Category Archives: Enticing Events

Take Five with Chef Duskie Estes, On Competing On “The Next Iron Chef” Despite Never Watching the Food Network

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Tune in to watch Duskie Estes of Bovolo and Zazu restaurants in Sonoma County. (Photo courtesy of the Food Network)

When the third season of “The Next Iron Chef” premieres on Sunday, Oct. 3 at 9 p.m., 10 chefs will compete to win a chance to stand alongside Michael Symon and Jose Garces as the newest Iron Chefs on that smoke-billowing platform.

Among them will be Duskie Estes of Zazu Restaurant + Farm in Santa Rosa, the only Northern California chef in the competition, who is gunning to follow in Cat Cora’s footsteps to become the second female “Iron Chef.”

I had a chance this week to chat by phone with Estes, a former vegetarian who went over to the pork side, who feared she nearly blew the interview when she was first asked to do the show.

A believer in “snout to tail” cooking, the 42-year-old Estes, who grew up in San Francisco, is also chef-owner with her husband of Bovolo in Healdsburg and the Black Pig Meat Co., purveyor of salumi and bacon in Sonoma County. Estes has worked at such top restaurants as Al Forno in Rhode Island, Bay Wolf in Oakland, and Dahlia Lounge in Seattle. She and her husband, John Stewart, who studied salumi making with Mario Batali, met while working together at Etta’s Seafood and Palace Kitchen, both of which are Chef Tom Douglas’ restaurants in Seattle.

Cheer on Estes as she goes up against: Marco Canora (chef and owner of Hearth, Terrior, and Terroir TriBeca, in New York), Bryan Caswell (chef and owner of Reef, Stella Sola, and Little Bigs, in Houston), Maneet Chauhan (chef at Vermilion in Chicago and New York), Mary Dumont (executive chef at Harvest in Cambridge), , Marc Forgione (chef and owner of Marc Forgione in New York), Andrew Kirschner (executive chef of Wilshire in Santa Monica), Mario Pagin (chef and owner of Lemongrass in Puerto Rico), Celina Tio (chef and owner of Julian in Kansas City, MO), and Ming Tsai (chef and wwner of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass.).

Q: You had an Easy-Bake oven when you were growing up. I’m so jealous, as my Mom never let me have one because she thought I’d burn down the house with it. Was this the start of your love for cooking?

A: I was 5 when I got mine. I have a photo of me baking a birthday cake for my grandfather with it. I was very proud of it.

I got one for my older daughter when she was 5. They have so many added safety features on it now. You can’t get in there and get the stuff. It’s less fun now. It was better when it was dangerous. (laughs) So, I let my older daughter, who’s 9 now, just use the real oven instead.

Q: Is Duskie a nickname or your given name?

A: It’s my given name. It’s a testament to my California hippie parents.

Q: Since you grew up in San Francisco, you must have had a pretty foodie household?

A: My father was a scientist, and scientists are all closet chefs. After my parents divorced, my Dad would take me out once a week to a restaurant in San Francisco. So, from the time I was 10, I had a great exposure to what great chefs like Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower were doing.

I’m also the youngest in the family. Growing up, I was the one who cooked for the whole family. I loved it.

Q: You graduated from Brown University. How did you go from that to cooking professionally?

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Five Fabulous Foodie Events

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Oyster shooters at Chaya in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of Chaya)

In San Francisco:

Chaya Brasserie San Francisco celebrates its 10th anniversary with a “10-10-10”  promotion that runs Oct. 1-10.

Now’s the time to kick back with Japanese-French creations as you take a load off at this beautiful restaurant with its Bay Bridge views.  Each day, enjoy a different price cut on some of the restaurant’s most popular items in the bar and lounge. For instance, on Day 1 (Oct. 1), enjoy a $14 regularly priced Red Dragon Roll for only $10. On Day 2, sip a Takara Nigori Unfiltered sake for $9 (regularly $15). Day 10 will feature oysters for $1 each (regularly $3 each).

A special $20.10 three-course lunch also will be offered during the promotion. Options will include the likes of herbed Monterey calamari salad; King salmon with grilled fennel, white corn, and Swiss chard; and blueberry custard torte.

The restaurant also will be launching a new menu, which will include new items such as a selection of crudo; a starter of sauteed foie gras with pear compote ($18); and entrees such as an artichoke and pearl barley ragout with spinach, edamame, tomato, wild mushrooms and Parmigiano-Reggiano ($20).

Tonight, 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., SF Weekly hosts its third annual DISH event on the fourth floor of the San Francisco Metreon.

Sample gourmet eats from more than 30 of the city’s celebrated eateries, including the Hard Knox Cafe, New Delhi and Pica Pica Maize Kitchen.

Proceeds will benefit StreetSmart4Kids, a non-profit that works in partnership with San Francisco restaurants to help homeless children.

Tickets are $50 at the door.

