Here are two more reasons to break out the grill and get cooking. Use a nice fatty piece of sirloin and try them both. Whichever recipe you choose, you will want to use the peanut sauce, which I use most often when I grill ginger-and-garlic–marinated chicken at home, but I LOVE with the beef skewers. Make lots of sauce—you’ll end up using it on everything, trust me.

Beef and Lemongrass Skewers
2 lb. boneless beef sirloin
2 peeled and minced garlic cloves
2 stalks lemongrass
1 T. coriander seeds
2 T. brown sugar
1/4 c. fish sauce
1/4 c. crushed dry roasted peanuts for garnish
Slice beef into long thin strips, 1/8 inch by 1 inch by 5 inches long.

Weave onto 24 skewers, soaked in water if using bamboo ones. Combine the garlic, lemongrass, coriander, sugar, and fish sauce in a mortar and pestle until mixture is a paste. Use a blender or food processor if you have to. Drizzle over beef and marinate for 30 minutes or up to 8 hours.

Grill to taste over high direct heat and serve, garnishing with the nuts.

Beef Skewers #2
For every 2 lb. of boneless beef sirloin or tenderloin, marinate for 24 hours only in . . .

2 T. minced garlic
3 T. ground cumin
1 T. chili powder
2 T. ground coriander seed
3 T. curry powder
1 c. coconut milk
3 T. brown sugar
2 T. lime juice
2 T. fish sauce

Remove from marinade and cook in one fashion or another. Skewer and broil.

Serve 7–9 skewers mounted onto a pineapple wedge.

Hunan Peanut Dipping Sauce
1/4 c. roasted ground peanuts
1 T. peanut oil
2 minced garlic cloves
2 t. chili paste
2 T. tomato paste
1/2 c. chicken broth
1/2 t. sugar
1 T. peanut butter
1/4 c. hoisin sauce
1 fresh red chili, seeded and thinly sliced

Heat the oil in a small pan and add the garlic, chili paste, and tomato paste. Fry until the garlic turns light brown. Add the broth, peanut butter, hoisin, and sugar. Simmer for 3 minutes. Cool and add the peanuts and chiles.

Well, here they are, the San Pellegrino–sponsored listing of the worlds greatest eateries:

1. El Bulli Spain (World's best restaurant and best in Europe)
2. The Fat Duck UK
3. Pierre Gagnaire France
4.The French Laundry USA (Best in the Americas)
5. Tetsuya's Australia (Best in Australasia)
6. Bras France
7. Mugaritz Spain
8. Le Louis XV Monaco
9. Per Se USA
10. Arzak Spain
11. El Celler de Can Roca Spain
12. Gambero Rosso Italy
13. L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon France
14. Hof van Cleve Belgium
15. Noma Denmark (Highest climber)
16. Le Calandre Italy
17. Nobu London UK
18. Jean Georges USA
19. Hakkasan UK
20. Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée France
21. L'Astrance France
22. Can Fabes Spain
23. L'Ambroisie France
24. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay UK
25. Troisgros France
26. Le Bernardin USA
27. Martin Berasategui Spain
28. Le Gavroche UK
29. Le Cinq France
30. Charlie Trotter's USA
31. Dal Pescatore Italy
32. Daniel USA
33. Rockpool Australia
34. St John UK
35. Chez Dominique Finland
36. Alinea USA (Highest new entry)
37. Bukhara India (Best in Asia)
38. DOM Brazil
39. Oaxen Skärgårdskrog Sweden
40. Chez Panisse USA
41. Enoteca Pinchiorri Italy
42. Cracco Peck Italy (New entry)
43. L'Arpège France
44. River Café UK (Re-entry)
45. Oud Sluis Netherlands
46. Combal Zero Italy (New entry)
47. Le Quartier Français South Africa (Best in Middle East and Africa)
48. Taillevent France
49. Bocuse France
50. Les Ambassadeurs France (New entry)

The awards ceremony took place two nights ago in London. Now I know that Bob and Sue Macdonald have eaten in most of these eateries, and shockingly—thanks in no small part to eating on someone else’s dime overseas—I have eaten at nineteen of them. But lists like these do beg the question, “Who eats at these places???" Globetrotting, food-obsessed elites, that’s who.

Voting in this straw poll are 651 judges from around the world, and for the second year in a row, The Fat Duck finished second to Ferran Adrià's El Bulli. France has twelve entries on the list, up from ten last year. The US has eight and the UK has seven, making the decades-old British food jokes obsolete in many circles. Spain and Italy tie in fourth place with six entries apiece. Heston Blumenthal won this year's Best Chef award, decided on by the chefs on last year's 50 Best list.

So here is my question: What are the five best extant restaurants in our town, and who is the best chef currently working in a restaurant today? And if anyone out there cares to compare notes about dining at any of the SP top fifty, I am anxious to hear it.

Best eatery not on the list . . . Paris’s Hiramatsu. Most obvious missing representative cuisines . . . Chinese and Mexican, but the judges voting in the contest are Westerners—almost exclusively, I am guessing. Too bad.

Almost two years ago, I wrote in our magazine that Grant Achatz’s Alinea in Chicago was the most important restaurant in America, and I still think so. Make a point of eating there this year. You’ll love it.

We celebrated Debbie J.’s thirtieth B-day at Martini Blu. We had a blast, despite the almost comically bad food and horribly depressing vibe in the restaurant. The place is on life support. Is there anything worse than sitting in a dead restaurant that everyone is pretending is still alive? I know they are reconcepting the place, but why wouldn’t they want to put their best foot forward, despite the upcoming changes? The whole hotel was oddly depressing, sepulchral. Our servers did the best they could—they reminded me of clairvoyant stewards on the Titanic, vaguely sensing and concealing the impending disaster every time they came by our table. The main dining room was closed, only the sushi bar was open, and this was on a Saturday night!

