Poor corn. It's been pimped out to animal feed and fructose companies, making it top the most-wanted list of dietary no-nos. But real corn -- and by "real" I mean those delightful yellow and white cobs that come in green husks and not the mass-produced grain in monoculture fields -- is a summer treat.

Corn is at its best roasted on the grill where that direct intense heat makes the kernels sweeter. After eating our fill of grilled corn a few weeks ago, however, I wanted to try something a little different. Soup. Yes, I know. Soup is not a summer standard. But we live in the Bay Area, where hot days are followed by cool, foggy ones, so soup is an every-season dish as far as I'm concerned.

Corn chowder is a favorite of mine. In the past, I have always just cooked the corn on the stove to make soup, but this time I wondered how everything would turn out if I roasted it first. I had to give it a try. Now keep in mind that this is a simple recipe. Unlike other corn chowders, which are usually made in the winter, this soup doesn't include root vegetables, like potatoes, or spices. Corn is now in season so I really wanted it to be the star and adding other ingredients meant it would have to share the stage. I therefore settled on just corn, bacon and onion along with stock and milk. The result was lovely: just-picked corn sweetness caramelized on the grill with a salty bacon accent. You could easily serve the soup just like this, but because I am growing parsley in my backyard, I decided to top everything off with an herb pistou to round out the flavors.

What, you may ask, is a pistou? It's just a fancy name for herbs blended with olive oil and seasonings. I often make a parsley pistou for my lentil soup, so whipped one up for the chowder. The result was more than I had hoped for. Like lime with jalapeno, or coffee with chocolate, the pistou heightened the corn's natural essence and elevated the flavor to a new level.

Roasted cream of corn chowder with parsley pistou has now become one of my favorite summer dishes, with or without a fog bank.

Roasted Cream of Corn Chowder with Parsley Pistou

Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 strips bacon
1/2 onion diced
3 large cobs of corn
1/2 cup half and half or whole milk
2 cups chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Heat grill to high.
2. Place husked corn on direct heat and turn down the grill. If using a charcoal grill, place on indirect heat.
3. Grill for about 5 minutes a side or until the kernels start to brown. You may even hear a popping sound.
4. When corn is thoroughly cooked, remove it from the grill. Set aside to cool.
5. Chop bacon into small pieces and cook in a medium pan. Add the diced onions when the bacon is 2/3 cooked through. Continue cooking until bacon is crispy and onions cooked through.
6. Trim kernels from the cobs. I place my knife at a slight angle, which makes it easier to remove the kernels.
7. Place bacon and onions in a blender along with the corn, chicken stock and milk. Puree until the mixture reaches the consistency you desire. I like it mostly smooth, but with some small chunks. You can also use a hand blender.
8. Place the soup into a medium-sized pot and heat through.
9. Ladle into bowls and top with parsley pistou.

Parsley Pistou

Makes: 1 cup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Place parsley and olive oil in a blender and puree until the herb is fully integrated into the oil.
2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I use "steamed" in quotes because this dish forgoes the traditional method of steaming in a covered wok in favor of a more contemporary technique: the microwave.

Before you shun me, just try it.

The fish ends up steaming in its own juices, and soaks up all the great flavor of the seasonings, fresh ginger and scallion.

This is one of the first recipes my mom ever taught me, and I love teaching it to newbies because it's shockingly fast, easy, healthy and delicious. With the help of the ol' dinger you can have this dish done from start to finish in 15 minutes.

Black Bean Garlic Sauce (which is delicious on pork ribs too) and Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood are the secret ingredients worth hunting down for this dish. Lee Kum Kee is a common brand that makes both products, and they can be found in Chinatown or an Asian-mart like Ranch 99.

Serve the fish over some white jasmine rice or soba noodles and you'll have a light, summer dinner ready in no time.

