If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake.

Well, I knew he was coming, but I didn't bake one. I bought one instead. Do you think I could make a cake as precious as the one below? Perhaps, but not under stress.


I thought about baking him a cake, but I've been known to impart too much meaning into such baked goods before. I thought about this one a little too much. So much so, that I ran out of time. So I bought one, which is nearly as good, meaning-wise, but less pressure, which is better.

I have a visitor arriving this week. A rather special one. He hasn't spent much time in San Francisco and so it is up to me to show it to him. I'll show him what I consider to be my San Francisco. The tricky part is figuring out just what that is.

I imagine there are those of you out there who have faced this problem before. A guest arrives. Their idea of San Francisco dining might consist of eating chowder from a sourdough bread bowl. Or Rice-a-roni. Perhaps you're fortunate enough to have a guest who's heard about dim sum and is game for it. That's one meal out of the way. My guest will be spending nine days with me. That's twenty-seven meals together. Hopefully together, anyway. What about the other twenty-six?

The pressure has been building. Inside my own head, I mean. I know it's absolutely silly. I just want to show him, food-wise and other-wise, what it is I love about this city and what it has to offer. I will take him to a few of my favorite places, places that have meaning to me. I will offer him local foods that I love. The rest, I imagine will take care of itself. I will not be rigid. I will go with the flow.

To start things off, I've got a few of my favorite things already laid out for him when he arrives. Enter one Miette Sharfenberger chocolate cake, as pictured above. Also enter a selection of Michael Recchiuti chocolates as somewhat fuzzily pictured above. Nothing says "nice to see you" like a good sugar buzz.

We'll have our first dinner at Frascati. The constant clackity-clack of the Hyde Street Cable Car line just outside the front door will send a rather rhythmic, not too terribly subtle message that, well, he's not in Vancouver anymore (Such a world-class city!).

There are lots of other restaurants I want him to try, but time and budget won't allow us to visit them all. Three more we'll definitely be going to are:

House of Nanking, becuase I want him to get bullied by a waiter into eating great Chinese food.

Florio, because that's my favorite little neighborhood haunt and the chef is a man who made me like tripe.

Kokkari. My guest's family is Greek, so this visit is unavoidable. Besides, I want to eat smelt and lamb's tongue again.

The rest will play itself out. Cowgirl Creamery, Blue Bottle Coffee, breakfast at Tartine, studiously avoiding Delfina, all that stuff will likely follow.

I would like to hear some suggestions from you, dear reading audience (sound of crickets chirping). Hellooooooo?

Really.

What smacks of this city to you? What is your San Francisco Treat? I'd like to know. I've got a few more meal slots to fill.

Fungal Love

As Shuna announced at the beginning of April, this is poetry month. Initially, that thought made me whince, but I enjoyed her poem and thought... hmm... perhaps I should contribute something. Ten days later, Amy mentioned a tofu haiku contest, which I entered (and will most likely receive an angry letter from the Soy Board). Now it's my turn.

I admit to having written poetry in college. Precious little, which is most likely a good thing. Somewhere in the universe, there are notebooks dotted with odd and pained verses brought on by reading too much Plath and listening to too much Bauhaus. I cringe at the thought of their discovery.

Last year, my friend Doralice handed me a copy of a poem I wrote in culinary school. I thought it was all but lost. You may wish it was, too, after reading it.

It was performed in front of our Safety and Sanitation class at the California Culinary Academy in early 1996. I was asked to give a presentation on, and here's what the 3 x 5 card said, "Interesting facts about fungi". It was read in a Dr. Seuss-like manner because, well, it has a Seuss-like rhyme scheme. I was surprised at the poem's reception-- no one threw anything at me or threatened to beat me up after class. Enjoy it or, at least, give me a fake smile and a polite golf clap. Letting the world read your poetry is no easy thing.

Fungus

With fungus, there's mushrooms,
There's molds and there's yeasts.
We've so much to learn
From these wee tiny beasts.

They aid in our whiskies
And hot steaming toddies.
They hide in our bathrooms
And inside our bodies.

There's fungus on puppies
And bunnies and cheeses.
There's fungus involved
In sexually transmitted diseases.

