Squash Blossom and Maitake Rice Pilaf From A Michelin-Starred Chef

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Squash blossoms, maitakes, zucchini, and cotija cheese make this rice dish so flavorful and beautiful.
Squash blossoms, maitakes, zucchini, and cotija cheese make this rice dish so flavorful and beautiful.

Bay Area nominees at this year’s James Beard Awards for restaurants and chefs disappointingly came away empty-handed.

But one huge bright spot came at the foundation’s media awards, when Chef Rogelio Garcia of Michelin-starred Auro in Calistoga strode across the stage to accept a James Beard Award for his first cookbook, “Convivir: Modern Mexican Cuisine in California’s Wine Country” (Cameron Company, 2024).

Written with Andrea Lawson Gray, a San Francisco cookbook writer and food historian, this gorgeous, coffee table book, of which I received a review copy, is a collection of more than 150 recipes inspired by the Mexican diaspora that has shaped our foodways profoundly, especially in California.

The title references the Spanish word that means “to live together,” a sentiment with even greater weight and poignancy in these fraught times.

The book is a salute to the many Mexican Americans who have come to Wine Country to work the land, pick the grapes, and create the wines and foods that are appreciated the world over.

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7 Adams Adds A New Seven

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Dungeness crab amuse-bouche kicks off the new 7-course tasting menu at 7 Adams.
Dungeness crab amuse-bouche kicks off the new 7-course tasting menu at 7 Adams.

“Tasting menu bargain” sure seems like a total oxymoron.

Especially these days when quite a few tasting menus bust the pocketbook at upwards of $500 per person.

So, when I come across one that hovers in the $125-plus range, especially one that delivers a filling and fulfilling time at a Michelin-starred establishment no less, I take notice.

San Anselmo’s Michelin-starred Madcap with its eight courses for $140 or 11 courses for $165 has long fit that bill for me. Of course my all-time bargain bliss is the four-course $52 menu at San Francisco’s Trestle, but that is more of a prix fixe with choices for each course rather than a bona fide tasting menu.

Just look for the "7.''
Just look for the “7.”

Happily, another modest-priced tasting menu, relatively speaking, has popped up on the scene now, this one at Michelin-starred 7 Adams in San Francisco.

Call it “7 at 7,” as it features 7 courses for $127. An optional wine pairing is $77 per person.

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The Nostalgic Taste of No-Churn Yuen Yeung Ice Cream Cake

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Sara Lee Pound Cake goes fancy and sentimental.
Sara Lee Pound Cake goes fancy and sentimental.

As a Chinese American kid growing up in San Francisco, I would peer into our family freezer to spy not only bamboo leaf-wrapped sticky rice dumplings and on-sale bags of shrimp for future stir-frys, but plenty of Swanson Salisbury steak dinners, boxes of Banquet boil-in-bag chicken a la king, and Sara Lee Pound Cake.

The latter of which I much preferred to eat still frozen.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in that, either.

Not if the cookbook, “Salt Sugar MSG: Recipes From A Cantonese American Home” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy, is any indication.

That’s because deep within its pages is a recipe for “No-Churn Yuen Yeung Ice Cream Cake” made with — you guessed it — a Sara Lee Pound Cake, but one gussied up with layers of a fluffy whipped cream-and condensed milk flavored with Lipton tea and a dash of coffee.

For me, it is as if old-school Chinatown milk tea and that buttery dense pound cake decided to skip joyously together down memory lane.

The cookbook was written by Calvin Eng, chef and owner of Bonnie’s, a well-regarded Cantonese American restaurant in Williamsburg in New York. who is also a Food & Wine “Best New Chef,” with assistance from Phoebe Melnick, a New York video journalist.

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Summer Was Made For Dandelion Chocolate Single-Origin S’mores Kit

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Dandelion Chocolate debuts a kit to make gourmet s'mores.
Dandelion Chocolate debuts a kit to make gourmet s’mores.

Level up your s’mores game — big-time — with the new Dandelion Chocolate Single-Origin S’mores Kit.

The San Francisco bean-to-bar chocolate company has come up with its own gourmet version of the campfire favorite that’s available for summer.

I had a chance to try a sample of the $68 kit that comes with everything you need to make nine s’mores. That includes 70 percent large, square-shaped, single-origin chocolate chips from cacao beans grown in three different parts of the world: Indonesia, Belize, and Uganda.

The s'mores kit box.
The s’mores kit box.

Also enclosed are Dandelion Chocolate Chef Lisa Vega’s house-made graham crackers and marshmallows, along with napkins, matchbooks, instructions for making the s’mores (using a campfire, barbecue, broiler or gas stovetop), and two telescoping metal skewers.

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Summer Sips

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A Chardonnay that drinks light with plenty of acidity.
A Chardonnay that drinks light with plenty of acidity.

2022 Bouchaine Estate Chardonnay

When the weather heats up, all thoughts turn to refreshing white wines, preferably sipped al fresco swinging in a hammock or at least basking in the comfort of A/C.

Napa’s Bouchaine Vineyards has got you covered with its 2022 Estate Chardonnay ($40).

This blend, of which I received a sample, is actually crafted from more than a dozen different Chardonnay wines produced from the winery’s estate blocks that were originally planted in 1984. As such, the final wine is the culmination of the marriage of different yeasts, along with fermentation in stainless steel tanks, as well as French oak barrels of different ages and toasts.

If you’re not the biggest fan of buttery, oaky or heavy-bodied Chardonnays, this one is for you. A golden straw color, it opens up on the nose with lime and apple aromas, and then fills the palate with green apple and lemon curd. It has an unexpected through line of acidity that makes it quite refreshing.

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