Category Archives: Chocolate

Ferry Building Happenings, Glam Foodie Fund-Raisers & More

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In San Francisco:

The offerings at the Saturday farmers market at the San Francisco Ferry Building just got a whole lot sweeter.

The Arlequin booth, manned by Luis Villavelazquez, executive pastry chef of Absinthe restaurant in San Francisco, will now be a regular fixture at that Saturday market, just steps from the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, beginning May 1.

The booth, which already had been up and running at the smaller Thursday farmers market there, will be selling the likes of malted cupcake with banana cream and Oreo frosting; strawberry and tobacco-infused scone with creme fraiche; spiced ramp and provolone biscuits; and milk chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

Find the Arlequin booth next to Blue Bottle Coffee’s exterior stand,  8 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Thursday and Saturday.

If luscious libations are more your thing, you won’t want to miss “Berries, Citrus and Rhubarb,” a fun cocktails class at the Ferry Building, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. May 7.

Master mixologist Scott Beattie will conduct a hands-on class to teach you how to make market-fresh strawberry margaritas, classic mai tais, and gimlets.

Master distiller, Lance Winters of St. George Spirits in Alameda, will talk about micro-distillation.

The Ferry Building’s Il Cane Rosso also will serve up cocktail-friendly noshes. Additionally, participants will get to take home a recipe booklet.

The class will be held under the North Arcade of the Ferry Building. Tickets are $45.

City College of San Francisco invites you to its 12th annual “Wok on the Wild Side,” a benefit for its culinary arts and hospitality studies department, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. April 26.

Participating in the star chef-studded affair are Staffan Terje of Perbacco in San Francisco, Bruce Hill of Picco in Larkspur, Laurence Jossel of Nopa, Jennifer Biesty of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, and Mauricio Sibrian of John’s Grill in San Francisco.  They will be honoring City College alum, Tom Sweeney, the famous Beefeater doorman who has been welcoming visitors to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel for more than 30 years.

The chefs will be cooking up their specialties and being assisted by the students and faculty of the program.

Tickets are $150. For information, call (415) 239-3152.

You won’t want to miss another gala chefs gathering, 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. April 29, when “Taste of the Nation San Francisco” rolls into town on the Club Level of AT&T Park in San Francisco.

The benefit for Share Our Strength, will feature tastes from more than 40 top San Francisco chefs, including Dominique Crenn of Luce, Mark Sullivan of Spruce, Hoss Zare of Zare at Fly Trap, and Matthew Accarrino of SPQR.

Live music and a silent auction will add to the festivities, which will benefit one of the nation’s largest organizations dedicated to alleviating childhood hunger.

Regular tickets are $85. VIP tickets, which get you into the event an hour earlier, are $140.

Monday, April 26, dine at a Pasta Pomodoro in San Francisco or elsewhere in the Bay Area to do a good deed.

That night, the restaurant chain will donate 25 percent of profits from every “Cena di Familia” meal to local food banks to help families in need. The three-course, family-style meal, which feeds four, comes with choice of salad, pasta and dessert for $35.

Around the Peninsula:

Take a taste of more than 100 wines from all over Italy in one spot. You can at “Enoteca 100 Primavera,” an Italian wine tasting at Donato Enoteca restaurant in Redwood City, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. May 1.

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A Temptress Named Miette

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I can’t resist a wonderful French macaron.

Nor a fabulous cupcake, salted caramels, gingersnap cookies or imported European chocolates.

That’s why I have no will-power whenever I step inside one of San Francisco’s most delightful candy shops, Miette, a short drive from the Holiday Inn Civic Center.

The three-year-old candy shop, sister to the Miette bake shop in San Francisco’s bustling Ferry Building, is filled with all of that, plus everything else a sweet tooth could want.

Done up in girly pastel colors, the shop, whose name means “little crumb” in French, features a small assortment of signature baked goods at the counter, including chocolate vanilla cupcakes ($3.25), chocolate cakes with Italian meringue ($24), and chocolate sables topped with sea salt ($5 for a small bag).

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Palo Alto’s Shokolaat Shakes It Up

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After two and a half years as a small-plates restaurant, the chic Shokolaat restaurant and patisserie in downtown Palo Alto, tweaked its concept two months ago to make the switch to entree-sized main dishes instead.

Chef/Co-Proprietor Shekoh Moossavi said the change has been a hit with diners, who had wanted more substantial fare.

I was invited to dine as a guest recently to try the new menu, which features the likes of roasted quail with shallot confit risotto ($21), and Mediterranean sea bass with parsnip puree, Brussels sprouts and applewood smoked bacon $21).

