Tamar Adler on BEANS

image source

Every January, I think of this article about Tamar's beautiful book, An Everlasting Meal. Tara Parker Pope was right--there's no better way to start the year than to commit to cooking more, and better, at home.  And for that, there is no better muse than Tamar.

When I asked Tamar recently if she had anything new to say about beans, she responded, "Re-reading what I wrote about beans a few years ago I don't have much to add but a bold underline and affirmation that I still do everything I did then, and still feel grateful I know how to. I continue, too, to collect bean anecdote and trivia, feeling every time I do like I am collecting information about my roots, though they are not Tuscan or anthropological or agricultural, but human, and as far as I can tell, humans are meant to eat beans."

Here's an excerpt, from the chapter entitled, "How to Live Well:"

Tuscans, though, make the best beans.  They are known in Italy as mangiafagioli, or "bean eaters."  Tuscans believe that frugality is next to godliness and give the humblest ingredients their finest treatment.  Tuscan cooks are extravagant with good olive oil, pressed from dark trees, and with vegetable scraps and Parmesan rinds, which, along with salt and more of that fine oil, make transcendent pots of beans.

Those odds and ends are as crucial to pots of beans as fresh water.  Your pot will benefit from a piece of carrot, whatever is left of a stalk of celery, half an onion or its skin, a clove of garlic, fibrous leek tops.  If you must decide what to save for your chicken pot and what for stock and what for beans, save your fennel scraps with pots of beans in mind.  I make notes to myself after meals, and there are enough torn pieces of paper attesting that "The best bean broth has fennel in it!" for it to have become axiomatic.

Your pot also wants parsley stems, whole sprigs of thyme, and a bay leaf.  It can all be tied into a neat bundle in cheesecloth or with kitchen twine, or it can be left bobbing around, as everything in my bean pot always is.

Beans need salt.  There is a myth that adding salt to beans keeps them crunchy and unlovable.  Not cooking beans for long enough keeps them crunchy, and undersalting them is a leading culprit in their being unlovable.  They also need an immoderate, Tuscan amount of olive oil....

The liquid in a bean pot becomes broth as beans cook in it just as the water in which you boil a piece of meat does.  No ounce of the water that goes into a bean pot should be discarded.  Tuscan food is based as much on the broth made by the beans on which Tuscans lavish their affection as on the beans themselves.  Harold McGee, who writes about the chemistry of food simply, writes that beans make their own sauce.  He is right.  Their sauce must be well made and it must be kept.

Cooking beans is like boiling a chicken or boiling an egg: only their water boils, and only for a brief second.  The rest of their cooking is slow and steady.  Light the burner under your beans, and as soon as the pot has come to a boil, turn the heat down to just below a simmer.  Gray scum will rise to the top of the pot and gather around the edges.  Skin it off and discard it.  

The best instruction I've read for how long to cook beans comes from a collection of recipes called The Best in American Cooking by Clementine Paddleford.  The book instructs to "simmer until beans have gorged themselves with fat and water and swelled like the fat boy in his prime."  The description is so perfectly illustrative I don't think anyone should write another word on the subject.  I don't know who the fat boy is, but I feel I understand his prime perfectly, and it is what I want for my bean.

As they cook, beans should look like they're bathing.  Their tops should stay under the surface of the liquid, or they will get cracked and leathery, and they shouldn't ever be in so much water that they're swimming.  Taste their broth as they cook to make sure it is well seasoned.  It should not taste like the pleasant seawater of the pasta pot, but like a sauce or soup.  

The second good piece of advice from the same book is in one of its recipes for black beans: "Soak beans overnight; drain.  Put in pot, cover with water.  Add onion, celery, carrot, parsley, salt, and pepper.  Simmer until bean skins burst when blown upon, about three hours." This is the only recipe I've ever read that takes the doneness of beans as seriously as it should be taken: a cooked bean is so tender that the mere flutter of your breath should disturb its skin right off.

Beans are done when they are velvety to their absolute middles.  You should feel, as soon as you taste one, as though you want to eat another.  The whole pot is only ready when five beans meet that description.  If one doesn't, let the beans keep cooking....

Cool and store your beans in their broth.  The exchange of goodness between bean and broth will continue as long as the two are left together, and the broth helps the beans stay tender through chilling, freezing, and warming up again.

Those are instructions for cooking all beans.


P.S. If you want more Tamar (and I'm not sure why one wouldn't), check out her column in the New York Times Magazine.

Recipe: Cal Peternell's Fagioli all'Amatriciana

Cal Peternell is one of my mentors and dearest friends.  Eating dinner once or twice a week at his house over the years has been as invaluable to my education as a cook--and as a human--as working in any kitchen.  His beautiful new book, Twelve Recipes, is my favorite kind of cookbook--one that guides, inspires, and delights at the same time.  Much like Cal himself.  

This is Cal's recipe for Amatriciana, combined with beans by the inimitable Michelle Fuerst.  Both are accomplished cooks, and great friends.   If you like, serve the sauce with spaghetti or bucatini instead.  

Fagioli all'Amatriciana by Michelle Fuerst

Fagioli all'Amatriciana

adapted from Twelve Recipes 

Salt

1 yellow onion, diced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 pound sliced bacon, cut across into short sticks, or pancetta, or most authentically, guanciale

2 garlic cloves, sliced

Crushed red pepper flakes

1 15-ounce can peeled whole tomatoes, chopped, juice reserved separately

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

4 cups cooked white beans, drained, cooking liquid reserved separately

Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add the oil and the onion.  Cook over until tender and golden brown, then add the bacon.  Cook until the bacon starts to brown around the edges, less than 5 minutes.  If there's too much fat in the pan, take some out, but save it.  Add the garlic and the pepper flakes, cook for just a moment, and add the tomatoes.

Raise the heat and bring to a simmer.  As the skillet gets to looking (and sounding) too dry and sizzly, add doses of the reserved tomato juice.  Let it all cook down for several minutes, until the tinny taste of the tomatoes has cooked off.

Add the beans to the skillet, and stir.  Bring everything back to a simmer.  Taste and adjust for salt and spiciness.  If it's too thick, add some of the reserved cooking liquid.  Taste and adjust seasoning a final time, then garnish with parsley and grated cheese.

Serve with crusty toasts, poached eggs, or roasted pork or chicken.  Or, just eat straight out of the pan.

Serves 6-8 people

Cooking with Italian Grandmothers for #beanmonth

Cooking with Italian Grandmothers from Welcome Books on Vimeo.

I love this nonna's hands.  Thanks to Jessica Theroux for this beautiful film.  

Wanna take your own bean game to the next level?  Invest in a beautiful ceramic bean pot from La Chamba.  Use it to cook beans and braises on the stove, in the oven, or like the nonna, over an open fire.  

BEAN MONTH

photo source

Growing up, I didn't really feel one way or another about beans.  Here and there, I'd eat a few chickpeas, fava beans, or kidney beans, and lots of pinto beans alongside burritos.  They were fine.

