Soak a cedar plank for a couple of hours
Drain a pint of local oysters
Toss with olive oil, grated garlic, lots of chives and a spoon of chili sauce (I used my new obsession yuzu kosho, which tastes like feisty sunshine). Let sit around while the grill heats up. Heat the plank up on the hot grill. Ten minutes later, lay those oysters out on the plank and cook till just firm, turning once. (about 7 minutes)

You can skewer the oysters and cook them directly on the well oiled grate. I tried this too, and it made pretty grill marks, but we preferred the moister planked oysters.

Paula Wolfert is the doyenne of American Mediterranean experts, and her Morocco and the South of France is essential. The book that most opened my eyes to a new world of cooking, though was The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, which introduced the foods of countries like Greece, Turkey, Georgia, and Syria to my kitchen.  One key component of the Mediterranean diet is lots of legumes and nuts: Paula’s recipe for White Bean Parsley and Onion Salad (with walnuts and pomegranate seeds) gives you both in one easy-to-make ahead salad.

Claudia Roden Born and raised in Egypt, Roden is the British counterpart to Wolfert, and her New Book of Middle Eastern Food gives you personal purchase on the lemon and garlic scented foods of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. Among the official Mediterranean Diet’s main prescriptions is to increase (greatly) the amount and variety of vegetables on your plate. Rodin is a great guide to lesser known vegetables, and also gives you full permission to be practical to use frozen artichokes in her incredible tagine of artichokes with preserved lemon and honey.  Not all veggies stand up well to freezing, but when they do, take advantage!

Yotam Ottolenghi I haven’t been able to hide my food-crush on the British-Israeli restaurateur because his cookbooks take the foods I love to cook and amplifies them: more lemon, more herbs, more textures, more color, more flavor! Jerusalem is both a cookbook and a wonderful study of the multicultural metropolis and the subcultures that swirl through it. One other aspect of the Mediterranean cuisine is the frequent use of sofrito, olive oil cooked onions and/or garlic then simmered with tomatoes. Try Ottolenghi’s tomato couscous for a simple, essential taste of just how good that can be.

If you want to marry the theory on the Mediterranean diet with the practice, pick up a copy of Nancy Harmon Jenkin’s Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. Married to a foreign journalist, Jenkins spent years living in Europe, observing the food culture up close, and while she writes with nutritional pragmatism, she also conveys the intense pleasures of the Mediterranean table.

And finally, don’t overlook the work of Diane Kochilas on Greek food; very frequent consumption of fish is one of the diet’s main components, and there’s no place like the crenellated shorelines of the Greek coast to develop seafood recipes. Her Glorious Foods of Greece is intensely regional, and it’s filled with seafood ideas, like  sardines, butterflied and grilled with olive oil and oregano, just like they do in Thessaloniki.

Like fancy olive oils and chocolates, (hint!) cookbooks are an indulgence that we might not purchase for ourselves–the very best kind of present. And so here are several recommendations for cookbooks that might make great
gifts for your loved ones in these last few days of Chanukah or when Christmas
rolls along.  Enjoy my recommendations, but remember that browsing is the best way to discover an unexpected new cookbook:  get over to your favorite bookstore (I recommend both Book Larder and Elliott Bay) and get lost among the baking books and the chef memoirs.

For the young apartment dweller:

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

By Deb Perelman

Deb Perelman’s blog is a terrific source for recipes and
prose—her cooking is rooted in the real world (tiny apartment kitchen, husband,
kid) but doesn’t compromise for the dreary or the obvious. And her headnotes
and essays are funny too, filled with odd unshakable cravings for pie or
fritters as they are. Her recipes are very approachable, but worldly recipes,
with a big emphasis on vegetables, though by no means health food-y. Look for
things like roasted cumin chickpeas with tahini sauce, devilled eggs with crisp
jamon and crushed marcona almonds, mussels served with a clever twice cooked
method for oven fries.

For the world traveler.

Naomi Duguid

Burma: Rivers of Flavor

Burma is by Naomi Duguid, co-author of  Hot Sour Salty Sweet, is one of the greatest
practitioners of National Geographic-style of cookbook writing—lots of
photos, ethnographic info worthy of a scholarly book, maps, and just a little
adventure thrown in. Burma is a little smaller than the coffee-table sized books
she wrote with her ex-partner Jeffrey Alford, Burma opens us up to a world of cuisine just as a country is becoming more open again. Burma’s food is fascinating because of all the
cultures, indigenous and neighboring (eg China, India, Laos, Thailand) that
intersect in the kite-shaped country. Duguid’s incredible location photography
and intermittent essays bring the experience of Burma to life. As with Jerusalem
from Ottolenghi—this year’s essential cookbook, here’s a new way for
cookbooks to explore a place—beautiful pictures and prose, but not such a precious
book that you need to keep it out of the kitchen.  Burma has a great introduction to easy to make
pantry basics like fried shallots, and red chile oil, roasted chickpea flour. Recipes
include succulent grapefruit salad with fried shallots, lemongrass chicken soup
with lime leaves; sweet-tart pork belly stew, with hibiscus; and amazing noodle
dishes.

