Cali, Final Edition: Keller Unbuttoned, Greasy Burritos, and Barbecued Oysters

Nick's Cove: gorgeous views and fantastic oysters

By Mollie Chen

And finally, five last reasons to love California. Now I can stop procrastinating and get started on all the very late copy I owe our Production department.

  Liberty Farms duck at Ad Hoc

11. At Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller takes a step back (he isn't even digitally present in the kitchen) and lets you serve yourself from family-style platters. The menu is scrawled on a blackboard (Liberty Farms duck breast encircled by a cheery heart) and the servers claim to be the best-fed staff in town (their staff meals even include dessert). Plus, unlike at many star chef-run restaurants, the patrons seem like neighborhood folks and not rabid foodies with to-eat checklists.

12. In tiny, crunchy Point Reyes, the Tomales Bay Food Company only has a few tenants but they are an impressive bunch: Cowgirl Creamery, which has a display kitchen where you can watch cheesemongers making Mt. Tam; the Cowgirl Cantina, where you can get a scoop (or three) of the to-die-for Three Twins cardamom ice cream; and Little Shorty's small but wonderful produce stand.

13. The corner of Mission and 25t St. in San Francisco: within a few storefronts radius, you can have a delicious burrito at La Taqueria, a gooey pupusa directly next door, or a slice of homey pie at Mission Pie (the retail outlet of Pie Ranch, an educational farm in Davenport, CA).

14. When you order a fruit salad, whether at the hippy-ish Homemade Cafe in Berkeley, where we stood out as the only non-tattooed clientele, or at the self-consciously sleek SolBar at the new Solage Resort in Calistoga, the fruit actually tastes like fruit and not like water. I believe bountiful is the word: strawberries that were bright crimson in the center instead of white; firm, happy persimmons, oozy figs, and sweet-tart plums.

15. A crazy, serpentine drive from San Francisco, recently opened Nick's Cove occupies a surreally gorgeous stretch of Tomales Bay. Sit in the light-filled patio, where you feel like you're floating over the crystalline water, and order the oysters - raw, barbequed, and fried. Slurp them noisily, then lean back and enjoy the view. If you can afford it, rent one of the cabins that are perched on stilts over the rocks -- then you can settle into your own rocking chair for the sunset.

More Reasons to Love California: Dancing Cows, Au Courant Dishware, and Loveable Neighborhood Grocers

Brand-new Spruce has style and substance

By Mollie Chen

I had strawberries yesterday and it was a sad reminder of what we on the East Coast are missing. Even as I am excited to cook my favorite fall soup (green apple, squash, sweet potato, turnip, and any root vegetable you can think of - roasted, then pureed with maple syrup and cayenne), I am still stuck on California.

6. In Napa Valley, you can have fresh-baked goods at any number of stylish, overpriced breakfast spots. Or you can pull off Hwy 29 at the ten-foot tall dancing cow that marks Taqueria La Vaca and have a belly-busting meal of red hot chilaquiles with hand-mashed guacamole. Don't leave without posing for a picture with the aforementioned cow. Smile big.

7. Peet's Coffee. On every street corner, cheaper than most Manhattan deli cups, and without the guilt that accompanies your Starbucks latte.

8. Barely larger than my corner bodega, Bi-Rite Market in the Mission District is packed with all manner of natural, organic, sustainable, responsible, and local foodstuffs. I left with Kika's Treat's caramelized graham crackers with dark chocolate and a jar of June Taylor blood orange marmalade and then walked up the block to their sister shop, the Bi-Rite Creamery. I'd heard about their salted caramel ice cream and it didn't disappoint - with a deep, just shy of burnt flavor and pronounced saltiness. The malted vanilla with peanut butter is a close second.

9. No Styrofoam anywhere, just biodegradable bowls, cups, and utensils. They're understated, minimalist, sturdy -- just the thing for all of us Al Gore groupies who can't give up our ice cream and coffee breaks.

10. In many ways, San Francisco's Spruce is just another irritatingly hip new restaurant: cool architectural quirk (former car garage); chic industrial decor (exposed steel trestles, textured, sisal-covered walls); and hot ticket menu items (burrata, foie gras, heirloom tomatoes, house-made salumi). But wait. There's a fat, juicy $12 burger served with top-notch fries and a refreshingly simple shaved zucchini salad, plus any number of other dishes worth coming back for -- tender Berkshire pork with just-shelled beans and a deep, dark chocolate fondant. At the canteen at the front, you can buy charcuterie (don't miss the decadent duck mousse), cheese, and other prepared foods.

Still more to come...

