Greens

When I listed my 10 favorite foods last week, I began with broccoli rabe, known as cima de rape and rapini in Italian. Judging by flavor alone, broccoli rabe seems to be more closely related to turnips than broccoli {I'll leave it to you botanists out there to set me straight}. The greens of both plants taste pleasantly bitter, toasty, and nutty and can be used interchangeably. As far as I'm concerned, the little white bulbs on the end of the turnip greens is a nice little bonus!

A few days ago, I was surprised to find perfect thumb-sized Tokyo turnips {pictured above} grown by one of northern California's premier organic farms, T & D Willey Farms at a store I rarely visit, our local Whole Foods. Whenever I see these baby turnips, I cannot resist buying them to make my frequent weekday dinner of orecchiette. Therefore, Orecchiette with Baby Turnips and their Greens is my entry in this 22nd edition of Is My Blog Burning, hosted by Amy of Cooking With Amy, who chose the theme Use Your Noodle.

This healthy pasta dish can be tossed together in the time it takes to bring a pot of water to a boil. If you can find it, use the hand-formed orecchiette pasta made by Rustichella d'Abruzzo. I like the rustic irregularity of their orecchiette {which means "little ears"}, because the garlicky olive oil clings to all the pasta's grooves and crevasses. They're the pasta equivalent to the nooks and crannies of English muffins. Otherwise, De Cecco's excellent orecchiette and penne would make worthy substitutes.

When making Italian pasta dishes, I find it helpful to remember that, from the Italian perspective, the point of the dish is the pasta, not the sauce. The other elements in the dish are there to complement the pasta. Therefore, you must adequately season your pasta water. Use 1 tablespoon salt {preferably inexpensive bulk sea salt} per every 2 quarts of water.

Since there are so few ingredients in this dish, the quality and choice of each is of equal importance. To match the assertive flavor of the turnip greens, use a good quality aged sheep's milk cheese to grate over the pasta. I prefer the slightly creamier and milder pecorino sardo to pecorino romano, so if you use the latter combine it with some parmigiano reggiano.

Use this recipe as a starting point for your own variations. Possible additions include anchovies, breadcrumbs fried in olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and a squeeze of lemon or a dash of vinegar. For a heartier meal, I sometimes add Italian sausage. It's up to you.

While the pasta is boiling, relax with a glass of Barbera or Dolcetto d'Alba, which both nicely complement the flavor of the bitter greens.

Sugar (not) High Friday #15: Oranges and Dates

This juicy Orange and Date Salad is my minimalist entry for the fifteenth edition of  Sugar (not) High Friday hosted by Sam of Becks & Posh. Our goal in this event was to showcase desserts that used little or no refined sugar.

This easy dessert is a refreshing assortment of medjool dates and sliced organic citrus (blood oranges, cara cara navel oranges, clementines and tangelos) topped with toasted pistachios, dusted with powdered sugar, and baptized with a spoonful of sweet muscat wine and a few drops of rose water. It was inspired by a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Casa Moro, from the chefs/owners of the London restaurant Moro.

Together with a glass of mint tea, this Orange and Date Salad would make a simple yet elegant conclusion to a rich winter meal, especially one with a Moorish or Indian theme. Use the sweetest citrus fruits available and vary the flavorings to suit your taste. You could substitute orange flower water and perhaps add some orange blossom honey if your citrus fruits are not so sweet. Or you could make it more savory by drizzling the plate with extra virgin olive oil and a few flakes of sea salt. Remember to keep it simple, so that the tartness of the citrus fruits can dance with the sweetness of the dates without too much distraction.

Food|and Drink|Recipes|Desserts|Sugar High Friday #15

Another cold remedy...

...my wife's Tortilla Soup

Let me start this post with a disclaimer. It has nothing to do with the pallid 2001 remake of Ang Lee's masterful Eat Drink Man Woman, which, along with Babette's Feast, Tampopo and Like Water for Chocolate, is one of the all-time great food films. Who's brilliant idea was it to remake a film just 7 years after the original?

Rather, this is my response to Indira's* request to share my cold remedies {which is actually a meme started, I believe, by Raquel of Raquel's Box of Chocolates}.

