Someone very, very smart, that’s who.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Patrón Spirits has introduced a new tequila sure to make anyone swoon.
Patrón XO Cafe Dark Cocoa is Patrón Silver tequila combined with coffee from Vercruz and Chiapas, and chocolate from criollo cocoa beans, the rarest and most expensive grown.
The result is a 60-proof tequila that’s the color of hot fudge sauce.
You know the proprietors behind Bernal Cutlery in San Francisco have to have a rather macabre sense of humor to come up with a knife display like this one above.
They also know their stuff. Their shop, opened in 2005, boasts the largest selection of knives in San Francisco, including Japanese, French and vintage ones.
It also offers precision sharpening using Japanese whetstone grinding techniques, as well as classes to teach you how to care for — and best use — your knives at home.
Owner Josh Donald calls himself a knife geek. He even worked with stone while studying sculpture and poured metal in a foundry in order to refine his knife-sharpening skills even more. His team also includes two sushi chefs.
In their plastic container, they almost resemble mini scoops of mocha chip ice cream.
But bake them in the oven to transform them into thick chocolate chip cookies with crisp exteriors and chewy interiors — the kind you’ll have an extremely hard time saying “no” to.
These ready-for-baking cookie dough balls are the brainchild of Erin Harrison, a single mom, who left a career as a film industry publicist for Pixar and Sony Pictures, to get her baking groove on.
Her South San Francisco-based Country Baking Company turns out cookie dough balls, a dozen to a container, which can be found in the refrigerator case at local Whole Foods markets, Lunardi’s, Draeger’s and Piedmont Grocery. Look for them soon at Mollie Stone’s, too.
If you’re a fan of the unusual summer peppers sold at Bay Area farmers markets by East Palo Alto’s Happy Quail Farms, you’ll be glad to know you can savor their exotic tastes year-round now in dried form.
The specialty, family-owned farm smoke-dries its peppers over oak and fruit wood to create its new smoked pimenton powders; and dries other peppers either in the sun or in a dehydrator for its small-batch paprikas.
The result is a range of spices so handy for creating so many dishes at home. Mulatto paprika, made from a mild spicy brown chocolate pepper, is perfect for traditional Mexican moles. Smoked Ajà Amarillo pimenton has a vibrant marigold color and is ideal in a sour cream dip or a lime juice marinade. And Serrano paprika, with its sweet-hot notes, makes a mean rub.
“Healthier homemade” was Susan Nolte’s mantra when she came up with her line of cookie mixes in Connecticut four years ago.
Made with rolled oats and whole wheat flour, these convenient mixes are now available on this coast at many farmers markets and stores in Southern California, thanks to her daughter, Marissa, who started managing business development for the company.
May Cookie Co., named after Susan Nolte’s great-grandmother, makes three types of cookie mixes: Triple Chocolate Oatmeal, Oatmeal Cranberry and the vegan Chocolate Chocolate Chip.