Ingredients for Cantonese Sea Bass

"Steamed" Sea Bass, Cantonese Style

Serves: 4

Ingredients:
4 (6 oz.) Chilean sea bass fillets (or 1 1/2 lb. Chilean sea bass steak, you can commonly find these frozen in Asian-marts, just it thaw out first)
Pinch of salt and white pepper
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon black bean garlic sauce (Lee Kum Kee)
2-3 slices peeled ginger
2-3 pieces scallion
1 teaspoon soy sauce for seafood (Lee Kum Kee)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Preparation:
1. Rinse and pat dry fish.
2. Sprinkle salt, white pepper, and cornstarch on both sides.
3. Coat all over with black bean garlic sauce.
4. Julienne the slices of ginger; place on top of fish.
5. Remove the wilted tops and root ends of the scallion. Make a slit, splitting the bottom white part lengthwise. Cut on the bias in 2 inch pieces. The pieces will look large, but don't worry, they will shrink when you cook it; place on top of fish.
6. Drizzle the soy sauce and vegetable oil on top.
7. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave for about 8 minutes.

No lesser authority than The New York Times says artisanal pizza is on the rise. Just last week, the Gray Lady blew the trend up, making a case for the elegantly appointed pizzeria as a cost-conscious diner's best bet amid rotten economic circumstances. In San Francisco, this sub-genre of the pizza form is currently encroaching on the Mission District's once-fior di latte-less expanse with great success. Pizzeria Delfina and Beretta are delicious examples of what's sizzling in Burritoland, though only the former would probably describe itself as a pizzeria first and foremost. Flour + Water just opened on Harrison in the last few months, serving pasta, salumi, and a familiar stripe of 'za: smallish, thin-crusted rounds decked out in classic and occasionally inventive combinations of toppings with a traditional bent and heavy, local-centric nods to seasonality. As if that weren't enough upscale crust and cheese to blanket a few square miles of coveted real estate, Pi Bar will soon start slinging (whole pies and cheese slices for, ha ha, $3.14) on Valencia near 25th, at a renovated space once home to Suriya Thai.

You might not have heard, but in Fall of 2008, Pizzeria opened its doors on a humming stretch of Valencia Street, not far from its intersection with 18th. As of press time, the establishment has garnered 45 reviews on Yelp, most of them quite positive. Yet, for all the times I've wandered past its wide windows, I've never seen a customer populating one of the dining room's handsome circular wooden tables. I've stared at the menu. I've contemplated the helpful photographs of Pizzeria's offerings pasted to the front window. I've watched cooks bustle, a waiter mop, and a manager meticulously refill and reposition jars of red pepper flakes on the long counter, but, never, not once, have I witnessed a person, sitting down, napkin on lap, actually tucking into a plate of anything.

And I've always wondered why. Location could not be the problem. Valencia is a major thoroughfare for night-time revelers and day-time shoppers. The product itself is not immediately suspect either. It's pizza, after all; everyone likes it. Unlike Beretta and Flour + Water, and to a lesser extent, Pizzeria Delfina, purveyors of an ostensibly fancier kind of pizza, the vibe is not glamorous. Apart from the wood oven used to bake them, the wares are not authentic but fairly pan-pizza in approach, though, in this age of hyper-fusion frenzy, that shouldn't deter the masses. You won't find habaneros, chicken tikka masala, or barbecue on pizza in Naples, but, these days, in the United States, thanks perhaps to the influence of California Pizza Kitchen, they're not exactly unusual toppings, and perfectly appropriate in the right context.

Pizzeria is also Halal. The pig is on a big muddy pedastal these days, and there's a chance the absence of house-cured prosciutto, guanciale, and an occasional trotter special throws potential customers off the scent. In addition, Pizzeria sells no alcohol. One Yelper reports brown-bagging some brew, but the restaurant doesn't specifically recommend doing so. Unless you're willing to ask and perhaps plead, the closest thing to a dinner buzz or a perfect pairing you'll get here will have to come in the form of a $2.50 soda. For many, this will prove a bigger sticking point than the pancetta non grata situation.

Could cost be the issue? Probably not, though, as far as pizza goes, Pizzeria's is not particularly inexpensive. In fact, its pizza margherita costs a dollar more than a similarly sized version made by Flour + Water, when the ingredients are obviously the same: tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, and olive oil.

