If it’s summer, it must be time for new Haagen-Dazs flavors.
And that’s a very good time, indeed.
That’s eight new flavors, four of which are limited edition ones available only through December, such as “Dark Chocolate Mint” and “Bananas Foster.”
If you’re watching your calories, you’ll be glad to know that three of the new flavors are low-fat frozen yogurts, such as “Peach” and “Raspberry.”
Recently, I had a chance to try samples of four of the newbies:
Vine-ripened heirlooms are taking center stage right now.
Find these juicy beauties in all their glory at these Bay Area restaurants:
* Saratoga’s Sent Sovi hosts its third annual “Heirloom Tomato Dinner” on Aug. 26. Chef Josiah Slone will even feature some of his own homegrown ones at this special five-course meal that starts with “Lemon Boy Sake Cocktails” with tomato bites, and winds its way through slow-cooked lamb confit with poached tomato sauce before ending with tomato and peanut tart with pomegranate sorbet.
Price is $115, and includes paired wines.
If you can’t make it that particular night, have no fear; the restaurant will feature the tomato menu in lieu of its regular tasting menu, Aug. 27-29.
* Throughout August, the Lark Creek Restaurant Group will be creating inventive new dishes with Marvel Stripe, Purple Cherokee, Goliath and other heirloom varieties.
Look for dishes such as Dungeness crab and heirloom tomato salad with yellow tomato sorbet at One Market Restaurant in San Francisco; seafood-stuffed heirloom tomato with olives, capers, basil and lemon oil at Yankee Pier at Santana Row in San Jose; and Muscovy duck with white corn, summer squash, hickory-smoked bacon and heirloom tomato relish at the Tavern at Lark Creek in Larkspur.
* Gott’s Roadside in St. Helena, Napa and San Francisco is serving up its home-grown green tomatoes, fried with spicy chili aioli ($4.99), until supplies last.
The tomatoes are from its St. Helena garden, as is the fresh basil in its pesto on the menu.
* Also in Wine Country, the Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma will host its fifth annual “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” Sept. 14-20.
Tomatoes will take over the menu at this restaurant, which harvests about 48 pounds of tomatoes from its garden every day at the height of summer. Dishes to be featured include “Menage a Tomato with Housemade Mozzarella and Watermelon Gazpacho” and a “PBLT” sandwich with pork belly.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that me and technology don’t always get along.
So, it’s with both great flattery and some bemusement that I find myself included in the new “Cooking for Geeks” (O’Reilly) book by self-professed computer geek and cooking aficionado, Jeff Potter.
Potter studied computer science and visual art at Brown University. This is his first book, which looks at how science works to create so many delicious dishes we love.
Potter includes not only recipes but interviews with folks, including yours truly. I’m in good company, too. Some of the other profiled in the book include Dave Arnold, instructor at the French Culinary Institute in New York; Harold McGee, author of the seminal “On Food and Cooking” (Scribner); and Brian Wansink, author and Cornell University professor, who studies how people interact with food.
In the book, you’ll find me rhapsodizing about making preserved lemons, a process that always leaves me spellbound by the transformation that occurs when you add copious amounts of salt to fresh lemons, and let the mixture sit for a few weeks.
My hubby makes fun of me because I often whine, “I hate technology!”
You know the feeling — when your server goes down or your email has the hiccups or some dastardly virus has infiltrated your otherwise peaceful online existence.
At times like that, can you blame me for uttering those blasphemous words? I think not.
But a couple of weeks ago, you might have heard me proclaim instead, “I adore technology!”
You see, it all started when I tweeted that I had bought some fabulously soft, juicy, drippy-licious Suncrest peaches at the Frog Hollow Farm store at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.
Then, what happens, but two days later, I find a huge box on my porch of just-picked nectarines, courtesy of Frog Hollow Farm.
Big Brother at work?
Big nectarines is more like it. Sweet, with just the right amount of tang, too.
Most of them, I just enjoyed out of hand. But I saved a few choice ones for extra special treatment: “Nectarine-Frangipane Galette.”
Fresh figs are the cilantro of the fruit world.
People tend to either lust after them or loathe them.
If they grew up hating Fig Newtons, most likely they never even dared to bite into the plump, intensely sweet fresh version.
More’s the pity.
Because people, I’m here to tell you: Give fresh figs a chance, OK?
How can you not love a fruit so squishy soft, so uniquely gorgeous looking, and nearly port-like in flavor?
I sure do. That’s why when I was leafing through the new cookbook, “Good to the Grain” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), which I recently received a copy of from the publisher, it was the recipe for “Fig Compote” that jumped out at me.
It’s a cinch to make using fresh figs, a little butter, a bit of honey, some dark brown sugar and a pinch of salt. It cooks in a flash on the stovetop, then under the broiler. In mere minutes, you have a compote that’s thick, glossy, and syrupy, almost like fig caramel sauce.