birthdays and anniversaries

Today is memorable morsels’ first birthday. It’s the anniversary of my first blog post. It’s a one year milestone of my decision to share my stories, adventures, and food memories.

We tend to like extremes and superlatives: the most, the longest, the best. I do too. Yet at times what is important to me are the small things that appear insignificant to others. A smile from a stranger on a sad day, a thank you from a child, the sound of silence in nature, or the taste and texture of a fresh ripe piece of fruit at its peak. I savor a bite, letting the myriad of flavors hit all the right spots in my mouth and create a memory in my cells. These delightful morsels are memorable and the experiences that go with them make them even more so.

A couple of years ago Hayes Valley’s Absinthe Restaurant celebrated its 10th anniversary by putting back 1998 prices on their menu for a while. It was such a treat and a great way to remember how it felt to go back in time. The restaurant wanted to celebrate its success and reward its patrons and I still remember how good that steak and hamburger with 1998 prices tasted.

I spent last weekend with my “American Parents” who have been a huge part of my life since I met them when I was ten years old. We went to Bethlehem, PA for a visit and were treated to plenty of great food from fluffy omelettes of breakfast sausage and green apples to the most traditional “Philly” cheesesteaks. Artisanal mango vodka on the rocks and homemade hamburgers coupled with the love of family sitting around the table sharing stories have never tasted so good. I remembered sitting at the very same table at their daughter's house many years ago for Thanksgiving, playing games with their grandchildren who had nicknamed me “Mary-Mom”. I felt part of the family then as I do now.

On our last morning we went to Pipersville Inn for a birthday lunch. Driving through country roads we passed Springtown, PA where I spent my first year in the US. The general store and dairy where I paid a quarter for a cone of fresh creamy ice cream were gone but the small little post office and old gas station were still there. I still remember how unique my first coca cola out of a can tasted there. Growing up we drank soda that was sold in glass bottles. I had never seen a coke can, let alone a coin-operated vending machine at a gas station. It was at this gas station in Springtown that we pulled over and cracked open an ice cold can on a super hot summer day. Ahhh!

On Sunday, the country roads led us from one small quaint town to another. In the old days these inns with restaurants popped at every major town entrance to provide lodging and food for the passengers traveling by coach. Our fancy Betsy from the 21st century with air conditioning was a much more comfortable ride for the lunchtime road trip on this hot day. Last year Pipersville Inn had brought back their 75-cent martinis on the menu to celebrate their anniversary, much like the Absinthe anniversary back home. The promotion was so successful that the drink special was still on the menu. We toasted with our 75-cent martinis to celebrate a family birthday and get together, and drove back home down a winding country road along the Delaware River. Needless to say, this was the most memorable martini I've ever tasted.

I had the most amazing and precious weekend. Every little detail was significant to me. Having the love of such a wonderful family who has embraced and welcomed me into their hearts and homes for the last 30 years is the biggest most special gift ever. There aren’t enough superlatives for me to express my gratitude and love for the wonderful memories we have shared over the years.

that salty cheese and sweet wine

Convincing my Dutch husband who grew up next to Holland's famous Alkmaar Kaasmarkt (cheese market) to go to a cheese school with me was like having to twist my arm to take a wine tasting class. We found the perfect marriage in the Cheese & Wine Pairing class at the Cheese School of San Francisco. Eight delicious cheeses were paired with five wines in an interactive class led by a cheese expert. We went there early and sipped champagne before class to break down our cheesy inhibitions. Hands down my favorite cheese from the class was La Tur, a pasteurized cow/goat/sheep creamy cheese from Alta Lagna, Piedmont, Italy. Yet, the freshest and most pure tasting of all the cheeses we tasted was a goat's milk cheese from Harley Farms in Pescadero, California. Since goat cheese does not go with red wine, we paired it with a fruity glass of bubbly.

After a beautiful coastal drive down Highway 1 from San Francisco past Half Moon Bay, on a summer Sunday we had brunch at Duarte's Tavern (which sells delicious strawberry rhubarb and ollaliberry jams) and then headed down the street to find Harley Farms. The wooden sign of a girl and goat on the corner of Stage & North Roads was re-assuring to know which turn to make. Not far down the road past the sunflower fields, we found the farm with a llama, a couple of what seemed like Scottish Highlanders, and a herd of Alpine goats all fighting to get on top of the highest point on the little structure on the field.

