Although the culinary year that began September 2008 and ends in less than eight hours didn’t feature my favourite meal so far (that honour goes to May 2003’s meal at Moulin de Lourmarin before Edouard Loubet moved to Bastide de Capelongue in nearby Bonnieux), it did feature so many extraordinary tastes and drinks and dining experiences that I thought a reminiscence was due.

In September 2008, The Wife and I travelled to Paris for our first extended holiday there together. Fifteen months later, a few specific meals and one crazy night at Bar Hemingway still stand out.

I don’t know what it was about Olympe Versini’s cocotte de pintade aux épices at her namesake restaurant (Casa Olympe) that almost brought me to tears . . . was it that rich, chewy fowl flavour (that’s completely missing from the yanqui table) or the warming spices in that creamy jus? I do know, however, that pintade was comfort food at its most comforting. Movies may not move me to tears (they typically have me reaching for a novel to counteract the brain bludgeoning), but a perfectly cooked guinea hen from Challans with a seductive and silky jus? I’ll weep like a little girl every time.

Speaking of fowl, chef Thierry Breton’s poitrine de grouse farcie aux girolles et foie gras still conjures contented sighs of gastronomic bliss, the gamey bird wrapped in bacon and stuffed with foie gras and girolles and served with a blueberry jus . . . but the baked-in-house bread at Chez Michel (with its thick, rustic crust almost charred in a few places to add a touch of bitterness to its dense, chewy crumb) served with France’s best butter (from Jean-Yves Bordier in Saint-Malo) may have been the scene stealer. Either that or The Wife’s marvelous Paris-Brest, considered by many to be Paris’ best.

When it comes to the best in Paris, Pierre Gagnaire’s name will always be championed and after our seven-course menu d’Automne 01 (not including les amuses, les fromages, or les desserts), I know why. And I know which course I want to eat over and over again: Gelée de poule au porto blanc: jambon cru de Saint Yriex, pistes, supions, encornets et chair de tourteau. Glace d’artichaut réglissée. A gelée of chicken and white port consommé (which slowly melted into a soup as I ate) covering a triangular slice of raw ham; on top of the gelée a small scoop of artichoke and liquorice ice cream (which tied everything together with its slightly sweet, refreshing anisic bite) craftily concealed by tender pieces of warm octopus, squid, and crab. Different textures, temperatures; contrasting flavours. Playful, soulful. Gagnaire!

A trip to Paris seems incomplete without steak frites, and though Le Severo is highly rated for its beef (my faux-filet—the côte de bœuf wasn’t available that evening—was some of the best beef I’ve had: perfectly cooked, saignant, and boasting the most mouth-watering char), the frites were definitely the best I’ve eaten. (I wasn’t absolutely sure at the time; I am now.) Hand-cut, crisp-edged, and oh so addictive in the way that only potatoey potatoes can be. I can’t imagine a trip to Paris without steak frites at William Bernet’s Le Severo. (Even if I’ve eaten at Robert et Louise the night before!)

And what better way to cap off a night in Paris than at Bar Hemingway, in the hands of master mixologist Colin Field. May I suggest a Ponsenby followed by a Horses Neck followed by Lutteur III followed by a Mach 2? Don’t thank me. Thank Colin.

From the beauty of Paris to the seemingly endless neighborhoods of Los Angeles, most appearing far more rundown than they actually are, spangled in-between by a few beautiful quarters, and amongst them all some real culinary jewels.

Like steak frites upon mention of Paris, the taco comes to mind first when I think of Los Angeles. And there are some brilliant tacos to be found in this often-seeming suburb of Mexico.

The shrimp taco at Tacos Baja Ensenada in East LA is as fine a taco as you’re likely to find in the Southland megalopolis. The shrimp are encased in a light batter, almost airy, and are served with crema, shredded cabbage, and tomatoes. I’ve never eaten a fresher-tasting taco. The shrimp pop, the batter seems almost cloud-like, and the crema and tomatoes meld into a sloppy sauce that runs down your arms as you try to inhale as many of these tacos as is humanly possible while still leaving room for . . .

The carnitas gordita at Gorditas Lupita’s taco truck on Eagle Rock Blvd. in Highland Park. Few are the taco trucks that make their own corn tortillas, but Gorditas Lupita’s does and its namesake gordita, scorching hot and stuffed with porky, crunchy carnitas is proof that more should. Unfortunately, if you succumb to eating a second gordita you are setting yourself up to miss . . .

