I’m not a big dessert person. I won’t pretend that I never order it when out for dinner. Key words like “caramel” or “ice cream” or “coconut” will often at least pique my attention. But more often than not I’ll just nibble a bit of cheese with my husband after dinner, or simply linger over the last of my wine and skip that final course. That being said, at the close of a recent dinner at the charming and delightful Cicchetti, I couldn’t pass up the Spanish-style chocolate mousse. In large part because of its accoutrements: olive oil, salt and crostini. We’ve been falling in love with that salt-and-chocolate combination in recent years, but don’t recall the two combined with that other happy pair, olive oil and bread. Sounded like an interesting culinary quartet. And it was. Oh, how it was. I ...

Ah to have been in Paris this past week! It would have given me the opportunity to toast—in person—my mentor Anne Willan for the honor bestowed on her latest book at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards. Instead I raised my coffee cup generally France-ward to salute this book that represents a lifelong passion for, and curiosity about, not only food we eat today, but chefs and cooks who came before us. If any cookbook author deserves the nod of “prolific” it’s surely Anne Willan. During the 2 1/2 years that I was in France studying and working at her La Varenne cooking school, she wrote about a dozen books that I was incredibly fortunate to help with (Château Cuisine, La France Gastronomique and a number in the Look & Cook series...

My husband and I still remember that first meal we had at Rover's. It was August, 1988. We were both having grumpy weeks, didn't like our jobs, whatever the grievance. So we played hooky that lovely sunny day and walked onto the Bainbridge ferry to escape a bit, wander Winslow, explore the beach. Then a huge treat that evening to cheer us up even more: dinner at Rover's. They had a larger outdoor patio then, it was years before the renovation that moved the front door from the west side of  the building to where it now faces the courtyard. As amazing as the food was, what I remember most about that meal was drinking wine that—at the time—was the oldest I’d ever been served. And it was a white wine, a late-harvest chenin blanc from the Loire Valley, 1959 Moulin Touchais. Poured to accompany seared foie gras, is was a moment that opened ...

It's kind of funny to me that this month I've been talking up game-day snacks as much as I have. A few years ago my cookbook Gourmet Game Night was released and I spent a lot of time explaining that the "game" I had in mind was Scrabble or dominoes, rather than venison or football. Though in truth, the latter was a least a close approximation. Whether our attention is directed at watching a football game or playing a poker game, the ultimate eating goal is the same: enjoying food that's flavorful, interesting and satisfying while easy to eat and not at all distracting. Which eventually prompted this blog post a couple of years ago, embracing game-day eats right up there with food for board game nights. With the release of Salty Snacks last fall, it only makes sense to be on call again -- play-off ...

Spanish potato chips cooked in extra virgin olive oil, crackers made with pilsner and porter beers, crunchy seaweed snacks coated with rice flour, and countless variations on flavored popcorn--it was quite the snacker's paradise among the vast array of products at this year's Fancy Food Show, which wrapped up this week in San Francisco. Sounds like fun, I'm sure, but my visit really was work. Particularly because I had only a few hours to explore the exhibition floors; not ideal, I wouldn't recommend it, but it was that or nothing given my travel schedule. So there I was at the Moscone Center on Sunday morning around 9:30 a.m. -- badge around my neck, suitcase checked, a printout in hand that listed the three dozen vendors I'd picked from among the 1300+ exhibitors for ...

It was a simple enough question, but it caught me off guard. "Can you recommend a cookbook for the basics, for someone starting out in the kitchen?" Paraphrased, that's what was posed to me by someone a few weeks ago at one of my book signings. Um. Well. Gee. I told her about Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, but recalling  its heft and text-dense style, I worried to myself that it might intimidate a first-time cook. Beyond that, I was at a loss. (He's got a How to Cook Everything: The Basics variation on the theme, which I discovered later, it seems more user-friendly with more visuals and a lighter design.) If she'd asked ...

Having just completed a few months of heavy-duty (and fun) promotion of my latest book, it's probably no surprise I've been deeply engrossed in salty snacks lately. When demonstrating or sampling a recipe from the book , the key is to represent the books recipes exactly as written to give folks an authentic taste of results they can expect. Which can take a bit of discipline on my part -- when I'm off the cookbook-author clock, I rarely cook a recipe exactly the same way twice. Whether it's some seasonal ingredient shift, a short-cut or simply playing around with swapping things around for variety, I'm driven to try different things. So after having done due diligence with that specific recipe promotion process, I thought I'd share with you a couple recent variations I cooked up just for fun. The first grew out ...

I didn't want to break the spell. When I left Seattle to go to cooking school in France, it was a major adventure, a big step into an unknown future, a dream come true. Belongings that I wasn't taking with me went into long-term storage, since this was to be an open-ended trip of at least nine months (ended up being 2 1/2 years). The last thing I wanted to do was break the momentum and serendipity of my time abroad with splashes of my real world. So I chose not to make any trips back to Seattle in the midst of it, devoting my full attention instead to France. (One small concession was a trip to Boston to meet me then-boyfriend-now-husband, a delightful city for a mid-point rendezvous after a couple of years. He was not in long-term storage.) I'd arrived at La Varenne in August and the first few months passed quickly. Soon that first Christmas ...

You know, me and my kitchen -- we're pretty close. I've been with this one for over a dozen years and we've been through a lot together. Lots of laughs and fun times, some long cooking marathons, writing a bunch of cookbooks (10 maybe?), a few challenges working to get recipes just right (or, coming to terms with a recipe that just won't ever get to "quite right"), many explorations of new techniques/ingredients/preparations. The physical presentation of the room even mirrors my personality pretty well: mostly original mid-century character complete with turquoise boomerang-motif countertops, with one important upgrade to a wonderful Viking gas rangetop. When I'm in that kitchen, I reach for favorite dishes and utensils and appliances without thinking twice about the arsenal of cooking support I surround myself with. Though the truth is that I'm decidedly NOT a kitchen gadget whore. I don't need a section ...

It happened for the umpteenth time a couple of days ago. Part of the daily routine, keeping up on news of the day, checking out a restaurant that just opened in my neighborhood, I'm scanning the menu online....then, BAM! One of my all-time biggest menu peeves: "Wild Mushroom Quesadilla: crimini mushroom, roasted poblano, chevre....." Blood pressure goes up, I get distracted-feeling and fidgety. I've had it up to here (gestures toward top of head) with restaurants trying to sell us cultivated mushrooms as wild. I tweeted that day that I planned to start fining restaurants $10 every time they try to pass off a commercially-grown mushroom as a wild one, and that tweet got favorited and RT'd more than any of mine before. Clearly this irks others just as much. I can't, and don't, hold the grudge against that one establishment alone. It's a pervasive problem that's been irking me for a decade or more. Cremini (crimini? I guess ...