Breakfast with Pandora

New Year's Eve, a la francaise (not mythology)

If I were a food blogger, I would've had a camera at the ready and you would now be seeing a photo of an amazing charcuterie plate we ordered last night at Vin Rouge, a terrific French restaurant hereabouts.

Instead, I simply want to do something that we, here in the teens, should do as often as possible: word-of-mouth businesses that take good care of their customers.

Yes, I used word-of-mouth as a verb. This is the new paradigm in our hyper-connected age. It used to be that I could only reach a few people at a time if I said that on New Year's Eve I had a wonderful meal at a popular French restaurant. Now, potentially, we can all reach millions. And if enough of us word-of-mouth a business, we will reach millions.

We came to Vin Rouge last night without a reservation, hoping that we could possibly score two seats at the bar. The hostess ushered us immediately to the two most secluded stools, took my date's jacket to hang up, and wished us a good meal. The bartender greeted us with a smile and menus, and spent the rest of the meal helping us in ways cheerful, friendly and professional.

We ordered the charcuterie plate, which consisted of five different french meats, egg, and vegetable, including an incredible chicken liver pate that is indescribably luscious. With it, we drank a Cahors (eastern Bordeaux region) Malbec, the 2006 Haut-Monplaisir. It was our pleasure, a really nice bottle.

In between, the hostess came by and asked us how we were doing. Very well, thank you.

For dinner we had steak-frites, or steak and french fries. Mine was a hanger steak with a bleu cheese butter, my companion's a steak au poivre with tarragon-tinged bearnaise sauce. What gourmandise. So rich you don't need to eat for a week.

But we did-- we knew about Vin Rouge's chocolate torte, which manages to be both rich, deep, and frothy light at the same time. We had it with great coffee, a capuccino pour elle and an espresso for me. I do not drink coffee unless I am in France, and I felt as if tonight I had been transported there.

By that time another party had been seated on stools near us, and we had companionable conversation, wishing each other a prosperous 2010 and admiring one woman's party dress, which managed to be both 40's and disco era at the same time. "That's what I strive for every day," she explained. "The 40's and the disco era at the same time."

We made it out of there for what I considered to be a very reasonable amount of money, especially since we boxed up about half the charcuterie and most of my date's steak. Lunch was taken care of the  next day.

What a great New Year's Eve. Exactly what it should be. A party atmosphere, enjoyment, optimism. Thanks, Vin Rouge.

Put a little garrigue in your wine (not mythology)

According to the tasting notes at our local wine shop, the wine we enjoyed last night is redolent of "La garrigue": an arid landscape native to the south of France and characterized by aromatic herbs such as wild thyme, rosemary, and lavender.

Photo from the wineshop.

Most of the time, tasting notes in wines don't mean a whole lot, especially those that go beyond common tastes such as red, blue and black fruit. How do we know what "leather" or "tobacco" tastes like in a wine?

Still, it's fun to savor wine on the tongue and see if you can pick out something. It's a game that requires no video equipment, RAM, or operating system. And it was a no-video Friday at our house last night, so wine tasting was high on the list of entertainment options.

Skeptical as I am, I was not expecting to taste "la garrigue" in my wine, even though I spent a fair amount of time in southern France in my youth and count that season as one of the happiest and soul-satisfying in my life. 

But danged if Le Garrigon Côtes du Rhone 2007 (organic, made by Daniel Couston) didn't come up with a pronounced burst of smoky herbs, as if I was smelling a distant brush fire fanned by a Mistral. It was really fun to get this, and tasty as well with a braised pork chop in orange sauce.

Garrigue photo here.

It was a good night.

I lived in France with a family that liked consistency. We always started dinner with a puree of vegetable soup that was pale green and perfect for taking the edge off my appetite. Every day of the week had its own entree: lasagna on Tuesday, hamburger and french fries Wednesday, and so on.

