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 Last fall I blogged about the acorn-finished pigs that La Quercia, the Iowa prosciutto makers, and organic pig farmer Jude Becker were raising and selling to chefs and restaurants across the country. While the prosciutto from last year's pigs won't be ready until next summer, La Quercia's Herb Eckhouse has already gotten glowing reports on the first deliveries — sausage, guanciale, coppa, pancetta and other items that require less curing time than the prosciutto. Eckhouse recently emailed that last year's project has been so successful that they're planning a second.
Acorn Edition II is now underway, with orders being taken for about 100 more Berkshire pigs — up from 50 in last year's inaugural group. The pigs go for $3,000 if you're a return customer, $3,200 if you're new to the pig subscription program. (Yup, that's really what it's called.) But they're going fast — Charlie Trotter just bought two, as did Nate Appleman of San Francisco's A16.
And for those mindful of this spring's catastrophic weather in the upper Midwest, Eckhouse says that they were lucky: The flooding only slowed down construction on La Quercia's expansion and soaked their basement. Becker said by phone that his farm was fortunate too; their corn crop was ruined, but "all the rain is creating a bumper crop of acorns." Becker reports that he's also enlisted his local Boy Scout troop, which turns a profit by harvesting the nuts and selling them to Becker. So not only will La Quercia's next round of charcuterie be made from Berkshire pigs finished on acorns — but acorns gathered by Iowa Boy Scouts. Wow. I hope they get a special badge for that, like in Italian.
La Quercia, 400 Hakes Drive, Norwalk, Iowa. (515) 981-1625. www.laquercia.us. Those interested in the Acorn Edition program can also contact Jennifer Snierson at The Chefs Warehouse, (310) 909-3316.
— Amy Scattergood
Photo courtesy of Herb Eckhouse
 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
 So here's what I found at the Cheese Store of Silver Lake the other day: a big silver rectangle of Meyenberg goat milk butter. Made in California's San Joaquin valley by a company that has produced goat milk since 1934, the prize-winning butter is lightly salted, so pale it's almost white (rather like lardo, a very, very good thing of which to be reminded, I might add), and slightly but distinctly reminiscent of chèvre in taste.
Spread thickly on slices of baguette, with a sprinkle of Hawaiian black sea salt, the butter is amazingly smooth and has a cool tang to the finish, not unlike goat cheese. It has a lower melting point and is less rich than butter made from cow's milk — a good thing, really, if you put as much butter on your bread as I do.
The emissions problem of cows has been in the news lately. Anybody know what the carbon footprint of a goat looks like? Given the otherwise beautiful efficiency of those animals, you'd think it would be a pretty good one.
Meyenberg goat milk butter, $7.99 for half a pound. Cheese Store of Silver Lake, 3926 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 644-7511.
— Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
 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
 I'm a little obsessed with cannelés, the pretty little Bordelaise cakes that are so deeply caramelized on the outside that they look burnt, yet have a dense, rich custardy interior. I've hit every bakery in town that has them. On my last trip to Paris, I was at Eric Kayser's Latin Quarter boulangerie when they opened their doors at 7 a.m. —and back again 20 minutes later for another bag. (I still have one of those that made it back from Paris in my freezer. Prototype? Talisman? Maybe both.) But I'd never made cannelés until last week, when a friend (also with a cannelé obsession) brought me back a brick of beeswax (right) from the honey stall at a local farmers market. Beeswax?
 Beeswax, according to Paula Wolfert's cannelé recipe in her cookbook "The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen" is one of the secrets to creating that glossy, dark crust. Melted, combined with safflower oil and brushed in a very fine film onto metal cannelé molds, the "white oil" helps in the caramelization process. So I followed Wolfert's recipe, using the individual metal cannelé molds we had in the Test Kitchen. Copper molds are the best, but they're insanely expensive; the orange silicone molds that look like muffin tins work okay, but, as baker (and blogger) Dorie Greenspan wrote in an e-mail, "The silicone molds are, as the French would say, 'efficaces,' but you can't use beeswax in them and you don't get that dark, dark crust." OK, then. The first batch, baked at 400 degrees for 2 hours (as Wolfert directs), were a little too black. But the second batch, baked for 1 hour and 20 minutes, were perfect (above, left). A glossy burnished exterior; moist, almost like a popover, on the inside. And they were surprisingly easy to make.
If you don't feel like making them (or heading to Paris), there are plenty first-rate cannelés in town, at Cafe Surfas (plain, chocolate and banana), La Brea Bakery, Boule (plain and chocolate), EuroPane and LA Mill. And Sumi Chang and Adrian Vasquez (of EuroPane and LA Mill, respectively) both use beeswax when making their superb cannelés. Are they better that way? You decide — preferably with a demitasse of espresso.
EuroPane, 950 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 577-1828. LA Mill Coffee Boutique, 1636 Silver Lake Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 663-4441.
— Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
 I tried my hand at a Key lime pie this weekend. I fully planned to make it with generic limes when I spied a bag of honest-to-goodness Key limes at my local Pavilions. I was surprised at how teeny tiny they were. And how little juice they released, even after I rolled them on my countertop to loosen 'em up. I needed 3/4 cup of lime juice for the filling. Normally, two to four limes would do the trick. But it took more than 20 Key limes. (They were too small for my wooden citrus reamer, so I resorted to the more powerful lemon squeezer.) Suffice it to say, there was a lot of squeezing.
The pie came together well, although the almond-graham cracker crust was a bit too crumbly. (I'll use more butter next time.) While the meringue was browning in the oven, I conducted my own unscientific taste test, slicing open a regular lime I had on hand and a Key lime. The Key lime was brighter, tarter ... is 'lime-ier' a word?
But I'm not sure it was worth the extra work. Purists, am I wrong? Am I giving up too easily?
