Category Archives: More Food Gal — In Other Publications

Oakland — The New Culinary Mecca

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The just-opened Bocanova serves up pan-American cuisine, including quinoa salad with shrimp and orange vinaigrette. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Teplin)

If you think you’ve noticed an unusually high number of new restaurants opening in Oakland in the past year, it’s not your imagination.

Much-buzzed-about Commis, Camino, Barlata, Pican, Miss Pearl’s Jam, and Bocanova all chose to locate in Oakland. Many more are on the way, too, including Bracina from Daniel Patterson of San Francisco’s famed Coi.

Indeed, of the 160 new businesses that have opened in downtown Oakland in the past six years, 65 of them have been restaurants.

A throng of diners at Bocanova. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Teplin)

Each week, the city’s redevelopment agency fields requests for tours of available properties by San Francisco restaurateurs contemplating a new project on the other side of the Bay.

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The Verdict on Mark Bittman’s Faux Ice Cream

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Will this turn into ice cream?

Is it possible to make satisfying ice cream without an ice cream maker, by just using a food processor?

I was curious about that when I spotted the recipe for Ginger Lemon “Ice Cream” in the new cookbook, “Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express” (Simon & Schuster).

If you’re unfamiliar with this new book by the prolific New York Times food writer, it’s quite unusual. Each recipe amounts to just one paragraph total for ingredients and directions. And a lot of times, the exact amounts for the ingredients is not specified. So you have to guess. It’s his way of showing you how to cook faster, easier, and with more flexibility. But how well does this actually work for most home cooks?

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A Gem of A Chocolate From A Woman Named Jewel

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Skinny chocolates with a weighty flavor.

Pastry Chef Jewel Zimmer of San Francisco has always liked to create good things to eat.

The British Columbia-native first studied bread baking with her father before attending pastry school at Le Cordon Bleu. She later moved to San Francisco to work at La Folie restaurant.

This year, she left the restaurant world to open her own artisan chocolatier company in San Francisco, Cocoa Absolute. Her pricey delicacies are now sold at Bardessono resort in Yountville, Boulette’s Larder in the San Francisco Ferry Building, and the Gardener shop in Berkeley.

The single-origin chocolates are made from cocoa beans sourced from all over the world and formed into a simple, signature-shaped confection.

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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Remembering Julia Child

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Juicy, sweet, and jammy.

With long-awaited arrival of “Julie & Julia” in theaters this month, foodies can’t help but remember the one and only Julia Child, who inspired legions to cook with confidence and daring-do in their own kitchens.

I haven’t had the pleasure yet of seeing the movie, though I was fortunate to get a quick peek at a preview clip at this year’s James Beard Awards Gala in New York. Of course, it only left me hungry for more. As a long-time food writer, I had the pleasure of interviewing Julia a number of times. She was always gracious and charming. It was a true pleasure to interact with her in any shape or form. That familiar lilting, bird-like voice never ceased to make me smile every time I heard it.

I still have a couple of menus, souvenirs from lunches and dinners hosted in her honor. There’s the one from her 90th birthday party at the Fifth Floor in San Francisco, when illustrious chefs Laurent Gras and Ron Siegel cooked dishes such as “Corn Vichyssoise with Caviar” and “Duck A La Julia Child” to commemorate the grand occasion.

Remembering a lunch from years ago that honored Julia.

There’s another menu from a lunch in 2000 to debut her cookbook with Jacques Pepin, “Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home” (Alfred A. Knopf). The three-course lunch was made up of dishes from the book, including “Avocado and Grapefruit Salad with Belgian Endive, Frisee, Toasted Hazelnuts, and Champagne Vinaigrette.”

I started leafing through that book, only to realize I had forgotten that both Julia and Jacques had signed the inside page. Her signature was clear and straightforward, much like the woman, herself.

The book, signed by Jacques and Julia.

I turned on my oven, and set about making her “Provencal Tomatoes,” the traditional French accompaniment of roasted tomatoes stuffed with herbs and bread crumbs — a true classic just like Julia was.

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A Solution For All That Zucchini

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Pan-fried zucchini and yellow squash with cumin and turmeric.

If you’re growing it in your backyard, chances are you’ve got your arms full of the tender, green summer squash that tends to multiply more than a Tweeted celebrity rumor run amok.

In fact, just the other week, a friend gifted me a zucchini that was as big as my head.

OK, maybe I exaggerate. But only a little, because it surely was as big as my forearm.

What to do with this Everest of squash?

You can only make so much zucchini bread, right? And sauteing it and roasting it as a side dish gets pretty ho-hum after awhile.

Cookbook author Monica Bhide comes to the rescue. In her newest book, “Modern Spice” (Simon & Schuster), the New Delhi-born food writer spotlights Indian dishes that are easily accessible for the home cook.

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