I am sure everyone is aware of the Easter Bunny debacle. If you’re not, let me boil down the AP wire story for you—Apparently, marshmallow Peeps have been stacking up outside St. Paul City Hall in protest over the Easter display that was removed from the lobby out of concern that the items would offend non-Christians. The cloth bunny, some pastel-colored eggs, and a sign with the words "Happy Easter" were put up by a city council secretary, who did not purchase the décor items with city money. According to the wire story, the city's human rights director, Tyrone Terrill, asked that the decorations be removed. He said his problem with the display involved the "Happy Easter" sign. As a somewhat observant Jew (The New York Times and bagels are good every day, temple once a month), I don’t get it. Who does this offend?

So some fun-loving Peeps peeps who work in city hall have placed the chick- and rabbit-shaped candies around those giant statues of American Indians, along with two signs that temporarily rename the Vision of Peace statue as the Vision of Peeps. Jolly Mangine, Ramsey County's director of property management, said, "We're just going to let it ride." A brilliant display of common sense, if you ask me, and something we need more of in these heady days of misplaced political correctness. How refreshing—a sense of humor! Just Born, the company that manufactures Peeps, issued a statement after being informed of the display. "It is a shame that the Easter Bunny hopping through city hall has caused such a disturbance. We are sure that the regal Vision of Peace statue does not mind sharing a little glory and spring fever with us—the Peeps."

Hopefully, this will all be resolved amicably, with no harm coming to the Peeps themselves. For all of us, the harm is already irreparable, in my opinion. In an effort to give everyone an offense-free experience in life we no longer let our third-graders keep score or choose sides in gym class, we can’t say Merry Christmas to our colleagues, our kids can’t bring cookies to class, celebrate Valentine’s Day or Halloween, and we take down cloth bunny and egg displays in the workplace. In a world that grows tougher with every passing day, we are trying to protect people from something that is already lost. The horse has left the barn, the fox is in the hen house. In an effort to encourage and teach diversity and acceptance, love, and tolerance, we are creating an atmosphere of belligerent denial that promotes a lack of understanding about other cultures. Everything I learned about Christian holidays, for example, I learned in kindergarten, and lo and behold forty years later I married a woman who was not Jewish! Ken-an-hora, what a miracle!

Now in our house, we are freaking out about our own Peeps controversy: the apparent increase over the years that it takes a Peep to go stale, our preferred way to eat them. Rishia and I bought four packages of Peeps (chicks, of course), opened them, and placed them away on a shelf for four or five days so that they could get stale, crispy, crunchy, and crackly. Any true Peep connoisseur knows what I am talking about. We took them out last night for a snack and they are still soft! Holy crap, did they change the recipe???? Five days used to be plenty of time to stale-out a Peep! Maybe Just Born would like to address that issue when they get done with their busy season.

I really like the name of my blog here at mspmag.com. It’s a cool name, and cool names are hard to come by . . . Mean Joe Greene, Killer Kowalski, The Answer, Ol’ Blue Eyes, Don Magic Juan . . . . There are some great ones out there and I thought I had struck a vein of gold with FrontBurner. Well, log on to Google and type in FrontBurner and you get 87,500 hits, most notably the FrontBurner blog from the editors of D Magazine in Dallas, a band in NYC, a video production company in San Diego, and an IT service in England. Well, it turns out the folks at D-Mag (is that their nickname?) have trademarked the name FrontBurner and in fact have taken it so seriously that they have even registered their blog on MySpace. Cute. I swear to God that this is taken directly from MySpace. Blogging is one thing, but creating a MySpace account for your blog is a bit much, don’t you think? Does FrontBurner have designs on the cute new girl in Mr. Jenkins' Psych 101 lab group? Are they going to drop some herbal ecstasy, pop on a Doctor Seuss hat and granny glasses and trip the light fantastic? Rainbow party anyone?

About me:
I am a blog. Specifically, I am a daily conversation about all things Dallas. Predominantly, that conversation takes place on weekdays, because let's be honest: even blogs need weekends off. My bloggers are a motley crew comprised of editors at D Magazine, the city magazine for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. But then, you probably knew all of that already. And you probably know where to find me. In case you forgot, I'm right here. Come and see me.

Who I'd like to meet:

That should be "whom."

Of course, the nightmare for yours truly is that the whole point of a trademark is to own it exclusively, which means that right now even as we speak, legal eagles from Washington, D.C., NYC, Dallas, and Minneapolis are grappling with the intricacies of name change for my blog, or some form of a negotiated truce. More later, but by the time you read this, I could be called Mr. Delicious . . . wait a second, I love that one. Big ups to my pal Alberto Gonzales at U4EA Design for coming up with that moniker.

