Monthly Archives: June 2009

My Kind of Bread

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Bread -- made with oodles of chocolate.

Yeah, yeah, yah. I know I’m supposed to eat more whole wheat, whole grain, whole lotta fiber-fabulous bread.

But can you blame me for choosing this “Double Chocolate-Honey Bread” instead?

After all, it’s got all the best characteristics of your favorite artisan loaf — but with cocoa powder suffused throughout, and big chunks of gooey deep, dark chocolate hidden inside.

The recipe is from the new “Kneadlessly Simple” (Wiley) by veteran cookbook author Nancy Baggett.

It’s a bread book all about making loaves using the slow-rise, no-knead method that’s all the rage now.

To be honest, I haven’t been all that tempted by this new trend. So ya don’t have to get your hands dirty by kneading dough. Instead you have to figure out what exact time to stick the dough in the refrigerator, when to take it out for the first rise, then when to put it in a pan for the second rise, and lastly, when precisely it’s ready to go into the oven.  Advanced calculus was easier than this.

Dough, just after the first rise.

When it comes to chocolate baked goods, though, I’ll go to great lengths. So for this chocolate bread, I was willing to give it a go. And the results were so extraordinary, I’d gladly put myself through these timing gymnastics again.

This is definitely not a cake, even if from the outside it might resemble a tea loaf of sorts. There’s no delicate, tender crumb here. This is honest-to-goodness bread with a sugary, crisp hard crust and a dense, yet soft interior that’s shot through and through with chocolate. If you like the French tradition of nibbling on a baguette topped with a piece of good dark chocolate, you’ll find this bread a pure slice of heaven.

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Good Eats & Drinks

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Chef Chris Cosentino of Incanto. (Photo courtesy of Michael Harlan Turkell)

Nosh on a special three-course menu from the Italian countryside every Sunday and Monday evenings this summer through Aug. 31 at San Francisco’s Incanto.

Executive Chef Chris Cosentino changes the prix fixe “Cocina Povera” weekly, highlighting a specific region each time. Price is $30, or $39 with two wine pairings included.

Chef Alessandro Cartumini of Quattro. (Photo courtesy of Chris Schmauch)

Four of Northern California’s best chefs will be serving up specialties at the 27th annual Vintage Affaire June 27 at a spectacular Atherton private estate.

Enjoy the creations of Alessandro Cartumini of Quattro Restaurant and Bar at the Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley in East Palo Alto; Daniel Patino of Michael Mina’s Arcadia in San Jose; Xavier Salomon of the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay; and Cal Stamenov of Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley. More than 25 of California’s best wineries also will be pouring special vintages.

Live and silent auctions will give guests a chance to bid on rare wines, wine dinners, and special vacation packages.

Tickets are $300 per person. The event benefits Palo Alto’s Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. During the past 26 years, this gala has raised nearly $6 million for the center clinic, counseling, and computer training services.

In this stagnant economy, restaurants and hotels are realizing that more than anything, diners want options and values.

That’s why all Ritz-Carlton Hotels around the world are introducing a new bar menu that invites guests to linger, share, and relax. It’s also an attempt to show that even in these tough times, you don’t have to sell the family jewels to afford a bite to eat and a drink to sip at this chain of luxury hotels.

Southern-style barbecue pork sliders. (Photo courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton)

Look for smoked salmon and arugula egg rolls, calamari in remoulade sauce, comforting crab cakes, barbecue pork sliders, and an array of cool cocktails. Items range from $10 to $20.

For another deal, head to Urban Tavern in San Francisco, June 8-12, when the downtown gastropub will allow diners to “pay what they think it’s worth.”

Yes, you got that right. Diners can enjoy up to a three-course meal at lunch. At the end, they’ll be asked to pay what they think the meal was worth. The server will then ring up that amount, plus tax. Lunch can include food, soft drinks, coffee, and tea, but not alcohol.

The offer is limited to 100 diners per day. Reservations are required.

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Ginger Time

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One scoop? Or two?

Yes, I have a thing for ginger.

Big-time.

Whether it’s pickled, fresh, crystalized, or dried, I can never get enough of it. That sweet-heat on the back of the throat wins me over every time.

So you can just imagine my delight when two new ginger products landed on my front porch for sampling.

