Category Archives: Chefs

New Vegan Cupcakes, New Pinkberry & Dinner by a “Top Chef” Contestant

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After a year of tinkering, Sprinkles Cupcakes has unveiled its new vegan and gluten-free versions of the Red Velvet cupcake, its best-seller.

Chef Candace Nelson, founder of Sprinkles, makes the vegan ones with all-natural soy milk, tofu-based cream cheese and coconut oil. The gluten-free one is made with gluten-free flour and topped with a thick layer of the usual cream cheese frosting.

Find them now at all Sprinkles locations.

Word is that competitor, Kara’s Cupcakes, also is working on vegan and gluten-free cupcakes. Stay tuned….

“Top Chef” fanatics will want to know that Season 6 contestant, Laurine Wickett, will be cooking dinner at Coffee Bar Cafe in San Francisco this weekend, Jan. 30 and Jan. 31.

Wickett, whom some fans thought was sacrificed to keep popular contestant Jennifer Carroll on the show longer, is the chef-owner of Left Coast Catering in San Francisco. She will be cooking a three-course dinner for $35; or $55 with wine pairings. Dishes include cauliflower soup with smoked  potatoes and truffle oil; and panna cotta with citrus compote.

To reserve a seat, call (415) 551-8100 or email: LWickettatcoffeebar@gmail.com.

Brewski — and lots of it — will be showcased at the second annual “San Francisco Beer Week,” Feb. 5-14.

Learn why the Bay Area has become a hotbed for artisan beer-making. Indeed, California has more than 200 breweries and beer companies, the most of any state. Eight of those breweries are in San Francisco.

A bevy of tastings and galas will be held at various venues throughout the Bay Area. Click here for a complete schedule.

Another Pinkberry fro-yo shop has opened in the Bay Area — this one at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto.

Look for it between Bloomingdale’s and Ralph Lauren.

San Francisco’s Waterbar invites you to try its new “Happy Hour,” 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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Getting Ready for Pigs & Pinot with Chef Charlie Palmer

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OK, how cute is this little oinkster?

If you’re at all squeamish about seeing animals being raised ultimately for the dinner table, you might want to stop reading now. But if you’re like me, and believe it’s important to know that our proteins actually were once whole, living, breathing animals before they ended up shrink-wrapped in select cuts in the supermarket, then I hope you’ll appreciate knowing a little more about the artisan ingredients going into this year’s fifth annual ”Pigs & Pinot” extravaganza at the Hotel Healdsburg in Healdsburg.

Chef Charlie Palmer of Dry Creek Kitchen in the Hotel Healdsburg and his staff once again are overseeing the epicurean event, March 19-20. Proceeds will benefit Share Our Strength and local Healdsburg educational organizations.

If you’re thinking about joining the festivities, you’re late to the game, unfortunately. For the first time ever, the event sold out within the first half hour that tickets went on sale. But that’s what happens when you have the hoopla of  Bravo TV’s “Top Chef” added to the mix. Although the event usually attracts mostly locals, organizers were pleasantly surprised this time to see folks from the East Coast, Atlanta, and Seattle eager to buy tickets.

Besides great Pinot Noir producers from California and around the world, Palmer will be joined by “Top Chef” finalists, fan-favorite Kevin Gillespie (of Woodfire Grill in Atlanta); and Bryan Voltaggio (of Volt restaurant in Frederick, Md.), who narrowly lost the title to his younger brother Michael Voltaggio (of the Dining Room at the Langham in Pasadena). Gillespie will be creating a cold appetizer for the ”Pigs & Pinot” gala dinner, and Bryan Voltaggio will ply his skills with seafood for another course.

Food Network star Tyler Florence and Roland Passot of La Folie in San Francisco will round out the mix in the star-studded kitchen.

I had a chance to learn more about the preparations when I was invited up to Healdsburg last week with a couple of other food writers. On a rainy morning, we loaded into the back of Palmer’s truck to visit the two heritage Gloucestershire pigs he was raising for the event. It’s the first time he’s raised his own pigs for the event. Others used for the event will come from a farm in Missouri.