Generally speaking, when a restaurant's always empty, no passer-by wants to play guinea pig. Delivery customers write the majority of Pizzeria's Yelp reviews, and they tend to gush about speedy delivery and the endearing customer service, signs a few people have been curious enough to phone in orders, and the business owners are working hard to amass devotees, one at a time if necessary. Pizzeria is not open for lunch, which seems like a curious choice to make, especially if the owners want bodies in the dining room. Walk-in customers are more likely at lunch-time, especially on the weekends, when weary shoppers from other parts of town, quivering beneath the weight of new purchases, and stoned folks staggering in from Dolores Park make impulsive dining decisions based on whatever is in front of them.

Unlike Pizzeria, Flour + Water, the sort of sleek, self-styled "neighborhood" restaurant that employs a publicist, has been hot. A dozen local press mentions and reviews popped up within days of its opening, many before, and over 118 reviewers have since weighed in, many charmed by the food, a number irritated by the crowds and clientele, and more than a few disparaging of the hosts' demeanor. No one likes a line, and Flour + Water's perpetually snakes out the door like links of runaway sausages. In shaping their doughy vision, the heads behind Flour + Water actually followed a pizza principle not unlike what was outlined in the Times piece, figuring rustic fare in a lovely dark wood-enhanced setting might rake in diners trying to scale back on spending without sacrificing the level of ambience regular restaurant-goers tend to favor. According to Flour + Water's website, the restaurant's design and construction "are all about the mantra of the triple r: refurbished, repurposed and reclaimed," a triptych of buzzwords pretty much designed to make people feel as if they're sitting down to something real, hip, and happening, yet non-indulgent, and even -- gasp -- responsible.

Pizzeria and Flour + Water don't serve the same kind of pizza, so reviewing them in tandem wouldn't make sense. I'm interested in why one restaurant is full, and the other is empty. Does the press machine get behind whatever they're told to get behind by whomever gets to decide what should be gotten behind? Is herd mentality a lot of what's keeping Flour + Water packed tighter than a jar of oil-cured anchovies and Pizzeria as forlorn and lonely as a marinara-deprived breadstick? Does a Halal pizzeria without a pizzaiolo or a publicist stand a chance in this city?

On Saturday, I decided to seize the pizza by the box and give Pizzeria a real shot. At 5:15 p.m., I slowly and deliberately walked up to the door. I looked in through the smudged glass. I couldn't do it. The prospect of being the only person in the place stressed me out. A lopsided ratio of cooks to customers makes for awkward dining, a rigid, uncomfortable experience, like at a show, when a band dwarfs the crowd. I turned tail and scurried back to my apartment where, furious with my lack of courage, yet quite relieved, I immediately dialed in an order for delivery: a $12 small "Popeye" pizza (baby spinach, slow-roasted garlic, and red onion) to which I, for an extra buck, boldly added beef pepperoni. Minutes later, Pizzeria's pizza and I were face-to-face.

The mystery was over. The crust's bottom was black and blistery; the gnarled sides and top were beautiful, rutted in all the right places, tunnels of taste within, perfect pockets of air crunching, wafer-like, between teeth. The toppings were fine. I liked the cheese. The sauce was unmemorable. The thick slices of raw red onion didn't do much for me. I prefer them cooked, semi-pickled, or, if raw, very, very, very thinly slivered. The beef pepperoni didn't taste weird until I tried it cold on Sunday morning. Overall, Pizzeria makes a really good pizza in keeping with its intent: flavorful, timely, unpretentious, and very pizza-like. Everyone should go there ... or at least get something delivered.

Sometimes you should just watch their eyes light up as they try that first bite, and then reveal what you've prepared.

This is one of those dishes.

Tonnato, otherwise known as tuna sauce, is a classic summer dish from the Piedmont of Italy, the northwestern part of the boot.

The Piemontese have been making tuna sauces for centuries. Sophisticated food lovers flock to the Piedmont every year, partly to try distinct regional dishes such as vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce).

Yet if you were to tell your dinner guests that you were serving whipped tuna and anchovies as part of an appetizer, some of them might be tempted to say, "Can we just move onto the entree?"