For the conscientious carnivore

Bruce Aidells
The Great Meat Cookbook

I get a lot of people asking me about how to cook meat, and
for them, I’d recommend Bruce Aidells’ Great Meat Cookbook. You’ll get photos
of cuts, basics on doneness for different kinds of meats, information on more
sustainable meat options like grass-finished beef.  And of course Aidell, whom you might
recognize from your sausage package, has wonderful recipes, some for cheap cuts
like pork butt, and some for more expensive celebrations. There’s no one I’d
trust more for information on how to roast a standing rib roast this season.

For the tinkerer

The Art of Fermentation
Sandor Katz

About a decade ago Sandor Katz unleashed a new wave of
do-it-yourself culture with his book Wild Fermentation, which encouraged people
to make their own sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt and miso and tempeh. Now his more
scholarly Wild Fermentation has filled in the gaps—a true reference book for
those interested in cultivating the microflora our civilzations have grown up
around.  The book is less full of recipes
than methods, encouraging people to explore the craft of fermentation creatively
and fearlessly. This is a book for someone with a garage or a basement, who’s
ready to set some jars a’ bubbling in the dark.

To promote Seattle Pride

Tom Douglas
The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook

Whenever you’re a
little jealous of the climate in Florida or the cultural pulse of New York, it’s
always good to remember just how well we eat here in Seattle, in part because
of the chefs and bakers who have passed through Tom Douglas’ kitchens around
the city. The Dahlia bakery is a particular gem, and this year, the cookbook to
celebrate its carbo-licious output has arrived.

One of my all time favorite cookies is the double chocolate
truffle cookie at the Dahlia bakery, and this  bookh as the recipe for it. Of course, the book is also filled with really well illustrated recipes for hand pies, eclairs and of course that coconut cream pie. But the truth is, I’m lazy enough to have the Dahlia bakers make most of those things for me; I can’t wait however to make, then gobble up the cookies, cakes and pies.

Meanwhile back at home I was sure I had some cucumbers. But of course I didn’t. Those suckers were zucchini.

But there is nothing to do a gazpacho craving once it has settled in. I wanted gazpacho, and I had some good melon (kissing cousin to a cucumber, right?) and a little celery (for a little green snap); couldn’t they make for a refresshing combo?

The answer is yes.  Being bad
with grocery lists can sometimes lead you to interesting discoveries.

Desperado gazpacho

1 sweet onion, peeled and chunked

6 oz celery, trimmed and chunked

6 oz cantaloupe, peeled, seeded and chunked

2 cloves garlic

1 jalepeno

1 6” hunk baguette, chunked

6 ripe tomatoes (about 36 oz), cored and chunked

3-4 tablespoons sherry vinegar

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 to 2 cups water

3/4 tsp. salt, plus more to taste

Put all these ingredients in a bowl (use just 3 tbsp.
vinegar), except for the water.  Toss
them  and let them sit around together
for ½ hour while you do something else.

Puree the mix very smoothly in a blender—you’ll need to do
2-3 batches. Add ½ cup water or so to each batch.  . Adjust the texture with more water (or
olive oil!)  if you need to—I like my
gazpacho smoothie-thick .  Taste and
adjust the seasoning with more salt or vinegar if you like.

Keep gazpacho around
in a pitcher so you can keep cooling yourself off.  If you must garnish, a swirl of oil and a
celery leaf will do!

George’s Sausage and Delicatessen

Georges, the polish deli on First Hill, offers overstuffed sandwiches at a very reasonable rate: the $4 half sandwich holds more cold cuts than the average hero, and that’s before you add in the veritable salad of vegetable toppings the blue-smocked sandwich ladies at George’s provide you.  But I also love georges for its totally cluttered shelves, crammed with Polish jams cookies, mustards, horseradish, and sauerkraut. The deli case is filled with kielbasas, Polish beers, and smoked fish, and the promise of many good meals to come.  Unlike new restaurants that pride themselves on their minimal chic, Georges is a glorius jumble.

Teo

The new Vietnamese restaurant in White Center, with an eye for underexplored dishes: baby clams with jalepeno and peanuts, tamarind-tart Thai style seafood hotpot, and sizzling hot chicken wings with chili and fish sauce. Next time I go, I’m going for the rare goat and a big beautiful banh xeo (rice crepe) Well shoot, it turns out that Teo closed.  You can still go down the street for an excellent burger at Zippy’s though.

Kedai Makan
The amazingly vibrant Malaysian food stand at the Virginia Mason and Broadway Farmers markets. Farm-fresh veggies plus hot malaysian spices are a beautiful combo.
Sitka and Spruce
Matt Dillon’s Melrose Market restaurant is certainly not undiscovered, but i have an unabashed affection for it at lunch: the sun spills in those double-high windows, there’s rarely a crowd, and the food tastes both healthy and indulgent: things like homemade yogurt with dates and toasted grains, lovely lentil salads, mackerel on warm potatoes and a kiss of creme fraiche.

Dot’s Delicatessen

Dot’s is a new-school butcher shop, sausage maker, and luncheonette where you can get a fantastic house-made hot dog, or a crisp reuben or a delicious soup for lunch and then take home a lovely terrine or perfectly aged steak for dinner. The ham and egg sandwich (house cured ham, runny egg, just the right amount of squish to the bread) at almost made me cry.

Dinette

Always a favorite choice for dinner, in summertime, Dinette offers toasty-crusty sandwiches for lunch: A broccoli melt with broccoli pesto lots of melty cheese and a mound of homemade mixed veggie pickles was sooo good. Also look for banh mih style chicken sandwiches, and a melty-porky-pickley Cubano.