First up, the new Haagen-Dazs “Five” ice cream flavors. There are seven flavors — each of them containing only five ingredients: milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and one wild card for flavor. The five-ingredient concept is played up to denote purity and simplicity. The ice cream comes in vanilla bean, milk chocolate, mint, coffee, brown sugar, passion fruit, and ginger.

Guess which one I opened first?

That would be correct.

The mouth-feel of these ice creams is wicked good — rich, smooth, and creamy as all get out. But then you expect no less from Haagen-Dazs.

The ginger one had a musty-ginger flavor. It had fairly subtle heat, too. Perhaps, too subtle for a true ginger addict like yours truly.

I had high hopes for the brown sugar one. After all, it tastes exactly like brown sugar. But let’s face it, how much brown sugar would you really want to eat? After one taste, that’s pretty much enough.

The vanilla bean was the epitome of purity — very vanilla-like. The milk chocolate made me think of my childhood — in a good way. It reminded me of eating cups of Carnation frozen milk chocolate out of paper containers with a tiny wooden spoon.

My favorites were probably the coffee (very perky tasting), the mint (incredibly cool and refreshing), and the passion fruit (like a tropical island on a spoon).

Itty bitty, but with a huge taste.

Next up, the Ginger People’s new Ginger Snaps. A 5.3-ounce box is $5.50.

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Nature’s Most Magnificent Cocktail Nibbles

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You'll end up eating these by the bowl-full. That's how good they are.

That bowl of blistered, tender peppers above?

Yup, those skinny, dark green beauties are nature’s best cocktail snacks.

These pimientos de Padron are grown by East Palo Alto’s Happy Quail Farms.

I was first turned on to them eight years ago when I wrote a story about them for the San Jose Mercury News Food section. Farmer David Winsberg, whom I fondly call Dr. Pepper for obvious reasons, grows a cornucopia of exotic peppers on his network of backyards and other rented properties in East Palo Alto.

He’s probably most famous for his Padron peppers, though. They are one of the oldest non-hybrid peppers around and were supposedly brought back from the New World to Spain by Christopher Columbus. Named for the town of Padron in northwest Spain, the peppers are a treasured delicacy found in tapas bars around the region during the summer, when they are harvested.

They have a mild grassy, sweet flavor. Cooked, they’re downright juicy in your mouth.

Pimientos de Padron -- before cooking.

Winsberg started growing them in 1998 after a friend of friend brought him back some seeds from Spain. Now, you’ll find Happy Quail Farms’ Padron peppers on Bay Area restaurant menus, as well as for sale at the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers’ market on Saturdays, the Palo Alto downtown farmers’ market on Saturdays, the Menlo Park downtown farmers’ market on Sundays. Deeper into summer, when production is at full steam, you’ll find Happy Quail Farms at additional farmers’ markets. Check the farms’ Web site for more information.

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Noshing on Pizza at Oakland’s Marzano

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Calamari pizza, anyone?

There was a time when my husband was on a kick to eat at every San Francisco Chronicle “Top 100” restaurant in the Bay Area. Not in one year, mind you. But just to be to able to check each one off the list eventually.

There was a time when I was fully employed, too. Ahh, the good old days. (Am I sounding like my parents yet?)

Since those two factors went together hand in hand — one does need a certain amount of income to knock off that full list — the hubster rejiggered his goal when I was laid off from my job as the food writer at the San Jose Mercury News.

Now, we still try to make it to restaurants on that list that we haven’t been to yet. But these days, they’re apt to be the more moderate-priced ones than the go-for-broke ones.

Marzano in Oakland fits that bill perfectly.

The warm, lively Oakland restaurant is indeed on that list. It’s easy to see why. It’s a neighborhood spot that’s comfortable enough and priced well enough to chow down at regularly — even in these tough times.

The wood-fired oven turns out pizzas that are blistered, thin in the center, and with a thick, chewy edge. The crust has a lot of character, full of that deep-fermented flavor of well-made artisan bread.

The "Bianco.''

Ten pies are offered on the menu. The hubster went for the “Bianco” ($14) — prosciutto, wild arugula, Parmigiano Reggiano, and extra virgin olive oil. I had my eye on the “Calamari” ($14) — yes, rings and tentacles strewn over the pie with spicy tomato sauce, gremolata, Pecorino, baby artichokes, red onion, and radicchio.

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