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 They're in season, and we need recipes! It's a request we get in the test kitchen every now and again, as some wonderful fruit or vegetable comes into season and we want to make the most of its abundance.
And so it was with figs. The kitchen was requested -- last summer actually -- to either create or test various recipes for the amazing figs everyone was finding. We came up with four. One recipe ran just towards the end of the season last year, an adaptation of Rose Levy Berenbaum's amazing fig and mascarpone tart. The remaining were held in reserve until the season rolled around again.
Here we are, finally! This week Russ has a Farmer's Market column on figs, and we've included recipes for a grilled fig salad and warm fig salsa. But we've got one more for you: "Roasted figs with blue cheese, toasted hazelnuts and wild honey" from Literati 2. The recipe is adapted from Chris Kidder, former chef of the restaurant (he's since left to pursue other ventures), and was something we just had to share.
 Roasted figs stuffed with blue cheese, toasted hazelnuts and wild honey
1 basket fresh figs, preferably Turkey or Mission, 15 to 20 pieces
6 to 8 ounces good-quality blue cheese
2 tablespoons good-quality balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon good-quality olive oil
2 tablespoons toasted and roughly-chopped hazelnuts
1 tablespoon wild honey
1teaspoon sea salt
1 dozen arugula leaves, preferably wild*
4 to 6 fresh fig leaves, optional*
1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Keeping the stem intact, make a cut from the stem toward the base, halving the figs, but stop two-thirds of the way down, being careful not to cut all the way through. Turn the figs 90 degrees, and slice again two-thirds of the way down to the base. Open the fig by gently pulling the "petals" back a bit.
2. Place a small piece of cheese, about a teaspoon, in the center of each fig. The amount will vary depending on the size of the fig.
3. Select a shallow baking dish just large enough to hold all the figs side by side and line it with the optional fig leaves. Place the stuffed figs in the dish, stem-side up. Drizzle the vinegar and olive oil evenly over the figs, and sprinkle with the sea salt.
4. Place the dish in the oven and roast until the cheese is warmed and a bit runny, and the figs are cooked and just browning on the tops, about 5to 8 minutes.
5. Sprinkle the hazelnuts over the roasted figs and drizzle over the honey. Scatter the arugula over the top and serve immediately.
* Wild arugula and fresh fig leaves are available at selected farmer's markets.
- Noelle Carter
Photos by Bob Chamberlin and Noelle Carter
When I started at the Times food section, it ran on Thursdays, it was regularly more than  70 pages long, I had a full head of hair, and Donna Deane was the backbone of the Times Test Kitchen. The ensuing 20 years have changed many things, but until recently, not Donna Deane. And now, she’s gone, too—one of the 150 editorial casualties of the last round of budget cutting.
It’s impossible to overstate how much Deane has brought to the section and through how many changes she has kept the kitchen sailing smoothly. Just one measure: she out-lasted six different Food editors, including Betsy Balsley, Ruth Reichl, Laurie Ochoa, me, Michalene Busico and Leslie Brenner.
Noelle Carter remains in the kitchen and is extremely capable. As ever, we’ll continue to test, refine, retest and perfect every recipe before it runs in the newspaper. That’s an obligation that too few newspapers (and even cookbooks) honor these days. But it won’t be the same without Donna Deane.
If you’d like to post your appreciation for the 28 years Donna worked at the Times Test Kitchen, please post them here. If you’d prefer to keep them private, send them to food@latimes.com.
--Russ Parsons
 Getting picky kids to eat their vegetables is an age-old parental problem. Like age-old: Scientists say that kids are wired to prefer sweet, bland things since they weren't generally poisonous. (Ironically, they are now.) Three recent cookbooks, "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld and "The Sneaky Chef" (and its sequel) by Missy Chase Lapine,  suggest that the best way to solve this problem is not by talking to your kids or getting them to gradually expand their immature palates or cutting up carrots like palm trees (worked for us). No, the way to solve this is by sneaking purees of healthful ingredients into popular foods. Your 7-year-old hates broccoli and loves fried chicken nuggets? Great, just hide the broccoli in the nuggets.
The books have become bestsellers, maybe because of the legal battle they've generated (charges of "vegetable plagiarism," as Seinfeld's comedian husband termed it), or maybe because they've landed some high-profile play (Oprah!) or maybe because, well, it sounds like the perfect solution for health-conscious parents desperate for a way to get their kids to ingest all that magical spinach without force-feeding.
But the larger implications (ethical, gastronomic) seem strangely, glaringly missing from the debate. If you hide the broccoli in the chicken nuggets, or the cauliflower puree in the mac 'n' cheese, or the carrots and avocados in the chocolate fondue, aren't you telling your kids — or your partner, as Lapine's sequel is geared towards picky "husbands" — that it's OK to keep eating junk? Secrecy is not something I want to teach my kids, nor is the nutritional value of a quarter-cup of avocado puree worth that price.
Sure, the recipes might taste good. Oprah sure seemed to love them, and Seinfeld's chocolate fondue was pretty yummy (albeit the consistency of brownie batter, faint notes of avocado), though how healthy it really is I don't know — there are no calorie or nutrient counts in these books. But I want my kids to learn to appreciate the Hass avocados I buy at the farmers market. Or to crunch into a raw carrot with pleasure instead of cooking it for 12 minutes and hiding it in an avalanche of cocoa powder and sugar. Kids don't appreciate being lied to. And they always find out. "I'd yell at you," said my 7-year-old daughter, Sophie, when I asked her what she'd do if I hid, oh, beet puree in her lasagna. "I'd give you a time-out."
— Amy Scattergood
Photo credit: Collins ("Deceptively Delicious") and Running Press ("The Sneaky Chef")
 Behold the beer cake! Spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, fragrant with lemon zest and vanilla, utterly moist with almost a cup of dark Imperial Stout, it's a creation with components as rich as parts of the original recipe were vague.
The recipe is one of four included in last Wednesday's cookbook review of Tessa Kiros' "Piri Piri Starfish." Writer Vani Rangachar notes the friendly conversational tone Kiros takes throughout her book, and the recipes are no exception. In her headnote, Kiros casually mentions that the beer cake is "Lisa from Angola's recipe."
As with all recipes that appear in The Times, this one came to the Test Kitchen for review and was one of six we tested from the book. We test each recipe we publish, even those published before. A previously published recipe is labeled "adapted" if we make changes.
The beer cake recipe went through several revisions. First we clarified/translated terms from British to American usage (baking soda for "bicarbonate of soda"), and ingredient measurements were changed from weight to volume to conform with Times style. Then we made the cake several times to be sure of the method. The recipe does not follow standard rules for mixing cake batter. Butter, sugar and eggs are added in logical order, but then the liquids are added completely to the batter before any dry ingredients are incorporated (rather than alternately adding a little of each until both are combined in a uniform batter). The batter looks "broken," a point acknowledged by Kiros, though she notes it at the end of the step after the dry ingredients are incorporated, which we found puzzling.
