Category Archives: Great Finds

Bovolo Will Bowl You Over

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It’s no big deal these days to snag a decent latte and a nice pastry inside your neighborhood bookstore.

But how about being able to pick up a best-selling novel, a glossy mag, and a plate of dreamy pasta carbonara?

Yeah, not many bookstores can boast of that. But Copperfield’s Books in downtown Healdsburg sure can. That’s because past the front door, past the shelves of books, and all the way in the back of the store, you’ll find Bovolo, a sunny restaurant that makes everything from scratch from locally grown ingredients and specializes in the meat-of-the-moment, pork.

Bovolo, the sister restaurant of Zazu Restaurant & Farm in Santa Rosa, is a tiny 24-seat cafe big on charm.  It makes its own bacon and salumi from heritage pigs, as well as its own fabulous gelato. It features “Fish Frydays,” the only day of the week that pig makes room for fish. Corkage is also free for Sonoma County residents. Enter through the backdoor at 9 a.m. before the bookstore opens, and you can enjoy a rustic breakfast of fried sweetened goat cheese turnovers, a breakfast pizza or a black pig bacon, egg and cheese sammy.

Just be sure to time your visit well, as Bovolo is open only until 6 p.m. on weekdays.

The hubster and I made it there just before closing to enjoy an early dinner.

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Dynamo Donuts Are Dyno-mite

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A donut is a donut, right?

Not in the hands of San Francisco’s wickedly good Dynamo Donuts, a short drive from the Holiday Inn Civic Center.

You’ve seen the lines. You’ve heard the swoons.

Let me tell you, it’s all justified for these gourmet donuts that come in such unusual flavors as Chocolate Rosemary Almond, Lemon Sichuan, Banana De Leche, and the much-ballyhooed Maple Glazed Bacon Apple.

First off, these are not teeth-gratingly sweet like so many other donuts. I know that’s hard to believe, given that they all come with a hefty dose of glaze or shower of sugar on top. But the flavors are actually balanced and quite intense at times. For instance, bite into the Candied Orange Blossom, and your mouth will come alive with an explosion of citrus flavor that’s so audacious, you can’t help but let out a yelp. The orange flavor gets revved up from candied orange zest inside the donut, as well as orange blossom glaze smeared over the top.

Second of all, the texture of these donuts is remarkable. It’s not just a round of airy pastry. Rather, a Dynamo donut has height, along with an almost brioche-like quality that makes for a quite rich and tender crumb.

That these donuts are so spectacular comes as no surprise when you realize that they’re the brainchild of Sara Spearin, a pastry chef who honed her craft at Postrio, Hawthorne Lane, Stars and Foreign Cinema, all San Francisco landmarks.

There are about 16 different donuts, selling for $2 to $3.50 a piece, depending on the type. About seven are offered daily with the bacon one available every day by popular demand.

Good thing, too, or there surely would be riots over this super puffy donut that has apples  in the batter, which have been sauteed in bacon fat, as well as a maple glaze that’s studded with crisp bacon bits. It’s salty and sweet. And if you try one, you’ll want another one immediately.

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The Art of Wagashi at Minamoto Kitchoan

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Cupcakes, cookies, French macarons.

So yesterday.

For unique sweet treats that will truly surprise and tantalize, step inside Minamoto Kitchoan, a Japanese confectionery store that has locations in downtown San Francisco and in San Jose’s Mitsuwa Marketplace plaza.

The stores specialize in wagashi, handmade, intricate sweets made with mochi, azuki red bean paste and fruit. Traditionally, they were designed to be served during Japanese tea ceremonies. With their sweet flavor, they are the ideal accompaniment to a cup of hot, fragrant, astringent green tea.

Minamoto Kitchoan receives a shipment every two months from Japan. The wagashi are shipped frozen in a state-of-the-art process that renders them much colder than in any home freezer, yet doesn’t impair their delicacy.

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My Ode to New York Times Food Writer Kim Severson

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Before I ever met food writer Kim Severson, I wanted to hate her.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not normally a hater. Not at all.

But imagine two athletes playing the same position, yet on opposing teams. There’s just a natural rivalry that develops.

That’s what I felt initially for Kim, now a New York Times food journalist, who years ago, was a food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, when I was the same for the competition, the San Jose Mercury News.

She started her career as a hard news reporter, before switching to food writing. I had done the same. I’d turn up to events, only to find her there, too. I’d finish writing a story, only to find she’d just done a similar one — often far better, too. I’d be nominated for a writing award, only to find out she was up for two of them in the same competition.

That’s why I wanted to hate Kim Severson.

That is, until I actually met her, of course.

Because I ended up liking her immensely from the get-go.

When you compete head-to-head with someone on a pressure-packed field, there’s a tendency to build them up in your mind into something that they’re not. It’s a great motivator that propels you onward to try to beat or surpass them. But then reality sets in, and you realize that what you truly feel for this person is not envy or hatred, but the utmost admiration.

And that’s really what I felt for Kim from the moment I first laid eyes on her byline. The woman can flat-out write. She can turn a phrase like no one else, bringing you to tears one moment, and sending you into convulsions of laughter the next. That’s no more evident than in her new autobiographical book, “Spoon Fed” (Riverhead Books), a brave, revealing look at one of the nation’s most gifted food writers and the iconic female cooks who taught her valuable lessons along the way.

As I turned the pages, it was stunning to realize that Kim, whose talents strike fear in so many other food writers like myself, was herself so full of self-doubt and anxieties about her own abilities. Worse yet, she wrestled with all that while battling alcoholism when living in one of the premier wine capitals of the world — Northern California.

Even if you’ve never been fortunate enough to meet Kim in person, you come away from her book with so much respect for a woman who is ballsy, smart, resilient and generous of spirit.

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Chicken and Waffles in An Alley in San Francisco

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Psst…I can hook you up with a fix at a good price.

Primo stuff, too, bro.

This way. Come on. Come on. Down this alley.

In San Francisco, if someone beckons you down an alley like that, don’t be afraid. They’re just leading the way to Little Skillet, a lunchtime walk-up window serving Southern-style fried chicken and waffles that is indeed located in an alley.

Little Skillet, 360 Ritch St. (at Townsend between 3rd and 4th streets), a short drive from the W San Francisco, is an offshoot of Farmer Brown restaurant in San Francisco.

The to-go window is open Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Get in line, then place your order for fried chicken, waffles, “BBQ pork sandwich,” Cobb salad, or Red Velvet cupcakes.

If you’re lucky, you can take your cardboard box of goodness to enjoy at the lone bench on the sidewalk in front of the window. Or do what most people do — grab a foam cushion from a stack nicely provided at the condiment stand — and cross the street to take a seat on a loading dock to chow down on your grub. Packages of wet ones also are conveniently available to clean your hands afterward.

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