Mother and Son, Minding Peas and Cues by Monica Bhide
As a very young child, my son Jai had an unaccountable aversion to learning any language other than English. Yet, I was determined to teach him Hindi, my mother tongue, to ensure he did not miss out on a culture and heritage for lack of simple knowledge of its language. I would point to his clothes, toys and books and encourage him to respond with their Hindi names. Eventually, he spoke a few words — he could point to a chair and call it kursi and say the numbers from 1 to 10 in Hindi. But he did not know simple phrases such as "How are you?" or "My name is Jai." He could not have a conversation in Hindi. That all changed during a trip to India when Jai was four.

Waiterly Conduct by Jess Thomson Alinea: the Chicago restaurant declared America's "Best" by Gourmet Magazine. Four food writers. Four hours. Four gorgeous waiters.At Alinea, the entire waitstaff is beautiful, disturbingly sprightly, and impeccably well groomed. They are not waiters, they are model-waiters. And they know it. After we're seated, model-waiter #1 glides over with a wine list, but as we begin to ask normal restaurant questions, he makes it clear that we are not in for a normal restaurant experience. When we ask the price of the wine-pairing option, he says the price is equivalent to roughly three-quarters of the cost of our food, give or take.Give or take what?, we ask. He's silent.

Rational Cooking by Elizabeth Stewart
1975, when I was only 31, my mother suddenly died. Aside from some photographs and a few pieces of jewelry, she left very little that's tangible to remind me of her 57 years on earth. But the other day, scanning my shelves of cookbooks for a recipe, I noticed her copy of The Glasgow Cookery Book and took it down. "Xmas, 1946," reads the flyleaf, "Best Wishes from Betty and Mena" — Mum's cousins. The book, bound in faded purple cloth, was "Issued by the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science (Incorporated)." I think Betty may have been a student at "Dough School," as the place was known. Subjects taught, according to a preface, included "Cookery, Laundry Work, Housewifery, Dressmaking, Needlework, Millinery, Sick Nursing, Hygiene, Book-Keeping, Upholstery, Dietetics, and Electricity."

Reserve Some Frosting, Stir in Nuts for Glamour by Paulette Licitra
This year we said no presents. My mom and my sister. My aunt and my uncle. My cousins. It's not that we've been taking humbug lessons. All year we give each other "presents." When we see something someone in the family might like, we buy it and send it along. Now, for the holidays, we've imposed a ban. So I was a little surprised when the doorman handed me a package from my mom. It had all the suspicious markings of a gift. When I opened the box I was even more perplexed. It was my mother's oldest cookbook — the one I remember seeing as far back as the 1950s, as far back as our Brooklyn railroad apartment before we moved to Long Island when I was just seven. Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book. Why had she sent it to me?

Kitchen Existential by David Leite
I didn't think I had a problem, and I certainly didn't think I needed an intervention. To me, interventions were for the weak, the lost, the Oprah-obsessed. But if you scratched the surface, rooted deep enough, opened doors and pulled back tablecloths, it was true — I was powerless over my Pyrex, and my kitchen had indeed become unmanageable. If I was to make peace with my postage-stamp-size Manhattan kitchen, I had to turn my will and our Fiestaware over to the care of God as I understood Him. And in this case, God was dressed in a smart white-and-blue checked shirt, khakis, and a woven belt.

One-Armed Mirepoix and Other Culinary Misadventures by JJ Goode
Of all the bad things that could befall a baby, what happened to me was perhaps the best of the worst. I was born with only one arm. Well, sort of. Technically, I was born with radial aplasia, a condition that made my right arm about the size and shape of a plucked turkey wing. The arm is good only as a place to occasionally hang grilling tongs or shopping bags. Yet since I never had a right arm, I never missed having a right arm, and I grew up a happy kid who tied his shoes, played sports, and was exempt from rope-climbing during gym class. I never thought that my being short an arm would interfere with anything I wanted to do, let alone what I wanted to do for a living, unless I suddenly decided to try my luck as a boxer. So I was surprised that it complicated the job I finally took on, that of a food writer.