Over the years I have taken a lot of crap from people for the way I speak, being a New Yawker and all. Recently someone emailed me at the TV station about my pronouncing the word c-u-l-i-n-a-r-y as cue-lynn-airy instead of cull-in-airy. A buddy reminded me that "cul" means ass. The term cul-de-sac comes from a phrase meaning “bottom of the bag” and  colloquially the term cul was used in past centuries as a term of derision. Enough said! Lay off the way I talk.

In the news of the weird department: I got this story from the good folks at APF (the global news agency):

Muslim worshippers are flocking to see a pair of fish in the British city of Liverpool which appear to bear the words "Allah" and "Mohammed," their owner said.

Ali Al-Waqedi, 23, who hailed the colored Oscar fish as a "message from God," said he had loaned them to a friend whose house was close to the local mosque so that worshippers could visit more easily.

"I would say at least one hundred people have been there since I bought the fish last week," Waqedi said.

Sheikh Sadek Kassem, imam of Liverpool's Al-Rahma mosque, said: "This is a proof and a sign not just to Muslims, but for everyone."

He quoted a passage from the Koran which suggested Allah will send signs. It reads: "Soon we will show them our signs in the regions, and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the truth."

Waqedi said he went into a local pet shop to show his children the animals but he had not been planning to buy anything.

"We started to have a look at the Oscar fish because they had such an unusual colour. Then I saw that one of them had the word Allah. It was so clear, and it made me very happy," he said.

"Then we saw that another one had the word Mohammed, and that was even better. To see the Allah fish was exciting, but to have the Allah and Mohammed fish in the same tank was unbelievable."

Allah is the word for God in Arabic and Mohammed is the prophet who received the word of God, the Koran, through the angel Gabriel.

"I believe it is a message from Allah to me, a reminder, and it makes my faith even stronger," Waqedi said.

So someone please tell me why Jesus always appears on French fries, Mary Magdalene has decided the best way to get our attention is to morph her image onto pancakes, and now there are Allah fish. Why do Martians always land their spacecrafts in the backwater swamps of inland Florida? Can’t God and little green men reveal themselves for once to the cultural elite so that we can end all the what if discussion once and for all? If God could show himself to the folks at D Magazine, perhaps he could get a few hits on MySpace.

Everyone thinks ravioli is hard to make at home, but nothing is easier, or more fun to make with the kids than these simple little pasta pockets. Experiment with your own fillings and sauces—the technique is what counts here the most.

Mushroom Ravioli

The Filling
3 T. butter
1 lb. mixed wild and cultivated mushrooms (cremini, shiitake, trumpet, oyster, etc.)
3 T. minced shallots
1 T. fresh thyme
A pinch or two of ground nutmeg
2 or 3 T. of a really good Spanish sherry
1 egg, beaten
1/3 c. fresh, toasted bread crumbs
1/2 c. ricotta cheese, drained
3 T. of a stellar pecorino Romano, grated
2 T. mascarpone

Place butter in large pan over high heat. Add mushrooms, shallots, thyme, and nutmeg. Saute until mushrooms are golden brown. Add sherry and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until evaporated. Place contents of pan in food processor and pulse to combine. Place ground mushrooms in a work bowl and stir in egg, bread crumbs, and cheeses. Season with sea salt and ground pepper and set aside.

The Sauce
1/4 c. fresh virgin olive oil
A pinch of red chili flakes
A sprig of thyme
A sprig of sage
1 crushed garlic clove

Heat olive oil in small saute pan and season with chili flakes, thyme, sage, and garlic. When aromatic, spoon out solids and drizzle ravioli with sauce.

The Assembly
2 beaten eggs, mixed with 2 T. water
48 wonton wrappers or fresh pasta sheets, cut into 48 2-1/2-inch squares
The filling made above

Lay out 6 wonton wrappers or pasta squares at a time. Working quickly, brush pasta with egg wash. Spoon a t. or so of filling into center of each square. Lay another piece of pasta directly over filling and seal with your fingers, pushing out any air as you seal the last side. Repeat until all 24 pieces are made. Reserve.

Bring a gallon of water to a boil. Salt the water and add ravioli. Cook through and drain gently. Divide onto plates and serve, spooning sauce around plate and garnishing with grated Reggiano parmesan. Serves 4.

