My favorite afternoon snack as a child in San Diego was a still-steaming flour tortilla purchased at the taqueria down the street from my school, and I've yearned for them ever since I moved away.
Like all Iranian kids, I grew up feeling strongly that the best part of dinner was tahdig, the crisp, golden crust that forms at the bottom of every pot of Persian rice - and sometimes other dishes, too.
I could probably go on for a long time about the differences between Northern California and Southern California Mexican food.
I love bitter broccoli rabe tossed with Calabrian chiles and hidden under a mountain of snowy shaved Parmesan.
After coating pasta with tomato-rich meat sauce, my mom would drizzle the bottom of a nonstick pot with oil and put it all back in to form a dark crust of tangled noodles. Once she unmolded it at the table like a cake, my brothers and I would excitedly cut into it, verbally laying claim to our preferred pieces.
I always turn to Wendell Berry for inspiration on food, community, agriculture, and, well, just being a human.
As a student of Alice Waters, the patron saint of salad, I'm no stranger to the art of lettuce washing.
The classic French blanch-and-cool technique I learned at Chez Panisse yields the kind of brilliant, picturesque vegetables we all want to see on restaurant plates. Long-cooked foods, on the other hand, fall firmly into the 'ugly but good' camp of the Tuscan cucina povera, where flavor far outshines looks.
I really love the beach.
It's easy to discount water's importance in the kitchen. After all, it has no flavor, and more often than not, it's left off ingredient lists, making it seem like an afterthought. Yet water is an essential element of almost everything we cook and eat, and it affects the flavor and texture of all our food.
Growing up, I thought salt belonged in a shaker at the table and nowhere else.
What any immigrant is after is a taste of home.
Unlike leftover pasta, leftover risotto is viewed by Italians as a gift. Cooks shape it into balls or stuff it with a pinch of stewed meat or cheese. Then they bread and deep-fry the fritters until golden brown, yielding arancini, the indulgent 'little oranges' I can never resist.
There are so many food shows, really beautiful ones, that exist to elevate professional cooking and professional chefs. But there aren't that many that really celebrate home cooking or are for home cooks especially.
Growing up, I was aware of the kids-don't-like-vegetables trope, but it didn't make much sense to me. I never had any choice; all the traditional Iranian dishes my mom cooked teemed with herbs and vegetables.
Jessica Battilana has been my kindred cooking spirit for more than 10 years. Our careers as cooks and writers have taken us through the same Bay Area restaurants, bakeries, magazines, and newspapers.
In the wake of a failed relationship, I'm often flooded with if-onlys.
I'm not the number-one fan of the heavy holiday meal. And also, I didn't grow up eating them, the traditional Western holiday meals, so it's just not something I have a nostalgic relationship to.
My inability to follow recipes as written - without obeying the devil on my shoulder telling me to replace ingredients or change the temperature - is well documented.
A burger is a black dress; a kebab is a Met Gala gown.