My top five in our town (food/service/ambience in a 50/25/25 weighted average) would be:

La Belle Vie
Alma
Chambers
112 Eatery
D’amico Cucina

Heartland, 20.21, Vincent, Masa, Morton's, Manny’s, Oceanaire, and Cosmos (new chef) all are in the conversation as well. Am I missing anything?

. . . and I think that Tim McKee is creating the best food of any chef in town these days—no one else is even close.

I was asked to do a reading last week at The Friends of the Public Library’s annual celebrity poetry slam, MC’d by the erudite and hysterically charming Glenn Miller. Glenn and I worked together when he was at Point 2 Point and I was trying to get into the TV biz. He was one of the first people to help me early in my career, so it was great to see Glenn again. I read "The Centipede’s Song" from James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I regularly make it a habit to read out of Dahl’s Vile Verses to our son Noah before bedtime. Amelia Santaniello read "Marriage" by Khalil Gibran (from The Prophet), and she was fantastic, as was Brad Childress, who in real life is shockingly more gracious and funny than he is on TV when we see him prowling the sidelines of Vikings games. I arrived just before my call time at the Library since I was rushing there from the Michael Pollan chat out at the Minnesota Arboretum.

Good thing I was reading children’s poems after the Pollan event. I have not been that mad in a long time, and I should have seen it coming.

Several months ago I got wind of the Pollan talk through a friend, and I made some inquiries about an interview with the living legend, the one true rockstar of the food world. Years ago, restaurants were all the rage (the fifties through the seventies), then chefs became hot (the eightees), then dishes (the nineties), and finally, in this last decade, the ingredient. Eclipsing all of these trends and bursting on the scene like a supernova has been the sociology and cultural politic of food. The movement’s great populist communicator is Pollan, the former Harper’s editor, the NY Times contributing writer, currently the Knight professor of journalism at UC Berkeley, and bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. This man is the most prominent and public intellectual of our day, a man who explores in deeply profound ways how we relate to nature. Not since Thoreau has there been a greater need for the dissemination of a naturalist's ideas about man and his place in the world. In 2007, more than any other time in our history, it is deeply important that we explore the ways in which we are altering the natural world around us, because the future of our species may depend on it. Sound extremist? Have you read the paper recently? Seen An Inconvenient Truth? Visited a third world country? Read The O.D.? If you have not, you should get it today. I won’t take space to detail Pollan’s case, but you need to read the O.D., and quickly.

Pollan’s book follows our food chains in a clever series of stories. He is a philosopher-journalist-detective, and his thesis is that the food world we are living in is unsustainable economically and environmentally—from a public health standpoint it is dangerously toxic, it's financially untenable, and so on. Moreover, it reeks of gulag-era Eastern Bloc ideology, relying on ignorance to maintain its grip on us. As Pollan sees it, if we could visit the feed lots, the commodity corn farms, the food factories, and so on, we would not only begin questioning authority in a new way, but we would rethink the way we eat, cook, shop, and live in relation to food in the way that a cancer patient is motivated to seek help once diagnosed. I think we are addicted to an unhealthy food system, and, like junkies and street drunks, we perpetuate the system that we get high on in an illogical way because we are too scared to try to live without it. When confronted with the truth, we deny it exists. I believe Pollan’s conversation is one of the most important discourses of our time.

I was perplexed that the masses were not aware he was coming here, a little irked that the attendance was limited, and eager to have access to him for the magazine, for the TV news show I used to work for, and for my radio show. And I met a stone wall at every turn. I expected it from Pollan’s office—he is an academic and an insulated one at that. But the U of M’s Public Policy Programs at the Landscape Arboretum was bringing him in, along with the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture. Not only was Pollan going to be here for a Wednesday night meet and greet, but also for a DAY-LONG CONFERENCE at which he would deliver the keynote. The event organizers know how important Pollan’s message is, and while they could have held his chat in a larger venue on the main U of M campus, they did not. I can understand why they would want it held at the Arboretum. I may not be sympathetic to the reasoning, but I can see why they would want to. But there is no excuse for not promoting the event in a mainstream way. In fact, once I got to the Wednesday night event, I started to get really ticked off when I saw that there was no press coverage at all, no press Q & A, no interviews for the mainstream media. I was told by Pollan’s people that they were only granting four opportunities to connect with Pollan, limiting it to that number, period . By my reckoning the Strib had one with a Kim Ode blurb-interview that appeared the week before he arrived, and an MPR rebroadcast of the keynote speech next week on Midday (which you should all listen to) counts as the second. I assume the other two appeared somewhere I'm unaware of, and if I'm unaware of it, then chances are you missed it, too! Perhaps because of the Public Radio angle there will be an article some month downstream in MNMo, or perhaps Dara has something coming out with him this next Wednesday, but even if both those things happen, the largest possible audience is still not being served. Good for those media outlets, and they have some great writers, but that’s not the point. The problem lies with the church that we all want to worship in—the deacons have to get some PR savvy as far as I am concerned. And that includes Pollan. His belief in the dire aspects of the situation obligates him to help spread the word, not inhibit the dissemination of his message by narrowing exposure to his ideas. Like it or not, he is a star.

