Best deal in San Francisco:  In the Tenderloin, on Larkin Street, between Turk and Eddy is a little hole-in-the-wall called Saigon Sandwich.  I’d been meaning to go there for some time now and finally made good on my intentions.

I parked one block over, on Hyde Street. Four rather non-descript and somewhat inebriated gentlemen greeted me on the sidewalk. While I was busily pumping quarters into the parking meter one of them slurred, “Cops don’t have to pay for parking.” 

I said, “If you touch my squad car I’ll hunt you down and nail you.” 

All four left.

All sandwiches at Saigon Sandwich begin with an excellent French bâtard. Though bâtard literally translates to “bastard,” it really refers to a torpedo-shaped loaf, from 6 to 12 inches in length. There, aren’t you glad you know that? 

The bread is crusty on the outside while the crumb (that’s code for the inside) is elastic and chewy.  At the base of the sandwich is a finely julienned pickled carrot, on top of which is a mixture of fresh cilantro, scallions, other greens, enough hot peppers to instill some character, and your choice of meat.  I chose the roast pork. 

The sauce is a kind of Vietnamese aioli (my take on it, anyway).  What would you be willing to pay for this scrumptious treat?  Do I hear $8.95? Do I hear $6?

Go to this little hovel of sandwich heaven and all this can be yours for $2.75.

Hurry, supplies are limited.

I decided to finish my feasting somewhere slightly more upscale than the homeless and disenfranchised environs of the San Francisco Tenderloin, so I headed over to Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley. 

Years ago, when we lived in a foreign land, my wife and I knew a lady from Eritrea, who was generous enough to open our hearts and mouths to the wonderful food of her homeland.  Eritrea was formerly the northernmost province of Ethiopia (it’s about the size of Indiana, for all you mid-westerners out there reading this). 

I remember how satisfying it was to take little pieces of the traditional thin, pancake-like bread, known as injera, and use it to pick up a bit of the main course and transport the little package to one’s mouth.  So I thought I’d see whether it was possible to recreate a facsimile of the experience on Telegraph Ave, where there seems to be an Ethiopian restaurant on just about every block (in the area around 50^th – 60^thStreet).  I settled on one at 6100 Telegraph Ave (actually in Oakland), called Addis. 

When I entered I noticed that I was the only white person and the only one not speaking a foreign language. I knew I was in the right place.

I was greeted warmly and made to feel at home.  I ordered Yemeser Wot, a lentil dish made somewhat spicy by the addition of berbere (pronounced BER-ber-ee, a spice mixture that includes chili peppers), which came with salad and a big basket of injera.  No fork, or spoon, or knife – just injera.  I was a happy guy. 

I washed my impromptu lentil wraps down with an Ethiopian beer (if you decide to visit Addis, I’d recommend a Heineken – there’s a reason Ethiopians are not famous for their beer).  I managed to finish about half the meal.  I asked for the check and looked around.  Several UC Berkeley types had snuck in while I’d been entranced with my lentils.  They (and I) had each been given 2 napkins, while the native-speaking patrons had none (and didn’t appear to need any, either).  Entire meal, with tip - $16.

Injerais traditionally made using teff, a type of grass native to Ethiopia.  The seeds, which are much smaller than wheat kernels, are ground into flour.  The flour is used to create a very loose, sour-dough-like batter, which is turned into injeraatop a griddle.  Although injera is always referred to as bread, it really more closely resembles a crepe.

Even the Ethiopians I spoke with didn’t know a good source for teff flour. (They said, “You can substitute wheat flour.”)

Well, you can find teff flour online at bobsredmill.com (my contribution to international good will and diplomacy). 

Check the April 2008 issue of Saveur for a recipe.

Fred de Picciotto has been an avid cook for more than 30 years. In his spare time he develops software and practices medicine.

(Saigon Sandwich photo courtesy of bunrab.com/dailyfeed.)

You’ve done this. You know what I’m talking about. You’re in the Bay Area.

