Category Archives: Great Finds

Cupcake Craze

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Kara's Cupcakes

Cupcake mania, which hit New York first (“Sex and The City,” anyone?), then spread to Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, is finally making its way to the South Bay/Peninsula.

Talk about taking your sweet time.

While those metropolitan areas long have boasted stand-alone bakeries specializing in nothing but cupcakes, we who have been frosting-starved in the South Bay/Peninsula finally will get our baked-good due when Kara’s Cupcakes is expected to open two locations in September: one in San Jose’s Santana Row (next to Pluto’s), and the other in Palo Alto’s Town & Country Village. Because the Santana Row location will be tiny — just 300 square feet — it’ll have a smaller selection, but promises to showcase the bakery’s most popular flavors.

Kara Lind, who worked in marketing for Conde Nast, found her true passion when she attended Tante Marie Cooking School’s baking program in San Francisco. Her first Kara’s Cupcakes bakery opened in 2006 on Scott Street in San Francisco. Since then, she’s added a second location in San Francisco, this one at historic Ghirardeli Square.

The cupcakes are made daily with such premium ingredients as Scharffen Berger chocolate, Clover Dairy products, and Flying Goat organic coffee. Regular cupcakes, $3 each, come in flavors such as Buttery Buttermilk, Chocolate Velvet, and Kara’s Karrot. Filled cupcakes, $3.25 each, come in such decadent concoctions as the “Fleur de Sel” (a chocolate cupcake with caramel filling, ganache frosting, and sea salt).

What does Lind find so irresistible about cupcakes?

“They are just filled with so much happiness,” she says. “They are like a little piece of joy.”

Who can argue with that?

Pie? Oh My!

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Olson's cherry pie

It’s cherry season, when Food Gal’s fancy turns to cherry pie. Not just any cherry pie, though, but the one made by C.J. Olson’s Cherries stand in Sunnyvale.

The fruit stand, which has been in the same location since 1899, has weathered a lot of changes over the decades, including development all around it. But one thing hasn’t changed: During cherry season, you’ll find sweet, juicy, fresh cherries sold at the stand in abundance May through August, and November through February.

Deborah Olson, fourth generation owner/manager of the fruit stand, is a trained pastry chef. Is it any wonder then that her Bing cherry pie is the stuff of dreams? It boasts a super flaky crust, and the filling is bursting with cherries without being cloyingly sweet. When a pie is this good, it’s almost a waste of time to try to make one better yourself.

A 6-inch pie is $11.99, and available for shipping year-round. The 8-inch version ($17.99) and 10-inch one ($21.99) are offered only at the fruit stand.

Your Chance To Try the Most Delicious Fruit Ever

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Mangosteens in the shell (back) and peeled (foreground)

That’s what mangosteen has been called. Until this year, the only way to try the fresh tropical fruit was to travel to Southeast Asia, where it originated; or to get your hands on others grown in Hawaii or Puerto Rico.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture once banned the importation of mangosteens and other fruits from Thailand because of the concern that they might harbor fruit flies that could infect citrus trees in the United States. Thailand, though, agreed to irradiate its shipments (a method that kills pests with radiation). The first shipments now have arrived in the United States, just at the peak harvest season of the fruit.

You’ll pay a dear price for them, too. At 99 Ranch markets, the tangerine- to orange-sized fruit with a dark purple exterior are $8.99 a pound. And finding them is not always easy, either. At 99 Ranch in Cupertino last week, I came up empty-handed. But my trip to the 99 Ranch on Hostetter Road in San Jose a few days later netted me the goods.

So are they really the most amazing fruit you’ll ever taste? I was dubious. I had tried frozen mangosteens in the shell from an Asian market, and wasn’t impressed. I also had tried a mangosteen juice beverage that was just ghastly.

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A Visit to Napa’s New Oxbow Public Market

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The Oxbow Public Market is a food lover's paradise

Think San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Marketplace, but on a cozier scale. That’s what Napa, a once-sleepy town of 75,000, now boasts in the Oxbow Public Market.

The similarities are only natural. Steve Carlin, founder of the Oxbow Public Market, also was project manager for the Ferry Building Marketplace. He has the goods on all things gourmet, too, having co-owned the Oakville Grocery stores for 20 years.

Situated along the Napa River and next to Copia on First Street in downtown Napa, the 40,000-square-foot Oxbow Public Market is a block-long foodie’s playground that opened in December. Eighteen merchants and restaurants already have settled in, including a branch of the ever-popular Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, the Fatted Calf (an artisanal charcuterie), Whole Spice Company (where you can buy a multitude of spices in any amount you wish), and Five Dot Ranch (the first retail site for sustainable beef raised by the Swickard family, seven generations of cattle ranchers in Northern California).

Enjoy a taste at Taylor's Automatic Refresher

May 2, the marketplace’s 10 farmstands will officially open, selling everything from figs from Knoll Farms in Brentwood to citrus from Guru Ram Das in Esparto to cherries from Frog Hollow Farms in Brentwood. The farmstands  will be open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Still to come are a branch of the Hog Island Oyster Bar (with fresh-as-can-be oysters harvested from Tomales Bay), and Kanaloa Seafood (a market run by a Santa Barbara seafood company owned by a biologist and oceanographic researcher that will sell only sustainable seafood).

It’s definitely worth a detour off of Highway 29. If you visit, here are a few things not to miss:

The world's smallest winery?

Folio Enoteca & Winery: At 80-square-feet, it may very well be the world’s smallest bonded winery. No crushing or bottling are done here, but wine is indeed aged in barrels on site. Enjoy a taste, along with a grilled panini or crisp salad.

Model Bakery: The original bakery has been a landmark in downtown St. Helena for more than 80 years. Carb lovers will swoon over the Asiago cheese bread, piles of fresh-pizza slices, and chewy ginger molasses cookies. It’s the housemade English muffins that steal my heart, though. Made from ciabatta dough then griddled with cornmeal, they toast up crispy on the edges and pillowy in the nooks.

David Wong demonstrates the art of tea

Tillerman Tea Company: Former Clos du Val Winery Chief Executive Officer David Campbell has joined with China scholar David Wong to open this striking tea cafe and emporium. Each day, a different “house flight” of five teas is offered for tasting. Customers also can book private tea tastings.

Tea time

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