Category Archives: Enticing Events

21st Annual Family Winemakers of California Event & A Food Gal Giveaway

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Enjoy the opportunity to taste more than 1,000 California wines. (Photo courtesy of Family Winemakers of California)

Fans of California vino will want to head to Fort Mason Center’s Festival Pavilion, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 21, for the 21st annual Family Winemakers of California tasting soiree.

Enjoy the opportunity to sip wines from more than 300 California wineries that will be pouring about 1,000 different wines — all in one place.

This year’s event will be dedicated to the late-great Jess Jackson, founder of Family Winemakers and the Kendall-Jackson Winery, who passed away this spring at the age of 81.

It also will feature a new perk: Wineries will be selling select wines on site. So, if you fall in love with a particular vintage or varietal, you can buy a bottle to take home to enjoy.

Participating wineries include: Ceja Vineyards, Eden Canyon Vineyards, and Paltz & Hall.

Tickets are $65 each in advance or $75 at the door. Big spenders who fork over $100 per ticket can gain early access to the tastings for the trade before the doors to the public open up.

Contest: I’m thrilled to be able to give away one pair of free tickets to the Aug. 21 event. Entries are limited to those who can actually be in San Francisco that day to attend the wine tastings. Entries will be accepted through midnight PST Aug. 7. Winner will be announced Aug. 9.

How to win?

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Food Gal’s Second Video: Extras From My Debut Cooking Demo at Macy’s Union Square

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For those who enjoyed my first video — which recapped my cooking demo debut at Macy’s Union Square San Francisco on June 11, 2011 — here’s an “extras” reel to kick back with.

In this second video, you’ll get to know me a little better, as I tell you about my family, how I got my start in food writing, and how I became known as the Food Gal.

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Food Gal’s First Video: My Debut Cooking Demo at Macy’s Union Square

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For those who missed my debut cooking demo in person on June 11, 2011 at Macy’s Union Square San Francisco, please enjoy this abbreviated video of it.

My thanks to my husband, aka Meat Boy, who filmed this; and to Brett Yasukawa, a most talented Bay Area chef who also has mad skills as an editor, who helped put this video together.

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WOW Truck Wows Food TV

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The WOW Truck draws a crowd as the "Eat St.'' crew films the scene.

If you were in the vicinity of San Jose’s Bernal Park last night, you might have noticed a line — a long line — of hungry folks.

That’s because the WOW Truck was parked there at E. Hedding St. at N. 7th St. for business of a rather exciting kind.

The food truck, which serves up Filipino fare, was being filmed by a crew from the Cooking Channel’s “Eat St.,” which is here in the Bay Area to put togeter a future episode that also will star a couple more kitchens on wheels, including San Francisco’s Le Truc.

Chef Tim Luym, co-owner of the WOW Truck, takes time out from the filming.

WOW Truck, co-owner Tim Luym, passed out free pineapple fritters (turon) to folks who braved the long wait in line to purchase his popular silogs ($7) — plates of garlic fried rice heaped with your choice of meat (everything from corned beef to pork sausage to SPAM), as well as pickled green papaya salad and an over-easy, cage-free egg.

Patrons also were chowing down on the truck’s tacos ($4) and burritos ($7.50) garnished with calamansi pico de gallo. And nobody could resist the signature adobo wings (three for $5).

The "Eat St.'' crew at work.

Periodically, the camera crew would come by to zoom in on folks taking bites of their food, especially if they happened to be young, attractive women, if you know what I mean. Hey, it’s TV, right?

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Cookbook Party Feast at Town Hall in San Francisco

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Jars of pickled veggies decorate the table at the cookbook party at Town Hall.

It’s easy to see why Chef Mitchell Rosenthal would want to throw a party to celebrate his upcoming new cookbook.

After all, the 272-page book took him two years of hard work to put together — all the while running three very successful restaurants in San Francisco.

Last week, he hosted a summer feast to end all summer feasts for a small group of food writers, including yours truly, at his Town Hall establishment. It was a huge spread with all the dishes featured from his new cookbook, “Cooking My Way Back Home: Recipes From San Francisco’s Town Hall, Anchor & Hope, and Salt House” (Ten Speed Press). The cookbook, which he wrote with Jon Pult, will debut this fall.

Chef-Proprietor Mitchell Rosenthal chats with guests.

The entrance to the lively Town Hall.

The cookbook even features a rare forward by celeb Chef Wolfgang Puck, whom Rosenthal worked on and off with for 18 years at Postrio in San Francisco, Granita in Malibu and Coco Pazza in New York. The recipes in the book reflect the arc of his career: New Orleans specialties from his time cooking with Chef Paul Prudhomme, whom he called every Friday for six months straight until he snagged an internship at K. Paul’s; a deft array of global cuisines from cooking at the Four Seasons in New York; and classical techniques from Le Cirque in New York.

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