Bartlett, Comice, Bosc and Anjou are my go-to pears.
They’re easily found in any supermarket, and never let me down for cooking, baking or eating right out of hand.
Samples of two other pear varieties recently landed in my mailbox, though, that require a little more effort to seek out.
But boy, are they worth it.
First up, the Warren pear.
I’m a bit nutty.
By that, I don’t mean I’ve lost my marbles. At least not yet.
I just mean I’m wild about nuts. I love their crunch, their richness, their unique shapes, and the way they make most any candy or baked good just so much better and far more interesting.
So when I recently tried some samples of Sahale Snacks, I got even nuttier, if that’s possible.
These all-natural nut blends and glazed nuts assortments are so creatively flavored. The Seattle company was founded six years ago by Josh Schroeter and Edmond Sanctis after the duo managed to climb Mt. Rainier even after subsisting on a lackluster supply of ho-hum trail mix and energy bars. When they got back down to sea level, they vowed to make something much tastier. And they named the company after Sahale Peak, which is north of the Cascade Pass in the North Cascades National Park in the state of Washington.
The glazed nuts come in three varieties: Honey Almonds, Almond PB&J, and Pomegranate Cashew (a 4-ounce bag is $5.29). The nut blends come in six varieties, each based on the flavors of a different global cuisine (a 2-ounce bag is $2.99).
The Soledad Almonds Nut Blend, for instance, is reminiscent of the Mediterranean with its mix of almonds, flax seeds, dates, balsamic vinegar, and a touch of cayenne. The nuts have a fresh crunch, and the mix has sweetness, savoriness, and a whisper of heat. The flavors are almost reminiscent of a fabulous fruit stuffing for roast pork. It’s addicting stuff.
The Almond PB&J mix with dried strawberries is delightful with its salty and fruity marriage.
And the Pomegranate Cashew has real vanilla bean, giving it an almost creamy nature. It’s like the flavor of a rich vanilla milkshake in your mouth with just a faint tang from the fruit.
The 2-ounce bags of glazed nuts have 112 calories each, while a quarter cup of the pomegranate cashews has 150 calories. The nuts are available online, as well as at Andronico’s, Draeger’s, Lunardi’s, and Whole Foods stores.
Want to win some samples to try for yourself?
Or a total of four bags (2-ounce each) of nut blends, three (4-ounce) glazed nuts packages, and a Sahale Snacks apron to be exact?
To enter: Just tell me your nuttiest cooking escapade. The most amusing, original or memorable will win. The contest is open to anyone in the continental United States. Deadline to enter is end of the day, Oct. 24. Winner will be announced Oct. 26.
To get you in the nutty mood, here’s my own nut-case cooking fiasco:
Imagine a six-course dinner with six wine pairings — for all of $35 per person.
You don’t have to don fancy duds to enjoy it, either. But you do have to make reservations early, as it sells out faster than you can uncork a bottle of Chardonnay.
Zanotto’s Family Market in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood may very well have the best wine tasting deal around.
The family-run supermarket, which has been in business since 1967, offers the wine dinner every last Wednesday of each month. Tickets go on sale three weeks before, and usually sell out within the first week. Indeed, since the store started hosting these dinners 30 months ago, 29 have sold out.
“We just wanted to create a casual learning experience with great food and wine,” says store Manager Fred Zanotto.
Wednesday was always the store’s slowest day, Fred Zanotto explains. So, he decided to start holding wine tastings to try to entice more shoppers into the store. They proved so successful that he decided to add dinner to it, too.
Picture a neighborhood block party held inside a grocery store. That’s what this fun, lively dinner is like, where so many folks are regulars, attending each and every one.
Tables are set up inside and out (except for the winter) to hold 237 people (129 in winter). Folks, who have purchased tickets ahead of time at the store or over the phone, start lining up early by the ice cream freezers to get the best pick of seats, which are first-come, first-serve. Reserved seats are only available if you have a party of six or more.
The tables are draped with floral cloths that can be purchased in the store. The food, served family-style, is arrayed on pretty, rustic platters, which also can be purchased at the store. Fred Zanotto’s two sisters-in-law, who normally man the store’s deli, create the food to pair with the wines. Many of the ingredients — you guessed it — can be purchased at the store.
Cutlery and plates are of the plastic variety. And you get only one wine glass. But that just adds to the informal charm of the event.
The wineries featured each month are from all over the world. But six months of the year are dedicated to spotlighting local wineries.
The wine dinner I attended in September featured DeRose Vineyards of Hollister. The winery has 100 acres of vines, including 40 acres that are dry-farmed. Those vines, which get no water, produce intensely fruity wines, says winemaker Pat DeRose.
