Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras, is the day before Ash Wednesday–February 21. Nowhere is Mardi Gras celebrated more than on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. But, as Mitch Rosenthal, author of Cooking My Way Back Home (Ten Speed Press, October 2011), says: “You need not be in that particular bend in the Mississippi River to join in the festivities. You can catch that spirit anywhere, and feed it with, say, a po-boy of fried oysters and shrimp.”

Mitch’s Mardi Gras Recipe Sampler has some suggestions for bringing the festive spirit of Bourbon Street to your own bash–

The Menu

Smoky Chicken Hock Gumbo with Andouille Sausage and Green Onion • Chicken and Smoked Andouille Jambalaya • The Peacemaker • Warm Beignets with Powdered Sugar • King Cake • Sazerac’s Sazerac • Uptown Hurricane • Beer • More Beer

The Music

The Atmostphere

Click the picture below to get planning:

Want to taste  more of Mitch’s N’awlins grub? Attend the Mardi Gras party at Town Hall–one of Mitch’s restaurants in San Francisco–try recipes from this excerpt of Cooking My Way Back Home, or read about when one Recipe Clubber cooked the book.

Your friends at the Recipe Club are bringing you 12 days of holiday cheer!  Each day, between December 1st and December 12th, we will be giving away a signed copy of one of your favorite cookbooks.  Check back each day to see which book you’ll be able to win!  Today, on Day 2, we’ll be giving away a signed copy of Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough.

Check out some recipes from Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food (Ten Speed Press, September 2011), and see below to enter for a chance to win a signed copy of your own.

Recipes From Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough

Win your copy

HOW TO ENTER

1. Leave a comment below about why you want to win Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food

2. Leave a comment on our Facebook page about why you want to win Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food

3. Re-tweet: I just entered to win @BiRiteSF’s @eatgoodfoodbook from 12 Days of Holiday Giveaways @TheRecipeClub!

OFFICIAL RULES

No purchase necessary to enter or win. Sweepstakes is open only to legal residents of the 50 states of the U.S. (and the District of Columbia) and of the country of Canada, who are physically located and residing therein, and who are 18 years of age at time of entry. The Recipe Club assumes no responsibility for late or misdirected entries due to SPAM, technological or e-mail filtering issues, or for prizes lost in transit. For this giveaway, entrants can enter 1 time per cookbook, but can enter for multiple days’ giveaways. A randomly selected winner will be notified by e-mail. Winner must claim prize within 2 weeks or the prize will be forfeited. All winners will be chosen by December 14th.

More about Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food on The Recipe Club

Interview: Omnivore Books’s Celia Sack chats with Sam about fish, his fave cookie, his food philosophy, and more

The Bi-Rite of San Francisco Experience, as told by a Random House regional sales manager

Sam Mogannam’s Father’s Day Memories

Sam Mogannam is the second-generation owner of San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Market and founder of the Bi-Rite family of businesses, which includes Bi-Rite Creamery, 18 Reasons, and Bi-Rite Farms. His book, Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food (Ten Speed Press, October 2011), came out in October as well.

Here, these two Bay Area food icons dish it out.

Celia Sack: Which fruit or vegetable has the shortest season – and why?

Sam Mogannam: Figs. They never seem to be around long enough. Fig trees have two harvests: one in early summer that tends to be small and lasts only two to four weeks, and one in late summer/early fall lasts two months at most. The trees are sensitive to rain and cold, which can consequently result in lower yields and less-than-stellar fruit. And because they are so fragile, they don’t transport well. Getting them to other parts of the country and importing them from other countries is challenging. You might see under-ripe Black Mission Figs shipped, but never those dripping wet, super ripe, luscious varietals like Adriatics or Brown Turkeys that we celebrate every year; those beg to be eaten within days of harvest.

CS: Your fish selection at the market has changed so much since its inception, and you only offer sustainable fish now. What is the one farmed fish you carry, and what makes it sustainable?

SM: We love McFarland’s Springs’s farmed trout. It is a project that Kenny Belov, of TwoXSea and Fish Restaurant in Sausalito, has developed to produce a local, farm raised trout that is grown in pristine conditions. The waters are not overcrowded, the feed is organic, and as a result the fish are healthy and never need any medication.

