Category Archives: Fruit

At Bushido in Mountain View, There’s More than Meets the Eye

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Bushido's very clever sushi. Can you guess what it is?

Executive Chef Isamu Kanai is a very, very clever man.

When he impishly set a small plate of nigiri sushi before my husband and I one night when we were invited to dine as guests at his downtown Mountain View restaurant, Bushido, he asked us to guess what type of fish it was.

We scrutinized the fleshy white pieces that had been crosshatched, then brushed with a sweet soy sauce and placed atop mounds of rice. We took a bite. The texture was ever so chewy, much like raw cuttlefish which it resembled. But the taste was slightly sweet.

Could it be some other type of cuttlefish we’d never had before?

We couldn’t have been more wrong.

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Cake Art, America’s Cup Cocktail & More

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Artist Gary Komarin paints images of cakes on brown paper bags. (Image courtesy of the artist)

Cake Paintings at March in San Francisco

Cake — without the calories. That’s what you’ll find at Marche, the gourmet kitchenware store in San Francisco, when it hosts an exhibit by artist Gary Komarin, Sept. 28 through the end of November.

The whimsical artwork consists of water-based enamel and spackle paintings of cakes on paper bags.

“I have long been intrigued by the way paper bags are designed and the way that they fold back into such a beautifully flat object after being so very volumetric in their ‘open’ stance,” said Komarin in a statement.   “These bags have a terrific surface on which to paint and an almost puffy physicality once paint is applied.”

Komarin’s work was inspired by his mother, a consummate baker, and his father, an architect.

A cocktail to salute the America's Cup. (Photo courtesy of Michael Mina restaurant)

America’s Cup Cocktail

Hoist a drink to the America’s Cup World Series, which will take place in the San Francisco Bay, Aug. 21-26 and Oct. 2-7.

You can with a specially prepared cocktail, the AC45, available at Michael Mina restaurant and RN74, both in San Francisco.

The beguiling concoction is a blend of Carpano Antica, Velvet Falernum and Earl Grey tea that’s shaken, poured into a tall glass of ice, then garnished with black lava sea salt and nori.

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A Food Gal Giveaway: Two Seats at A Special Tomato and Wine Pairing Dinner in Los Gatos

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Indulge your summer tomato cravings.

Two of my favorite places in Los Gatos are joining for one night to celebrate “Fruits of the Vine,” a salute to summer heirloom tomatoes and stellar wines.

Sept. 15, the owners of Enoteca La Storia wine bar will be supplying copious amounts of their 25 varieties of home-grown, organic tomatoes to Restaurant James Randall for a vine-to-table five-course feast.

Chef Ross Hanson’s menu will include dishes such as Dungeness crab croquettes with tomato relish; tomato braised beef with creamy polenta and Pecorino; and roasted tomato and peach shortcake.

The  6 p.m. dinner is $95 per person, which includes wine pairings. Tax and gratuity are not included.

Advance ticket purchase is required.

Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will get a chance to attend the dinner with a guest — for free (though a tip for the servers would be appreciated, I’m sure). Entries, limited to those who can make it to Los Gatos on the evening of Sept. 15, will be accepted through midnight PST Sept. 8. Winner will be announced Sept. 10.

How to win?

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For the Last of Summer’s Nectarines

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Use the last of summer's nectarines in this light-bright farro salad.

(With apologies to those wacky DirecTV commercials.)

When you lose track of time…

You buy an expensive watch…

When you buy an expensive watch, people notice…

People like Shifty Sam and Three-Strikes Joe, who will sneak up on you on a dark street and snatch your watch…

When thugs steal your watch, they conk you on the head and toss you in a dumpster to fester with yesterday’s fish heads.

Don’t sleep with rotten fishies.

Don’t lose track of time.

Enjoy nectarines for one last fling before summer ends.

One of the best and most healthful ways to do so is in this salad of “Farro with Nectarines, Basil and Toasted Pine Nuts.”

It’s from the new “Grain Mains” (Rodale), of which I received a review copy, by my friends and prolific cookbook writers Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

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