-- Rene Lynch
Photo credit: Steve Carney
Read on »
Proceed with caution -– but there's no need to panic. That’s the word from Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County, talking about the salmonella outbreak tied to some types of tomatoes.
The Food and Drug Administration is urging consumers to avoid raw red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes, which have been linked to 145 salmonella infections since mid-April. The FDA says consumers can continue to eat cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and tomatoes grown at home. The source of the outbreak remains unknown.
Fielding noted that the FDA’s website says there are no immediate concerns about tomatoes grown in Southern California. “There’s no reason for people to say, ‘Tomatoes are off my diet,’ ” he said. “I would not be concerned about buying things that are locally grown, or from local [farmers] markets.”
He suggested that until further notice, people should take the same care at restaurants that they would at their markets: Don’t hesitate to inquire about the source of tomatoes, or avoid them altogether.
Restaurants, fast-food chains and supermarkets across Southern California weren't taking any chances, and removed fresh red Roma, plum and red round tomatoes from their shelves and menus.
At La Bottega Marino’s two locations -– on Larchmont Boulevard and on Santa Monica Boulevard –- visitors might notice the change as soon as they sit down.
Typically, a mix of diced tomatoes, basil, garlic and a drizzle of olive oil would be served alongside fresh bread. But starting earlier today, that appetizer was replaced by a creamy dip that includes white beans and a touch of rosemary.
Vice President Sal Marino said he had no concerns about the tomatoes that would normally be served. But why cause unnecessary anxiety among the clientele? “Why worry them about it?" he said. "You want to show them you’re in tune.”
-- Rene Lynch
Photo credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images
 Wait a second -- $6,100 for a watermelon?
A rare type of watermelon -– the black Densuke, to be exact -– was auctioned off in northern Japan today for a record 650,000 yen (that’s $6,100), according to the Associated Press. That makes it the most expensive watermelon ever sold in the country — and possibly the world, according to the AP.
What does a Densuke watermelon taste like? Gold bullion? Has anyone out there ever tried one of these? Is it worth it? (A Japanese agricultural expert was quoted as saying the melon is crisp and hard, with an unparalleled appeal: “It’s a watermelon, but it’s not the same. It has a different level of sweetness.”)
The 17-pound black melon is considered the cream of the crop, one of only 65 from the first harvest of the season. The fruit is grown only on the northern island of Hokkaido, adding to its value. The new owner is said to be a marine products dealer who wants to support local agriculture. I wonder what he plans to do with it.
Here’s the real kicker, though. The watermelon is a bargain compared to the $23,500 recently paid in Japan for a pair of Yubari cantaloupes, the AP reported, adding that melons are a luxury item commonly given as gifts.
-- Rene Lynch
Photograph by Tomoko A. Hosaka / Associated Press
 There are certain seasonal signals -- the first pitch of opening day, the smell of outside grilling after the rainy season -- that have a particular resonance, a mnemonic depth that carries beyond games, food, weather. Add the year's first cherries to that happy list. At this morning's Santa Monica Farmer's Market, the crowd at the cherry stand was so thick you'd think Barack Obama himself was handing out the Brooks cherries, in stunning shades of vermillion, loaded in plastic tubs like marbles.
Now that you think about it, maybe a good old-fashioned cherry pie would be the perfect way to get those Super Delegates in line.
Brooks cherries, $4 to $6 for a small or large container, from Erickson Farms.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
 This spring may mark a decidedly nasty turning point for California food lovers as two of our most treasured highlights of the seasonal table seem to be in danger of disappearing.
Thursday afternoon, federal officials meeting in Seattle closed down California’s and Oregon’s salmon fishery. This is the first closure in the more than 150-year history of the fishery, which was thriving as recently as 2004.
At the same time, reports say some asparagus farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta area are “rolling” their fields, taking them out of production. In the last five years, asparagus acreage in California, which grows 85% of the fresh asparagus in the United States, has declined from 36,000 acres to only 16,000. In the 1950s, as many as 75,000 acres were harvested.
The culprit is a combination of increasing labor costs — asparagus is extremely labor-intensive because it must be cut by hand — and competition from cheap imports grown in Mexico and South America.
The salmon crash came much more suddenly. As recently as 2004, California fishermen were catching more than 7 million pounds of king salmon a year, second only to Alaska. In 2006, the last year for which statistics are available, that had plummeted to 1.2 million pounds. Oregon, which fishes the same schools, saw its catch fall from 5 million to 1.3 million pounds in the same period. This year looks even worse: Projected “returns” — salmon returning to spawn — in the Sacramento River are less than half what fisheries managers say is required to ensure a viable population.
The cause of the drop is in some dispute. According to news reports, scientists point to poor ocean conditions, perhaps related to global warming. But fishermen say a bigger factor is the fragile condition of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta itself, which has suffered from pollution and increased water exports to Southern California.
-- Russ Parsons
Photo by Chad Surmick/Associated Press
We've seen flavored vinegars and flavored oils. An outfit called Saltistry (salt artistry, get it?) makes flavored salts. And not just the obvious flavors, such as herbs and spices. Preserved-lemon salt. Lavender gray salt (made with an unrefined sea salt). Truffle salt.
Last night it threw a public tasting at the Beverly Hills-adjacent Food Court L.A., and it was like a lot of tastings -- that is, a mob of people crowding around a buffet table and getting in each other's way at the best item (that would be the tiny roasted peewee potatoes -- so small I thought at first they were olives -- which you were supposed to dip in truffle salt; excellent earthiness). At this one, people connected with the event also wandered around encouraging everybody to dip freely and not confine themselves to the recommended flavor combinations.
