Camera in hand and looking for something to do after work one evening this week, it surprised me how much bounty the yard had at her dispposal to offer in the way of tasty treasures. On hands and knees, I peeked under the leaves of the potted strawberry I'd been moving around from house to house for over 8 years. Tendrils had escaped, taking root in the dirt around the terra cotta pot. Red dots beneath the green shade, the snails hadn't yet found these luscious beauties, small but packed with a flavor I've never discovered in grocer's fare. There is an infinite amount of pleasure to be had in the juicy swell of sweetness released on the tongue with each bite. All poppies and rosy cheeks and suntans.

This lovely bit of chefly beauty arrived in my mailbox. Hattori 10.5" blade. I don't think I'll ever be able to actually use it. It's just too pretty.

I went to Piatti on the Square in Sonoma last night. My friend Andrea and her sister dropped by the house yesterday afternoon and invited me, along with a group of folks, to dinner. I haven't gone out for some good vittles in a while, and I really enjoy Piatti's fairly simple menu. Nothing is too snazzy; the combinations are "rusticated" Italian, but with the snobbified flair that so appeals to foodies. The tastes are not overly complex, which is fine by me. I prefer my pseudo-Italian food to not mix mango paste into my bistecca, thank you very much. A squeeze of limone, perhaps, and some fresh ground black pepper, and leave the taste of the steak pure. I had the Baby Spinach Salad with marinated chicken breast, roasted peppers, crispy onions, balsamic vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was rich, the spinach greens were crisp (not slimy, thank goodness, which can happen if they sit dressed just a tad too long before they're served), and the roasted red bell pepper was delizioso! The chicken breast was moist and the whole schmiel was topped with grated Grana. My main dish was a risotto with oyster mushrooms, baby zucchini, and shaved corn. Creamy and rich, I could probably have eaten the whole pot if they'd stuck it in front of me. Risotto is so flippin' tasty! I ended with their creme brulee, which I found to be a little on the eggy side. I prefer the custard with a rich cream finish that is complimented so nicely by the fired sugar top, but it wasn't bad.

All I had to eat all day was some lowfat microwave popcorn and a ton of water so I could indulge at dinner. I flippin' love food, especially good food, but let's face it - indulgence of that sort can widen the waistline faster than an airpump to the Goodyear Tire man. These infrequent sojourns to Foodie Land are so worth it, though.

I bought these blueberries this morning on my way to work. I couldn't believe how stupendous they were, so I had to get them. And they tasted delish as well, what a treat!

Sixteen years old and life, 'til then, revolved around my ability to drive my parents as crazy as possible. Misunderstood and petulent, the life of a foreign exchange student seemed like the answer to my prayers for adventure and adulthood. With the complete conviction that comes only upon entering teenagehood, I signed up, was chosen, and was promptly sent off to Norway to live for a year, about 75 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I lived in a tiny town called Straumen but went to school in Fauske called Fauske Videregående Skole, otherwise known as the Husmor Skole, or house wife school. The nickname came from the lines of studies available at the school, most of which were "practical." It was a technical school. I found out later it was the kind of school you went to when you didn't really have any prospects from a bookish perspective. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time, because I was enough of a snothead to have thought it "beneath me." I was, after all, an A student in all honors classes and Class Spirit Coordinator to boot. I mean, I was somebody.


So I wore a white uniform complete with bonnet and white clogs. I kept my hair back and made sure I went to cooking class 3 days a week where I made jam and baked cakes and cooked whale and roe and sawed a pig in half (dead, of course) and stirred pots that contained snouty looking food that I couldn't name. I, in turn, showed intoduced my school to peanut butter cookies and lemon merangue pie and Thanksgiving dinner. I realize now how royally that school treated me, the lengths to which they went, my teacher Leikny Simonsen and all my mates, to welcome me and learn about me and teach me and know me.

We picked blueberries one day in the school garden and made jam and the taste of the berries I ate today have brought this memories flooding back to me nearly 20 years later.

I haven't yet been able to go to the Sonoma Saveurs restaurant that opened right before Christmas 2003 amidst outrage & outcry, after battling activists and vandalism. The reviews, thus far, have been decent. My writing teacher claims it's stunning. So, hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be able to go with my foodie pal, Nicola, to try the goods.

Whatever your personal feelings about foie gras (for anyone wondering, it's goose liver), the fact remains that the production of foie gras has been going on for a very long time. The Egyptians apparently were the first to figure out the delicacy of foie gras. Assumedly it was discovered as migratory wild geese were making their journey, as geese in the wild will actually gorge themselves prior to migrating to "fatten up" for the flight. Later, the Jews of central Europe were renowned, for many years, to be the only ones to know the secrets of good foie gras (an interesting fact considering goose meat was prohibited by virtue of Judaism). The Romans were said to have force-fed the geese figs during their heyday, and the Roman word for fig was ficadum, which is the root for the French foie. For centuries the delicacy was forgotten until King Louis XVI brought the tradition back, making a "pâté à la Contades", or foie gras within a crust, the "dish of the king". Blah blah blah, fast forward to today.

I had never tried foie gras prior to eating at The French Laundry where chef Thomas Keller serves a sauteed moulard duck foie gras with over roasted Brooks cherries, black peper brioche, and cherry gastrique. Holy moly. Good stuff. Foie gras is often served with a sweet, dark fruit, like cherry or plum and bread with a high quality sweet wine (some claim it should only be served with a wine from Sauternes, but I'm not the wine expert...).

The taste is delicate and rich, and I loved it immediately. I suppose it's an acquired taste, but I didn't think it required too much thought. However, my palate is also fairly adventuresome, so to each his own! Hopefully I'll be able to get on over to Sonoma Saveurs this summer.