But during the first summer I worked in the kitchen at Chez Panisse, I fell in love with beans.  Every Monday we received a shipment of vegetables from Chino Ranch, and it was my job to unpack it and put everything away.  That summer, I saw true cranberry beans for the first time--as red and round as their namesake fruit--and peeled fresh giant lima beans we simmered and serve alongside braised pork.  I was still in college, still planning to head to graduate school for poetry upon graduation, and I reveled in the names of the varietals--Dragon's Tongue, Painted Pony, Lina Sisco's Bird Egg, Coco Bianco and Coco Nero, Tiger's Eye, Snow Cap, and Jacob's Cattle.

And then, I tasted them.  I'd never known a bean could be so satisfyingly creamy or so sweet.  I was a goner.

I've loved beans ever since.  The first article I pitched to a magazine was about shelling beans.  They were the first seeds I planted when I started to garden.  I buy beans at the market in every country I visit.

But what cemented my interest in beans as a cooking teacher, and why I want to dedicate this month to celebrating beans is this: a couple of years ago, I heard Mark Bittman say was that he'd consider his career a success if he could get every family in America to make rice and beans once a week. I couldn't agree more.  Besides being beautiful and labeled with playful names, beans are accessible, cheap, nutritious and delicious.  They are easy to cook, and lend themselves to a thousand different uses in the kitchen.

And since beans are for everyone, I'm declaring January #beanmonth.  I'll be posting all sorts of links, recipes, resources, photos, poems, and more here, and on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  I've started a board on Pinterest dedicated to BEANS, and I've invited friends all around the internet to join me.  Wendy MacNaughton and I are even planning a very special giveaway at the end of the month.    

Come, follow along!  Share your own recipes, links and photos with the #beanmonth hashtag.  I'd love to see everyone's favorite ways to cook and eat beans!

p.s. Lentils and chickpeas count!

Thanksgiving Round Up

Last year I went on a Thanksgiving binge, with all sorts of classes and blog posts.  This year, I am in relative hibernation.

But, the information is all still useful!  So, let me compile it all here for ease of use.

Working Ahead for Thanksgiving

On Ordering a Bird, and Other Basics

Recipes:
Spatchcocked Turkey with Herbs and Butter
Charlie's Prune and Sausage Stuffing
Roasted Vegetables in Agrodolce
Cranberry Sauce Two Ways
Fried Sage Salsa Verde
Aaron's Pie Crust
Pie!
Skillet Cornbread

And, a handful of Thanksgiving goodies from some of my favorite sources:
Thanksgiving Condiments at Food52
Sam Sifton's Thanksgiving Book
A Canal House Thanksgiving from The Splendid Table
Essential Thanksgiving at NYT Dining
David Tanis's Thanksgiving on the Ranch from Food & Wine
Suzanne Goin's Thanksgiving Menu at Bon Appétit
Sweet and Salty Roasted Pumpkin Seeds by Dash and Bella at Food52
Chunky Cranberry Jam from Saving the Season

Also, I just want to say that I had the best pumpkin pie I've ever tasted from Black Jet Baking Co. last week.  If you're not up for baking, then order one from Gillian.  You won't be disappointed.

TARTINE AFTERHOURS is back! Wednesday, April 17th

After all of these months of resting and healing and writing, we are SO READY to bring Tartine Afterhours back for all of our Bay Area friends!  I stocked up on the very best mole paste I could find in Mexico on my recent trip, and we are going to have SUCH AN AWESOME PARTY to celebrate our return to these monthly feasts.  Heirloom beans, check.  Tender roast chicken marinated in mole, check.  Warm corn tortillas, check.  Micheladas, check!  It's gonna be so tasty!  We can't wait to see you there!

heirloom beans in puebla, mexico :: january, 2013

WHO: the fab folks at tartine and me
WHAT: a bomb-ass mole poblano feast
WHERE: tartine bakery (600 guerrero st. sf, ca)
WHEN: wednesday, april 17th at 8pm
WHY: to highlight the joy of good food and good company
HOW MUCH: $60 plus drinks and gratuity. cash only, please!
TO RESERVE: please fill out this form to submit your name into the lottery. due to the overwhelming popularity of our dinners, space is extremely limited so we now select guests by performing a lottery. we'll email lottery winners by wednesday, april 10th; if you don't hear back from us, please try again next month!

only in my dreams

i have dreamed of writing a book since i was a little girl and my aunt, who i looked up to more than pretty much anyone, worked in the university library.  i couldn't have been more than six or seven years old when she taught me how to use the microfiche and the card catalog and i'd spend hours upon hours wandering through the stacks.  right then and there, i fell in love with books and wanted to create one of my own one day.

i've wanted to write a book since tom dorman, my high school cross country coach and eleventh grade honors english teacher, introduced me to a magazine called the new yorker, gave me great novel after great novel to devour, read me poetry on a daily basis, and passed on his addiction to keeping a journal.  to him, there was no other life than a literary life, and so the same became true for me.  because of him, i knew i'd enter college as an english major, with ambitions to start writing new york times best sellers immediately upon graduation.

when my uncle got sick and my family went crazy trying to cure him, a family friend came from halfway across the world.  he was a healer, and brought with him his toothless, weathered, hindu guru. it was one of the most emotionally wrought times in my life--there was so much anger, so many tears.  the guru took me gently by hand to a quiet corner and asked to read my palm.  so much good news flowed out from his lips that i assumed he was a total quack.  he told me that the dreams of all of the books i'd write, of having a family and children, of being healthy and wealthy and living a long life would all come true.  i didn't know whether or not to believe him, so i just wrote it all down.

---

when i was 20 years old, interning in the kitchen at chez panisse and still entertaining dreams of graduating college only to start writing best-selling chapbooks of poetry, i remember being so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that cooks were required to know that i would go home each evening with a headache.  on top of all of the techniques, the fact that the menu changes daily according to the seasons meant that i might be assigned a task one day and not repeat it for weeks, months, or even a year.  the maze of information seemed impenetrable and i felt like i'd never learn everything i needed to know to become a good cook.

but then, one day i began to see the forest through the trees.  i realized that everything we cooked in that kitchen had a few basic things in common: attention was always paid to salt, fat, acid and heat.  it didn't matter where the roots of the dishes we cooked lay.  salt, fat, acid and heat were always the most important elements to attend to.  i decided then and there i'd write a book elucidating these four magical variables for other novices; why didn't anyone ever tell home cooks that understanding how to use salt, fat, acid and heat was enough to get you 90% of the way to deliciousness?  my book would be short--twelve pages at most--and clear.  after reading it, everyone would be a better, more confident cook.

then i remembered i was twenty and that no one would buy my book.  so i shelved that idea.  that was thirteen years ago.

