I was in the vastly enlarged Cosetta's Market over in St. Paul today, and it seems to me that I saw fresh chestnuts out of the corner of my eye. I was deliberately blinkering myself so as to not go crazy with my purchases. Give them a call, if you're still in the market.

Also, try Mississippi Market. I saw them there a while back.

And how about those big beautiful jars of sour cherries you can get there. They make great gifts, great eating.

I've given canvas bags of Minnesota-grown popcorn matched with fabulous cocoa mixes from Penzy's and homemade marshmallows. Golden Fig ordered the popcorn in for me.

Specialty honeys and honeycombs. I'm a sucker for honeys.

Republic of Jam. This is a venture of a former co-worker and fellow knitter, a Minnesotan now in Oregon, with some unusual options. http://republicofjam.bigcartel.com/

Ice wine (Isis) or ratafia or their Hastings Reserve port from Alexis Bailly, with local cheeses and crackers.

Wild rice pancake mix with bottle of maple syrup and jar of lingonberries.

Wild rice and/or smoked trout, of course.

Last year I tucked this recipe http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/bake-rice-currants-and-chickpeas, along with the ingredients to make it (including some wonderful smoked paprika), into cazuelas.

The Minnesota Ethnic Food Book, published by the MN Historical Society Press, is a fascinating read and good resource, and would make a nice, locally themed gift, especially paired with some local foods. It's where I found the recipe I always use for our Christmas morning Finnish oven pancake. http://discussions.mnhs.org/collectio...

Just a quick correction. That's not Bread Chocolate and Cake but Bread Coffee and Cake.
http://www.breadcoffeecake.com/about....

Well if you and Bill like it, that's recommendation enough for me. I've got a few days off this week, so I'll head over to Palace one day for lunch and weigh in on their pho myself.

This out of date menu makes me laugh: http://www.viewmenu.com/palace-pizza-...

Yikes. Revisited the broth in my head just now and I'm pretty sure it wasn't tomato at all. I do think it had saffron it in though.

I had the seafood tagine on my last visit. Mahi mahi, mussels and perhaps another fish, white beans, olives, red peppers, and I think preserved lemon, in a tomato-y broth. I got the small, and had enough left over for lunch the next day. Also, the charred rapini with bagna cauda was bitterly wonderful.

I've had the good fortune to eat at Saffron twice in the past week, both times excellent as always. My impetus to post is a new item in the desert menu--new as in "appeared in the interval between last Thursday's and this Thursday's visit"--that knocked all of our sweet socks off. It's the salted caramel trifle. Rich amber salted caramel pudding, layered with slightly bittersweet chocolate crispy something and hunks of crunchy cashew praline, topped with a frothy whipped cream and black salt. I'm a salted caramel fan, so there was a high probability I'd love it, but it exceeded all my expectations. The contrast of the creamy caramel richness with the crunchiness of cashew and chocolate, and the addition of a little cream to cut the sweetness was perfect. A close runner-up: chocolate pavé with pistachio ice cream and blood orange sorbet.

I noticed that Saffron has the same salted caramel trifle, with chocolate cake rather than chocolate crisp, on its Restaurant Week menu, so looks like it will be around for at least a short while yet.

Yes! It was wonderful, wasn't it?! Have you read any of his others? I think Supper of the Lamb was one of his earlier publications.

Lots of good ideas here. In particular, I second the recommendations for Fisher, Liebling, Child, Jaffrey, and (with some reservations) Reichel. And two big thumbs up for wild eater Jim Harrison's book, which cayjohan described perfectly.

I just finished the Tenth Muse and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I have a feeling it's not what you're looking for; the tone is more dispassionate and once-removed than I sense is your aim.

A long-time favorite of mine is Angelo Pellegrini's The Unprejudiced Palate. I lent it to a careless friend long ago and mourned its loss for years. Fortunately, it's since been re-released, so I was able to replace it. It's not a straight up memoir, but there's plenty of that woven in.

I can't recommend this next one personally yet, because I'm sitting at something like spot 975 on the library's wait list, but a good friend whose taste I trust recommended Marcus Samuelsson's Yes, Chef.