The food and wine business is tough. Developing a product, branding it, selling it, and keeping it alive and vibrant for your customers requires a Gulliver-sized effort. The food and wine business is a place where profits are measured in cents, not dollars, for most owners—the vast majority of whom toil in obscurity despite our Food Network celebrity-chef-driven culture that would have us believe that every good-looking foodie can cook and those not participating in our 24/7/365 feeding frenzy haven’t “made it” yet. Making matters worse, having the best product, the best restaurant, or the culinary equivalent of the ‘killer app’ (pun intended) isn’t enough to guarantee success these days. And conversely, having the best product is no guarantee of success and oftentimes the most popular eateries serve mediocre food with middling service in a boring space. Such is life. Recipes for success are hard to come by, which makes this story that came across the wire so utterly fascinating. For those of you who have toiled for decades trying to create the perfect glass of wine, wheel of cheese, or loaf of honey-nut bread, continue reading at your own peril.

Savanna Samson, celebrity porn star, has launched her own wine company. It’s a gimmick right? A conceit . . .like Jimmy “JJ” Walker cologne or David Hasselhoff coffee mugs. Her wine can’t possibly be any good, can it?

According to Reuters News Service, the wine received a score of 91 out of 100 from vino-phile guru Robert Parker, placing it in the uppermost pantheon of scores from the wine world's ultimate arbiter of taste. Parker is known as the most important wine critic and writer in the world and according to his newsletter, a score in that range is an “outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character.” Savanna Samson, the star of The New Devil in Miss Jones, has made a great wine, and is now one of the leading lights in two industries. Holy crap!

But she is no fluke, and this is no gimmick. According to Samson (thirty-one-year-old Natalie Oliveros in real life), she went to a respected winemaker, Italy's Robert Cipresso (according to Reuters he is also ironically one of the vintners employed by the Vatican) to help her with her label. She went to Tuscany and tasted dozens of Cipresso's Italian-grown varietals, then she selected a mix of 70 percent Cesanese, 20 percent Sangiovese, and 10 percent Montepulciano grapes. She ordered more than 400 cases and had them labeled with her likeness. I am quoting Reuters now quoting her: Samson said, "I knew I wanted Roberto to make my wine—I just love his passion for wine." Her wine is called Sogno Uno, a 2004 vintage of a blended Italian red wine with Savanna's name and a label of Samson in a see-through gown. The wire reports added this juicy quote from Parker's review as well: "Trust me, I didn't add any points for Ms. Samson's personal presentation." QUICK, someone get me Jeff Koons and La Cicciolina on the phone!

You cannot make this stuff up!

Now, Savanna Samson is one of the biggest stars in the porn world; she is an Adult Video News Awards winner several times over and she is the star of more than twenty-four adult films, so when she says her wine "really represents who I am," my interest piqued. The Reuters story quotes her as describing her wine thusly: ' "There's spiciness—the Cesanese has the naughty side of me. And yet it's an elegant wine. I love the opera, and I'm a classically trained ballet dancer. And there is some chocolate undertone, which I just love. There's a little bit of sweetness. Like, 10 percent of the time I'm sweet.' Now Samson is working on a white wine and is thinking of expanding into champagne, ice wine, and grappa.”

To all those now about to put the metaphoric gun to their head, I beg you to stop. This is good news. The idea that a porn star can leverage herself out into the wine world is a crazy notion, and some may find it distasteful, but for me all arguments end when her product becomes as good as all the advance word says it is. Only in America.

Boston, Massachusetts, is one of my favorite cities in the world. I used to live there six lifetimes ago. One of the first jobs I ever had was cooking at the Harvard Bookstore Café on Newbury Street and at Espalier, one of the city's better restaurants, back when Ronnie Reagan was in his first term. I lived on Appleton Street in Cambridge for a time, shacked up on the back side of Beacon Hill with Damien Elwes (movie star Carrie Elwes’s artist brother) and have loved the city ever since. Recently when my dad moved from East Hampton, Long Island, to Portland, Maine, my wife and I had the opportunity to travel to Beantown several times a year, flying in to Logan, driving up the coast to visit Pop, and then heading back to Boston for a few days before heading home to Minnesota.

In a future issue of Mpls.St.Paul, I am going to write a few dining/travel stories on Boston and Portland, but since I just came back from a trip there, I wanted to clue you in to two of the best little dives in Boston’s Chinatown—two restaurants that are not quintessentially Boston, but are stunning exemplars of what makes a great restaurant truly remarkable. . . the food.