---

in 2009, i started teaching michael pollan cooking lessons as part of the background research for his forthcoming book, Cooked.  that's its own whole story, and i'll write about that eventually, but michael quickly picked up on my obsession with these four elements and asked me about it.  i explained to him the way i think about them every time i set out to cook, and he encouraged me to turn my philosophy into a four part series of classes, and then a book.

since october of 2011, i have been working on my book proposal.  it's been through not one, but four iterations.  in that time, i have been to china and cuba, torn my meniscus, been doored on my bike, had knee surgery, cried sixty four days in a row, spent months eating mostly dried beans in an effort to save money, and alternately tried to be michael pollan, tamar adler and john mcphee to no avail.  i also drove myself insane trying to find the "perfect" agent.  

i also started stalking, with great intensity, the inimitable wendy macnaughton, and begged her to consider illustrating my book.  i've been a fan of hers for a few years, and just knew in my heart that we could make an AMAZING book together one day.  

and then a series of extraordinary events led me first to the legendary binky urban, who gave me loads of invaluable advice, and then to kari stuart, my magical, brilliant agent from heaven.  i met with her in november (more than a year after i'd started writing) and showed her what i had, what at the time seemed to me to be a complete and utter mess that would never come together in any sort of meaningful way.  kari, like one of those crazy rubik's cube masters, sat down with me at city bakery and drew a few lines on a piece of paper that somehow turned a pile of a hundred pages of blathering into a structured outline and proposal.  she sent me on my way to put on a few finishing touches and continue stalking wendy, and i left with a goal to finish by the end of january.  

so after cuba, i came home, hid underground, and wrote my heart out.  and i continued stalking wendy. finally, she gave in and agreed to illustrate the book.  i'd imagined that an illustrated book about food would be a tough sell, so i really wanted to have the proposal illustrated to give the publishers the same experience i hope to give my readers.  so wendy and i collaborated on a few charts and illustrations, she hand-lettered all of the titles and headings, and my angel-friend sarah adelman (née pulver) designed it all into an amazingly gorgeous document.

three weeks ago today, kari sent it out to the world.  the very same day, we started getting enthusiastic YESes back from publishers asking to meet.  so i used a kajillion points to buy a ticket to nyc for a super secret whirlwind trip, and i got there two monday mornings ago on the red eye.  i went straight to my friends' house, took a shower, and rushed to meet kari at haven's kitchen.  we jumped around for a minute about the fact that there was SO MUCH INTEREST in my book, and then we were off, to meeting after meeting after meeting.  

as someone who has been devoted to books my entire life, the experience of going to all of those meetings at publishing houses was pretty much the most life-affirming thing i have ever done.  for three and a half days, i met with people who love, make, and understand books better than anyone else.  i sat in rooms filled floor to ceiling with books.  i was given stacks and stacks of books as gifts.  and most amazingly, i was addressed by people i have respected my entire career as a person who has many books in me.  they told me i have a way with words, and my heart almost exploded from joy.  they saw me as a WRITER, and i started to believe that it could really be true.  more than once in meetings i teared up from the joy of being seen as what i have wanted to be my entire life.

and as if that wasn't enough, they all loved the proposal.  they all got it.  i'd shown up ready to have to defend many of my unorthodox choices, but never really had to.  not once.  they all got my vision.  for the first time, my ambition wasn't something to be ashamed of, but rather something to be proud of.  it was incredible.  there was just so. much. praise.  if this had happened at another time in my life, i might not have been strong enough to take all of the praise.  one editor emailed my agent to say, "i might die if i don't get the chance to publish this book."  take that and multiply that times 1,000.  that's what was going on for an entire week.

---

selling a book is like the most insane game of poker you could ever imagine.  there is so much secrecy and strategy.  i could never be in that business for a living, but kari is brilliant at it.  she looks so unassuming, a lovely midwesterner at heart with the best new york style.  she looks so sweet.  but really, she is an evil genius.  offers started to come in, and she was just stone-faced.  i was having meltdowns multiple times a day, and she never faltered.  the whole thing, meetings and all, lasted a week.  my auction was last monday, and luckily i was working 24/7 from the minute i got back to california on thursday night, because otherwise i would have gone insane waiting things out.

i was also lucky to have connected emotionally with so many great editors, but there was one in particular i couldn't stop thinking about.  mike szczerban at simon & schuster.  he's young, hungry, and so very intelligent and thoughtful. i left his meeting feeling like he was the kind of person i'd be stoked to talk about books with for the rest of my life.  i knew we had an amazing intellectual connection, and that we could make a really beautiful book (and more!) together.  all weekend long, i was rife with nerves hoping he'd come back and fight for me.

on saturday, i saw michael p. and he told me to be smart, to not get swept away in all of the amazing stuff they were all telling me they'd do for me, and to make the decision of which editor to go with based on what would benefit me most in the long run.  he also said, somewhat quixotically, that once all of the bids were in, the best choice would become clear.  sunday night, i had an incredible chat with my friend laurel braitman and she gave me similar advice: choose who you can see yourself making the best book with.  the pr, the money, all of that other stuff is secondary.

my whole life, i have made decisions based on who i want to work with and what kind of work i want to do.  i've turned down a lot of six-figure jobs because i knew i'd be unhappy doing the work they involved.  i've consciously entered times of financial struggle in order to do the work i want to do most. neither writing or cooking are financially lucrative, but in both i have careers that fulfill me and bring me into the company of people who inspire me on a daily basis.  and so, i knew that i could never make the decision of which publisher to go with based on money or praise or promised fame.

i went to bed knowing that i'd choose mike. and on monday morning, that's exactly what i did.

i called wendy and we melted with laughter and disbelief.

i had breakfast with alex and she read aloud the four-page letter mike had sent with his offer while i sat in the garden crying.

i went to work and jumped up and down with my writer ladies.

then i went and had a massage.  when i got out, kari said i could finally call mike.

so i called him and we squealed together for ten minutes.  we traded stories of how anxious we'd been over the weekend, and just celebrated that we get to work together.  now, i get to write the book that has been in me for thirteen years.  now, i get to do the thing i have wanted to do more than anything else my entire life.  I GET TO WRITE A BOOK!  and i get to do it with a team of people i couldn't love or respect any more--kari, mike, meg, marie and of course wendy.

i have never been so happy.  i'd thought that this kind of thing would happen only in my dreams.  it turns out, my life has become the very best kind of dream.

Home Ec: Thanksgiving Basics--Working ahead

Planning and prepping ahead--and thinking like a professional cook--is the key to getting the entire Thanksgiving meal on the table at the same time without committing either seppuku or homicide.

photo source: the amazing andrea gentl of hungry ghost food + travel

The trick is to spread out tasks that take lots of time, lots of oven space, lots of stove space, or make big messes so that you aren't out of space at the last minute.  So choosing dishes that reheat well, or that taste good served at room temperature, is crucial to making Thursday go smoothly.  