To help recover from colds and flus, I rely on the curative powers of a never-ending supply of ginger-honey-lemon tea, supplemented with lots of chicken soup, like polentina soup and this spicy tortilla soup. The recipe, which I give all credit to my wife N for developing, was inspired by a different style of tortilla soup that she and I often shared in Washington, D.C., where we both went to college. However, my fondest memory of the original soup goes back to a time before I met N.

One icy winter in the dark years of Bush 41, my mother and brother visited me in D.C. to celebrate Christmas. My Republican mother {please tell me I'm adopted} had never been to the nation's Capital during the holidays, so she was keen to visit the White House to see how Barbara Bush decked the Presidential halls. I remember nothing about the decór except for Mom's declaration that, surely, Nancy's taste was better.

Mostly, I recall standing in line outside the White House for an hour on a night that the mercury dipped so low that the Reflecting Pool {that long rectangular pond between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument} froze solid. My brother was inconsolably irate. If he had his way, he'd never leave the comfort of his EZ-Boy recliner in his San Diego condo, a remote in one hand and a Big Mac in the other {remind me to check DNA samples for evidence of adoption}.

To help thaw relations {literally and figuratively}, I lured the warring parties to Houston's** with promises of hot soup. The chill thankfully kept the usual hordes away, so we were able to be seated the moment we arrived. We slipped into our bowls of velvety tortilla soup as if they were pools of volcanic mud at a Calistoga spa. The garlic-cumin aromatherapy warmed our frostbitten noses, while the avocado and cheese garnishes wrapped around our tongues like thick silk robes. I knew my ploy had achieved détente when my brother ordered a second bowl.

Although N didn't participate in this episode, we shared many bowls of Houston's tortilla soup during the year or so that we dated before moving to the West Coast.

While there is a branch of Houston's in San Francisco, we only go when my brother visits - on his insistence. With exposure to more authentic Mexican food in the Bay Area, I suppose we've outgrown Houston's version of tortilla soup, which in hindsight is basically a gooey platter of nachos tossed into a blender - i.e. pure college comfort food {see their original recipe here}.

Houston's version fortunately inspired N to create a better version, one that is wonderfully spicy, tomatoey and brothy, yet still preserves the voluptuous avocado garnish of the original. Her tortilla soup is the soup we both clamor for when the latest virus strikes. The good news for the cook is it is as easy to throw together as it is satisfying.

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*I have a feeling that Indira's recipe for tomato rasam is soon going to join our arsenal for combating future colds. Just looking at the photos of the soup on her brilliant site Mahanandi rejuvenates me. I plan to make a bowl later today!

If you're ever feeling under the weather or just need a kick-start, try Indira's other cold remedy, "Dried Ginger Ale," a tea steeped with dried ginger, black peppercorns and a touch of honey. I am sipping a hot cup right now. It's so powerful, it will resurrect a Zombie.

**Although I didn't think so at the time, my palate and restaurant knowledge was pretty simple. Back then I had no idea that Houston's - which played such a big role in the social scene during my college years - was merely a branch of a Texas chain.

Food blogging when you're ill

Every other year, I catch a cold.

Although this will hardly surprise anyone who's been reading my blog, I tend to be rather self-indulgent. Multiply that times ten when I am not feeling well. I crawl under my thick comforter and curl up catlike for long naps, only coming up for air when the impulse strikes to watch a Woody Allen movie or an episode of "The Kumars at No. 42" on my iBook.

Because my wife N spends her days taming 7-year-olds, the season's virus du jour lays siege to her at least 4 times per year. At those times, I gladly spoil her, serving as her personal chef and support staff. During the relatively rare occasions when I get to play the role of indulgee, I do not hesitate to cash in my favors Godfather-style.

N knows exactly what I will be requesting, so she hardly bothers to ask any more. I suppose that's a perk of a dozen years of marriage.

Thursday after work, she headed straight to Irving Street to pick up two orders of chicken pho' from Loi's, one for our dinner and one for my lunch Friday. Then she stopped by New Cheung Hing for an order of duck jook for Friday's breakfast. Finally she went back up the block to the grocery store to pick up a few chicken legs and thighs so that I could make stock when I was feeling better. It’s good to be loved.

