Yep, this was my birthday cake. And let me tell you, this is a dessert worthy of the name “cake”. It was decadent. It was dreamy. It made my tastebuds do a happy dance. Then, it made me realize I had to get it out of the house. Stat. Did I get it out of the house?Read More
All About Walnut Oil from La Tourangelle
La Tourangelle is a family-owned company that produces outstanding nut and seed oils, with heritage in the Loire Valley of France, an area known for nut oils. Their toasted sesame, roasted walnut, roasted peanut and roasted pistachio oils are all award winners. The company began in 2002 in Woodland, California and their nut oils areRead More
Cherry Cranberry Chutney Recipe
It’s #canbassador time again. That means I get a big box of cherries from the Northwest Cherry Growers and head into the kitchen to do some canning. Last year I finally bit the bullet and purchased a canner. It’s not terribly expensive and stacks inside one of my stockpots. I generally can small batches andRead More
Fresh Corn & Smoked Salmon Flatbread Recipe
I always crave pizza but I am trying to cut back on carbs, so when I saw little street taco sized whole wheat tortillas at the store, I was inspired to revisit a recipe I created a few years back for Whole Wheat Mini Pizzas. This time I went in a slightly different direction, makingRead More
Ten Grapes to Know Book Review
Over time I’ve tried selling wine books back at a used bookstore with very little success. I’m sorry to say it’s because many wine books just aren’t that good and quickly become out of date. Sure there are some exceptions, but it can be hard to find a book that hones in on just theRead More
StarChefs San Francisco 2019
Courtesy of StarChefs I’ve long been impressed by the Rising StarChefs awards. Unlike chef awards, their process is transparent and has a rigor that is often missing. I spoke with Antoinette Bruno, the CEO and Editor in Chief of StarChefs to discuss the upcoming awards and the diversity that they reflect. The StarChefs Gala takesRead More
7 Trends from the Winter Fancy Food Show 2019
The Winter Fancy Food Show is a great place to identify trends. It’s also a way to see how trends are evolving. Here is a short list of what caught my attention. Cauliflower is everywhere! This isn’t new and you’ve probably seen cauliflower rice in stores. From the Ground Up makes gluten free pretzels andRead More
Traditional Italian Almond Biscotti recipe
“There is no beating grief. There is no getting over it. Yet, the beauty of grief is that it stretches your emotional bandwidth. Joy, happiness, love, compassion: The degree to which you can feel them is directly proportional to the amount of pain, grief, sadness, and devastation you have felt.” This is a quote fromRead More
15 Discoveries from the 2019 Winter Fancy Food Show
The Fancy Food Show provides a terrific opportunity to discover new and delicious things. Some of these things are new, some are just new to me, but all of them are worth seeking out. Satsumas are a tangy sweet hybrid citrus fruit. Blackberry Patch has recently introduced three satsuma products, a syrup and two preservesRead More
Kitchen Gift Guide 2018 & Giveaway
This year my recommendations are short, sweet and all really practical but are things I genuinely enjoy using. Without further ado… Save space I used to have two big clunky wooden knife blocks. My knives only fit in certain slots and the blocks took up a ton of room. Worst of all, they tended toRead More
Remembering James Beard at the Stanford Court
Erica Peters, Marelene Sorosky Gray, Jacqueline Mallorca and John Phillip Carroll In the 1970’s and 80’s James Beard, the “dean of American cookery” took up residence at the Stanford Court hotel. The hotel was his home for three months out of the year. The San Francisco Professional Food Society recently hosted a conversation with three ofRead More
Instant Indian Cookbook Review
Indian cooks have discovered the Instant Pot and how well it works for Indian cuisine—it can be used to cook everything from rice to yogurt to complex layered meat and vegetable dishes. There are at least 10 Indian Instant Pot cookbooks on Amazon at the moment, and I suspect there are more e-books out thereRead More