Here are a few ways you can work ahead for next week:

Before Tuesday:

• Make pie dough and freeze
• If using a frozen turkey, defrost so you can season or brine it on Tuesday
• Make turkey or chicken stock and freeze for gravy

Tuesday:

• Season or brine turkey
• Buy bread to use for stuffing, or make cornbread for stuffing

Wednesday: 

• Make cranberry sauce
• Wash herbs, greens and lettuces
• Roast pumpkin for pie if using fresh squash
• Measure out ingredients for pecan pie filling, pumpkin pie filling, etc.
• Tear croutons for stuffing and dry out in oven
• Clean green beans
• Make soup, if planning to serve
• Peel potatoes and keep whole in water
• Peel onions and carrots that you might use in any dishes, such as creamed corn, creamed spinach, stuffing, etc.
• Make any caramel sauces or things like that that you might need to garnish desserts
• If you're insane enough to want to make homemade ice cream, get it in the freezer by tonight.
• If you are using fresh chestnuts, get them boiled and peeled.

Thursday:
Early morning

• Pull turkey out of fridge to come up to room temp
• Blind bake pie doughs
• Brown sausage or bacon for stuffing
• Prep vegetables--trim and halve Brussels sprouts, peel squash, peel any root vegetables, clean and trim cauliflower or broccoli, etc.
• Roast vegetables that might need roasting--these do well at room temperature!
• Cook off onions or any mirepoix
• Make creamed spinach--this reheats well.
• Do anything like seeding pomegranates, peeling persimmons, toasting nuts, or making vinaigrette that might be necessary for the salad

Heading into the afternoon and dinner time

• Roast the turkey
• Make the gravy with turkey drippings
• Bake off pies
• Make mashed potatoes and keep warm in double boiler
• Assemble and bake stuffing/dressing

Right before dinner

• Reheat dishes that need to be reheated, like soups, creamed spinach, or gravy
• Toss the salad greens
• Carve the turkey

Before dessert

• Whip cream
• Portion pies

Home Ec: Thanksgiving Basics

photo source: Martha Stewart

Alright, guys!

So, here are some Thanksgiving basics I owe my Home Ec students.  I thought all of you might benefit from these tips and recipes, so I'm posting them here over the course of the week.

Ordering a Turkey:
My favorite turkey these days is the BN Ranch broadbreasted bird.  Raised to the highest protocols, they still come with all of that fabulous white meat perfect for sandwiches, which is the real reason we all love turkey in the first place.  BN Ranch also has the finest heritage turkeys to be found.

Other birds I'm into:
Mary's Organic
Willie Bird Organic

Sources for turkey in the Bay Area:
Bi Rite Market
Magnani's Poultry
Berkeley Bowl
Cafe Rouge 
The Local Butcher Shop
Avedano's Meats
Marina Meats
Belcampo

PLACE ORDERS NOW, FOLKS!

How big a bird to order?
Well, for meat on the bone I usually order 1 pound per person for plentiful eating.  For plentiful eating, plus leftovers, I order more like 1.25 pounds per person.

Tip: Rather than getting birds much bigger than 16 or 18 pounds, I prefer to get two smaller birds, which tend to cook more evenly.

---

Cooking the turkey

In general, you can calculate that a turkey will take 12-13 minutes a pound to cook.  So, a 14 pound turkey will take about 3 hours to cook at about 350°F.  The only way to know to sure is to check, either with a thermometer or a knife.  If the juices at the thigh joint run clear, the leg is cooked. Temperature-wise, I cook to 160°F in both the breast and the leg.

I usually start the bird at 400°F for 30 mins, then down to 375°F for another 30 minutes, then finish at 350°F, though now I am thoroughly intrigued by Jacques Pepin's steam and roast method.

Tips:

• Salt the bird generously at least 2 days in advance of cooking.  If your bird is frozen when you receive it, let it thaw for a couple of days in (or out of) the fridge, then salt it.  
• Remove the neck, liver, giblets, and neck skin and reserve.  
• If you wanna stick herbs and butter under the skin, go ahead and do that when you season it.  
• If you're gonna truss the bird, do it right then, too, and then you'll be done messing around with the bird.
• If you want to spatchcock it and cook it flat, remove the spine before salting so you can really get salt in on both sides.  
• If you want to remove breasts and legs and cook separately, then do that before salting, too, so you can let the salt penetrate more thoroughly.  
• You can put (virtually) anything you want into the cavity, like veggies, a halved orange, or herbs.  But I don't think any of that makes much of a difference.
• Most importantly, on the day of cooking, take the bird out of the fridge at least 4 hours before cooking to let it come up to room temperature.  This will allow the bird to cook much more quickly and evenly!  

And of course: 

recipe: Marion's sticky buns

Marion Cunningham is the goddess of breakfast.

Last week I had a hankering for cinnamon rolls, so I decided to make them for Sunday, when I had to drop off brunch at a friend's house.  I scavenged through my books and the world wide web for a trusty recipe--one that wouldn't be too dense or dry.  I hate it when you spend two days on yeasted breakfast goodies only to pull them out of the oven and have them be bready.  Ugh.

I narrowed my choices down to this and this, but at the last minute, I remembered my trusty Breakfast Book, the one that has never done me wrong, and I switched gears and committed to Marion.

It was the right choice.  The dough was light and buttery, and there was no shortage of gooeiness.  In fact, the rolls might have been a little too gooey, if that's possible.  Next time, with a few little changes, like toasting the pecans first, maybe using some white sugar and burning the caramel a bit, and perhaps even adding a pinch of cinnamon (which Marion outlaws) these could become the dreamiest things ever to grace my breakfast table.  

Caramel-Pecan Sticky Buns

adapted from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book

makes two dozen buns

for the dough

1/2 cup warm water

4 1/2 teaspoons active yeast (2 packages)

2 cups milk, warmed

1 stick (4 oz.) butter, room temperature

6 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons salt

2 eggs, room temperature

6 cups flour, more or less

for the caramel glaze

2 sticks (8 oz.) butter

3 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

3 cups broken pecan or walnut pieces

a heck of a lot of salt

if you want, some cinnamon

Put the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the yeast over.  Stir and let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve.

Put the warm milk, room temperature butter, sugar, salt, and eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat until well blended.  Add the yeast and 4 cups flour.  Mix vigorously.  Add only enough flour to make a soft, manageable dough.  Sprinkle a board with flour and turn dough out onto it.  Knead for 1 minute.  Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.  Resume kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until double in bulk.  

Make the caramel glaze.  Put the butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Put the pan over medium heat and stir often until the butter is melted, the sugar is dissolved, and the mixture is well blended.  Add generous amounts of salt (I use Maldon or sel gris) to balance out the sweetness and saltiness.  If using cinnamon, add some to taste, maybe about one teaspoon.  Remove from the heat and pour one cup of the glaze into a small bowl.  Set aside.  Spread the remaining 2 cups glaze over the bottoms of three 8-inch cake pans.  

Toast the pecans or walnuts in a dry cast iron pan over medium-low heat, constantly stirring, or in a 350°F oven, until they are lightly golden, then sprinkle 1 cup of nuts over the glaze in each of the pans.  