Yesterday, I felt well enough to simmer up that batch of chicken broth.

The best broths are made with a good proportion of meat to bones. I often use a whole chicken per gallon of water, but this time I opted to augment the stash of bones that waited in my freezer with a few extra legs. I removed a couple of thighs after an hour so that I would have meat for my soup. I like to simmer my chicken broth for 3 or 4 hours to extract the most flavor.

The easiest soup for a sick person to make is the polentina from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. I find it incredibly soothing to prepare and eat, and believe it should be in every busy cook's repertory.

The recipe is just a few lines long. In a medium pot, stew a diced small onion or a leek and a slivered clove or two of garlic in duck fat or butter, pour in a quart of chicken broth, bring to a boil, stir in ⅓ cup polenta (preferably stone-ground), toss in a few leaves of sage, a sprig of thyme and a teaspoon of salt, and simmer the soup for 20-30 minutes. The polenta slightly thickens the broth and imparts a comforting corn flavor.

While the soup is cooking, cook and then chop whatever greens are in your fridge {I’ve used broccoli rabe, arugula, turnip greens, chard and even watercress with equal success in the past. This time I used some gorgeous red Russian kale - pictured left}. When the soup is ready, stir in the cooked greens and add a few grindings of pepper. This time, I added some shredded meat from one of the chicken thighs I removed from the stock. Garnish each serving with some shavings of parmigiano reggiano and a drizzle of your best olive oil.

Depending on how I feel, I may post one of my other favorite chicken soup recipes later in the week. Until then, take care good care of yourselves and try to stay healthy!

Food|and Drink|Recipes|Chicken|Soup

Oink, oink! Le pied de cochon is French for...

...pig's trotters, of course!

It's startling how our tastes change as we age.

As a college student in Washington, D.C., in the 1980's, many a late night ended eating at a mediocre 24-hour French bistro in Georgetown called "Au Pied de Cochon." The name paid homage to the famous {and presumably better} bistro in Paris. The red walls of the Georgetown bistro colorfully depicted a mad chef waving a cleaver whilst he first chases then eventually catches a squealing pig, triumphantly grabbing him by the foot. At that time, the thought of actually ordering the namesake pig's feet never so much as crossed my mind, regardless of the number of drinks that preceded my visit there. Rarely did my 3 am order stray from the comfortable oasis of eggs benedict and French fries.

Fast forward to tonight. In the ensuing 20 years, I have apparently become that mad chef.

I now not only sample odd bits like pig's trotters, tails, ears, snouts, bellies, and what not, I actually relish and even crave them. So I figured it was about time that I learn to properly cook some of these parts, especially as this Tuesday the 17th is the feast day of San Antonio Abate, Patron Saint of Pigs and Butchers {pictured left}. In celebration of this event, Diva in Italy and Kate in Gascony created Some Pig Blogging Weekend, an event I could hardly miss!

These off cuts, innards, and extremities are the sardines of the meat world. We cooks, particularly in America, are often guilty of only paying attention to the sexier cuts of meat. Go to any mid-scale restaurant in San Francisco, for example, and you'll invariably find a menu full of roasted half chickens, flatiron steaks, pork loin chops, braised lamb shanks, and short ribs. I, for one, have had enough!

Though all of the kitchens I have worked in have received at least 3 stars from the local critic, I have not often been afforded the opportunity to work with these lesser used parts of the animal. Like so many American cooks, I have had to look further afield for expert advice on how to cook these forgotten cuts. My main guide is, of course, the gifted Fergus Henderson, the author of The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and chef/proprietor of St. John, his restaurant outside of London. I also look to other British food writers, Anissa Helou and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a few Spanish cooks, and some intrepid Americans, including Paula Wolfert, Anthony Bourdain and Thomas Keller.

For my first attempt at cooking pig's trotters, I trusted this last chef, Mr. Keller {who I'll call TK, just for fun}. I used his recipe from the book/Yountville bistro, Bouchon. I'd share it with you, but I admittedly don't yet own the book. I just read the recipe in a bookstore and {hopefully} committed it to memory.