Bet the Pot: Paula Wolfert's Beef Daube is as Authentic as it
During the past 30 years, I've published more of these recipes than anyone I know," she laughs over the phone. Her voice is fervent, as if she were burbling about a new lover rather than the real source of her excitement: beef stew. The she in question is none other than Paula Wolfert, the queen of slow cooking and author of seven books, including 2004's highly lauded The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen and last year's revision of her classic The Cooking of Southwest France. This particular beef stew, and the topic of today's discourse, is daube. Every conversation with Wolfert, even small talk, is a discourse, for few writers possess her freakish command of the lexicon of food or her indefatigable curiosity about all things edible. In this case, beef.

A Drink for That Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Cai Palmer
It's perhaps the greatest of all French paradoxes: The wine drunk the world over to celebrate love — love in all its maddening, hypnotic, peripatetic, and everlasting forms, from first glance to, yes, even divorce — is produced in one of the bleakest, most punishing regions of the country. As if in an act of rebellion, champagne battled its origin of harsh winters, alternately wet and frost-filled springs to become a sensuous elixir, capable of turning the most moribund and lovelorn soul into a jovial chap. Even its name seems to burst into a thousand bubbles when spoken. This St. Valentine's Day, Here are a few slightly different, perhaps even unusual, suggestions to pair with all types of that crazy little thing called love.

Homely Cooking: Chef Suzanne Tracht Finds the Beauty in the Ugly Celery Root
It looks like something from the prop room of Star Trek. It could easily double for a whorled alien brain, a hairless Tribble, or an E.T. with one hell of an ugly mug. As if its low score in the looks department weren't enough, it goes by several aliases: celeriac, turnip-rooted celery, knob celery. I even saw it christened celery globes at my local supermarket. To confuse matters even more, it isn't the root of the popular stalk celery we all buy to add to a crudité platter, but rather the root of the less common variety, rapaceum. So it's no wonder that for nearly 200 years people have been reaching past celery root to chose other vegetables for dinner.

Trick or Truffles
In the elevator of my apartment building is a sign-up sheet for residents willing to welcome treat-or-treaters on Halloween. It isn't a long list, mostly the names of parents who are desperate for people to sign up so their kids will have someplace to go. And every October, I promise myself that this will be the year I'm one of those tenants everyone loves. I come up with schematics of how I'll transform my apartment's gallery into a chamber of horrors rivaled only by that creepy house in Silence of the Lambs — or at least NYC's DMV.

Mussel Bound: The Tender Bivalve is Tough Enough to Stand Up to Powerful Flavors
It's not my custom to contemplate mussels. In fact, I don't think about them at all, except when I see them on a menu, preferably steamed in a light white-wine broth. So on a recent trip to Nova Scotia I was surprised to find myself fascinated by the private lives of these ancient bivalves. It began when I boarded the "barge with no name," the crown jewel of the one-vessel Indian Point Marine Farms fleet, co-owned by Peter Darnell. "We tried to name her," Darnell said offhandedly, "but it didn't take." Wasn't it tempting fate to ride in an unchristened boat, I wondered. To be on the safe side, I silently baptized her Nova Lox, a tribute to my morning breakfast.

Cold Comfort: Survive Summer with Sophisticated Pistachio Gelato
Perhaps it's my European ancestry or my predilection for the color green. But unlike the average American, I prefer a cone piled high with nut-studded pistachio gelato rather than serviceable vanilla ice cream. Not that I harbor any grudges against vanilla ice cream, mind you; in its most luscious form — French with tiny specks of seeds — it's quite enjoyable. For the most part, I find it best as a medium for mix-ins such as Oreos, Heath Bars, and M&Ms. The invention of Italian gelato predates the 1744 debut of American ice cream by fewer than 100 years, but culinary myths about its origin have swirled for centuries.

The Non-Expert at The Morning News: Crocking The Party
Write in about what your chances are of a chunk of the Shuttle hurtling down on your head or where to find anyone's G-spot, and I'm your clueless non-expert. But dinner parties are my milieu, and because our reader Tim O. was at a loss by The Morning News's most recent culinary Non-Expert column, my well-intentioned editors over there called upon me, their resident food geek, to help. So let's start, shall we?