Punch the dough down and divide into thirds; while you work with one part, cover the remaining pieces of dough.  Roll the first third of dough into a rectangle about 8 by 12 inches.  Spread 1/3 cup of the caramel glaze that has been set aside over the rectangle.  Loosely roll the rectangle from the wide side, making a long tube.  Cut into eight pieces, eace 1 1/2 inches thick.  Place the rounds, flat side down, in one of the cake pans.  Repeat with each remaining third of the dough.  Cover the pans loosely with plastic wrap, and if you want, at this point you can refrigerate overnight (heck, you could probably freeze some at this point, too).  Let the shaped dough rise for about 35 to 45 minutes, or until the dough looks a little puffy.  If pulling out of the fridge or freezer, naturally, this will take longer to achieve.  

Preheat the oven to 375°F.  Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center bun--there should be no dough clinging to the skewer.  Run a knife along the edge of the pans and invert onto a plate, or onto racks with waxed paper underneath to catch the dripping glaze.  

Serve warm.  

this last shot is by dave levin

favism.

did you know there's a disease called favism?  it's quite unrelated to fauvism, and it actually can be sorta serious, but sometimes its symptoms are as mild as itchy hands after touching favas.

if i'd known about it, i might have wished for favism as a child, because it might have been the only excuse palpable enough to get me out of one of my most dreaded chores: popping and peeling piles of raw fava beans.  favas, or baghali, are a favorite ingredient in the persian kitchen, and some of our most classic (and delicious) springtime dishes are made with these epic pains-in-the-butt.  now you know why iranians have big families--so they can force their kids to peel the abundant raw favas necessary for their canonical recipes.  

i love baghali polo, which is fava bean and dill rice, traditionally made on seezdeh-bedar, the thirteeth day of the new year, which usually works out to be april first or second.  i love it most when some of the favas favas fry in a bit of oil and become embedded in the tahdig, the crisp web of rice that forms at the bottom and edges of the pot.  somehow, they caramelize without burning, and they turn soft and creamy on the inside.  it's exquisite.  

but, baghali polo, and baghala ghatogh, a fava bean stew with eggs and dill, like pretty much every other persian dish, are incredibly labor intensive and time-consuming to prepare, so i rarely make them.  instead, i find myself using favas like i learned to at chez panisse, in pastas, salads, or other vegetable dishes, barely cooked or even raw, more often an accent than the focus of the dish.  in french and california cooking, the beans are popped from their soft, accomodating sleeping bags and then plunged into boiling water before being shocked in a bowl of ice.  talk about a rude awakening.  then, they're popped out of their skins and either served as-is, or gently heated and then taken where they're needed to go.  

it must be the brutal grasp of nostalgia that keeps me from truly loving favas served in this way.  i much prefer them cooked long and slow, until they are soft and sweet, drowned with herbs and olive oil.  something inexplicable happens to them (and all vegetables, i think) when they're tended to with heat, time and a gentle hand.  but then my californian tendencies get the best of me and i always end up balancing the depth and sweetness with some bright acidity, good salt, and a handful of fresh herbs.  

balancing labor and remembrance, ancestry and geography, new and old is at the heart of the way i cook. with those things in mind, i've been making this bastardized version of baghala ghatogh with all of the sweet favas popping up at the market: sweet, stewed favas with green garlic and dill smeared generously on toast and topped with a poached egg, good oil and a showering of garden herbs.  

Fava Bean and Dill Crostino with a Poached Egg

• Four cups shelled and peeled fava beans, or roughly five pounds of pods
• One big bunch of dill, or two little bunches, chopped finely
• Two white spring onions
• One bunch green garlic
• Good olive oil
• Salt
• Lemon
• Parsley, and cilantro if you like, chopped
• Four thick slices country bread
• Four farm eggs
• A little white vinegar

Pop and peel the favas.  You can either peel them raw or dip them into boiling water for a few seconds until their skins loosen and then chill them in ice water before peeling.

Clean and thinly slice the spring onions and green garlic, then stew with olive oil and a bit of water in a saute pan until tender.  Add a little salt.  It's ok if they start to color a little bit, but don't let them get too brown.

When all of that is soft, add the favas and another splash of water.  A good guzzle of olive oil and three quarters of the chopped dill.  Cook over medium-low heat, stirring often enough to prevent it from burning.  Use the back of a wooden spoon to smash the beans as they soften and encourage it all to turn into a paste.  Taste and adjust the salt.  Add more olive oil if it starts to look dry and pasty.

Toast the bread and, if you have one, swipe with a clove of garlic.  Smear with generous amounts of fava paste and sprinkle, if you have it, with some light, flaky salt such as Maldon.  Give the whole thing a squeeze of lemon, too.

Bring a small saucepot with at least two inches of water in it to a boil, then turn down to a hard simmer.  Add a few drops of vinegar.  Crack the eggs into coffee cups and poach.  Some people like to create a little whirlpool in the pot with a spoon before laying in the eggs, but it's not required.  I like to poach in pretty hot water, until the whites are just set.  

Remove the eggs from the water and dry the bottoms on a clean kitchen towel, then place on the toast.  Drizzle with a bright olive oil and shower with remaining dill, parsley and cilantro.  Serve immediately.  

recipe: green garlic and herb loaf

on saturday, kinfolk came to town for a little brunch.  while chad and i were brainstorming for a couple of days on a way to collaborate on a little contribution to the meal, he remembered something that margaret at manka's used to make.

when chad and liz were up in point reyes, for a period he baked only every other day, so margaret had to come up with creative ways to serve the bread on the second day.  she started making with this breathtakingly beautiful version of garlic bread, where she scored the entire loaf and then slathered it from the inside with garlic and herb butter.  after she baked it for about twenty minutes, she pulled it from the oven and jammed tons more fresh herbs into the slots before bringing the whole loaf to the table.  can you say yum?

so in an effort to do the memory justice, i got armfuls of green garlic that i stewed and mixed into cultured butter with piles of chopped herbs (including some crumbled fried sage) and lots of crunchy sel gris.  i wrapped the bread in foil, and at the brunch they heated it in the oven before serving.  we had to skip the herb salad part for logistical reasons, but i had prepared parsley leaves, long bits of chives, and chervil to toss with meyer lemon, good oil, a bit of parmesan and salt before stuffing into the bread.  i'd also considered just jamming a ton of fried rosemary and sage in there, but figured that the salad version was a bit more spring-y.

i made way too much of the garlic and herb butter, so i've been spreading it on my morning toast with a poached egg.  so, so, so tasty.

green garlic and herb loaf

• a loaf of day- or days-old country bread (chad's loaves are about 3 pounds, so this is for a BIG country loaf.  you can make a lesser amount of the herb butter for a smaller loaf)
• 3 sticks unsalted butter (my favorite butter right now is this vat-cultured butter from the sierra nevada cheese company) at room temperature
• 6 stalks green garlic
• 1 bunch parsley, picked
• few sprigs of thyme, picked
• handful of sage leaves
• 1 bunch chives
• 1 bunch chervil, picked (optional)
• if you want, you can use arugula or wild arugula instead of herbs for the salad
• parmesan
• lemon or meyer lemon
• good olive oil
• crunchy salt

preheat oven to 400°F.