The pastor huarache at El Huarache Azteca #1, not five minutes away on York Blvd. Sandal-shaped fried masa topped with a perfectly seasoned mix of crunchy and chewy pastor, drizzled with crema, and strewn with cotija cheese crumbles, slivers of red onions, and chopped cilantro leaves. Add some of the wonderfully smoky salsa roja that’s spicy without being hot (Angelenos ain’t much for heat) and a squeeze of lime and you’ve constructed a perfect bite.

Sticking to perfect bites and pastor, the pastor taco with salsa roja (and the requisite squeeze of lime) at El Taquito Mexicano taco truck on Fair Oaks in Pasadena is the most warming taco I’ve tasted in the Southland. No other taco warms me like El Taquito’s . . . there’s a nice heat to the salsa roja but there’s also a real, soul-warming umami to their pastor that’s not always present elsewhere.

For something a little different, I highly recommend the carnitas taco at Los 5 Puntos in East LA. Here, the freshly-made tortilla is the star (and, yes, that means starting with field corn and boiling the corn in slaked lime and washing the corn to make nixtamal . . . and then grinding the corn on a large metate y mano to make the masa which is then hand-formed and cooked on the griddle). Yes. That kind of homemade. Add some nopales and guacamole and salsa roja and you’ve as authentic a taste of Mexico as you’re likely to find el norte.

But that shouldn’t stop you from racing across LA to La Oaxaqueña taco truck on Lincoln Blvd. in Venice for a hubcab-size taste of Oaxaca: tlayuda. OK, think Oaxacan pizza: a thin tortilla smeared with pasta frijoles negros (black bean paste), aciento (unrefined pork lard), cabbage, avocado, and Oaxacan string cheese. I always add cecina to mine, a pounded thin sheet of semi-dried pork seasoned with chile molido. Tlayuda’s a meal in itself and the one served at La Oaxaqueña is hands-down the best in the Southland.

As is the birria at El Parian on Pico Blvd., which LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold describes as a “chile-rubbed, fire-roasted goat dampened at the last second with a clear, concentrated broth flavored with cloves, tomatoes and a dozen other things.” Gold “once called [El Parian’s birria] the single best Mexican dish in L.A.” and claims that the “strong, goaty essence, a barnyard smack that could as well have come from the Jalisco mountains instead of from a restaurant a few blocks from the convention center [still] tasted of Guadalajara.” I agree.

And before I switch cuisines, I’d like to thank Gold for his recommendation of Cemitas Poblanas Elvirita in East LA for the namesake sandwich. The cemita poblana is one of the world’s great sandwiches, a sesame-seed egg bun stuffed with your choice of meat (though beef milanesa is the classic), string cheese, onions, avocado, and whole chipotle peppers smeared on the bottom bun. Few sandwiches offer a more beguiling blend of textures than the cemita poblana.

The greatest of all Italian sandwiches (nice transition, eh?) is filled neither with salume nor meatballs but with porchetta, a boneless pork roast typically flavoured with garlic, rosemary, and fennel, the meat fatty and moist, the skin shatteringly crisp. In LA, Mozza2Go (the takeout arm of Pizzeria Mozza) on Melrose Avenue offers an expensive ($15) yet delicious version that’s only been bested in my book by San Francisco’s RoliRoti which appears to be an unbelievable deal at only $8.50 for a gut-busting sandwich of such juicy, crispy, porky lusciousness that even bacon loses its lustre for weeks after you’ve tasted RoliRoti’s porchetta.

But my favourite sandwich of the past year (and a bit) comes courtesy of LudoBites, a “guerilla-style pop-up restaurant event created by Chef Ludo Lefebvre.” His Foie Gras Black Croque-Monsieur, Ham, Cherry, Amaretto was actually one of my favourite bites of the year (and a bit), a playful yet deadly serious take on the classic croque monsieur. Using squid ink to turn his housemade brioche black is the first visual signal that Ludo’s croque monsieur is unlike any other you’ve ordered. And then you taste that combination of warm melting foie gras against the brioche’s crunch, and the needed acidic sweetness of the cherry preserves and the surprising warm note of amaretto which ties all the elements together. Yet as brilliant as his croque monsieur was, I remain more enamoured by his deliciously cold soup for a warm LA evening: Chorizo, Cantaloupe, Cornichon. The colour of a bowl of Tex-Mex queso, this cold creamy soup delighted the palate with the traditional combination of smoky Spanish chorizo, canteloupe, and cornichons delivered in a unique way: a velvety soup of chorizo that lost none of the pork sausage’s smoky paprika kick, complemented by cold cubes of canteloupe at the bottom of the bowl and a granita of cornichon floating atop. A simple deconstruction that was far more than the sum of its three parts.

