In 1997, my Tra Vigne crew and I cooked for a week at the Mandarin-Oriental in Bangkok, Thailand. The hotel’s chef wouldn’t let me leave without giving him this recipe. It will look familiar to everyone, but wait until you taste it.

I prefer to roast this chicken in a convection oven for a crispier skin, but if you have only a conventional oven, you'll still enjoy a great result. The recipe makes extra seasoned salt and you will only need half the amount made (best not to overpower the wine). You can use the leftover salt on pork chops, leg of lamb or roasted potatoes. It will keep in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for a month. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest (yellow part only) from the lemons, then mince very finely. This method gives you a drier result than a grater does.

Cioppino is traditionally made from the catch of the day. Use whatever fish and shellfish that looks freshest at your local store. Serve over spaghetti or polenta and make sure to have plenty of sourdough bread.

If you prefer, you can use strip loin, porterhouse or a rib-eye steak with this method. Remember to always use the best ingredients that you can find, from the meat to the gray salt to the balsamic vinegar. The marriage of all these ingredients will reveal a noble meal that’s still true to the cowboy way of life.

The idea here is to create a VERY flavorful boil...with plenty of salt, spice and any other must-have flavors. Don’t be afraid to make it strong. Imagine when you taste the boil that only 25 percent of that flavor will seep in. So roll up your sleeves and boil away. What’s important is that you have a really big pot (ours was 25 gallons) with a basket insert. Keep a hose nearby to spray everyone off after the feast.

Look at the size of your pot and the amount of your ingredients. Keep in mind that when you add the ingredients, the water level will rise substantially and you’ll want to keep all the ingredients covered with water, and all of the food in the pot! You’ll need a propane burner that fits securely under the full pot. We like it spicy, but season to your taste. Enjoy!

This is a great base recipe and can be used with other shellfish—lobster, spot prawns, crabs and crawfish. Take advantage of what the market and season offers and create a seafood boil with your personal touch. The aromatics can be assembled yourself (this allows you to use more or less of a particular flavor). You can do the same with the spices, or, use our NapaStyle Shrimp Boil kit.

Depending on how spicy you like your food, adjust the crushed red pepper flakes accordingly. Add more if you like spicy and less, if you like foods that are a little milder. These crispy olives make for great party foods for the upcoming holiday season.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a simpler or more successful dish. As long as we can get fresh Dungeness crabs, this dish is on the menu. Stone crabs, spider crabs, blue crabs or lobsters can all be substituted for Dungeness in this recipe.

Posole is a traditional stew from Mexico that once had ritual significance. You may end up making my version a ritual in your home!

I call this “Forever” Roasted Lamb because it takes (almost) forever to roast, about eight hours. The meat is well seasoned and cooked in a slow oven until it is so tender it shreds. Once it’s done, I challenge you not to stand at the kitchen counter and pick. Make your own or pick up a tin of my Fennel Spice Rub at www.napastyle.com.

Shellfish and citrus are a natural pairing. Look for seasonal citrus like tangerines in addition to the recommended grapefruit and oranges. The recipe calls for jumbo prawns, but the most important thing here is not the size but the freshness. Please buy whatever size prawn (shrimp) is of the best quality. If you don’t have time to make the fennel spice rub, you can find it on the www.napastyle.com website.

If you are compressed for time, focaccia is often available already baked and ready to go. Alternatively use a French loaf.

I call this “Forever Roasted Pork” because it takes (almost) forever to roast, about eight hours. The meat is well seasoned and cooked in a slow oven until it is so tender it shreds. Once it’s done, I challenge you not to stand at the kitchen counter and pick.

My colleague Susie Heller showed me how to make a snow-like flurry of blue cheese on a salad by freezing the cheese first. You can use any blue, but I’m in love with Point Reyes Blue, a cheese from the dairy country north of San Francisco. Baby greens, pears, walnuts, and blue cheese are a classic autumn combination, but the spiced walnuts and the Port vinaigrette set this salad apart. Supermarket pears are usually rock hard because they have just come out of cold storage. Buy your pear a couple of days before you plan to use it, and leave it at room temperature to soften a little. It’s easier to slice when still fairly firm.

This recipe makes extra rice coating, but since you’re getting your blender dirty, you may as well make a lot. The mixture freezes well in an airtight container, and it’s handy to have around for deep-frying. It’s so good that it has become my all-purpose coating for anything fried. I rarely use table salt, but it’s the best choice in the rice coating because it stays evenly distributed. A mandoline or V-slicer will help you slice the lemon and onion thinly.

In 1985, I was the executive chef of Toby’s Bar and Grill in Miami. The restaurant was an early exponent of “new world cuisine.” The menu interwove Mediterranean, Latin and even Asian influences with reinterpretations of regional American classics. This dish began as something I would make for myself and the manager for lunch and was one of the dishes I cooked for my Tra Vigne interview in 1986. It remains on the menu even now. Michelangelo was one of my mother’s pet names for me.