It was hard to stop tasting the cheeses in the shop. We bought some fresh goat ricotta, chèvre in oil, fromage blanc, apricot pistachio torte, and the most beautiful Monet torte. The chevre in oil comes in a glass jar filled with plain mini buttons of cheese marinated in extra virgin olive oil & lemon juice, with sundried tomato, rosemary & peppercorns.

Shopping for artisanal cheeses in gourmet markets you might recognize the Monet Torte. It is a round of goat cheese with herbes de provences layered in the center, and the recognizable purple and orange edible flower decoration. Monet would be proud to know this soft fresh goat cheese which leaves your tongue tingling with herbacious notes, was named after him. With that work of art and a fresh baguette who needs dinner?

Afterwards try a Carles Roquefort raw sheep blue cheese from Midi-Pyrenées, France which pairs beautifully with a sweet gewürtzramier. With that salty cheese and sweet wine who needs dessert?

where to find:

The Cheese School of San Francisco

address: 2155 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA 94133

phone: (415) 346-7530

www.cheeseschoolsf.com

Harley Farms

address: 205 North Street, Pescadero, CA 94060

phone: (650) 879-0480

www.harleyfarms.com

Duarte's Tavern

address: 202 Stage Road, Pescadero, CA 94060

phone: (650) 879-0460

www.duartestavern.com

coming to america

I came to America via Austria & Germany many years ago. Somehow everyone’s major move in life is a memory they hold dear perhaps due to nostalgia over the home they lost or excitement over the new life to be explored. My experience was different in that I was equally excited about our intermediary stops in the two countries as well as a permanent move to the US. I was pysched to leave a war-torn country!

Equipped with our luggage (one of which was stolen on day one in Vienna’s train station) and my knowledge of English, my parents, brother and I left home. My very crazy cool uncle who never finished high school, never moved out of his parents’ house, and was the most amazing person I knew at the time due to his knowledge of all things related to Bruce Lee, UFOs, and card games, had once spent a summer in Germany as a teenager. With his help, I learned how to count to 20 and order half a rotisserie chicken in German. “Eine halbes henschen, bitte” (a half a chicken, please) was all I could order which is what we mostly ate there. My parents' English was very weak back then and their German non-existent. We survived on my language skills for a while. And while most Austrians and Germans speak English, they are also proud of their heritage, telling me in response to “Excuse me, do you speak English?”, “I do, but I don’t.” So I stopped asking.

In Vienna we went to the famous Schloss Schönbrunn, visited Mozart’s statue at the Burggarten park, rode the city trams and got our US visas. I quickly learned how warm and friendly Austrians were when the owner of the B&B where we were staying would take my brother and I to her room every morning after breakfast and give us a Toblerone bar. Next was Frankfurt where we stayed with friends, I ate turkey for the second time in my life, and was amazed at how green and un-desert-like Germany was. Little did I know that my next home in the little tiny town of Springtown with only a general store, fire station, dairy farm, post office, gas station, and real estate office (what more could a person want in a town with a population of 150 people?) outside of Bethlehem, PA was surrounded by acres and acres of green corn fields with deer in our own backyard.

We were all relieved to land at JFK and go straight to McDonalds for my first meal in America back in the 80’s. While as a novelty the Big Macs were tasty, nothing came close to the lovely rotisserie flavor of the chicken we had been eating. Over the last two decades, every German-speaking person I have met has heard me count to 20 after I explained why I just ordered half a chicken from them, followed by the above story. Its an obsession of mine because it reminds me of the exciting moment of coming to America.