Personally, I found most of the flavor combinations, even the non-recommended ones, to be charming or at least plausible, except for cantaloupe and coconut black salt, and I suspect watermelon and truffle salt might not have worked so well either. The clementine slices with tangerine salt were very good (if kind of a no-brainer), but preserved-lemon salt also proved an excellent foil for the clementines.
After two times around the table and trying 18 different salts on fruits, candies (chocolates and salty caramels -- surprisingly good with the lavender salt), raw fish, flank steak and duck rillettes, my ears were ringing. But maybe that was the noise of the crowd.
So I headed for the bar. It was making margaritas (with lime-flavored flake salt), Salty Dogs (tangerine salt) and Bloody Marys (six-pepper salt). I'm sure they were interesting and all, but this was the only open bar I've ever seen where more people were lining up for plain spa water than for cocktails. We'd all had way more than a grain of salt.
-- Charles Perry
 Just off the 110 in Harbor City, down an industrial side street, in a maze of concrete with a USDA sign on the rear parking spot, La Espanola Meats Inc. does not immediately look like the Spanish food oasis that it is. But walk through the door and you'll see racks of wines and Spanish olive oils, refrigerator cases of cheeses and charcuterie, shelves loaded with Marcona almonds and Jerez vinegar, whole jamons hanging from a stand in the back. And on Saturday, if you walk into a side courtyard, you'll also find some amazing paella, made that morning on a pan so big its contents serve 80.
The specialty store has been around since 1982, founded by Juana and Frank Faraone. Juana, who is from Valencia, Spain, began making paella in 1995. In the beginning, she explained this past Saturday, she just put a homemade sign in the middle of the street. It didn't take long: Now most Saturdays the patio is filled with repeat customers, most speaking Spanish, many of whom have been coming to eat paella for most of the last 13 years.  The portions are enormous, loaded with chicken and seafood, roasted peppers and beans and saffron-shot Valencia rice. It's easy to see why locals tend to make an afternoon of it. Juana says sometimes she makes three batches on a Saturday, depending on how many people call in during the week. Her son-in-law Alex Motamedi, who manages the store, kept bringing out plates of tapas from the store's interior: thinly sliced jamon serrano, wedges of Idiazabal cheese, Marcona almonds and anchovy-stuffed olives, even some of the prized jamon iberico. A local woman shared her homemade slices of lemon cake; Alex opened more wine.
Inside the store, you can find not only the Spanish products that the store imports, but also a wealth of the charcuterie that La Española makes in the small adjoining plant. Beside a gleaming German sausage-making machine, Alex showed off the chorizo (they make four kinds) and morcilla, or blood sausage (two kinds). In the rooms in the back, a pair of employees cut jamon Serrano, slice by individual slice, on a machine. All of which makes for pretty great patio tapas during the week, if (sadly) you can't make it for the paella.
La Española Meats Inc., 25020 Doble Ave., Harbor City, (310) 539-0455. Store hours are Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Paella is $8.50 and served only on Saturdays; we suggest you call ahead and let them know you're coming.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
 If you have a lemon or lime tree, you'll be picking golden globes from your lawn for a couple of weeks longer. What do you do with them all? I have both kinds of tree, and I've always turned my citrus glut into Moroccan-style pickled lemons (or limes).
But a few months ago I read that in Oman they make a "vinegar" by adding salt to lime juice, sealing the jar and leaving it outdoors for a couple of weeks. I think it was Oman, anyway -- they grow a lot of limes there -- but somehow I can't find the reference anymore. Anyway, three weeks ago I filled a quart jar with lime juice and added half a cup of salt. It's been sitting in my kitchen since.
The result is rather exotic. It smells like a cross between pickled lemons and that old cocktail ingredient Rose's Lime Juice, without the pine-like aromas of the first and the strange artificiality of the second.
So far I've tried splashing some on potato salad -- it turned that homey old standard into something mysteriously Asian. I've made a vinaigrette sauce with it; very successful, though I found you need to up the proportion of lime to oil to 3:4 to get the full flavor. (By the same token, mayonnaise is a bust, because the usual proportion of 1 tablespoon to 3/4 cup of oil completely drowns the lime vinegar aroma.)
It wouldn't work as a substitute for lime juice in most cocktails because of the detectable salt flavor, but as soon as I get a chance, I'm going to sprinkle some into tequila. I'll call it the Pickled Margarita.
-- Charles Perry
Photo by Charles Perry
 We’re in the sweet spot of the Meyer lemon season and the tree outside my kitchen window is heavily hung with sunny golden fruit. The fragrant lemons will last for another month or so, but experience has taught me that gradually their thin peels will get coarse and puffy, so I’m trying to use as many as I can now.
As my colleague Amy Scattergood related recently, there’s almost no end to the possibilities of things you can do with a Meyer lemon. But somehow I keep coming back to the same thing: marmalade.
More a technique than a recipe, I came up with this Meyer lemon marmalade in 1995 after receiving a letter from Margaret Corbin describing how her mother had made the stuff. This is one of those recipes that won’t go away — every year I get several requests for it. It couldn’t be simpler: thinly slice the lemons, discarding the seeds; soak the lemons overnight in water to cover; add 2/3 cup of sugar for every cup of the lemon-water mixture; cook over high heat until the mixture jells.
Over the years, I’ve come up with a few refinements to the original recipe. First, I use more water now than I did then. My marmalade isn’t quite as intensely flavored, but the texture is much better. And as with all my jams and preserves, I cook the mixture in small batches of no more than 2 or 3 cups at a time. This cooks to a firm set more quickly, preserving color and fresh taste. Even better, working with such small batches, it’s much easier to tell when the jam has set — you can feel it change as you stir it.
