Eccolo is a fine restaurant in Berkeley serving fresh local produce in simple delicious ways. So simple, so delicious. Here are their Roman-style fried artichokes, served with home made with aïoli. Chef / owner Christopher Lee isn’t doing rocket science here… He’s just using the freshest seasonal ingredients in time-tested recipes. Fabulously stuffed sandwiches, perfect salads, classic Italian entrées. To make his fried artichokes, simply heat a pan of high oleic acid safflower oil, throw in some baby artichokes that have been quartered and had their coarse tips and hair removed, and remove them from the oil in about a minute, depending on the tenderness of the flowers. Easy!

Eccolo, 1820 Fourth Street, Berkeley, California, 94710

Tomatoes are so expensive in California right now, even though the sun shines pretty much every day, and my little tomato plants in the garden seem to fruit without needing much help from me. Regular, non-organic, taste-free, pesticide-laden tomatoes at major stores like Vons cost around $3 per pound. So the big, beautiful, organic, heirloom, vine-ripened, ridiculously tasty, big fat tomatoes available at the Farmers’ Markets in SoCal for $3.50 per pound are a complete bargain, in comparison.

Even better, heirloom tomatoes - by their very nature - don’t keep well. They are picked at the point of perfect ripeness, and generally snapped up on the same day by eager L.A. gourmet shoppers. So what’s a tomato farmer to do at the end of the day with all the heirloom tomatoes that are slightly squishy, or too delicate to transport back to the farm for another day?

Well, luckily for me, I acquired pounds and pounds of these babies yesterday for free, and boy did they smell good when I roasted them with onion rings, sea salt, olive oil and whole cloves of garlic! I set the oven to 350 degrees and baked them for an hour, then drained off the juice and baked them for another 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

So here’s my top tip - get down to your local Farmers’ Market at the end of the day, and see if you can pick up some bulk buy bargains of the best produce you can find. Nature is truly bountiful right now, so roast ‘em and freeze ‘em ready for autumn sauces and stews.

Whether you call it a zucchini flower or a courgette flower, this flower is a delicacy lightly battered and deep fried, tempura-style. But have you ever felt sorry for the poor vegetable that will never come to fruit if you pluck this flower and eat it? I always wondered how stands at farmers’ markets managed to sell these blooms, when if they just waited a little while they could sell a big beautiful juicy zuccini / courgette instead. Well, I recently found out how they do it. Fact is, if you pluck the flower close to its base, the fruit still develops on the stem behind the place that it once was. So you can eat the flowers and then harvest the zucchini / courgettes later in the season. Of course!

Last night I attended an organic fundraising dinner for the Children’s Eternal Rainforest. The forest is in Costa Rica, and is surrounded by land which has been logged. Last night’s dinner at CAA in Los Angeles was to raise money to buy some of the cleared land surrounding the forest in order to replant it, growing the rainforest.

The evening was organised by Sara Newmark from New Chapter Organics. The food for this event was organic, with all the ingredients provided by Whole Foods.

There was a roasted fig salad with asiago cheese, followed by a choice of either brick roasted chicken with chestnut stuffing or vegetable tian with couscous and grilled vegetables. Dessert was pastel de leche, a Mexican-style sponge cake soaked in a lime cream sauce, with fresh strawberries on the side.

Cocktails included a fabulous ‘acai martini’ made from Bossa Nova acai juice and VeeV vodka, a new spirit made from acai berries.

I organised the music, playing electric violin in the main room, with my friend David Starfire DJ’ing after dinner.

A lovely evening, which raised many thousands of dollars. Here’s the story of where the money will go…

In 1987, a classroom of young children in Sweden decided to take action to protect endangered rainforest. They creatively staged fundraisers, such as puppet shows, pony rides and bake sales. The Swedish government matched their earnings, and in less than two years they raised enough money to buy 3,000 acres in Costa Rica.

Today, the Children’s Eternal Rainforest is the largest private reserve in Central America, protecting 54,000 acres. Children from 44 countries around the world have contributed to its protection.

