Not Your Mother's Cookbooks

Over the centuries, a mixed vegetable stirfry in China picked up the name Buddha’s Delight memorializing the vegetarian observant Buddhist monks who ate it. Chinese food has wonderful metaphorical names for their dishes and it certainly grabs the attention of the diner. The stirfry changes with the seasons, but contains a mixture of healthful fresh and preserved vegetables, sometimes up to 10 to 12 different ones.

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I remember being turned on to freshly roasted specialty coffee in the early 1970s. It is was in San Francisco’s North Beach at the bohemian Cafe Trieste, a bustling coffee house opened in 1956 by an Italian fisherman’s son to serve cappucinos and those decadent, delicious Italian pastries that are so flakey when fresh and scatter crumbs all over the table after every bite. Shortly after, Peet’s opened in Berkeley and Menlo Park and people lined up to buy their coffee beans every day of the week. I traveled in Guatemala and the mountains were planted with coffee. But every food stall and restaurant table had a jar of Nescafe instant coffee. I would walk on the beach in Champerico after traveling at Lake Atitlan and watch the boats be loaded with the sacks of beans.

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My favorite Italian flavors–lemons, walnuts, anise, and raisins–are the spirited Mediterranean additions to this barely sweet cake, which you will be proud to serve for a festive occasion. It also toasts nicely after a day or two.

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Blame it on the pita. Or maybe it was the tortillas. Certainly focaccia had something to do with it. Flat breads have become the new darlings of the bread world. Breads once considered exclusively ethnic or regional foods and eaten on holiday, have crossed all borders and become international. Flat breads can be leavened with yeast or baking powder, or unleavened, akin to the oldest breads made, patted out and cooked on hot rocks in the sun. They can be chewy and crisp, soft and melt in your mouth, plain or embellished.

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When asked about a bread that typifies Muslim Northern India and Afghanistan, naan, which is also the generic word for bread in those areas, is the first one that comes to mind. It is also trendy; every Pacific Rim restaurant offers it because of it’s buttery flavor and moist texture. The long oval breads are baked in a tandir oven, which is a deep clay floor oven. The shaped dough is placed on a gaddi (cushioned pad) and baked by slapping them onto the walls of the oven while one end hangs out over the fire, making a pretty teardrop oval about 20 inches in length.

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Roman bread is the house bread at the Casa Vieja restaurant near Arizona State University. It is a lovely uneven shape baked on a baking sheet and essentially a foccacia. The onion is added with all the other ingredients, so that it is incorporated right into the flat bread dough. Sprinkle it with grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese in place of the salt, or another herb like dried basil, before baking. There is never any leftover, but if so, it is good for stuffings.

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“Your first look at the rice cooker can be a bit confusing, especially with the digital face on a fuzzy logic machine. But the procedure is exactly the same with all models: choose a recipe, assemble your ingredients, measure and wash the rice, load the rice bowl, add the water, close the cover, plug in, and press the button.”

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