Jumbo Seafood on Hudson Street is my favorite Chinese restaurant in town. The room is nothing to look at, but the seafood is among the best of the Hong Kong–style restaurants that I have eaten in anywhere in the country. Live prawns are steamed and served to order. Eels, crabs, and whole fish are all superb, plucked from tanks when you order. The lobster is extraordinary, and worth the trip just for the size and scope of them. Two- to twelve-pounders are routinely available and served in many styles, but the black bean sauce here is worth the airfare. Sometimes I like to have the lobster tossed with ginger and scallion, just to be able to have the roasted oysters and black bean sauce and not repeat a preparation style. The jellyfish salad with roasted duck is superb at Jumbo, ditto the soups, and the roasted pork appetizer is a killer, but beyond that stick with seafood here—the rest of the menu can be spotty when it comes to the fauna offerings.

Jumbo Seafood
7 Hudson St.
Boston, MA 02111
617-542-2823

Shabu-Zen sits butt-to-butt around the corner from Jumbo, and is hands down the best concept in Boston that I think couldn’t miss here in Minnesota. It’s a Japanese hot-pot restaurant hawking dozens of styles of shabu-shabu, the boil-it-yourself Japanese meal in a bowl. You order some appetizers (ethereally light gyoza) then a platter of ingredients, and some sides—from sliced chicken to whole clams, mixed vegetables to tofu and shrimp, lobster to abalone to thinly shaved prime rib. Then order a type of broth and let the games begin. If you are at a table, so be it, the broth goes into a communal pot and you start dipping fondue-style with your tablemates until you are rolled out of there. We like to sit at the counter, where each person gets his or her own pot built into the Formica, that way I don’t have to share with anyone! By the end of the meal, the broth has boiled down to a rich double-strength cup of superb goodness, infused with every bit of flavor that each item poached in it can contribute. I spoon this over my, by that time, twelfth bowl of rice and eat it with a few oshinko (Japanese pickles). The food is exceptional, the place is always packed late into the night, and the conviviality alone makes this one of the best joints in town for dining out and sharing time with friends. The fact that every dipping sauce, every morsel, every sip of broth is as finely crafted as it is becomes the icing on the cake.

Shabu-Zen
16 Tyler St.
Boston, MA 02111
617-292-8828

Comfort food has gotten a bad rap these days. With so many restaurants serving mashed potatoes, why eat at Grandma’s house? I like to eat at restaurants to experience foods I can't get at home (Auriga, Levain, Solera, etc., etc), won’t cook at home (the calamari at JP’s), or would rather not cook at home (Dungeness crab with five spices at Shuang Cheng). Sometimes it’s for convenience's sake because it would take me hours to do and we have no recourse for what’s not consumed that night (sushi for example, so we head to Nami or the downtown St. Paul Fuji-ya). Ultimately we eat simple, easy foods at home, often using leftovers in new and interesting ways. This classic casserole is one my wife reminded me of last week, and it makes for a great Sunday supper. But don’t wait till then to try it!

Turkey Tetrazzini
12 oz. dried pasta (I like short macaroni or ditali best)
2 pinches freshly ground nutmeg
3 pinches ground cayenne pepper
1 T. minced parsley
3 T. flour
3 T. butter
3/4 c. minced onion
3/4 c. minced celery
1 c. blanched peas (frozen are fine)
2 c. chicken stock
1 c. half and half
8 oz. white aged cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice, grated
3 oz. Reggiano parmesan, grated
2 c. leftover diced turkey meat (chicken works beautifully as well)
2 c. fresh breadcrumbs, tossed in 3 T. melted butter

Cook pasta fully, drain, and reserve. Place herbs and spices, butter, and flour in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook for a few minutes, making a nice roux. Add vegetables and cook until onions are glassy. Add stock in thirds, whisking. Add half and half. When it simmers and thickens, add cheddar and two-thirds of the Reggiano parmesan. Whisk well, and stir in turkey with a spoon. Add pasta, season with sea salt and ground white pepper, and spill into buttered casserole pan. Mix breadcrumbs with remaining parmesan and cover casserole with breadcrumb mixture. Bake at 375 degrees until bubbling and hot and top is crispy. Serves 4.

Usually the big food confabs I attend are a drag. Conventions can be boring. Even the sexiest events, like the Aspen Food and Wine Spectacular, can get dull if you go each year. Yesterday I got back from four days at the International Boston Seafood Show and I have to admit I saw some pretty awesome stuff. The seafood world is changing every day as demand for fish and shellfish rises and supply dwindles. The industry is responding by fast-tracking some really cool fish into the mass-market pipeline, and some brand new species are also now available for the first time commercially.

Barramundi is Australia’s version of the perfect everyday eating fish. Mild, white-fleshed, flaky, and super moist, this is one of the best eating fish in the world, and finally there is a domestic supplier coming on line to offer humanely raised, environmentally sound, farm-raised barramundi at prices that make it reasonable for small restaurants and supermarkets to offer this amazing fish that tastes like striped bass. Remember, no one knew what tilapia was ten years ago, and that fish tastes like Styrofoam!

