For the Last of Summer’s Nectarines

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Use the last of summer's nectarines in this light-bright farro salad.

(With apologies to those wacky DirecTV commercials.)

When you lose track of time…

You buy an expensive watch…

When you buy an expensive watch, people notice…

People like Shifty Sam and Three-Strikes Joe, who will sneak up on you on a dark street and snatch your watch…

When thugs steal your watch, they conk you on the head and toss you in a dumpster to fester with yesterday’s fish heads.

Don’t sleep with rotten fishies.

Don’t lose track of time.

Enjoy nectarines for one last fling before summer ends.

One of the best and most healthful ways to do so is in this salad of “Farro with Nectarines, Basil and Toasted Pine Nuts.”

It’s from the new “Grain Mains” (Rodale), of which I received a review copy, by my friends and prolific cookbook writers Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

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Chocolate Fest, Chef Craig Stoll Cooking Demo & Chefs of Compassion Event

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A decadent Ghirardelli milk chocolate caramel square. (Photo by James Hall Photography)

17th Annual Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival

It’s a total chocolate weekend in store, noon to 5 p.m. Sept. 8-9, when the 17th Annual Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival rolls into San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.

Take part in an ice cream eating contest, in which contestants will have to down a famous Ghirardelli “Earthquake Sundae.” Join the chocolate scavenger hunt. Watch chef demonstrations. And enjoy the first ever festival bake-off with treats made from Ghirardelli products.

The chocolate extravaganza is a benefit for Project Open Hand, which provides meals to those who are homebound.  Last year, $63,000 was raised.

Tickets are $20 each, which will get you 15 samples.

Deep dark chocolate squares from Ghirardelli. (Photo by James Hall Photography)

Chef Craig Stoll Cooks at Bloomingdale’s San Francisco

Craig Stoll, chef-proprietor of Delfina, Pizzeria Delfina and Locanda, all in San Francisco, will be whipping up some delicious dishes at Bloomingdale’s in downtown San Francisco, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 8.

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Fruit and Nothing But the Fruit — Plus A Food Gal Giveaway

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Peeled Snacks' "Paradise found'' variety with organic bananas, mangoes and pineapple.

In this day and age with ingredients lists a mile long on food packaging, you have to hand it to the “Much-ado-about-mango” one.

Its ingredient list?

Organic mangoes.

That’s it.

Peeled Snacks of Brooklyn makes conveniently packaged dried, organic fruit that has no added sugar, no preservatives, no sulfites and no gluten.

As a result, this dried fruit actually tastes like real fruit and not a souped-up sweetened version of it.

The resealable snack pouches come in 10 varieties, from “Cherry-go-round” (organic cherries) to “Farmer’s Market Trio” (organic raisins, apples and cherries).

Recently, I had a chance to try some sample bags.

Although the fruit is dried, it still has a nice soft texture. I can’t get over how vibrant the fruit tastes when it’s not masked by sugar, as is the case with so many other dried fruit products.

I especially liked the “Paradise found” with its thick, tender chunks of dried banana (none of those thin, hard chips here), along with pieces of mango and bits of pineapple. Call me a purist, but my favorite was probably the “Much-ado-about-mango,” which is just big shards of mango the color of a sunset and the taste of the tropics.

Just mango.

One serving has about 120-130 calories, depending upon the variety.

Tuck a bag into your child’s lunch. Or toss one into your purse, workout bag or carry-on luggage.

A 4.4-ounce bag is $3.49 and is available at select Whole Foods, CVS and Starbucks stores.

Available in resealable bags.

Contest: Two lucky Food Gal readers will get a chance to try a free variety-sampler pack of Peeled Snacks (a $25 value). Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight PST Sept. 8. Winners will be announced Sept. 10.

How to win?

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Portola Valley Welcomes the Portola Kitchen

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How about a decadent Belgium waffle for dessert? At Portola Kitchen, you can so indulge.

You gotta love a restaurant that offers you a perfectly crisp and light Belgium waffle with Nutella sauce — at the end of dinner.

That’s one of the joys of the new Portola Kitchen, which opened last month up in the tree-lined hills of Portola Valley.

It’s in the old Mike’s Cafe building in the Ladera Shopping Center, a little oasis of eating and shopping, where you’ll also find the wonderful Bianchi’s Market, an Old Port Lobster Shack, and the well-stocked Ladera Garden Center.

The restaurant space has been given a total redo with a rustic, warm vibe. Banquette dividers are constructed of unfinished wood. The bare wood tables, fashioned from old barn siding, still have grooves and knots in them to add character. Even the soaring beamed ceiling is reminiscent of an old barn. There’s a long bar with TVs, an open kitchen, and seating outside to take advantage of the temperate summer evenings.

Chef Guillaume Bienaime is the latest in a long line of fine-dining chefs to go more casual these days. He last headed the kitchen at the well-regarded, white-tablecloth Marche in Menlo Park.

Chef-Owner Guillaume Bienaime in the open kitchen.

Gotta have a snazzy meat slicer, right?

A plate of food ready to be served. The bar is in the background.

At Portola Kitchen, he creates a menu friendly on the pocket and a variety of appetites. All the pastas are made in-house, as is the sausage. The wine list is half Californian and half Italian. There also are wines on tap to enjoy by the glass.

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Ad Hoc and Bouchon Bakery Gluten-Free Mixes

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Yup, these are gluten-free.

For those suffering from gluten allergies or intolerance, Chef Thomas Keller comes to the rescue.

His line of baking mixes, sold exclusively by Williams-Sonoma, makes use of his own “Cup 4 Cup”  custom-blended gluton-free flour, which has proven a runaway hit. Cup 4 Cup, which also is sold at Williams-Sonoma for $19.95 for a three-pound bag is in such high demand that when I tried to get a sample bag earlier this year, I was told it was on back order for three months. It’s a blend of cornstarch, white rice flour, brown rice flour, milk powder, tapioca flour, potato starch, and xanthan gum that can replace all-purpose flour in a recipe in a direct 1-to-1 ratio.

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