Twenty three years later, all grown up and now married, my husband and I went to other side of the world to Australia to explore and experience yet another group of warm friendly people. In search of unique and traditional Australian cuisine, we were delighted to find out that our trip dates coincided with the Sydney International Food Festival. The food festival hosted Night Noodle Market in Hyde Park with a variety of vendors selling Asian street food. We also tried many pricey “award-winning” restaurants only to find out back in San Francisco we have higher criteria for giving awards. Meat pies at Harry’s Café de Wheels were consistently good and a nice treat but are meat pies uniquely Australian or British? And if kangaroo or crocodile was on the menu, we avoided the restaurant all together as those dishes are prepared for tourists only. One day we ran across a TV program hosted by Huey who showed us how to cook his mother’s Cock-a-Leekie (chicken, leeks and prunes soup) recipe. Was that a traditional Australian dish or Scottish? I gave up. We left Sydney for Cairns where by day we snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef and by night ate the most delicious fresh seafood: bay bugs (Australian lobster), barramundi (Australian seabass), and Tasmanian salmon.

On the last leg of our trip we toured the Hunter Valley wine region outside Sydney known for their Semillon whites and softer styled Shiraz (unlike the heavy Shiraz styles from the Barossa Valley we are familiar with). Besides the kangaroo families residing on the grounds of Tidaki Lodge, the highlight of the stay were our B&B hosts, a lovely couple from Germany & Austria respectively. Manfred & Suzie (short for Siglund) greeted us with glee and joy in a way I don’t believe other guests at their home have seen. Manfred loved having a Dutchman, my husband, as a guest. And Suzie would stare at me in joy, telling me how beautiful I was, treating me as I imagined like her own daughter. Instead of wine tasting, we spent the afternoons talking to them about Persian carpets and roofing materials, my father's and Manfred’s specialties, respectively. We felt warm and cared for in their home and to us that was more precious than anything else. For breakfast Suzie made us fresh fruit salad and served it along with bacon, scrambled eggs, and an Austrian recipe of roasted tomato with fresh parsley from her garden. In the morning, while we swam in their salt water pool, Suzie watered the garden while Manfred had received his one-day license to burn wood on the property and was busy managing the fire. After a fun filled relaxing day of wine tasting, tired of eating out at restaurants in Sydney, and longing for a homey meal, we ran across the Smelly Cheese Shop and picked up a rotisserie chicken to have with our bottle of Semillon at the B&B on the patio that night. Of all the meals during the trip, this eines halbe henschen was the most memorable dish we had in Australia. Was it a uniquely Australian dish? Who cares! It was a lovely roasted chicken universal to all cuisines and as tasty as the ones I had on my way to America as a teenager. I was once again on my way back to America leaving not Germany and Austria but a German and an Austrian in Australia.

Back home we unpacked our bottle of Peterson Semillon and served it with our San Francisco local version of eines halbe henschen, a half rotisserie chicken from RoliRoti as we toasted and counted our way from 1 to 20 in German: “Ein, zwei, drei. vier, fünf,…. zwanzig”.

where to buy:

RoliRoti can be found at various farmers markets in the SF Bay Area. Click on shop for more information on where to find the rotisserie chicken trucks.

nothing fishy about vichyssoise

Nothing except for its name of course. Pronounced vishy(as in fishy)-sue-az, this soup is named after its creator's hometown, Vichy, a town in the central French Auvergne region. Vichy was invaded by the Germans in 1942 and occupied by the Nazis until 1944. Today it is a spa and resort town and locals are referred to as Vichyssois, much like the soup. The town's claim to fame is their thermal baths with healing properties, not the Vichyssoise soup which actually originated in New York's Ritz Carlton in the early 1900's.

We are always in search of healing. From the cure to cancer, AIDS, and MS to simpler ailments such as the common daily aches of an aging body, and trauma from psychological events, we look for comfort and freedom from pain in one form or another. In addition to traditional medicine, I use yoga, accupuncture, homeopathic treatments, and physical therapy for my pains. A more integrated healing approach can help the source of the problem and expedite healing. We also often use food as medicine to help with healing.

Aloe vera can help hydrate burnt skin, mint and ginger calm upset tummies, lemon has a cleansing effect on the kidneys, and the list goes on and on. We eat chicken soup when we're sick and there is great debate on whether it has physical healing properties to help with the common cold. But at a minimum we know it warms the soul, brings comfort with memories of our Moms feeding it to us when we were sick, and fills us with something more nutritious when our bodies need rejuventation. In Chinese medicine and coincidentally in my Persian family, foods are known to have hot and cold healing properties, similar to India's ayurvedic medicine. We use foods to stay in balance from both a physical and mental perspective. Overconsuming either type of food will bring digestive discomfort and lack of clarity in thoughts, perhaps even disease.