As you step inside the dimly lit restaurant from the roomy outdoor seating area, the first thing you can’t help but notice is the pastry and chocolate cases, front and center. Moossavi, who has worked at Gary Danko and Acquerello, both in San Francisco, handles the savory side of the menu, while her husband, Pastry Chef Mark Ainsworth, handles the sweets.

Ainsworth, who worked at the Lodge at Pebble Beach in Carmel, creates such delights as Bailey’s Mousse Bombe  and the traditional Gateau Basque cake filled with semolina custard. Artsy chocolate bonbons run the gamut from “Don Juan” (Anejo tequila with lime juice, lime-infused sea salt and white chocolate) to “Johnny-B-Good” (Kentucky Straight Bourbon blended with milk chocolate and vanilla, then encased in dark chocolate).

Shokolaat also makes all its own bread, too, and sells loaves to take home. If you time dinner just right, too, the waitstaff will send you home with a free loaf of bread if there are still any left at the end of the night that haven’t yet sold.

We started with a velvety shrimp and crab soup ($7) that was made with an intense seafood stock with the sweet-briny taste of the sea.

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These Are A Few of My Favorite Things…

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If you saw my dining room table recently, you would have thought Willy Wonka had set up shop in my house.

Truffles, chocolate bars, nut brittle, bonbons, and more covered it from one end to the other. And yes,  I had to eat all of it. Well, at least try each and every piece.

It was all part of my judging duties for the fourth annual San Francisco Chocolate Salon, the sugaraholic’s dream event where chocolate makers show off their wares to media and members of the public, who get to sample and vote for their favorites.

Yours truly was on the team of expert panelists. For those, like myself, who couldn’t make it to the actual event this year at Fort Mason, the event organizers had the chocolate samples sent to our homes instead. Hence, the veritable candy shop in my dining room.

Here’s the list of winning chocolates from the event. And below, find my picks for my new favorite chocolate products.

What: Montana’s Posh Chocolat’s Artisan Sea Salt Caramels (photo above)

Why: Five different exotic, soft, sticky caramels enrobed in dark chocolate, each topped with a different sea salt. Think White Truffle Oil Caramel with Hawaiian Pink Sea Salt. It sounds weird, and it is different. But wow, is it elegant and memorable. And yes, you can really taste the pungent truffle oil. $15 for a box of 10.

What: Palo Alto’s  Gateau et Ganache’s Handmade Marshmallows

Why: OK, how cute are these? Shaped like pastel daisies, the spring assortment comes in flavors of lemon, passion fruit and strawberry. They’re light, springy and very fruity tasting. Nine marshmallows are $12.

What: Jade Chocolates of San Francisco for Chocolate-Covered Edamame and Dragon’s Breath, Kuro Genmai, and Mahal chocolate bars

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Mad for Maple

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Watching the Winter Olympics last month made me want to strap on a pair of skis or ice skates or heck, even push a strange, tea kettle-like-thang along the ice with a broom.

But mostly, it made me long for some sticky, sweet, lovely amber maple syrup.

After all, Canada (namely Quebec) produces the most maple syrup in the world. And who hasn’t come back from a Canadian vacation without arms laden with maple candy, maple butter, maple tea and maple sugar?

To satisfy my maple craving, I turned to this wonderful recipe for “Maple Blondies” from “The Ultimate Brownie Book” (William Morrow) by my friends, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

Bruce and Mark have to be the most prolific cookbook authors around. They’ve barely finished writing one cookbook when they’re immediately on to the next. Potatoes, frozen desserts, muffins, pizzas — is there a genre of food they haven’t written about? I doubt it.

Their newest book already has me excited. “Ham: An Obesession with the Hindquarter” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) taps into our love of all things hammy. More than 100 recipes are included for everything from “Moroccan-Style Roasted Fresh Ham” to “Filipino Twice-Cooked Pork” to “Sweet Potato Hash with Ham, Pecans and Cranberries.”

Speaking of hammy, if you’ve never caught these two doing a cooking demo, you’re missing out. These guys put Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien to shame. Picture a combination of live cooking and live stand-up comedy. Bruce and Mark can’t help themselves. They like to entertain, and they do it with aplomb.

See for yourself, 6:30 p.m. April 27, when the guys will be hosting a cooking class at Draeger’s in San Mateo. Mark and Bruce will cook four dishes from their new book, including “Indonesian Chile-Lemon Grass Ham Curry” and “Grilled Ham with Herb Spaetzle.”

Tickets are $55.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled recipe: blondies — made with 1/2 cup of real maple syrup, no less.

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