first, clean the green garlic by removing the tough outer layer of skin.  then halve it lengthwise and slice thinly.  rinse to remove all grit, then stew with some olive oil, water and a pinch of salt over low heat until tender, about 15 minutes.  let it cool for a few minutes.  

finely chop half of the parsley, half of the chives, and all of the thyme.  if you want to fry the sage, you can do it in a small pan of hot olive oil.  just heat the oil, then drop in the picked sage leaves and let them cook until they stop bubbling.  stir them around so that they cook evenly, then remove them from the oil, let them crisp up, and then crumble into little pieces.  you could also just chop the sage and add it to the other herbs.  

either in a large bowl or in a the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the soft butter, the stewed garlic, and the chopped herbs.  add a generous pinch of sel gris or other crunchy salt and mix until even.  

score the loaf of bread into thickish slices, but don't cut all the way down.  spread the butter evenly on the slices, doing your best to get down into the deepest parts of the loaf.  i just spread on one side of each slot.  wrap with foil.

when you're ready to bake, throw the bread into the oven for about 20 minutes, maybe longer, until the insides of the bread are steamy and hot.  for a little something extra, you can unwrap the loaf a bit and bake unwrapped for another five minutes or so to get a really nice crust on top.  

while the loaf is finishing up, combine the remaining parsley, the remaining chives, cut into one-inch lengths, and the chervil (if using) with some good salt, a squeeze of lemon or meyer lemon, and some good olive oil.  you can also shave some parmesan on there with a rasp or vegetable peeler.  toss to combine.  taste and adjust salt and acid as needed.

pull the bread from the oven and stuff the salad into the crevasses.  serve immediately.  

New Home Ec Classes

photo by vovo

I'm teaching six Home Ec cooking classes on Sundays this summer at Pizzaiolo in Oakland.  Here are the details...sign up soon, as these classes will definitely sell out!

Tartine Afterhours: Wednesday, April 18th

When I started writing the menu for this month, all I could think about was torta pasqualina, one of my favorite dishes from Liguria.  This traditional Easter dish is a beautiful double-crusted pie filled with spinach, fresh ricotta, and whole hard-cooked eggs, and I've been wanting to make a Tartine-ized version of it for a while now.  I mean, can you even begin to imagine how beautiful it'd be with a gorgeous puff pastry crust?!?

I tried to build a Ligurian springtime menu around the torta, but couldn't make it work.  Then I expanded my territory to Provence, but still couldn't get all of the pieces to fit.  You see, there are just so many things to consider when I put together the menus for these dinners, from stove capacity at the bakery (not much), to which ingredients I can get from my favorite local farmers without blowing the budget, to how much I can realistically get done in the few hours I have after I arrive at Tartine in the afternoon, to which types of dishes hold up to, and even flourish in, a family-style service.  I do my best to cook simple, honest food, but counterintuitively the simplest things can often require a frustratingly immense amount of work and forethought.  

I finally found inspiration at Canal House Cooks Lunch, one of my favorite blogs.  I haven't been able to get this image out of my head for a month, and when I glimpsed back at it this morning, the theme for the dinner became clear: The Chicken and the Egg.  What could be more perfect for celebrating springtime? 

We'll finally have that torta pasqualina, some delicious version of roast chicken, piles of spring vegetables and if the stars align, soufflé for dessert.  Come join us for dinner!

photo credit: the year in food, by kimberley hasselbrink

the details

who: the fab folks at tartine and me

what: The Chicken & The Egg: a three course family-style dinner celebrating the harbingers of spring

where: tartine bakery (600 guerrero st. sf, ca)

when: wednesday, april 18th at 8pm

why: to highlight the joy of good food and good company

how much: $50 plus wine and gratuity. cash only, please!

to reserve: please fill out this form to submit your name into the lottery. due to the overwhelming popularity of our dinners, space is extremely limited so we now select guests by performing a lottery. we'll email lottery winners by wednesday, april 11th; if you don't hear back from us, please try again next month!

Persian New Year at Tartine Afterhours: Wednesday, March 21st

Persian New Year, or No Ruz, has always been the only holiday my family has observed together, and as a child i was steeped in the ancient traditions of this meaningful celebration. From planting sprouts in early March to jumping over fires as the old year draws to an end to cleanse our souls, something about the many symbols and rituals of this special holiday has made it the most important time of year for me. The fact that food plays an prominent role in many of its customs makes it even better.  Come join us at Tartine Afterhours for our second annual Persian New Year dinner, inspired by the foods of spring and the flavors of Iran. 

the details

who: the fab folks at tartine and me

what: a three course family-style Cal-Persian feast celebrating NoRuz

where: tartine bakery (600 guerrero st.  sf, ca)

when: wednesday, march 21st at 8pm

why: to highlight the joy of good food and good company 
how much: $65 plus wine and gratuity.  cash only, please!
to reserve: please fill out this form to submit your name into the lottery.  due to the overwhelming popularity of our dinners, space is extremely limited so we now select guests by performing a lottery.  we'll email lottery winners by friday, march 16th; if you don't hear back from us, please try again next month!

Home Ec: How to Shop for Olive Oil

L'olio by Anek

When I was first learning how to cook, Chez Panisse held a contest, open to all employees, seeking a better (tastier? more clever? more original?) tomato sauce recipe (using canned tomatoes) for use through the winter months.  There weren't many rules beyond this: we were to use only ingredients that were readily available in the CP kitchen (i.e. local, seasonal and organic).

Having only just started to cook, I was too intimidated to enter myself and felt like I had too little authority to even try, but it felt like pretty much everyone else, from bussers and wine runners to porters and, of course, cooks, submitted a recipe.  The prize was $500 and having your name on the menu every time the sauce was featured, so people got really into it, as you might be able to imagine.

Entrants were instructed to bring in their sauces for a blind tasting on a weekday afternoon, and a team of impartial judges (a.k.a. the chefs and Alice) set about the arduous task of trying the veritable panoply of sauces. Some had seasoned their sauces with dried oregano, others fresh marjoram.  Some crushed their canned tomatoes by hand while others painstakingly seeded and diced them.  Others added chili flake while still yet others channeled their inner nonnas and pureed their sauces, pomorola-style.  It was tomato mayhem, and in the kitchen we were all atwitter, waiting to hear who the finalists were.

At one point, Russ came back into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and I'll never forget what he said when we asked him how things were going:

"There are a lot of great entries.  So many, in fact, that it's hard to narrow them down. But it's a shame that some of the particularly good recipes were made with bad olive oil."  

What they couldn't understand, and understandably so, was why all of the employees wouldn't have cooked with good olive oil, especially when it was always available to us to buy at cost through the restaurant.  

While some of the chefs were able to imagine cooking a sauce made with bad olive oil with better ingredients at the restaurant, Alice, he said, in particular, couldn't get past it, because her palate was so sensitive.  She couldn't separate the "what is" from the "what might be."