It lives where it wishes.
It grows where it pleases.
On the best petrie dishes
We find many diseases.

There's Cryptococcosis
And Histoplasmosis
There's ringworm and thrush
And Blastomycosis.

There's rusts and there's smuts
That grow in our grains.
There's even a fungus
That alters our brains.

Which fungus, you ask?
Please let me elucidate.
It's called Psilocybin.
It makes you hallucinate.

It's taken orally
Or it is injected.
(The legality of said fungus, however
The U.S. has rejected.)

I learned from the most
Reliable of references
That fungi abound
In all sexual preferences.

There's heterothallics
And homothallics.
(The latter you'll note
That I wrote in italics.)

When treading with naked feet
In gym showers,
Beware, for it's there
Tinea pedis flowers.

To cure it, make haste
Use something fast actin'
Most sufferers choose
To use Tinactin.

Mycotoxin (a fungus-tainted food derivative)
Perennailly bad-ish
Was considered by villians
A weapon quite faddish.

Biological warfare
Was used by Hussien
Who upon Kurds and Persians
Poured toxins like rain.

In the 1970's
Mycotoxins were got
By a genocidal despot
By name of Pol Pot.

In his part of Asia
He caused great commotions
B y using them on
Cambodians and Laotians.

Rhizopus nigricans,
Or bread mold, will thank
Any fool who puts bread
In a place dark and dank.

The truffle, one teaches,
Prefers it much damper--
Round oaks and some beeches
Where the truffle pigs scamper.

To many a man
There is no sight more dear
Than a woman in hot pants
Bringing him beer.

If said woman ne'er washes
Nor changes, at least,
Could be more than the beer's
Been affected by yeast.

In France and elsewhere
Sweet wines are got
By a wond'rous mold
That is called noble rot.

Botrytis cinerea--
Its true appelation
Dehydrates grape juice
Into high concentration.

Without such a beast
How then could we try
a glass of d'Yquem
or my favorite, Tokaj?

The gods are with you, fungus,
And so I am told
That when they made you,
They broke the mold.

April Fool

Yes, I know. It's not April 1st. I'm not that stupid. I have a calendar in front of me. It tells me today is Friday, April 13th. I just choose to pretend it is otherwise.

April Fool's Day. I'd always wondered what was especially foolish about that particular day. I thought it might have to do with the first whiffs of spring in the air-- causing hormones to surge, making people do idiotic things. As it turns out, it has more to do with the calendar and boring papal policy change than anything else.

You can blame the French, if you like. They were the first country to switch from the Julian to Gregorian calendar in 1582. The new New Year's Day moved to January 1st from the previously celebrated April 1st. News did not travel fast in the 16th century and those who missed the email still celebrated the first day of the year in April. They were called fools.

Personally, I rather like celebrating the new year in Spring. It makes much more sense to me; the sun begins to warm us again and flowers begin to bloom-- all that fluffy, happy stuff that happens about now. I'm generally exhausted come January 1st, what with Christmas and all. I consider it a rather lame idea to celebrate the New Year when everything about us is cold and dead with worse to come. Call me a fool if you like. You certainly wouldn't' be the first person to do that.

In honor of this old New Year, I'll give you three guesses as to what I'm making.



Yes, a fool. No lame plays on words please. Although, since I am working from my own kitchen and not wearing gloves, there will most likely be traces of my own DNA in the dessert. Therefore, and quite truthfully, I could be able to say that I am indeed making a fool of myself. That's as far as I am willing to go.

The fool is closely related to the trifle and the syllabub. So closely related, in fact, that they are practically sisters. With parents who had an interesting talent for naming their children, of course.

The fool is possibly the oldest and certainly the simplest of the trio, dating back to at least 16th century England. It is whipped cream and fresh or cooked, pureed fruit. What could be more English than that? Okay, a couple of things, I'm sure, but it's still pretty English.

Here's my recipe.

Strawberry Rhubarb Fool

Ingredients:

For the puree:

1 pint strawberries, slices or chopped
2 stalks rhubarb, sliced in 1/4 pieces
2 tablespoons sugar, 1 for the strawberries, the other for the rhubarb, or to taste, depending
upon the sweetness of the berries.
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier, because I said so.

