lsanderson | NY Times Food Wednesday (Reply)

Lunch With Alice Waters, Food Revolutionary
By KIM SEVERSON

WHEN Alice Waters is coming over to cook lunch, the first thing you do is look around your house and think, I live in a dump.

Then you take an inventory of the pantry. The bottles of Greek and Portuguese olive oil, once a point of pride, suddenly seem inadequate. And should you hide the box of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran and jettison those two cans of Diet Pepsi?

At the end of the afternoon, when the last peach was peeled and my kitchen was stacked with dirty pots, it didn’t really matter. Ms. Waters was either too polite or too distracted to mention what was in my cupboard. It turns out she travels with her own olive oil, anyway. And homemade vinegar. And salt-packed capers.

Ms. Waters had agreed to spend a hot September day shopping with me at the Union Square Greenmarket and schlepping back to my first-floor apartment in brownstone Brooklyn to make lunch.

The menu was dictated by two things: the market’s offerings and the recipes in her forthcoming book, “The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons and Recipes From a Delicious Revolution” (Clarkson Potter, October). More

Recipe: Warm Olives
Recipe: Raspberry Syrup
Recipe: Aioli

WINES OF THE TIMES
Happiness for $10 or Less
By ERIC ASIMOV

HOW much do you want to spend on a bottle of wine? The intuitive answer, of course, is as little as possible. That stands to reason, except that the way people buy wine is anything but reasonable.

For most consumers, wine-buying is an emotional issue. The restaurant industry has a longstanding belief that the lowest-priced wine on the list will never sell. Nobody wants to be seen as cheap. But the second-lowest-priced wine, that’s the one people will gobble up. More

Lessons From the Professors of Tea
By NINA SIMONDS

Northampton, Mass.

MARY LOU and Bob Heiss can talk about the subtle differences among the fine chocolates, olive oils, vinegars and spices, they carry at Cooks Shop Here, their specialty food shop in this small town in Western Massachusetts.

But once you ask about their 125 varieties of tea and look over shelves packed with every conceivable accessory necessary for brewing, storing and drinking tea, you realize where their passions lie.

“About 15 years ago, when some of the more unusual varieties of tea began being allowed into the country, we started getting very interested,” Ms. Heiss said, referring to the easing of import and export restrictions. The more they learned about tea, the more they wanted to know, she said, while standing by an old-fashioned apothecary counter packed with tea leaves, tea bags and molded tea cakes. More

A Good Appetite
Plums, Enveloped in a Silken Cloud
By MELISSA CLARK

FOR a person with so emphatic a sweet tooth, I’m awfully blasé when it comes to dessert. A few buttery homemade shortbread cookies are all I require, especially when I am doing the cooking.

But every once in a while, an occasion demands a snazzier sweet, something show-stopping for friends who have grown tired of shortbread.

I found myself in such a situation recently, with a discerning lot who had been there and seen that at every restaurant in town, and had eaten through my entire repertory of desserts.

But my party was on a Friday night, and who has time to make a fancy dessert and dinner after work? More

Recipe: Lemon Verbena-Poached Plums With Prosecco Sabayon