Monthly Archives: October 2012

New PopChips Tortilla Chips and A Food Gal Giveaway

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New Ranch tortilla chips from PopChips.

If you’re like me, you find it dangerous to have a bag of PopChips anywhere in your house.

That’s because the air-popped potato and sweet potato chips are so crunch-a-licious. Plus, you can convince yourself that they’re actually kind of, sort of healthful because they’re all natural and have half the fat and fewer calories than regular chips. It’s enough to make you inhale the bag, which I admit I have done on occasion.

Well, your will power is about to be tested again because PopChips has introduced its newest product: tortilla chips.

Yes, made the same way with little oil in a proprietary popping process.

The triangular-shaped tortilla chips are made with stone ground masa. They come in four flavors: Nacho Cheese, Ranch, Salsa, and Chili Limon.

The texture is crisp but a little lighter and airier than a regular tortilla chip. They’re also a bit thinner than regular PopChips. The Nacho Cheese is plenty cheesy and the Ranch has the creamy-onion-garlic taste of the dressing. My favorites were the Salsa and Chili Limon because both have a little heat but still allow the corn flavor to shine through more so than the other two flavors.

They are available in four varieties.

A 1-ounce bag has 120 calories, no saturated fat and 135-190mg of sodium, depending on the variety.

Find them at Safeway, BevMo, Target, Costco and Jamba Juice. They’re also available on Amazon.com at $20.50 for 24 (1-ounce) bags.

Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will win 12 coupons for 12 free (3-ounce or 3.5-ounce) bags of PopChips or PopChips Tortilla Chips. Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight PST Oct. 20. Winner will be announced Oct. 23.

How to win?

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After Hours in the Bakery at Baker & Banker

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"XXX Chocolate Cake'' -- one of the perks of dining after closing at a bakery.

For anyone with a sweet tooth like mine, it’s a fantasy come true to eat to your stomach’s content in a bakery after it’s closed for the night.

I wasn’t exactly let loose to scour the pantry, though. Instead, I was invited recently to dine as a guest of the restaurant with a few other food writers in what is essentially the private dining room at Baker & Banker in San Francisco.

The acclaimed restaurant in Pacific Heights, owned by husband-and-wife Pastry Chef Lori Baker and Chef Jeff Banker, also has an adjacent bakery. After closing each night, the bakery is available for private parties. It has to be a small one, though, as there’s enough room for only eight at the one table set up right by the bakery counter. There’s also a minimum of five diners required.

The 8-person table in the private dining room (in the bakery) at Baker & Banker.

A reminder that you're inside a bakery.

To get to it, you walk into the restaurant, head to the back, go through the small kitchen, and walk down a few stairs right into the heart of the bakery.

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Unreal Candy That Tastes Real Good

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They resemble M&Ms, but they have less sugar.

Is it too early in the month to already start talking about candy?

I think not.

Especially when it’s candy that’s made with better, more healthful ingredients.

Unreal Brands candy is the brainchild of 15-year-old Nicky Bronner, who got so peeved one year that his parents had confiscated his Halloween loot that he decided to come up with new versions of his favorite candies that his parents would approve of.

Of course, it helps that his father is Boston entrepreneur Michael Bronner who founded Digitas, a digital direct marketing company, and Unpromise, which reinvented the loyalty program model. It also didn’t hurt that his father is friends with the likes of Tom Brady, Giselle Bundchen and Matt Damon, all of whom are now Unreal brand ambassadors.

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Thumbprint Scones

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Thumbprint scones filled with sweet-tart, creamy lemon curd.

Imagine your favorite thumbprint cookie, but blown up to the size of a tender, crumbly scone.

That’s what these pastries basically are. They also boast the unlikely name of “Thugs-‘n’-Harmony.”

They’re from the new cookbook, “The Sugar Cube” (Chronicle Books), of which I recently received a review copy.

Author and baker Kir Jensen gave up her fine-dining career path to sell her handmade treats out of a food truck called the Sugar Cube in Portland, Ore. instead.

Jensen, who worked at Trio in Chicago and Florio Bakery in Portland, offers up 50 recipes for cupcakes, cookies, tarts, muffins and candies. Her treats are homespun meets kick-ass. They’re familiar, but given newfangled spins, as well as playful names such as “Twisted Toll House” cookies and “Beta Believe It” smoothie.

You can make these scones as simple wedges. But why, when you can make over-sized thumbprints instead? Fill them with your favorite jam or lemon curd, as I did.

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