My travelling companion is my 9-year-old daughter.  Armed with portable DVD player, five-day rentals from Blockbuster and the newest Harry Potter (books on audio), we braved the child’s boredom of a long drive, the “I’m hungry” and “I’m thirsty” and “I need to use the bathroom,” and made our way to our good friends and hosts, in Marin County.

“It’s always cold here,” my travelling companion said upon our arrival.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good birthday party for an 11-year-old, or a visit to the San Francisco Zoo (in fact, I enjoyed both, even if the animals seemed to have a certain defeated posture about them).

But somehow I always manage to squeeze in the old haunts, the places that have titillated me since I first came to the Bay Area more than 30 years ago.  Naturally, they are food-related.  Many have come and gone, only to be replaced by newer versions.

There is Draeger’s in San Mateo, with its wonderful grocery downstairs and excellent cook’s shop and restaurant (Viognier) upstairs.  The restaurant originally got its direction from Gary Danko, who had previously been executive chef at Ritz Carlton’s Dining Room, and has since opened his own place (Restaurant Gary Danko), arguably the highest-starred eatery in San Francisco.  (I still remember my seven-course meal there several years ago).  Then there’s the Oakville Grocery.  The original store, in Healdsburg, is not as good as the one at the Stanford Shopping Center, which is worth a visit sans Oakville.  Dean & DeLuca, in St. Helena, is worth a look-see, but you can buy almost everything they sell for far less elsewhere.  (I used to frequent the original store, on Green Street in Manhattan, when Mr. Dean strutted around with his meerschaum, and the swarthier DeLuca would actually listen to my suggestions about carrying this or that, even if he didn’t always comply.  Once the flagship moved to Broadway, and they opened the branch in St. Helena, I think they got too big for their britches, but that’s just my opinion.)

After our day at the zoo we ate at Fog City Diner, Cindy Pawlcyn’s landmark, on Battery Street.  Born and raised in the Midwest, she moved to California in 1983, opening Mustard’s Grill, FCD, and a dozen or so other places; all hits.  A perfect cheese and bacon burger (beef from Niman Ranch, order online if you’ve got bucks to burn), and a glass of draft Pilsner Urquell, and I had almost forgotten the defeated look on the mandrill’s face.

We started with a most wonderful creation, though, Amazing Truffle Fries with Asiago:

Amazing Truffle Fries with Asiago
Make fresh, perfect and most excellent french fries (didn’t Doni show you how to make them recently?)

Season them (that’s code for salt) hot out of the fryer and drizzle good quality truffle-infused oil (white or black, your choice).

Freshly grate asiago over, not too much (you don’t want a big mat of melted cheese, these aren’t nachos).

Garnish with finely chopped chives.

Wait for the compliments. You won’t have to wait very long.

Remember to take your cholesterol-lowering medicine. You’ll need it.

My travelling companion was impressed with the burger and fries, but complained that the women’s bathroom is too small:  “Someone opened the door and bumped me in the head.”

All restaurant critics should be under 10.

We meandered our way back to Marin, detouring through the Presidio, where my host showed us graves of people we didn’t know (and presumably will never get to know), and the building in which he got married a long time ago.  My travelling companion wanted her portable DVD player.  “Thank you, my friend, that was fascinating … I need to use the bathroom.”

That night, when hunger returned, my hosts began steaming some broccoli.  I can’t help but chime in, especially with my closest friends:  “You know, there’s a wonderful dish they do in some parts of Italy, pasta with broccoli sauce.”

Within a few minutes they’re observing and I’m cooking (my therapist says I need to keep an eye on this).  Here goes:

Pasta con Broccoli
Place ¼ cup olive oil, 2 – 4 cloves of peeled and thinly sliced garlic, 6 – 8 cups of broccoli flowerets (such as the ones that come already prepped in a bag, from Costco), about a cup of water, and sea salt (to taste) in a covered sauté pan and cook over medium heat.

