Category Archives: Chefs

Google Chefs In The News Again

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About two months ago, Food Gal reported here that Google’s John Dickman had quit his job as global food services director for the search engine dominatrix.

Sources tell us that he didn’t go far. Dickman has joined Apple in Cupertino. Apparently the makers of the nifty iPhone and iPod not only want to feed their hard-working employees better, but want to give Google a run for its money in the gourmet cafeteria arena. Oooh, let the food fight begin.

Nate Keller, a former executive chef at the Google Mountain View campus, had recently moved to the Google facility in San Francisco to oversee Google’s Bridges cafe near the Embarcadero. Guess killer views weren’t enough, as Keller now has resigned from Google, according to sources. No word yet on what his plans are.

And what about Charlie Ayers, the first Google executive chef who set the original high bar for food there? Besides promoting his first cookbook, “Food 2.0, Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google” and working on opening his Calafia Cafe & Market A Go Go in Palo Alto’s Town and Country Village, he’s joined the political fray.

Well, sort of. Ayers, former private chef to the Grateful Dead, has been asked to do the culinary honors for a July 10 political campaign fund-raiser in Minnesota for former Dead Head/comedian/actor-turned U.S. Senate-candidate, Al Franken. The buzz is that Ayers is already hard at work, contemplating dishes using Minnesota’s famed wild rice, walleye pike, and blueberries.

Team In Training _ Big Time

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As if Yountville didn’t already boast an unseemly number of top chefs (it has more Michelin stars per capita than any other city in the world), now it’ll get even more.

Thomas Keller of the French Laundry in Yountville has teamed up with New York superstar Chef Daniel Boulud to establish a non-profit organization aimed at giving young American chefs a leg up on competing in the Bocuse d’Or, the legendary culinary Olympics in which the United States historically hasn’t fared very well.

Keller and Boulud will help choose eight young chefs who will compete in a September cook-off in Orlando at the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. The top winners will go on to comprise the American team that will compete in the Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France in January 2009 against 19 other teams.

The American team will get some serious training, October through January, at a special facility set up in a house in Yountville next-door to the French Laundry.  Not only that, but the team’s techniques will be perfected by none other than Certified Master Chef Roland Henin, whom Keller worked for early on in his career and who remains one of the chefs he most admires.

Delectable Dates To Mark on Your Calendar

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If you love cheese, then head to Cheese Plus in San Francisco, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 21, as the specialty store celebrates its third anniversary with a Summer Solstice Food Festival.

More than two dozen food artisans will be on hand to show off samples of their products. From noon to 2 p.m., cookbook author and San Francisco Chronicle food writer, Janet Fletcher, will sign copies of her latest book, “Cheese & Wine” (Chronicle Books).

A knife sharpening expert also will be on site to sharpen your knives and give advice on how to care for them.

Up in Wine Country, there are a bevy of events to come. First up, the Martini House in St. Helena hosts its fourth annual Riesling Week. June 16-21, the restaurant will showcase Rieslings from Germany, Alsace, and Austria.

A special four-course prix fixe menu will be offered, with each dish paired with a different Riesling such as pan-roasted monkfish wrapped in Hobbs smoked bacon accompanied by a pour of Domaine Weinbach ”Schlossberg” Grand Cru, Riesling, Alsace, France, 2005. The dinner is $115 with the wine pairing; $70 without.

Next up, also in St. Helena, enjoy the third annual Napa Valley Jewish Vintners Celebration. Nearly 40 Jewish vintners from California, as well as Israel, will celebrate “Connecting Our Roots,” June 20-22. Proceeds will benefit Jewish non-profit organizations in the valley.

The three-day event begins on a Friday with a reception at a private St. Helena estate, followed by exclusive winery open houses on Saturday, then a glam gala at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone Campus, and ends with Sunday brunch at the Napa Valley Museum featuring guest speaker, the best-selling author, Scott Turow.

Tickets are $650 per person. For more information, call (707) 968-9944 or click here.

And lastly, designer heels and big-name wines? Who can resist that combo? If you can’t, then the fourth annual “Wine, Women and Shoes,” 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. June 29 should be on your must-do list.