The event tonight kicks off a six-week “Dine Out & Donate” program, Oct. 1 through Nov. 15, with more than 50 San Francisco restaurants participating. When dining  at one of those restaurants during that time, you’ll be asked to leave $3 or more per table in a StreetSmart4Kids envelope.  The funds will go to local youth programs supported by StreetSmart4Kids. Among the restaurants participating are Acquerello, Fleur de Lys, Betelnut, and Piperade.

Oct. 9, noon to 4 p.m., San Francisco magazine hosts its annual FallFest, a celebration of the best in Bay Area food and wine at Justin Herman Plaza.

The theme is “Eat Local,” with participants asked to use ingredients grown or produced within three hours of their final destination. The plaza will be transformed into an open-air marketplace with chef demos and panel discussions.

Tickets are $95 in advance or $110 a the door. Food Gal readers, though, get a special $15 savings on advance tickets. Pay only $80 when using the discount code: FOODGAL.

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Lunch at Lucasfilm in San Francisco

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In the immortal words of Yoda, "Eat we must, first.''

Last week, I dined with Yoda, ET and a Storm Trooper.

They and other iconic characters from mega-director George Lucas’ films were on hand in the form of models, statues and bobble heads when I was lucky enough to step foot inside the Lucasfilm Letterman Digital Arts Center in the magnificent Presidio in San Francisco to enjoy an al fresco lunch.

I say, fortunate, because the sprawling center — home to the special effects powerhouse, Industrial Light & Magic, and the video game producer, LucasArts — is not open for public tours.

Oh, sure, you can snap photos of the Yoda fountain at the entrance, and walk inside the lobby to see a life-size Darth Vader. But that’s as far as you can get unless you get an invitation to the Friday “Friends & Family” day each week. Yup, you have to know someone who works there to get an “in.”

That’s how I managed to get a peek inside last Friday, thanks to my friend Tami of the stylish blog, Fête à Fête, and her fiance, Gio, who is a model builder for Lucasfilm. How cool a job is that? Gio took time out from his busy schedule to show me around.

A model used in the immortal scene in "ET.''

Like many Silicon Valley tech campuses, Lucasfilm has a gourmet cafe on site. But hands down, this one has got to have the most breathtaking view around. Replete with heavy-duty wood chairs and tables on open-air terraces, the Lucasfilm cafe is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows. On one side looms the landmark Golden Gate Bridge; on the other, the grand ornate dome of the Palace of Fine Arts that looks so enormous and near, you’d swear it must be a painting. Oh, but it’s not.

Serving up fresh baked pizzas at Lucasfilms cafe.

The roaring pizza oven.

A stir-fry made to order.

While Silicon Valley tech employees often get the perk of subsidized or free meals (Yes, Google, I’m talkin’ about you), at Lucasfilm, employees pay full price. But the quality is so high, not many seem to mind.

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100 Smackeroos to Give Away in the Latest Food Gal Contest

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How'd you like to win a gift card worth $100? Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.

On the menu today, we’re serving up a tasty special of $100.

A deliciously satisfying $100 gift card from CSN to be exact.

Are you salivating yet?

The gift card is good at any CSN online store, where you can shop till you drop for everything from a glam new end table to an ice cream maker to a chic new purse to a super sharp chef’s knife.

How to win?

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A Clucking Good Time at the Foster Farms Chicken Cooking Contest

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In gleaming chef’s whites last Friday at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, six amateur and professional cooks took to the stoves, battling one another to come up with a delicious, appealing and creative spin on a protein so commonplace in our diets that most of us eat it at least twice a week.

Of course, that would be chicken.

This was the first ever Foster Farms West Coast Chicken Cooking Contest. The grand prize? A cool $10,000, plus a year’s supply of Foster Farms fresh chickens.

More than 2,000 folks entered the contest, which was limited to entrants from California, Oregon and Washington. On Friday, two regional finalists from each state competed in the final cook-off, which was judged by yours truly, along with Lena Birnbaum, associate food editor of Bon Appetit magazine; Elaine Johnson, associate food editor of Sunset magazine; and Michele Kayal, a contributing writer for the Associated Press and creator of the Hyphenated Chef blog.

The contest is the successor to the long-running National Chicken Cooking Contest, which began in 1949, but ended last year because of economic issues. That was when West Coast-based Foster Farms, family-owned since 1939, stepped in to carry on the tradition with a contest of its own.

The contest was open to both professional and homecooks. Contestants were required to use Foster Farms chicken in their recipes, which were designed to serve four, as well as an abundance of fresh and local ingredients. The only caveat was that the recipes could not involve grilling, as Foster Farms reps wanted recipes that could be cooked year-round in any part of the country.

At 8:30 a.m., we judges gathered with forks and knives to taste chicken bright and early. The contestants, who would cook in the kitchen three at a time and have 90 minutes to complete their dish, were already hunched over cutting boards, slicing chicken, chopping garlic and carefully measuring sugar and oil.

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