As it happens, Gordon is allergic to eggplant, so his version uses onions, garlic, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes and olives, topped with house-made fennel sausage and baked in the oven. His young charges diced, sliced. chopped and sautéed their own vegetables, and helped sous-chef Nikki Schiebel stuff the sausage casings.

The kids banter. Eight-year-old Robert opens with a gross-out question: "Do you like snails?" Eleven-year-old Danielle doesn't bat an eye. "I eat them in France, where they don't overcook them," she says. A smile from Robert. "Yeah, that makes them taste like rubber." "Yuk." Eventually, they taste the ratatouille. They agree it's delicious.

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Maximum interest in miniburgers

The Windy City has awakened to the news that Americans love miniburgers. We're glad the food writers at the Chicago Tribune finally noticed.

"We like small things," restaurant owner Jonathan Segal says. "People, especially females, like the portion size. And burgers pretty much are the all-American sandwich."

Especially females? Thank heavens, in Seattle, Cascadia's miniburgers are a unisex treat, even if the price has gone up to $2 per each. Those with fond memories of the original White Castle "slyders" (as they're now called), you can get 'em frozen by the bagful at QFC and Safeway, but the closest actual White Castle restaurant would be Minneapolis, just off the I-35 freeway. Careful, though, the bridge is out.

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Where do critics go when their gig is up?

Substitute restaurant reviewer Leslie Kelly has reached the end of her stint at the Post-Intelligencer and Managing Editor David McCumber (among many, many others) is breathing a huge sigh of relief. How'd this kid from Spokane end up in a big-city newsroom, anyway? Hsaio-Ching Chou, who signed off on the deal for Kelly to cover Rebeka Denn's "family leave," ain't around to answer, having gone off to PR-land. But Kelly's six-month tenure leaves a mound of unhappiness.

Much did she make of her credentials in markets of minor sophistication. Occasionally did she strain to be positive and fair. But rube will out. Unaware, perhaps, that reviewers (in Philadelphia, Dallas, Belfast) actually get sued for bogus comments, spraying stars from a misfiring Uzi, Ms. Kelly finds little to like in Seattle, starting with the decor at Flying Fish and the service at Hunt Club. But wait, there's lots more: Opal: "Lack of focus." Two stars.

Café Presse, subject of an admiring "Best Bites" column when it opened: "Subsequent visits have gone downhill." Two stars. Marjorie: "Serving staff distracted or simply clueless." Still, two and a half stars.

At Place Pigalle, she's bummed to find her lamb chop medium rather than medium rare, the chunks of pork chewy, the halibut surprisingly bad, the desserts disappointing. Still, two and a half stars.

At Sorrentino, where McCumber eats regularly, she orders for four, then complains about the $150 tab, the pacing of the service, and being ignored by the proprietor. Uh-oh, kiss of death, one and a half stars.

Take that!

Apparently no fan of Italian food more sophisticated than, say, Olive Garden, she avoids reviewing white-hot Tavolata herself. Instead, she complains that Osteria La Spiga's pastas "suffered dramatically between birth and bowl." Yet she awards three stars. Huh?

Welcome back, Rebeka! Did they remember to tell you? The pieces you wrote about Veil and Sitka and Spruce? Well, while you were away, you won the James Beard Award for the best restaurant reviews in the whole damn country. For her part, Ms. Kelly seems to be facing the future (as a cranky freelance) with jaded aplomb: a blog appropriately titled Whining and Dining. No hard feelings, Les. Where do critics go when they die? To the Blogosphere, of course. Welcome to the neighborhood!

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And, back in the nabe Teatro Zinzani is packing up, moving from Fifth Avenue (the old Cadillac dealership) back to its original home across from Seattle Center. For the next couple of years, it's going to be another construction site, eventually topping out at hundreds of condos. A good thing, bringing more residential density to the eastern edge of Fifth. But for restaurants along the Monorail, the question is one of survival. Which brings us to Amoré,

LASAGNA AT AMORE: Defying hoity-toity Italian Modernism.

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Restaurant at the Center of the Universe

Time to time, one has to get out of the 'hood, see how the rest of the city eats, right? Fortunately, the concept of an enlightened yet unpretentious neighborhood restaurant is alive and well in other nabes and hoods. In Fremont, that self-described Center of the Universe, for example, we have a perfect example: 35th Street Bistro.

How's this for an ideal Seattle evening: Bellinis (prosecco and peach purée) on the sidewalk patio, an appetizer of sweetbreads on a bed of frisée or crab croquettes with an arugula orange salad; then Alaska king salmon on a bed of lentils or a plate of seared ahi tuna, perhaps some artisan cheese to follow, then a tatin of fresh plums. You may be sitting in the shadow of Lenin's statue but you're far from Soviet-style penury; this is no longer your uncle's funky Fremont. We're in the world of educated European travelers now, of international visitors, of Slow Food.