“Chefs are always talking about wanting to get back to the earth. You can’t get any closer than this,” he says. The two pigs are fed vegetable table-scraps from the restaurant, and will switch to an all-acorn diet for the last three weeks before their slaughter.

The two pigs, which Palmer purposely didn’t name, will grow to about 170 pounds each. They are being raised at the biodynamic-certified Quivira Vineyards and Winery in Healdsburg, which also grows specialty produce — everything from arugula to Swiss chard to apples to raspberries — for Dry Creek Kitchen and seven other restaurants in the area.

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No Pooh-Poohing this Pu-Pu

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Not your father's pu-pu platter. (Photo courtesy of E&O Trading Co.)

You might think tiki as tacky and the epitome of bad tourist joints of yesteryear.

But E&O Trading Co. in San Francisco, just steps away from Campton Place Taj Hotel, is reinventing that Polynesian staple, the pu-pu platter, into something hip and fresh.

The plentiful platter features some of the restaurant’s signature favorites, including Chinese five-spice chicken rolls, short rib sliders, Hoisin-coffee ribs, chicken satay, Indonesian corn fritters, and taro chips — all for $18. It’s enough to serve four to six hungry diners.

Experience this new take on the pu-pu during Happy Hour, Monday through Saturday, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., through the end of January.

While noshing on those nibbles, quaff your thirst with the new E&O San Francisco custom-blended wine for $24 a bottle.

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Chef Michael Symon’s Cured Tuna

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Ahi combines with fennel, olives, oranges, and olive brine for incredible results.

We know the man has a way with pig.

After all, whenever you see Chef Michael Symon on TV, he’s usually talking or cooking pork. Who can blame this Midwestern chef with his acclaimed Cleveland restaurants, Lola and Lolita, for having such a porcine love affair?

There’s a whole lot more than pig in his new cookbook, “Michael Symon’s Live to Cook” (Clarkson Potter). Sure, you’ll find the likes of roasted rack of pork with grilled peaches and chestnut honey vinaigrette, not to mention pappardelle with pig’s head ragu.

But you’ll also find everything from sheep’s milk ravioli with brown butter and almonds, and veal chop Milanese with arugula salad to the colorful “Lightly Cured Tuna with Olives, Orange, and Shaved Fennel” (photo above).

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Heavyweights Team for Local Bocuse d’Or Extravaganza

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Chef Daniel Patterson of Coi. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Think if U2 and Coldplay teamed up for one night — and one night only — for a special benefit concert.

This is the culinary equivalent with celebrated Bay Area rock-star chefs Daniel Patterson of Coi in San Francisco and David Kinch of Manresa joining together for one night, Feb. 8, to cook a sumptuous seven-course feast to benefit the Bocuse d’Or USA Foundation.

At this unique event, which will take place at Coi, Patterson and Kinch will alternate cooking savory courses, and Coi’s Pastry Chef Bill Corbett will do the honors with dessert. Look for such wondrous treats for the eye and palate as Patterson’s “Winter Pastoral” (young carrots roasted on a bed of hay, radish powder, and shaved Pecorino); and Kinch’s “Crispy Chicken and Egg Confit” (with roasted chicken “dashi” and black truffles).

Poultry from Vacaville’s Soul Food Farm will be highlighted in the dinner to celebrate the legacy of American heritage breed poultry.

Chef David Kinch of Manresa. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Price is $195 per person, with a wine pairing available at an extra charge. For reservations, call (415) 393-9000.

For 20 years, the United States has fielded a team for the Bocuse d’Or, the prestigious Olympics of cooking. But it wasn’t until recently that the country got serious about it, when superstar chefs Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller formed the US foundation to support and train the candidate who would represent this country. Their first candidate was French Laundry Chef de Cuisine Timothy Hollingsworth, who finished sixth out of 24 teams in last year’s competition.

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