The goal here is to completely cook the broccoli until it becomes a sauce – hammer it.  You may have to add additional water. The broccoli is cooked enough when its own mother can’t recognize it.  It should look like pesto.

Meanwhile, bring water to a boil in your favorite pasta pot (you don’t have a pasta pot, shame on you, you’re not my friend).  Season the water heavily (6 quarts of water requires at least 3 tablespoons of sea salt), none of this light-weight, half-hearted sprinkling, thank you. Use a good dried spaghetti or similar shape.

Let’s talk a little about pasta.  Which is better, fresh pasta (pasta all’uovo) or dried (pasta secca)?  In fact, most of the time dried pasta is better, because fresh pasta is often poorly made.  The real answer though, is that they’re very different foods.

Fresh pasta is primarily a product of northern Italy, made from soft wheat flour (Triticum aestivum) and eggs.  It combines beautifully with butter-based sauces but not olive oil (try making spaghetti with olive oil and garlic, using fresh pasta, and you’ll get a stiff, matted mess).  Eggs, soft wheat, and butter are ingredients of the more affluent northern Italy.

Historically, the south couldn’t survive on soft wheat because of its short shelf life.  In fact, starvation was quite common in the southern peninsula until the Arabs introduced hard wheat during their conquest of Sicily in the 9^th century.  The pasta in the south of Italy still resembles the pasta of long ago.  It is made using nothing but finely ground hard durum wheat and water.  Nowadays it is extruded, under great pressure, through bronze dyes, and slowly dried in the sun (the good stuff, that is).  The specific wheat and the technique used in making it determine whether it maintains its shape, or falls apart; whether it remains al dente, or quickly becomes limp and mushy.

My gold standard for dried pasta is Rustichella, from Abruzzo.  It has excellent flavor (after all, a pasta dish is equally about the pasta and the sauce), and has a relatively long-lasting “al dente window” (my term).  They even make an organic line, which doesn’t make a discernable difference in the flavor, so far as I’m able to tell, but is more enjoyable to eat, knowing you’re not shoveling pesticide residues into your body.  The only downside is cost: One pound of the organic runs around 6 bucks.  I also like Montebello, available at Whole Foods (another haunt and column in itself), and DeCecco, available here in Redding (though not DeCecco organic, would someone please make a request to Holiday Market).  I don’t like Garofalo, the brand carried by Costco.  It quickly goes from al dente to limp and then falls apart.  A good sauce cannot save a bad noodle.

Someone wrote this on the internet: “When I saw my most famous only-available-in-Italy pasta at Costco last weekend, I almost fell over in astonishment. This is the pasta that my sister hand-carried– lovingly hand-carried– back from Italy for me. The pasta that I’ve been rationing and only cooking with the most special sauces because it is so devine… The pasta that I requested my cousin to bring [me] when he visits [from] Italy this summer… is now available at Costco (in Mountain View, Calif.).”

Now I believe everyone is entitled to his opinion, but this idiot needs to have his head examined. Go ahead and by that crap at Costco if you want, Just don’t tell me about it.

What about pairing pasta and sauce? There are countless sizes and shapes of pasta throughout Italy. What’s that about? A little background: Modern Italy became a nation-state during the Risorgimento on March 17, 1861, quite recent in historical terms.

Before that, Italy consisted of a series of city-states.  Many Italian towns and cities to this day are perched atop hills and mountains, ideally suited to defense.  People who live in Orvietto may never have been to Sienna, only an hour-and-a-half drive north.  When you ask an Italian where he’s from he will not reply that he is from Italy.  Instead, he may say that he’s from Canonica (a small town of around 200 people), or Firenze or Roma.  The towns remain insular, even today, at least when it comes to dialect, customs and food.  Your penne is smooth, ours has little ridges.  Your fusilli is a short and fat helix, ours is long and narrow.