But when the temperatures drop (as they did when we recently travelled back to San Francisco), a soup like Commis’ Chowder of Charred Kale with gigande beans and fava leaves, red pepper paste is what you crave. The deepest green of the darkest envy, James Syhabout’s kale soup (the “charred” flavour coming from long-cooked onions) was as warming as it was deceptively light. And Commis, located in a non-descript neighborhood in Oakland, is nothing if not deceptive. A minimalist white interior that looks cold and impersonal offset by as warm and congenial a staff as I’ve encountered this past year (and a bit). We enjoyed two wonderful evenings in a row at Commis this past weekend and I’m excited for James and his staff. Commis’ star will only continue to rise. Of all the courses we ate, three in particular stand out: the amuse bouche of a hard-cooked (albeit custardy) egg yolk floating on an onion soup purée floating on a date purée with toasted steel-cut oats and chives. Sweet and savoury with the creaminess of the purées tempered by the oat crunch. Our main plate the second night: Poached then seared young corn fed chicken, crushed potatoes with yellow chanterelles, sage brown butter. What made this comforting dish even more comforting on a deeply personal level, however, was the addition of a confit’d and deep-friend guinea hen wing, an extra no one else received in the restaurant, a nod to our discussion the previous night about my love for guinea hen (see Casa Olympe above). My dessert both nights: Kabocha squash custard, licorice cream, root beer reduction, pumpkin seed streusel. As memorable as Edouard Loubet’s soufflé scented with cedar from the Luberon hills, clove ice cream, crispy glazed nuts.

Which, of course, brings me back to France and Provence this time. I could wax poetic about my love of Provence and its food but, seeing as I have a meal to prepare for my darling wife tonight, I point you to my recap of our culinary journey to Provence this past September: All about food.

There are so many other wonderful dishes I’ve yet to touch on, but with time (and the year) slipping away, I offer this final round-up of new-found favourites and “old” standbys:

Most surprising meal of the year: Good Evening Thursday at Bruno’s in San Francisco. The best rillette I’ve tasted outside France.

The worth-every-damned-penny meal: The French Laundry, 19 June 2009. The Cauliflower “Panna Cotta” with Island Creek Oyster Glaze and California Sturgeon Caviar was the perfect start to as close to a perfect dining experience as I can remember having.

The best fries in the Southland (that make me miss Le Severo not quite so much): The Belgian fries at Oinkster.

Oodles of noodles: The housemade soba at Tei An in Dallas, easily one of Big D’s finest restaurants. Friday night ramen at Shin-Sen-Gumi in Fountain Valley (perhaps not the finest ramen in the Southland, but the first we tasted upon our move). The plethora of fantastic phở in Orange County . . . and while I’m discussing OC Vietnamese: the nem nuong cuon at Brodard and the bánh mì at Bánh Mì Che Cali.

When the need for something spicy strikes in heat-phobic Los Angeles: Kyochon’s Korean fried chicken with hot sauce (the Memorial Day weekend edition at the West 6th location) or Chung King’s fried chicken with hot peppers and beef in small pot or any number of dishes off Jitlada’s special southern Thai food menu.

Something cold too cool off: Ice cream from Scoops or gelato from Bulgarini Gelato.

Oh . . . there’s so much more . . . still . . . perhaps you think I go on too much, anyway . . .

But life’s not easy . . . pleasure not always easy to find. To live we must eat. Why not make eating one of your greatest pleasures?

And with that, I bid you a good night and a good year.

How many times do I have to tell you: eat grass-fed and -finished beef and stop worrying about E. coli.

From the New York Times, perhaps just in time for your ammonia-laced New Year’s Eve feast:

Eight years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia. . . .

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment.