Reviewer Vani, Test Kitchen director Donna Deane and I each made the cake separately with varying results. We compared notes, discussing how to adjust the recipe to create an incorporated batter with sufficient volume, while staying true to Kiros' recipe. We kept Kiros' method the same, adding all liquid ingredients before dry; however, we moved Kiros' warning about the batter separating to an earlier point (just after the liquids are added), and divided the step into two, adding additional clarification.
We made the cake again, and it lasted just long enough to shoot before we devoured it. The final recipe was published and you'll find it here.
— Noelle Carter
Photos by Mark Boster and Noelle Carter
 Remember my zucchini issue? I posted last week that I was going nuts trying to remember how I used to make zucchini salad. I remembered the ingredients (duh: zucchini, oil and lemon juice, garlic, pine nuts, basil or mint … hard to forget one of those). But there was a truc I was missing, one of those little chef’s tricks that transformed the raw zucchini. I knew it wasn’t cooking. And I’d tried soaking the zucchini in ice water (a la Marcella Hazan), but that wasn’t it either.
A couple days later I was reading through my friend Joyce Goldstein’s new book, “Mediterranean Fresh,” and there it was! Not the exact recipe, but a zucchini salad that starts with salting the zucchini and letting it stand. That was the step I’d forgotten. The salting pulls moisture from the squash, softening it a little and removing that bitter vegetal edge, turning the flavor nutty.
So here’s how you do it: Cut up zucchini about a quarter-inch thick (quarters, halves, rounds — depends on the size of the squash). Put them in a colander, salt liberally and let stand for 30 minutes. Rinse them well, pat them dry and then combine them in a bowl with just a smidgen of garlic puree, olive oil and lemon juice and toss well to coat the squash pieces. Toss in some torn basil or mint leaves and a bare handful of toasted pine nuts.
It’s one of my favorite summer salads. I’ve served it at least three times in the last week and will keep serving it as long as the plants (and my wife’s patience) hold out.
— Russ Parsons
Photo by Russ Parsons
 What's a holiday without tradition? Chief among the events that mark the Fourth of July in our family — aside from the fireworks — is the annual Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast.
My father-in-law, John, has been a member of the local Carmichael Kiwanis chapter for about 15 years, and we often join him at the weekly chapter meetings when we're in town. Big events, like that breakfast, are fun enough that we'll actually plan trips around them. Annually. It's tradition.
This year I offered to help with the breakfast. They're massive affairs, but I figured I could handle it, having managed restaurant kitchens and catered events. No problem.
I checked in a few minutes before 6 a.m. Chris, a retired naval master chief, organizes the chapter's cooking events. Known simply as "Chief," he runs his kitchen as if he's still in the service. He handed me a 5-gallon bucket and electric drill mixer and showed me how to make the pancake batter. Then I was handed another 5-gallon bucket for more batter. These would get us started, Chris said as he wet a bandanna and tied it around his head martial-arts style. Hmmm....
Breakfast began at 7. By 8:30, we got "the rush." The tiny kitchen was outfitted with three portable griddles: two for pancakes, one for sausage. We hustled as the line wound out the door: Chris and I each manned a pancake griddle while other Kiwanis members rotated at the sausage station. Chris effortlessly cooked 18 pancakes at a time at his station; I was able to manage 14. (I swear my griddle was smaller.) We made more batter whenever there was a lull.
The rush lasted until 10:15. By the end of breakfast at 11, we'd done 550 orders and raised $2,100 for charity. Maybe I'm not as quick as I was in my restaurant days, but what fun! And everyone in the kitchen — Chris especially — was wonderful. I've already asked to help out at the next pancake breakfast. Guess I'm starting another tradition.
— Noelle Carter
Photo by Noelle Carter
 And not one of those dainty culinary brûlée torches, either, but a Bernzomatic propane torch. I got mine at Home Depot a few years ago, and it cost a whole lot less than the ones you can find in cooking stores — which are tiny and, in my mind, far too tame. Blowtorches are great for making crème brûlée, of course. You can also caramelize sugar on top of pies, cakes and plenty else. In last night's episode of "Iron Chef," won by Providence chef Michael Cimarusti, Providence pastry chef Adrian Vasquez took a torch to some red bell peppers — much more fun to do on television than simply parking them over a boring stove-top flame or under a broiler. You can also provide some last-minute color to a roast or gratin, quickly heat the bottom of a metal bowl to keep a frosting or meringue from breaking, or warm a chilled springform pan for quick release. (I got this trick from Spago pastry chef Sherry Yard, who does this for cheesecakes.)
But what I use my blowtorch for the most is an amazing raspberry brûlée recipe I found in the July 2006 issue of Saveur. It's insanely easy to make, a fantastic way to use seasonal berries (I've also used blackberries, strawberries, even peaches), and the only requirements are blowtorch, fruit, cream and sugar. All you do is fold fresh berries into Chantilly cream, sprinkle with sugar and torch the top. The sugar caramelizes into rivulets and, after a quick set-up in the refrigerator, forms a crunchy sugar top. It's amazing — and a very impressive party trick at twilight grilling dinners. Just be sure to get a fire extinguisher at the hardware store too!
— Amy Scattergood
Photo courtesy of Bernzomatic
 For this week's cooking story, Pack it up! It's time for a Fourth of July picnic, Test Kitchen director Donna Deane worked with the editors to come up with smart updates to classic picnic dishes. Her recipes for double-dipped fried chicken, a versatile coleslaw recipe, and shamelessly rich orange brownie bites are fresh takes on iconic picnic items, and the dishes were a hit. Each test batch disappeared in minutes, and the recipes we made for the photo shoot practically had to be locked away — the brownies especially — just so they'd last for their camera close-ups.
Since Donna and I tend to get a lot of questions about how we come up with original recipes and the inspiration behind them, I thought I'd ask Donna about each of the recipes, so she could explain firsthand how each went from inspiration to actual dish.
How did you come up with your method for fried chicken, and what about the brining and double-dipping for the batter? I decided to brine the chicken because many times fried chicken is overcooked and dry. A good brine with herbs and garlic will add flavor throughout the meat and keep the chicken moist. Double-dipping adds crunch to the fried chicken; it makes for chicken that will stay crisp even when fried ahead and chilled before serving.
We've gotten so many requests for coleslaw lately; what made you decide to go the route you did in developing your recipe? After talking with the editors about the recipe, we decided to go with several cabbages to give color and texture variations — one basic recipe with variations. A vinaigrette is a must for a picnic, so I decided to do one with cilantro and tarragon to give a flavor twist on the traditional recipe, along with an Asian-inspired coleslaw, and one with pickling spices for a twist on flavors.