For the Cream:

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:

1. Place rhubarb, 1 tablespoon of sugar and perhaps (these things are never precise) 1/2 cup of water in a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until rhubarb is soft, releases its pink and is generally rather unattractive looking.
2. Put into shallow dish and cool.
3. Toss strawberries with 1 tablespoon of sugar and Grand Marnier. Let sit while the rhubarb cools.
4. Toss, or place gently, rhubarb and berries into a food processor and blend until smooth. The mixture doesn't have to be too terribly smooth, some lumpiness may be desired in certain dessert circles. Set aside.
   
5. In a bowl, combine cream, and buttermilk. Whip. About half way through the process, add sugar and vanilla. Whip until fairly stiff peaks form.
6. Combine half the fruit puree with the same amount of whipped cream and fold together. A real fool will have some streakiness to it, as though perhaps pressing matters of Empire might have gotten in the way of a thorough folding.
7. Into your selected glasses (parfait glasses are preferred, but I don't have any), place a tablespoon or two of the fruit at the bottom. Next, layer the cream and fruit mixture on top of that. I like a final layer of whipped cream on top, like the final flourish of non-dairy topping that finished off the Jell-o parfaits of my youth.
8. Cover and refrigerate for as long as over night. Garnish with fruit or mint or bullets or whatever you want.

Serves 4 to 6, depending upon the glasses you use.

For a slightly healthier alternative, do away with the cream entirely and substitute yogurt. It will be like fruit-on-the-bottom Dannon or Yoplait, except you know exactly what you put into that fruit and, therefore, exactly what you're putting into your body.

To learn more about the Fool and her sisters, please visit In Mama's Kitchen because mother knows best.

The Easter Egg

This year, the East (Greek and Russian Orthodox) and the West (Roman Catholic and its breakaway Protestant faiths) have booked the same banquet room, as it were, for Easter. The last time this happened was 2004. It will happen again in 2010. That date sounds marvelously futuristic. 2010.

As a child, I loved Easter-- it meant candy, cannoli, watching Judy Garland and Ann Miller and, quite possibly, money. My family's Easter rituals were nearly interchangeable with our Thanksgiving ones. We just traded in the turkey for a ham and wore brighter colors. Of course, there was one notable, Easter-specific activity...

The Easter Egg Hunt.

There was a certain lack of enthusiasm for the hunt at my house. My brother and sister were much older than I and, therefore, largely bored by it. While Betty Ford was busying herself on the South Lawn showing children how to roll Easter Eggs, the only things rolling at my house were the jaded eyes of my siblings. At least they were kind enough to humor me.

Saturday night was spent breaking out the Paas egg dyeing kit, creating two-toned eggs and trying to somehow work the accompanying decals onto the eggs without tearing them. My brother sometimes attempted to create narrative tension on the surface of his eggs, which is a challenge when pastel colors and bunnies are involved. I believe one year my sister dyed one egg blue and painted the original movie poster from Jaws onto it. If anyone could make an Easter egg look menacing, it would have to be my sister. Once finished, we would admire our handiwork until the nausea induced by the acrid smell of the Heinz white wine vinegar wafting up from the egg dyeing cups finally drove us away. And then, at some point during my sleeping hours, the eggs would go into hiding.

I never really understood why the eggs felt the need to hide themselves-- it's not as though anyone in my family really enjoyed eating hard boiled eggs. They were in no real danger. I would have preferred to decorate my bookshelf with them or plant one in the back yard and pray that something interesting grew from it. Perhaps they were afraid of being buried alive.

So they hid. Usually in the same places every year. One always found its way into the piano bench, another in the chandelier which I could never quite reach. We always made an even dozen. When ten or so were found, the already low level of enthusiasm would wane. My mother always stepped into the Judas role, betraying the hiding place of one of the eggs. Eventually, one hiding under the living room sofa or concealed in a recycled Country Crock margarine container would betray itself by its own putrefaction. Usually sometime in May. Or June.

This year, thanks to my new-found interest in things Greek (or, at least, my interest in one particular Canadian of Greek descent), I am embracing the Greek Easter egg. I made a dozen of them yesterday. Why I keep making an even dozen, I'll never know. I suppose it would be more correct to make thirteen, since there were thirteen people present at the Last Supper and that, it would seem, is what got this whole Easter ball --or egg--rolling. Remind me to do that next year.