The Thursday event was well-attended by 500 or so people, every single one of which has read the book and knows the message already. All the folks from the farm collaboratives and co-ops, community organizers, politicalized farmers, some food producers, and a smattering of local chefs were there. Pollan was preaching to the converted. The fence-sitters and naysayers, not his choir, need to be exposed to his ideas. Where was KARE-11,WCCO-TV, FOX 9, KSTP? Where were the local radio stations? Either they didn't know about it (in which case the organizers of the event blew it) or they didn't show because they were not given access (in which case the organizers need to rethink their protocols) or they were given both and ignored one of the biggest stories of the last twenty years. For ages, I have sat in meetings with grassroots groups trying to figure out "next steps," and we end up merely making more meetings. Until our movement reaches out to and partners with the traditional vehicles of communication on a local level, we are doomed. The message of our time is one of hope, and there still is some left . . . trust me. Pollan himself acknowledges as much when he makes the case for the biggest positive changes on the issues coming from the public, an enlightened public that is aware of the choices available and makes some smart decisions about what we eat and how we do it. That’s why the day-long conference was titled What’s for Dinner: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Food. I hope the next time Mr. Pollan comes to town, whoever brings him in makes sure that one of the seminal messages of our time falls on all ears.

Want an opportunity to get involved? Check out Pollan’s column from last week's NYT Magazine about the Farm Bill, a regularly updated piece of legislation that affects all Minnesotans and is especially relevant given the unique position our state holds in the both the production end of the spectrum and the subsidy side of the equation. His piece will get you e-mailing your legislators faster than you can scream, “Sanjaya got ripped off!”

More on the Farm Bill in one of my next blogs.

OK, as promised, the dish that changed the world. I love this dish, and don’t let the mail order ingredient stop you. You will be ordering a kilo of the kasu. When it comes, simply divide and freeze the remainder, or store in your fridge. Trust me, you will be making this at least twice a month once you try it.

Broiled Kasu-Marinated Black Cod (Sable Fish)
1 qt. plus 1 c. water
2 T. kosher salt
3 lb. black cod (sable fish) cut into 8 portions. You can also use snapper, sea bass, halibut, etc.
12 oz. kasu, fermented sake lees (sediment from rice wine
   production) . . . available from Mutual Fish (206-322-4368)
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 T. miso
1/4 c. mirin

Combine the quart of water and the salt. Add the cod and soak in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Remove fish, discard water, and dry the fish gently. In a work bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Add the fish and marinate, covered in the fridge for 2 days.

Preheat broiler and remove fish from marinade. Place the fish on a no-stick broiler tray and cook for 10 minutes for every inch of thickness. Turn once carefully, or leave it to cook through on one side only. Do not burn the fish.

Serve with minced scallions as garnish, some rice, and perhaps a spoon or two of the sauce from last Monday’s recipe.

Puck-tastic times will be had by all at the CuisineArt 2007 dinner at the Walker Art Center. The date this year is May 21. Last year’s event was the best food night of the year, in my opinion. Wolfgang Puck and Sherry Yard flew in from LA for the event and taught a cooking class—a participation class, in fact—for a hundred people, assisted by the best chefs in their organization, including 20.21’s Scott Irestone. Then everyone headed downstairs for a six-course meal cooked by Puck himself. Rarely do these unique, once-in-a-lifetime type of food opportunities come your way, so if you love food you should check out the Walker's website or call 20.21 and make reservations for this incredible night. I will be there and so should you.

Here’s a fun weekend idea—and you can say hi to Wolf and tell him how psyched you are to see him in Minneapolis at the end of May. Check out the 2007 James Beard Foundation Awards. The awards gala and reception is on Monday, May 7 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. Tickets are available at the following prices:

$400 for JBF Members
$450 for General Public
$200 for Students and Press (valid id required for both)

To order, call the awards box office at 646-213-3780 or email a ticket order to boxoffice@jamesbeard.org. Check the website for more about the featured chefs, menus, and other exciting details about the awards.

Many local (and global) notables will be there, and I can’t go. I am crushed. It’s a great event, and, sadly, I can’t make it that night. So here is the deal. You go, and then tell me all about it. Sound fair?

I have gotten a ton of emails asking “Why haven’t I seen you on Fox these days?” Well, the answer is simple, I have had to step away from the local TV work after eight years in that building. Fox was an INCREDIBLE experience for me, and I will miss everyone there very much. They are an amazing and talented group of people on both sides of the camera. The team there is going to work out a way for me to do some State Fair coverage for the station, so look for that come August.

So here's a thought, maybe Midtown Global Market could relocate to 9th Street in the building that currently houses Ralph Lauren, and then Ralph could move to Southdale, which is in desperate need of a major-league high-end retail presence? Ideas?

In case you had not seen it, the funniest thing I have read in a long time is Tony’s blog about the Food Network Awards. Several readers linked to it in posts, but here it is . . . . And here is some more cool news: He and his significant other have just had a beautiful baby girl. Congrats TB, you are now a dad. Who would have thunk it?!?!?!?!

Looks like Fogo de Chao will open next week. I heard last night was their VIP party, which I did not attend, as is my generic policy re: those sorts of things. It puts me in a weird place if I show up at those and then have to write about it later. I love the FdCs in other cities I have been to, though, and I think they will do very well here in the Twin Cities. I know it’s a national chain, and I know the portions are big, and the food is highly stylized, but the stuff tastes great and it’s DIFFERENT! Different and unique experiences, when well-executed, spell success in our industry. Eateries that offer the same foods and features found elsewhere all end up closing sooner rather than later.