The batch that’s on my counter now started with 2 pounds of lemons and 5 cups of water. That makes almost 8 cups of marmalade base, so I’ll add about 5 1/3 cups of sugar. And tomorrow afternoon, after I cook it, I’ll have about 6 half-pint jars of terrific marmalade. Supplemented by my annual batches of strawberry, nectarine and Elephant Heart Plum preserves, that should last me until about this time next year.
-- Russ Parsons
Photo by Russ Parsons
For years I’ve been haunted by a peculiar fruit. The first time I read Lindsey Shere’s “Chez Panisse Desserts” (still my sweets bible), I was taken by her description of the Lavender Gem -- “A cross between a grapefruit and a mandarin orange.... The flavor is delicate and sweet and the peel is sweet and less  tangy than that of some other citruses” -- I had to try them. But they were elusive. That book was published 22 years ago and just this week, for the first time, I found Lavender Gems at the farmers market. (I am not alone in my quest -- or my lack of success; every winter I get two or three e-mails asking me about them. I instantly know what book the e-mailers have been reading.)
So I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a little sign for Lavender Gems at the Mud Creek Ranch stand at the Santa Monica farmers market Wednesday. I grabbed everyone I ran into and dragged them over to see. (Apparently, Shere is not as widely revered as she should be; most of my victims merely gave me a good-natured shrug.)
Robin and Steven Smith, who farm outside Santa Paula, have 10 Lavender Gem trees and will be selling the fruit at farmers markets for the next couple of weeks. Also known as Wekiwa or Pink tangelo (it’s actually a cross between a grapefruit and a tangelo), the fruit is fairly low in acidity, making it taste even sweeter than it is. (Most grapefruit have a sugar-to-acid ratio of 14- or 15-to-1; Lavender Gems can reach into the 20s.)
What’s the fruit taste like? I have to say that as 20-year quests go, this one was somewhat anticlimactic. Lavender Gems, at least on first introduction, are certainly nice and sweet with a slight floral quality. They seem to me to have more orange flavor than grapefruit. But after searching that long I had kind of hoped for trumpets blaring and fireworks flashing. That may be because the Smiths' trees are still fairly young; character sometimes develops as trees mature. I'm happy to give them time. After all, I've already waited 20 years.
Mud Creek Ranch sells at the Wednesday Santa Monica, Tuesday and Saturday Santa Barbara, Sunday Ojai and Sunday Hollywood farmers markets.
-- Russ Parsons
Photo by Russ Parsons
People who love Dungeness crab will pay almost any price to get it. But this year, that devotion is being put to the test. I walked into my local Asian grocery Friday to pick up some crabs for a weekend dinner and found that my usual $4.99-per-pound splurge is running $7.99 per pound this year. Actually, they were the same price at Christmas and New Year’s as well, but I just figured that was due to the normal holiday inflation. Not so. The fact is, there just aren’t as many crabs being caught this year as in the past, and as a result prices are as high as anyone can remember.
Gene Mattiuzzo, who works for Caito Fisheries in Noyo Harbor near Mendocino, says it’s a cyclical thing. “I was telling people last year that the season was going to be short and sweet this year,” he says. “And lo and behold, I was right.” It seems the crab harvest runs in cycles and we were due for a downturn. “Mother Nature runs this business,” Mattiuzzo says, “we don’t.”
Pete Kalvass, a marine biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game, says that this year isn’t really all that bad, it’s just that we’re  coming off a run of extremely large catches. “We’re coming off of three or four near-record years in a row,” he says. The state’s average Dungeness harvest is around 10 million pounds, but beginning in 2002 we had three straight years of more than 20 million pounds. Last year was about average, and this year will be slightly less. On top of that, this has been one rough winter up on the north coast, with repeated storms blowing through and keeping the fishermen home and high and dry. (And if it makes paying this winter's high prices any easier, remember that many of these are the same fishermen who were so devastated by the closure of the salmon fishery last spring and summer.)
This is one of those years when if you’re going to serve crab, cook it as simply as possible to show off its natural glory — it’s not like you’re going to be eating the stuff every day. Choose crabs that are lively and willing to put up a good scrap as they’re hauled out of the live tank. Put them in a large pot and fill it with room-temperature water. Add lots of salt (the water should taste like the sea). Bring the water to a boil and let the crabs cook about 15 minutes after the water comes to a boil. You’ll know they’re done when you pull one of the small back legs and there are little feathers of body meat attached.
To clean the crab, pry off the top shell, lifting from the back hinge, and rinse out the fat. Pull off the gills on either side, the jaws and the “apron” underneath. Pull off the legs and crack each large section using the back of a large knife. Cut the crab body in half lengthwise, then cut each half in sections between the leg joints. Put them all on a platter and you're ready to feast.
-- Russ Parsons
Photo by Russ Parsons
 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
 Uh-oh, it's that time of year again. Time to throw out the old spices and bring in the new. C'mon, admit it, I bet some of the nutmeg or turmeric in your pantry or drawer has been there for years. Open the jar and take a sniff: If it smells like nothing much, toss it out.
Ground spices have a short shelf life. That's why I mostly buy whole spices and grind them in the mortar and pestle just before I'm going to use them. I love sitting at the kitchen table, opening up cardamom pods and spilling the seeds out onto a plate. Or taking a whole nutmeg and grating it into a potato gratin. It's such a sensual rush.
I don't label anything, because I like to open the jar and sniff if I can't tell what's inside. This drives my husband crazy. But this Christmas he got the perfect gift: a labeling machine. He'd hardly unwrapped it before he was pounding out spice labels: white cardamom, aleppo pepper, ras al hanout, smoked paprika. Now the jars of basmati and jasmine rice have their own proper labels, the polenta and the palm sugar too. The words themselves are beautiful, so I don't really mind. With two cooks in one kitchen, it calls for compromise.
And where to buy those spices? Penzey's Spices in Torrance or Le Sanctuaire (formerly in Santa Monica but now in San Francisco) by phone.