And, I'm digging around in my shelves trying to find this obscure little book written by a woman who learned to cook kosher from her mother in law that I read a couple of decades ago. Can't remember the title, but I remember it being one of those books you sink into.

Found it! Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir, by Elizabeth Ehrlich.

Oh, and Claudia Roden's old Book of Middle Eastern Food (not the new one), while a cookbook, doubles in many places as a memoir.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hell's Kitchen breakfast fixings are spotty. Eggs are often over- or undercooked, and every time I've tried their rosti it's been too salty and again, either over- or undercooked. No tongue sparks for me from their bison sausage, and while the peanut butter is tasty, it's nearly as sweet as licking the inside of a Reese's cup. What IS good, in my opinion, is their Mahnomin porridge (albeit very, very rich), and the lemon ricotta pancakes. That's all I ever get or recommend there, after too many disappointing breakfasts.

Dodd and Ottawa. Very close to the small shopping strip that houses Los Arcos, if that helps. In fact, if you go around to the parking lot on the southwest corner of the strip and look across the street, you'll be staring right at it.

Ahhh!!! Texas weiners! Don't like beans on my weiners, but I loved the place. You sent me off into a fit of nostalgia, finally sated by this bit of history: http://www.texas-wiener.com/ourhistor...

Haven't had good kielbasa since I left PA. They just don't do it right in the west and midwest. We used to get ours from ...gosh, I can't remember the name. It was a tiny little shoe store at a junction out near...I want to say Gibson or Herrick Center? Ararat? Anyway, the owner or his relative also periodically took orders for what was the most fabulous kielbasa I've ever had. Very spicy and lean, and in a thin casing that cooked up crisp.

Magnolia's morning meals are great, no frills, pack it in breakfasts. Recommended!

Mostly all great suggestions you've gotten so far. One more suggestion: Meritage, in downtown St. Paul, if you'll be here on a Friday. I know you're after casual eats, but hear me out.

Meritage has happy hours going from 3-6, Tues through Fri, and it's pretty damn casual sitting in the oyster bar or outside on the sidewalk. Best of all, it's an incredible bargain. You can get their burger--to my taste, one of the best in the Cities--for 8 bucks. That's a good-sized, juicy beefy perfect burger cooked to order with garlic aioli, shallot confit & emmanthaler served with a big mound of fantastic fries, usually going for $13.50, all yours for $8. Last time I was there I had a margarita, the 2 for $3 oysters, marinated olives, the burger, and a double espresso and still didn't break $30. Left lots of the fries unfinished for sheer lack of room and took half the burger home for lunch the next day.

And, it's a nice ride from Bloomington to downtown St. Paul, with bike trails a good portion of the way.

Saffron does. I had a whole roasted branzini with crispy grape leaves a week or so back.

The last time I was there was a week or so ago, and with five people we got to try a range of things. I'll just list everything we had, since there wasn't a dud in the bunch.

The slow cooked green beans. DO NOT miss these.
Octopus a la plancha
White anchovies
Fried cauliflower
Chicken & porcini croquettes
Bastirma
Romaine heart salad
Chicken bisteeya
Moroccan duck kefta
Shortribs tagine
Whole roasted branzini

For desert, we all shared the olive oil couscous cake with Earl Grey ice cream and poached apricots, and the kunafa. I also had their outstanding Turkish coffee.

There is a reason that Saffron is on my top three favorite restaurants list.

Well then! I rest my case.

I've got a local spot that's really growing on me: Capitol View Cafe, on Smith Avenue.

Nothing delicate about it, but the toast always comes unbuttered like I ask, the eggs are always cooked just right, the piled hasbrowns are crisp, and the service is usually fast and always unassuming and friendly. It's the type of place where I can sit down to breakfast with a book for company and end up being more than entertained by the talking over and between tables of the customers and the cook. Seems like it's a also a place where lots of people knows each others' names...and each others' histories, kids, spouses, from way back. Always cheers me up and makes me feel downright neighborly, no little gift from a neighborhood breakfast spot. Even if their coffee does leave a lot to be desired.

Lately I've been getting the Cajun Breakfast (hashbrowns, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, two over easy, hollandaise) with andouille sausage on the side. Indelicate, highly caloric, voluminous. Just the thing when I'm in the mood. Past trends went along the lines of some excellent oatmeal, and the machaca. I've not ventured out to the pancakes yet.