And the family drank the same wine every weekday, which they bought by the tankful from a local producer. Opening a bottle with a corkscrew almost never happened in that family. I think they may have considered it a little snooty, or at least way too expensive, the way we might consider it better to buy double packs of Cheerios from Costco rather than variety packs of single-serving boxes of cereal.

At the proper time, I presented the family with a bottle of characteristic California juice: Sebastiani Zinfandel. Back then, you couldn't get more California than that. They made a big deal out of opening the bottle, pouring it, asking questions about my home.

Then the paterfamilias tasted it and said it was like the wine he drank in Algeria during the war.

Quelle honte! Dissed by the French again.

The wine my family drank was plenty good, and they made it go farther by adding water. After a while I was happy to expect that same taste every day. It felt comforting and familiar in a place where I was never sure whether I was getting my genders correct.

Label comes from here.

After I left France, I figured I would never taste that particular wine again. But I did, round about 1991 or 1992, when my best friend was living nearby with his new wife. My friend is also a France veteran, and he or I bought a random, inexpensive bottle of Côtes du Rhone (such as this one). We sat down to dinner, and at the first sip of the wine my entire French experience came rushing back, a la the ratatouille scene in the movie "Ratatouille."

A tear passed down my cheek.

The wine last night was not like my everyday wine in France. I hope to taste that some time again. I think I will have to go back to the south of France for it. I will let you know when I find it.

Still from "Ratatouille" comes from here.

It came to me in a dream (not much mythology)

I spend a lot of time wandering cities in dreams, and in this dream I not only was in a city but I also had snail mail.

Who knows why that pile of envelopes was there in front of me, but one of them contained a letter from an editor at the New Yorker, that venerable magazine in which for serious writers a byline is like a golden trophy.

I was hoping for a check. Like all freelance writers, I always go to my mailbox hoping for a check.

The letter from Fiona Little (or White, maybe)-- on tri-fold, greenish stationery-- was not terrifically coherent. But apparently I had some kind of relationship with her where I had mentioned that I make Spanish tortilla, a kind of potato and egg omelet. I have a slice of leftover tortilla in my refrigerator now.

Fiona felt as if her readers would benefit from an essay that related omelets-- or in my case, Spanish tortillas-- to life in the city.

She waxed poetic about omelets and city life. I don't remember any of it, except that she felt even walking down the street worried about your safety in a tough neighborhood related to omelets.

I didn't read the body of her letter that closely. I was looking for my assignment.

Fiona did close the letter with an invitation to write the essay and a promise of $50 if she accepted it, though even that sum may have just been wishful dream-editing on my part after I woke up.

I am half-tempted to write this essay and include the dream in my pitch letter. This summer I taught a course in using the five senses to enrich one's writing, and writing about food always involves the senses. It could be a great exercise in practicing what I preach.

It would take a little thought to figure out how the Spanish tortilla relates to city life, now that Miss Little's (White's) letter has gone poof in my head. I have posted about it before, with credit to the original food blogger, and a reference to the cookbook where it is enshrined forever.

The New Yorker may not be the best place for this essay-- there is a better choice, I think, called Alimentum, which is a literary journal concerned with food.

And while I'm on the subject of literature and writing through the senses, you might want to check out the new book by my friend and colleague Peggy Millin: Women, Writing, & Soul-Making: Creativity and the Sacred Feminine.

Peggy is an author and acclaimed writing coach who has helped many women find their stories and publish them in a variety of venues. Although I have never taken any of her classes, being the wrong gender, I do know her as a kind, generous, and wise human being. And I have read the first chapter of her book, which shows how writing and the writing process can become a spiritual activity for the writer. I am quite down with that.

I wonder what Peggy would say about my dream. I have a feeling she'd tell me to pursue the inspiration. I'll let you know if I do.

In the meantime, if you have an interpretation for this dream, please weigh in.

And, no, I will not be telling you about the dream where I was transformed into a Dionysus-like figure with Dionysus-like powers.