After years of listening to my body and personal trial and errors, I felt this recent change in season called for eating soup. But the sun is still strong and while the days are ever so gradually getting shorter, the seasons are only in transition. The idea of a cold soup came to mind. Vichyssoise, a puréed soup of leeks and potatoes (leeks are "warm" and potatoes are "cool", resulting in a balanced neutral meal), is traditionally served cold which is the perfect hybrid solution to having soup on a warm fall day. In my imagination, perhaps a cold puréed soup was what the aristocrats traveling to the Vichy thermal baths needed. Instead of puréed, I chose to eat my soup chunky, adding extra zucchini to the soup for its cooling effects ... a perfect complement to an early October sunny day.

Until I can plan a trip to Auvergne to use the Vichy thermal baths and steal a few bites of Bleu d'Auvergne cheese, I will savor tastes of my cold October soup. For dessert, I have fresh black mission figs poached in port that I serve on a piece of baguette with a Point Reyes Original Blue Cheese. I can almost feel the steam from the thermal baths. I think I'm healed.

ingredients:

2 leeks, white and green parts sliced thin

5 small zucchinis, sliced in rounds

3 medium new potatoes, peeled and cut in rough 1/2-inch squares

1 Tablespoon salt

1/2 Tablespoon cracked pepper

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Tablespoon olive oil

4 cups vegetable broth (I use one 32 oz. box of Trader Joe's Organic Hearty Vegetable Broth)

dollop of crème fraîche

basil florettes

method:

Sautée the leek, zucchini, and potatoes in the butter and olive oil for five minutes. Add salt & pepper, stir, and cover with lid over the heat for another five minutes until the leeks have caramelized. Add the vegetable broth and simmer the vegetables covered until the potatoes are tender but still have their shape, about 30 minutes. Serve cold with a dollop of creme fraiche and basil florettes.

suggestion:

As in the traditional recipe, you can purée the soup in a food processor and add 2 tablespoons cream to the cold soup prior to serving. Or serve the soup hot. Whichever is more healing to you.

where to buy:

For more information on Point Reyes Blue Cheese and to buy it online, visit www.pointreyescheese.com

zaza Zazu

Gimme a "Z"! Gimme a vowel! Gimme another "Z"! Gimme another vowel! What does it spell? Is it Zazu, Zazi, or Zuzu?

All interesting names for a restaurant if you ask me. But which one is owned by the brother of this guy at one of the wineries I would frequent? I used to walk in and go the member's desk and time after time, say, "Hi Bob, how are you?" And Dan would smile, pour me as much wine as I wanted to taste, and never let me know that I had his name wrong. This went on repeatedly for several years until one day I realized I had him mixed up with someone else at the winery. One day Bob, I mean Dan, told me about his brother's tapas restaurant in Napa. I meant to stop in during one of my visits to the wine country.

A couple of years ago, we made reservations to stay in Sonoma for Winter Wineland, bought our wine tasting glasses, and headed to the Russian River, Dry Creek, and Alexander Valleys for the weekend. I was thrilled to see Zazu was not far from our wine tasting event and reserved a table for dinner. I couldn't wait to go back to my favorite winery and tell Dan all about it. We drove on Guernville Road until we ran into a locally sourced roadside restaurant with a garden out back. It was winter and the menu was pig opulent. While the menu changes nightly all specials are printed but I overheard a server tell the regulars at the table next to us that a duck confit with braised cabbage was one of their limited quantity specials not on the menu. Somehow I managed to order the last leg and devoured every lovely bite.

The next day on the way back to San Francisco, we stopped at my favorite winery and I bragged to Dan that we had finally visited his brother's restaurant, only to find out we had dined at the wrong one, or so I thought. If I got Dan and Bob mixed up, no wonder Zuzu and Zazu were the same to me, especially since originally Zazu had been named Zuzu but had to change their name. Zazu got its name based on advice given to the owners from Mario Batali that a restaurant's name should not be more than two syllables. And its even more confusing that Zazu's cuisine reminds me of my other favorite restaurant with two syllables, Zuni.

