Category Archives: Chefs

My Dinner with Jacques

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The one and only Jacques Pepin -- in town for dinner at Saison in San Francisco.

Monday night at Saison restaurant in San Francisco, I had dinner with Jacques Pepin.

OK, that would be me and 17 other people.

Still, it’s always an honor to be in the presence of such a formidable culinary figure, whose talent remains genuine and relevant even more so in this age of instant celebritism.

The occasion? A celebration of the French Culinary Institute’s new International Culinary Center of California in Campbell.

The New York-based culinary school has graduated the likes of Bobby Flay, Dan Barber, David Chang and Wylie Dufresne. It has been eager to establish a West Coast presence for a decade, and jumped at the chance when the former, five-year-old Professional Culinary Institute went up for sale this year, according to Brooke Schwartz, president of the new Campbell school.

Pepin, dean of special programs for the French Culinary Institute, was in town for the dinner soiree, along with other colleagues, including Dorothy Cann Hamilton, the founder of the institute.

A dozen food writers from around the Bay Area were invited, along with newest FCI deans, Chef David Kinch of Manresa restaurant in Los Gatos and Emily Luchetti, executive pastry chef of Waterbar and Farallon, both in San Francisco.

The Campbell school, which used to draw mainly from the local area, is now attracting students nationwide, Schwartz says. The school offers three core programs: Classic Culinary Arts, Classic Pastry Arts, and Intensive Sommelier Training (the first program in the world to be approved by the Court of Master Sommeliers). With Kinch’s involvement, culinary students will get a chance to visit Love Apple Farm in Santa Cruz, which grows exclusively for Manresa. And with Luchetti’s involvement, pastry students will get a chance to visit her restaurants for dessert tastings and kitchen tours. Additionally, the school offers a range of culinary, baking and wine classes for homecooks.

Saison Chef Joshua Skenes conferring with his cooks before the start of the dinner.Only the brave -- like this cook -- could take being by the roaring hearth on an unseasonably hot San Francisco day.

Saison’s Executive Chef Josh Skenes, an FCI grad, created the dinner. Saison’s Sommelier Mark Bright joked that the wine pairings were all French purely by accident, even if that seemed entirely appropriate to the occasion.

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Chef Richard Blais Cooks In A Peach Orchard, Whole Foods Fund-Raising Days & More

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A beautiful Suncrest peach. (Photo courtesy of Frog Hollow Farm)

A Peach of a Time with “Top Chefs Masters” Champ Richard Blais

Get ready for “Peaches & Tango: A Dinner in the Orchard’‘ on July 23 at Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood.

Farmer Al Courchesne, owner of the organic Frog Hollow Farm, has always dreamed of pairing his juicy, wonderful peaches with the drama of tango. Now, he’s doing just that — with the help of recent “Top Chef Masters” victor Richard Blais.

Meet Chef Richard Blais. (Photo courtesy of the chef)Blais will cook a feast using locally grown produce, featuring such delights as beet tartare with candied wasabi, grilled pork belly with cauliflower and peaches, and liquid nitrogen ice cream cones. Sit down to enjoy it all in the orchard, amid rows and rows of Suncrest peach trees.

To top the evening off, Trio Garufa, a company of contemporary Agentine tango dancers, will be performing, then teaching guests how to do the tango, themselves.

Tickets are $200 per person. Proceeds benefit the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Edible School Yard, both dedicated to fostering school curriculum and lunch programs in which students learn to grow, cook and share food at the table.

Whole Foods Community Fund-Raising Days

At least four times a year, each Whole Foods store sets aside a day in which 5 percent of the day’s net sales goes to a non-profit.

For June 22, the San Jose Whole Foods, 1146 Blossom Hill Road, has chosen as its recepient, the San Jose Police Foundation, which is the prime source of private support for the San Jose Police Department. And if you’ve been following the city’s budget woes of late, you know those funds are needed more than ever.