Food blogging revisited: Chef John's pork n' beans n' greens

Every now and then I blog on food, and I love a good food blog. I don't watch the Food Channel much anymore because every time I tune in, it seems to be either Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, or about cake or candy. Blah.

Photo: Chef John's pork. Scroll down for my version.

But I am enthused about Chef John Mitzewich's video food blog, foodwishes.com, a happy departure from those boring stock shots of Skittles being candy coated on conveyor belts.

Chef John is the most accessible food blogger I've seen out there. Part of this is surely due to his teaching background (he is now about to film a culinary cooking course. Sounds like a winner). Part is also that his videos are well produced, to the point, and enhanced with his dry sense of humor.

But most dominantly, Chef John's videos are addictive because You Can Make This Stuff and It Will Taste Good.

As an example, I give you his Pork n' Beans n' Greens, which I made last night for my son's birthday, using baby bok choy as a substitute for his suggestion of "adult" arugula.

It was in-cred-i-ble, and very easy.

First you get a pork shoulder roast. Kudos to John for getting me to buy one of those. I like buying small amounts of meat frequently rather than whole roasts. If you mess up a roast you're out a lot of money, but if you burn a pork chop it's no big deal.

Then make a "wub," or wet rub, a combination of spices, garlic, oil and vinegar that's rubbed on the meat. Very simple ingredients included fennel seeds, which I didn't have, so I substituted fresh thyme that had recently dried into dried thyme.

Pop the meat in the oven, turn it once, and it's done. Amazing. No marinating time, no fancy equipment, no technique. It comes out fantastic and I did almost nothing to it.

Then you sautee cannellini beans in olive oil and garlic, put some lemon juice in (daughter didn't like that, but it added another awesome layer of flavor), wilt some greens on top.

Put the beans and greens underneath the crispy-and-tender pork, and there you have it.

The best pork shoulder roast I have ever made.

Also addicting: the intro and exit music; his Mozo shoes voiceover.

Below you see the final plating, in the hands of young boy who is now 16. I drank super special $4.99 Trader Joe's Ste. Croix Syrah-Merlot from southern France. Another winner under 5 bucks.

So I'm a Chef John fanboy. Representing.

Bread, sourdough (not mythology)

Hailing as I do from the San Francisco Bay Area, it's my continuous dream to be a sourdough bread king. The characteristic tang of a San Francisco sourdough slice-- preferably one from Colombo bakery, in the green, "extra-sour, late-bake" sleeve, jolts me back to hungry days of scarfing Dad's chili or Mom's unmatched spaghetti sauce on chilly, foggy evenings.

I am always in the market for a little nostalgia. So a few weeks ago I joined the Yahoo sourdough group and asked around for someone local who might spare me some starter.

I found a generous, good-hearted, and extremely articulate benefactor in Bill Snider, owner of Simple Kneads bakery in Greensboro, NC. I'm sorry it's impossible to taste bread virtually, because Bill's sourdough is San Fran worthy and instantly addictive.

Bill gave me a lump of his starter, and I carried it home reverently while munching on a sourdough batard that made it to my front door only in my stomach.

Sourdough is a living organism-- a colony of yeast, in fact, that stays alive as long as you feed it flour and water. Bill likens sourdough to a low-maintenance pet: not much work, a lot of benefit. You can tell sourdough is alive because after you feed it, it bubbles up and expands, evidence of the yeast eating flour sugar and creating gas. If you use it correctly, sourdough eliminates the need for baker's yeast in a bread recipe, and imparts superior character to the bread's crumb, and that special tang.

Today we are having a bake sale at church, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to follow the recipe Bill gave for a basic sourdough loaf.

The photos show the results, which were positive overall. The crust was not as brown as I'd like, but my oven browns the bottoms of food faster than tops, so I couldn't leave the bread in as long as I wanted.

The crust was good and thick, however, perhaps as a result of misting the loaves with water from a sprayer before baking.

The crumb was dense, but with acceptable air pockets. Not bad-- similar to San Francisco's Boudin bakery crumb, which was good for the ham sandwiches they made, if I could afford them, while temping downtown over the summer or the holidays. Colombo's was like Bill's: airy, crackly-crusted, feathery crumb.

Taste: no discernible sour tang. Basic white French bread, even a little sweet and salty. Similar in taste to Colombo "sweet" red sleeve.

Fun? Baking takes time, patience and focus. I aspire even to Bill's description of me to one of his employees as a "hobby baker." But I'll keep at it.

Technical notes below, for anyone interested:

• The dough was very sticky to start, but at Bill's suggestion I resisted the temptation to add a lot of flour. I did add enough to make the dough workable. I wrestled pretty hard with it to get it developed. Later, once the yeast in the starter did its job, the dough silked nicely.


• The dough never puffed really high as normal yeast breads do for me. It didn't matter. The bread tasted good anyway. 


• This was the first dough I ever made without baker's yeast. It worked!


• The bread proofed overnight in a cool environment and when I slit the tops, the outer skin on the dough was pretty rigid. But the tops of the loaves bloomed and made nice patterns. 

Last look (you can see the bottom of a loaf, how it browned darker than the top):

Two dinners for the sake of joy

This weekend I dined well. Once I let a restaurant do the cooking, and once I did it, and both times my dining companion had good things to say. This is doubly pleasurable, because the restaurant happens to be one of the best in my area.

Photo of food looking colorful.

I was glad to go first with a sautee of chicken breast and rotini with snow peas, zucchini, green onions, and cherry tomatoes. It was lovely with a little sherry, garlic, and cayenne sauce. Dining companion raved and was grateful for leftovers which fed her for lunch the next day.

Then it was Bin 54, a "steakhouse and cellar" (local review here) and hard act to follow if I had followed; also an indicator  of how chichi the Tar Heels' stomping grounds have now become. Twenty years ago, the place was a Chinese buffet with an aquarium where dinner for two cost about $12. Next door was a laundromat. No longer.

Bin 54 is pricey, with a few cheaper options. An American Kobe beef ribeye steak is $59 for the steak alone-- yes, potatoes extra-- but if you want a hamburger and fries, they're available for $14.

My companion and I were dining on the dime of another, so we did not worry about price, and that made all the difference.

For our main course, we split a prime porterhouse. The kitchen cut the (sizable) steak into six pieces, two on the filet side of the steak, and four on the strip side. In the middle, a big t-bone that would have been excellent for a dog, except that (as I discovered upon trying to donate it) cooked steak bones can splinter and hurt a dog if they're swallowed.

To make sure we were getting the full experience, we ordered the steak "Oscar" style, which caused to appear on our table a tureen of crab meat and asparagus spears with regal robes of bearnaise sauce, intended to be poured over steak.

Our sides: King Trumpet mushrooms and Yukon Gold mashed potatoes.

Three words: W-O-W.

For an appetizer, we had the tuna tartare with green onion, wasabi crackers (rub on tongue to get tingle), and creamy soy sauce. As my friend Todd would say, "tasty."

For dessert, companion had flourless chocolate cake with a sauce that was painted on the plate like a Dutch chocolate master's dream. I had sorbet, because, of course, one needs to eat light after such a heavy meal. The mint sorbet was especially good with a spoonful of Rembrandt sauce and flourless cake.

For wine, I ordered a sampler of three different reds, and two were extraordinary: the Stoller Vineyards JV Estate '06 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir (Oregon), and the Livingston Moffett "Stanley's Selection" '04 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (California).

Wine commands many adjectives ("earthy yet insouciant") and noun taste comparisons ("pencil shavings and lingenberry"), but for me wine tastes like memories, and these two made a movie in my head.

Good Pinot Noir to me tastes like every meal I've ever had where there was nonstop laughter and joy. The cornucopia of fruit makes you feel giddy and the pepper makes you want to sneeze, but you don't, you just laugh a little more.

