If you’re famished after all that wine-tasting in the Napa Valley, pull up a stool at Farmstead Restaurant at Long Meadow Ranch in St. Helena, which has added extended bar hours on Friday and Saturday evenings, as well as some new tasty noshes.
Sunday through Thursday, the bar is open until 10 p.m. But on Friday and Saturday nights, you can chill out there until 12 a.m.
That smear of yellow makes me happy.
You see, I’m a bonafide condiment gal. Be it mustard, ketchup, pickle relish, chutney, jam or barbecue sauce — I love them all.
I pile ’em on high, so much so that my husband grows rather alarmed at times. But truth be told, I’d often rather have a bun loaded with just condiments than the actual dog or burger inside.
Is that wrong?
I don’t think so. Not when they add such zest and zip to life.
They’re my guilty pleasure — tasty dollops of this, that and the other that I secretly can’t get enough of.
Now, tell me what foodstuff is your guilty habit. Best answer will win a $100 gift card for any CSN online store. Use it toward spicing up your kitchen or adding some modern decor to other rooms in your house.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CA — Imagine hiking, snowshoeing and skiing, then dining on creative fare from celeb chefs — all in a breathtakingly spectacular setting.
That’s what Yosemite National Park is all about in the winter, when its “Chefs’ Holidays” takes place at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel, now through Feb. 4. Marking its 26th year, the event features 29 prominent chefs from around the country.
Three chefs are featured per session, which includes a “Meet the Chefs” reception, three cooking demonstrations, a five-course gala dinner with wines in the grand Ahwahnee dining room, and a tour of the hotel’s massive kitchen.
And what a hotel it is. Opened in 1927 with a concrete and steel frame designed to withstand fire, it cost $1.25 million to build or the equivalent of $19 million in today’s dollars. During a year of construction, costs grew and the project had to be scaled back. The building went from a planned 10 stories to seven. Although the kitchen had already been built, the dining room was reduced to a third of its original size to about 300 seats, as opposed to the original 1,000. As a result, the kitchen is actually 200 square feet larger than the main dining room.
Yours truly was lucky enough to be invited as a guest to the second of the eight sessions planned. This one, held during the second week of January, featured chefs Michael Tusk of Quince in San Francisco; Jesse Cool of Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park; and Colin Ambrose of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, NY.
Yes, that includes me.
I can tell you horror stories about circling the aisles at my local Asian market until I was dizzy to try to locate shaoxing wine, which is never stocked where you’d think it would be. Or the time I actually sweet-talked a fellow Chinese-American customer into helping me find just the right preserved fish from the countless jarred and bagged varieties available in the store.
Now, help is only an iPhone or iPad touch away with “Asian Ingredients 101” by my friend and fellow Bay Area blogger, Pat Tanumihardja.
The handy-dandy app is a comprehensive guide to East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian ingredients that is sure to come in handy whenever you shop at an Asian market or travel to Asia.
Find info on 100 different ingredients, including spices, herbs and sauces. Along with photos, you’ll find the common names for the ingredients in different languages, as well as where to find the ingredients in the stores. You’ll also learn tips for selecting the best ingredients and what to use them for.
Contest: Now, one lucky Food Gal reader will get a chance to win the app, as well as a copy of Tanumihardja’s “The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook” (Sasquatch), filled with wonderful stories and recipes passed down from generations.
The contest is open only to those in the continental United States. Deadline to enter is midnight PST Jan. 22. The winner will be announced Jan. 24.
How to win? Just tell me the Asian ingredient you can’t live without and the one you’d be happy to never see again, and why. The most memorable response wins.
Here’s my own answer:
QUEBEC CITY, CANADA –It’s easy to build up an appetite, strolling around this historic city in the chill of winter. And one of the best and most fortifying meals I had on my trip to this capital city was at the artsy Panache restaurant.
The restaurant is located inside the luxe Auberge Saint-Antoine hotel, just steps from the edge of the St. Lawrence River in the old port district. Indeed, in the 1800s, the impressive stone building served as a maritime trading center for glassware and tableware merchants. During the construction of the hotel, plates, vases and other pottery were unearthed, which are now carefully displayed throughout the hotel. Even the hotel room numbers have little antique chunks of porcelain highlighted next to them.
My fellow food writers and I — all guests on this trip courtesy of Quebec City Tourism — had the pleasure not only of dining at the restaurant one night, but eating in a private room with the chef, Francois Blais, during what would be his last week at the restaurant. Blais, who opened the restaurant eight years ago, felt it was time for a change. But don’t be surprised if he opens his own, more casual restaurant in Quebec in the near future.
Blais has been a pioneer in Quebec City when it comes to sourcing local ingredients within 100 miles from small family producers and championing sustainable seafood. The dinner was testament to that dedication.