Category Archives: More Food Gal — In Person

Don’t Miss Your Chance to Meet Food Gal at Draeger’s in San Mateo

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Food Gal looks forward to meeting you all at Draeger's. (Photo courtesy of Joanne Hoyoung-Lee)Yes, there are still a few tickets left for “Everyone’s A Critic,” a class I’ll be teaching at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 23 at Draeger’s Cooking School in San Mateo with my buddy, Sheila Himmel, former restaurant critic for the San Jose Mercury News.

Between food bloggers, Yelp reviewers and Zagat voters, it does seem like everyone is a food critic these days. Here’s your chance to learn how to become a better one (or at least better articulate to your friends what you loved and what you despised about the last place you dined).

We’ll teach you how to judge a great or a dismal dining experience, while entertaining you with stories about our own experiences in the eating arena. Join us for an evening of wonderful wine, delicious food, and fun banter.

Price is $55. Sign up here, and hope to see you there.

Learn to Pair Wine With Asian Dishes

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This book is your gift with the class.

Riesling? Gewurztraminer? Australian Shiraz? When to serve each of those wines with what Asian dishes?

You’ll learn exactly what wines go with what flavor profiles in Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese and other Asian fare in the 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 11 class, “Master Food and Wine Pairing” at Le Colonial restaurant in San Francisco. Yours truly has been helping to put together that class that is part of the three-day weekend “Asian Culinary Forum,” a series of classes, tours, workshops and discussions celebrating the vibrant changes in Asian cuisines around the globe.
Edwin Soon Join Edwin Soon, enologist and wine columnist for Time Out Singapore, as he leads you through pairings of varietals with tastes of various classic Asian dishes. Everyone goes home with a copy of his book, “Wine With Asian Food, New Frontiers in Taste” (Tide-Mark Press), which he co-authored with wine teacher Patricia Guy. The class is $85.

To whet your appetite, enjoy this recipe, along with wine pairing recommendations, from the book:

Imperial-Style Grilled Spareribs

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Meet Food Gal At Draeger’s in San Mateo in October

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Yes, those are blondies next to me, and mostly cookbooks behind me. Photo by Joanne Hoyoung-Lee.

Between food bloggers, Yelp reviewers and Zagat voters, it does seem like everyone is a food critic these days. Here’s your chance to learn how to become a better one (or at least better articulate to your friends what you loved and what you despised about the last place you dined).

Join me and Sheila Himmel, former restaurant critic for the San Jose Mercury News, on Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Draeger’s Cooking School in San Mateo, when we host the class, “Everyone’s A Critic.” We’ll teach you how to judge a great or a dismal dining experience, while entertaining you with stories about our own experiences in the eating arena. Join us for an evening of wonderful wine, delicious food, and fun banter.

Price is $55; class size is limited to 40 people. Sign up here, and hope to see you there.

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Are You What You Cook?

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That’s the thought-provoking title of the Asian cuisine event, 6 p.m. July 21, upstairs at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

Join Chef Kelly Degala of Pres A Vi in San Francisco and Va de Vi in Walnut Creek; Eric Gower, author of “The Breakaway Cook”(William Morrow); Michelle Mah, former executive chef of Ponzu in San Francisco; Kirti Pant, executive chef of Junnoon in Palo Alto; and Chef Charles Phan of the Slanted Door in San Francisco. They will talk about how they developed their signature styles.

Appetizers will be served, along with wines from Filipino-American estate winery, Eden Canyon Vineyards.

Tickets are $35 for general admission; $25 for full-time students and those in the restaurant trade. To register, click here.

The event is a kick-off for the Oct. 10-12 Asian Food Beyond Borders symposium at the Ferry Building. The event is being spearheaded by Bay Areans Andrea Nguyen, author of “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen”(Ten Speed Press), and cooking instructor and Asian foods expert, Thy Tran.

The three-day event will celebrate how Asian communities have created dynamic cuisines around the globe. Among the speakers will be: cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey; Public Television star Martin Yan; Google cafe chef and former San Francisco Chronicle food writer Olivia Wu; and James Oseland, editor in chief of Saveur magazine.

Yours truly also will be overseeing an Oct. 11 wine-pairing seminar hosted by Edwin Soon, oenologist and author of “Asian Food With Wine” (Tide-Mark Press), at Le Colonial restaurant in San Francisco. For more information, click here.

Meet the Food Gal and Chef Charlie Ayers

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Yes, I’ll be doing my best impersonation of Charlie Rose when I moderate the May 19 Silicon Valley Commonwealth Club’s talk and book-signing event with Charlie Ayers, the former executive chef of Google.

Come join us for a fun evening with Ayers, who also used to cook for the Grateful Dead and Robin Williams. He will be signing copies of his first cookbook, “Food 2.0, Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google”.

The 7 p.m. event is at Cubberley Community Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road in Palo Alto. Tickets are $10 for members; $15 for non-members. For reservations, click here or call (800) 847-7730.

The chat also will be taped for airing at a future date on KLIV AM (1590), which generally airs Commonwealth Club events on Thursdays at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.

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