From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

Daniel Patterson is one of the most respected chefs in San Francisco, a leader in the latest fine dining trend in which vegetables take center stage. His restaurant, COI, located incongruously in the red-light district of North Beach surrounded by stri...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

Salami, salumi, charcuterie, cured meats—call it what you will, you will find a shocking amount of it at Adesso, a wine bar and small-plates restaurant in Oakland, California. While most restaurants that cure their own have, at most, five to six types o...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

Food trailers are everywhere in Austin. You can’t drive around without seeing them parked alone or in groups (pods) cooking and serving everything from doughnuts covered in Canadian bacon, hot pepper jelly, and cream cheese to vegan Frito pies. While the novelty foods were good (yes, the vegan F...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

The storefront of Charles Phan’s Out the Door on Bush Street is barely marked, with only an easy-to-miss "OTD" on the door. Someone we were meeting up with for breakfast parked right across the street from it and didn't see it. But it was worth bra...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

If you go to Texas to document food, you’d better get your hands on as much barbecued brisket as possible. That was our guiding principle at least. We scoped out two versions of barbecue in and around Austin: Franklin Barbecue, which is manned by barbecue whiz kids who currently smoke and serve ...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

CHOW Tour: Innovation has to live up to the name. And that means that our reports from the field aren’t going to be just static old letters combined into words. We haven't managed to develop the Smell-o-Vision for this iteration of the tour, but we...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

Food journalism doesn’t usually cross over into celebrity journalism. But when it does, CHOW investigates. Bruce Willis came to town recently to talk about his vodka company, Sobieski (he is the partner-spokesperson), and we thought that it would be a g...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

CHOW.com Senior Food Editor Jill Santopietro is back to help you make dinner, and she’s enlisting the aid of David Tanis's Heart of the Artichoke. On the menu: Slow-Cooked Carne Adovada, with some tips from Jill about how the cookbook helped or hindered her along the way.

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

This episode of My Go-To Dish features Bay Area chef Kim Alter. Kim’s worked at Ubuntu and Manresa, and she's now opened her own restaurant, the Plate Shop, in Sausalito, California. To make her late-night snack your own, see the recipe.

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

This episode features Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm. To make his go-to dish your own, see the recipe.

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

Dave Arnold, at the French Culinary Institute, puts words together in one sentence like hypercolloids and crème anglaise. Watch him make salep dondurma in the video below, and read more about the Turkish stretchy ice cream on Dave’s blog.

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:35 PM

Anita Lo’s Annisa in the West Village was a little fancier than we were expecting, with a simple, elegant interior (for more on all that feng shui, see the video below), dusty rose–colored velvet booths, and oversized vases filled with twisty branches. ...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:42 PM

Mushrooms are extraordinary things. Some—notoriously, frighteningly—can poison us. And some of them—mysteriously, fortuitously—are delicious. Just exactly how our ancestors figured out the difference we’ll most likely never MORE MUSHROOMS Mushroom Recipes and Video Tips Download ...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:42 PM

If you’re planning to have friends and family over to your house for March Madness, the Super Bowl, the Oscars, or a Sound of Music screening, there are a few set-up rules to bear in mind. Seat arrangement and snack placement are paramount. We’ve also got some good eatin’ ideas especially approp...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:42 PM

Oysters Demystified How to cook, eat, and love oysters Oysters are hard for some people to love. But what’s not to love about a soft-bodied invertebrate surrounded by two calcareous valves joined together by a resilient ligament? “[A]n oyster, like a lover, first captures you by bewitching...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:42 PM

Watch the recipes for this year’s CHOW Thanksgiving for Six (see recipes below) being prepared in the CHOW test kitchen. Visualize yourself successfully making the dishes on Thanksgiving Day. Pour yourself a glass of wine and allow Thanksgiving to seep into your consciousness.

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:42 PM

About Aïda Mollenkamp CHOW’s food editor launches her TV show, Ask Aida We’re so proud! Aïda Mollenkamp, our food editor, is now hosting a show on the Food Network called Ask Aida, which you can see on Saturdays at 12:30 p.m. both Eastern and Pacific. Aïda, who studied at Le Cordon Bleu Par...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:40 PM

First, take it for granted that forming, baking, and icing a gingerbread version of Phil Spector is a completely normal holiday activity. Once you have accepted that concept, the tips offered here will be especially useful. See Gingerbread Celebrities: Law and Order Edition for more gingerbread ...

From: CHOW on Thu, Mar 10 2011 2:40 PM

CHOW’s associate food editor Aida Mollenkamp demonstrates simple tips for a perfect salad dressing. Try your new skills on our recipe for Lemon-Garlic Vinaigrette.