Penzey's Spices, 21301 Hawthorne Blvd., Torrance, (310) 406-3877; Le Sanctuaire, 315 Sutter St., San Francisco, (415) 986-4216.
-- S. Irene Virbila
Photo by Fred Seidman
 When life hands you pancetta, make spaghetti alla carbonara? A package of pancetta arrived in the mail from Jason Tuley, chef of Square One in Santa Barbara. That's organic Santa Barbara hog belly that he cured and dry-aged for more than a month.
"We've been making a lot of it," says Tuley, who has turned 10 Los Olivos-raised American boar (fed with apples, beer mash and acorns) into prosciutto, guanciale, pancetta, red-wine-cured tenderloin, fresh sausage and a few kinds of salame. "We've made everything so far. The first prosciutto will be done this time next year." So what's a chef to do with all that charcuterie? Sell some (he's not marketing it yet) ... and make sandwiches. Tuley's looking for a Santa Barbara location for Square One Sandwiches.
But he also has some of it on his menu at Square One -- such as cardoons with grilled pancetta and raw artichoke salad with Meyer lemons, or a salad of mache with sliced red-wine-cured loin, Sicilian pistachios and goat cheese.
As for me, I made spaghetti alla carbonara, one of my favorite pasta dishes because it's so easy and delicious. The "sauce" is ready by the time the spaghetti has boiled. Sauté cubed pancetta with a little olive oil and minced garlic, then add a little white wine. When the spaghetti's done, drain it, then toss it with a few egg yolks. I use just the yolks instead of whole eggs because it's richer and creamier that way. Add the pancetta mixture, a handful of Pecorino and-or Parmigiano-Reggiano and a little cracked black pepper and some parsley too. That's it. Almost as easy as lemonade.
Square One, 14 E. Cota St., Santa Barbara, (805) 965-4565.
-- Betty Hallock
Photo by Betty Hallock
 Bordier butter ... butter so good it makes me cry. I went to fairly great lengths to bring some back from France. I had to freeze it before I got on the plane so that there was some hope of it surviving the trip back to L.A. But it worked. (Yes, I was a little worried about freezing it but figured it would be OK -- better than not having any at all, so I didn't have much choice. And I do keep butter in the freezer at home so that I always have some on hand for baking.)
Breton Jean-Yves Bordier makes beurre de baratte; at a certain temperature it's worked (sort of beaten) with two small wooden paddles to its optimum texture. For different restaurants, he makes different shapes. The ones pictured here are from Hélène Darroze in Paris. I love the salted (demi-sel) butter, on the left; on the right is the unsalted, sweet (doux) butter. I brought back slabs of it that I bought at the Grande Epicerie at the Bon Marché -- the demi-sel, doux, smoked sea salt and seaweed. The seaweed butter is so beautiful, with flecks of seaweed throughout (great on slices of toasted brioche or tossed with spaghetti).
I spread pats of the demi-sel butter on pain de mie from Breadbar every morning -- or if I'm especially lucky, sourdough bread freshly baked by my colleague Amy Scattergood. I'll even eat a little bit plain and just let it melt on my tongue -- worth the effort and the space in one's carry-on.
-- Betty Hallock
Photo by Betty Hallock
 The crosnes are back at Weiser Family Farms. But don’t count on being able to buy any until after the first of the year. Because of a very late, very small crop, the first harvest will be going only to restaurants, and even they will have to order them in advance to ensure getting any.
Little corkscrew-shaped tubers, crosnes are very popular among French chefs. Raw, they taste a little bland and crunchy — kind of like a miniature jicama. But they really shine when sautéed briefly, revealing a bittersweet edge that perfectly complements butter’s sweet, nutty flavor.
The Weisers planted them at the pleading of chef Alain Giraud, and last year's first harvest created quite a ruckus when it appeared at the Santa Monica farmers market in early October. This year's harvest is just now showing up. What happened?
So far, the Weisers are the only farmers in California —and one of only a handful in the nation — who are growing crosnes. So any ripple in their supply spreads quickly. And this year there was more than a ripple. First of all, Alex Weiser says, they concentrated the entire crop in their Lucerne Valley farm rather than spreading it into Tehachapi, which naturally made them somewhat later. And then there was this year’s extended warm fall. Since the crosnes form the edible tubers only when the plants start to go dormant, this delayed the crop even more.
And then there were the rabbits. While the Weisers were distracted harvesting an extremely abundant fall potato harvest in Lucerne, the little varmints dug under the fences around the crosnes field and feasted on the plants’ green tops, further delaying the forming of the tubers.
“I’m going to get a shirt made up that says ‘Farming Happens,’ ” says Weiser. “But I promise we’ll have them on time next year. I’ve already made plans. Of course, I say that every year.”
-- Russ Parsons
Photo by Wally Skalij
 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
 The local orange season is upon us -- Valencias are in season and navels are about to come on line. Fifty years ago, Angelenos would drive out to the orange-growing parts of town and load up on oranges at farm stands. These days, the orange groves of the San Fernando Valley and Orange County have been replaced by housing tracts, but we still have a vigorous orange-growing district in the lower Santa Clarita Valley.
This is where you can take a nice drive in the country and come back with 20 pounds of oranges for $5 or $6. One time I bought a box of 100 Valencias for $9, which worked out to 33 tall glasses of fresh OJ at 27 cents a glass.
To get there, take Highway 126 west just north of Magic Mountain. Nine miles later, just past Piru (where the highway has taken on the name of Telegraph Road), you'll be surrounded by orange groves. There are four major produce stands in the next eight miles, all on the south side of the street.