Shocker! Is it just me or am I the last to know that the Ralph Lauren flagship store on 9th Street is closing in May? That’s what my spies tell me.

I am officially back on the ledge. Yes, I know that they would do about five times the biz out in Ridgedale or the Galleria, and no one drives downtown from Wayzata to shop on weekends. Saks and Nieman Marcus will probably go next . . . those stores are ghost towns on the weekends. And like the fine-dining restaurant closings of late, this tale reinforces the argument that we lack the ability to sustain so many stores like these (or a certain threshold number of food-forward eateries) in our town. I would like to think this one is all about location—you have to be where your customers are, period. This one, no matter which side of the argument you are on, is very sad. Our downtowns are in desperate need of becoming more vibrant for shopping, strolling, dining, and viewing the burgeoning arts scene(s). If it's true, Ralph’s exit will be a sad commentary on the state of our city. Fashion-forward or food-forward, no matter—why can’t we be moving forward?

This last week has been kind of crazy around the office, and I thought, rather than bore you to death with the minutiae of my last meal at Culver's, I would share a small bit of what I have been living through over the last week. With some native flava’ thrown in.

I had to take off a day earlier than anticipated and head down to Dallas for the Discovery Network's upfront presentations last week. I caught previews of most of my fave DCI shows from Man vs. Wild to Planet Earth, from No Reservations to a sneak peek at the new network DCI plans to unveil in 2008, Planet Green. These guys are amazing. If you are not watching a lot of Discovery Channel, BBC America, Travel Channel, and TLC—to name few of the channels—you are missing out, truly. That being said, I had a hard time Sunday with the Food Network Awards, Sopranos, Entourage, Planet Earth, and Sunday night baseball all on at once.

The FNAs are such a good idea, and yet the categories were shockingly weak (Best Food Combo?), and most of them sounded like one of those multiple choice questions you see in the back of Reader’s Digest. The FN on-air talent all seemed tired (Alton Brown seemed downright bored) and anxious to be somewhere else. And loathe as I am to admit it, the only guy who seemed to resonate any charisma was Bobby Flay. Let me say unequivocally, since I have tasted them both, that MooBella (Icy Innovations winner) can’t carry Izzy’s cone wrapper in terms of quality of product, and I am not just saying that because Izzy’s is my local fave either. The FNAs are a great idea, but last night’s version (recorded two months ago) was a huge, underwhelming dud . . . although I liked Mayor Rybak's and Lenny Russo’s star turns in the nomination video for the Most Delicious Destination category. We lost to Portland, Oregon, which is a shame, but the bigger crime was that Portland, Maine, the city that should have won the category, also lost. The food is better in P-Maine, and the sights, sounds, smells, and vacation-land atmosphere is way better than P-Oregon’s. In case you didn’t see the awards, you missed nothing, and if you don’t believe me, think of this factoid: The show was shot in South Beach in mid-February in front of a live audience of 900 people during the South Beach Food Fest, and NO ONE LEAKED ANYTHING in two months. Why? ‘Cuz nothing was worth talking about. In fairness, the show hit some high notes when SOS’s Bill Shore saluted Floyd Cardoz for his charitable work, and when they gave the tech award to the freezer plate people (can you tell I am tired right now?). But let’s state the obvious, it was a self-promotional, self-created award show, featuring all FN talent. Why not rope-in some non-FN talent to this show? Furthermore, an internal panel led by Food Network Kitchens selected the nominees for the awards. And the same panel, representing all departments at the network, chose the winners. There were five viewers' choice categories that were determined by votes on their website.

On a more positive note, Alton Brown won a Peabody Award for excellence in journalism last week for his show, Good Eats. Well-deserved. And a much better time was had by all at the Junior Gourmet Club at La Belle Vie last night. Look for more kid-focused events on the LBV website coming soon. We loved it. Great job, LBV.

But anyway, I digress. At the upfronts I met Animal Planet’s Philippe Cousteau (legendary uber-grandchild environmentalist terrible) and TLC’s Kirsten Kemp (bodacious super-fox house flipper). Philippe in real life is a wild man, a bon vivant of the highest order. On air, he maintains all the gravitas of his family's mission to help us understand our oceans and planet in the hopes that we don’t kill it first. Off-camera, he looks and acts like the guy at school you wanted to be best pals with but always kept an eye on because he would sleep with your girlfriend. Kemp comes off as the next major cable Oprah in training—part lifestyle guru, part spiritual guide, part personal finance shaman, but with the body of Raquel Welch. You heard it here first, this woman is going to be the NEXT BIG THING.

I stayed at the Crescent Court, a hotel I could live in full-time—it’s that good. I had another meal at Nobu—conveniently located right in the lobby—that was flawless. The uni shooter, the trio of tartars with caviar, the kushiyaki of washyu steak (they use number nine beef on the Japanese grading scale), the lobster salad, the botan ebi sashimi, the miso-glazed black cod, the mushroom soup with about $300 worth of Japeanse exotic mushrooms floating in the perfect dashi essence . . . amazing. Here’s the thing: There are about 200 items on the menu, and many of them are comprised of so many disparate elements that, despite brazen simplicity, it is mind-numbing to think about how hard this act is to pull off night after night. The cod alone is marinated for two days, then broiled; the ginger flower is pickled; the miso sauce is made; and the mountain peaches are pickled—four elements that take days to make. And in twenty different locations around the world, no less. I have eaten in many of those restaurants over the last few years, and each is as good as the other. The management team at the corporate level has achieved amazing things. And with such a big menu, you invariably want to come back for because every time you leave, you spot things walking out that you didn’t order, and each is more appealing than the last. I really think that a Nobu here could work. In the right spot, it could kill, simply for the fact that the food is sooooooooo engaging.

