Category Archives: Great Finds

The Nostalgic Taste of No-Churn Yuen Yeung Ice Cream Cake

Sara Lee Pound Cake goes fancy and sentimental.
Sara Lee Pound Cake goes fancy and sentimental.

As a Chinese American kid growing up in San Francisco, I would peer into our family freezer to spy not only bamboo leaf-wrapped sticky rice dumplings and on-sale bags of shrimp for future stir-frys, but plenty of Swanson Salisbury steak dinners, boxes of Banquet boil-in-bag chicken a la king, and Sara Lee Pound Cake.

The latter of which I much preferred to eat still frozen.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in that, either.

Not if the cookbook, “Salt Sugar MSG: Recipes From A Cantonese American Home” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy, is any indication.

That’s because deep within its pages is a recipe for “No-Churn Yuen Yeung Ice Cream Cake” made with — you guessed it — a Sara Lee Pound Cake, but one gussied up with layers of a fluffy whipped cream-and condensed milk flavored with Lipton tea and a dash of coffee.

For me, it is as if old-school Chinatown milk tea and that buttery dense pound cake decided to skip joyously together down memory lane.

The cookbook was written by Calvin Eng, chef and owner of Bonnie’s, a well-regarded Cantonese American restaurant in Williamsburg in New York. who is also a Food & Wine “Best New Chef,” with assistance from Phoebe Melnick, a New York video journalist.

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Summer Was Made For Dandelion Chocolate Single-Origin S’mores Kit

Dandelion Chocolate debuts a kit to make gourmet s'mores.
Dandelion Chocolate debuts a kit to make gourmet s’mores.

Level up your s’mores game — big-time — with the new Dandelion Chocolate Single-Origin S’mores Kit.

The San Francisco bean-to-bar chocolate company has come up with its own gourmet version of the campfire favorite that’s available for summer.

I had a chance to try a sample of the $68 kit that comes with everything you need to make nine s’mores. That includes 70 percent large, square-shaped, single-origin chocolate chips from cacao beans grown in three different parts of the world: Indonesia, Belize, and Uganda.

The s'mores kit box.
The s’mores kit box.

Also enclosed are Dandelion Chocolate Chef Lisa Vega’s house-made graham crackers and marshmallows, along with napkins, matchbooks, instructions for making the s’mores (using a campfire, barbecue, broiler or gas stovetop), and two telescoping metal skewers.

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Summer Sips

A Chardonnay that drinks light with plenty of acidity.
A Chardonnay that drinks light with plenty of acidity.

2022 Bouchaine Estate Chardonnay

When the weather heats up, all thoughts turn to refreshing white wines, preferably sipped al fresco swinging in a hammock or at least basking in the comfort of A/C.

Napa’s Bouchaine Vineyards has got you covered with its 2022 Estate Chardonnay ($40).

This blend, of which I received a sample, is actually crafted from more than a dozen different Chardonnay wines produced from the winery’s estate blocks that were originally planted in 1984. As such, the final wine is the culmination of the marriage of different yeasts, along with fermentation in stainless steel tanks, as well as French oak barrels of different ages and toasts.

If you’re not the biggest fan of buttery, oaky or heavy-bodied Chardonnays, this one is for you. A golden straw color, it opens up on the nose with lime and apple aromas, and then fills the palate with green apple and lemon curd. It has an unexpected through line of acidity that makes it quite refreshing.

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Raise A Toast to Tuscan Braised Drunken Chicken

Chicken halves get marinated, then gently simmered in a pan for glorious results.
Chicken halves get marinated, then gently simmered in a pan for glorious results.

With folks tightening their wallets these days and tourism once again peaking so high in Europe that locals are out protesting, a trip to Italy might not be in the cards this year.

However, you can opt for a taste of Tuscany in the comfort of your own home instead, thanks to the new cookbook, “20 Amici 40 Ricette” (The Collective Book Studio), of which I received a review copy.

Translated from Italian to English as “20 friends, 40 recipes,” the book was written by John Bersani, a teacher, writer, and second-generation Italian-American who has lived for more than 20 years in a small hilltop town in central Tuscany when he isn’t splitting his time in Colorado.

It is as much travelogue as cookbook as Bersani introduces you to some of his favorite people and most cherished restaurants in the region. In fact, the recipes are organized not by the usual category of dish but by friend, be they forager, fish monger, chef, or restaurateur.

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The Enchanting Angele Restaurant & Bar in Napa

Pate de Campagne at Angele in Napa.
Pate de Campagne at Angele in Napa.

With beautiful mountain ranges and sweeping vineyards galore, the Napa Valley doesn’t have to work hard to enrapture visitors. So, it’s a rare restaurant there that somehow manages to outdo that bucolic setting and transport you elsewhere.

That establishment is Angele Restaurant & Bar in downtown Napa, where dining feels like a blissful getaway to the lovely countryside of France.

Owner Bettina Rouas opened the restaurant on the banks of the Napa River in 2002, naming it for her grandmother.

The welcome sign at the door.
The welcome sign at the door.
The roof over the outdoor patio.
The roof over the outdoor patio.

The comfortable warmth you feel at Angele is no accident, not when Rouas hails from a family renowned for its hospitality. Her father Claude Rouas owned legendary L’Etoile in San Francisco and opened Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford.

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