Besides oranges, all the stands carry other local produce, such as avocados (yellow-speckled Zutanos and little blackish Pueblas, as well as the ubiquitous Hass and Fuerte), winter squashes (monstrous blue Hubbards, grotesque green bottle gourds, "fairytale" pumpkins that look just like Cinderella's carriage) and honey.
From east to west, the big stands are: Camulos Ranch, 5164 E. Telegraph Road, Piru, (805) 521-1561; J&R Fruits, 2852 E. Telegraph Road, Fillmore (no phone); Francisco's Fruit, 1762 E. Telegraph Road, Fillmore, (805) 524-4616; Cornejo's Produce Stand, 768 E. Telegraph Road, Fillmore, (805) 524-2776.
-- Charles Perry
Photo by Stephen Osman
 Oops! In Russ Parsons' story this week, "Salt-roasting: It's white magic," we neglected to include a list of where you can buy California spiny lobsters. When they're in season (now through mid-March), the following seafood markets usually carry them (it's best to call ahead to check):
99 Ranch Markets (various locations)
Fish King, 722 N. Glendale Ave., Glendale, (818) 244-2161
Santa Monica Seafood, 1205 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 393-5244
Los Angeles Fish Company, 420 Stanford Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 629-1213
Oceanside Seafood, Redondo Pier, 100-F Fisherman's Wharf, Redondo Beach, (310) 376-2244
Pearson's Port, 100 E. Coast Highway, Newport Beach, (949) 675-6771
Also, select Bristol Farms and Gelson's markets will order them for you.
-- Leslie Brenner
Photo by Carlos Chavez
As citrus season starts kicking into full swing, check out Japanese groceries for some pretty rare fruit. Yuzu (on the right), which has attracted a cult following among chefs, is showing up and so is an even more obscure example called sudachi (left). Normally available only in bottled liquid or dried peel form, they are most familiar  mixed with soy, mirin, rice vinegar and shaved bonito flakes in ponzu sauce. The fresh fruit, of course, offers much more nuance.
The two fruits are similar, though they are different colors (yuzu is green, turning to yellow when ripe; sudachi is green, turning to orange). Both are tiny, typically smaller than a ping-pong ball. Both are extremely tart and very seedy. As a result, both are appreciated more for their peel than for the fruit itself. It’s in the zest that the real complexity of their aromas comes through.
It’s hard to define those unique fragrances. They are similar in many respects -- tart and somewhat lemony, of course. There are also overtones of grapefruit or tangerine and even some floral notes.
Supplies of fresh yuzu and sudachi are very limited, so availability tends to be somewhat erratic. They are also expensive, costing up to $30 per pound, though a little does go a long way.
Fresh yuzu and sudachi are available at Mitsuwa and Marukai markets. Yuzu is also available at Peter Schaner's stand at the Wednesday Santa Monica farmers market.
-- Russ Parsons
 How does a despot show his guest he had a really, really good time? Matsutake mushrooms! According to a Reuters story, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il presented visiting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun with a going-away present of 4 tons of the prized pine mushrooms after their recent summit.
That's a gift the wire service estimates has a value of $2.4 million, based on the reported South Korean street price of "up to" $654 per kilogram. Of course, in Japanese groceries in Southern California, Oregon matsutakes (they are a slightly different variety) are selling for $90 a pound, which would only equal $720,000. And if they bought them from David West at the Santa Monica farmers market, they could get them as cheap as $25 a pound, which would bring it down to a rock-bottom $200,000.
That's probably not going to make most North Koreans feel any better -- the country's per capita income is estimated at $760 a year, and thousands of people flee every year trying to escape starvation.
What did Roh give Kim? A collection of South Korean films and television dramas -- priceless in the North, where they are banned.
-- Russ Parsons
Photo by Eric Boyd
 While browsing at Windrose Farm's stall at the Santa Monica farmers market last Wednesday, I found some amazing fresh cayenne peppers. Just as I was trying to figure out what to do with them, Melisse chef Josiah Citrin happened by (yes, he's there every week). So I asked him. He said he dries them himself. How? Oh, in his dehydrator. When I told him I didn't have one of those lying around, he suggested drying them on my roof. In Culver City? No, said Citrin: too humid. "You should do it on the roof of the Times building," said Citrin, smiling. So that's where they are, drying in the dehydrating winds above the 12th floor, with a happy view of the downtown cityscape. Maybe buildings where newspapers are published have their own terroir?
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
 The fields -- and flats and pints -- don't, of course, last forever. Peak strawberry season was over a few months ago, and most of the berries you find at farmers markets now are from up north, around Watsonville. But as the summer comes to an end, I've been picking them up reflexively, compulsively, as unwilling to let go of the berries as I have been of summer. However, last weekend's hot spell did a number on all of us -- and my various pints of strawberries. The crop on the counter softened up too fast in the heat; the berries in the fridge, where I'd stowed some of them in desperation, threatened to lose their glorious flavor and texture. We ate some on Greek yogurt and vanilla-spiked oatmeal, sliced others and napped them with cream, tossed still more into the freezer for the winter. Then I took the rest and threw them into the blender and made a refreshing cold soup. It was as if the essence of the strawberries had coalesced into my soup plate: The flavors -- and colors -- were remarkable.
All I did was slice 3 pints of ripe (some were slightly overripe) berries into a blender, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and allow it to macerate for half an hour there; then I added a splash of rosewater. I blended the mixture on high for a minute, then poured the results into bowls. My daughters added a few slices of extra strawberries, some fresh mint and -- their favorite part -- a rose petal from the kitchen table bouquet. It was a fitting end, an homage if you will, to our last weekend of summer.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photo by Amy Scattergood
 In one of the weirdest coincidences ever, the Food section's Betty Hallock and I both, unbeknown to each other, did the nuttiest thing ever -- we baked on what felt like the hottest weekend in history. What possessed each of us, independently, to fire up the oven? An elusive little fruit known variously as the French sugar plum, the Italian prune plum and, in French, the quetsche (pronounced kwetch). My first close encounter with the fruit was in the early '90s, when my friend Yves brought a tarte aux quetsches to dinner at my apartment in New York. It was simple, gorgeous and fabulous, and I never forgot it. Every year I mean to run a story about the fruit in Food -- and re-create that marvelous tart -- but the season for the plum is very short, and you never know when they're coming until suddenly you see them in the market. I hadn't yet seen them here, but last week Yves sent a picture of a tarte aux quetsches he had just made, so I was on the lookout.