It is managed by a Costa Rican nonprofit organization called the Monteverde Conservation League, and in 2002 the Monteverde Conservation League US was formed as the US charity to support the Children’s Eternal Rainforest.

Because rainforests are so important in storing carbon, providing habitat for migrating species, moderating global climate change, creating oxygen, and are the home of half of the biodiverity on the planet, we have every reason to protect them. Moreover, because humans are responsible for the devastating deforestation, we feel it is right to also be responsible for protecting rainforests and the species that make the forests their home.

Unfortunately, people continue to slash and burn rainforest at an estimated rate of an acre every second, or approximately 30,000,000 acres a year. The goal of the Monteverde Conservation League US is to raise money to buy and reforest parcels of land that stretch down the mountains toward the Pacific Ocean so that altitudinal migrating animals such as monkeys and leopards will have food year-round, the rich biodiversity of this region will be protected, and generations to come can benefit from a protected ecosystem.

Deep green goodness is best enjoyed from leafy greens that are as fresh as possible. These giant chard leaves were picked from my garden and steamed within 24 hours. Once you’ve tasted veggies as fresh as this, you’ll understand why so many cooks become gardeners. They were grown from seeds planted last year from my friends at JL Hudson and pretty much grow themselves in most conditions. Just add water and wait for them to flourish.

Before cooking up these leaves last night, I went to my local yoga studio for a little post-work breath, stretch and relax. By strange coincidence, my fabulous teacher, Gabe Hendrie, was comparing some of the poses to chard and fresh salad greens. She described how yoga poses and greens are not as good if they wilt, and how the simplest of ingredients and poses make the most vibrant and nutritious dishes and yoga asanas. She also said that the best reason to do anything, whether yogic, food-related or otherwise, is for the pure enjoyment of it. Of course, Gabe’s observation of parallel culinary and yogic forces and the pursuit of pure pleasure struck a nice chord with this particular OrganicFoodee. So after class, I asked Gabe for a chard recipe that brought her the highest enjoyment factor. This is what she said:

1. Take four big leaves to feed two people as a hearty side serving.
2. Don’t use too much stalk. Discard about half of it, then chop the rest into 1 inch / 2 cm long pieces and steam.
3. While the stalk is steaming, halve the leaves down the spine, then slice them in 1/2 inch / 1 cm strips.
4. Once the stalk is fairly tender (about 4 minutes), throw the leaves on top and steam until everything is cooked to your taste.
5. In a bowl, mix 4 tablespoons olive oil with 1/2 teaspoon good quality sea salt. Himalayan pink crystal salt tastes good in this dish, also my personal favorite salt variety, Halen Mon. You can try a flavored olive oil too, especially lemon olive oil.
6. Once the greens are tender, remove from the heat and drizzle with the oil.
7. Serve and eat immediately for sheer taste pleasure and utmost nutritional satisfaction.

Okay, rolling out pasta dough is far from easy unless you use a special pasta rolling machine. While these gadgets are not very hard to find or expensive, most people don’t plan to make pasta from scratch often enough to warrant getting one. So how else can you approach making pasta from scratch while not purchasing the rolling machine?

Pizzoccheri - this is the answer! Made with a combination of buckwheat flour and durum wheat flour, this Northern Italian pasta is really easy to roll out using a wood rolling pin. The softness of the buckwheat dough means there’s really no need for a pasta rolling machine or other fancy gadgets. Simply flour your countertop and roll out the dough, and you’re halfway towards a superbly gourmet homemade dinner.

What’s more, buckwheat is almost always organic, even when it’s not written on the pack. This is because buckwheat bizarrely grows better WITHOUT chemical fertilizers. A rare crop. Buckwheat prefers the harshest growing environments and poorest soils, and simply doesn’t grow very well if you treat it to fertilizers. So you can feel confident your pizzoccheri are full of natural goodness, with minimal chemical inputs.