The other great new fish I tasted that you will hear lots about in the coming year is Kona kampachi, a small white-fleshed yellowtail tuna that's similar to hamachi. It's the first fish grown by a sustainable marine-hatch fishery in the open ocean. The stuff is dynamite, raw or cooked, and as with barramundi the skin grills up to a delectable charry crust if you leave it on. The kampachi folks are out of Hawaii, so the west coast restaurants and seafood markets are already into this fish in a big way—ask for both of these fish at your local markets with a loud voice and convince their buyers to bring these products in sooner rather than later. You will be glad you did.

Surprise! The hot new country taking over the seafood world is China. From squid to cobia, tuna to shrimp, the Chinese are figuring out yields and quality control issues quickly when it comes to farming fish and maintaining wild fisheries. Once they figure out the marketing piece we will all be eating Chinese fish for the next thousand years. The government of China is throwing billions of yuan at the fish industry, and it shows. The cobia and shrimp I tasted this year blew away the same products I tried last year, and the Chinese pavilion at the show was the largest booth in the convention center. The American seafood industry is going to need to sharpen its pencils and also differentiate its product, and not rely on government tariffs and trade laws to protect its businesses. Besides, last time I checked, the Chinese control the dollar (based on the mountains of our debt that they own), so getting into a pissing contest with them is pointless. We can compete with anyone in the world when it comes to the business of seafood, but compete is the operative word. Sitting back and expecting the average consumer to buy American farm-raised and wild fish was a fine stratagem when the rest of the competition was either too pricey or less pristine. Today it is neither. The marketplace is truly global.

I did see my friend Tom Douglas, one of the best chefs in the country. His new book, which is all about crab cakes, comes out in May, and it is awesome. Tom is Seattle’s leading culinary light and his restaurants should be on everyone’s must-go list if you are ever in the neighborhood.

Ever eat a Taylor ham? My wife turned me on to them a few years ago and they are the best-tasting sausages you have never heard of. Salami-sized, but softly textured, the name is a misnomer, but somewhat accurate. The ham is a ground, cured pork sausage that is reminiscent of ham, but only if it mated with Lebanon bologna. You slice it a quarter inch thick, make a few notches in the sides so that it doesn’t curl up when cooking, and fry it. We like little dark brown scorches all over ours. And if you know what you are doing you throw it on a hard Kaiser roll with American cheese and a pair of fried eggs. Locals back east call that a “triple bypass.” My wife likes the ham crispy, on an English muffin or plain, and dunks hers in ketchup, south Jersey style. I do mine piled high on toast.

The "Original Taylor Ham” comes from the Taylor Provision Company of Trenton, founded by John B. Taylor. Taylor, born in 1837, founded the Taylor Provisions Co., the Taylor Opera House, and everything else with T-a-y-l-o-r in it. His name is legend in New Jersey and his pork roll, branded “Taylor Ham,” is a quintessential local foodstuff. For centuries the hickory smoked pork roll has been a favorite meat product in New Jersey homes. The same secret seasoning is used today, with the modern processes of tendering, filtered smoking, and flavor sealing. Taylor pork rolls were introduced in the later 1800s, but many experts think the pork roll might have been in existence during the Revolutionary War. Historians point to documents touting a salted, cured ham that came in “roll” so the Continental Army could easily transport it.

In our house we buy them five at a time from the Jersey-based website Pork Roll Xpress and dole them out to friends and family. Many of Rishia’s relatives on her dad’s side have New Jersey connections and the smile on my brother-in-law's face every time he gets a Taylor ham is super-sized. No less a legendary Jersey guy than Jon Bon Jovi recently said, “The roadside diner right off the circle in Wall Township is a fabulous greasy spoon, one of the real silver-bullet diners. Taylor ham—a pork roll—is a Jersey fixture. Taylor ham with cheese on a hard roll is love. The big question is: ketchup or mustard? Everyone in north Jersey puts on mustard, everyone in the south, ketchup. I’m a mustard guy myself. A Cherry Coke is wonderful with chipped ice. Diners are made for Sunday mornings or the day after when you need grease to soak up everything you did the night before. Then you order breakfast and lunch at the same time. That’s the greatest. It cures a hangover.”

Who knew JBJ had such a soft spot for edibles? I take back everything I ever said about him.