I spent a day shooting some promotional goodies for both TV and online for Bizarre Foods. We shot the stuff in the old stockyards neighborhood of Fort Worth with Tim Love, a great guy and one savvy cowboy. Besides being an accomplished culinarian (the food at Lonesome Dove was great), Tim sells product on HSN (four million dollars last year!), has a real estate holding company, does TV, has several restaurants, runs a catering company, owns a ranch . . . the whole shebang. He also has a wicked-cool grill pit outside his restaurant with plenty of hooks for hanging meat (a barbecue-pit ring needs plenty of space to hang meats to slow cook and smoke) and a slick Russell pocket chef’s knife (gotta get me one!), but mostly I wanted to see how he liked his caja china that I saw in his shed. He told me he loves it. Chefs all over the world use them, and I am shocked that more home cooks don’t have them. It uses very little fuel and is the legendary Chinese BBQ that American chefs have fallen in love with.

After thirty-six hours of nonstop work, Rishia and I flew to NYC for a night to celebrate my buddy Pete’s B-day and surprise everyone at the dinner party his wife Flavia threw him by showing up. The next morning I had to do Live! With Regis and Kelly. We left Dallas on a 3:45 p.m. flight on American, didn’t pull from the gate for an hour, sat on the runway for three hours waiting to get clearance to take off for La Guardia, landed, sat on the ground for an hour waiting for a gate, and then waited ninety minutes for our luggage, arriving at the Ritz Carlton at 1:30 am. But here’s the outrage: The 4:30 p.m. American flight out of Dallas for La Guardia actually arrived before us. How is this possible??? Our whole traveling world has gone to hell in a hand basket.

Anyway, after a short nap, we got up and met Marjorie (my Travel Channel PR goddess) and took off for the studio. Kevin Spacey, the other guest, is a muttering and oddly swaggering misanthrope, one of the great actors of his generation, but quite off-putting in real life. Pat Sajak, sitting in for the bionic and healing Regis, uses more makeup than I have ever seen on a human being, but was hysterically funny. Kelly Ripa is simply the greatest. This woman was kind, engaging, funny, smart, very real, had a kid or two in tow, is about five feet tall, and weighs as much as my arm. But I now get why she is so popular. She is a powerhouse. And a huge fan of Bizarre Foods, her whole family watches it on Mondays. Cool.

We left, headed back to the Ritz, which was under a security code-red because the Governator was in from California for the day, so we packed and piled back in the car, then shopped at FAO Schwartz (fun!) for Noah and at Cartier (expensive!) for Rishia. Noah is the recipient of some great intentions on our part at FAO, but my wife got a L-O-V-E bauble to match the one I wear. She gave it to me last February. I love it. We strolled Madison Avenue, window-shopped, met the driver at Eli Zabar’s E.A.T., and grabbed a chopped liver sandwich, some panzanella, a butterscotch pudding, and some endive-avocado salad. A great lunch in the car, out to the airport, and home. Gratefully home.

In a little while, the salmon will be everywhere, and you’ll need a new way to cook it. This is a recipe that will delight you for years to come. The sauce is awesome on fish or beef, plus it keeps in the fridge and reheats well. I cannot tell you how simple and elegant this dish is—you have to see for yourself.

Grilled Salmon Miso Yaki

SALMON
4 salmon filets, each about 6–7 ounces . . . I use skin-on fish
   and score it.
3 T. miso paste
1/3 c. sake
1/4 c. mirin
2 T. sesame seeds

Combine all ingredients and marinate overnight.

Take salmon from marinade, season with sea salt, and grill to medium rare.

Serve it over sautéed greens (spinach works well) and a dollop of the miso-yaki sauce on top. I serve rice on the side and usually some grilled eggplant with soy, radish, and lemon or a cucumber salad. Serves 4.

MISO YAKI SAUCE
2/3 c. miso paste . . . Use a good one. I get mine at
    United Noodles.
2 egg yolks
1/2 c. sake
6 T. sugar
4 T. dashi, Japanese bonito stock . . . I keep some on-hand in
     the freezer, but feel free to use some instant hon-dashi if you
     like. It works fine. I have also made this dish in a speed
     competition and used 1/4 t. of the hon-dashi powder in
     straight form, right out of the jar, without rehydrating it,
     and it worked great.

Combine in a double boiler over low boil, whisking until eggs have set and sauce is thick. Cool and serve warm. You will have leftover sauce—I love it on hard-scrambled eggs (very foo yong-esque) and on grilled beef the next night for dinner.

Food & Wine is running an Ultimate Kid Cook Contest , according to my friends out there who read this blog. So local whiz kids looking to make it big should get a hold of Food & Wine Magazine. In their August issue, they will profile some of the most talented young cooks in the U.S. and share the recipes these kids love to make. If you're the parent of a child age 6–€“16 who's a whiz in the kitchen and whose dream is to become the next Wiley Dufresne or Grant Achatz, the folks at F & W want to know about him or her. Send them his or her favorite recipe: It might be an original dish, a family recipe, or a recipe from TV, a cookbook, or another source. Winners will be picked by April 23, 2007, and the mag will reprint their favorite recipes in the August issue. To enter, you must submit your recipe and info by April 14.

So we ate dinner last Sunday and watched the Sopranos. Praise the TV Gods for bringing that show back into my life. Check out Slate's great coverage of all things Soprano.