Like many novice restaurateurs, owners Bob and Phoebe Day (who bought the place five years ago) wanted something that resembled the comfortable eateries they remembered from their European travels. To that end, the Days turned away from the fashionable, chef-driven restaurant concept while maintaining a focus on fresh, locally sourced ingredients. The current chef, Frank Wielgosiek, on hand in a supporting role since 2005, stepped into the top spot when Steve Smrstik moved to the Pink Door earlier this year. His food seems just a shade self-conscious and striving; there's no need, really, to offset the perfectly seared tuna with a half-plate of tuna tartare. We're supposed to be in the southern European countryside, remember, where they know instinctively that simpler would be better.

While the high-ceilinged, pale-walled dining room feels a bit mismatched (some tables draped in white, some bare), it's certainly a lively spot. The international wine list is impressive, and prices, for food and drink, are well below what you'd pay at similar places in the high-rent district. The Days are clearly doing a lot of things right; they just doesn't need to try quite so hard.

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Belltown Buffet:

Simon Nguyen, the original chef at 10-year-old Shallots, has returned as an owner, joining partners Kenny Lee and Jonica Low. He'd been working on Bainbridge Island for the last couple of years. First order of business: counteracting a couple of negative reviews from longtime patrons on Seattle CitySearch.com.

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Blessings of Purity

Our land, this inlet on the western coast of the North American continent, is a fortunate one, endowed with natural riches and settled by people who do not confuse prosperity with moral superiority. Modesty becomes us; we do not flaunt our advantages.

With pleasure, then, we open Kurt Dammeier's new book, Pure Flavor, which celebrates our region's bounty and offers some suggestions for simple preparations that enhance the pleasure this fare brings to our senses. He highlights the usual suspects (salmon, crab, mushrooms, cheese, berries, the Pike Place Market, even coffee) and turns the spotlight on a handful of local food pioneers (Gwen Bassetti of Grand Central Bakery, Marcella Rosene of Pasta and Co., sausage man Frank Isernio, cheese woman Sally Jackson, fisherman Bruce Gore, Paul Shipman of Red Hook, wine grower Veronique Drouhin, chef Tom Douglas). Had someone else written the book, Dammeier himself would be on that list; he's the creator of the extraordinarily popular Beecher's Handmade Cheese in the Market and Bennett's Pure Food Bistro on Mercer Island. His "Flagship Program" teaches Middle Schoolers about good food. He is inordinately generous to his competitors in the world of artisanal cheese. In turn, he reaps a string of honors, most recently for Beecher's Flagship Cheese, named the best cheddar in the country by the American Cheese Society. Dammeier is quick to credit cheese maker Brad Sinko; Tom Douglas, for his part, calls Dammeier a modern-day Renaissance man.

The book itself is extraordinarily handsome, a hefty 256 pages with 125 recipes developed in collaboration with chef Lura Smith and freelance editor Laura Holmes Haddad (blogging as Gourmet Grrl), photography by Maren Caruso and Scott Mansfield. Bravo to publishers Clarkson Potter, who will be happy to sell you a copy for $32.50, roughly the price of a couple of Bennett's mouthwatering cheeseburgers and a side of Beecher's "World's Best" Mac and Cheese.

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Nasty, Brutish...and Fat?

The food news may seem depressing, but there's hope. Bear with us. In 1651, Thomas Hobbes, not known for his optimism, wrote that the life of man was doomed to be nasty, brutish, and short.

Couple hundred years later, the even less-cheery Thomas Malthus predicted that the Industrial Revolution would cause worldwide famine.

Yet humans survive, even prosper. Oh, sure, we waste resources fighting one another. Granted, too, that political systems everywhere seem to encourage government corruption, the taxing of our labors and the looting of our savings. And yet, we're pretty well off, compared to cave-dwellers. How come?

A new book by UC Davis prof Gregory Clark argues that it was the social structure of Great Britain in the 1800s (what we'd call English "politeness") that made possible the Industrial Revolution and our modern economy. But ten years ago, UCLA's Jared Diamond attributed that shift to something even more basic: better food. Western Europe's cultural leadership, Diamond argues, has less to do with social conventions than an accident of geography: communication along east-west latitudes allowed for easier migration, with similar crops. Surplus food supplies allowed for the specialization of labor and creative thinking.

Now lo and behold: extra food, stored as fat, enhances brain functions. Score another point for Nina Planck, Cornichon's favorite nutritionist and author of Real Food who's been saying that politically incorrect food like cholesterol-rich animal fat is good for you. Raw milk, too, according to the NY Times. Gutsy, that Nina, standing up to the Food Nazis at the FDA and the Nutrition Taliban at CSPI (Center for Science in the [Supposed] Public Interest). Pass the butter!

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Crumbs, Dregs

Where to begin? Morning news and inbox full of depressing stuff.

-The Wall Street Journal reports on a study showing convenience foods don't really save time. Maybe not, but they'll turn you and your family into fat, lazy slobs.

-Stanford study shows that kids will eat anything if they think it comes from McDonald's, even carrot sticks. Conclusion: Mickey D does a fantastic job! Wanna sell more carrots? Hire Ronald McDonald.

-The Associated Press finally get around to reporting on those new standards for chocolate (you read it here two months ago). Chocolatiers are divided; weaker standards could make their jobs easier, their products less delicious, more fattening but cheaper.

Hoping for more cheerful news by lunchtime.

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