One of the biggest issues with farmed fish is the feed conversion ratio. Carnivorous fish like salmon consume 3 to 5 pounds of fishmeal to produce 1 pound of salmon meat. That food needs to come from the oceans and is one of the causes of overfishing and environmental degradation in our waters. McFarland Springs is an environmental dream. Their feed conversion ratio is .25 to 1, unheard of in the industry where a traditional trout farm is 4 to 1.

The water supply comes from the headwaters of a natural spring, extremely cold and free of the pesticides and contaminates found in other water sources. The spring not only provides for the trout, but also generates all of the electricity for the farm though hydroelectric power.

Vintage art from The Omnivore’s Recipe Keeper

CS: What is the absolute worst thing to buy out of season?

SM: After reading Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland, I would say tomatoes from Florida. We really need to wean ourselves off of our demand for year round availability of tomatoes.
I also think stone fruit and grapes from Chile are another item to avoid. They are heavily sprayed and come from a long way away. And frankly, both of these crops just don’t taste that good.

CS: You meet with so many different purveyors who are dying to get their product into BiRite. If I were coming in to show you a product, what advice would you give me?

SM: Our space is very limited, and once we make an investment in a product, we are very committed to doing right by both it and the producer; as a result, a new product needs to be very compelling for us to bring it in. Here is a good checklist to complete for a best chance at success: make an appointment, be prepared to share your story, know the exact provenance of the ingredients you use, know what items we are selling that are similar and what differentiates yours from what we have (show us what makes you unique and special!), and be patient since we get tons of submissions every week. We need to know everything we can about it so we can represent it well.

CS: I know you’re growing more and more on your own land in Sonoma for the store – what have been some of the more challenging aspects of farming? Any abject failures? How about home runs?

SM: The greatest challenge for us and for any farmer is the weather. We are dependent on Mother Nature. I completely understand why industrial farming gained so much traction—in a lot of ways it defies nature, but nature will always win.

We had great tomato harvests the first two years, but the last two years–with the cold and early rains–have been miserable. Still, our crop of little gem lettuces was amazing and abundant, and we’ve grown some incredible garlic to be harvested both as heads and for young green garlic.

The best part of the whole project has been learning about the challenges of growing food. It has brought us closer to the land and closer to our farmers. Our conversations with them have been more intelligent. We’re now more empathetic to all of the hard work farmers put into feeding us, and are even more committed to paying them a fair price for their produce.

CS: How should I store my olive oil?

SM: First, you need to buy good olive oil before you begin to worry about how to store it. Be sure to buy from a source that stocks fresh olive oil and turns inventory quickly. Also, buy from someone who will let you taste before you buy. This will ensure that you leave with a bottle of oil that is to your liking and does not have any off flavors that will disappoint and ruin a dish

“A good bottle of olive oil should not be kept as a trophy only to be used for special occasions.”

Olive oil has a season–fresh oils come out every year between December and February. Look for harvest dates or sell-by dates. Most sell-by dates are 18 to 24 months post harvest date. The fresher the oil, the more vibrant it will be. Ideally, the olive oil you consume should be no more than 18 months old, 24 months max.

The oil should be in dark glass or a tin to repel light. It should be stored in a cool, dark place, away from the oven or windows that could be a source of light and heat.

But more importantly, it should be used. A good bottle of olive oil should not be kept as a trophy only to be used for special occasions. It should be used daily. As an example, we go through a bottle of oil every two to three weeks in my household.

CS: Of all the cookies you guys bake for the store, what’s your favorite?

SM: Sam’s Favorite Oatmeal Cookie. Seriously, that’s the name. I was at Boot Camp one morning and part of our routine is a wall sit. To pass the time with less pain we often talk about food, and one morning the discussion was around favorite cookies. Mine was a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie with golden raisins, ginger and coconut–lots of great textures with a balance of sweetness from the raisins and bitterness from the chocolate. So later that day, I asked Anne (my wife, who runs our Creamery and Bakeshop) to make them to sell. We struggled to come up with a name and ended up with that. It’s now one of our top selling cookies.

