Enjoy the flavors of Nantucket without having to fly to the East Coast.
Menlo Park’s Marche restaurant brings the impeccable seafood of that region to you for a special dinner on March 20. This will be the restaurant’s sixth annual “Taste of Nantucket” soiree.
Nantucket fisherman Stephen Bender will be flying directly from Nantucket with just-harvested Nantucket Bay scallops, Polpis Harbor oysters, freshly dug clams, and a wealth of other fish and seafood.
Deliriously delicious events you won’t want to miss:
*3rd Annual California Artisan Cheese Festival: The Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma will host this cheese extravaganza, March 20-23. Meet artisan cheesemakers at the March 20 reception and tasting. March 21, listen to a panel of experts including Laura Werlin and Clark Wolf.
Kelsie Kerr, director of the cooking school at Cavallo Point, will teach a cooking class about incorporating artisan cheese into everyday cooking. The March 21 gala dinner will feature five courses by a bevy of Bay Area chefs. At the Artisan Cheese Marketplace gets underway March 22, look for cooking demos by chefs such as Joey Altman.
Ticket prices range from $40 to $170. Ten percent of ticket sales will benefit five non-profits that support the artisan cheese-making community and its sustainability.
* 3rd Annual International Chocolate Salon: Yes, chocolates, chocolates everywhere. That’s what you’ll find at this decadent event, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 21 at the Fort Mason Center’s Herbst Pavillion in San Francisco. Stroll through 30,000-square-feet of chocolate, wine, and confections to discover and taste. Chocolate demos, chef talks, and author signings also will be spotlighted.
More than 50 confectioners and wineries will be there, showing off their ware.
Yours truly, the Food Gal, will be there, too, as one of the tasting panel judges. Oh my. I better start fasting now in preparation.
Tickets are $25 for adults; $10 for children ages 6-12; and free for children under age 6 (limit two children per adult).
* James Beard Foundation Benefit Dinner: Chef Laurent Manrique and his culinary friends will honor esteemed cookbook author Paula Wolfert at a special dinner, March 16, at the Fifth Floor in San Francisco.
Diners at Parcel 104 restaurant in Santa Clara know all about Pastry Chef Carlos Sanchez’s dainty, exquisite desserts that end any dinner there on a sweet, memorable note.
But what you might not know is that the Colombian-born Sanchez also can handle the savory side of a meal.
This past Saturday, he hosted his fourth “Pastry Chef Goes Savory” special dinner there. In the past, he’s limited the guest list to about 35. This time around, though, he opened it up to the entire restaurant. More than 90 eager diners, including yours truly, enjoyed a six-course meal ($65; additional $34 for wine pairings), that was orchestrated from start to finish by the humble, soft-spoken Sanchez.
Why does he choose to step into this atypical role one night a year?
Alas, I don’t think I’ll be boarding a plane to the UK anytime soon. Not with my pitiful bank account.
And alas, that means I won’t be dining anytime in the near future, either, at the acclaimed Fat Duck restaurant.
So I did the next best thing.
I made “New Style” Ragu alla Blogonese, a recipe published a year or so ago in Saveur magazine that was inspired by one in “In Search of Perfection” (Bloomsbury), the book by the Fat Duck’s award-winning chef, Heston Blumenthal.
A Brit cooking an old-school Italian dish?
You bet.
A Brit adding ketchup, fish sauce, and star anise to ragu?
Heck, yes.
Along with Worcestershire sauce, those ingredients heighten the meaty or umami taste of the dish. In fact, I even added a tad more fish sauce to up the ante.
I can’t say that this particular bolognese edged out my favorite one, Perbacco’s 5-Hour Pork Sugo. But it’s a definite contender. Unlike the Perbacco version that calls for ground pork, the Blementhal one uses boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1/4-inch dice. Whereas the Perbacco version cooks up into a cohesive, thick, rich sauce, the Blumenthal one has a texture more like chili, with distinct chunks of meat.
Put them together and you get, “A Moveable Feast,” a series of seasonal suppers held at a different restaurant each month to celebrate the relationships between local chefs and local farmers.
The event is the brainchild of Dominique Crenn, executive chef of Luce Restaurant in the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco.
Each multi-course dinner, which will be prepared by two chefs, will be held the first Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m., beginning March 3, and continuing for the next six months.
Each dinner is $80 per person or $100 with wine. A percentage of each ticket sale will benefit CUESA, the Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture, which operates the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Purchase tickets online here.
Here’s the line-up: