Ode to Mark Bittman

I've been reading "The Soul of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman all morning while my cat, Icky drinks out of the toilet. I catch her doing it now and then and consider it a gentle reminder that she is an indeed an animal. I don't stop her but instead, I am excited by all that I can do on a Saturday in which I can do whatever I want. I break out the laptop and check out the video section of the NY Times on-line. I've just discovered the Video feature of the Times site since I got a new fast laptop for Christmas. Hooked. That's some good stuff, stuff I now save for when I have "some time".
What I find today makes this Saturday a good Saturday, an accomplished Saturday: A video of Times food writer, Mark Bittman learning to make scones at Tartine, a bakery in the Mission district of San Francisco.

I love Mark Bittman and now I love him more after seeing him in this clip, a New Yorker in San Francisco. Mark is wearing this great white-striped navy blue French Navy Shirt. He's sparkly. He's going to have a good time even if the owner, who's teaching him to make her scones, is kind of dry toast. But I like the fact that she means business. There are all kinds of chefs. Personality is second to spirit.
Sidenote: I have a special kind of love for Mark Bittman's column, "The Minimalist" in the Wednesday food section. I always want to cook all of his recipes and it's a rare day when I don't find them compelling. Our palates have a kinship. In my opinion, if an American household owns one cookbook let it be his How to Cook Everything. It's the New Settlement Cookbook, the Joy of Cooking of the oughts. Now that I've seen him in action, I'm hooked the way I'm hooked on Anthony Bourdain's and his show on the Travel Channel, No Reservations.

And back to the video!
Tartine looks Frencher than France, a place I'd go back to San Francisco for, wait in line just to look at the beautiful good goodies they put out in the case. It's glamorous looking stuff. Even the scones look sexy. And scones are hardly ever sexy. I'm much more a "cooker" than a "baker" but my executive decision is to buy the sexy looking Tartine Cookbook to see what I can rock.