Since our first meal there, Zazu left something so memorable in my mind we go back every chance we get. Zazu supports local, diverse, and sustainable agriculture. The chef's garden behind the barn and the menu filled with local ingredients is evident of their practice. Every meal there is fresh, distinguished, comforting, with balanced flavors, and masterful creations that are bursting with flavor. We always start with one of their housemade black pig salumis. In addition to the red wine copa, last night we also had the eggplant caponata with cocoa nibs, currants, and pinenuts. As if the caponata needed any help, it was served with the most delicious grilled bread with olive oil, salt, and the smoky flavors of a well seasoned grill. That's just it.... every bite has layer after layer of earthy flavors. None of the "starts" or "mains" on the menu has ever disappointed. Last night my choice was to start with the backyard tomato + farmer wendy's melon salad with backyard shiso and prosciutto di parma. The shiso leaf added an unusually pleasant cinnamon-basil flavor that allowed the melon-prosciutto blend to work with the tomatoes. We followed the salad with petit poussin al mattone with grilled bread panzanella, chicories, sultanas, and pine nuts. I saved half of the little chicken to be able to savor the flavors again the next day on a salad. Tough to do but I had to leave room for another of their signatures: the housemade gelato. When the peanut butter scare was going on, I didn't hesitate to order the peanut butter gelato with a scoop of the Scharffenberger chocolate. And we still go back each time hoping to steal another taste of the savory oilve oil gelato followed by the Flying Goat espresso.

Surrounded by farms, in a little red converted farmhouse on the side of the road, Zazu with all its rustic charm is a culinary experience not to be missed!

suggestions:

Zazu means it when they say, "Bring Home the Bacon!" For $10 you can take back a 12 oz package of their heritage pork antibiotic and hormone free bacon from the owners' Black Pig Meat Company. You can also order the bacon online.

Scharffen Berger Cocoa Nib Caponata (Recipe from Zazu's website):

ingredients:

2 eggplant, diced 1 inch

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

28 ounce can peeled tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 1/2 ounces, semisweet chocolate, chopped small

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

5 stalks celery, diced

1/4 cup raisins, plumped in boiling water

1/4 cup toasted pinenuts

1/4 cup capers

1 tablespoon cocoa nibs

1 bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped

olive oil,
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

method:

In a large saute pan on medium high heat, saute the eggplant in single layer batches until golden and soft, about 7 minutes. Set aside. In the same pan, open up the garlic in a little oil until fragrant, about a minute. Add the tomatoes and chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted. In a mixing bowl, combine eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, balsamic, celery, raisins, pinenuts, capers, cocoa nibs, and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

where to find:

Zazu Restaurant & Farm

address: 3535 Guerneville Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95401

phone: (707) 523-4814

www.zazurestaurant.com

summer of rosés

I used to think I'd enjoy being a winemaker until I started observing some at wineries. It was always easy for me to spot the winemaker based on their rosy cheeks. I'm guessing despite all the proper spitting if you're a winemaker, you like wine which means you like drinking wine. Eventually you'll build a deposit strong enough to make your cheeks stand out. Bad, bad made-up theory of mine. Probably goes hand in hand with the myth my Mom told me growing up that if I crossed my eyes for fun they would stay that way. It didn't scare me to hear it but the assistant at the barbershop where I got my haircuts had crossed eyes. Seeing this man wearing a striped apron sweeping all the hair off the floor with his head down was one sad sight but every time he looked up and I saw him, I freaked out thinking I was going to grow up to look like him.

Giving up on the momentary whim to study winemaking I decided to continue pursuing wine tasting which is unnecessarily a very intimidating science. I try to follow an easy formula for wine tasting: its a matter of your personal preference. Which means you can know all the rules of what constitutes a good wine but if a wine doesn't meet those criteria is your favorite, say white zinfandel, then that is a good wine. That's a bit of a stretch. I am too much of a purist to consider white zin a wine but I will go as far as saying that its look-alike cousin, the rosé is a great wine.

