IfOnly.com may have created the ultimate chocolate box for big-time foodies.
The e-commerce site asked 10 Bay Area Michelin-starred chefs to create a chocolate bonbon for this special box just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Take a gander at the stellar chefs and their pastry chefs who contributed to the Constellation Chocolate Collection:
Step inside Spruce in San Francisco to be cocooned in plushness.
Baccarat crystal chandeliers in the otherwise dimly-lit, 70-seat restaurant create an intimate ambiance of drama and mystery. So much so that the chocolate mohair walls look almost black in the evening, all the better to showcase the eye-catching, over-sized charcoal sketches of whimsical figures, including a torso draped in an Adidas sweatshirt and the the backside of a bald man clad in a natty suit.
The six-year-old restaurant, with its hammerhead banquettes and faux ostrich chairs, is all about glam. Indeed, it makes you want to have an excuse to, err, spruce up just to go there.
Recently, I was invited to be a guest at the restaurant, part of the Bacchus Management Group of restaurants that also includes the Village Pub in Woodside, Mayfield Bakery & Cafe in Palo Alto, Cafe des Amis in San Francisco, and Pizza Antica locations throughout the Bay Area.
Chef de Cuisine John Madriaga has a deft touch with local ingredients, especially vegetables, not surprisingly since he cooked at Manresa in Los Gatos and apprenticed at Copenhagen’s famed Noma. He also has access to SMIP Ranch, the Santa Cruz Mountains farm that supplies produce to all the Bacchus restaurants.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CA — You may know that Chef Suzanne Goin of Lucques, AOC, the Tavern and the Larder, all in Los Angeles, is married to Chef David Lentz of The Hungry Cat in Los Angeles.
But you might not know exactly how the two met.
I knew part of the story, but not all of the details — until I asked Goin about it when I was the moderator for her cooking demo at the 28th annual Chefs’ Holidays event at the Ahwahnee Hotel.
Thankfully, she was a good enough sport to spill the beans before a rapt audience.
“So, Suzanne…” I asked, “David just happened to be dining at Lucques. And your sister just happened to be dining next to him that night? And the two of them just started talking?”
Goin chuckled and said, “There’s a part of the story that David doesn’t like me to tell, so don’t tell him I’m telling you all this. He thinks it makes him sound like a stalker.”
She went on to explain that in 1999, she was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s “Best New Chefs.” She appeared on the cover with the other honored chefs. She was the only woman among them.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CA — Serene, peaceful and magical. That’s what it’s like here in this winter wonderland.
But inside the grand Ahwahnee Hotel, the national historic landmark that opened in 1927, it’s a hive of activity at this time of year, as some of the most noted chefs from around the country make a pilgrimage here to give demos and to cook gala dinners for the public.
Yours truly was honored to be invited to be the host for two of the sessions last week for the 28th annual Chefs’ Holidays, which takes place each year throughout the month of January.
For the chefs, it’s always a fun time. They bring their spouses and kids to make a working holiday of it. For some of the chefs, it was a return visit. For others, it was their first time to Yosemite.
All of them pulled off their demos like the pros that they are. You’d never know how nervous a few were before they took the stage. One chef said he started prepping extra early because he was so jittery he couldn’t sleep the night before. Another chef said she’d rather cook three gala dinners in a row than do one cooking demo because she always gets so anxious beforehand.
Matt McNamara, co-chef and co-founder of Sons & Daughters in San Francisco, kicked off the session by demonstrating how to make “Squab with Marcona Almond Puree, Pickled Fennel, and Citrus” and “Roasted Baby Beets with Pickled Mustard Seeds and Vadauvan.”
Haven’t you scratched your head over the fact that there was an Edible San Francisco, Edible Marin, Edible Monterey Bay and so many others — yet no Edible Silicon Valley magazine?
Wonder no more.
Now, there is one.
Edible Silicon Valley debuted its first issue this month.
Yours truly is proud to be a regular writer for the new publication. Enjoy my first story for the magazine, a profile of Jesse Cool, the Peninsula chef-restaurateur who’s been a long-time champion of sustainable, organic and local foods.