The event, at the St. Supery Vineyards and Winery in Rutherford, raises money for women’s causes. Since its inception, more than $2 million has been raised for women’s charities.

Enjoy a fashion show of chic foot candy, wonderful wines, and a live and a silent auction. And don’t forget the “Shoe Guys,” who will be carrying shoes on silver trays so you get a peep of those must-have peep-toe pumps.

Tickets are $150 for regular admission; and $250 for premiere admission, which includes front-row seating at the fashion show. For more information, call Belle Orpilla or Katie Wolford at Planned Parenthood at (925) 676-0505 ext. 5220 at 925-676-0505, ext. 5222; or email info@ppshastadiablo. Also, visit: www.ppshastadiablo.org.

A Mustards Celebration

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Before Yountville became home to more Michelin stars per capita than any other city in the world, there was Mustards Grill.

At a time when Yountville wasn’t exactly a dining paradise, Chef-Owner Cindy Pawlycn created the landmark restaurant at the gateway to Wine Country a quarter century ago. There, she deftly began serving her own blend of California cuisine with global influences in a come-as-you-are, laid-back atmosphere.

Pawlcyn went on to become a James Beard award-winning cookbook author, and chef-owner of Go Fish in St. Helena, and Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen also in St. Helena.

Throughout June, Mustards celebrates its 25th anniversary by bringing back a menu of greatest hits, as well as wine selections from its early years. Look for grilled sweetbreads with lemon, parsley, and caper brown butter (1986); tea-smoked Peking duck with 100-almond-onion sauce (1992); and lemon-lime tart with “ridiculously tall brown sugar meringue” (1998).

Take Five With Parcel 104’s Robert Sapirman

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Robert Sapirman, executive chef of Parcel 104

Imagine cooking without such staples as sugar, chocolate, vanilla beans, cinnamon, coffee, and even pepper. That’s the challenge that Executive Chef Robert Sapirman and his crew at Parcel 104 restaurant in Santa Clara are taking on with the second annual “104-Mile Dinner” on June 7.

 That night, every ingredient used must come from no more than 104 miles from the restaurant (measured from point to point in a straight line). Climate Clean of Portland, Ore. will be working with the restaurant to mitigate and offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated from this $125-per-person dinner.

The seven-course dinner includes Point Reyes oysters, local petrale sole, and pork belly from pigs raised in the Yosemite area. Also on the menu are Cornish game hens that were slaughtered, then air-chilled, as opposed to the conventional method of water chilling. Proponents of this method favor it because they consider it more sanitary (studies so far, though, are inconclusive). In air-chilling, the poultry also absorbs less water, making for a crisper skin when cooked and more intense flavor.

Watercress and beignet dessert by Pastry Chef Carlos Sanchez

Parcel 104’s pastry chef, Carlos Sanchez, will be ending the night with a refreshing dessert of Sausalito Springs watercress topped with strawberry sorbet made with honey, fresh strawberries the staff will pick the day before in Sonoma, and tiny beignets of Bellwether Farms Carmody cheese.

The menu is subject to change, of course, since it’s all based on what’s available locally at the time.

I sat down with Sapirman to find out the most difficult aspects of creating such a dinner.

Q: You came on board as chef last year just as the restaurant was about to do the 104-mile dinner for the first time. I think I detected just a tiny glint of fear and panic in your eyes then. How is it different this time around?

A: Last year, it was all about what could we get our hands on. It was a real race to find things. This year, we have more time, and we’re able to reach out to see that’s really out there.  Last year at the last minute, we were able to find wheat flour in Sonoma, so we were able to make crackers for the beet salad. This year, we’ve already discovered that Full Belly Farm (an hour northwest of Sacramento) — which is right on the edge of our 104-mile limit, and believe me, I measured it — produces flour and wheat berries.

Q: Last year, you guys were in a tizzy because you thought you wouldn’t be able to use salt. But at the last second, you found a source?

A: Yes, we get salt from underneath the Dumbarton Bridge. There are salt flats there. And a producer makes this very coarse pretzel salt from there that we have to grind ourselves until it’s finer.

Q: So there will be salt, but no peppercorns?

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