On my first trip to France, July turned to August and Paris became deserted. I found myself following the French and headed south. The beautiful beaches with the topless women was one sight but stepping on the huge rocks at the beach was another reality I was not used to. The big pieces of rock in no way resembled the fine sand beaches we have in the States. So I hung up my bathing suit and sat at at cozy table at "La Pizza" in Cannes, the seaside French Riviera town famed for its celebrity-filled film festival, ordering a Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé with my Aubergines pizza. I kid you not, I can still taste the combination of the eggplant pizza and rosé wine. Across the water from Italy in the French Riviera they know how to make an amazing pizza. August is too hot to drink red wine during the day and white wouldn't pair with a tomato sauce. A tangy rosé with a slight hint of tannins was the right choice.

Needless to say when it comes to rosés Bandol is king. And in France that summer I drank plenty of this lovely wine from Provence. A Domaine Tempier Bandol made with mourvèdre, cinsault, grenache, and carignan with flavors of woodsy berries, spice, herbs, and olives costs close to $37 here in the US. There are less expensive Bandol rosés in the $25 range. But if you're going to skip the king, skip all royalty and settle for the people's wine. On a recent trip to K&L Wines in San Francisco I set out to identify the best priced people's rosé wine that had a chance at making up for not being a Bandol . I came home with four bottles: 2008 Cave de Tavel "Lauzeraies" Tavel ($13.99), 2008 Domaine Begude Pinot Noir Vin de Pays d'Oc Rosé ($12.99), 2008 Château Viranel "Tradition" Saint Chinian Rosé ($12.99), and 2008 Les Vignerons de Fontès "Prieuré Saint-Hippolyte" Languedoc Rosé ($10.99). One by one I tried them after chilling to perfection between 45-50 degrees farenheit.

The four wines tasted were in the $11-$14 range with colors ranging from rosy pink to flush peach. The Tavel was the most complex while the Pinot the least. The sweeter wines didn't work and reminded me of California rosés while I wanted to recreate a scene from that summer in France. In the end, of the two remaining Languedoc wines my favorite was the 2008 Château Viranel "Tradition" Saint Chinian Rosé made with 40% syrah, 40% grenache and 20% cinsault priced at $12.99. On the way to K&L Wines to pick up a case of my favorite, on a whim I stopped at The Wine Club and asked for their best afforable rosé and came home with a 2008 Domaine de la Fouquette Rosé d'Aurore from Côtes de Provence. The Fouquette with the lighter salmon color was indicative of older vines with less flavor but to me this blend of 65% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, and 5% Rolle was as close to a Bandol rosé I could get my lips on. On the palate it was instant strawberries for fruit, citrus for crisp acidity, and a hint of minerality. Perfect for a hot summer day.

The Domaine de la Fouquette takes me back to that summer in the French Riviera years ago. I paired it with a home-made eggplant parmesan to remind me of the aubergines pizza and the wine's acidity cut through the cheesy tomato sauce dish. For a faint salmon-colored wine to stand up to such strong food, my summer wine has been identified. Good thing summers in San Francisco start in September. Salut!

where to buy:

Click on shop for more information on where to find The Wine Club or K & L Wine Merchants.

La Pizza Cannes (Pizza Cresci)

3, Quai St. Pierre

06400 Cannes, France

tradition! la tradition!

As a certain milestone birthday approached last year, I reflected on the fact that I had promised myself I would move to Paris by then if I were to remain single. I had been tired of dealing with the ups and downs of dating and this move would have been my consolation prize. Four years ago I had perfected my "rrrrr's" and had my beret and luggage tags that read "Paris" ready. As luck would have it, it was then that I met my love, got married and we put the move on hold until our retirement. This means that until that day arrives, I will miss Paris, most of all the baguettes.

To me a baguette is not just a piece of bread. It is a symbol of tradition. Living in a society that went from buying Wonder Bread to Organic Spelt and Flaxseed bread from fancy bakeries, I admire the simplicity and continuity of buying the day's baguette fresh from the boulangerie each day on the way home for dinner. In Paris, I witnessed the sight of business men and women in their suits after the day's hard work followed by a cocktail and cigarette at a café heading home with two things in hand: a briefcase and a baguette. You rarely see this in the metro because the baguette is bought from your local boulanger right near home. And its always bare with just a 2-inch square piece of paper wrapped around its middle.

