Ducked into Florio, that cute little French bistro on Fillmore in San Francisco the other night. The plan was to enjoy a quick glass of wine at the bar with a friend before heading off to book club. Despite the charming French ambiance, we both ordered California wines. Such rebels. I picked the 2001 Franus Zinfandel Planchon Vineyard Contra Costa County. Lynn went with the 2003 Sonoma Cutrer Russian River Branches Chardonnay. But tout de suite, I had to have pommes frites, too. Which we did. Which made us two happy gals.

– Jodie Chase

Since every day is Hot Tamale day in my sweet little world, I was quite pleased when a bag of new, improved _ extra-hot _ Hot Tamales arrived in the mail. How they knew I was a cinnamon addict, I don’t know. But I do not exaggerate when I claim to be fully qualified to taste-test said product. I cleansed my palate with a slosh of water and put myself to the task. I chewed Tamale #1, the perfect original candy I have enjoyed in bulk on numerous occasions. Next, I tried Tamale #2, the Emerilified-version, kicked-up a hot-notch. The results: The new candy is slightly hotter, but it’s also noticeably less sweet, and therefore, less satisfying overall. I need to add that I personally appreciate the company’s efforts, since I’m hooked on cinnamon candies of all kinds. Given a choice, I’ll pick cinnamon bears, Red Hots, even generic hard candies over any other flavor of non-chocolate candy. I even got three giant boxes for Mother’s Day. Lovely gift. Gone, but not forgotten. I’m hoping the Hot Tamale wizards will keep working on their super-hot recipe _ and keep sending me large samples of their efforts. An extra-hot Hot Tamale sure beats no Hot Tamales, which is my sad reality today.
– Jolene Thym

In the food department, we see a lot of desperate attempts made by food companies trying to stand out from the crowd. For example, one company decided to hawk its guac by sending us a giant plastic avocado. It was bigger than my 2-year-old, but definitely not as much fun. It just sat there. And still is, in fact, on top of a file bin. I should probably dust it.

Anyway, our e-mail inboxes are constantly, and I mean constantly, barraged with press releases about “National Sauerkraut Day,” “National Horseradish Day” and “National Corned Beef Sandwich on Rye Hold the Pickle Day.” They’re not real. They’re just a marketing ploy to get writers and editors to think, “Hey, I guess we better cover that important national event and call this sauerkraut company to get some quotes.” Nobody buys it. (OK, I’ll admit it, when I was young, naive and just a few weeks into this job, I got a little panicked when I realized we hadn’t covered “National Bagel Day.”)

I soon found out anyone can create one of these “holidays.” I’m thinking of creating “National Eat Chocolate for Breakfast Day” so that I can alert people to the deliciously stimulating effects chocolate has on the palate, mind and soul when eaten first thing in the morning. I probably won’t mention the effect it has on my thighs.

Other e-mails we receive forgo the faux holiday for the ever-serious “survey” facts. These are surveys the companies either commission or conduct — likely by having employees call up friends and family. And these surveys are PACKED with VITAL information. For example, Dairy Queen just issued one saying 9 out of 10 American adults like pie. Holy Toledo! Who knew? And half of those adults like it with a scoop of ice cream. Well, I’ll be darned.

Apparently, this important information is supposed to convince me that the food section needs to do a story about DQ’s new Dream Pie Blizzards milkshakes. After all, it’s pie a la mode in a disposable cup!

But wait, I say. A milkshake is not pie. It’s not even pie a la mode. Even if you put chocolate and pieces of “pie crust” in it and call it French Silk, it’s still not pie. Pie is not liquid dammit! (Well, maybe it is when I screw up the filling in a banana cream pie, but even then it’s not something you can consume with a straw.)

Did the survey ask WHY people like pie? No. You know why? Because they’d say: “Because it’s a solid piece of food I can sink my fork into.” Or something to that effect.

