Who wants to try some beeramisu?
I thought that would get your attention. Yup, it’s the classic Italian dessert, only made with beer.
You can learn how to make it and sample some at Macy’s Valley Fair in Santa Clara at 6 p.m. April 10 when I host a cooking demo with Chef Gaston Alfaro of Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.
Chef Ross Hanson is one of the featured chefs at the benefit gala for Child Advocates of Silicon Valley. (Photo courtesy of the chef)
Enjoy gourmet noshes by 15 Bay Area chefs matched with wine and cocktails at the annual “Star Chefs and the Wines and Spirits They Love” fund-raiser, 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. April 13 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
The participating chefs are:
Executive Chef Ross Hanson, Oak & Rye Restaurant
Executive Chef Philipe Breneman, Lexington House
Executive Chef John Burke, Liquid Bread Gastropub
Executive Chef Jeff Fitzgerald, Dio Deka
Executive Chef Jarad Gallagher, Chez TJ
Chef de Cuisine Anthony Jimenez, The Table
Executive Chef Brad Kraten, Park Place
Executive Chef Lan Le, White Shallot
Executive Chef Randy Musterer, Sushi Confidential
Executive Chef Justin Perez, Justin’s Restaurant
Head Baker Avery Ruzicka, The Manresa Bread Project
Executive Chef Josiah Slone, Â Sent Sovi
Executive Chef Nanci Wokas, Hewlett Packard
Executive Chef Chris Yamashita, Brown Chicken Brown Cow
Bee Whisperer Tim Dauber, Bee Friendly
The best dishes will receive a People’s Choice, Chefs’ Choice and Judges’ Choice award. Yours truly is proud to be one of the judges for the evening.
If you’ve yet to enjoy the signature fideua with duck at Duende in Oakland, then head there, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. April 6.
That’s when Chef-Proprietor Paul Canales will be hosting a special book-signing event in the lively bodega side of the restaurant featuring yours truly.
Canales’ recipe for the classic Spanish paella-like dish made with noodles rather than rice is spotlighted in my cookbook, “San Francisco Chef’s Table” (Lyons Press). The book is a compilation of more than 50 top Bay Area restaurants with their stories and their famed recipes.
Fideua with duck and olives at Duende is featured in my debut cookbook.
You’ll not only enjoy glasses of bubbly cava and tastes of the fideua, but go home with a copy of the cookbook, signed by Canales, book photographer Craig Lee, and myself.
Hawaiian ono at Epic Roasthouse, which lists on the menu where all its seafood is from and how it was caught.
Epic Roasthouse on San Francisco’s waterfront is the kind of place you go to impress.
There’s the unparalleled view of the Bay from most any table, including the jaw-dropping LED “Bay Lights” flickering installation on the Bay Bridge.
There’s the over-the-top clubby decor by famed restauranteur-designer Pat Kuleto that showcases the dining room in a sort of pump-house-gone-glam look.
And of course, there is the menu, full of luxurious ingredients and spendy dishes including a 4-ounce A5 Miyazaki Wagyu steak for $98 and “An Epic Meal for Two” (a 32-ounce Tomahawk rib steak plus a 2-pound lobster) for $198.
The view outside the windows.
The dramatic dining room ceiling.
Part of the pump house-like decor.
Last fall, Park Ulrich, also executive chef of adjacent restaurant Waterbar, took over the same position at Epic Roasthouse when founding chef, Jan Birnbaum, departed. I had a chance to dine at Epic Roasthouse recently as a guest of the restaurant, though, it was a night when Ulrich was not there.
Dark chocolate, rye and salt combine to make these fudgey cookies.
There’s a reason why this “Salted Chocolate-Rye Cookies” recipe is one of the most publicized ones from the new “Tartine Book No. 3.”
First, it’s one of the simplest recipes from the book (Chronicle) by Chad Robertson of San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery, of which I received a review copy. If you’re familiar with Robertson’s other two books, “Tartine” (written with wife, Elisabeth M. Prueitt) and “Tartine Bread”,” you know how painstaking his recipes can be, particularly the bread ones. “Tartine Book No. 3” is no exception, especially because it’s all about baking with whole grains such as flax, spelt and kamut. The master method for Tartine loaves spans eight pages alone. Even the fruit scone recipe requires the making of a leaven (or starter).
Second, these cookies are a guaranteed hit. They are extremely fudgey and chocolatey tasting with the perfect sophisticated crunch of sea salt over the top.
I had one more reason for tackling these cookies: the bag of rye flour taking up space in my freezer that was left over from making Nancy Silverton’s amazing pizza dough recipe.
The rye flour replaces whole-wheat in these cookies. Rye contains gluten. It also lends a slight malt taste to baked goods. With chocolate, it’s a natural.