Click here for more Recipe Club posts about Sam and Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food and right over here for Celia and her The Omnivore’s Recipe Keeper. For recipes from Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food, see this Scribd excerpt.

Recipes From Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough

Ron Shoop is a Pacific Coast District Sales Manager for Random House, Inc.

My wife and I attended a reception for the author’s of Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food (Ten Speed Press, October 2011) in their stores’ neighborhood in San Francisco. It was our first look at their neat little empire of grocery store, gallery, and ice cream parlor. Sam Mogannam & Dabney Gough are lovely people. OK, so this is not just a regional book. Yes, there is a lot of charming lore about the Mogannam clan, the grocery store’s history (quite lengthy) and staff, and pictures of the area. But this title is really in the same class as the works of Alice Waters, with her firm but generous sense of “let’s do this right.” It’s a book you can sit down with and read, and come away significantly better off in your knowledge of food, how to prepare it, how to enjoy it, and how to relate the entire domestic process of nourishment to the larger world. And of course there are plenty of scrumptious recipes. It is a wonderfully wholistic experience.

“Eat Good Food is really in the same class as the works of Alice Waters”

As a piece of craft, the book is right up there with the best – sturdy casing, sewn, heavy stock, excellent and abundant color illustrations. Nothing is wrong and everything is right.

The market is like a temple to The Good Culinary Life. Crowded, narrow aisles stacked high, the eyes feasting with every glance, the air redolent with a permanent blend of fresh produce, bread and cheese. The ice cream parlor is where all good people retire to in the after life. I’ve never had such delicious ice cream.

For the recipe to this Delicata Squash Salad with Fingerling Potatoes and Pomegranate Seeds and others from Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food, check out this excerpt:

Recipes From Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough

Julie Bennett is editorial director at Ten Speed Press, where she acquires and edits books in the categories of health, business, parenting, humor, sustainability, gardening, and food. She is the editor of Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day, the forthcoming The Art of Living According to Joe Beef by Frederic Morin, David McMillan, and Meredith Erickson, and David Lebovitz’s next cookbook, scheduled for publication in fall 2013.

I know David Lebovitz is a culinary rock star, but I hadn’t experienced his power firsthand until his appearance at his August 30th book signing in San Francisco. While in town for the 40^th anniversary of Chez Panisse, David stopped by Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco’s Noe Valley to sign copies of The Sweet Life in Paris, Ready for Dessert, The Perfect Scoop, and The Great Book of Chocolate. I took advantage of the event to spend a little time with David strategizing about his next book, which Ten Speed will publish in the fall of 2013.

David and I were enjoying a cup of coffee on the bench outside Martha and Bros. Coffee Company when our conversation was briefly interrupted by a gushing fan. The young woman was also grabbing a coffee before the event and was clearly excited by this chance encounter. David took a moment to chat, and then we finished our cups and headed down the street.

Omnivore was already packed full of people when we rounded the corner, so at David’s suggestion, we ducked into the neighboring Noe Valley Pet Company, knowing that we could enter Omnivore through the back room that connects the two shops. Thus entering the book store unspotted, David’s entrance from the back room was greeted by applause from those gathered. Two lines quickly formed: one to purchase books and another—that snaked out the door, down the street, and around the corner—to have said books signed.

Celia and David

To say the event was a success is an understatement. The line continued to wind down the street and around the corner for the better part of an hour, and Omnivore ran through its sizable stack of books in about 30 minutes. At that point, David began signing book labels and Omnivore owner Celia Sack recruited me to help deliver plastic cups of red wine to everyone waiting in line. To cap off the event, Poco Dolce provided samples of their Olive Oil Sea Salt and Five Spice chocolates.

As I left the store more than an hour later, David was still signing, the line was beginning to shorten, and groups of happy looking people carrying stacks of books were making their way into the foggy San Francisco evening.