Basically, it’s a bogus survey that’s only remotely related to the product it’s trying to pitch, which really burns me up. Why waste my time and clog my inbox with such drivel? A much better use of their money, and a much more effective way to get my attention, would be to send me some of those Blizzards. I’ll drink ‘em. They sounded kind of good. Who knows, if I like them enough, I might be inspired to name a holiday after them.

_ Danielle Centoni

All I wanted was a Cooking Light recipe for Yellow Squash Gratin. And $13.95 later I had it.

I had bought 3 lbs. of yellow squash only to find out that the magazine page I had saved from a year ago contained only half of the recipe. Lord knows what happened to the rest of it, and I am not the kind of cook who can wing it with 3 lbs of squash.

I don’t even really eat squash. Buying it was part of a recent ambitious plan to get my family to eat vegetables by disguising them in delicious tasting casseroles. Of course, so far I was the only one eating more veggies, but I could only hope.

And I was not about to let the stuff rot in the fridge drawer.

So I decided to, after much resistance, enter the online world of recipe hunting.

I arrived at the trusty Cooking Light Web site, typed in what I was searching for and was wholeheartedly rejected: “You must be an online subscriber to access this site,” it said, or something like that.

So I coughed up the dough for the subscription, feeling especially smug that I had saved $5 by putting it on my ATM card.

I got my recipe and made the dish that night, a huge 8 1/2-by-11 pan of baked squash, rice, garlic and onion, Gruyere, seasoned with fresh parsley and thyme and topped with bread crumbs. It was quite a bit of work, actually, for a vegetable, and didn’t taste that great in the end.

At least I got a magazine subscription!

_ Kari Hulac

I was invited to meet the chef at Plump Jack in San Francisco this week. OK, so maybe I wasn’t the only one. Who cares, it was fun. We sipped wine and nibbled on scrumptious appetizers like Wild Mushroom Filo Tarts and Smoked Salmon Crostini. I did have a nice chat with Jeff Smock, the young and quite accomplished Chef de Cuisine. Turns out he’s worked at two of my favorite restaurants in New York — Union Square Cafe and Blue Smoke. All the time we’re talking, I’m holding onto a tempting little Ahi Tartare Cone. I’m dying to devour it, but am totally enjoying our conversation. I know I can’t eat it gracefully. What to do? Why couldn’t they pass me one of the mini Dungeness Crab Cakes instead?

– Jodie Chase

I think it’s about time someone trussed that Gordon Ramsay up tight and roasted him over a hot fire, poking him now and then just to make sure he’s suffering enough.
That guy’s getting on my nerves. He’s mean. He’s like a chicken, pecking at people mercilessly, with no concern for them whatsoever.
I started watching “Hell’s Kitchen” out of curiosity. I have Ramsay’s book on my desk. I don’t get the Food Network, so I watched. From the start, it’s been ugly. I don’t know if it’s Ramsay himself or the persona he’s trying to portray in order to boost ratings, but he’s brutal — downright scary.
Being a line-cook is tough, challenging work. I get that. But no matter how tough a job might be, it’s never OK to be disrespectful, unkind and rude to others, ripping at their self-esteem. Ramsay’s behavior is way out of line.
I understand that “Hell’s Kitchen” is reality TV, Rocco DiSpirito-style crash and burn action that is designed to keep people watching.
But I just want to say that it’s not even in the same league as Jamie Oliver’s hugely successful series based on the chefs he trained for his London restaurant Fifteen. Oliver handpicked and trained the kids, then mentored them until he felt they were ready to go to the next level, taking on a dining room full of hungry patrons. We saw him frustrated and mad and discouraged with the kids when they didn’t meet his expectations. He wanted them to be better, to listen, to learn and to follow his orders. He challenged them. He cared about them. His show was about building people up. Ramsay’s show is about tearing people apart. I don’t really care that one person will get a restaurant out of it, if a dozen people are sacked along the way.
–Jolene Thym