Although there are endless variations on tonnato, every recipe I've seen includes tuna, anchovies, capers, olive oil and some type of acid, either lemon juice and vinegar.

At Oliveto, the restaurant where I work in Oakland, Chef Paul Canales makes a silky smooth tonnato by blending the basic ingredients with trickles of cream and olive oil.

At a recent dinner, we served it with sugar snap peas, cauliflower and other vegetables.

There are other interpretations. Vintage recipes call for whipped hard-boiled eggs in a tonnato, whereas some modern recipes include mayonnaise (homemade only, please). Jacques Pepin adds a little Dijon mustard to his tonnato, a French corruption that would likely spark riots in Italy.

Whatever the combination, your goal is to create a glistening sauce that is rich with the flavor of tuna, seasoned by background notes of capers and anchovy.

My version has a more rustic texture than what is served at Oliveto, but it is similar in taste and execution. You can see how I served the sauce with some vegetables from my garden, including squash, green beans and tomato.

Feel free to put your own twist on this dish and accompany it with a variety of vegetables or meats, such as chicken or turkey. But try not to skimp on the basic ingredients. High-quality tuna (or canned tuna), anchovies, capers and olive oil are essential.

Dijon mustard? Only if you want to trigger a riot.

Tonnato with Summer Vegetables

Serves: 6-8 appetizer-size portions

Ingredients:
12 ounces of fresh ahi tuna (or canned tuna)
6 anchovy fillets, rinsed and dried
1/4 cup olive oil or more
1/2 cup cream or an equal amount of milk and unsalted butter at room temperature
3 tablespoons capers
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Vegetables of your choice
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Cut up and cook your vegetables, either by steaming or blanching. Try to include some that remain crunchy, like string beans or carrots and cook them in separate batches until just tender. Plunge in an ice bath and drain.

2. If using fresh tuna, add oil and tuna steaks to a skillet and heat until just barely bubbling. Maintain that gentle heat, turning once or twice until tuna is just cooked through. Do not overcook.

3. Add tuna and oil (or canned tuna) to blender or food processor. Add all other ingredients and blend until smooth. Then add your cream or milk-butter mixture.

4. Your final sauce should be smooth enough to barely pour, without being runny. If still too thick, add more olive oil. (Go on. Just add it. It's good for you.)

5. After checking for seasoning, pour or spoon your tonnato onto a plate, arrange your vegetables in an artistic fashion and serve.

Note: Tonatto can be made in advance and refrigerated for a day or two. The flavors will meld and enrich the sauce. Bring to room temperature and rewhip before serving.

Good morning, brunchers! What's in your glass? Let's see: mimosa, mimosa, bloody Mary, screwdriver, mimosa, Calistoga with lime, bloody Mary, and just coffee for you, thanks.

Oh, has it come to this? Can we not break out of the orange-juice rut, spread our wings and flap a little, veer a little to the right or left in our quest for a morning pick-me-up that lets you down easy. Personally, I like to be able to recall my name and address (and yours) post-frittata, rather than ending up in the Jacuzzi at 5pm with three pairs of new shoes and no idea how I got there.

The LA Coffee Mill, très chic in Silverlake, does a very fabulous morning mojito, made with muddled mint and lime in a a base of chilled green tea, topped with a splash of soda water. It's tangy and refreshing, very post-Pilates. But what if you want something a little more lush, a little more beignet-friendly? Welcome to your new favorite brunch drink: white peach Meyer lemonade.

Now Meyer lemons, which really should be growing in your backyard if you have one, and in your friends' backyards if not, make the most flagrantly, fragrantly delicious lemonade.

But with white peaches and nectarines in full sugary swing now, you can one-up even Meyer lemonade by adding a little pale and luscious peach puree, turning your lemonade into a coral-colored quaff even better than a Bellini.

Anytime you buy white-fleshed stone fruit, you know a few of these dainty little princesses are going to get bruised on the way home. But hard knocks don't matter to a puree. Pit your peaches and throw them in the blender or food processor. (Or just thwap the heck out of them with a potato masher.) Drip the puree through a fine-mesh strainer into your lemonade, so you get all the lovely tequila-sunrise color with none of the skin.