The wines poured that evening included the Parrone 2007 Sparkling, DeRose Chardonnay 2006, Continental Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, Nick DeRose Sr. Zinfandel 2006, and the Negrette 2006. The latter, made from 115-year-old vines, is such a rarity these days that even in its native France, there are less than 100 acres grown there today. DeRose grows 10 acres that are dry-farmed. The result is a wine bursting with jammy plum and berry flavors, and gentle tannins.
Zanotto’s also provides recipes to take home from each event. Dinner that night was as follows:
My husband and I play this game whenever we go out to eat somewhere new.
If the place is a true delight from food to ambience to price, we will invariably turn to one another and say, “If we lived here, this would be our neighborhood place.”
Peter McNee, chef of Poggio trattoria in Sausalito, laughed when I told him we’d already made that declaration about his restaurant from the moment the bread (a special order of just-baked shards of pizza dough, scattered with piney rosemary and drizzled with fruity extra virgin olive oil) was set down at our table. If only we didn’t live some 50 odd miles south, Poggio would definitely be our neighborhood haunt.
Turns out he plays that game, too, when he dines out. And so must the throngs of diners crowding the very lively Poggio the recent Saturday night when McNee invited me in to try his dishes. It was my first time at the nearly 6-year-old restaurant. Every seat was taken inside the warm dining room, the bustling bar, and at the outside tables where you can feel the gentle breeze from the Bay.
Seems like a lot of people are making this satisfying Northern Italian restaurant their neighborhood spot. They’re racking up smaller tabs now, a manager told us. And they are bringing in their own wine more often now to take advantage of the reasonable $20 corkage fee. But recession or no recession, diners continue to flock here.
It’s easy to see why. The cheery sommelier arrives at your table wearing suspenders and armed with the most colorful and memorable stories about the featured wines. Entree prices are moderate, considering the caliber of food and the amount of it. Portions are very generous here. Our half-orders of pasta resembled full-size plates at other establishments.
It’s a place where you can drop in for a Calabria pizza (Calabrian chile roasted pork, gypsy peppers, and picholine olives; $12) or a rustic spit-roasted goat leg with eggplant, and roasted onion and goat cheese gratin ($18).
The menu changes daily. From time to time, McNee also offers week-long specialty menus, including the “Festa de Pesce,” which we got to try the last night it was offered. This festival of seafood featured both cold and warm small-plate preparations of fresh local seafood.
After McNee told us how painstaking the stuffed calamari ($9) was to make, and how many pounds of squid bodies that he, himself, had to hand-stuff with a mixture of sofrito and diced squid tentacles, how could we not order it?
A shallow earthenware dish arrived as black as a Texas oil pool. The plump squid bodies were braised in their own ink. The squid were tender, and the sauce so deep, earthy, and complex that it was hard not to spoon up every drop.
From the “Festa de Pesce” menu, we also tried the local albacore crudo ($8), a mound of cubed buttery tuna with the refreshing hit of chile, lime, and mint.
The two half-orders of pastas were not only ample in size, but plentiful with meat. The cavatelli with lamb sugo featured ridged, fresh pasta in a hearty, robust sauce. The pappardelle with slow-cooked veal and green olive sugo was a soul-satisfying dish with big chunks of fork-tender meat accented by salty, nutty Pecorino Romano.
Last week, I finally got around to eating at a revered place in San Francisco I’ve been dying to try.
It’s owned and operated by a most esteemed chef. It garnered a glowing, three-star review in San Francisco Magazine. Oh, and it’s tinier than many people’s walk-in closets.
It is, of course, The Sentinel, the doll-sized, corner sandwich shop South of Market opened a year ago by Dennis Leary, a most talented chef who makes no bones for marching to his own beat.
Long before it became uber hip for high-end chefs to chuck it all to careen around town in blinged -out, gourmet taco trucks, Leary left behind the highly regarded Rubicon restaurant, where he was its highly regarded executive chef, to open a glorified diner named Canteen.
Ah, but the 20-seat Canteen is no dive. It’s a cozy, lively joint decorated with shelves of classic books, a nod to Leary’s Phi Beta Kappa degree in English literature from Wheaton College. With room for only two or three other helpers behind the counter while he cooks, Leary miraculously turns out prix-fixe and a la carte dinners that are nothing short of magical. His Parker House rolls are reason alone to go. As is the warm vanilla souffle that never leaves the menu.
Before heading to Canteen to cook each night, he mans The Sentinel at breakfast and lunch each weekday. I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering if the guy ever sleeps.
I did try snapping a few photos of Leary, who was behind the counter at The Sentinel the afternoon I visited. But the red-headed chef is a whirlwind as he assembles sandwich orders lickety-split, making for some god awful blurry images I didn’t want to inflict on you.
The small menu at The Sentinel changes daily. Usually, there are a couple of cold sandwiches, a couple of hot ones, a soup, and one “Daily Special” that comes complete with a side and dessert.
There are two doorways leading into this bustling, take-out cafe that has no seats and really no room at all to linger.