Category Archives: Fruit

A Sweet Society

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How'd you like these raspberry-white chocolate sables delivered to you? (Photo courtesy of Tell Tale Preserve Company)

Executive Pastry Chef William Werner, one of the Bay Area’s top talents, won’t officially open his new Tell Tale Preserve Company on Union Square in San Francisco until November.

But those impatient for a taste of his confections have a novel option in the meantime: Become a member of its Tell Tale Society.

For a $35 a month subscription, you get a once-a-month delivery of house-made pastries, jams, candies and breads. Now, that’s my idea of high society.

Customers can either pick up their package at a designated location or have it shipped directly to them for an extra fee.

The once-a-month delivery bag. (Photo courtesy of Tell Tale Preserve Company)

The first burlap bag shipment of goodies is set to go out on Sept. 1. It will include an almond financier, plum-litchi pate de fruit, coffee-laced milk jam, caramels with volcanic sea salt, savory tomato-semolina bread, praline marshmallows, and raspberry-white chocolate sandwich cookies.

Werner, who has worked at Quince in San Francisco and the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, is building a patisserie and delicatessen on tucked-away Maiden Lane. Tell Tale Preserve Company is a collaboration between him and the Whisk Group, a Maryland boutique hospitality group.

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The Newest in Wine Pairings — Lady Gaga Donuts and Cupcakes

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You’ve had cheese with your wine. You’ve had chocolate with your wine.

But you’ve probably never had the likes of a Lady Gaga donut with a Petite Syrah.

This Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 28, you can enjoy that unusual pairing that sounds as out there as one of Gaga’s outfits.

Poetic Cellars of Soquel is hosting this creative food-wine pairing. Psycho Donuts of Campbell is supplying all the donuts that day, including the pop star-inspired iced cake ones topped with fresh blueberries.

The winery is offering up even more donut-wine combos with the likes of “Apricotology fritters” with Chardonnay and Viognier; an Oreo cookie-like cake donut matched with Syrah; and S’Mores cake donuts with Poetic Cellars’ Bourdeaux blend, Ballad.

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Haagen-Dazs’ Tempting New Flavors

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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:

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Spotlighting Summer Tomatoes

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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.

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Food Gal Featured in the New “Cooking for Geeks”

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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.

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