A very good trick, when you have the time, is to skin off all that aromatic rind and infuse it into a sugar-water syrup. Use this lemony-sweet syrup to sweeten fresh lemon juice to taste. Finish with just enough water, sparkling or still, to make it drinkable over ice.

Even better, try rubbing a few heads of fresh lavender into your sugar, or infuse the blossoms into your lemon-rind syrup. If you're really lucky, all this—Meyer lemons, lavender, white peaches—could come from your own garden right now. Lavender white peach Meyer lemonade: effete, yes, but oh, oh, so good.

White Peach Lemonade

Ingredients:

2/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar, or to taste
1 tablespoon lavender flowers, optional
1 tablespoon honey, or to taste
3 to 4 lemons
2 to 3 white peaches or nectarines, pitted and chopped
Water

Preparation:

1. Peel off the rind of your lemons in long strips. In a small saucepan over medium heat, dissolve sugar in water. When sugar is dissolved, add lemon rinds and lavender flowers, if using. Bring to a slow simmer and let bubble gently for 5 minutes.

2. Remove from heat and let cool. Meanwhile, juice your lemons. When syrup is cool, strain and add 3 tablespoons to lemon juice. (You can always add more later).

3. Puree peach chunks, honey, and lemon juice mixture in a food processor or blender. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher.

4. Add water until it's dilute enough to drink. Add more honey or lemon syrup as needed. Serve over ice.

Or, at least in her book, I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. As the title might imply, she's still looking for the right stomach.

In her memoir of loves won and lost, Melucci takes us on a culinary tour of her love life-- from the loss of her virginity to the near regaining of it, with several interesting but ultimately wrong-for-her men showing up in between-- the notable ones being given their own chapters, as they were, in fact, chapters in the author's own life.

Though none of the men may have lead her down the aisle, Melucci's natural instincts lead her into the kitchen with excellent results: the recipes woven into the chapters read like a kind of food diary and are alarmingly accurate indicators of the author's state of mind-- or heart, as the case may be.

For example, in the chapter "The Ethan Binder School of Cooking," Melucci's Seder menu and the time devoted to its preparation read as serious commitment. To anyone who understands the meaning that often lay beneath cooking beyond the need for basic sustenance, the meal says "I love you and want to be part of your life" more clearly than any love letter. By substituting Broccoli di Rape for bitter herbs, the Brooklyn-born Italian-American author subtly injects her own identity into the menu, suggesting a desire to share her life with Ethan rather than totally sublimate it.

In the following chapter, "Mitch Smith Licked the Plate," there are few recipes and those that are speak of disappointment and compromise (Italian Grilled Cheese for Teenage WASPs, String Bean and Potato Salad for Gringos). What else can be expected when writing about a man who could only go as far as admitting that he was "deeply drawn" to Melucci, but could never mention the word love?

Oh, and the F***-You Cakes (yellow cake, of course) that follow the break up of another relationship are priceless.

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, is alternately amusing, frustrating, heartbreaking, and hopeful. It would have lost me, had the author chosen to blame her marital status woes solely on the shoulders of her lovers. Fortunately, she doesn't:

...I had a remarkable ability for turning any picture into the picture I wanted to see: me with a husband. My imagination had the flexibility of a thirteen-year-old Chinese gymnast.

I found myself rooting for Melucci, but cringing a bit with each new chapter thanks to the giveaway in the title of the book-- that each new relationship would ultimately end. For anyone who has ever loved and lost, and who loves good food, I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti is worth a read.

Even if it's just for the F***-You Cakes.

Meet Giulia Melucci to discuss her book in person at Omnivore Books Saturday, July 11th from 3 to 4 pm.

Omnivore Books on Food
3885a Cesar Chavez Street (at Church)
San Francisco, CA 94131
415.282.4712

My daughters love to go to the farmers' market with me to pick out the vegetables that look the most appealing to them that week (although this is not as much fun as the bounce house they have there). During our visit last week, my kids were intrigued by the small globe squash and eggplant available at one of my favorite stands. They thought they looked like little vegetable planets and started deciding which one was Venus and which was Jupiter. If there's anything better than "cool" vegetables, it's vegetables that make my kids think, so obviously I bought two bags. As I handed over my money, I realized that in addition to the minor science lesson, this was the perfect opportunity to make one of my favorite summer dishes: stuffed squash and eggplant.

