Hi Lo Northern California BBQ
BBQ eludes me. Even as a committed omnivore, BBQ never took hold of my culinary longings until I went to Hi Lo, the sleek, airy, unabashedly San Francisco style barbecue place across the street from sister restaurant Hog and Rocks. There, I fell in love. I think Hi Lo is the best restaurant to open [...]
Read More →b. Patisserie
I am obsessed with b. Patisserie, a new bakery/cafe in my lower Pacific Heights neighborhood. I sit at the computer inventing excuses to walk over. When I’m out, and pass within two blocks of its pearly white facade and big front windows, I start talking to myself. If I dropped in every time, I’d be [...]
Read More →California Olive Ranch Olive Oil
For the first time, in my opinion, a California grower is producing extra virgin olive oil that is comparable in price, quality and availability to the extra virgin oils produced in Greece, Spain and Italy. Less than ten years ago California Olive Ranch started planting high density olive trees that look and act like grapevines. [...]
Read More →Wise Sons Deli
Lord knows we need a Jewish deli in San Francisco and the Wise Sons have made it their mission to bring us one, first as a pop up, then in a booth at the Tuesday Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and now as a brick and mortar self serve restaurant in the Mission. On the booth’s [...]
Read More →Del Popolo
Jon Darsky, who apprenticed with Charlie Hallowell at Pizzaiola, went pro at Delfina Pizzeria, and became the much lauded pizza maker at Flour + Water, has struck out on his own. No, he has not opened a brick and mortar pizzeria. Rather he designed and had fabricated a pizzeria in a shipping container mounted on [...]
Read More →Mendocino “Burrata” of Goat and Sheep Milk
Pennyroyal Farmstead, an adjunct farm of Anderson Valley’s Navarro Vineyards. has put out their first cheese, a soft, creamy combo of goat milk and sheep milk with the texture of burrata, and a flavor that I have only tasted once before, when I camped out in the French Pyrenees with shepherds. They made a similar [...]
Read More →Bastille Day Feast
This announcement came to me through Georgeanne Brennan, a fellow member of Les Dames d’Escoffier. A Bastille Day Feast Saturday, July 14, 2012 Wolfskill Ranch 4334 Putah Creek Road, Winters, CA Gathering time: 11:30 a.m. Tour of historic Wilfskill ranch: 11:45 a.m. Aperitif: 12:30 p.m. Feast: 1 to 3 p.m. All participants bring their own [...]
Read More →Cold Soba at Nojo
We’re feeling the summer in Hayes Valley. While not quite as warm as the Mission, the sun is hot and people walk around in shorts. The urge for cold soba, buckwheat noodles, a summertime favorite in Japan, propelled me into Nojo, Greg Dunmore’s farm inspired izakaya. His chilled soba salad ($8.50), like nothing I’ve ever [...]
Read More →Nibby Buckwheat Cookies
One of the best professional cooks I know, Catherine Pantsios, gave me a few of these understated butter cookies, the recipe for which she she found in a dessert book by Alice Medrich. They hit me hard. I fell in love. Almost savory and kind of Russian, the cookies are made with buckwheat flour and [...]
Read More →Tartine Bakery
Asked the ridiculous “last meal” question that every famous, and not so famous, food person must endure, Jacques Pepin came up with a good answer: “the best bread with the best butter.” The 80-something Pepin, a true cultural hero, has made a career out of teaching French technique on public television and publishing companion books [...]
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