 The brownies are wonderful, and it's hard to eat just one. What inspired you to go with an orange pairing, and how did you get them to be that moist? The moist consistency comes from a lot of butter, and not overbaking. I wanted to make a very dense chocolate brownie, so I used two types of chocolate, along with the cocoa. I suggested using Grand Marnier and grated orange peel to give them a more unusual flavor from the traditional brownie. My inspiration came from the wonderful Grand Marnier truffles that you pick up at most chocolate shops. It's a favorite flavor combination of mine.
We hope you like the dishes as much as we did. We'd love to hear your thoughts on these recipes. Happy Fourth of July!
— Noelle Carter
Photos by Robert Lachman
 Every week, Test Kitchen director Donna Deane and I receive e-mails from readers about the week's recipes. Many are positive; the recipes may stir a memory or utilize an ingredient in an exciting new way. Often we receive questions about similar recipes or methods, wondering why we add ingredients when we do, or what we mean by a particular step. Some questions don't relate to just-published recipes but are totally out of the blue — what would we suggest doing with a particular ingredient or how might we cook a certain food? Occasionally we hear from a frustrated e-mailer who's wondering why a recipe didn't come out as expected.
That said, we thought we'd start throwing out some weekly general kitchen tips on this blog. Many will probably be familiar, some may be totally new. In any case, we hope they're helpful. If you've got any questions or tips you'd like us to explore, feel free to comment — we'll do our best to cover each one we receive.
The majority of questions we receive involve baking. With baking being the precise science it is, we thought we'd start by giving some tips relating to measuring and ingredients. Here goes:
• Use liquid measuring cups for liquid ingredients, and dry measures for dry. Honestly, we can't stress how important this is; nothing will throw a recipe off more quickly than measuring out your flour in a liquid measuring cup (you'll end up with much more than is called for in the recipe). Measuring spoons can be used for both liquid and dry ingredients.
• Place the measuring cup on a flat, level surface before measuring. This goes for both liquid and dry ingredients.
• Level off your dry ingredients so they're flush with the top of the measuring spoon or cup. Do this gently.
• Gently spoon — don't pack — the flour into the measuring cup. Packing will throw off a recipe by adding more flour than is called for. And don't scoop the flour using the same spoon/cup with which you're planning to measure — this will pack the flour.
• Pack the brown sugar into your measuring spoon or cup. Yes, this is the total opposite of the flour.
• Opened spice and herb jars should be kept no longer than one year. Spices, like anything else, get stale and lose their potency gradually after they're opened. In the Test Kitchen, we try to date the jars once they're opened so we know when each spice should be replaced.
• Baking soda and powder should be replaced each year. Like the spices, they lose their potency. Quick breads and cookies won't rise (or rise as they should) with stale ingredients.
• Eggs should be at room temperature before they're used in a recipe. One function of eggs in baking is to add volume; room-temperature eggs will give you higher cakes and more magnificent meringues than cold eggs.
• When we call for salt in a recipe, we are referring to fine salt (we use fine sea salt in the Test Kitchen). If a recipe calls for a specific salt, such as kosher or coarse, we will list this in the ingredients.
— Noelle Carter
Photo by Noelle Carter
 Le Sanctuaire in San Francisco hosted Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot (pictured at right) of Ideas in Food over the weekend for a series of classes on hydrocolloids — Methocel (derived from cellulose ethers), pectin, Activa (a transglutaminase) and carrageenan.
A hydrocolloid is a collection of particles suspended in water that can form a gel. They can come from natural sources — say, agar from seaweed, or even cornstarch could be considered a hydrocolloid. Much of what's referred to as the "new" hydrocolloids traditionally have been used as industrial stabilizers, but more and more chefs are becoming enamored of their myriad uses — not for extending shelf life but for refining texture (and not just for foams and "spheres").
Chefs and pastry chefs, including a handful from L.A., watched demonstrations of how to make re-heatable brown butter hollandaise sauce with Methocel, Hoisin sauce "lentils" with pectin, mozzarella "noodles" with Activa Y-G and crab meat tater tots with Activa RM.
"Maybe I'll 'glue' two burgers together to make it a double," Sang Yoon of Father's Office said of the Activa, which works by cross-linking food proteins.
"One thing I try to keep in mind when using these things is to ask, 'Do I really need this?' " says Craft chef de cuisine Matt Accarrino. "I never use these modifiers to extend shelf life, compensate for poor product or technique or generally change something which can be made just fine without adding something new."
For example, "xanthan gum is a great thickener. It works well with higher acid. I made an acidic ramp aioli with sherry vinegar, and a lot of ramp puree in it. I added a pinch of xanthan gum.... It provided the right thickness with the right flavor. We were making it every day just before service so it was really fresh. You just have to be careful or everything you make will look like snot." Words to live by.
-- Betty Hallock
Photo by Betty Hallock
 Ever since my kids were very small, they've loved to make potions. They'd go out in the backyard and mix together jars of water and dirt, leaves and flower petals, like tiny medieval alchemists. With their discovery of Harry Potter, these experimentations reached a new level. The girls would pretend they were in Snape's potions class, stirring foaming vials of water, vinegar, food coloring, detergent and baking powder (this combo, at left, is what makes the bubbling lava in fake volcano projects) and then pretending to drink them and transform into fairies, cats, Slytherin boys. 
Recently, in an effort to combine this fun with the actual consumption of a healthy snack (and cut down on the amount of cooking supplies they transformed into brightly colored jars of polyjuice potion and veritaserum), we've been making edible potions. This past weekend, Isabel got out the blender and added the following potion ingredients: plain yogurt, strawberries, a banana, honey, hibiscus-flower tea. She blended it, then added a few secret ingredients, stirring and mumbling some incantations. The seeds scraped from a vanilla bean. (Vanilla extract contains alcohol, so it was out.) A teaspoon of rosewater. Then she garnished the whole thing with fresh mint and a strawberry, for aesthetic rather than magical reasons. Accio snack. No eye of newt required.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
 My kids love to make fresh pasta; they love mixing the dough, rolling out the sheets of pasta, then cranking out fine strands of linguine or angel hair onto the floured counter. They also love testing the pasta's doneness by throwing it against the wall. (I'm still not convinced of the efficacy of this, but hey, it's one of the few things that Sophie still likes more than Hannah Montana, so I'll take it.) 
Last weekend, in an attempt to spin the all-noodle dinner, I remembered Russ Parsons' story about making free-form lasagna and decided to try it out on the girls. While they were at a birthday party, I made a quick tomato sauce using farmers market tomatoes and rolled out sheets of pasta to dry; I set out a bowl of pesto sauce I'd made a few days earlier, another of fresh ricotta.  When the girls got home, play-worn and desperately needing something other than cake, all I had to do was cook the pasta.
Then they each took turns building their dinner, one architectural layer at a time. A dusting of grated Parmesan. A glass of milk. A lot of fun.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
 Check out the current issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and you'll find Laurie Winer's story on Sarintip Singsanong (friends call her "Jazz"), owner of Jitlada restaurant in Hollywood. Jitlada specializes in Southern regional Thai food, and the magazine was able to procure the recipe for its famous rice salad (khao yam).