Mr. Ugli Fruit or: How I Stopped Being Nice and Learned to Hate Fairway
Yes, "hate" is a strong word, and I don't throw it around often, except when referring to New York's transit system or That '70s Show. My mother, a devout born-again Christian, has always told me the only thing worthy of hate is the work of the Devil. Well, considering that he tempted Eve with one hell of an apple, and that Fairway, Manhattan's self-christened food market "like no other," offers shoppers some of the most seductive produce around, I feel my ire is ecclesiastically sanctioned. Fairway didn't always raise my hackles, though. When I first moved to the Upper West Side in 1993 from Brooklyn's then-gastronomically barren Cobble Hill, I was awestruck by the mountains of fresh fruits that lined its storefront.

Confessions of a Hired Belly
Nothing elicits mock pity at cocktail parties faster than when I complain, "Food writing is a really hard job." Until the head-on assault of the Food Network a decade ago, food writing made even soft journalism, such as fashion and gardening, look butch. But average Americans now know their chefs and writers like they know the members of their favorite rock bands or sports teams. The best dish at the dinner table these days is usually the fight that breaks out over the latest restaurant review. Nonetheless, despite the boost up the food chain, so to speak, I still maintain being a "hired belly," should come with hazard pay.

Pie in the Sky: Easy Apple Tarts Take a Bite out of a Bountiful Harvest
When I was a kid I imagined myself a member of the landed gentry. I would look out my window with great satisfaction as I watched that kind old man tending to my vast apple orchard. And every autumn in a show of respect that appropriately bordered on the obsequious, he would deposit on my doorstep bushel after bushel of my bounty. And being the personification of noblesse oblige, I would nod my head and allow him to take one bushel for himself, his wife, and 28 smudge-faced children. In reality, though, the orchard had fewer than a dozen trees, and the wizened old man was my then-38-year-old father.

40 Watts Later
I'm betraying my gender by saying it, but I've done worse: I believe there's some truth to the notion that emotionally small men buy big things. I wouldn't be surprised if the founders of Costco and Price Chopper, emporiums of everything super-size, were men with wobbly senses of masculinity. And I find these blatant shows of manly compensation to be amusing. I roll my eyes and snicker into my sleeve whenever I watch some guy in a Hummer, blasting 50 Cent and leering at a phalanx of leggy blondes crossing the street with that stupid "How-you-doin'" look on his face. Invariably, I have to choke back the impulse to shout, "Yo, buddy, sorry about your tweeter."

Vegetable Voodoo: What Suzanne Goin Does with Cipollini Onions is Magic
Call Suzanne Goin, executive chef of Lucques, the vegetable whisperer. She claims to walk through farmers' markets, past rows of endive and bins of artichokes, divining information, which, like the sibilant whispers of nattering spirits, is beyond the ears of us mere mortals. Each vegetable, she explains, speaks to her, telling her what it wants her to do with it. It'd be tempting to dismiss Goin as just another chef with an appetite for hallucinogenic mushrooms, if it weren't for the sublime and utterly original things she coaxes out of such chatty produce.

The Goose of Christmas Past
I've been a haunted man for 13 years, and I put the blame squarely on Tiny Tim's crooked little shoulders. It was December 1990, and I had just finished rereading A Christmas Carol. Inspired by Tiny's exultant prayer, "God bless us every one," I decided that I, too, would have a proper Christmas dinner. The next day I marched into my local butcher shop in Brooklyn and ordered a goose. Luigi, a short, rotund man who had to stand on a milk crate to talk to his customers, leaned over the meat case and cocked an eyebrow: "Have you ever made a goose before?"

