Zucchini Chips Recipe

Zucchini is a favorite of gardeners because it's so impressive. It grows quickly and sometimes to staggering sizes. It's not my favorite for cooking with, because it's fairly bland and watery. I do appreciate that it adds great moisture to cakes and muffins as well as soups. I just find it doesn't add much in terms of flavor. But I have recently discovered my new favorite way to enjoy zucchini! Yes, enjoy it! Because what's more enjoyable that potato chips? This recipe is the zucchini equivalent of potato chips. Ok they aren't as hearty as potato chips and I wouldn't use them for dipping, but they are very crisp and tasty. Thin slices of zucchini slowly cook, dehydrate and then crisp up in the oven. The results are very crisp thin chips, that have a mild flavor, similar to toasted pumpkin seeds. That makes sense, since both are squash. You may be surprised at how much the zucchini shrinks in the oven. The slices in the photo were next to each other when ......

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All about Sea Urchins

Recently I had sea urchin served on a bed of softly scrambled eggs with brioche toast at MKT (a new restaurant in the Four Seasons in San Francisco). It was probably the sweetest tasting sea urchin I had ever eaten. The waiter told me it came from the North Coast, near Mendocino (I've also had sea urchin from Hokkaido, Santa Barbara and in Morocco). Sea urchin is a delicacy that you might know from sushi bars where it's called uni. But it's also used in other cuisines. In Italian it's called ricci di mare, in Spanish it's erizo de mar. The color of the edible part is usually a murky orange, although sometimes it's dark yellow or almost red. The edible part of the sea urchin is not the roe, although that's typically how it's described. The five large lobes are gonads. They can be eaten raw or cooked, but the texture is best raw. Pureed, they make a luscious sauce that does not need to be cooked. Sea urchin gonads look like little tongues and their t......

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Rabarcello: Drinks on Friday

Recently on Facebook I asked for recommendations for favorite rhubarb dishes. I was surprised at how many people despise it. As previously mentioned, in my rhubarb compote recipe post , I love it. And I wrote a rhubarb post for 7x7 on some great places around town with innovative rhubarb creations.  While 7x7 is a local publication, my post caught the attention of these  rather handsome fellows in Amsterdam who make Mister Kitchen's Rabarcello , a Dutch spirit that is not yet available in the US. And they offered to send me a bottle. So I might be the only person in all of America to have some Dutch rhubarb liqueur! If not, please don't ruin the dream. It's only available in Holland, Belgium and the UK for now. It was created by food writers and product developers, and inspired by pink rhubarb lemonade (which also sounds lovely). Checking out their website I found out about a restaurant promotion called Rhubarb Week that featured rhubarb drinks and dishes. Heave......

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Peach Avocado Lobster Cocktail Recipe

I confess, I only cooked live lobsters once, and I kind of freaked out. I made Lee come and put the lobsters in the pot. That was several years ago, so when the nice folks at  LobsterAnywhere  offered to send me some fresh lobsters, I figured now was as good a time as any to overcome my phobia. LobsterAnywhere has been a wholesale purveyor since 1999, and their prices are a bit less than some of their competitors. They pride themselves on providing top quality hard shell lobsters  from Maine and indeed, mine were very large and very lively when they arrived! They sent the lobsters with a booklet of very useful information, especially on the timing for boiling or steaming them. I went with steaming. But I didn't just drop the lobsters head first into the pot. I followed the instructions on the Fine Cooking video for How to Kill a Lobster . Many articles and experts say it's more humane to kill the lobsters first and them steam them. So I chilled them down for a few m......

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