As with the Food section, all recipes for the Times Magazine are thoroughly tested before publication. We received the recipe to test, not realizing that parts of it would be so difficult to crack. The salad itself was simple: a colorful display of finely shredded vegetables around a garnished mound of steamed rice. It was the dressing that got us...
Like many restaurant dishes we test, the dressing had no formal recipe. Jazz's brother Tui (the chef) makes gallons of the sweet, herbal, fish sauce-based dressing at a time -- each batch is enough for 400 to 500 salads. He throws in a little of this, and maybe a little of that, constantly adjusting and simmering each batch for about 8 hours so the flavors merge and harmonize.
The Test Kitchen was charged with adapting the dressing, adjusting the volume (honestly, who's going to want dressing for 500 salads in their fridge?) and total time (nix the 8 hours). Our original tests, based on notes between Jazz, Tui and Laurie, yielded about a quart of dressing and took only 4 hours to make, but it tasted nothing like the balanced sauce at the restaurant. Ours tasted like salty, burnt caramel and charred herbs.
  After a couple more tests, I decided to visit Jazz and Tui at the restaurant, hang out in the kitchen and watch them prepare the dressing and salad. I've included some cellphone pictures from my restaurant visit, including exactly how the lemongrass -- just one component -- is crushed and chopped before it's infused in the sauce, as well as how the sauce should look in the pan (we needed to determine the total liquid volume, as well as the ratio of solids to liquids).
We still had trouble figuring out the dressing. The flavor and texture were almost there after a few more tests, but we still weren't getting the rounded fish flavor of the restaurant's version. Our recipe instructions called for a budu (a Thai anchovy-based fish sauce) base, but the fish flavor was one-note. We felt something was missing. Finally, on a whim, we threw in some ground shrimp and allowed the sauce to steep an additional 10 minutes. It worked -- the flavors were rounded, and the sauce tasted true to the original.
As for that recipe? It follows Laurie's story here. For more pictures, check out the photo gallery of Jazz and Tui as they prepare the dish.
-- Noelle Carter
Photos by Coral Von Zumwalt and Noelle Carter
 I spent much of last week looking dreamily at Amy Scattergood’s recipe on romesco sauce, and wondering when I’d have an opportunity to whip some up for myself.
Turns out someone did the work for me.
I was invited to a pizza party Saturday night when I spied a platter that looked like it had walked off the cover of last week’s Food section: Grilled shrimp and lightly toasted slices of baguette brushed with olive oil surrounding a big bowl of romesco sauce. Apparently, my friend Karen –- she’s the queen of the appetizers in our circle -– had been looking longingly at that recipe, too. The crowd pounced. It was everything it was billed to be -– rich, nutty, garlicky and with just enough of a bite. Even friends who don’t normally pay attention to such things were puzzling over the ingredients in between bites, asking: What’s in this?
Soon, the baguette slices and shrimp were gone, so we resorted to using tortilla chips to dig in. I even used the last remains to slather on the hand-tossed pizzas as they arrived hot off the grill. It doesn’t really matter, though, what you serve with this dip. It’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
I wondered whether this was dip that could be made in advance and frozen, so I could keep some on hand all summer. I put that question to Amy. She joked that nut-based sauces rarely last long enough to make it to the freezer, and offered these guidelines (which include some suggestions from Times recipe tester Noelle Carter): "It does keep very well in the refrigerator; I’ve had some in there for 2 weeks, with no ill effects. So we’d suggest making your big batch and refrigerating it instead of freezing (I think the nuts would degrade slightly and you’d get water separation in the freezer.) Be sure to bring it back to room temperature before serving it. I’ve heated mine slightly in the microwave even, as it’s really better if it’s not cold."
Amy also added a p.s. -- that romesco makes a great pizza sauce, particularly when topped with fresh mozzarella, grilled onions or leeks.
-- Rene Lynch
Photo by Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times
Most of the recipes we shoot for the Food section are done in the studio adjacent to the test kitchen. But sometimes we have stories -- or entire issues -- that require we shoot the recipes outdoors and/or on location. Our current issue, with stories on outdoor entertaining and summer cocktails, featured recipes just begging for some outdoor exposure.
So last Thursday, our crew (Test Kitchen director Donna Deane, art director Jan Molen, photographer Kirk McKoy, intern Kristin Buchanan and I) packed everything up and went on location ... my backyard. I thought I'd post some "behind the scenes" images from the shoot.
 Left, Kirk sets up a shot featuring a slice of the mango upside-down cake. He's using natural light, diffusing the direct sunlight slightly with an overhead screen, and adding highlights to the whipped cream and part of the cake using mirrors. The shot had to be done early in the day before it got too hot and the whipped cream melted. Contrary to a lot of commercial food photography that might use stand-ins (like shaving cream in this case), every item we shoot is true to the recipe ... and edible.
Before the food is even brought out, the props are positioned, the lighting is established and camera angles are explored. Below, that's Kirk setting up the table for a close-up of all of the dishes for Regina Schrambling's story. And that's him again setting up the Brazilian black bean salad.
  photo gallery.
Below, the same set-ups from Kirk's point of view (all of the dishes, the black bean salad -- plus the sausages). For more images, check out the Food section
  
-- Noelle Carter
Photos by Noelle Carter and Kirk McKoy
 The Times Test Kitchen was jamming last Friday morning as we hosted a CyberGuy taping with host Kurt Knutsson and celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito.
The segment, which will air this Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. on the KTLA Morning News (as well as online and in other major broadcast markets), focuses on cooking with ingredients on hand: Rocco (with the aid of a couple of recipe websites) helps Kurt prepare some quick dishes utilizing the few items he happens to have in the pantry and refrigerator.
The taping generated a lot of excitement, and people dropped by from various sections of the paper to check out all the activity. In addition to Rocco and Kurt, the kitchen was humming with camera and technical people, producers, prep and support staff.
 The Test Kitchen is active on any given day with recipe testing, photo and video (check out Quick Fix) shoots. Completed in 2000, the current kitchen is three times the size of the former space and features a more open design with high ceilings, wide counter spaces and themed backdrops (it contains both contemporary and traditional cabinetry and countertops that alternate between black and green granite and white marble surfaces).
Now if only we could have Rocco for some of our shoots...
-- Noelle Carter
Photos by Noelle Carter
Sometimes it's hard to get sympathy from friends when you tell them you work in a test kitchen. For the last two weeks, we were "forced" to test cheesecakes.....
 One of our recipes was for a classic Italian cheesecake from Ciro Marino of Marino Restaurant in Hollywood. Like many chefs, he uses no measuring cups or spoons -- everything's eyeballed -- and the cake bakes in the oven until it's done -- no timers. That, and his method is different. Rather than bake the cheesecake in a water bath, Ciro places the cake on the bottom of a 450-degree oven and props the door open with a pan. And the baking process is twofold: The cake bakes first until it has risen properly, then bakes again for coloring.