Never before had it occurred to me that olive oil, or any oil--the cooking medium itself--would have much effect on the flavor of a dish.  This was my first glimpse of understanding that not only did it have an effect, but that as the foundational ingredient, the flavor of olive oil pervades every single molecule of a dish.  So, in the same way that an onion cooked in butter tastes different than an onion cooked in olive oil, an onion cooked in good olive oil tastes different (and in this case, better) than one cooked in a lesser quality oil.

So, before considering even one of the many political/health/outside reasons for using a better olive oil in your cooking, know that the way your olive oil tastes is directly related to how your food will taste.

Choosing an olive oil can be a daunting task.  Just at my local food market, there are probably four dozen different brands of extra virgin olive oil on display.  Then, there are all of the virgin and pure oils.  If I hadn't had the good fortune of living in Italy, where I got to familiarize myself with some of the most talented oil producers throughout the country, I'd probably have adverse reactions to olive oil shopping, traceable back to the levels of stress they'd cause in my body.  I mean, virgin or extra virgin?  Italy or France?  Organic or not?  Is that olive oil on sale any good?  Why is some olive oil $30 for 750ml while another is $10 for a liter?  What is going on?  And how can you tell the difference?

I get it.  I mean, I usually know what I'm looking for and I still get an accelerated heartbeat every time I enter that aisle at Berkeley Bowl.  Sheesh.

It's why when Jen asked me to help her learn how to choose an oil, I figured there must be more folks out there wanting to know the same information, and I took the opportunity to dive headlong into answering the age-old question of how to know what olive oil to buy.

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How to Choose an Olive Oil

Photo of Tenuta di Capezzana in Tuscany by Ira Block for National Geographic. Image Source

Taste.  Taste.  Taste.  Taste, not price, is your best guide in choosing an olive oil.  This might require a leap of faith on your part if you don't know what you're tasting for.  All of those words, like fruity, pungent, spicy and bright might seem confounding if you've never considered that olive oil can taste like much of anything besides, well, oil, but it's true, a good olive oil has multiple dimensions.  The only way to familiarize yourself with them is by tasting, and paying attention to what you sense.  If you taste something expensive and don't like it, then it's not for you.  If you find a ten dollar bottle that's delicious, then you've scored!  In this way, olive oil shopping is much like wine shopping.

Before you bother with anything else, taste and trust yourself.  You have to taste, and ultimately, you have to let your own taste buds be the judge, because food is alive, and ever-changing, and inconsistent, and magical, and even an olive oil that I or another cook may rant or rave about is different from bottle to bottle, batch to batch.

I will say, though, that while it's harder for me to tell you what a "good" oil might taste like, it's fairly simple for me to describe a "bad" one.  There are several main reasons why I won't buy an olive oil, including: bitterness (to the point that I'm coughing or gagging), overwhelming spiciness, a "dirty" or "smelly" flavor, and rancidity.  These are all deal-breakers.  There's a place in my pantry for almost all other flavor-manifestations of olive oil.

Once you are comfortable with a brand and you are confident that you know what a "good" oil tastes like, then hopefully you'll feel empowered to take a risk and try a different oil, and over time you can familiarize yourself with the characteristics of different oils and different regions.  I've found that coastal olives produce milder, sweeter oils (like that Ligurian one below), and oils from the Tuscan hills are peppery, bright, and powerful.  But even within a region, oil can differ widely, so again, we return to the ultimate arbiter to help us judge: the palate.

Ay, there's the rub.  How can you taste an olive oil before you spend twenty bucks on a bottle?  Well, you can't.  So sometimes you have to take a blind leap.  Some markets might host tastings or let you try a product before purchasing.  Other markets will let you return items if you're not pleased with them.  And finally, by all means, before spending big bucks on a bulk tin of oil, buy a small bottle to experiment with.   If you don't go through olive oil quite as quickly as I might, it might be smarter to buy it in smaller amounts anyway (or to split a larger bottle or tin with a friend or two) so that you can use up the oil before it goes rancid.

For olive oil, unfortunately, the term "organic" is practically meaningless, since international regulation of organic standards is totally irregular.  Unless an olive oil is coming from an organic farmer or producer who you are already familiar with, don't let this be an indicator of whether or not to buy (though I will say that the organic Costco oil is tastier than the regular, and when buying oil from a producer of that size, I'd prefer something to nothing in terms of regulation).  Instead of "organic," there are a few other things to look for on the label of a bottle of olive oil that may suggest higher quality, including:

• A harvest date.  Olive oil is good for about a year--fourteen months max--before it goes rancid. If you're spending thirty bucks on a bottle of oil, make sure it's from the current press.  Olives are pressed in November, sometimes December, so the current press right now is 2011.  The harvest date is not the same as the "use by" or "sell by" date, so take a careful look.
• A dark green glass bottle or a stainless steel tin. Keeping olive oil out of direct sunlight, and purchasing olive oil that has been kept out of direct sunlight are of utmost importance since the light accelerates loss of nuanced flavor and leads to rancidity.  
• A DOP seal for European oils or a California Olive Oil Council (COOC) seal for California Oils.  A DOP is a Protected Denomination of Origin, which is a type of government-regulated quality control that actually means something.  Other examples of DOP (sometimes called AOC, DOC, DOCG, etc.) foods throughout Europe that you may be familiar with are Parmigiano-Reggiano, Chianti Classico, Jamón Serrano, and Prosciutto di Parma.  The California Olive Oil Council is a trade association with certified olive oil standards meant to help raise the quality of California oils on the shelves, promote producers, and protect customers.  
• A specific producer name and location.  Though the location can be hard to recognize if you're not a pro at reading Italian addresses and deciphering all of the insane two letter abbreviations (FI = Firenze, SI= Siena, etc.), it's worth it to try, and to at least be sure that the oil is made in a particular place in Italy (or Spain, or France).  As Tom Mueller writes, "Made in Italy" is not the same thing as "Product of Italy."  Most of the big olive oil brands, like Bertolli and Filippo Berio have admitted to buying olives from other countries (such as Tunisia, Greece, or Spain), importing them into Italy, and pressing the oil there only to sell it as "Made in Italy."  Though there isn't anything innately wrong with olives grown in any of those countries, since the fruit is picked and then transported over such great distances, it's safe to say that it's not at its peak when being pressed into oil (and imagine the fermentation happening on the bottom of those truckloads of olives!).  Most of the small olive oil producers, like Capezzana, who I visited when I lived in Italy had their own frantoios (or olive mills) on the premises, so that olives could be pressed within hours of picking.  Something like only four percent of olive oil exported from Italy is a made exclusively of Italian olives, so look for the name of the producer, the location, and/or the words "Product of Italy" to ensure you're getting the real thing.

