Ronda’s Romesco will add punch to most anything, such as these shrimp-zucchini-onion kebabs I grilled at home.
If you’ve gone bonkers for Sichuan chili crisp like everyone else, you might wonder what the next ”It” condiment will be to supplant its runaway popularity.
I’m here to say it just very well might be romesco.
Ronda Brittian of Petaluma is a trauma nurse. Raised in a family of accomplished home cooks, she’s also a food entrepreneur who has joined forces with her life partner, Steve Davis, a food brand manager, to create a line of jarred romesco, the classic Spanish sauce of almonds, tomato, garlic, red wine vinegar, red peppers, and olive oil.
I make my own romesco from scratch now and then, but having it ready-made in a jar sure makes it extra convenient.
Regular and Spicy varieties.
I had a chance to try samples of Ronda’s Romesco, which come in two varieties: regular and spicy.
House-made pastas like this fettuccine bolgonese star at Howie’s Artisan Pizza.
One of Town & Country Village’s most enduring restaurants is Howie’s Artisan Pizza. But now this popular 13-year-old Palo Alto pizzeria has added handmade pastas to its lineup, too.
Chef-Owner Howard Bulka had plans pre-pandemic to expand the compact kitchen ever so much to accommodate a pasta-making station. Of course, those plans got pushed back with the advent of Covid. But now, his plans have come to fruition.
Not only can you enjoy the new pastas served in the dining room, but also on the pergola-covered outdoor dining area just in front of the restaurant. What’s more, you can even buy fresh pasta ($9), sauces ($9.50 per pint), and even frozen baked ziti ($22), manicotti ($13.95), and lasagna bolognese ($23) to take home.
A meatball, mushroom and broccoli pizza.
My husband and I chose to enjoy our meal outside on a breezy evening, starting with the chopped salad ($15.25), a crunchy mix of romaine tossed with cubes of salami, Swiss cheese, cucumber, chopped egg, and green onion. With the ranch dressing on the side, you can add as little or as much as you want, controlling just how super-leaded you want your chopped salad to be.
When it comes to wine, one of my most painful regrets happened decades ago at Napa’s Shafer Vineyards.
I was enrolled in a multi-day wine course at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone Campus in St. Helena. On the last day of class, we took a field trip to Shafer. Arranged in front of each of us was an array of nearly half a dozen glasses of some of the most impeccable Cabernet Sauvignons I’d ever had. I sipped, savored, enjoyed each mouthful blissfully, and then — I spit it all out.
Because right after class, I had to drive home in traffic, hours away. Ouch, the pitfalls of being your own designated driver.
All that glorious wine down the spittoon. It still haunts me. So, when a sample bottle of the 2019 Shafer One Point Five landed on my porch, I nearly leapt for joy.
The name “One Point Five” takes its name from “a generation and a half,” which is how John and Doug Shafer described their father-and-son wine-making partnership. This wine is 83 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 12 percent Merlot, 3 percent Malbec, and 2 percent Petit Verdot.
The grapes come predominantly from Shafer’s two Stags Leap District sites: the “Borderline” vineyard near the winery and Shafer’s hillside estate vineyard, which is the source of some of its most coveted wines.
Pickled asparagus and bourbon-pickled carrots by Last of Seven.
As the youngest of seven kids, Elizabeth Osterman-Brown jokes that she learned to love vegetables early on because they were usually what was left at the dinner table after her siblings elbowed her out of the way to get their pick of everything else.
That hard-won passion served her well later in life when she started Last of Seven, a pickle company, a year ago, naming it appropriately enough, Last of Seven.
It also provided her the last laugh, when her Last of Seven LO7 Original Pickled Carrots won a 2022 Good Food Award.
Award-winning pickles.
Her company, based in San Francisco and Santa Barbara, sources California-grown carrots, asparagus and other veggies, then bathes them in distilled vinegar plus herbs and spices. The pickles are gluten-free and certified kosher, too.
These snappy, crunchy pickles are tangy but not wincingly puckery, as I found when I tried samples recently.
Girly yet sophisticated, it fairly bursts with bright strawberries and raspberries with just a twinge of ginger on the finish. Crisp and zingy with plenty of acidity, it’s a blend of 65 percent Pinot Noir and 35 percent Chardonnay.
This nonvintage sparkling wine, of which I received a sample, is right at home, be it at a romantic holiday dinner or a casual backyard get-together. It’s sure to make any occasion feel that much more festive.
Cheers: Did you know that La Crema was founded in 1979 in Sonoma County, when most wineries in California were focusing on Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, and turning a blind eye to Pinot Noir? It took the late-great winemaker Jess Jackson and his wife Barbara Banke, founders of Kendall-Jackson Winery, to shine a spotlight on Burgundian-style Pinot Noir with a cool climate, single-vineyard focus with their La Crema wines.
Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher
What has hops, brewer’s yeast, but no alcohol? And isn’t beer or even non-alcoholic beer?
This uncanny, clear beverage pours with a thick foamy head just like beer, as I found when trying sample bottles. But it doesn’t try to mimic the taste of beer whatsoever.
It’s made with hops, but isn’t beer at all.
Instead, it is its own thing — akin to sparkling water in texture and weight on the palate. It’s quenching and refreshingly dry, with a moderate hoppy bitterness on the finish and unexpected bursts of mango, orange and grapefruit on the palate.