A good California Cabernet takes me directly back to the times when women wore their hair like Farrah Fawcett and every summer day was a day of swimming at the beach or the lake followed by a long, leisurely dinner in the fading light.

I think if I drank more good wine I would probably suffer from Post-Rhapsodic Gush Disorder.

So it's back to Hacienda Merlot, which is a darn good everyday wine, folks, and chicken and rotini.

But at least once I hope you go to Bin 54-- or your local equivalent-- where you have complete freedom to order whatever you want. Then the meal becomes like chicken and rotini in that it is eaten with love, for the sake of the food, and without any other expectation, reasonable or unreasonable.

Photo of Farrah from here.

Winter supper with nostalgia

On my trip home this year, the nostalgia took on a different quality. I grew up in California, the Bay Area in particular, which has a particularity unlike anywhere else I have ever known. Greece is similar in climate, but so much more ancient and full of utterances from the past. California's venerability comes from its wealth of building from the 1930's and before. Everywhere you look there is a fine example of an Arts and Crafts bungalow, or a Victorian townhome.

Photo from here.

Winter in California means a lot to me. It is the only time of the year when the weather is variable. Mostly in California there is sun, and in San Francisco fog and wind. But in the winter there is also rain, of all intensities, and every kind of rain evokes a mood, a time, or a memory.

The night before I left for home this time, I came out of a movie theater (No Country For Old Men, which I will blog about) with my brother and step-uncle, to a viscous fog swirling with drizzle. I immediately thought of my flight the next morning, early, and of planes grounded.

But when I woke up before dawn, the sky was spangled starry.

Ealier that week I walked in the Oakland hills with my stepmother, and it rained on us, gently, and the canopy of cloud, creamy jumbled grays, lowered enough so that we could not see across to the skyline of the city, nor the Golden Gate Bridge.

At the Rockridge Cafe, a place blessedly the same over the decades I have been away, we had a cornmeal waffle and a hamburger with half a sliced avocado over the top. Avocado says California to me. It is a spread like mayonnaise for sandwiches, as anyone knows who ever ate a turkey sandwich at Togo's.

Winter also means chili and coleslaw. My father made a signature version that is the definition of comfort for me, accompanied by thick, unbuttered slices of San Francisco sourdough bread. On Sundays in winter we might play football in a park, Dad and all brothers plus whoever else in the family was game, under sun or rain, it didn't matter. We would come home muddy and famished, and Dad would whip up a pot of chili and cut cabbage for the slaw. It was a recipe for a parent who has too many children and too little time to be fussy about ingredients and seasonings.

My brother has made the chili and coleslaw since the passing of my father, and he taught the recipes to me this time, to my great gratitude and pleasure.

Here they are:

Dad's Chili

(Easily doubled)

1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic or to taste
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
salt, pepper to taste

1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 15 oz. can kidney beans
1 "schluck" red wine (about a half cup)
chili powder to taste (try 1 tbps. to start)

In a large stockpot with a lid, sautee onion in vegetable oil until limp, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add garlic and sautee another couple of minutes, making sure not to brown garlic. Add ground beef and brown. Drain excess fat. Add tomatoes, beans, and wine. Season with chili powder. Bring to a boil, then simmer at least 45 minutes, stirring and making sure it does not boil or stick to the bottom of the pot. The chili should be thick enough to sit on a plate without running, and to be eaten with a fork.

Serves 6. It is even better on the second day. Plate with Dad's Coleslaw and thick slices of sourdough bread. In the old days it would have been Colombo; nowadays LaBrea is a good national substitute. Boudin is not suitable. It is too cakey. It is much better for sandwiches.

Dad's Coleslaw

1/2 head green cabbage
1/2 cup real mayonnaise
3 tbsp. white vinegar or to taste
Several grinds black pepper (optional)

Chop the coleslaw coarsely into long strips about two matchsticks thick. Measure the mayonnaise into a coffee mug and combine with vinegar. Do not substitute other vinegars. It will not taste or look the same. Whip the vinegar with the mayonnaise until well mixed. The dressing should taste creamy with a noticeable bite. Combine dressing with cabbage and coat well (if there is not enough dressing to coat, make more). Grind pepper over coleslaw if desired.