Imus is a blowhard and a showman and a provocateur, and for years I have been one of his fans. Over the last few years I have stopped listening as much because he seems to have gotten less interesting and crustier in his old age. His remarks are out of line and insulting, but the resulting brou-ha-ha has been even stupider. Listening to Al Sharpton berate us all on the issues of racism, sexism, and appopriateness makes me want to remind him of his genesis, bursting on the scene as an agent of exposure and co-conspirator during the Tawana Brawley flap. I think Imus is wrong, dead wrong, but it is also a tad disingenuous for Sharpton to rip him for his comments while not also taking to task the Entertainment Community, within which this kind of language is par for the course. The greatest degraders of people of color, especially women, are the rap/R & B communities. Re: Imus's two week disciplinary hiatus, remember that Jimmy the Greek and many others since then have deservedly lost careers over remarks like this. Don Imus may be getting off easy, we'€™ll see.

Just what the world needs!  "Stink Free"€ durian. Scientists have unlocked the genetic secret and created a scentless hybrid. But a durian that does not stink like your great grannies feet after a long hike is like no-fat crème brûlée or non-alcoholic wine. They are non-events.

My assistant Berit recently sent me to the website of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, located at Iowa State University. We looked at a news release that puts an interesting spin on the attraction of local food consumption. One of the points on the site is that keeping food a local affair inspires more traveling and visiting of other cultures. Simply put, and based on my experiences traveling around the world, I can agree wholeheartedly. Food pathways, especially traditional ones, are dying. Tourism may save some of them; CSAs may save others.

May Farms is associated with the Minnesota Food Association, which is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year. Here is some info from their site. Many of you have asked about CSAs, and I would encourage some discussion on this blog about your SPECIFIC experiences so that newcomers to CSAs can choose one this year that best suits their needs, and they can get involved in their own communities.

A CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, is a cooperative between a farm and a local community or supporters, providing a direct link between the production and consumption of food. CSA members cover the farm's operating costs by purchasing a share of the season's harvest at the beginning of the growing season, when the farmer most needs the cash. This ensures that the small local farm will be sustained through bad weather, drops in market prices. In return, the farm provides a healthy supply of seasonal, fresh produce throughout the growing season. For example, as a member of May Farm CSA in 2007 you will get:

- 18 weeks of clean, farm fresh, seasonal produce, delivered to your home or a nearby drop site.
- Weekly newsletters with recipes and farm stories
- Invitations to our spring, summer and fall festival with hay rack rides, pumpkin picking, food music games and more.

Teach your kids where their food comes from! The peace of mind that comes from knowing where and how your food was grown and knowing that you food dollars are staying in your community. Now you may be wondering what is in your box for this coming year? Well, it may include the following:

June: 3–5 different kinds of Lettuce, Sugar Snap Peas, Spinach, Spring Onions, Green Onions, Beets, Radishes, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Salad Mix, Strawberries, Potted Herbs
July–Aug.: Cucumbers, Cherry Tomatoes, Big Slicer Tomatoes, Heirloom Tomatoes, Zucchini, Summer Squash, Cabbage, New Potatoes, Carrots, Green Beans, Sweet Corn, Peppers, Basil, Herbs
Sept.–€“Oct.: 5 different kinds of Winter Squash, 4 different kinds of Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, More Tomatoes, Hot and Sweet Peppers, Herbs, Brussel Sprouts, Sweet Onions, Pie Pumpkins, Leeks, Stir Fry Greens, Garlic, and more!

New kids on the block y’all. Here are the 2007 Food & Wine Magazine Best New Chefs. The new trendsetters and hit-makers include:

April Bloomfield The Spotted Pig, New York,
   NY
Gabriel Bremer Salts, Cambridge, MA
Steve Corry Five Fifty-Five, Portland, ME
Matthew Dillon Sitka & Spruce, Seattle, WA
Gavin Kaysen El Bizcocho, San Diego, CA
Johnny Monis Komi, Washington, DC
Sean O'Brien Myth, San Francisco, CA
Gabriel Rucker Le Pigeon, Portland, OR
Ian Schnoebelen Iris, New Orleans, LA
Paul Virant Vie, Western Springs, IL

Everyone will have something to complain about, as they always do when lists like this are published. Local winners in the past have included Tim McKee, Seth Daugherty, and Stewart Woodman. I have eaten in several of these restaurants and can tell you from experience that Portland, Maine is one of the country’s best eating towns. My dad lives there now, and we spend a few weeks a year there. Five Fifty-Five is just one of the great eateries in a town filled with them. Portland, Maine, population 789. Who would have thunk it?

Inspired by a January 28 piece in the NYT, the kids at La Belle Vie decided to host a Junior Gourmet Club dinner. I will be there FOR SURE! Brilliant idea, and as Bill Summerville told me:

“If America is going to continue to grow as a food nation, we better start at the beginning. The reason I'm in the biz is because my mother cooked from scratch and was a great cook and taught me how at an early age. I look at The Junior Gourmet Club Dinner as having numerous opportunities: The parents can go out without getting a sitter, they can bond with their kids, meet new people. The kids can make new friends, learn about cooking, learn where food comes from, and learn how to behave in a restaurant. It starts at 6:00 p.m. with a reception in the lounge, and dinner starts sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. It will be four courses for $55, including hors d'ourves.

Johnny Michaels, our bar master, will create a non-alcohol drink flight, and a wine flight will be available as well. Pat from Wild Acres will be here to talk about where food comes from, and, in the future, we'll do demonstrations in the kitchen and other things. “

Brilliant idea guys. Check out the website for more info.