Yeah, it is a pretty wonderful job, especially for this cheesecake fanatic. Amy Scattergood has today's cover story on cheesecakes, so naturally we simply had to test various recipes incorporating classic cream cheese, farmer cheese, mascarpone and even ricotta as a cake base.
But even cheesecake testing can have its stressful moments -- and I'm not just talking about how to burn off all the extra calories you consume with all the testing and tasting. Each recipe has to be tested (and retested) until we're certain it will work in the average home kitchen.
Amy scrupulously noted every measurement and step when she watched Ciro in his kitchen (check out the video on the Food section website), but could we duplicate the results? We tested a recipe from Amy's notes in the test kitchen, measuring out ingredients and assembling the cake. Everything looked fine. We put the cake on the bottom of our 450-degree oven and propped the door open with a small saucepan. Then we stood there and watched it bake. Everything seemed to work fine, but when the cake was sliced after chilling, it just fell apart. The flavor was there, but the texture definitely wasn't.
What to do? We wanted to keep the integrity of Ciro's recipe but still have a cake that worked. We talked it over and retested the cake, keeping everything the same except for the method. We moved the cake to the bottom rack of the oven, and cut the baking process to just one step. Oh, and we closed the oven door. (To be honest, we were a little uncomfortable with a recipe that required that the oven door be propped open.) The result? The cheesecake was great, faithful to the original, and the slices disappeared in no time.
For you fellow cheesecake fanatics, check out the recipe (and two others) in today's section.
-- Noelle Carter
Photos by Noelle Carter
Big Sunday, the country's largest volunteer event, is my annual reminder of why I love to cook. And with 20 to 30 folks showing up for the Big Sunday project I run at a shelter for runaway teens, it's the perfect opportunity to make pozole, a dish that can handle both a swarm of eager sous chefs and a crowd at the dining table.
 The kids we serve come from Central America and Mexico, most came here looking for parents they believe are working in the U.S. It can break your heart. But, frankly, on Big Sunday, there's no time to dwell on the tragedy. I organize volunteers (pictured here, Utku Cakirozer and Steve Goldinger) into teams to clean, paint, overhaul gardens and other projects. But there must be something particularly satisfying about chopping because most people want to help make dinner.
The kitchen has a none-too-reliable stove and only the basics in cooking gear, so I've learned not to over-reach on the equipment needs. A few years back, I realized pozole was THE dish for this event. Preparing the condiments -- chopped avocados, radishes, onions, cabbage, oregano -- can keep a team of volunteers busy for hours. And the base stew of pork and hominy is foolproof. I've searched out authentic recipes that aren't crazy difficult. This year I modified a pozole verde recipe by Anya von Bremzen. We made queso fresco quesadillas accompanied by salsa with fresh serranos, tomatoes, red onion and cilantro (another project for my team of choppers). Dessert was fresh strawberries, gooey brownies just from the oven and ice cream. The crowning glory: Fresh tangerine juice. We did most of our shopping at the Hollywood Farmers Market and one of the vendors overheard my husband and I talking about the project. She pulled a bushel of tangerines from the back of her truck and gave them to us gratis.
My spin on Anya's take on this traditional dish from the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Guerrero is to use pork broth made from pigs feet and garlic that I made the night before Big Sunday. But it is Anya's method of making a puree with fresh tomatillas, onions, poblanos, jalapenos, garlic, cilantro and oregano in the blender that elevates this dish without making it an ordeal. Throw in the shredded chicken and cubes of pork loin, let it stew and wait for the applause.
By the time we leave, the sweet smell of peppers and tomatillos is wafting down the halls. Too shy to poke their noses into the kitchen while we are working, the kids are lined up ready to chow down when we leave. And rather than exhausted by the day of chopping and shredding, the kitchen crew talks eagerly about next year's Big Sunday supper at the shelter.
-- Corie Brown
Photo by Corie Brown
 When it's as hot as it's been for the last few days, cooking over a hot stove -- or cooking at all -- isn't so appealing. Which makes crudo, the Italian take on sashimi that's so popular these days, that much more appetizing. It's surprisingly easy to make yourself (thinly slice sashimi-quality raw fish on a diagonal, add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of sea salt), and with a salad of interesting greens, you have dinner. Or head over to Il Grano on any given Tuesday evening and sample chef-owner Salvatore Marino's full menu of the stuff. (This is his wild bluefin tuna crudo, with arugula and a fine dice of artichokes, tomatoes, carrots and onions.)
Marino, who likes to point out that he's been serving crudo since 1997 (the menu for last week's Crudo Tuesday, the first, marked each of the 12 raw dishes with their inaugural year, as if they were wine vintages; above is 1997) takes his fish very seriously. He says he decided on Tuesdays because that's when the freshest fish are flown into the downtown Los Angeles fish markets from Tokyo's Tskiji fish market, the most famous of them all.
 Last year, while working on a crudo story, I had the sleep-deprived pleasure of meeting Marino early one morning (by early, he meant 4 a.m.) at International Marine, the downtown Los Angeles fish wholesaler where many of the city's most fish-centric chefs can often be found trolling for amberjack and toro, wild snapper and cuttlefish. (As I slid across the wet concrete, FDA-approved hairnet in place, I could see the boxes marked in felt pen: Matsuhisa, Providence ... ) Here's the handsome yellowtail I brought back that day to the Test Kitchen; it later became crudo, accompanied simply with a little lemon vinaigrette and a few heirloom cherry tomatoes. OK, not as crazy inventive as Marino's mackerel with mint, fava puree and whole-grain mustard (that one's a 2008), but pretty tasty. No stove required.
Il Grano, 11359 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 477-7886. Though crudo is also served at lunch, the full crudo menu is served at dinner. Lunch 11:45 a.m. - 2:15 p.m.; dinner 5:30 - 10:30 p.m.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
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Every winter I used to look forward to the week my friend Doug, a sculptor, would decide it was time to cook his yearly sauerbraten. It’s a dish that needs chilly weather, preferably raining outside, and a fire in the fireplace. He’d make a special trip to the butcher, marinate the beef for a couple of days in vinegar and spices, and then braise the meat slowly until it was beautifully tender. And he always made a point of serving it with all the fixings, including braised red cabbage and potato pancakes. This was his one dish, but it was a great one, unusual and festive.
When my Italian friend Marta came to this country for the first time, she traveled all over the U.S., staying with friends of friends in each place and always offering to make her risotto while she was there. This was back in the days when risotto still seemed incredibly exotic and difficult. She brought her special arborio rice and some dried porcini with her from Italy. Everybody was thrilled to have her cook. Never mind that her risotto was like cement, or that she wasn’t a particularly good cook. She was Italian. It was risotto.
