Ever since dining at AQ Restaurant in San Francisco last year where I enjoyed it for the first time, I’ve been rather fixated on barley risotto.
Oh, don’t get me wrong; I still adore the traditional version made with tender yet toothsome short-grain Italian rice.
But when it’s made with barley, it takes on a whole different personality — heartier, chewier and with a more roasty-toasty flavor.
Have you lusted after the pristine fruits and veggies on your plate when you’ve dined at the Village Pub in Woodside, Spruce in San Francisco, Mayfield Bakery & Cafe in Palo Alto and Cafe des Amis in San Francisco?
Now, you can purchase the same just-picked produce that those Bacchus Management Group restaurants, which also includes Pizza Antica, use daily. It all comes from SMIP Ranch in the hills above Woodside.
SMIP, an acronym for “sic manebimus in pace, Latin for “thus we will remain in peace,” began its relationship with the restaurants in 2001. The five-acre farm adheres to sustainable practices. In fact, the oil used at the restaurants is recycled and converted into biodiesel that powers the farm equipment and delivery van.
Its bounty has grown so abundant that it can now offer produce boxes to the public each week for $28 each.
If you spied the huge white tent pitched in the heart of San Francisco’s Union Square this past weekend, you knew it could only mean one thing:
The arrival of SF Chefs, the annual food-wine-cocktail extravaganza that celebrates the Bay Area’s home-grown culinary culture.
Top chefs, vintners, sommeliers and mixologists descended upon downtown to put on a series of special dinners, wine seminars, panel discussions, and culinary battles before setting up inside the tent to dole out gourmet eats and drinks to throngs of attendees.
Chef Joey Altman’s all-chef band, the Soul Peppers, entertained the hungry crowd.
Earlier that afternoon, the first round of the Eater Chef Challenge took place at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, pitting the team of Mark Sullivan of Spruce in San Francisco and Omri Aflalo of Bourbon Steak in San Francisco against the team of Mark Dommen of One Market Restaurant and David Bazirgan of the Fifth Floor in San Francisco. With an hour on the clock, the two teams had to incorporate lamb and Guittard chocolate into two dishes, which were presented to a panel of judges.
As the clock ticked down, the Dommen-Bazirgan team plated their lamb dish with mole flavors, along with chocolate ice cream created with liquid nitrogen. On the opposing side, Sullivan and Aflalo put up their lamb dish with a Moroccan influence, along with chocolate mousse with caramel.
I owe my latest carb binge to Chef Adam Mali.
When I was dining recently at his restaurant, Brasserie S&P in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco, I’d occasionally come up for air from devouring his dishes only to find myself drawn completely and helplessly to the bread.
Smoky, with a hefty dark crust and a chewy interior full of delightful air holes and developed fermented flavor, I couldn’t stop eating slice after slice.
Of course, I had to ask him where it came from.
When he told me it was baked in wood-fired ovens at Della Fattoria in Petaluma, I knew I had to stop in the next time I was in the vicinity.
So, I did earlier this week.
Bon Appetit magazine has called it one of the Top 10 bread bakeries in America. One taste and you’ll agree.
Yes, Michael Pollan made a splashy appearance in my backyard recently.
Um, that would be my tomato plant named for the respected food activist, author and journalist, not Mr. Pollan in the flesh, himself.
Of my four tomato seedlings planted this year, it was this one that grew most vigorously and produced not only the first tomatoes of the season, but the most fruit so far, too.
Guess it pays to be named after a man who takes food seriously.