Things that aren't a necessarily indicator of quality:

• Color of the olive oil.  Light oils can be delicious.  Dark, green oils can be gross.  And vice versa.  Color, in and of iteself, doesn't matter, so don't make a decision based on it.
• Unfiltered vs. filtered.  Unfiltered olive oil is simply...unfiltered.  Not better, not worse, just unfiltered.  
• Single-varietals vs. blends.  As with wine, a blend can be truly delicious.  Just because an oil is made of a single cultivar of olive doesn't make it "better" in any way, so don't fall for that.  Let taste be your guide.

What to do with it after you bring it home:

• Keep your oil out of direct sunlight.  And don't store it above or too close to your stove, as temperature fluctuations will negatively affect flavor and encourage oxidation, which leads to rancidity.  

Glossary of terms
Extra-virgin--this is the highest quality (and usually most expensive) oil derived from olives.  Extra-virgin is always made by pressing raw olives soon after they are harvested.  It's low in acid, and often offers the widest range of flavors, so it's best used unadulterated, in things like salads and condiments, since heating it up will change its chemical makeup and diminish its delicate flavors.

Virgin--this is also a high-quality oil, which is produced by the same exact methods as extra virgin.  The only difference is that it tests at a higher acidity level so it cannot technically be called extra virgin.  Virgin oils are also good for salad dressings, mayonnaises, condiments and light cooking.

(Pure) Olive oil--When a label reads "pure olive oil," or simply "olive oil," it usually means that the bottle consists mostly of refined oil, which has been treated with heat and/or chemicals to balance out the flaws and neutralize flavors, with a small percentage of virgin or extra virgin oil added back in for flavor. It's usually pretty light in color.  Since it doesn't have much going on, flavor-wise, this oil is great for browning meats for braises and making anything long-cooked.  I also sometimes use it as a base for mayonnaise and then go back and add good oil to finish.  It's a great, affordable, neutral cooking oil.

Extra light olive oil--Similar to pure, but without any good oil added back in for flavor.  This means that this oil is totally refined and basically void of any of the characteristics that make olive oil olive oil.  It's not bad, just not really anything special.  Would be good for browning meats for braises or slow-roasted anything.  The "extra light" doesn't denote that it has any less caloric value--it's just as fattening as regular old olive oil.

Cold pressed--the olives and oil were not heated above a certain point during processing, resulting in an oil with more integrity of flavor and nutrients.

First pressed--the oil is the product of the first press of the olives.  Sometimes olives are pressed a second time, and the resultant oil is of lesser quality (a second press will usually yield "pure" or "extra light" oil).

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What & Where to Buy

Image Source

What I use at home:

I'm always changing things up, based on availability, curiosity, the current state of my finances, and of course whim.  But the one constant is taste--I won't buy crappy olive oil.  These are all great olive oils that I rotate through the kitchen.  I usually have a few on hand, but for most home cooks who don't toe the line of insanity like I do, one cooking oil and one fancy oil are enough.

Take a look at these oils, and if one seems to catch your interest, familiarize yourself with its label and maybe you'll find it on the shelf of your local natural or specialty foods store.  If you trust me and my taste buds, spend the money, buy the oil, and bring it home to taste and cook with.

Where to buy olive oil:
Many of these olive oil producers sell to distributors who import throughout the US, so most of these are going to be somewhat easy to find in a shop like Bi-Rite, The Pasta Shop, Dean & Deluca, or Zingermans.  In the Bay Area, local grocery stores like Rainbow, Berkeley Bowl, and Monterey Market have great selections of olive oil, as does Genova Delicatessen.

Even though I've noticed that Whole Foods has a huge selection of high quality olive oils, I wouldn't buy fancy oil there unless pressed to, because I think most of those bottles just sit on the shelves for a really long time, aging and creeping ever-closer to rancidity, which is inevitable in olive oil around the 14 month mark.  Since you're paying a premium for good oil, it's worth it to make sure you're buying from a retailer with quick turnover.

I have my own issues with and try not to shop at Trader Joe's because of their lack of transparency, and their behavior throughout the whole Immokalee situation (even though I suppose it's technically been resolved), but I totally get that for a lot of people it's the best or only option, or that they just plain like it.  The thing is, since most everything is a house brand there, there's no way of knowing what you're getting, really, until you buy it and taste.  But since things are pretty affordable there, it's an easy way to put your taste buds to the test.

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Olive Oils I Use & Love

California
Katz: Chef's pick is a fantastic deal and well-balanced.  I usually have a bottle of this around for both cooking and salads.
McEvoy Ranch
Yolo Press
O Olive Oil

Sardinia
San Giuliano Oils: Affordable and relatively mild, these oils have been the mainstay cooking oils in my kitchen for the past few years.  I like their pure and their extra virgin, as well as the delicious Cannonau red wine vinegar.  I use the neutral pure oil for browning roasts, all-purpose, and things like mayonnaise base that I then finish with better, more full-bodied oils.

Sicily
Mastri di San Basilio: I particularly like Due Sicilie and usually have a bottle of this soft-spoken, yet delicious oil on hand for salad dressings and salsas where I don't want the oil to have too much personality.
Olio Verde: one word--delicious

Tuscany
Stephen Singer Olio: This is the oil that has been at the base of CP cooking for decades, though now there is a lot of California oil in that kitchen as well.  My favorites here are the San Giusto and the flagship oil.
Badia a Coltibuono
Tenuta di Capezzana
Frantoio di Sommaia
Laudemio Frescobaldi
Tiger Brand: This is a pure olive oil I LOVE to use for cooking because it's so neutral and affordable.

Puglia
Francesco de Padova: The 5 Liter tin is a STEAL!  Howard Case has had a relationship with these Pugliese producers for years, and imports these oils and sells them himself, keeping costs relatively low.  I really like these oils--the pure is great for cooking and the extra virgin is a wonderful all-purpose oil.

Liguria
Costa dei Rosmarini: I went through a seriously obsessive phase with this olive oil in 2004 and it remains a favorite.

Spain
Siurana olive oil: This isn't a brand, but rather a DOP.  Kelly brought me some Siurana olive oil recently, and it's delicious.  I'm not really educated when it comes to olive oils from beyond the borders of Italy or California, so this was a really great introduction to high-quality Spanish oil.  Thank you, Kelly!

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Resources
California Olive Oil Council
8 Tips for Choosing and Using Olive Oil by David Lebovitz
Yolo County Olive Oils: I've heard that Yolo Press makes some excellent, affordable oil, but they are all worth tasting.
AmorOlio: Nancy Harmon Jenkins' Olive Oil Intensive in Tuscany
Olive Oil Source: lots of great information if you have the time to dig around

Articles & Books
Slippery Business by Tom Mueller in the New Yorker
Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller
Michael Pollan uses Organic Costco Extra Virgin Olive Oil for everyday cooking at home in an interview with Emily Thelin in the Wall Street Journal (I used to really raise my nose at this, but I have to say, for everyday olive oil, it's totally fine.)

California's Olive Oils Challenge Europe's: Julia Moskin's excellent piece on California Olive Oils in the New York Times

The Olive Oil Secret, a pretty good document with a thorough shopping and tasting guide
Olive Oil: From Tree to Table by Peggy Knickerbocker