Versatile Veggie: Swiss Chard is Prized for its Earthy Flavor
Swiss chard is a vegetable without roots, metaphorically speaking. Experts from bioscientists to cookbook writers have found little or no evidence of a Swiss connection for the leafy green. Even the highly respected food writer Elizabeth Schneider, author of Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini (Morrow, 2001), begins her chapter on the stalky green with, "As of this sentence, I will no longer add 'Swiss' to chard." But a muddled pedigree is just part of the confusion. According to Schneider, chard comes from the Latin and French words for thistle, which is a misnomer. So then, if chard is neither Swiss nor a thistle, what exactly is it?

Sweet Remembrance: A Remarkable Dacquoise at Windows on the World
When the horrific memories of the World Trade Center attacks sometimes threaten to crowd out everything else, I call up a different, comforting memory shared by perhaps only several hundred people in the world: sunrise from the north tower's 107th floor. In the mid-'80s, I was a waiter at the Hors d'Oeuvrerie, the lounge and international café of Windows on the World, where women and men from around the globe came for perhaps a bit of then-unheard-of sashimi, after-dinner dessert and dancing, or the glittering, quarter-of-a-mile-high views of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The Lazy Man's Brunch: Deep-Dish French Toast Lets the Cook Sleep Late
Although Sansabelt pants, Clapper light switches, and robovacs are looked upon with great fondness by the motivationally challenged (read: lazy) among us, the ne plus ultra for the lounging class is Sunday brunch. You can eat it in bed or at the breakfast table — in flannel, either pink polka-dotted or gray — and any time between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Even the term brunch is the result of quintessential laziness. Instead of racking our brains for a unique name, we simply made an amalgam by scrunching together breakfast and lunch into one poetic term.

Spring in the Spoon: Fresh Pea Soup Helps End the Winter Doldrums
Each spring, the unassuming pea takes on heroic proportions. Come late April, chefs and home cooks who are weary of improvising with squashes and root vegetables rush the stalls at farmers markets to stock up on the bright-green harbinger of the new season. And armed with bag loads of fresh peas, these cooks churn out terrines, flans, risottos, and soups. The savvy cook should look for three thing when buying fresh peas: appearance, feel, and taste. The color should be bright green, and the skin should be supple. But it all comes down to taste. And you can't judge that without slitting open a pod and popping a few peas in your mouth.

Coal Miner's Fodder: Spaghetti Alla Carbonara May Have Humble Origins,
But It's a Rich Dish Now
My introduction to spaghetti alla carbonara was nothing less than ignoble. In the early '90s, I encountered the recipe in a low-fat, low-cholesterol cookbook I had borrowed from my friend Diane, a stick-thin Stairmaster mistress. Diane, who has an impeccable palate, nonetheless wanted slim-down versions of her favorite dishes during the week so that she could splurge on the real thing during weekends. The recipe was a concoction of egg substitute, artificial bacon bits and low-fat grated cheese. After a few bites, I decided to steer clear of the dish — and the book.

The Pan Snob
It has recently come to my attention that I am a notorious, card-carrying bigot. My prejudice was so deeply rooted — and deeply hidden — that I thought I was a pretty accepting, politically correct kind of guy until those seven little words brayed from the speaker phone: "Can you make me a Bundt cake?" It's not that I was weaned on haute pots. In fact, quite the opposite. My first pots were a 24-piece set that had me buzzing with excitement in the store until I opened the box at home and realized that every cover, strainer insert, and cheap plastic slotted spoon counted toward the Herculean number.

Some Like It Pink: Who Knew That L.A. Has Its Own Version of the Classic Sno Ball
Hostess Sno Balls always remind me of Cheryl Swanson, our high school pep-squad leader who was fond of tight, hot-pink Angora sweaters. It was the late '70s and the retro '50s look was in, so all of us were desperate to resemble someone from Happy Days. I think she was going for one of Richie's perky, pearl-draped girlfriends. And although these coconut-covered Sno Balls never reached the apotheosis of Proust's ridiculously over-referenced, and undoubtedly overrated, madeleines, they've been a favorite since the Truman era. Sno Balls were invented in 1947. Accustomed to rationing flour and sugar during World World War II, Americans were now devouring manufactured sweets, and the Sno Ball was an instant hit.