Serves 6.

A dance in magic Asheville

A very quick pilgrimage to the NC mountains over the weekend, and a visit to Asheville, where I was honored to dine with blogging colleague Genie.

Genie steered me to Zambra, a Spanish tapas restaurant in the heart of downtown.

"That meal was so good, I don't know if I could describe it in words," I told her as we took a post-prandial walk to Pack Place.

"You're a writer," she said. "You owe it to yourself to do it."

Asheville itself has an indescribable character for me. Genie, who lives there full time, raised an eyebrow as I stammered about how the place makes me feel.

Some places just have resonances. Greece irradiates me as did the vial of radium the bosom of Pierre Curie. As soon as I step off the plane, invisible rays of shared humanity bombard me. Paris pumps me full of Western Civilization, the good, the bad, the warts, the beauty.

Asheville is similar, and different. Descending into the valley cut by the French Broad River, I enter a sacred precinct. Mountains whose outlines bleed blue into the hazy sky form a palisade around the city. Even as my pulse quickens, my blood pressure slackens, and it is suddenly easy to believe that the world has a gentle heart, and I have arrived inside it.

In my oral rough draft in Genie's presence, I likened Asheville to Oz's Emerald City, the urban fantasyscape that is the escapist vision of the best of all other cities.

But now I make my inevitable revision.

When I come to Asheville, an idea suggests itself, as certainly as if somebody had planted a chip in my brain. Or perhaps it is the Asheville muse. Or a benevolent bewitching.

The thought: Here, a humane life is possible.

My definition of humane, that is. The best of humanity, to me, is found in art, music, food, wine, architecture, market gardens, flowers, dance, family and community, and love.

I know chemistry is necessary. Business administration is useful. Steel smelting makes the world go round. And the stock market creates the possibility of a secure retirement.

But Asheville, at least the tourist Asheville I know, has nothing to do with the necessary and expedient and everything to do with the creatively human.

Take the restaurant Zambra, whose name comes from a genre of Spanish flamenco dance first practiced by gypsies.

First, you must approach the city by climbing a hill topped by glittering art deco skyscrapers. "Downtown wasn't always like this," Genie tells me as we negotiate for a parking space in the crowded streets. This is what the city at night should be: a university of relaxation. This group goes to hear music. That one goes to an art gallery. Another to Malaprop's Bookstore. And the rest of us to dinner.

Class is in session.

Zambra is cave-like: you enter at street level the dimly-lit dining room with its walls golden and caramel. But the street itself continues to climb, so that when you are escorted into a secluded alcove at the back of the room, the half-window to the outside above your head shows only the legs of passers-by.

The jazz combo that plays in the main room is muted but pleasing, making conversation possible and eavesdropping on other tables nearly impossible.

The menu is tapas, the Spanish equivalent of Greek mezes, or small plates. Instead of ordering, say, an appetizer, entree, and dessert, you order a selection of tapas, from which you eat in community.

The server, a classic organic Ashevillian beauty, asks if you know what tapas are, and adds that there is a special today, but "no pressure" to order it.

As a mythology geek, you must order the pomegranate-braised pork spring rolls, creamy candy cigars topped with guacamole and served with a poppyseed and mango dipping sauce. Persephone would have partaken.

Paella of shrimp, chorizo and chicken takes a full thirty minutes to make, but time has ceased to have meaning, so you order it without hesitation. When it comes, every bite is like a conversion experience. You want to raise your hands to the sky and taste in tongues. You feel as if you could eat the whole shrimp, shell and all.

Other dishes are just as rewarding.

"They try to buy local," explains the server.

