Dining - NY Times - May 13 2009

In today's New York Time's Dining section, Mark Bittman has a wonderful sounding recipe for Asparagus with Morels and Tarragon.

Melissa Clark has an intriguing recipe for spicy calamari with tomato, caperberries and pine nuts, (with Israeli couscous, which I love) that could probably be done in a vegetarian version, although I'd be inclined to use the original Mario Batali recipe from Babbo. The Batali recipe doesn't include the recipe for his "Basic Tomato Sauce" but I happen to have it in his Molto Mario cookbook which does include it. It really is basic tomato sauce: an onion and four cloves of garlic sauteed in olive oil, fresh thyme, and half a carrot, and two 28 ounce cans of tomatoes. I think if I didn't have Italian canned tomatoes, I'd probably also add a bit of tomato paste.

Also Italian is Elaine Louie's (The Temporary Vegetarian) recipe for crespelle, the Italian version of crepes. I'll bet they're great, but I'll only be serving them for a special occasion. Can anyone say fat bomb? Ingredients for five servings include a pound of cheese, 4 eggs, a quarter pound of butter, most of a cup of heavy cream, and a quarter cup of pine nuts.

A feature article on competitive cooking in Brooklyn mentioned two winners: Ethiopian Empanadas and a vegetarian chili made with tempeh, but included no recipies. Nor did my cursory googling result in a recipe for either.

Finally, there's was an article on the resurgence of absinthe, but at $50 to $111 a bottle, it's not something I'll be trying anytime soon.