Devil With a Red Apron On
Enter my mother's kitchen, a domain she has ruled with benign autocracy for more than 45 years, and all physical laws and culinary edicts cease to exist. It's like finding yourself in the loony world of a Warner Brothers cartoon where pain is comical, gravity acts as if it never heard of Sir Isaac Newton, and time and space are elastic. For example, when making garnish for a dish, my mother will grab a gargantuan bunch of parsley and buzz through it in seconds, leaving a thimble-size pile of green flecks. She is a human Ginsu knife.

Pilgrim's Progress: Whether Fresh or Canned, Pumpkin Takes the Cake
It's not your normal type of dread, like the kind that takes up residence in your stomach every time you pay bills or when your boss unexpectedly arrives at your weekend place with Vuitton bags in hand. No, this dread is more primal. It occurs every November when I know I'll once again be facing a fixture of the Thanksgiving table: pumpkin pie. Now, I'm all for tradition. But come on, people! It's been 382 years since the Pilgrims sat down and made history. Shouldn't we have a little more to show for it in the dessert department? Refusing to be a gastronomic automaton and mindlessly bake yet another pumpkin pie, I instead went searching for a new American classic.

What's Mine is Mine (And I Used to Be So Generous)
I am, if I may say so myself, an exemplary host. I cook for twelve when six are invited. I foist seconds on guests, regardless of who's counting Weight Watcher points. And I wrap leftovers, sometimes shaping the foil into whimsical ducks or butterflies, and hand out the bulging parcels as everyone files out the back door. But my generosity came to a lurching halt after I returned from a weeklong cooking class in France. In fact, in the last few months I have become selfish, withholding, and generally parsimonious when it comes to dinnertime. It all began when I read the culinary memoir On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis.

The Comeback Kid: Classic Crêpes Are Back in Vogue
The crêpe, which is about 800 years old, has made more comebacks than Cher and Tina Turner combined. All you have to do is look to the past three decades for recent proof. In the 1960s crêpes catapulted to renewed fame, all thanks to Auntie Julia, who literally ignited our passion for the lacy, thin pancakes when she flambéed crêpes suzette on her show "The French Chef." And afterwards in millions of dining rooms across the country, lights were dimmed as pans of leaping flames were ceremonially paraded out of kitchens. And so what if ceilings were occasionally singed, and fingers sometimes burned? That was part of the fun.

Iberian Idyll: Portugal's Smoky Chouriço Sausage is Ready for Its Close-up
My sausage is suffering from an identity crisis, and it irks me. Mention chorizo, and what springs to mind are pungent Mexican links filled with ground meat that's redolent of garlic and chile powder. But mention chouriço (pronounced sho-ree-zoo), the musky smoked sausage of Portugal, and "Isn't that just another kind of Spanish chorizo?" usually follows. Well, I'm tired of this culinary confusion, and I'm not going to take it anymore. I was weaned on chouriço (sometimes called linguiça), as every good Portuguese child should be. The sausage held sway at every meal.

A Man and His Stove
It got to the point where I couldn't walk into a bar anymore. You know the kind, the true bastions of testosterone, the ones so thick with blue smoke that the neon beer signs look like UFOs hovering in a patch of midnight fog. It wasn't for moral or religious reasons, lack of money, or even an alcohol problem that prompted me to slink out, emasculated, never to return. It was because I was a phony. While other guys swapped J.Lo fantasies or nearly came to blows defending their classic El Caminos, all I could think about was a commercial-style Viking stove in white enamel.

To Sink or Swim in a Glass of Grenache
You would think with having a father who has been making award-winning backyard wine all of my life, I'd be natural at all things viticultural. Not so. I froze at the site of a wine list and choked when asked for wine suggestions. It took an intimidating wine tasting at Daniel, a temple of dining in New York City, for me to finally face my oenophobia.