Stuffed squash and eggplant really make a great mid-week meal as the shape of the veggies are ideal for stuffing with leftovers. Sure you could cook up some fresh items for the stuffing, but this is really the perfect opportunity to use the rest of the chicken or beef you made on Monday, or the rice leftover from Chinese takeout the day before.

I start off by scooping the inner meat from the vegetables (this is easily accomplished with a grapefruit spoon if you have one) and then making a type of quick ratatouille out of it with some tomatoes, garlic and onion. I then mix in whatever grain I have in the fridge (although you could of course make some if you don't have any handy) and then toss in some chopped meat. When I made the dish this week I used some leftover beef brisket from the 4th of July. By the time I made this dish my husband and I were a little tired of the BBQ flavor of the brisket, but stuffed inside the vegetables with the ratatouille, rice and some cheeses, its flavors added a depth to the dish that really wowed us. Chicken, pork, or marinated tofu would also work well, as would lentils or chick peas.

Usually I bake my stuffed squash and eggplant in the oven, but this week I wanted to try grilling them. The result was really quite good. The intense heat from the grill brought out a sweetness in the squash and eggplant that baking hadn't in the past. The dish also cooked in about half the time it takes in the oven. The only problem was keeping everything upright on the grill so the stuffing didn’t spill out; this was easily remedied, however, by a muffin pan.

As we sat down to dinner, my kids saw a fun-shaped vegetable they were excited to eat, while I was marveling at how that leftover brisket and rice looked so mouthwatering inside the fresh squash and eggplant. The frugal side of me was quite pleased not to waste those perfectly good leftovers. Everyone was happy.

Stuffed Globe Squash and Eggplant

Makes: Enough for 4 - 6 people

Ingredients:

6 baby globe squash (also known as summer squash) -- around 2 inches in diameter
6 baby globe eggplants -- around 2 inches in diameter
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup cooked grains (such as rice, barley, couscous, or small pasta)
1 cup chopped tomatoes or drained canned tomatoes
1 medium or 2 small onions
2 cloves garlic
1 cup cooked meat (beef, chicken, or pork diced) or cooked beans such as lentils
2 Tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1/2 cup cheese (mozzarella, jack, or anything you like that melts smoothly) chopped into small cubes
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Wash squash and eggplant and then slice off the top stem-side.

2. Scoop out the interior flesh of the vegetables, being sure to leave at least a 1/4-inch intact so the outer skin can hold the filling.

3. Chop all the vegetables (the onions, garlic and tomatoes, along with the squash and eggplant meat) into small pieces.

4. Heat about 2 Tbsp olive oil in a large non-reactive pan to medium heat. Add in the onions and garlic and cook for 1 - 2 minutes or until soft. Add in the squash and eggplant pieces and cook for another couple of minutes. Add more olive oil as needed at this point as the eggplant really soaks it up. Add in the tomatoes and cook until everything is soft. Season to taste.

5. Line squash and eggplant shells on a baking pan and sprinkle with olive oil and salt.

6. Add parsley and oregano to the mixed vegetables and then start scooping it into each squash and eggplant skin until half-way filled.

7. Add a cube or two of cheese to each vegetable and then continue stuffing until each vegetable is full. Top with the remainder of the cheese.

8. Heat your grill to medium high and then set each stuffed squash and eggplant onto direct heat (being careful to stand them up straight so the filling doesn’t fall out). Cook for around two minutes with the cover down.

9. With tongs, transfer the eggplant and squash to a muffin pan (you can pair up some of the smaller vegetables) and set the pan inside the grill with the cover down.

Note: Use an old muffin pan you no longer care much about or, if you have a nice one, cover each receptacle with aluminum foil.