It is this very simple square piece of paper that got my husband in trouble during our honeymoon in Paris. We love riding the metro and getting around the city. The gypsies hop on the train with their accordian and sing a song, collect some change, and hop off at the next stop to catch the next car or train. It is so romantic to watch the Parisians kiss without oblivion. To stamp this trip to Paris as our "honeymoon" and make it stand out from the rest, we made it a point to find an amourous couple in the metro and each time kiss like them. At times to maintain stability this required holding the handrails. Afterwards we'd run back to our little apartment on rue du Dragon to wash our dirty hands. Our apartment was directly across from Boulangerie La Boule Miche and every day we asked for our "une baguette tradition, s'il vous plait!" A "baguette tradition" differs from the typical white French bread ("baguette ordinaire") we think of simply as a baguette. It is made by hand using a higher quality wheat flour with yeast and salt, sans additives, just like in the old days.

One particular afternoon, we stepped out of the metro stop and the sight of delicate pastries called us into a different patisserie/boulangerie. In addition to some lovely treats, I had a baguette in hand as we walked out. Hot from the oven, it was ready for a bite. I held out the baguette to my husband in a "you go first" gesture, waiting for his mouth to encircle the bread for his taste. Instead in painstaikingly slow motion I saw his hands, the ones that had touched what seemed like all the handrails in the metro, envelope the bare naked baguette above and below mine which was over the square piece of paper. He was looking for a firmer grip before his bite. Arrrghhh... he had ruined my hot fresh baguette with metro germs!!! In not so slow motion, my hand which never parted the baguette fiercely yanked it out his and I started to hit him over and over again on the shoulder with it yelling obscenities in French about his filthy metro hands. This passionate moment of baguette-beating rage was not a typical Parisian scene and luckily did not ruin our honeymoon although we re-enact it on every subsequent trip to Paris just for laughs. Who knew a new tradition could be born out of the "baguette tradition"?

suggestion:

Don't beat your husband with a baguette. Instead buy two and eat one fresh and hot on the way home.

where to find:

For the best baguette tradition, no doubt go to Paris and try a different boulangerie until you arrive at your personal favorite. In the Bay Area, the closest I've gotten to a baguette that reminds me in flavor of my Parisian favorite is from Brickmaiden Breads made with Sel de Guérande from France. A baguette costs $4.00. Brickmaiden does not have a retail location but can be found at the Sunday Marin Farmer's Market. The Marin Farmers Market takes place in the parking lot behind the Marin Civic Center on Sunday mornings 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. year round.

the moon, your eye, a pizza pie

When I think of the film "Moonstruck" I remember Cher all dressed up to go the opera, Nicolas Cage holding out his hand and yelling, "I lost my hand, I lost my bride", and the sound of sugar cubes dropping in spumante glasses to celebrate their engagement. What stands out most is the sound of "when the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" in my head. Moonstruck always reminds me of the song as sung by Dean Martin. Actually so does the sight of a full moon.

Monday was pizza and movie night. "Moonstruck" was traded for "A Secret" but "That's Amore" was still in my head as I opened up the three Gialina take-out boxes: one Margherita, one Squash Blossoms w/ squash, white corn, young Pecorino & chives, and one Potato w/ applewood smoked bacon, red onions, rosemary & gorgonzola pie. It was amore at first sight. Was it the full moon or the scent of the pizzas that drove me crazy? That's my secret.

Glen Park is home to Gialina Pizzeria which specializies in delicious thin-crust Neapolitan-style pizzas. They do not take reservations and there is typically a line outside for a table but its always well worth the wait, albeit at times long. The menu is updated daily with seasonal ingredients but you can usually find regular hits like the potato w/ applewood smoked bacon pizza. There is a nice selection of Italian wines but the sparkling is not served with sugar cubes. Try slipping one in your glass and after eating your pizza pie, you just might see visions of Dean echoing from the alley next door..."when the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine, that's amore!......Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli, that's amore! That's Amore!"

suggestions:

Before dinner, go for a little stroll nearby at Glen Canyon Park just a few blocks up the hill from downtown Glen Park. You'll be sure to build a good appetite for the pizza pie.

where to find:

Gialina Pizzeria

address: 2842 Diamond Street, San Francisco, CA 94131

phone: (415) 239-8500

www.gialina.com