While many foods have long been associated with a healthy lifestyle (hello lean proteins, flax seed, and Romaine lettuce!), the avocado has traditionally sat on the sidelines, a victim of the commonly held, misguided perception that this fruit is too fatty and devoid of other benefits. Holy guacamole, Batman, avocados are back . . .and with cultivar's names like Spinks, Pinkerton, Queen, Lula, and Topa Topa, you can have loads of fun playing the avocado name game.

Avocados are a tropical fruit renowned for their rich, buttery, and nutlike flavor. Their funky name comes from the Nahuatl Indian word ahuacatl, meaning testicle—a tribute to the fruit’s low-slung, pear-like shape, and let’s be honest, it’s great etymology. The two most common varietals are the Hass (the green pebbly-skinned one) and the Fuerte, a smooth-skinned fruit that can get a little watery if picked too early, but it’s also lower in monounsaturated fats and calories. Both are grown domestically and in warmer climes around the globe, with Fallbrook, California, laying claim to the title of Avocado Capitol of the World. The Hass varietal bears fruit in alternate years and, like the Honeycrisp apple, every Hass avocado on the planet can trace its ancestry back to a single tree from which they were all subsequently grafted. The first Hass avocado tree was originally purchased as a seedling by a California mail carrier in 1926. Sadly, the tree died in ’02 of root rot, outliving the mail carrier by a handsome margin.

While high in unsaturated fats, avocados are calorically thrifty and loaded with vitamins, perfect for the low-carb acolytes still among us. Avocados are high in monosaturates; the oil content of avocados is essentially second only to olives among all fruits. Clinical feeding studies in humans have shown that avocado oil can reduce blood cholesterol and they have 60 percent more potassium than bananas. It might be apocryphal folklore, but leaf and seed extracts are rumored to be an effective treatment for diarrhea and dysentery. Oy vey.

I like the Hass avocado for its deep flavor and rich texture. I buy them hard and let them ripen for two to three days on my countertop (ripening them in a brown paper bag speeds up the process) before using them in the recipe below. Try sourcing avocados at some of the Asian and Latin markets sprinkled around town. They may be smaller and they may be a little less perfect-looking, but they are cheaper and more flavorful than most supermarket avocados. When fully ripened, avocados have a gorgeous, creamy green-yellow flesh that quickly oxidizes, discolors, and bruises. Adding some acid, especially lemon or lime juice, to the diced or halved avocados help them hold their stunning hue because vitamin C is such a perky antioxidant. Once peeled and seeded (I like to halve the fruits and slip a spoon between the flesh and the skin, literally lifting out the halves from the papery derma), you can go Mexican with a guacamole, use the avocado in braised curries and kormas for an Indian bent, as a spread for sandwiches, or—as the Vietnamese do—you can make a slick avocado milkshake. Try this idea for a condiment for grilled fish or poultry: Place the flesh of one avocado in a blender and puree, adding one large handful of cilantro leaves, four scallions, the juice of one lime, one serrano chili pepper, and a quarter cup of olive oil. The resulting sauce will make your toes curl.

Yucatan Avocado Salsa

This salsa makes a great dip all on its own, or you can use it with any grilled or roasted meat, poultry, or seafood, served with tortillas and plenty of sangria. Makes a generous 2 cups.

2 serrano chilies, minced very fine
1 small onion, minced very fine
1 t. salt
2 garlic cloves
1/2 lb. tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and quartered
3 T. fresh chopped cilantro leaves
1 ripe avocado
2 T. fresh lime juice

Combine chilies, onion, salt, garlic, tomatillos, and cilantro in a food processor and pulse to combine. Do not over-puree. Reserve.
Halve avocado, remove and discard pit, and scoop out flesh. Discard skin. Using a fork, mash avocado into sauce with lime juice. Season and serve quickly.

I had the opportunity yesterday to chat with Corby Kummer, the senior editor at The Atlantic and the author of many great cookbooks including the definitively weighty epistle The Slow Food Cookbook. He is the dining critic for Boston Magazine and a three-time Beard Award winner. He knows his stuff. Corby told me a cute story about the new generation of culinary alchemists, chefs like Grant Achatz, Homaru Cantu, Wylie Dufresne, Heston Blumenthal, and of course their patron saint, Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame. These are the guys that would rather make a foam and edible-paper version of pot roast than serve you the instantly recognizable one that has been served for the last 2,000 years, virtually unchanged.