 Yves is no food professional, though he bakes like one, and he knows quite a bit about food and wine. In France, he tells me, the quetsche comes from the Alsace region. Besides being baked into tarts, they're also eaten raw or made into compotes. "The latter," he writes, "are awesome." (Yves is the only person I know who uses "latter" and "awesome" in the same sentence.) He was nice enough to send me his mother's recipe (which I've adapted; you'll find it after the jump). The secret ingredient is a little Slivovitz (plum brandy) sprinkled over the top before baking. "Actually, the brandy is very optional," writes Yves. "The sugar on top is important, as it helps the fruit render its juice, which then coats the dough nicely."
 Long story long, I stumbled on the plums at my own neighborhood Whole Foods on Saturday, so gleefully picked up three bagfuls. I found a bottle of Serbian Slivovitz at Vicente Foods (8 years old!). I made the pâte sucrée for the crust on Saturday, and Sunday morning, I baked.
This morning, Betty came into the office and told me she did a crazy thing over the weekend -- she baked! What did she bake? Well, a friend had given her some French sugar plums a few days before, she said, and hot as it was, they moved her to turn on the oven too. She baked them into a clafouti.
So they're out there, those inspiring sugar plums or prune plums or whatever you want to call them. Go out and grab 'em while the grabbing's good -- and let's hope the temperature falls tomorrow!
Italian prune plums, $1.79 per pound at select Whole Foods markets. Navip Slivovitz, $25.99 at Vicente Foods, 12027 San Vicente Blvd.; (310) 472-5215.
--Leslie Brenner
Photos by Leslie Brenner, Wylie Peremarti and Betty Hallock
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 The heat and humidity over the weekend might have caused bad hair days for some, but for others it meant bad tomato days. A couple of pounds of gorgeous, fat Brandywines sitting on my counter suddenly went all overripe and oozy. Aha, I thought, I'll turn them into a tomato soup, remembering a fantastic one we'll be running in an upcoming issue of Food.
Perhaps because the recipe hadn't yet been put through its paces in The Times' Test Kitchen, something went wrong: Either the cooking time was too long or the oven temperature was too high. In any case, the tomatoes, which were cut in half, placed on a baking sheet, enhanced with a little sea salt, a few branches of thyme and a few cloves of garlic and roasted for two hours at 400 degrees, no longer had all the juices at the bottom of the pan they were supposed to; they were fairly dry-looking, and the juices on the bottom had turned black. I almost tossed them out, then I put them in a bowl and mashed them with a fork. Unbelievable -- it was like a tomato confit: thick, rich, incredibly sweet and almost perfectly seasoned. I turned them into bruschette, which were fabulous. But I couldn't stop thinking about the perfect use for it: on a burger, instead of ketchup.
And that soup recipe? Look for it in Food on Sept. 5. Meanwhile, have you ever had a kitchen disaster that turned into something great? Tell us about it!
-- Leslie Brenner
Photo by Leslie Brenner
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 With August's soaring temperatures comes a bonanza: fabulous summer produce -- especially tomatoes. Yesterday at the market, farmers displayed them like county fair prize specimens. Red ones, purple ones, yellow ones, fat ones, tiny ones, gigantic ones -- all looking plump and juicy and altogether irresistible.
So what's the difference between that striped green zebra and that purple and red brandywine? How do you choose the best ones? And what are the most delicious ways to make use of them when you get them in your kitchen? Is there an easy way to make a quick, cold summer soup?
Just ask the California Cook, Russ Parsons. He'll be talking tomatoes -- and zucchini and Romano beans and peaches and melons and anything else you want to know about -- during his live chat at 1 p.m. today at latimes.com.
-- Leslie Brenner
Photo by Robert Gauthier
 Whenever someone offers to bring me back something from Paris, I hand them the card of Izrael, the épicerie (spice shop) in the Marais not far from the St.-Paul Metro stop. Forget Fauchon; this funky, crowded spice shop is the place some of Paris’ best chefs go for their piment d’espelette (powdered espelette pepper from the Basque country), fleur de sel (250-gram packages with a label trimmed in lavender), herb-infused vinegar, lavender honey and stony green lentils from Puy. I always stock up on fleur de sel and hand-picked, salted capers from Pantelleria, an island off the coast of Sicily.
Imagine my surprise then when I was poking around the website of Formaggio Kitchen, a cheese and spice purveyor in Boston, and came across 1-kilo (2.2-pound) bags of Capp’Aris capers from Pantelleria for $17.95, about what I remember paying in Paris. Ground shipping from Formaggio Kitchen starts, however, at around $10, so it’s worth your while to see what else you can order on the site. When I clicked on "salts," I found that they had the very same fleur de sel de Guérande -- Le Paludier brand -- I used to carry home from Paris too. The prized salt is from Brittany and it’s $14.95 for 250 grams, which is a little over half a pound. That’s what some stores charge for a tiny jar. Use it as a finishing salt, sprinkled on top of a dish.
For cooking and the pasta pot, I also added some sel gris (gray sea salt) from Brittany to my shopping cart. It’s called Sel de Noirmoutier and costs $5.95 for a kilo. Last but not least, Formaggio Kitchen sells Flour Tipo “00” from Mulino Marino in Italy, which is what you need to make egg pasta and pizza dough. However, it’s currently out of stock. No problem, they’ll send you an e-mail when they get it back in.