There is a concept, however, that seems to remain true all over:  The thinner the sauce, the greater the surface area of the pasta to which it is paired.  Think of the surface area of a few penne on a fork and compare that to the much greater surface area of several strands of spaghetti twirled around the same fork.  Which one would hold more (very thin) olive oil and garlic sauce?  If the sauce were a very chunky, meaty duck ragu, however, the penne would be the perfect spouse (and, indeed, they are a classic marriage).

One more thing and you’re ready to enjoy that wonderful pasta with broccoli – don’t throw that precious pasta cooking liquid away!  It’s perfectly seasoned (remember?) and with its residual starch content, it is just the right thing to thin out a sauce that’s too “tight” (high-class, professional chef term).  If you’ve cooked that broccoli right, it’s too tight.  So, add the very undercooked spaghetti to your hammered broccoli, along with a cup of your pasta water (see why you need a pasta pot, so you can remove the cooked pasta without throwing out that precious cooking liquid).

Toss them together over heat (I use tongs) and keep adding water until the pasta is perfectly cooked and lightly coated with the sauce (the right amount of sauce is when there is none pooling on the bottom of the pan.  The Italians don’t even refer to it as a sauce – salsa – but rather as a condimento.)  When it’s ready, add some chili flakes (we want the capricious bite of an occasional chili, not the evenly imbued heat such as you would get if you had added them at the beginning), and a drizzle of your finest olive oil (off heat).  Sprinkle with freshly grated Pecorino Romano (a hard sheep’s milk cheese, typical of southern Italy, where sheep and goats thrive, but cows don’t – available at Costco), and enjoy.

Fred de Picciotto has been an avid cook for more than 30 years. In his spare time he develops software and practices medicine.

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It remains an uplifting, interactive “We” site; a reader-centered media hybrid. It’s part newspaper, part magazine, part newsletter, part blog, part discussion forum and part bulletin board.

Most of all, it’s still a warm and friendly gathering place for curious, bright, civilized, open-minded, interested and interesting people from around the world, but mainly here in the California north state.

Generation 4’s changes are for the better (we hope). Starting at the top, the navigation bar is different. We dropped some tabs, such as press releases (you’ll now find them on the side bar). We added others, such as those that highlight events, food, bloggers and Village Voices sections.

“About Us” remains one of my favorite new upcoming tabs. It replaces “About Doni,” which makes me happy since I’ve said from the start that this wonderful e-village is more about “we” than me. Son Joseph in the Czech Republic is almost ready to post this feature. When he’s done, you’ll see the names, photos and bios of the dozens of talented people who’ve contributed their talents to Food for Thought since its inception five months ago.

The Bloggers section is another exciting work in progress. When it’s finished you’ll find a diverse collection of smart, funny, edgey and thought-provoking bloggers, all “friends of Doni.”

Today we roll out some really big changes, such as the awesome (not a word I use lightly) new events section that includes a super-duper calendar and even a pretty cool movies section, with film clips. Your new calendar is alive with myriad information and links that will leave you wondering how you ever made plans without it. I bow down before Jim Gore, my friend and computer genius, for creating this incredible calendar. I’ll never understand exactly how he did it. I just know we’re very fortunate that he did.

Allow me to pause here to apologize to Darcie Gore, my friend and Jim’s wife, who hasn’t seen Jim for a few weeks as he’s been buried under this remodel project. The same apology goes to Marie Domke, my son’s wonderful wife, who’s put up with Joe’s looming deadlines on the other side of the planet.

Where was I? Oh yes, you now have a designated Village Voices section, so all the terrific Q&A Experts and Guest Speakers are appropriately honored and archived in one place. And what a wide range of topics they cover: dog training, sewing, real estate, decorating, politics, dentistry, economics, wine, fitness, vision therapy, health, humor, money, law and more.

This major remodel includes little changes, such as how we’ve implemented a reader’s request for an archive of Quote of the Day (one of our most popular features).

Finally, we come to food. Thank goodness.

As always, Wednesday is food day here at Food for Thought. How fitting to unveil this new site remodel with our expanded food section, since so many Food for Thought readers are such dedicated foodies.