Here’s how you do it… Take 1 1/2 cup of buckwheat flour, and 1 cup of durum wheat flour. In a bowl, add 1 cup of water, little by little, squelching and kneading as you go. Keep kneading in the bowl for at least ten minutes, then leave the dough to rest, covered in a recycled plastic bag. Then, flour the counter and rolling pin, and roll to about 3mm thick. Cut into 1/2 inch tagliatele-style strips, then chop down into shorter strip. Boil and serve with a sauce of your choice, or the traditional way… boiled with potatoes, and cabbage, then doused in melted butter, fried garlic, porcini, fresh sage, and creamy semi-melted fontina cheese.

Green’s is a legendary vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco, California. Although I’m not a vegetarian, I do love vegetarian food. So I was excited to try this restaurant recently with Richard and some friends Joe and Jean.

Green’s was one of the first vegetarian restaurants in the world to serve vegetarian cuisine in an upscale setting with well-crafted recipes. Before Green’s, vegetarian restaurants were wholefoody bohemian places that served home-style fare. Green’s is undeniably a bit bohemian and wholefoody itself, but its beautiful simple styling has an elegance that raises the environment from pure home-style to fine dining. The food is high quality, based on time-tested vegetarian staple ingredients grown at their farm, only fourteen miles away from the restaurant. And the restaurant is nestled in an inspiring complex of marina-side buildings that house over 50 environmental non-profit businesses. This is ground zero for San Francisco-ness.

Local fresh produce is of course seasonal, so the menu changes regularly, naturally reflecting the seasons. Visit in February and you’ll find deep leaf greens like black kale, crisp roots like beets and carrots, and stored fresh fruit like apples transformed into hot puddings and pies.

Run and designed by Zen Buddhists, Green’s is a gentle kind space serving delicate and nutritious food with love.

Am I the only one who loves poached eggs? They’re so simple to prepare, and are so elegant for a long Sunday breakfast.

For perfect poached eggs, drop a tablespoon of vinegar into a medium sized pan of simmering water, then swirl with a wooden spoon. When the whirlpool has subsided to a minimal little spin, gently crack the egg into the middle of it. Adjust the heat as necessary to keep the water simmering gently… If it’s boiling too vigorously, the bubbles will disturb the egg too much, ruining it’s ability to remain a single mass. After 3 minutes, lift the egg out with a slotted spoon, and serve on a bed of organic mixed leaves. Drizzle with hot hollandaise sauce, then serve for a happy weekend brunch.

I’ve just come home from a trip to San Francisco, where my friends Gabe and Kelly treated me to organic bangers and mash at a sweet local restaurant. American bangers, which means the most huge, giant bangers I’ve ever seen. Californian bangers, which means they had more garlic in them than an French aioli. Delicious, wonderful and - dare I say it - possibly an improvement on a truly delicious British staple.

Go find them yourself at Magnolia on Haight Street, a block down from the legendary Haight / Ashbury crossroads. Run by chef David Coleman, owner Dave McLean, and Dave’s wife Demetra Delia, this stylish yet relaxed restaurant offers perfect English pub food alongside American micro-brewed beers on tap. The emphasis is on local and chemical-free ingredients, sustainable seafoods and organic vegetables. The English recipes are faithful yet improved upon. Check out their homemade root beer and homely favorites such as fish and chips.

Here’s David preparing some onions for a deep-fried extravaganza called Chrysanthonions. First, take a big juicy onion and make a bunch of very deep cuts from the shoot top to the bottom, but keeping a circle around the root intact. Next, soak the onions in cold water for a few hours so they swell and reveal a fake chrysanthemum flower shape.

This brings us to the stage you can see, which is where the onions are double-dipped in batter. First, dip the onions in an egg wash and roll them in corn meal. Then, dip them in the egg wash for a second time, and thoroughly coat them in flour that’s been seasoned with salt, pepper and a little bit of chili powder.

Once they’ve been double-dipped, it’s time for them to meet the deep fat fryer until the outside is crisp and golden brown.

Flowertastic!