I have the same take on penninsula. After some unpleasant meals, I'm careful with my order, and usually go for a tofu (especially Spicy Golden ) and roti canai. In general, I've found that if I stay away from the beef dishes, I have a good shot at happiness. I've liked the char kway teow and ginger scallion steamed fish. Am thinking that next time in I'll steel myself away from my tried and true tofus and try some of their duck. Or maybe the spicy lemon grass squid.

Could be! http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/thieves-like-us/

And since the comparison is to SF, there's this old thread: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/21099

This cake was superb. I've been wanting to make it for awhile now, so went out all, using extra good quality butter and blanching, skinning and toasting the walnuts. Next time I think I'm going to cut the prunes a little more finely than I did, and dust them with a bit of flour to see if I can get a more even distribution in the batter.

I too made mine in a tube pan; I got a nice browned surface all around that looked lovely unmolded.

Yes, I usually use rubber bands on the paper towel or wrapping tubes. Not my invention either; I learned it from my Aunt Naomi while watching her make her date swirl cookies almost 50 years ago now. We do it exactly as Goblin explains.

Good to know, as LoL is always my first choice for baking, even if not for spreading.

This is so interesting. Almost everything I've on the docket to make is made the night before by someone else. We're doing these tonight, so glad to hear you liked them.

It's killing me too.

Darn. This was on my list. I was hoping for the swoon, and have been casing my options for sweet Italian sausage. I wonder if using the left over cream fraiche I have instead of the heavy cream would give it more punch.

Yes, you definitely should. Have made this several times in the past, and the bread salad is what puts it over the top.

On second thought (and based on my no-lemon-screwup with the pasta with arugula and cream fraiche recipe) I think I'll make half exactly as written, and half as roll cookies. Only way I'll be able to tell if the result approximates the original intent.

Tagliatelle with Crème Fraiche and Arugula

This won't be a fair review, because 1) I used pumpkin fettuccine, and 2) I left out a main component, the lemon. Did that because I am apparently unable to keep a thought in my head for longer than 4 seconds, and so deciding to pass by the very expensive organic lemons at the co-op in favor of the not-so-expensive ones just ahead drove the whole lemon need right out of my head. Until I got home and began tearing apart the bags, looking for those two lemons I was sure I'd purchased.

Regardless, since I was serving it with highly seasoned pork chops adobo, I decided to proceed without the lemon.

Preparation. The night before I cleaned and de-stemed the arugula leaves with large stems, to get ~5 lightly packed cups' worth. Stored it in our now cold sunroom overnight with damp paper towels. No need to tear the leaves into smaller pieces.

The same night I also made the cream fraiche. Added 2 tablespoons of buttermilk to two cups of heavy cream in a Ball jar, and let it sit out (loosely covered) overnight and all the next day. It was nice and thick by the time I came home from work and was ready to start dinner.

From that point on, the preparation was super simple. Just boiled and drained the pasta in lightly salted water, and grated my one heaping cup of Parmesan while it was draining. I used half Parmesan Reggiano and half Eau Galle (WI) Private Reserve Parmesan. Which reminds me: has any one tried Sartori's SarVecchio Parmesan? I love others of Sartori's, so am curious about that one.

Tossed the hot pasta with the arugula till the leaves wilted, then added the grated Parmesan. All of it, even though the recipe said to hold back 1/2 to serve on the side. Then 1 cup of the cream fraiche, and a good dose of coarse ground pepper. It was one beautiful looking bowl of pasta, what with the cream, the mellow golden pasta, and the bright arugula.

Verdict: My husband and I both loved it and thought the richness of the cream coupled with the arugula was brilliant. My daughter absolutely despised it, but I suspect that's just because she doesn't much like arugula, and this is not a dish in which the arugula takes a backseat.

Since it's rich and caloric as heck, it's best served small plate style; we'll get at least another two meals out of it, I'm guessing. It's also not at all cheap, as 5+ cups worth of arugula is quite pricey if you're buying instead of growing. All in all, an excellent accompaniment to the more complex flavors of the pork. But next time I'm definitely not leaving out the lemon.