For those who live in San Francisco, if you shop on June 23 at any Whole Foods locales in that city, 5 percent of net sales will go to Project Open Hand, which provides meal and nutrition services.

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A Visit to the New Love Apple Farms

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An apprentice watering vegetables at Love Apple Farm.

If paradise could be defined, it would be Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz.

It’s hard to stroll around this verdant organic, biodynamic farm without feeling in awe of all that grows here — for just one fortunate recipient.

That would be Michelin two-star restaurant Manresa, a mere 15-minutes north.

Each morning, the produce is picked, then driven to the restaurant by noon, where Executive Chef-Proprietor David Kinch spotlights that abundance on that evening’s dinner menu.

Love Apple Farm started out as a two-acre spread in lawyer-turned-farmer Cynthia Sandberg’s backyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Last spring, she moved the farm to a much more expansive 20-acre spread in Santa Cruz.

Some of Cynthia Sandberg's famous tomato seedlings.

Potatoes ready for planting.

Dainty rat tail radish with a peppery bite. A favorite of Chef David Kinch.

The property was formerly the original Smothers Brothers Winery before the comedic duo relocated it to Kenwood. Sandberg proudly shows off a couple of bottles of wine leftover from that former venture. The property is full of lore, including the fact that it was also the site of noted winemaker Randall Grahm’s first job. The colorful founder of nearby Bonny Doon Vineyard once pruned grapes here.

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Chocolate Chunk Cookies — That Even Opposites Can Agree Upon

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Bread flour makes these chocolate chunk cookies extra tender.

It’s a good thing that opposites attract.

We often joke that my husband is the Nasdaq to my “flatline.” His personality tends to be more volatile than mine, which is fairly even-keeled.

And when it comes to cookies, he favors a soft, cakey texture to my fondness for crisp and chewy.

So, when Harvard-educated pastry chef Joanne Chang of Boston’s Flour Bakery & Cafe came out with a recipe last year for chocolate chip cookies that promised to be chewy with the addition of bread flour in the dough, I was intrigued whether it would somehow satisfy both my husband’s likes, as well as my own.

The recipe, “Chocolate Chunk Cookies” is from Chang’s cookbook, “Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery & Cafe” (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy. The cookbook includes more than 100 recipes from her bakery, where 1,500 customers come to get their sweet tooth fix every day.

The dough calls for both milk chocolate and semisweet chocolate. I used a sample of Taza Semi-Sweet Baking Squares that I had recently received. Unlike other chocolates, Taza’s products are processed minimally and made from stone-ground beans. The result is chocolate with a much rougher texture, but deep flavor. The baking squares are earthy, with a noticeable acidity and slight bitterness. An 8-ounce container is $10.50.

Taza's rough-hewn baking chocolate squares.

It comes in a resealable can.

The dough is a mix of all-purpose and bread flour, along with both granulated and light brown sugars, and plenty of butter. Chang recommends letting the dough firm up in the refrigerator for at least a day before baking the cookies to let the ingredients meld, which is what I did.

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Momofuku’s New Jarred Sauces

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Making this tender Asian pork dish is as easy as opening up a jar. Well, almost...

Think of this as David Chang in a jar.

But when you unscrew the lid, there won’t be curse words galore spilling out of it.

Instead, you’ll find easy-to-use cooking sauces from the famed chef who created the mini empire of Momofuku restaurants in New York.

The sauces, sold exclusively online at Williams-Sonoma, come in two varieties: Momofuku Asian Braising Sauce and Momofuku Clay Pot Cooking Sauce.

Chef David Chang has bottled his sauces to making cooking his cuisine a snap at home.

The former is a savory-sweet blend of soy, mirin, pear, dark brown sugar, rice vinegar, apple juice and sesame oil that comes with a recipe for “Asian Braised Short Ribs” on the back of the jar. The latter is a sweet-tangy combination of soy, mirin, lemongrass, fish sauce, shallots, ginger, cinnamon and star anise that comes with a recipe for “Clay Pot Pork.”

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