I’m crazy for cold cuts, and I blame my Italian mother for this. Show me a good piece of mortadella, and you’ll have me at “morta.” Thankfully a tradition of old-school salumi is coming back in the United States, with chefs around the country making salumi in small batches with artisanal ingredients. (Let me start this ode to meat by clearing up one common mistake: the word salumi refers to the entire category of Italian cured meats, while salami is a type of cured meat.)

So you can imagine my glee when I got a chance to attend a salumi making workshop at the girl & the fig restaurant in Sonoma, California. Chef John Toulze walked us through every step of making sausage and various salumi such as coppa. In our white chef coats and latex gloves, we looked like a team of meat inspectors as we learned the ins and outs of nitrates, nitrites, and preparing meat. Our hard morning of standing in a freezing production kitchen paid off when we got to sit down and enjoy a lunch of . . . salumi (what else?).

This coppa recipe, made with pork, is a must for foodies who want to try making their own at home. (It was awarded a top Charcuterie award at this year’s Good Food Awards in San Francisco.) You’ll need a kitchen scale for weighing the dry ingredients and butcher string to tie it, but aside from that all you need is a little patience and time. There is no rushing the salumi process!

COPPA
1 pork shoulder
45 grams salt
25 grams sugar
5 grams white pepper
5 grams dried ground coriander
5 grams ground anise seed
3 grams cure #2
1 gram crushed juniper berries

Butcher the pork shoulder by pulling out the main muscle. Be sure to take care to pull out the entire muscle in one tight piece.

Combine all the dry ingredients and divide the mixture in half. Rub half of the mixture into the meat, and place it in a plastic bag. Refrigerate for 8 days. Remove from the bag and again rub each piece with the reserved salt mixture.
Place the pork in a perforated pan, and refrigerate it for 8 days.

Keeping the pork in the pan, scrape off the salt mixture. Take a damp towel and wipe clean. Return the coppa to the refrigerator for 1 day, uncovered.

Soak the beef bungs for 2 hours, changing the water every 20 minutes.

Rub the coppa with equal parts chili flakes, paprika, and glucose (you can replace chili flakes with fennel seed for sweet coppa).

Stuff the coppa into the beef bungs, and tie the ends with butcher string.

Hang the coppa for 3 weeks in a cool, dark place. You want the meat to lose at least 35 percent of its weight before eating it.

Note: For more information about the Mano Formate Artisan Cured Meat Workshops in Sonoma, California, call the girl & the fig at 707-933-3667, x16.

Karen Solomon is the author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It (Ten Speed Press) and the upcoming Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It (Ten Speed Press). She is a contributor to San Francisco magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle, and a former editor and columnist for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She has also contributed to Chow! San Francisco Bay Area, the SF Zagat Guide, and dozens of Bay Area and national publications. She lives with her partner, son, and food-focused dachshund in (you guessed it) San Francisco, California. Here, she teaches The Recipe Club about DIY gift-giving.

A sweater can itch, an objet d’art can be an eyesore, and a forest spice candle can very well get hidden the back of a cabinet to re-gift with the ribbons and bows. But one thing I assure you: The gift of homemade chocolate peanut butter cup candy will be appreciated, enjoyed, and devoured.

Homemade vittles, particularly of the sweet and chocolaty variety, are a perfect fit for virtually any holiday (birthdays, Secretary’s Day, Dawali), not only for their “wow” factor as a gift, but also for their versatility and ease of preparation. (Dear My Family Members Who Will Be Receiving These From Me This Year: Note that the peanut butter cups I’m making just for you will actually be very, very difficult and time-consuming…)

Below you’ll find the recipe for a dozen of the basic cups: the ones that we grew up with in the orange wrapper, minus the cruddy ingredients and factory-born stabilizers, plus the great taste of the best milk or dark chocolate you can afford and freshly-roasted nuts. Give your standard paper cupcake liner a little trim after the cups have hardened and your gift will look holiday-ready as well. But let this recipe be your launch pad; from there, my candy-making friends, the sky is the limit.