10. Grill for another 5 minutes or until everything looks nicely cooked.

11. Repeat until all vegetables are cooked.

12. Serve with a salad or bread.

Rich, roasted, shredded Niman pork, boiled ham, melty Swiss, an even layer of sweet and tangy pickles, whole grain mustard, creamy mayo, and a buttery, crusty, fresh roll, hot pressed, melding it all together.

Ah.MA.zing.

No, seriously. If I could marry a sandwich, this would be it.

Each bite of the Cubano gives you everything one could ever wish for in a sandwich. Meatiness. Meltiness. Crunch. Chew. An explosion of flavors in perfect harmony. Mee-ow.

It's no wonder that this bright little Cuban café is always packed at lunchtime.

Paladar Café Cubano, San Francisco FiDi

Lunchtime at Paladar

The Latin music keeps things lively -- as does the addictive Café con Leche, and the Mexican Coca-Cola made with real cane sugar, all 39 grams/serving of it.

Mexican Coca-Cola

The regulars are stoked to be back -- on my first visit, I actually overheard a dapper gentleman in a panama hat and seersucker exclaim to no one in particular, "Man! This place rocks!" as he salsa'd out the door.

And then there is the food -- warm, inviting, and satisfying.

Picadillo, Paladar Café Cubano

Other than wanting to marry the Cuban Sandwich, you may also find yourself wanting to have babies with the Picadillo Cubano estilo Elena.

Niman ground beef, browned and seasoned with sautéed onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, green olives, raisins, and herbs, the result is an intensely aromatic Cuban version of an Italian ragu. The Picadillo is served with fluffy white rice and fried sweet plantains.

The sandwiches and mains are also served with a side of mixed greens. Nice touch. Sometimes it is drizzled with a heavenly coconut milk dressing, other times with a garlic aioli.

In Cuba, paladares are small family-run restaurants that serve home-cooking. While the space at Paladar Café Cubano may be small, the flavors are big. Big, bold, and comforting. This is food that makes you smile.

Paladar Café Cubano
329 Kearny St
(between Bush St & Pine St)
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 398-4899

Thank god for crappy hospital food.

Seriously, as much as I respect and liked my caretakers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, their food was not all they advertised.

Big surprise, right? Thankfully, my husband was ready and willing to bring back food from any place I wanted. He even would have driven up to San Francisco to bring me Piccino or Nopalito. Lucky for us and for our future stomachs that he didn't have to go nearly so far.

Just down the street from the hospital is Tootsie's. Tucked in the historic Stanford Barn, which served as the Stanford winery until 1893, Tootsie's is a little Italian jewel of an eatery that offers high-end coffees and espresso, sandwiches, fresh salads, and breakfasts. Jen Maiser alerted me to Tootsie's existence soon after we moved down here, and we'd been intending to go ever since.

In a bow to the location's history, Shannon and Rocco Scordella named their place for university namesake Leland Stanford Junior's dog (did you follow that?) and opened the red bricked restaurant six months ago. Both Scordellas have worked in fine dining in New York, and Chef Rocco, who originally hails from Puglia and Bologna, Italy, was brought to New York by Mario Batali to work at Del Posto.

Unfortunately, we kept wanting to go for dinner, which they don't serve -- though Shannon did tell us on a recent visit that they might move to small plates and an enoteca-type setting -- so most of our half-hearted efforts were thwarted until I was in the hospital with a days-old baby. Mathra called me from Tootsie's to read off their menu -- I had my laptop in the hospital (of course!) but their website doesn't seem to be operational -- and he didn't get past, "fried chicken sandwich."

Man. That sandwich. That SANDWICH! That sandwich isn't just a sandwich. It's a crispy-succulent soul reviver, topped with endive-caper slaw and snugged between two halves of a crusty bun. After getting only two hours of sleep in the 48 hours that followed Henry's birth, that sandwich saved my sanity and kept me from going all Yellow Wallpaper in the maternity ward.

I've been home from the hospital for two weeks, and I've had that sandwich -- along with the accompanying homemade oregano potato chips -- five times. If that sandwich was the only thing they served, I still would think Tootsie's was worth it. However, good thing for everyone else (who have enough sense to take me at my word and run, don't walk, to Tootsie's), they also have a brilliant agrumi salad with butter lettuce, radish, celery, grapefruit segments, and shaved fennel; and a white bean, fennel, and flaked tuna salad with the springiest, most pristine arugula outside of Chez Panisse's crisper.