You never get dessert or coffee, but tonight the exception is happily made. You have never heard of putting goat cheese in a chocolate brownie, but you descend through several layers of flavor and then are resurrected, alleluia.

Alamos Malbec, an Argentinian red, lubricates the experience from start to finish, but-- unless I miss my mark completely-- it isn't alcohol that makes this magic, only complements it. Dionysus, a gentleman. What a concept.

Finally, you seal the deal for a painting from Genie's oeuvre, because in Asheville, original art is as natural to possess as surveying equipment to road builders, and just as useful for finding equilibrium.

Maybe someday I will come to see Asheville as less magical and fantastic and more practical and mundane, as our world has to be in order for civilization to go on. But until then, Asheville makes it much easier to agree with the words of Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Toro, who states simply, "I believe that the spirit world exists. It is just as real as what we call the real world. Some people are able to see the spirit world, and others aren't, but that doesn't make it any less real."

Asheville, I wish you sweet spirits.

Photo is here.

Attractive food, attractive people, attractive stories

Readers will need to help me out on this, but I don't think it's my original observation that the most important thing to the French is food and sex, probably in that order. And now, with the rise of the "food porn" phenomenon-- gorgeous online photos of food drooled over by countless web users-- food and sex are starting to merge conceptually more than ever.

Case in point: Chocolate and Zucchini, the food blog of the sexy-French-girl-next-door Clotilde Dusoulier, a twenty-something Parisian and former Silicon Valley visa holder, who has published her own gorgeous cookbook with perfectly sexy food photos and not enough photos of her.

Equal opportunity case in point: the Take Home Chef, hunky Ozzie Curtis Stone, who waylays crushingly beautiful (mostly) Southern California women in supermarkets, buys them groceries and makes them dinner at their home, with much flirtation and suggestiveness until Significant Other returns home.

First, Clotilde, a classic French beauty without the stereotypical French 'tude. She has those huge Anne Hathaway eyes with that erotic Anne Hathaway mouth, and one look at her un-mascara-ed peepers tells you she is perfectly genuine, generous, and guileless. She also writes English with a beautiful French savor. Her grammar and vocabulary are precise and her style is friendly, but you can't mistake that second-language feel, which is so winning.

Here's an example from her cookbook:

There are laws that regulate the hunting, so fresh game is only available during the official hunting season, between September and January.

It's clear her editor at Broadway Books missed that Clotilde translated "la chasse" directly from her French brain into the English "the hunting," which no native speaker would use in this context.

And, by the way, the food. My friend Todd, the steadiest and calmest MD you will ever meet while sighting down a perking thermometer, reacted to the photo of the Tomato, Pistachio, and Chorizo Loaf as if he were a teenager seeing his first Playboy centerfold.

On to Curtis. Chicks dig Curtis. He is tall, flat-stomached, sparkly-eyed, chisel-jawed, spiky-haired, be-earringed, a conspiratorial charmer and flirter while remaining outwardly surprised that anyone would think anything extracurricular about him. And that accent, folks. Everyone loves a guy who calls all men "mate" and whose opening line is often "Doing a bit of shopping?"

Take Home Chef is the perfectly virtuous adultery fantasy come true-- if your fantasy includes being in a cooking reality show. Curtis finds a "random" woman in the supermarket, explains what he wants to do, then buys a bunch of organic, expensive groceries-- including whatever alcohol the lady desires-- all the time asking her her favorite food preferences. Then he buys a special cooking gift, like ramekins, margarita glasses, or a specialty skillet. He encourages the woman to call her SO and make sure she and Curtis can remain alone for hours and spend some real quality time together. Talk about the Five Love Languages.

But it's all for the SO, don't you know. They spend their time at home making dinner, and surprise the guy when he comes home. The woman may be draped all over Curtis during the food preparation phase, but this is innocent. Vachement.