My husband, Fred, at one time worked all over the world as a photographer, and to thank friends who loaned him a couch or a guest room, he would always cook his one specialty: fried chicken. Here in the States, he soaked the bird in buttermilk and Tabasco, floured it by shaking the pieces in a brown paper bag, and fried it in lard. It was a great party trick, but in other countries sometimes difficult to pull off. The chickens were different. Sometimes the lard burned. Or he couldn’t find buttermilk. Or Tabasco. And yet , by improvising, he managed to make a pretty good version of this all-American dish whether he was in Yemen or Buenos Aires, Japan or Italy.
In all these examples, it’s the anticipation and the ceremony of making the dish that makes it so special. None of these people were expert cooks, but they’d adopted one dish as their signature. Practice, as they say, makes perfect, whether it’s paella, feijoada or Peking duck. Or even an omelet, like the beautiful one an 11-year-old boy wrapped in a long white apron made for us in the bled — the boonies — of France.
— S. Irene Virbila
 If you're tired of your pancakes coming in the usual size and shape (flat, round), consider making these glorious little cakes next time. These are aebleskiver (AY-bel-skee-ver), and unless you spend a lot of time in Solvang, California, (or Denmark) or are lucky enough to have a friend with Danish family and thus an aebleskiver pan (mange tak, Karin), you might never have had the pleasure of eating them.
Aebleskiver are lovely little spherical cakes, made by cooking a pancake-like batter in a peculiar cast-iron pan that looks like a cross between a small Lodge skillet and an escargot plate. According to legend, the Vikings originally came up with the method by cooking griddle cakes in their battle-dented shields, heating the concave metal over a hearth and then pouring in some pancake batter. (A pleasant domestic break from all that rowing and burning.) If you don't have a shield handy, you can order aebleskiver pans from Fantes.com, find them at or by mail-order from Solvang Restaurant in Solvang (a bucolic little town up the coast from Los Angeles with a large Danish population) and from aebleskiver.com, where you can also get a recipe and download a video showing you how to make the things. It's a rather tricky procedure, and involves rotating the cooking batter so that it forms a kind of popover. Hint: My friend uses a knitting needle.
Served with a dusting of powdered sugar or drizzled with syrup or raspberry jam -- you can also fill the cakes with slices of apple, which is how they got their name -- they're truly fantastic. Spherical IS a lot more fun than flat. Too bad restaurant supply companies don't stock dented Viking shields....
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
 For some reason I've been thinking about curries lately, and thus about curry leaves. Although most curries aren't made with the fresh leaves, I wanted to make one that was. So Wednesday morning I was overjoyed to find, amid the tabled garden that is Bill Coleman's stall at the Santa Monica farmers market, bags of fresh curry leaves. They're pretty things, like tiny bay leaves, feathered on a branch; according to Alan Davidson's "Penguin Companion to Food," the curry tree belongs to the Rutaceae family, the same family to which citrus fruits belong. And the leaves don't smell like curry powder (it being a combination of many spices), but more like faintly spicy green peppercorns.
Where to look for a recipe? "Mangoes & Curry Leaves," by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan; 2005) seemed the logical answer. (Jamie Oliver also calls for them often in his cookbooks.) Among the 23 recipes in their book that use curry leaves was this one (pictured above) for green tomato curry. It was pretty simple: Just cook 1/2 cup chopped onion, 2 minced green chiles and about 8 curry leaves in a little oil, then add a teaspoon of bonito flakes, 1/4 teaspoon ground fenugreek, a pinch of turmeric, 1 pound chopped green tomatoes and 2 teaspoons salt, and cook for 15 minutes. Add 3/4 cup coconut milk and reduce. Done. Perfect with a pot of rice and grilled lamb or fish kebabs -- which is just what I'm going to cook for dinner.
Curry leaves, $1.50 for a small plastic bag (about 1/2 ounce), from Coleman Family Farms. Curry leaves can also be found at India Sweets and Spices in Atwater Village $1 a bag.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
The Test Kitchen tested a recipe for bistecca fiorentina, a classic grilled Tuscan steak.
Find out more in Wednesday's Food section....
-- Photo by Betty Hallock
 Of my catalogue of "100 Things to Do With Meyer Lemons" in today's Food section, a few items referred to recipes from cookbooks. Here they are, accompanied by a picture of the preserved Meyer lemons (No. 11) that I made for friends for Christmas this year. (Polito Family Farms Meyers, with spices.)
No. 10. Claudia Roden's orange-almond cake, from "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food." Note: the original recipe calls for two large oranges; I substituted Meyer lemons.
2 large Meyer lemons
6 eggs
250 g. (8 oz.) ground almonds or almond flour
250 g. (8 oz.) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
Butter and flour, for cake tin
Wash and boil the lemons (unpeeled) in a little water for nearly 2 hours. Let them cool, then cut them open and remove the pips. Turn the lemons into a pulp by rubbing them through a sieve or by putting them in an electric blender. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients, mix thoroughly and pour into a buttered and floured cake tin, preferably one with a removable bottom. Bake in a moderately hot oven (190C/375F) for about 1 hour. If the cake is still very wet, leave it in the oven for a little longer. Cool in the tin before turning out. (I served this with Chantilly cream flavored with Meyer lemon peel, No. 12.)
No. 25, Suzanne Goin's Meyer lemon salsa, from "Sunday Suppers at Lucques."
2 to 3 large Meyer lemons
2 tablespoons finely diced shallots
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced savory (you can substitute fresh marjoram)
1 tablespoon sliced mint
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cut both ends off the lemons. Place the lemons cut side down on a cutting board. Following the contour of the fruit with your knife, remove the peel and white cottony pith, working from top to bottom and rotating the fruit as you go. Then, one at a time, hold each lemon in your hand and carefully slice between the membranes and the fruit to release the segments in between. Discard the seeds and reserve the juice. You should have about 1/4 cup of segments and 1/4 cup of juice. Place the lemon juice in a small bowl and add the shallots and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Let sit 5 minutes and slowly whisk in the olive oil. Stir in the lemon segments, savory, mint and parsley. Taste for balance and seasoning.
No. 87, Gennaro Esposito's recipe for sweet and sour lemon sauce, from Faith Willinger's book "Adventures of an Italian Food Lover."
For the candied zest:
2 Meyer lemons
1 orange
6 tablespoons coarse sea salt
1/2 cup wildflower honey
1 cup sugar
Peel the zest from two lemons in strips, leaving 1/4-inch pulp attached to the zest. Peel the orange the same way. Put the zests in a bowl, toss with 2 tablespoons salt, add 1 cup water, and weight down with a small plate to keep zests submerged for 1 to 2 hours. Rinse and drain. Bring 10 cups of water to a rolling boil, remove from heat and let zests cool completely in the salted water. Drain zests. Combine the honey, sugar and 2 1/4 cups of fresh water in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Add the drained zest and cook over lowest heat, less than a simmer, for 40 minutes. Remove from the heat and let zest cool in syrup overnight. The next day, bring the syrup back to a simmer, lower the heat, and cook for 1 hour. Remove from the heat and cool completely. Repeat the process one more time, cooking zest on the lowest heat for 30 minutes. Store zest in its syrup in a jar.