Restaurants come and go, they’re hot and all of a sudden they’re not…but some are just consistently great. Like Betelnut on Union Street in San Francisco. When we were there the other night, the bar was packed, the drinks and the people were pretty, and the food as good as ever. I love that Cecilia’s Minced Chicken & Lup Cheong with Lettuce Cups, even if I don’t really know what Lup Cheong is. The Satay-o-Chicken with Malaysian Peanut Sauce was also so good, and and yes, we know, that’s two chicken dishes. We also ordered the Little Dragon Dumplings of Pork & Shrimp with Ginger, (thank you for the free facial) and the Emerald Fire Noodles with Mint, Thai Basil & Chilies. Should’ve paid attention to the “fire” part of the noodles, which I always forget are way too hot. The best part of the meal was what we didn’t order: After they saw us eyeing one of their dishes, the nice people at the next table snuck us a little plate of their Pao-Wok Five Spice Wild Boar with Galanga, Fennel & Garlic Greens. You don’t get that with take-out.
– Jodie Chase

Winners of the 2005 San Francisco Bay Wine Competition were announced last week. The competition was was held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton and was open to wineries in all Bay Area counties, including Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Solano, Marin, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Benito.

Of the 253 wines from 47 wineries, Livermore’s Concannon Vineyards won Best in Show in the white wine category for its 2003 Central Coast Chardonnay, Selected Vineyard. That wine also won a gold medal. But the $12 pricetag is what has won me over. That’s a pretty good deal for such a highly regarded wine. And since my white wine consumption rises along with summertime temperatures, I’ll definitely be scouring wine store shelves for that one.

– Danielle Centoni

Before I even started making the pastry cream recipe I found in “The Dessert Bible,” I read it over carefully to make sure I had the energy (and the ingredients) to make it.

It told me to stir the pastry cream gently. Fine, fine, fine. I’ve made plenty of pudding in my life. I think I know how to keep a pan of pudding from burning on the bottom.

Since I apparently know it all, I start the recipe, using a whisk. For me, a whisk is a one-speed tool that whips everything it touches. I don’t even think about the speed the whisk moves. It’s on auto-pilot.

After mixing yolks, flour and sugar, I whip in some half and half _ as per the recipe _ then whip in the rest. I continue to whip the mixture as it cooks and thickens. The pastry cream looks about right to me, so I pull it off the stove. I take a spoonful to see how it tastes. It’s awful, a gluey mess. I stare into the pan and it hits me what has gone wrong. By ignoring the instruction of stirring gently, I have activated the gluten in my flour. If this mixture was destined to become a loaf of bread, that would be a good thing. But as pastry cream, it’s a failure.

We ate it anyway, but next time I plan to use a spoon to make pastry cream. And maybe I’ll turn the heat down and stir gently instead of trying to speed up the process with so much heat that I need to stir like I’m stuck on high-speed.

– Jolene Thym

Random acts of baking are my specialty. Sure, plenty of my baking is to order. There’s a birthday, a celebration, a party of some sort where there is a request for something sweet to serve. But quite frankly, I like to bake more. And I like to eat more baked goods. I love the aroma of banana bread that greets family members at the front door, the squeal of delight when children open the fridge to discover a bowl of cookie dough, and the sense of adventure we share when we are bored and someone says “Let’s make a cake!” Not everyone, I learned, considers such behavior normal. Last week, while we were on vacation in Hawaii, thinking about packing our bags to leave the next day, I looked around at all of the food we hoped to eat and didn’t. There was lettuce and milk, mustard and cheese. But there was also butter, sugar and eggs — and a little market across the street. I grabbed some flour at the market, mixed everything up together until it looked and tasted just right _ then baked up the biggest batch of chocolate chip cookie bars I have ever made. They were perfect. My own family was thrilled. But my sisters and their children simply stared in wonder. Their comments: “You’re on vacation!” “You are a freak of nature!” Perhaps. Or maybe to each her own.
— Jolene Thym