A very recent trip had us trying a brand new menu item: octopus and farro salad with celery and carrots, a divine dish that Rocco told us was his mother's recipe from Puglia. On the same trip, we sampled an Italian sausage and roasted pepper sandwich on a thick bun that was slabbed over with broccoli pesto and light touches of mustard; both were delicious dishes I hope I see often on the menu.

For breakfast, I will clog my arteries as frequently as I can with their poached egg on thick toast. Sound prosaic? What if I tell you that the poached egg is topped with celery, olives, and a drizzle of olive oil?

Some day I plan to try their crêpe-esque ricotta pancakes with strawberries, but I'm having a hard time tearing myself away from that poached egg. I also had a bite of their veal-pork burger with olives and oregano ground right into the meat and slathered with caramelized onions and mozzarella cheese. I wonder if anyone will believe me when I say that the shoestring potatoes Tootsie's serves with that burger are better than those found at Zuni Cafe?

Tootsie's at the Stanford Barn
700 Quarry Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 566-8445

One of my favorite culinary mash-ups of recent years is the Vietnamese-Chinese-Cajun crawfish boil served with rice or garlic noodles. Following the arc of families moving from Vietnam to New Orleans to Southern California to, finally, San Jose and San Francisco, mud bugs have taken a garlicky turn and shown up, of all places, in Little Saigon's across the country.

Red Crawfish in San Francisco's Tenderloin is the one closest and dearest to me, as I head over that way anytime I'm craving familiar, comforting flavors. Boiled crawfish is a new tradition among my peeps, but it's one that I'm very happy to adopt, too.

Eating here is a dress-down, messy affair that requires friends with absolutely no pretensions about food. The red, steaming, spicy crawfish come out from the kitchen in pails and are plopped down on the paper-topped table inside plastic bags, rather than piled right on the table, to hold in all that the thick, rich broth.

I love very spicy food and found that the medium was just fine for me. If you're hungry and a bit of a glutton, you could eat two pounds of crawfish with nothing else, but it's definitely hard to resist popular side orders like batter-fried sweet potatoes, buttery garlic noodles, buttery garlic toast, or just plain rice. You can also order potatoes and corn on the cob, and they'll throw them right in with the crawfish. If you don't suck the heads (and the purists among us would insist that you do), you should at least order some garlic noodles or a bowl of rice for soaking up all the juicy goodness that spurts out of each one.

There are other entrees on the Red Crawfish's menu -- the usual suspects of Vietnamese fare dominates over the Cajun influence -- but I haven't yet strayed far from the namesake of the restaurant. The huge bowl of spicy seafood soup is definitely worth sharing, while next on my list is one of my favorite dishes, bun rieu, seafood and tomato-tinged broth served over rice noodles.

For the DIY folks, there's also plenty of local crawfish harvested from the Sacramento Delta and from California's rice fields. Although the Isleton Crawdad Festival was canceled last month, another victim of the recession, you can still pick up live mud bugs (more for the rest of us!) from Bob's Bait Shop a.k.a. The Master Baiter. Located near the Sacramento Delta and the premier sources of live bait in the area, the shop also provides local crawfish for cooks picky about freshness. Be sure to call in advance, especially if you need more than 15 pounds. Check also with large Asian supermarkets near you, especially 99 Ranch Market, where crawfish can often be found crawling around live in the tanks.

Those of us who have no shame will even ask the server at Red Crawfish to leave all the shells on the table so that, at the end of the meal, we can bag them up, spices and all, to make a very tasty stock back at home. Add some Cajun trinity, some dark roux, stir in a little heavy cream and lots of dry sherry, pull out a blender and a mesh strainer -- and you have a pot of mighty tasty soup.

RED CRAWFISH
611 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 771-1388
Map

BOB'S BAIT SHOP
302 2nd Street
Isleton, CA 95641
(916) 777-6666 or (916) 777-6806
Map