For the sauce:
3 1/2 Meyer lemons
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 tablespoon minced celery
Fine sea salt
White pepper
3 tablespoons chopped candied lemon zest
Trim three lemons with a knife, cutting the rind away down to the pulp. Section the lemon into wedges, cutting between the white connective membranes. Squeeze the juice from the remains of the lemons into a measuring cup and add the wedges. You should have about 1/2 cup. Squeeze the juice from the remaining 1/2 lemon and add it to the wedges. In a small saucepan, add the oil and saute the garlic and celery over medium heat until the celery barely begins to color. Add the lemon wedges and juice and cook, mashing the mixture with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is pulpy. Remove the garlic. Season the lemon mixture with salt and white pepper. If the sauce is too tart, add a spoonful or two of syrup from the candied zest. Transfer lemon mixture to a blender and add candied zest. Blend until smooth.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
 Remember the good old days when the only thing you needed to know when you were shopping for fish was “bright bulging eyes and firm flesh”? Today, you practically have to take a checklist along with you when you go to the market.
Which fish are endangered by overfishing, and according to whom? Which fish are dangerous to you because of mercury or other kinds of contamination? Sure, farm-raised salmon is renewable and cheap, but what about all of those claims that it is spoiling the ocean?
Thank goodness for Paul Johnson’s new book, “Fish Forever.” Certainly, no one has more credibility on the topic than Johnson. A onetime restaurant cook, he went into the fish business in 1979 at the urging of Alice Waters and now his Monterey Fish Market seems to supply half the restaurants in the Bay Area, including Chez Panisse, Zuni Café and the French Laundry — and that’s in addition to its retail outlet deep in the heart of Berkeley’s gourmet ghetto. Johnson is one of the few people in the fish business to have earned the respect of both the fishing industry and the environmentalists.
“Fish Forever” is at the same time a cookbook and a guidebook.
There are recipes and descriptions of cooking techniques, but there is also all the information you need to make informed choices when you go shopping for dinner. Perhaps the best example is the chapter on swordfish — a fish around which there always seems to be a controversy swirling.
Johnson first tells you how to choose (harpooned whenever possible, tight bloodline, flecks of fat), and lays out the facts on both the Atlantic and Pacific fisheries. (After being declared near collapse in 1998, by 2002 the Atlantic fishery had almost entirely recovered; Pacific stocks are believed to be healthy.)
Then he addresses concerns about mercury. (They apply to pregnant women and children only; occasional eating of swordfish presents little danger.) And he even addresses prickly issues of kosher law (a subject of some debate since swordfish have scales when young, but they disappear in maturity). Then he gets into the cooking (the belly is the best part; the spinal cord is considered a delicacy; scraps are cheap and perfect for brochettes) and recipes (grilled swordfish with caponata). It’s enough to make cooking fish fun again.
“Fish Forever” by Paul Johnson (Wiley, $34.95).
-- Russ Parsons
 Thanks to the recent openings of both Little Flower Candy Co. and Boule Atelier, I've been eating a lot of caramels lately. Both shops carry truly awesome sea salt caramels; Christine Moore at Little Flower also makes both lemon and vanilla caramels. After I finished off an entire pound of Moore's salt caramels watching the Rose Bowl, I decided to try making some myself. (A serious sugar high, especially when crossed with a little Pete Carroll-inspired happiness, can make you do crazy things.) While searching the jumbled contents of my refrigerator for the ingredients, I came across a Mason jar of preserved lemons (Paula Wolfert's recipe). I loved salt and lemon in caramels: So why not both?
For the recipe, I used one that Emily Green included in a caramel story five years ago, a fleur de sel caramel (see the recipe after the jump) from Alain Ducasse. My preserved lemons were pretty salty, so I omitted the fleur de sel from the Ducasse recipe and used unsalted instead of salted butter. Then I took a quarter-cup of preserved lemons (pith and fruit removed, washed of their soupy brine) and blended it into a thick purée in a food processor.
I added it to the pan with the half-and-half and butter in the first step of the recipe, then followed the directions, finally cutting the caramels into pieces and wrapping them in waxed paper. (That's them, above.) They're soft and chewy, with a little texture from the flecks of lemon; neither too sweet nor too salty, they have a complexity of flavor that's pretty amazing. A register of citrus, a subtle finish of salt. Between the caramel-loving writers in the office and my two children, I only have a few left. (I'll have to make a double batch this afternoon if I'm going to make it through the BSC title game tonight.)
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
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 There are certain things -- odd kitchen implements or ingredients -- that I tend to pick up by a kind of culinary reflex, bring home and then don't use. This is because I don't know what to do with them, or I haven't found the right recipe -- or the other ingredients for the recipe I do have. Copper canelé tins, smoked black cardamom pods, mulberry molasses, a blissful Mason jar of prunes that have been soaking in Armagnac for upward of two years. (That's going to be fun.) And dried fava beans. Lots of dried fava beans.
I have a bag of them that I picked up at a farmers market here last year, another that I brought back from a market in Seattle, and yet another bag that I found at a tiny corner grocery store in Paris' 4th arrondissement, two doors up from Eric Kayser's bakery in the Latin Quarter. I brought them back, but hadn't found any recipe that called for them. But then, a few weeks ago, Martha Rose Shulman's new cookbook, "Mediterranean Harvest," appeared on my desk. It's a terrific book, containing over 500 recipes from Southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East. So far I've started curing olives using her method, and have already put up about 10 pounds of preserved lemons. (She's got a great Sauces and Condiments section.) And then, on Page 309, I found a recipe that called for dried favas.
Shulman's recipe is simple: The favas are just simmered in salted water until mushy, then allowed to rest before you add a generous pour of olive oil. Shulman says the warm purée, served with greens cooked with garlic (you can stir them into the purée), is a signature dish of Puglia. If I'd known that (and how easy it all was), I'd have picked up even more bags of dried favas than I did.
"Mediterranean Harvest," by Martha Rose Shulman, $39.95 (Rodale Trade Books, 2007)
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
 For years, one of the things I’d smuggle back or ask friends to bring me from Italy was bottarga di muggine, pressed dried roe of gray mullet from Sardinia. It looks something like a pair of twin flattened sausages, and it's usually sold vacuum-packed. Good-quality bottarga tastes like the very essence of the sea and it can quickly escalate to a craving.
That's why I found myself on a couple of occasions tramping all over Milan hours before my plane was to leave, looking for some bottarga to take home with me. Now, though, you can find it at La Bottega Marino in West Los Angeles (310) 477-7777. Whew!