Besides, without food, we die. Need I say more?

Food for Thought already features my weekly food stories and profiles, and those by the ever-classy and creative Andrea Charroin, who so eloquently expresses the ease and elation of cooking each week, that she’s already developed a loyal following of readers. And we have Chris Corbett’s clever columns each month where he gently takes the mystery out of the potentially intimidated subject of wine.

Today, Andrea, Chris and I are joined by two new voices in your food section:

First, meet Fred de Picciotto. He’s a dedicated physician. He’s a brilliant medical software developer. He’s a devoted father, husband and friend. But after you read Fred’s story about fava beans I think you’ll agree his keen intellect allows him to skillfully weave food, cooking, horticulture and history into a gem of a captivating story.

Second I bring you FFT’s first “mixologist” - Justin Byxbe from Market St. Steakhouse & Cocktail Lounge. I’m particularly interested in this new column, because I’m woefully ignorant about mixing drinks, but I’d like to know more. Justin is the perfect guy for this job.

Justin grew up in Redding, then worked his way through college as a bartender where he acquired his vast knowledge about all things related to spirits. He keeps up with trends in the mixology business, and now he’ll share what he knows with us.

In the next few weeks the food section will welcome yet more new voices, including a surprise addition, one of Shasta County’s most respected and renowned meat experts. (You’ll have to wait and see.)

That’s it, unless I’ve forgotten something.

Welcome to the new site. Enjoy it. It’s yours.

I think it’s gonna be good!

Lamb with oranges and olives

8 servings

For the lamb:

For the casserole’s top crust:

For the fava bean puree:

For the artichoke hearts:

Stab the lamb all over with a paring knife and filled the slits with slivers of garlic. Place the meat in a large heavy casserole. Rub all over with olive oil (extra virgin for everything, thank you).

Salt it generously (after all, it’s more than 10 pounds of meat; 2- 3 teaspoons ought to do it). And while we’re on the subject, only use kosher or sea salt. (NEVER use table salt or any salt that contains anti-caking agent; throw it out and don’t admit that you ever owned that acrid abomination!)

Wash well and quarter the oranges and add them to the pot. I used Mineolas from Costco – they had beautiful skins and very few seeds.

Break up the peeled tomatoes with your hands and add them to the pot, along with the wine. Grind the black pepper over everything and add the rosemary. Seal the lid on the casserole with dough made from the flour and water. Place in a 290-degree oven (hopefully, you are able to dial in a temperature) for 7 hours.

Fava bean puree:Soak 1½ pounds dried fava beans overnight. The next day boil them in fresh water until they are very soft (30 to 45 minutes). Place them in a blender (you’ll probably have to do this in batches) with the garlic, cayenne, salt to taste, and enough of the cooking liquid to make a soupy puree (we want a puddle on the plate, not a pile).

Artichokes:Prepare the artichokes so you wind up with only the hearts, quartered. Place them in a large sauté pan with ¼ cup olive oil, 1 cup white wine, and salt to taste. Cover and cook on medium heat until they are perfectly tender.

When the lamb is done remove it from the pan and drain off the considerable quantity of fat. Add 1 cup of dry-cured black olives and cook them in the sauce for 1 – 2 minutes.

Plating:Place a generous puddle of fava puree on a warmed plate (lamb fat congeals at a rather high temperature, so be sure to serve all lamb dishes on thoroughly warmed plates). Place a piece of the braised lamb (which should come apart easily, using 2 spoons) on the puree. Place some of the sauce over the lamb, including orange wedges and olives. Place 3 – 4 artichoke pieces around the perimeter. Garnish with freshly grated orange zest.

Wine:While lamb is traditionally served with Cabernet Sauvignon, I found this dish went beautifully with a Gallo Family Estate Pinot Noir. We also tried a Trefethen Riesling (believe it or not) and it nicely complemented the fruitiness of the sauce.