I love what these chefs are capable of creating, using equipment that looks like stuff more suitable for a NASA moon shot than a casual workday dinner. Last time I was in Chicago I ate at Alinea, Achatz’s new restaurant and to my mind the most important restaurant in America. I ate dishes that were entirely composed of fruit and vegetable juices, cooked to a syrup, turned into a chewy ‘leather,’ cut and rolled in fanciful shapes, and then rehydrated to varying degrees and served on giant wire that dangled in front of my face. I tried dishes served on big air-filled pillows, the weight of the plate pushing out the air from inside oh so gradually, filling my nostrils with herbal perfume as I ate what was before me. I had a cheese course that was essentially freshly squeezed grape juice, turned to a reduced jelly, rolled in frozen blue cheese snow and served with a nut foam and a salad of wild celery. I had twenty-two courses in all, and each was more amazing than the one that preceded it, but Achatz for all his huevos cooks traditionally as well, and even his experimental dishes are firmly rooted in classic techniques. His seared squab with foie gras emulsion, served with root vegetables and truffle jus was as classic as can be, and arguably the best plate I have tasted all year. Not all the culinary wizards have that ability. Some just make crazy food to show off their pyrotechnical skills, they have no sense of balance, no real cooking ability, but instead they possess a chemist’s passion and a scientific skill set, and they can coax and manipulate flavors and ingredients in remarkable ways, but it makes for a weird dining experience.

Homaro Cantu makes edible paper on his Canon inkjet printer, and is developing a course that floats. He takes a cube of whipped edible silicone invented for astronauts by NASA and infuses it with flavors in an industrial smoker. It is served, spun above the table by the server so that it releases its fragrance. It floats because the silicone’s air pockets keep it aloft if the silicone is heated. Who cares?

Cantu is experimenting with class 4 lasers and liquid nitrogen freezers, and says that between the two he could make inside-out bread where the crust is on the interior. Big deal. Will it taste good?

Kummer tells me that when he asked one of the movement’s biggest stars about simple foods cooked well, with a minimum of fuss and contrivance, he was told, “If I wanted to serve you an apple I would have become a farmer. I’m a chef.” True. And god bless these guys. For them, what they can do to food is more important than the food itself. But for the food lover, the defining element in the eating experience is still the quality of the ingredient. I’m not sure some of these guys even like food. They just like to play with it.

Phony bologna . . .Like many of you, I sat down on Sunday evening to watch the seventy-eighth annual Academy Awards. I was really disappointed. The big moments were few and far between, Jon Stewart didn’t find his comedic groove until after the 3-6 Mafia won the award for best song and loosened everyone up, and the dearth of meaningful social commentary (where are you now, Shasheen Littlefeather?) which we come to rely on Hollywood’s liberal elite to provide was noticeably absent, despite George Clooney’s thinly veiled Best Supporting Actor acceptance speech.

What was up with Charlize Theron’s dress? She was wearing some big hat on her left shoulder strap? Horrible.

Salma Hayek and Nicole Kidman (please eat something Nicole, please) looked less than comfy in their gowns, and I usually count on them to be styling.

Jennifer Aniston looked nervous and tight-mouthed, clearly uncomfortable with Stewart’s Angelina Jolie references in the monologue, but she gets my award for best performance. Showing up was classy, and she looked AMAZING. Second best performance was Rachel Weisz’s speech, which was charming and warm. And she deserved her award for The Constant Gardener, a killer performance in a great movie.

My wife pointed out how easy it is for guys to look good at these things, a tux is a tux after all . . .but some wear it better than others. Clooney looked awesome, as did Jake Gyllenhall, but someone needs to get the guys to drop the combo tux and long tie look. Travolta looked like a clown, Stewart’s jacket didn’t fit, and Morgan Freeman’s ascot and velveteen blazer was horribly inappropriate.

If Dolly Parton has one more face lift it will have to be caesarian. She was the scariest thing I have seen on TV since Creature Features went off the air! Second scariest was uber-actress Frances McDormand . . .I get it, you are the anti-Hollywood star, but sitting next to your hubby, when the camera panned over as your name was read from the podium, you looked like you hadn’t showered in a week! And if you combed your hair, we could even excuse the no-makeup look. But do something!!!

Finally, by 9:30 when the 3-6 Mafia won for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from the phenomenal movie Hustle and Flow, followed by Tsotsi winning Best Foreign Language Film, and then Philip Seymour Hoffman’s touching speech after winning Best Actor, it looked like things were headed in the right direction. The tempo quickened, the feelings seemed genuine, and the emotion was erupting from the TV. But then Reese Witherspoon's buzz killed it with a saccharine acceptance speech and I lost all interest and was in bed faster than you can say Crash. A disappointing night of meteoric proportions. Where was the outrage, the candor, the funny jokes? Ugh. Aside from the montage (and there were way too many of those) of the old cowboy movies with the homoerotic sub-references, there was nearly nothing to laugh out loud at all night, unless you count Theron’s dress, McDormand, Parton, etc., etc.

