Category Archives: Great Finds

Soup-Sational

Posted on by 26 comments

Soup so good, you'll yearn for it.

When my hubby gives me that look of longing, I so know what that means.

When he gets that glint of desire in his eyes, after five years of marriage I totally know what he’s after.

No, not that. Geeze, Louise.

Please, he wants soup. The heavenly Chicken Meatball Soup that he’s loved (well, not as much as me, of course) since I started making it six long years ago.

It’s by Mary Sue Milliken, one half of the culinary duo that oversees Border Grill in Santa Monica and Las Vegas. (The other half is Susan Feniger, of course.)

The recipe is from the cookbook, “Cooking From the Heart” (Broadway Books), a compilation of recipes and anecdotes from 100 chefs that was put together to raise funds for Share Our Strength, one of the nation’s most prominent anti-hunger agencies.

Why is this soup so incredible? Well, it has meatballs for one thing. And who doesn’t love meatballs? It’s also a super-simple broth of chicken stock, onions, carrots, green cabbage, and a couple of plum tomatoes (use canned if they’re not in season), that becomes so much more than the sum of its parts. One or two jalapenos give it just the slightest kick. Orzo makes it substantial enough to be a light lunch or supper. And the final drizzle of white vinegar somehow miraculously ties all the flavors together, while elevating them at the same time, too.

It’s a soup that soothes, comforts, nourishes, and puts a contented smile on your face.

One spoonful, and you’ll be hooked. One spoonful, and whomever you share it with will be giving you that yearnful look, too.

Chicken Meatball Soup

Read more

Your One-Stop Shop For French Gourmet Goods

Posted on by 19 comments

Le Fermiere honey yogurt (2-pack for $6.99) in pretty ceramic jars.

See that creamy, dreamy yogurt above?

People drive miles and miles for it. Because once you’ve had full-fat French yogurt, there’s no going back.

The bare-bones Gourmet Corner store, 873 N. San Mateo Dr. in San Mateo, is one of the few retailers in the Bay Area — if not the only one — where you can find it. Surely, no other establishment has the variety of French yogurts that this one does.

Find a good selection of French cheeses.

That’s because proprietor Hugues de Vernou knows his stuff. Well, he’s French, for one thing. And two, he’s been in the food import/export business for more than two decades. For years, he ran the Made In France/Village Imports business that sold European gourmet foods wholesale. It was most famous, though, for its occasional public sales, which would prompt foodies to line up for hours to load up on imported cheeses, wines, olive oils, and canned goods at bargain prices.

Owner Hugues de Vernou

De Vernou sold that business last year. In December 2008, he opened this store in what was once a car dealership. In two rooms, totalling 5,000 square feet, you’ll find an array of French products for sale, including chocolates, cookies, foie gras, dried morels, mustards, dried green lentils, jars of duck fat, canned hearts of palm, frozen escargot, and duck confit. De Vernou recently got his liquor license, and now sells wines, too, $8 to $25 per bottle (you get a 10 percent discount if you buy by the case).

Plans are to expand the store even more, to add a selection of prepared foods, and even a barbecue outside in the summer, when the floor-to-ceiling bay doors can be retracted to create almost an open-air market feel.

Read more

Chocolate Love

Posted on by 21 comments
A dessert to impress -- with very little effort.

How do I love thee recipe for “10-Minute Mocha Pots de Creme”?

Let me count the ways:

I love that thee is dark chocolate, of course.

I love that thee is a show-stopping dessert that looks like it required a ton of effort. (Not!)

I love that thee comes together with so little cooking, making you a godsend for fancy dinner parties or even last-minute casual get-togethers.

I love that thee is hands down truly the easiest dessert on the planet.

And I love that thee is as devilishly rich as sin.

OK, enough with the lame attempts at a sonnet. You get my drift that this recipe is one of my all-time favorite desserts. It’s my go-to goodie. It’s the one I always turn to when I’m pressed for time, but still want to serve something impressive.

I’ve been making the pots de creme since the recipe came out four years ago in Abigail Johnson Dodge’s “The Weekend Baker” (W.W. Norton & Company).

You warm heavy cream, then pour it into a blender with chopped chocolate, sugar, expresso powder, vanilla extract, and a dash of coffee-flavored liqueur. Whirl till blended, then divide amongst four ramekins or other individual containers. Chill for at least 45 minutes in the fridge. And that’s it. Did I say this was easy?

It’s a perfect dessert for Valentine’s Day. It serves four. But even if it’s just the two of you that leaves you with leftovers to enjoy the next night. After all, whomever you spend this romantic holiday with has got to be worth spending the next day with, too. (wink, wink)

10-Minute Mocha Pots de Creme

Read more

Dim Sum for the New Year

Posted on by 15 comments

Clockwise from top: Sweet potato puff, durian puff, siu mai, har gau, and (center) sweet green tea dumpling -- all from Dynasty Seafood Restaurant in Cupertino.

Dim sum may mean “touch the heart” in Chinese.

But we all know these precious morsels tantalize the tummy, too.

Read the definitive guide to dim sum restaurants in the Bay Area in today’s San Francisco Chronicle Food section, which yours truly contributed to.

While helping to research this story, I picked up some helpful tips along the way:

1) To really judge the quality of your dim sum, refrain from using soy sauce, chile paste, hot mustard and the like. At least with your first bite. Just as we are so often guilty of drowning pristine sushi in soy sauce and wasabi, we unthinkingly do the same with dim sum. When it’s au naturale, though, you can really judge whether a filling has real flavor, and whether a wrapper is well made.

2) Bigger is not always better. As my friend Andrea Nguyen says, there’s a reason they’re made small. Nguyen, whose newest cookbook “Asian Dumplings” comes out in September, notes they should be bite-size. Once they start to get too large, the quality of the wrappers suffer.

Read more

Pampered Japanese Dried Persimmons

Posted on by 24 comments

Dried persimmons -- Japanese style.

The Japanese sure give their food a lot of TLC.

Cows get massaged so their flesh transforms into buttery, extraordinarily rich Kobe beef. And even persimmons get the shiatsu treatment.

Maybe I should have been born a Japanese food product because I’d be one happy camper if I got back-rubs on a regular basis. But forgive me, I digress…

I’d never tried the famous hoshigaki before. So when I spied these dried persimmons at Nijiya Market in San Jose last week, I had to buy a package to try.

The traditional method, brought here by Japanese immigrant farmers who settled in Placer County, require that firm persimmons be peeled by hand, and hung by string for several weeks. During that interval — yes indeedie– the persimmons get regular massages.

The rub-downs apparently help break up the flesh and give the dried persimmons a more uniform shape. They also help smooth the exterior to retard mold. After three to six weeks of this, a white powdery bloom appears naturally on the fruit, and they’re ready to be enjoyed.

Hoshigaki (also spelled hoshi gaki) are not easy to find. Because they are so labor intensive to make, there’s little commercial production. In fact, Slow Food has added hoshigaki to its Ark of Taste, a classification given to artisan foods in danger of disappearing. The global food organization is working to revive this fruit tradition.

Read more

« Older Entries Recent Entries »