Conch Fritters Taste Like Childhood

Memory lane looks a lot like a Turks and Caicos beach

By Mollie Chen
This past weekend, in the Turks and Caicos, I was thrown into Proustian fits of nostalgia by a deep-fried ball of seafood, flour, and spices. For me, conch fritters will always mean Miami - or, more specifically, a single restaurant in Miami.

When my family first started going to Scotty's Landing it was just a scruffy little outdoor spot near the Grove Key Marina on Biscayne Bay. The most coveted seats were at the rickety picnic tables off to the side of the main dining area, itself simply a wooden platform with white plastic tables and chairs. The Chart House was right next door so while the adults were drinking beer and catching up, us kids would dash up the slope to the windowed dining room, make faces at the fancily dressed folks eating lobster, and then tumble down the hill. The only things I think were ever ordered were cheese fries (to this day, everytime she goes to Miami my sister goes directly from the airport to Scotty's for a double order of these), chicken fingers, fish n' chips, and conch fritters. As kids, we loved that we were allowed to order 20-ounce sodas and Snickers ice cream bars for dessert; later as teenage sailing camp counselors, we'd motor over to gas up our dinky skiffs and get snacks while we waited. Now Scotty's has put in a real deck with fancy striped umbrellas over the plastic tables and I hear the picnic tables look suspiciously like those in a Crate and Barrel catalogue. They're supposed to have a great blackened dolphin sandwich but ordering that would feel somewhat unfaithful to the Scotty's of my childhood.

The secret behind Scotty's lovability was that you knew what you were getting: great setting, straight-out-of-the-fryer food, and a blasé, shit happens attitude. Same goes for most of the Turks and Caicos' eateries. And, more importantly, Scotty's was where I first came across conch fritters.

Mexico: Corn Fungus and Cutting-Edge Design as Far as the Eye Can See

Chiles en nogada and mole poblano in Puebla
By Mollie Chen
By marvelous coincidence, the special Latino America-themed September issue of Gourmet arrived on my desk just hours before I was scheduled to fly to Mexico City. The charred tamales piled on a cheery azure plate seemed to promise four days of lively mariachi music and rustic and authentic food. I sped through the magazine on the plane, salivating over Robb Walsh's story of lesser known taco truck cities and flagging Junot Diaz's article about Dominican food in uptown Manhattan. By the time we touched down, I was primed for Mexican food and I wanted it right away, preferably prepared in front of me and subsequently gobbled while standing up.

In reality, my first Mexican meal was a packet of Primera Plus galletas (delightfully buttery, with a subtle sabor de naranja) on the bus. When we arrived in San Miguel de Allende three hours later, where we had come to attend the birthday party of an old family friend, my parents and I were grumpy with hunger and poised to attack the next unsuspecting tortilla maker. But because we were in San Miguel, which is charming and beautiful but dominated by expats, we met our friends in the lovely courtyard of the restaurant Bacco. In a setting reminiscent of a more modest Italian villa, we ate pizzas and drank copious amounts of red wine. For dessert: chocolate cake. I went to bed dreaming of poblano chiles.

This Little Piggy

By Mollie Chen

The pig is having quite the star turn - much to its dismay. The poor swine is finding itself the center of attention in foodie circles everywhere, thanks to a coterie of bold-faced chefs: Martin Picard, of Montreal's Au Pied de Cochon; New York's David Chang, who has been showered with praise for his perpetually mobbed Momofuku and Momofuku Ssam: and, the father of it all, London's Fergus Henderson whose St. John pioneered "nose to tail" eating. Now, for home chefs with a weakness for stuffed pig's ears, blood sausage, and other swine-full delights, Chef Stephane Reynaud's Pork and Sons is a must-have. Recently translated from French, the cookbook-cum-memoir recalls the chef's childhood in the small village of Saint-Agreve, where he participated in his first pig slaughter at age 7, as well as tales from his more experience as chef-owner of the popular Villa 9 Trois, in Montreuil, France. Here, Reynaud gives us some of his tips on where to go, what to eat, and what to bring back.

One Graduation, 756 Celebratory Meals

By Mollie Chen
There are many reasons why it is good to be Annie Chen, not the least of which is that Mollie Chen is your big sister. If you are Annie Chen, it also means that you recently graduated from college and started life as a real, live adult, which so far means that you go to work at one of the best restaurants in Boston. There, besotted chefs fed you midnight snacks like Robuchon potatoes (two parts butter to one part starch), fresh-baked waffles, and truffle-laden gnocchi. Radius perks aside, Annie also lives on one of Boston's hippest restaurant streets.