Mmm . . . how’s that ammonia-treated meat tasting now?

Let me again quote Michael Pollan from his 2002 article in the New York Times Magazine:

Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way into our food get killed off by the acids in our stomachs, since they originally adapted to live in a neutral-pH environment. But the digestive tract of the modern feedlot cow is closer in acidity to our own, and in this new, manmade environment acid-resistant strains of E. coli have developed that can survive our stomach acids—and go on to kill us. By acidifying a cow’s gut with corn, we have broken down one of our food chain’s barriers to infection.

And then please explain to me why no one in the F.D.A. or the U.S.D.A. or the government in general is willing to inform the public that eating grass-fed and -finished beef would significantly reduce the E. coli threat?

Rules? Regulations? You’re having a laugh.

And I’m eating raw grass-fed and -finished beef with nary a worry.

What’s that sound? The sound of sanity.

Apple won a legal victory today when a US appeals court ruled that the American technology group was not to blame if iPod owners damage their hearing by playing their music too loudly.

Now if we can only put an end to these frivolous lawsuits, of lazy people trying to earn a quick buck.

So is it still considered a military action when US armed forces intervene against “criminals” (or, as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald likes to call al Qaeda, “a fractured band of criminals”)?

The Pentagon is drawing up urgent plans for increased military co-operation with Yemen, including possible retaliatory strikes against al-Qaeda targets, according to US officials engaged in a high-stakes bid to neutralise Islamist militants without enraging the Arab world.

Or should US armed forces simply be considered a more heavily armoured SWAT team policing criminals worldwide?

Better watch out, shoplifters of the world . . . or is shoplifter a term dripping with too much melodrama, bound to whip yanquis into a froth of hysteria and panic?

Oh, and if you think al Qaeda’s going to stop its “criminal actions” if The West withdraws from Afghanistan and Iraq, you’re too naïve for this world. I suggest you search for another . . . one with unicorns, maybe . . . or the land of chocolate.

And perhaps one day you’ll overhear this absurd conversation:

Estragon: “Yeah, you know, those al Qaeda guys aren’t so bad.”

Vladimir: “Sure they made mistakes in the past, but aah, that’s why pencils have erasers!”

Update 31 December

If al Qaeda members want to be considered  “holy warriors,” they should be thusly accommodated . . . and then coolly and calmly hunted down with extreme prejudice.

No need for hysterics. No need to panic.

These types of emotional freak outs are precisely what they want . . . watching The West squirm and suffer. Like typical yanqui criminals, they laugh at the idea of being treated like criminals.

It’s about time the tables are turned . . .

Raymond Sokolov of the WSJ rates his favourite eats of 2009, including his three standout eateries, including our destination tonight, Commis:

Oakland-born James Syhabout opened his own storefront place in his native city only four months before he got a Michelin star. Commis means apprentice, and Mr. Syhabout has worked for some of the best chefs in the Bay area and abroad, at places like Spain’s El Bulli, the U.K.’s Fat Duck and Manresa in Los Gatos, Calif. In the process, he has honed a palatal gift that allows him to combine exotic ingredients seldom melded in one dish. Instead of steak sauce, your beef might come with pearl barley, parsnip milk and wild anise.

A report here will be forthcoming.

As my yanqui friends tuck themselves in with bellies gorged for the evening, as yuletide hopes begin to dwindle like so many living room fires, I would be remiss not to mention that human nature will destroy mankind long before climate change will.

No matter how many rules and regulations you write, no matter how much technology and science you dedicate, nothing’s going to change human or “mother” nature.

So sleep tight and try not to worry so much. There’s nothing you can do to save this world. Now that’s real yuletide hope.

And to think I once worried about crowding the ol’ sauté pan with mushrooms. From the über-cooking blog, Cooking Issues:

While the mushrooms are boiling off their water, they aren’t absorbing oil. By the time the boiling stops they have already collapsed, so they aren’t as porous as a raw mushroom and don’t want to absorb oil.

It’s amazing how many cooking do’s and don’t’s turn out to be nothing but old wives’ tales.

Salting meat, for example.

Conventional wisdom proclaims one shouldn’t salt meat until right before cooking for fear of drying out the meat . . . Yet I’ve salted legs of lamb and tri-tips up to twenty-four hours in advance with no dryness problems. After all, a brine doesn’t always have to be wet.