Formaggio Kitchen, 244 Huron Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; (888) 212-3224. Izrael, L’Epicerie du Monde, 30 rue Francois Miron, Paris 75004; 011-33-1-4272-6623.
-- S. Irene Virbila
Photo by S. Irene Virbila
 We're well-positioned for BLT season at our house this year. Way back in June, well before the first heirloom tomatoes came in, I was walking through Central Park in New York City on my way to see the Richard Serra show at the Museum of Modern Art. But I’d lost my husband. I looked back and there he was in the middle of a path making a cellphone call at the one serendipitous spot that got a signal. Nine o’clock in the morning and he’s ordering bacon! Not just any bacon, but hickory-smoked country bacon from Benton’s in Tennessee. This is fantastic stuff, smoked in a small wood stove smokehouse since 1947 and redolent of hickory and wood smoke. For this season, I laid in 6 pounds. (I did give some of it away to friends.) And instead of getting it thick-sliced, the way it normally comes, I asked for slab bacon, which they vacuum-sealed in 2-pound packages.
A no-mess, no-fuss way to cook the bacon is to lay the slices on a cookie sheet and bake them in a 375-degree oven until crisp, turning them over when the tops begin to brown.
Benton’s smoked country bacon, $5 per pound (minimum order 4 pounds), (423) 442-5003; www.bentonshams.com. I see from the website that orders are backed up several weeks. Not to worry -- Benton’s bacon is also available by mail from the Grateful Palate in Oxnard; $8.95 for 14 oz, (888) 472-5283, www.gratefulpalate.com.
-- S. Irene Virbila
Illustration by S. Irene Virbila
 On Tuesday, my 10-year-old son, Wylie, and I went fishing. Amy Scattergood tipped us off about the boat -- the New Del Mar -- and we boarded midday out of Marina del Rey. First we caught lots of mackerel -- which the fishermen wanted as bait for bass and barracuda, but looks more like dinner to friends of Russ Parsons.
Farther out, the crew filleted some of the mackerel and cut it up for bait (it's a fish-eat-fish world out there). Before long, one of the fishermen pulled up a sculpin -- a.k.a. scorpionfish. Bouillabaisse fish! I remembered a February 2004 story Daniel Young wrote for the Food section about the famous seafood stew from Marseilles. Bouillabaisse is notoriously difficult to approximate outside of the Mediterranean because it depends on a fish called rascasse to yield the deep, rich broth. But Southern California, he wrote, is home to the ideal substitute -- a cousin of rascasse called sculpin. "Are you guys eating fish tonight?" asked the fisherman, and gleefully I said yes. We wound up catching two sand bass, and the fishermen gifted us two more sculpin.
 That night, we grilled one mackerel and one bass (fantastic dinner, with grilled corn), then with the idea of a bouillabaisse dinner for Wednesday night, I made a bouillabaisse broth, using Young's recipe (which you'll find by clicking below on the "Read more 'Fishing for bouillabaisse' link). Since I only had three sculpin and the bones of the grilled bass, I halved the recipe. Yesterday I had to buy more fish to supplement the stew, so I picked up a couple of pounds of red snapper fillets, along with a dozen mussels. It all came together surprisingly quickly -- just about a half-hour to make the stew, rouille and croutons. My husband, Thierry, just back from New York, didn't mind waiting -- we had a glass of Ricard while it finished cooking.
It was all so wonderful (my favorite part is the crouton spread with rouille soaked in the broth) I can't wait to go fishing again. And this time, I'm going for the sculpin.
Marina del Rey Sportfishing, Dock 52, Fiji Way, Marina del Rey; (310) 822-3625.
-- Leslie Brenner
Photos by Leslie Brenner
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 The last day of a vacation during which I didn't want to set foot outside Southern California. What more fitting finale than a relaxed late-morning visit to the Santa Monica farmers market? The chanterelles at David West's mushroom stand were gorgeous, so I bought a bunch of tiny ones. Josiah Citrin was there, too, buying some for his restaurant, Mélisse (that's him shown in the photo). What was he planning to do with them? "Dover sole," he said, with corn, almonds, the chanterelles and brown butter. Sounds fantastic. "I do it every year," he pointed out. 
As for me, I'll just sauté them with some shallots in a little butter, maybe swirl in a touch of crème fraîche, and toss it with fresh egg pasta. Or maybe fold them into an omelet.
-- Leslie Brenner
Photos by Leslie Brenner
There’s already the Seafood Choices Alliance and the Seafood Watch program sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and now the federal government is getting involved. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the main government organization for overseeing marine science, has developed a FishWatch website to help consumers research their seafood choices. At this point, there are only a couple of dozen species listed, but the pages are rich in links to other information for the fish geeks among us. However, don’t expect any advice nearly as cut and dried as the “Best Choices,” “Good Alternatives” and “Avoid” categories from Monterey Bay. And the NOAA site tends to be more optimistic about seafood populations than either Monterey Bay or Seafood Choices. Only six species have warnings that they are either being or have been overfished — Atlantic cod, summer flounder, some red groupers, haddock, red snapper and yellowfin tuna.
-- Russ Parsons
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Last fall I blogged about the acorn-finished pigs that La Quercia, the Iowa prosciutto makers, and organic pig farmer Jude Becker were raising and selling to chefs and restaurants across the country. While the prosciutto from last year's pigs won't be ready until next summer, La Quercia's Herb Eckhouse has already gotten glowing reports on the first deliveries — sausage, guanciale, coppa, pancetta and other items that require less curing time than the prosciutto. Eckhouse recently emailed that last year's project has been so successful that they're planning a second.