If you've never had pig's trotters before, there is one adjective that perfectly describes them: unctuous. Unctuous is not a word I use often, but it is perfectly apt here. Like so many innards and off cuts, they are all about texture and mouth feel. The part that you eat is essentially gelatin with a little bit of fat. To provide a crisp textural contrast, TK has you bread and pan fry the boneless disks of pork trotter.

For those of you who are not squeamish, after the jump I've included pictures and descriptions which illustrate my adventures cooking this succulent, wonderfully sticky and unctuous cut of the pig.

Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake

Thank you for all your patience while I've been busy with many activities, including beautifying my little blog!

As a reward, I'm going to share something sweet with you.

"What's that?" you scoff. "A dessert from Brett? What will he be soaking in his cup of tea today? Will he add anchovies?" Shamefully, your misgivings are warranted. Upon a quick perusal of my "categories" archives (note the fancy new drop-down menus while you're there), you may wonder whether I ever eat desserts.

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret: I have a ferocious sweet tooth.

As you may know, I've spent most of the past decade working in restaurant kitchens. We cooks tend to fall into one of two camps: sweet or savory, rarely crossing lines. My ten years in professional kitchens never saw me stepping away from the savory side of the fence, though many a pastry chef have told me that my calm demeanor would be most welcome in their world.

For reasons that defy explanation and, truthfully, vex my wife, the Sirens of the "hot line" continuously beckon me to their rocky cliffs, where they hypnotize me into standing for countless hours in front of an inferno while orders fly at me like daggers. Though oil burns my arms, my legs cramp, and knives slip (ouch!), I find a sense of serenity in the vortex of the dinner-rush tornado that eludes me anywhere else.

You need a dozen entrées plated right away? No problem. You need a simple pie crust? Ask someone else.

You see, by my own admission, I'm rather clumsy in the pastry kitchen. My least favorite task is one of the easiest, separating egg yolks from whites. I always seem to pollute the whites with a dribble of yolk. I tear delicate doughs, scorch sugar, and cause chocolate to seize.

Fortunately, though, over the years my sweet tooth encouraged me to keep one eye on the pastry chef at all times (and not only so I could nick that handful of chocolate whenever s/he turned away). I incessantly asked questions. There's nothing I dislike more than not knowing how - or why - to do something.

A couple of weeks ago, the Sweet Muse mysteriously chose to whisper into my unworthy ear. She spoke through the pages of my new favorite cook book, Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques. A couple of weeks ago (yes, I have fallen that far behind in my culinary tales), Pim invited local bloggers to her house to help her organize the raffle drawings for Menu for Hope II. She lured us with promises of her justly famous Thai cooking. How could I pass up such an enticing invitation, especially as it afforded me the chance to finally meet some of my fellow bloggers. I was so enthusiastic that I even convinced N to join me.

Whenever I go to a friend's house, I feel awkward if I don't bring something along. As Pim was providing the main course, I was left with only one option. Dessert.

A lime or mango tart would probably have been ideal after Pim's spicy curried Thai noodles (khao soi - read her recipe here), but my crust phobias prevented me from going down that path. I spied a large jar of Catalonian hazelnuts twiddling their thumbs on my kitchen counter and then remembered drooling over Ms. Goin's recipe for Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake. The recipe was nearly identical to an almond cake that one of my mentor chefs used as a base for her Prune Plum Upside Down Cake, perhaps my favorite dessert in the world.

I baked the cake early in the morning. The aroma of toasted hazelnuts and caramelized butter drove me nearly mad with anticipation. When it emerged from the oven, the cake looked respectable enough, belying its simple collection of ingredients.

Upon arrival at Pim's, though, my bubble of pride quickly deflated. It suddenly dawned on me that I - the savory cook - had brought one of just 2 desserts to a fête that included several well-known, excellent bakers (including Shuna and Heidi!) and, of course, a certain four-star chef. What the hell was I thinking bringing a dessert, especially one I had previously neither made nor tasted?