Salad Dressing: A Coming of Age Story by Jennie Green
"How awful it feels to reject my own mother's vinaigrette," Jennie Green posits. "It's a slap in the face, really, the ultimate rebellion, because salad dressing is a thing that transcends cooking. Like a fingerprint, a favorite perfume, a preferred hat, or a beloved poem, a signature salad dressing can function as an extension of basic identity." In this hilarious and insightful essay, Green explores her relationship with her mother, her young daughter, and herself, while she questions the nature of independence and blue cheese.

Review: Salt: A World History
Mark Kurlansky offers a well-considered argument positioning salt as one of the most important influences of ancient and modern civilizations. According to Kurlansky, economics, religion, politics, foreign affairs, sex, and nearly every other social and cultural interaction has been shaped, to some degree, by sodium chloride. It's a fascinating read worth its salt.

Portuguese Encounters of Two Different Kinds
Quick, name a good Portuguese cookbook. It's not easy, is it? Well, here are two additions that make that task a lot easier: Cuisines of Portuguese Encounters by
Cherie Hamilton and Portuguese Homestyle Cooking by Ana Patuleia Ortins. Recipes include Pastel com o Diablo Dentro (Pastry with the Devil Inside) from Cape Verde, Picadinho (Brazilian Hash), Malassadas (Fried Doughnuts) from the Azores, Sopa de Funcho (Fennel Soup), Rissóis de Camarão (Shrimp Turnovers), and Salada de Grão de Bico com Bacalhau (Chickpea Salad with Salt Cod).

Chowder Season
Autumn may wave goodbye to summer Fridays and hello to yards covered with ungodly amounts of leaves to rake, but to gastronomes everywhere, it means only one thing: chowder season. Being Portuguese and from New England, I have a penchant for clam chowder, a.k.a. quahog chowder. The Portuguese part of me adores seafood, and the Yankee side loves all things rich, creamy and comforting. But the allure of chowder doesn't end with clams. Rounding out the offerings are farmhouse versions brimming with corn, chicken or veal; fish chowders created with the morning's catch; and shellfish concoctions from conch to crab.

Abstinence Makes the Taste Buds Grow Fonder
I have butterfat flowing through my veins, and I have the documents to prove it. The day before my 40th birthday the universe decided to torment me with a little game of Mess With Your Head. I was happily gathering information for this month's column about ice cream, perhaps God's greatest gift to mankind after elastic waistbands and Entertainment Weekly. While dipping away in batches of homemade heaven (research, of course), the phone rang. "David, it's Dr. Rysz," said the voice.I had had some routine blood work done and my doctor was calling with the results.

Wales, Welsh Cakes and a Woman Named Sheila
I admit I have what some friends consider a rather unfortunate handicap for a food writer. Whenever I travel I latch upon a particular dish (shrimp risotto in Italy, cassoulet and pain au chocolat in France, paella in Spain, fried clams anywhere ) and become practically fixated on finding the ultimate example of it and ferreting out how it's prepared. This irks my traveling companions senseless: Most of them are of the eat-anything-and-everything variety. While they're rapturously and, depending on how much wine we've imbibed, noisily debating the merits of the hand-scrawled menu of the day, I take a quick peek, spot something that appeals and order. Groans and shouts of "Not again!" usually follow.

Fat, Fat Everywhere, But Not a Drop of Lard
I am a haunted man. I don't mean haunted in a supernatural sense (although there was that house I rented in Rochester, New York, with an attic that burped strange noises). No, I am a man haunted by culinary specters — ghosts of meals past that linger longer, and more pleasantly, than the memories of most romances. My recent visitation was by a sour cherry pie I had eaten on Martha's Vineyard. Not the pie, exactly, but the crust: tender, flaky and made with — gasp — lard.

It's a Guy Thing
There was a time when I didn't read instructions. (Blame it on the same gene that prohibits men from asking for directions or picking up dirty clothes.) It finally took an armful of cookbooks and my Easy Bake Oven-size oven to bring me to my knees. Consider the first time I made chocolate mousse. Step one: "Separate the eggs." Silly, I thought, but I dutifully divvied them up into two groups on the counter and went about my business. It wasn't until I indignantly flipped back to the lengthy explanation that it was clear I was meant to separate the yolks from the whites.