Last weekend, I had the opportunity to talk to Nate Appleman, executive chef-owner of A16 in San Francisco, about his wondrous three-day pizza dough recipe. You might remember my original post, touting it.

I cornered him after he did a cooking demo at the “Worlds of Flavor International Conference” at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone campus in St. Helena.

I told him how much I LOVED his pizza dough recipe because it was so easy to make, and it resulted in such a soft, elastic dough. It’s featured in his new cookbook, “A16 Food +Wine” (Ten Speed Press), which was co-written by the restaurant’s wine director, Shelley Lindgren.

I mentioned, though, that I was more than a little skeptical at the start that the dough would actually rise, given it only had a quarter teaspoon of yeast in it to 4 cups of flour.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

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A decade ago, Bay Areans might remember Chef Cat Cora as manning the stoves at Postino Restaurant in Lafayette, and writing a regular cooking column for the Contra Costa Times’ food section. 

How times have changed. 

The 41-year-old Culinary Institute of America grad has gone big-time. You’ll now find her beaming from TV sets across the nation as the only female “Iron Chef America” star on the Food Network. 

Her second cookbook just came out this year: “Cooking From the Hip” (Houghton Mifflin), which bears the same name as her former newspaper column. 

Cora is set to open a new restaurant in Costa Mesa in December. And she and her partner, Jen, who have been together a decade, are expecting their third child in April 2009. 

I caught up with the petite culinary star with the charming Southern twang at the recent “Worlds of Flavor International Conference” at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone Campus in St. Helena. 

Q: Does it feel like a lifetime ago that you were at Postino and writing for your local newspaper? 

A: It does feel like another lifetime ago. It feels like I’ve had three lives between then and now. But it was a fun time for me doing the column. 

Q: Why did you decide to settle in the Santa Barbara area? 

A: I get to live by the beach, mountains and vineyards. Plus the public schools there are probably better than most private ones around the country. 

Q: You’re opening a barbecue joint, CCQ (Cat Cora’s ‘Que) at the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa next month? Why barbecue?

A: It was a fluke. I’m on the Macy’s Culinary Council. And I had one conversation with them, and they said, “We want you to do a fast-casual concept.” I thought of barbecue immediately. I’m from the South, and this will be global barbecue. Everyone around the world barbecues. I grew up around it. I wanted to expand on the flavors I love. We’ll use all natural meats and organic products. 

Q: Will there be more CCQs around the country? 

A: Yes, we own the concept, and we are working on opening others. I’m also working on a new signature restaurant concept. It’ll be fine-dining, and opening in larger cities in 2009. 

In 2010, I also hope to roll out my first products — bakeware, cutlery, and pots and pans. We’re going green as much as possible with the product lines. We hope to do things that are innovative, and not just the same ol’ pot or pan. 

Q: Why did you want to do “Iron Chef America”? 

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Tre Wilcox, a favorite among viewers of Bravo TV’s “Top Chef,” is coming to Oakland on Nov. 15 to put his top cooking skills to work, teaching a “Healthy Holiday Cooking Class.”

The 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. class will be at Beebe Memorial Cathedral, 3900 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland. A $5 donation is requested to attend. Reserve in advance by sending a check or money order to: Vicki Williams, American Heart Association, 426 17th St., Oakland, CA 94612.

The class is being presented by Power to End Stroke, a project of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, and made possible by a community grant by Kaiser Permanente.

Preventing strokes is a top concern of Wilcox’s, as it should be for all of us. African-Americans have twice the risk of a first stroke as whites. Indeed, stroke is the number three killer of all Americans. Most strokes are preventable, if you watch your cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

Wilcox will demonstrate that a big holiday needn’t be an artery clogger, too. He will talk about ways to serve more healthful dishes that still pack a punch of flavor.

His recipe below shows just how tasty that can be.

Stuffed Chicken Thighs

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After staying up late to witness last night’s historic presidential election, all you sleep heads might need a little pick-me-up today.

Look no further than these tantalizing Ricotta Biscuits with Dried Cherries, Apricots & Raspberries.

We refer to ricotta as cheese. But did you know that it’s really not? So says the must-have, go-to book, “The Food Lover’s Companion” (Barron’s) by the late Sharon Tyler Herbst and her husband, Ron Herbst.

Ricotta is technically not a cheese because it has neither a starter or rennet in it, the Herbsts state. Ricotta is actually reheated whey (the watery liquid that separates from the solids or curds when making cheese). When the whey is reheated, “protein particles rise to the surface, are skimmed off, strained, then placed in perforated molds or baskets to drain further.” The result is ricotta.

This great recipe comes from “Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook” (Sasquatch Books) by Seattle bakery owner, Leslie Mackie, with Andrew Cleary.

These fruit-studded biscuits were the perfect way to use up the last of my leftover ricotta. In my posting yesterday, as you recall, I raved about another baked good that put some of that remaining ricotta to good use.

The dough for these biscuits is very wet and loose. So much so that I needed a dough scraper to turn out and fold the “dough” as it called for in the directions. I also needed a spatula to lift the cut biscuits onto the baking pan. Either that or they would have stuck all over my hands. Yes, this dough is a mess to work with, but don’t let that discourage you from trying it.

These treats taste like biscuits and look like scones. They are not dessert-like sweet, but pleasantly sweet enough from the infusion of all the fruit. The recipe says it makes eight biscuits. It does if you want ones the size of individual meatloaves. Personally, I think you can make 16 biscuits out of this, easily. Freeze some to enjoy with coffee or tea for breakfast another time. As winter approaches, you’ll be so glad you have a stash of these hearty babies tucked away.

Ricotta Biscuits with Dried Cherries, Apricots & Raspberries

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With our 401ks in a horrific nosedive, our stocks plummeting at a dizzying rate, and so many of us no longer bringing home the bacon with a steady paycheck (uh, yes, that includes yours truly), we simply can’t waste food these days.

So when I found myself with some extra ricotta recently, left over from making pizza, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to try new recipe or two. For me, that meant baked goods, of course.

I could have just eaten the luscious whole-milk ricotta mixed with a little honey and fresh fruit. But oh, where’s the challenge in that? I thought the leftover ricotta, with its moist, creamy texture and subtle sweet flavor, deserved more.

So on the Web, I found a recipe on Recipezaar.com that had never been reviewed yet. The Lemon Ricotta Muffins needed a little tinkering, as the oven temperature was in Celsius degrees, and the mixing instructions were a little off kilter.

But in the end, the result was a batter as thick as cookie dough that baked up to a tender, cake-like texture that melted in the mouth. The sliced almonds and sugar strewn on top of the muffins gilded the lily in the loveliest way. My hubby is already asking when I can make these again.

I think it was a fitting end to some of my leftover ricotta. Find out what other baked good was the recipient of the remainder of the ricotta in tomorrow’s post.

Lemon Ricotta Muffins

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