In this country, the fish roe is mostly served in spaghetti alla bottarga, shaved over warm, buttery spaghetti. That’s a fabulous simple dish and I’d be happy to use the last of my bottarga making it. But recently, I picked up a new Sardinian cookbook, the only one I’ve found that deals exclusively with the cooking of Italy’s second-largest island, and discovered more uses for bottarga in its pages. That alone is worth the price of “Sweet Myrtle & Bitter Honey” (Rizzoli, 2007, $39.95) from Sardinian-born chef Efisio Farris of Arcodoro in Houston.
Tomatoes are still hanging in there at the farmers market, so it’s not too late to make his bottarga with celery and tomatoes. The recipe is easy, but the flavors together are magic. Basically, you take a celery stalk, slice it thinly on the diagonal, mix with a big handful of halved cherry tomatoes, some tender chopped celery leaves, a couple of tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and a generous spoonful of grated bottarga. Season with salt and pepper, divide onto individual plates and garnish with bottarga shavings and a drizzle of olive oil.
More ideas from his book: calamari stuffed with ricotta and bottarga, fennel and crabmeat salad with bottarga, fettuccine with zucchini, zucchini blossoms and bottarga, bottarga and raw artichokes . . .
I think I'm going to have myself a bottarga fest.
-- S. Irene Virbila
Photo by S. Irene Virbila
 Is there still time to make your own liqueur for the holidays, for toasting or giving? Sure. And it's much less demanding than making something like limoncello.
Just buy a pound of dried apricots (get California apricots, which are tangier and more aromatic than the cheap imported kind). Put them in a large jar, add two cups of sugar and enough vodka to cover the apricots by about an inch -- up to one and a half 750-ml bottles of vodka. You can vary this to taste. Put in more sugar if you want it sweeter, more apricots if you want it tangier. Light rum can substitute for the vodka, or part of it.
Then seal the jar and wait, shaking it once a day until the sugar dissolves. Immediately the liquor will start taking on a beautiful tawny color. Add more vodka if it sinks below the level of the apricots. This will make about a quart.
The flavor will improve for up to six weeks, but the cordial is thoroughly drinkable after four -- mellow and soothing, a taste of drowsy summer. Throw some into Champagne to make an apricot Bellini. (If you like the flavor of prunes, you can make a prune cordial the same way, but go a little easy on the sugar -- you can always add some when you're ready to decant the result.)
Here's a little trick. To punch up the apricot flavor, add half a teaspoon or so of almond extract.
And here's another. When you've strained the apricot cordial from the fruit, save the apricots. They make a grown-up garnish for ice cream.
-- Charles Perry
Photo by Charles Perry
Ever since I first had the octopus at Osteria Mozza, I've been a little obsessed. With the octopus, that is. I love Mirko Paderno's octopus carpaccio at All' Angelo, the spicy octopus cooked at-table at My Secret Recipe in Koreatown, the charred octopus at Joe's in Venice -- which Joe Miller has said he'll definitely have on the menu at his new Bar Pintxo. (No, I haven't had the Craft octopus yet, though maybe with the writers strike, now would be a good time to brave the CAA neighborhood.)
Some weeks ago, when I told the boyfriend (ex-chef, seafood importer) that I wanted to grill octopus at home, he gave me a 4 1/2-pound whole Spanish cephalopod (ah, love), which has been taking up valuable space in my freezer ever since. Last night, however, I got home to find that the boyfriend had thawed it out, spent an hour braising it in olive oil spiked with oregano, cumin and cayenne and was just about to throw it on the hot grill outside. 
I didn't have any celery or fingerling potatoes (Mozza) or an enormous bowl of Asian vegetables (My Secret Recipe), but I did have a pot of Umbrian lentils that I'd cooked the day before with carrots, onions, Aleppo pepper and water spiked with veal demi-glace. A little fresh flat-leaf parsley, and it paired perfectly with the grilled tentacles. The octopus was terrific and surprisingly tender. Why surprising? Because the boyfriend had not put wine corks in the braising pot.
 Many chefs, particularly Italian chefs, claim that wine corks somehow tenderize the often rubbery tentacles, and so they routinely add corks to the braising liquid. Angelini Osteria's Gino Angelini does: He was taught the trick at cooking school in Italy. And they do at Mozza, where the octopus recipe comes from Mario Batali's mother. When I e-mailed food science writer Harold McGee about it, he wrote that he'd actually tested the theory in blind-tasting demos and that he can't tell any difference. As for Providence's Michael Cimarusti, he says he knows it's an old wives' tale, but he throws a few corks in anyway, just in case. The boyfriend shrugged when I asked if he'd added them, and said he couldn't find any. It didn't seem to matter much, and since we were watching "Monday Night Football" now that baseball season's over, I couldn't make any Sammy Sosa corked-bat jokes anyway.
My Secret Recipe, 4177 W. 3rd St., Koreatown, (213) 380-8382. For other restaurant addresses, click the links above.
-- Amy Scattergood
photos by Amy Scattergood
 We all have secret junk food, the beloved bag of this or fix of that we reserve for those down moments. (Thomas Keller and In-N-Out burgers, anyone?) Nutella, the Italian chocolate-hazelnut spread that comes in jars like peanut butter, has long been mine. My Nutella habit dates to my senior year in high school, a semester of which I spent in Hamburg, Germany. For breakfast, for afternoon snacks after Gymnasium, on a ski trip to the Dolomites and one very long car ride in a VW bus through East Germany and the DMZ to Berlin (this was before German Reunification), we ate Nutella, spread on thick slabs of bread from the Bäckerei with strata of sweet French butter. Twenty-five years later, I still crave the stuff when I watch World Cup games or see snow. I mostly eat it with bread and butter, but I've put it on pancakes and waffles, made ice cream with it, or just ate it on a spoon.
And I'm not the only person with a secret passion for the stuff. At the Food & Wine party at Spago last spring, Spago pastry chef Sherry Yard sent out tuile cigarettes stuffed with Nutella. Alice Medrich includes a recipe for Nutella bread pudding in her new cookbook. And when I interviewed former Bastide chef Alain Giraud for a story about crepes and asked him what he liked best with them, he gave me a long litany of fillings -- simple ones from his childhood in France, haute cheffy recipes from his restaurant and catering menus -- then confided that he best likes crepes spread with Nutella. Though normally, he went on, he just eats it out of the jar. I felt so much better.
Nutella, $4.50 and up (13-oz. jars), and $8 and up (26.5-oz. jars); available at most grocery stores and Italian delis, including Ralph's, Pavilions, Bay Cities and La Bottega Marino. Or see Nutella's website for its really cool store locator.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
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They're in season, and we need recipes! It's a request we get in the test kitchen every now and again, as some wonderful fruit or vegetable comes into season and we want to make the most of its abundance.
Roasted figs stuffed with blue cheese, toasted hazelnuts and wild honey