The traditions involving the Greek Easter egg are much different from our own, and much more no-nonsense than, say, the Russians'. The Russian Easter egg is far too expensive to be produced yearly, but they are a good investment if you have the money. The Greeks don't bother to hide their eggs. Why hide food you know you're going to eat later? Unless, of course, one is re-enacting an historical event and therefore hiding it from the Turks or the Germans. No, they just dye them blood red and put them in the middle of their dinner table. There's more to it than that, of course. There's a power game involved.

What to do when confronted with a Greek Easter egg.

1. Show no fear. This egg will most likely be presented to you by a Greek person. They can smell fear almost as well as they can smell lamb or a bargain. Just keep calm, smile and say "Kalo Pascha."
2. This egg now in your possession will be given to you after a dinner of spit-roasted lamb and many glasses of wine or ouzo. Take it and partake in a symbolic and faintly violent game of egg smashing.
3. One person will turn to another participant seated next to him and say something in Greek. The other person will respond, also in Greek, and they will smash the pointed ends of their respective eggs together. The participant whose egg emerges uncracked moves on to his next victim.
4. If that next victim is you, he will say to you "Christos Anesti!" (Christ is risen!) to which you must respond, "Alithos Anesti!" (He is truly risen!") and smash your egg into his.
5. If you are victorious, repeat this process until all eggs except one are cracked. If that egg is yours, it means that Jesus likes you better than anyone else in the room and that you will have good luck throughout the year.

What it all means.

The red coloring of the eggs represents the Blood of Christ to the Greeks. I just happen to think they are highly attractive.

The cracking of the egg symbolizes Christ breaking out of his tomb as he rises from the dead. If this is true, then I don't really understand why the person with the uncracked egg is favored. If there is a crack anywhere, in my opinion, it is in the logic of this game. Perhaps the others are simply masking their grief for the damned soul of someone who is now certain never rise to heaven.

If you decide to play the game but are somewhat uncomfortable with so much Jesus talk, you might try substituting your own ritual call-and-response during the game. Something non-religious, yet still meaningful. One person shouting out a love for corduroy while his challenger announces his preference for suede is one such suggestion. I find the Greek tradition of being in such strong verbal agreement with each other while engaging in such aggressive behavior unconvincing and lacking in any real dramatic tension. I suppose if the first person shouted out the usual "Christ is risen!" and the second person responded "Actually, I think he's still napping" or "Christ was a Turk", there might be some tension. It is undoubtedly to my own advantage that I don't know how to say those things in Greek. But it might be exciting to witness, nevertheless.

How to make Greek Easter eggs if no one else is willing to make them for you:

First off, I must implore you not to follow my example. I read the badly translated instructions off the back of a Greek Easter egg dye package, which called for a cold dyeing. I was unwilling to go out and buy more eggs and dye them properly. I already have more hard boiled eggs than I know what to do with. As a result, my eggs look more like the pocked surface of Mars than the pure life force of a Savior whose blood is said to have come directly from King David on his Mother's side and, well, whatever flows through His Father's side of the family.

Here is a better recipe:

Ingredients:

12 uncooked eggs
Water
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 package of Greek Easter egg dye
Olive oil

Preparation:

1. Carefully wash and dry each egg (I missed this part, so it must be important).
2. Set a large pot of water to boil. Add egg dye and vinegar to the water and bring to a boil to dissolve dye.
3. Set water aside and let cool. Refrigerate for all I care. It seems that every recipe I've read calls for putting uncooked eggs into boiling or near-boiling water. This sound plain crazy to me. Perhaps it is some odd, Greek act of faith. Perhaps it is precisely because I lack that faith that my eggs came out spotty.
   
4. Set now-cooled water over stove and carefully add the eggs. Bring water to a boil and turn off heat.
5. Let eggs sit for 10 minutes, remove them carefully and allow to cool and dry.
6. Wipe eggs with olive oil-soaked paper towels.
7. Wipe now with a clean, dry soft cloth to remove excess oil and to polish.
8. Place them on your Easter table and let the fun begin.