Here’s a shout out to my pal Hannah Mack. Hannah is my best friend’s daughter, a sophomore at SPA and a very funny young woman. Over the last few years she has been dropping small bits of wisdom on me from time to time, keeping me aware of how teenage girls view the world, and most importantly, what words they like to use. As any writer will tell you, colloquialisms are everything in this biz. She calls "man bags" or "man purses" MURSES. While the rest of the world calls "man boobs" MOOBS, she calls them MITTIES ("man" plus "t*tties" = mitties!). Genius. So on vacation last month, she got me on a roll, merging the front and back of a phrase to coin a unique word, obviating the need for an abundance of syllables. This whole trend started years ago when Ben Affleck hooked up with Jenny from the block, and the gossip mongers dubbed them BENNIFER. Since then we have become a nation obsessed with these word games, a take on what Rich Hall famously called Sniglets. Down in Virgin Gorda I came up with some beauts:

1) Oftentimes we would see these mega-yachts, 200-feet-long and bigger. I thought of them as floating palaces, or "f-alaces." Get it? "Falace." Especially funny in light of the type of men who own them.

2) Tom Brady, Super Bowl MVP and uber-quarterback of the New England Patriots, has reportedly been calling a lot of his own signals outside of the huddle, impregnating both Bridget Moynahan (confirmed) and current flame Gisele Bündchen (if you believe what you read in Us Magazine). That’s some kind of year by any measurable standards. Since he is now a celebrity who has impregnated other celebrities that makes him a celeb-nator. Or as I refer to him, the serial celeb-nator Tom Brady.

Some of my kids have called me with some recent updates in local food news. According to them, Nochee will close in the next week or two and reopen as a brand spanking new restaurant. Good luck, guys. In my world, the best thing you can do is to stay closed for ninety days, so that the public feels like a really new concept has debuted. Several restaurants have failed miserably doing the opposite (from Aquavit to Bobino), and I'm wondering what readers think would be a short list of three restaurants that are treading water and should reopen as something else?

Spill the Wine is open and looks great! I think they will be a huge hit—the feel and look of the place is slick and hip, and assuming the food is great (fingers crossed), they should be doing very well.

Is there a better meal than baked grits and bourbon-glazed corned beef?

I think not. Christopher Idone, an amazing cook and accomplished cookbook author, cofounded Glorious Food in New York. I interned in his office when he was writing Glorious American Food almost twenty-five years ago, and I learned to cook the recipes below from him before the book was published. Over the years, I have tweaked and adapted them.

Grits with Butter and Grated Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese
4 c. milk
1 1/2 c. quick cooking grits . . . Quaker Oats work great.
1/4 lb. plus 4 T. butter
2 t. butter for the baking dish
2 t. salt
1 dash hot pepper sauce
12 oz. grated sharp farmhouse cheddar . . . Carr Valley
   three- or five-year-old cheddar or Widmer's cheddar work
   great
3 eggs, well-beaten
butter for frying

Butter a long rectangular baking dish. Preheat oven to 375.

In a large sauce pan, bring the milk and 2 c. water to boil over high heat. Pour in the grits and stir well.

Pull from heat and stir in all the seasonings, cheese, 1/4 lb. butter, and the eggs, stirring well.

Pour into the prepared baking dish and place in the oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Let cool for 10 minutes and cut into diamond shapes. Serve. Or . . . cool completely and serve by pan-frying in the remaining butter in a non-stick pan until golden.

Glazed Corned Beef with Root Vegetables

BEEF
1 uncooked corned brisket of beef, 4 to 5 lb.
2 bay leaves
8 peppercorns
2 allspice berries
1 small cinnamon stick
1 t. mustard seed
Beef (or chicken) stock to cover 

GLAZE
1 c. brown sugar
1 t. dry mustard
1/4 c. molasses
1/2 c. bourbon

VEGETABLES
8 small beets
12 new potatoes
6 small leeks, trimmed
12 small carrots, peeled
12 white radishes, peeled
2 parsnips, peeled and quartered lengthwise
1 pt. Brussels sprouts, trimmed
1 small head savoy cabbage, cored and cut in 1-inch slices

Wash the brisket of the brine. Place in large kettle with the spices and cover with the stock. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer over low heat for 35–40 minutes per lb. or until tender. Reserve the cooking liquid.

Make the glaze by mixing the 4 ingredients and letting rest for 45 minutes.

Cook the beets in salted water for 12 minutes. Drain and slip the skins off under running water. Return to the pot to keep warm.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the cooked corned beef brisket in a roasting pan with 1/2 c. of the cooking liquid. Cover with enough glaze to coat.

Bring remaining beef-poaching liquid to boil and simmer the vegetables until just cooked through in batches. Finish by reheating the beets.

Roast the corned beef, basting the beef with the remaining glaze for about 25 minutes.

Serve on a large platter with the vegetables around it. Serves 6–8.

Back from vacation. Re-entry is always hard. Navigating through the piles of junk on my desk, returning calls, getting back in the swing of work and parenthood—you know the drill. So in the spirit of commitment, here are some cool things I am doing these days to re-energize myself.

1) Making reservations.

I am running to NYC next week to do the Regis and Kelly show—deciding between Babbo and The Red Cat for dinner next Thursday with friends. Next Wednesday, I am in Dallas and plan on hitting Sammy’s Bar-B-Q for lunch and Nobu for dinner. The food at Nobu in Dallas's Crescent Court is insanely good. The chef is a young Aussie who is one of Matsuhisa’s right-hand guys, and the food is better or as good as when I have had when Nobu himself make the meal.