And, by the way, the food. Curtis is the total package. If the shtick of the show is accurate, he usually has a half-hour or less of no-flirt zone to put his dinner together, and it's always terrific. He sticks to simple, easy-to-prepare stuff highlighting high-end ingredients, and his tips and technique make everyday sense. If you have the money to afford jarred, chipotle-roasted red peppers, you too can put together a great dinner while being given sips of wine by an enraptured heterosexual female.

(Asterisk on the "randomness" of the female: do they really just "pick up" these hotties, who come home and change into cleavage and strapless as if they were a housecoat? Maybe so. One of my female friends used to live in Southern California, but had to move away because "It was just too much work to have to look good all the time.")

The greatest reward for men who watch this show is not the beautiful women, however, who often give off a clueless, airhead vibe. No, it's that the SO's are most of the time pretty schlubby-looking, and you can see the jealousy, even as they are about to be plied with world-class food and wine. That's what you get for marrying out of your league, mate.

(He: "What did you do with him?" She: "We just cooked." He: "Just cooked?" She: "Yes, what are you suggesting?")

But, to circle back to the original blog topic (yes, we are on topic!), the attractive food and people described above would never have gotten so popular unless they were mixed together inside a compelling story. Clotilde is that young lady you want to be your daughter, your sister, your wife, your friend, who lives an interesting life and who is destined for food-stardom, or whatever success she is interested in achieving. Irresistible.

Take Home Chef keeps its storyline formulaic, exactly as all good mythology does. If you find a story everyone wants to hear over and over, run it into the ground, make as much money and get as much fame as you can, and then move on to the next. Did people really like to hear the Iliad-- the same old Iliad-- over and over again, even though they knew the ending and probably most of the words by heart? Well, if you live to hear Curtis Stone say over and over again at the end of his show, "When you're out shopping, you never know who you might meet. So dress up", then you should have no trouble seeing why the Greeks loved their myths.

Photo of Clotilde from chocolateandzucchini.com, of Curtis here.

Torta al testo, photographed

During the Harry Potter reading phase, we have a light diversion of the culinary kind. Please consider the torta al testo, a traditional Umbrian flatbread which was part of a sublime experience I had in the city of Assisi, and about which I wrote recently.

This spring I had dinner with a friend and we documented the making of the light torta al testo supper we shared.

The recipe for torta al testo is simple, but there are a couple of catches. The link above has my recipe, but this website has photos. Scroll down-- there are a number of recipes on the same page.

Last night I sauteed boneless chicken thighs with zucchini, red peppers, and fresh herbs. If you try this, you will not be able to stop eating, unfortunately.

For the photographed supper, I chose whole-milk mozzarella and browned sweet Italian turkey sausage. I grated the cheese and scattered some on the inside surface of the torta, then put the torta back into the oven to melt the cheese.

When everything is brown and hot and bubbly, you can put in whatever else you like. For this supper I used baby salad greens.

Then, if you like, you can drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil. This is only if you want an extra-rich taste. Some, such as Rachel Ray, the TV cooking diva (and whom I can't stand for some reason), call for using "EVOO" to cook with in most recipes. But I use regular cheap olive oil for cooking-- even in pancakes, as Andy of Andy's Diner once suggested (tastes terrific and is healthier than butter)-- and only add extra-virgin as a flavor-enhancer or as the oil in a salad.

(By the way, if you use balsamic vinegar as the primary vinegar in your salads, you should know that many Italians are against this practice. It is too strong a flavor for such a light dish, and I must say after comparing that I concur. No less an authority than Marcella Hazan writes in Marcella's Italian Kitchen [p. 6] that "a few drops" of balsamico "ennobles" a regular olive-oil and vinegar dressing. In this case, as in so many others, less is more.)

As you can see, this makes a tee-rrific presentation with fresh strawberries and red wine. I suggest Hacienda Pinot Noir or Mark West Central Coast Pinot Noir if it is available. And if you are not fussy like Miles Raymond in Sideways (love you, La Madsen!), Hacienda Merlot is also an excellent choice. Or maybe a nice Chianti, with or without fava beans.