Thankfully, Chef Goin did not let me down! Her cake - really more of a torte - is divine. It is that rare pastry that manages to be both rich (with butter and hazelnuts), yet light (with lots of beaten egg whites). I plan to make it often, especially during the autumn and winter months. I'm sure if one of you more expert bakers attempt her recipe, it will come out even lighter and more spectacular than my version.*

Maybe it's just luck, but I tend to have a pretty good nose for sniffing out which recipes will work and which ones will flop (and be too much for me to handle). Besides, how could I resist a recipe that Ms. Goin tells us she had chosen as her own wedding cake?

Maybe, just maybe, I'll try my hand at more desserts over this next 6 months and share my successes (and failures) with you. That's a New Year's resolution I can live with!

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* Feb. 6. Update: I couldn't have been more accurate when I wrote that self-assessment last month. For expert advice on how to make this luscious cake come out far lighter and even more scrumptious than mine did, follow veteran pastry chef Shuna Lydon's detailed instructions in her "dacquoise & meringue" post on KQED's food blog Bay Area Bites!

Least popular recipe ever*

We all heard the fairy tales when we were growing up. The one where the princess kisses a frog and it magically turns into a prince. Or the one about the lovely damsel who falls madly in love with a hideous beast.

My hope is that those classic tales will inspire you, my undoubtedly beautiful readers, to consider for a moment pressing your lips up against what may at first glance appear to be the frog of the fairy tale. I'm hoping you'll get past your initial aversions, and like the heroine Roxane of another story, take this Cyrano of a recipe on a first date at the very least.

So who, or rather what, is this beast, this Shrek of the kitchen?

Before I unveil my recipe, let me remind you that in yesterday's post I promised to provide a surprising use for my beloved Spanish anchovies. This recipe fulfills that promise.

So, close your eyes and pucker your lips.... no, that won't work. How will you finish reading?

Enough suspense. Without further ado, meet slow-roasted cauliflower with pounded anchovies.

Wait! Before you close that window, bare with me just a little while longer. Beneath his ugly visage, this Quasimoto is quite lovable.

A bath in a generous amount of olive oil and a languorous stint in a very hot sauna (your oven) combine to transform this pale and gnarled member of the brassica family (whose ugly stepsisters include brussels sprouts, cabbage and kale) into a vegetable that even avowed cauliflower haters will not recognize. The alchemy of slow-roasting causes it to lose its faintly bitter and sulfuric disposition and melt into an impossibly tender, sweetly caramelized vegetable with the texture of a fat French fry.

If it is too much to ask you to top an often reviled vegetable with an even more despised pungent fish, try saucing the cauliflower with just a squeeze of lemon or a sauce of minced parsley, olive oil and toasted almonds or hazelnuts.

On the other hand, if it is not the anchovy but the cauliflower that frightens you, then use this powerful anchovy sauce to perk up steamed broccoli or a salad of chicories, such as radicchio, escarole or frisée. A judicious drizzle of the sauce will also elevate to another level your every day roast chicken, lamb chops, or nearly any pasta.

The pounded anchovy sauce is an emulsion of olive oil and anchovies, with a whisper of lemon juice and a rumor of garlic, so it is vital to use your best extra virgin oil and Spanish anchovies packed in olive oil (not, however, the white Spanish anchovies marinated in vinegar called boquerones, which are unsuitable for this sauce). The recipe is similar to the  vinaigrette I used to dress cardoons recently, minus the vinegar.

Go ahead. Close your eyes and open your heart and taste buds to a new world, one where cauliflower and anchovies are as desirable as a cup of Parisian hot chocolate or a ripe summer peach. Be like Julia Roberts in the early nineties. Allow this Lyle Lovett to serenade your tongue.

By the way, this post is my (extremely early) entry for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging (some of us start our weekends sooner than others), sponsored by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen. Once again, rather than an herb, I chose an ugly duckling vegetable, the cauliflower.

For those who were wondering, no this is not my entry for Rachael's ugly food photo contest?

*It may not be as popular in the blogging community as a recipe for flourless chocolate cake and the like, but in my house it is one of our most favorite. But then again, we both love anything involving either cauliflower or anchovies. I never liked the popular kids much any way. Cheerleaders, football players, who needs 'em?