And by the way, Jordan Smith, Anoush Ansari, and Hadi Akbar’s chef and partner at Mission American Kitchen has left the company. Smith told me that the job demands changed on him recently, that the money partners requested he work more shifts and longer hours, something he had a handshake agreement on when he took the job. Smith, a longtime industry vet, will be missed—he’s a class act. E-mails to Mission’s publicist have not been returned as of this writing. More on this later. I think Smith’s leaving is indicative of how hard it is to make a go of it downtown despite Mission’s large numbers of patrons at lunchtime. If you’re not packing them in at dinner five nights a week you are toast.

These days I am cooking more at home than ever before. My newly expanded family has created a tradition of doing a family dinner every night and the thrill of cooking for my wife and son is a tremendous joy. On Tuesday we had my wife’s pal Debbie over to dinner and I made Rishia’s favorite meal, Chinese one-pot drunken chicken and steamed some Japanese rice for Noah to eat with his soup. Kids love sticky Asian rice balls—you can roll them small, like marbles, and let them grip and chew as they like. I am always asked for this recipe, so here it is:

Drunken Chicken

8 chicken thighs (throw in some legs if you have room)
1/2 c. soy sauce
5 whole dried hot chilies
3 buds star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
3 T. oyster sauce
2 T. hoisin sauce
2 T. Worcestershire
5 chopped scallions
2 T. minced ginger (cut into needles)
2 c. sake
1/3 c. brown sugar or Chinese rock sugar

Lightly brown chicken in a large pan and pour in remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer for 15-17 minutes. Uncover and reduce sauce to a glaze around chicken. (I usually check sauce for sweetness right when I am 5 minutes from serving, adding a tablespoon of soy if I need to.) Serve with steamed green vegetables seasoned with sea salt and toasted sesame seeds and plenty of rice. Chow down.

Work is work—but some days are better than others.

Lenny Russo had a good week this week, inking a big deal with Bon Appetit Catering to run the food-service operations at the new Guthrie Theater when it opens this spring. Russo’s challenge will be huge, not just in how he cooks or operates the restaurants, (I hear there will be four food-service revenue streams), but in how much he gets to reach out and touch the food. Many chefs are great cooks, some great businessmen, but the HUGE growth in Russo’s business will mean operating more as an executive manager and operator instead of the toiling, hardworking chef on the line that he has been so successful at for so long. Control lessens as the bank account deepens, so while no one deserves the success more than Russo, who last year was my pick for hardest working chef in town (Mpls.St.Paul Magazine's December 2005 issue), the Icarus syndrome can be haunting.

Flying too high, too fast, with the wrong equipment has been trying for several local chefs as they have sought to expand their empires. David Fhima had much success at Mpls Café, but for me the quick growth and weighty organizational challenges of running so many restaurants has had a negative impact on quality and performance. On the other side of the city Stewart Woodman at Five is, from all appearances, also finding it a challenge to own and operate his own business compared to the heady days at Levain where he was responsible for the restaurant alone. When you are the boss, handyman, chef, HR manager, and have to answer to investors or banks or corporate partners, the job of putting out great food is irrevocably changed. Good luck to anyone who embarks on that wild ride.

Brenda Langton is opening her second restaurant, across the street from the Guthrie, and putting together a farmer’s market out the back door of the Mill City Museum (also down the road from the new Guthrie), making this little corridor quite a food destination. I am confident that Brenda’s new eatery will be delightful. She knows how to run a restaurant, but am I the only one who thinks that while the market is a great idea and a fabulous service to provide, its chance of success is almost nil? I have seen more satellite farmer’s markets close than I can count due to lack of interest from farmers unwilling to stand all day to sell very little product or from an inability to compete with the larger markets in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Chicago and Milwaukee both have vibrant city markets and almost all the independent satellite markets have closed due to lack of interest. And the seasons here don’t help, they hurt because just when you create some positive critical mass it’s November…and no amount of new apartment and lofts on the river can help with that cold reality.

Has anyone noticed that Jeremy Iggers's recent reviews of Trocaderos and Copper Bleu both climaxed with him awarding them three stars each—making them outrank Masa in his eyes (two and a half stars)? Anyone out there who can tell me how a star ranking system does anything else other than muddy the waters for the reader, please let me know. You can’t compare experiences at these places, and worse, Masa is twice the restaurant that these places are put together. Jus' one man’s opinion.

New website alert! Food Porn Watch is a new site I found that is hysterical, and there are some groovy blogs and links from there that any food freak would enjoy checking out.