Locally, I am taking a hint from my newest protégé Berit and going to Los Andes, a Colombian and Ecuadorian restaurant on West Lake Street. The portions are supposedly huge, the prices are reportedly small, and the sauces are reputedly superb—especially the homemade hot sauces.

2) Gossiping.

My buddies all tell me that a game of musical chairs with chefs and sous chefs is about to take place involving Cosmos, Barbette, and Kim’s new supper club venture.

3) Surfing the Net.

Check out Culinate, one of my new fave food sites.

4) Reading e-mail.

I got this one from Lowell Pickett, the owner of the Dakota and one of Minneapolis’s great gentlemen. He saw the piece about Bizarre Foods in the NYT and sent me this observation. If you haven’t been to the Dakota recently, you owe it to yourself to go. Jack Reibel’s food is wonderful, and the venue is a national treasure. Lowell wrote:

I felt that section of the paper was oddly resonate with the Twin Cities and indicative of how much geographical barriers continue to be dissolved in contemporary culture. The article on the front of the section was about Jean Nouvel. Sunday night, I'd been talking with John Scofield & Steve Swallow after their show at the Dakota, and they were asking about the architecture of the Weisman and the Walker. I told them about the Guthrie as well, and they weren't familiar with Nouvel.  That probably changed Monday. 

Then, opening the section, there was a rave review of Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra at Zankel Hall. It conveyed what a rare and extraordinary concert it was. The band's first western hemisphere concert took place ten days earlier in a somewhat more intimate setting at the Dakota.

Then, turning the page, there was your smiling visage. What a wonderfully complimentary article.

The whole section made me feel that the Twin Cities are indeed an integral part of contemporary currents. Incidentally, Scofield and Swallow are refined masters of their music and have developed sublime tastes in culinary pleasures as well. They claim that the food at the Dakota is the best of any jazz venue in the world. That's always nice to hear.

Agreed!

So I’m thinking my new catch phrase needs to be “not as annoying as Rachel Ray . . . ”

I just got back from three weeks away, starting with the Leno trip and ending with two weeks of a family vacation, finally.

I got to the office this morning to find out two pieces of news. Our show got renewed for a second season, and the NYT review came out in Monday's paper. I was shocked, to put it mildly, since shows like mine rarely get talked about in our national paper of record.

So what about back home . . . ? I leave town for five minutes and Tubby Smith is moving to The Barn. I am thrilled. Restaurant news is slim these days—we are in the doldrums as we await the flurry of spring activity that I am salivating over already. That being said, I have seen a lot of hub and bub on this site and elsewhere over the Temple menu and chef change, especially in light of recent restaurant exit polls indicating that casual and honest dining is this year's pink. Think 112 Eatery if I am speaking Latin to you.

I am a big fan of Pham's, but food has never been what his restaurants are about. They all have some very good dishes and a few signatures worth the trip, but the menus are inconsistent in terms of quality and content. His restaurants are about style. He does that very well. Would he do that much more business if he got serious about the food? I'm not sure—it might not be what his customer is after. Would Bellanotte be any busier if they had good food? I think not.

Pham, however, has an interesting dilemma, since he might be able to pull in more bodies if he took the food program to another level above what it is currently executing at. It might not be the Slanted Door or Fatty Crab, but he could make some real noise if he hires a real food guru to oversee his projects. I wrote as much a month ago, knowing full well that Temple would have to change—and by change, I mean that promoting a sous chef won't alter much in the kitchen, but who knows?

Check out the Hmong and Cambodian food at Va Lor, 371 University Avenue, across the street from Mai Village in St. Paul. It is dirt cheap, and the food is very honest and authentic. While the menu is a bit of a mine field, a reader turned me on to the place, which he said features a killer papaya salad, and he was right. If risk-taking in teeny neighborhood restaurants is your idea of a good time (count me in, by the way) then you should check it out.

Last Monday, I made the point about cooking with the seasons—that by this time of year we should be done braising—but last night, I made my grandmother’s housekeeper’s goulash recipe and . . . .

Sorry for the vagueness of some amounts and for some of the antiquated directions, but this recipe is one hundred years old. Anyway, the point is that this dish is so good, you can eat it anytime the temperature is below sixty degrees. Enough said.

Hungarian Goulash with Spaetzle
5–6 onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 T. butter
3 T. bacon fat
1/3 c. vinegar
1/3 c. Hungarian paprika
3 1/2 lbs. beef for stew (chuck, arm, or rump), cubed
salt and pepper
2 T. fresh marjoram leaves
2/3 c. tomato puree
Flour
4 minced garlic cloves
Several c. chicken or beef broth
Peel of 1 lemon
1 T. caraway seed

Brown the meat in the fat. Add the butter and onions to the pan. Sauté until onions turn golden brown. Add the vinegar and the paprika. Add the salt, pepper, marjoram, 1 c. stock, and tomato.

Simmer for 70 minutes, until liquid is reduced to a glaze, adding a few tablespoons of stock as needed to ensure that you cook for the entire 70 minutes. Sprinkle with some flour (I find that 2–3 T. does the trick). Add the garlic and enough broth to just cover. Simmer for 20–30 minutes. Season with the lemon and caraway. Serve with spaetzle.

Spaetzle
2 eggs, beaten
3 c. sifted flour
1 T. melted butter
1 t. salt
3/4 c. water

Combine the flour and salt. Add the eggs and melted butter, gradually adding the water. Stir for 4 minutes.

Pass through a spaetzle press into a rapidly boiling pot of salted water. They are cooked when they rise to the surface. Season with butter and parsley.