Thirty cookbooks were just named finalists in this year’s prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards.
Now, here’s your chance to win one of them, courtesy of ProjectFoodie.com.
The recipe site, of which I’m an adviser, will be doling out the free cookbooks through May 2, when the James Beard winners will be formally announced.
They call themselves the “Goat Girls.”
Don’t ya just love the name?
Jennifer Bice of Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery, Laura Howard of Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream, and Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove Chevre, have teamed up to host the first “Goat Festival” on April 17 at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, steps from the Hotel Vitale.
After all, goat’s milk is the most common milk consumed throughout the world, with a chemical structure that is apparently similar to mother’s milk. It’s higher in calcium, vitamins A and B6, and minerals than cow’s milk. It’s also naturally low in lactose.
Join the Goat Girls, 10 a.m.-11 a.m., for a talk, then a chance to sample goat milk products.
At 11 a.m., Mark Dommen, chef of One Market in San Francisco, takes the stage to do a cooking demo using seasonal ingredients and goat milk products. At 11:45 a.m., Maggie Ford, author of “Goat Cheese” will do a cooking demo and book signing. Finally, at 12:30 p.m., Gordon Edgar, author of “Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge,” will talk about his book and sign copies of it.
There even will be baby goats to “ooh” and “ahh” over near the Sur La Table store.
If you get brie on the brain, the chevre shivers, and juiced about Jack, high-tail it to Petaluma for the fourth annual “California’s Artisan Cheese Festival,” March 26-29,where a veritable mountain of cheese awaits.
We don’t know about you, but we’re swooning at the thought of nearly 40 artisan cheese producers (most of them from California) showing off their specialties at a marketplace along with 20 wineries and breweries — all at the Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma. Plus, who can resist the world’s best gooey, cheesy flatbreads served hot from a wood-burning oven?
This four-day cheesy celebration kicks off with an old-fashioned barn dance, followed by a bevy of cheese seminars, a cheese-making demo, and a gala dinner served up by eight cheesemakers, eight chefs, and eight vintners. Tickets are $45 to $130.
California is the second largest producer of cheese in the country. OK, so Wisconsin beats us. But we have cuter cow commercials.
Drinking and eating, and not much heavy-lifting beyond that.
It’s so easy — too easy — to succumb to complete veg-out mode in Sonoma, what with its abundance of wineries and restaurants that beckon so invitingly.
But if you want to get a teeny bit more active by actually working for your food, Ramekins is the place to go.
This combo culinary school and inn is just an easy stroll from the main square. A bevy of cooking classes, about half of them hands-on, are offered at $55 to $100 per person.
Ramekins is revamping its patio to install a pizza oven, too. In the coming months, look for a variety of grilling, bread-baking and pizza-making classes to be offered to take advantage of that sunny space.
Up on the second floor, there are six well-appointed guest rooms, done up in a luxe French farmhouse decor, priced at about $250 per night, depending upon the season. Stay overnight, and you can roll out of bed, enjoy a spread of homemade scones and coffeecake for breakfast, then walk downstairs to get cooking. How easy is that?
So easy, as I soon learned when I was invited as a guest to try a cooking class earlier this month.
Charles Vollmar, a longtime culinary instructor who owns Epicurean Exchange, was there to teach us all about “Spring Soups and Stews” in this hands-on class. Since there were only seven of us signed up for this class, we were each able to do a variety of tasks under very personalized instruction from Vollmar and a Ramekins assistant.
The demonstration classes are taught in a 36-seat theater equipped with a full kitchen and television monitors. Because our class was hands-on, though, we had the run of the second kitchen — an expansive restaurant-size kitchen with professional-grade equipment.
After donning aprons, we broke up into teams to cook one of four dishes: “Spring Asparagus Soup with Coconut Curry,” “Chicken and Barley Soup with Asparagus and English Peas,” “Spring Vegetable Ragout with Chanterelles and Fava Beans,” and “Spring Lamb and Artichoke Tagine.” Yours truly was in charge of the lamb.
Vollmar demonstrated how to turn a baby artichoke, then made sure we each had a chance to try it. With a paring knife, we removed the tough outer leaves, trimming the stalk, cutting the head in half, and removing the hairy choke and uncovering the tender heart. Although I’ve turned artichoke hearts before, I don’t think I’ve ever done such a pile of ’em. But then again, lucky me had them as one of the main ingredients in my dish. And oh, we were doubling the recipe, too.
Restaurants and stores are gearing up to commemorate one of the holiest of Jewish holidays, Passover, which begins at sundown March 29.
At Epic Roasthouse in San Francisco, just a short walk from the Hotel Vitale, Chef Jan Birnbaum will create a five-course, prix-fixe, non-kosher dinner of contemporary interpretations of childhood Passover favorites his mother, aunts and grandmother made. Wine pairings will be included.
The festive evening, 6 p.m. March 30, will begin with hors d’oeuvres, then a traditional Seder service with four ritualistic blessings, the drinking of “the four cups,” and the lighting of the candles.
Dishes include honey-red wine marinated apple salad with spiced pecans, Laura Chenel aged goat cheese, and brandied cherries; and braised brisket with “Aunt Ruth’s paprika potatoes,” wild mushrooms and fennel horseradish salad.
Price is $95 per person; for children ages 1o and younger, it’s $45.
Mission Beach Cafe in San Francisco, a short drive from the Holiday Inn Civic Center, is teaming with hipster Heeb magazine for its annual Slow Food Seder, April 5. The four-course dinner will be a mix of Old World and New World dishes — all made with seasonal, local and organic products.
Sit down to such inviting fare as smoked black cod with potato kugel and chive creme fraiche; and roasted duck with Israeli couscous, Jerusalem artichokes, pea shoots and orange sabayon.
Price is $55.
Sweet Jo’s Cafe at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, a short hop from the Best Western Tomo, is offering an extensive list of Passover dishes to-go, including a traditional Seder plate ($12.50) and an “Instant Seder Dinner” of braised Kobe beef brisket, mashed potatoes, broccoli with rosemary, and asparagus with hazelnuts ($9.50 per person).
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.