Give your cups personality with a quarter-teaspoon of added curry flavor—either a curry powder blend or a mix emphasizing ground cinnamon, cumin, or spicy cayenne. Don’t be shy about swapping out nuts, either—these cups are a knockout with roasted, toasted almonds, hazelnuts, or sesame seeds playing the peanut’s roll. And dried herbs? You know it. Particularly with the sesame seeds, I love to blend in a half-teaspoon of dried rosemary. And if you like your sweet stuff a wee bit salty, finishing off the cups with a fine, flaky finishing salt—like fleur de sel or sel gris—adds texture and a nice flavor contrast. And if your chocolate must scream ChristmaKwanzIkah, sprinkles over the still-warm chocolate in red and green or blue and white say it loud and clear.

Let’s just say you happen to have a few mini cupcake pans lying about, and some adorable mini paper liners to fit those tiny cups. Then you may also venture boldly into the realm of mini, bite-sized nut butter cups. Not only are they cute enough to be the wide-eyed baby of the candy world, but they are also an economical way to make your nuts and chocolate stretch farther over multiple gifts.

Now that you’ve got your cups in a row (and you’ve managed to save a few for others), we have the pleasant quandary of how to most attractively fork them over. Cupcake pan liners are a must for the recipe, so why not splurge on some attractive, high-class, glittery models from the kitchen supply store? If you’re using silicone pan liners (which I love and recommend), peel them away once the candy is completely hard, and then wrap a cup or two individually in gift bags or clear cellophane cinched with colorful tape (my preferred ribbon alternative).

For me, a canning jar can do anything. A pretty, painted half-pint jar (think stripes or stencils) filled with candy is attractive and reusable long after the candy and the holidays have passed. This, a tin, or a sturdy reused box will also help protect your candy from a holiday rush.

I promise you that this is the one gift that will not be returned. Note that certain recipients might even cozy up to you again come Valentine’s Day…

Karen Solomon’s Peanut Butter Cups from Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It

Chocolate and peanut butter together create one of my favorite candy confections. This version has everything going for it: a sweet and salty peanut butter filling and the opportunity for a high-quality chocolate of your own choosing to balance it out. No actual cooking is required here, making this a good choice for making chocolate when the weather is scorching. For better flavor, roast your own peanuts or freshen roasted peanuts in a heavy skillet until lightly browned. You’ll need paper (or silicone) cupcake pan inserts for this recipe, which, along with the finished product, create a handsome gift.

Filling
• 1/3 cups fresh roasted and salted peanuts
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon neutral vegetable oil, like canola or sunflower
• 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt

Coating
• 2 cups chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Instructions
To make the peanut butter filling, place the liners in your cupcake pan, and have a holding dish standing by. In a food processor, puree the peanuts for 3 to 4 minutes, until very smooth. Add the honey, oil, sugar, vanilla, and salt and puree until completely combined, scraping down the sides as you work.

Take about 2 teaspoons of the peanut butter mixture into your clean hands, roll into a ball, and flatten into a disk that will fit into the center of the cupcake liner but not touch the sides. Shape the remaining 11 centers. The peanut butter should be evenly distributed.

To prepare the coating, in a microwave-safe bowl heat the chocolate on high for 1 minute, and stir well with a fork to distribute the heat. Heat for 1 minute more, and stir again. Heat for an additional 30 to 60 seconds, stirring thoroughly. The chocolate should be melted and quite satiny, and you should be able to drop it in ribbons from the end of the fork.

To assemble the cups, working quickly, spoon about 2 teaspoons of melted chocolate into the bottom of each liner, being careful to coat the bottom in a complete, thin layer, and to coat the sides about halfway up. Gently drop each of the peanut butter disks into the center of a cup, and give it a gentle tap to secure it in the chocolate (but don’t push it all the way through to the bottom). Cover each center with an additional teaspoon of chocolate, covering the top completely and allowing it to surround the sides of the peanut butter, enclosing it completely. Gently smooth out the tops with the back of the spoon or by giving the pan a gentle shake. Let sit, undisturbed, for at least 4 hours, until the cups harden completely.

How to Store It
Devour immediately, or store up to 2 weeks in an airtight container. Do not refrigerate.

Download Karen Solomon’s DIY Peanut Butter Cup recipe and others from Scribd.com.