Author Archives: foodgal

Beer is the Secret Ingredient in this Stew

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It doesn't get better than hearty beef stew cooked with ale and topped with a fluffy buttermilk dumpling.

You know this beef stew has got to be fabulous if I made it and thoroughly enjoyed it during a fluke 90-degree heatwave a few weeks ago.

So just think how satisfying it will be during the bone-chilling fall weather to come.

“Beef-Ale Stew and Green Onion-Buttermilk Dumplings” is from the new “The Sunset Cookbook” (Oxmoor House) by the editors of Menlo Park-based Sunset magazine.

It’s the first new cookbook in 15 years by Sunset.

As a native San Franciscan, I grew up with Sunset magazine as a staple in my family’s house. A stack was always found on our coffee table. Over the years, the look of the magazine may have changed. But one thing that hasn’t is the reliability of the recipes. Meticulously tested, they always work and taste delicious.

The new cookbook, of which I recently received a review copy, follows that tradition. More than 1,000 recipes are packed inside this weighty book, which were selected from the magazine, then retested and updated.

The beauty of this stew is that the thick sauce is really made from nothing more than natural beef juices cooked down for three hours with caramelized onions and two bottles of ale. Yet it tastes far more complex than that. I used the New Belgium Brewing company’s Trippel Ale brewed with coriander, which was smooth, hoppy, robust and had an almost faint caraway note.

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A Taste of France At Cafe Des Amis

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Diver scallop with blood sausage at Cafe des Amis.

Walking into the glam back dining room of the new Cafe Des Amis in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood, I felt like I should have donned an elegant Hermes scarf for the occasion.

If only I owned one.

The three-month old restaurant, a short drive from the Fairmont Heritage Place San Francisco, was four years in the making. But it was worth the wait.

The former Prego Italian restaurant has been transformed into the ultimate brasserie that encapsulates tres French chic with antique marble floors, a nickel bar, deep red walls, crimson leather banquettes, a classic limestone fireplace and an enormous bejeweled chandelier.

A huge chandelier in the back dining room adds even more glam.

The back dining room that's quieter than the front one.

Attention to detail is evident, as when the table next to ours was reset and a busser actually brought out a cordless iron to smooth the creases in the white tablecloth.

On a recent Saturday night, when I was invited to dine as a guest of the restaurant, the 200-seat establishment that stays open daily till 1 a.m. was bustling with diners. And this was a slow night, according to our server.

The Bacchus Management Group — which also owns Spruce in San Francisco, the Village Pub in Woodside, Mayfield Bakery & Cafe in Palo Alto, and numerous Pizza Antica outposts — joined with Perry Butler of Perry’s restaurant in San Francisco, who acquired the old Prego spot, a half block from his famous bar, in 2005. They brought on board Chef Edward Carew, who has cooked at top New York spots such as Grammercy Tavern, Eleven Madison Park and Craft, as well as San Francisco’s Florio, where he was the executive chef.

You may not need an Hermes scarf to enjoy yourself here. But deep pockets help if you want to order a few of the dishes, such as the “Cote de Boeuf” with marrow and frites at $86 for two.

I started with a “Greyhound’s Tooth” ($11), an amber-colored cocktail of Benedictine, vodka, house-made grapefruit bitters, and lemon served in an old-school, bowl-shaped champagne glass garnished with a big, bold curl of grapefruit peel.

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A Gingery Time for a Good Cause

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Fresh-baked gingerbread stars to help the Make-A-Wish Foundation. (Photo courtesy of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group)

Satisfy your gingerbread craving while doing a good deed, too.

You can if you purchase a bag of star-shaped, iced gingerbread cookies for $10 from participating Lark Creek Restaurant Group establishments throughout November. All proceeds will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which makes wishes come true for children with severe illnesses.

The cookies, available on the dessert menu, were designed by One Market Pastry Chef Patti Dellamonica-Bauler. Glam them up with frosting, sprinkles and candies to enjoy at the restaurant or take them home with you in a decorative box.

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Meet Harold McGee and Amanda Hesser

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Harold McGee (Photo by Harold Petzke)Meet Harold McGee:

Bay Area author  Harold McGee’s seminal “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen” (Scribner) is beloved by home cooks and professional chefs alike.

Now, he’s come out with a new book that’s sure to be another classic: “Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes” (Penguin Press).

The new book is filled with useful information, based on scientific findings, that will no doubt make us all better cooks. For instance, did you know that you should reboil refrigerated meat or fish stocks every few days, as they are so perishable that they can spoil even in the fridge? Did you know that figs are so perishable that they can be spoiled inside without obvious external signs? Or that you should not use foil to wrap acidic foods or to cover steel or cast-iron pots as aluminum corrodes in contact with acid or non-aluminum metal containers?

You can meet McGee, when he’ll be signing copies of his book at various events around the Bay Area:

* Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. at Kepler’s in Menlo Park.

* Nov. 1 at 6:30 p.m. at the Sobrato Center for Non-Profits, 1400 Parkmoor Ave. in San Jose. The event, hosted by the Commonwealth Club of Silicon Valley, is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. For tickets, call (408) 847-7730 or click here.

* Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. at Omnivore Books in San Francisco.

* Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. at Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz.

Join Amanda Hesser for a Food Writing Seminar

Longtime food writer for the New York Times, Amanda Hesser, will be leading an adult writer’s seminar, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Nov. 7 at the Women’s Building, 3543 – 18th St. in San Francisco.

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Carlo Middione: The Brave Struggle of a Chef Who Lost His Senses of Taste and Smell

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Chef Carlo Middione ladles out meatball soup -- a dish he's made countless times, but can no longer taste.

Anyone who has ever suffered through a cold knows how unappealing food gets when you can neither smell nor taste it.

Now, imagine that condition possibly lasting permanently.

And happening to a chef, of all people.

That’s exactly what befell one of San Francisco’s most well-known Italian chefs, Carlo Middione, whose condition forced him to close his 29-year-old Vivande Porta Via on New Year’s Eve 2009.

Middione lost his senses of taste and smell, following a car accident three years ago a block from his home in San Francisco, in which his Toyota Corolla was rear-ended by a Toyota Tundra driver who was allegedly speeding and talking on a cell phone. In the impact, Middione’s brain was jostled so severely that the neurons that connect to his olfactory nerve, which is instrumental in the sense of smell, were sheared off.

A noted cookbook author and long-time culinary instructor, Middione hasn’t worked since closing his restaurant. But he is eager to do so again, he says, as a consultant to train staff or organize kitchens.

Dishes for lunch ready to be served.

“I’m not the type to tell people that I broke a tooth, so I didn’t talk a lot about the accident publicly,” Middione says. “I was on so much medication the first month that I wasn’t really eating. But four weeks later, I noticed I couldn’t taste anything.”

Indeed, this is the first time Middione has talked at length about what happened to him. Read all about it in my story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.

Loss of smell can occur because of head trauma, viral infections and from aging, explains Barb Stuckey, an executive with Mattson, in Foster City, the largest independent food development firm in the country, who is writing a book, “Taste What You’re Missing’’ (Free Press), which will be published next year and will feature a chapter on Middione. Eighty percent of people over the age of 80 suffer from some sort of smell loss, she says.

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