Ginger Time

One scoop? Or two?

Yes, I have a thing for ginger.

Big-time.

Whether it’s pickled, fresh, crystalized, or dried, I can never get enough of it. That sweet-heat on the back of the throat wins me over every time.

So you can just imagine my delight when two new ginger products landed on my front porch for sampling.

First up, the new Haagen-Dazs “Five” ice cream flavors. There are seven flavors — each of them containing only five ingredients: milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and one wild card for flavor. The five-ingredient concept is played up to denote purity and simplicity. The ice cream comes in vanilla bean, milk chocolate, mint, coffee, brown sugar, passion fruit, and ginger.

Guess which one I opened first?

That would be correct.

The mouth-feel of these ice creams is wicked good — rich, smooth, and creamy as all get out. But then you expect no less from Haagen-Dazs.

The ginger one had a musty-ginger flavor. It had fairly subtle heat, too. Perhaps, too subtle for a true ginger addict like yours truly.

I had high hopes for the brown sugar one. After all, it tastes exactly like brown sugar. But let’s face it, how much brown sugar would you really want to eat? After one taste, that’s pretty much enough.

The vanilla bean was the epitome of purity — very vanilla-like. The milk chocolate made me think of my childhood — in a good way. It reminded me of eating cups of Carnation frozen milk chocolate out of paper containers with a tiny wooden spoon.

My favorites were probably the coffee (very perky tasting), the mint (incredibly cool and refreshing), and the passion fruit (like a tropical island on a spoon).

Itty bitty, but with a huge taste.

Next up, the Ginger People’s new Ginger Snaps. A 5.3-ounce box is $5.50.

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Nature’s Most Magnificent Cocktail Nibbles

You'll end up eating these by the bowl-full. That's how good they are.

That bowl of blistered, tender peppers above?

Yup, those skinny, dark green beauties are nature’s best cocktail snacks.

These pimientos de Padron are grown by East Palo Alto’s Happy Quail Farms.

I was first turned on to them eight years ago when I wrote a story about them for the San Jose Mercury News Food section. Farmer David Winsberg, whom I fondly call Dr. Pepper for obvious reasons, grows a cornucopia of exotic peppers on his network of backyards and other rented properties in East Palo Alto.

He’s probably most famous for his Padron peppers, though. They are one of the oldest non-hybrid peppers around and were supposedly brought back from the New World to Spain by Christopher Columbus. Named for the town of Padron in northwest Spain, the peppers are a treasured delicacy found in tapas bars around the region during the summer, when they are harvested.

They have a mild grassy, sweet flavor. Cooked, they’re downright juicy in your mouth.

Pimientos de Padron -- before cooking.

Winsberg started growing them in 1998 after a friend of friend brought him back some seeds from Spain. Now, you’ll find Happy Quail Farms’ Padron peppers on Bay Area restaurant menus, as well as for sale at the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers’ market on Saturdays, the Palo Alto downtown farmers’ market on Saturdays, the Menlo Park downtown farmers’ market on Sundays. Deeper into summer, when production is at full steam, you’ll find Happy Quail Farms at additional farmers’ markets. Check the farms’ Web site for more information.

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Noshing on Pizza at Oakland’s Marzano

Calamari pizza, anyone?

There was a time when my husband was on a kick to eat at every San Francisco Chronicle “Top 100” restaurant in the Bay Area. Not in one year, mind you. But just to be to able to check each one off the list eventually.

There was a time when I was fully employed, too. Ahh, the good old days. (Am I sounding like my parents yet?)

Since those two factors went together hand in hand — one does need a certain amount of income to knock off that full list — the hubster rejiggered his goal when I was laid off from my job as the food writer at the San Jose Mercury News.

Now, we still try to make it to restaurants on that list that we haven’t been to yet. But these days, they’re apt to be the more moderate-priced ones than the go-for-broke ones.

Marzano in Oakland fits that bill perfectly.

The warm, lively Oakland restaurant is indeed on that list. It’s easy to see why. It’s a neighborhood spot that’s comfortable enough and priced well enough to chow down at regularly — even in these tough times.

The wood-fired oven turns out pizzas that are blistered, thin in the center, and with a thick, chewy edge. The crust has a lot of character, full of that deep-fermented flavor of well-made artisan bread.

The "Bianco.''

Ten pies are offered on the menu. The hubster went for the “Bianco” ($14) — prosciutto, wild arugula, Parmigiano Reggiano, and extra virgin olive oil. I had my eye on the “Calamari” ($14) — yes, rings and tentacles strewn over the pie with spicy tomato sauce, gremolata, Pecorino, baby artichokes, red onion, and radicchio.

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Winners of Food Gal’s “Whine, Wine, and Thine” Contest

Pondering contest winners over a nice glass of Pinot Noir.

Let me just say that you guys sure don’t make it easy.

About two dozen of you entered the very first Food Gal contest, “Whine, Wine, and Thine,” which asked you to share your favorite memory about wine.

Your anecdotes variously made me laugh, drop my jaw, brush away tears, and just plain grin from ear to ear.

Your passion and honesty made it very difficult to whittle the list down to just three winners. Basically, I wanted to give everyone a prize. Since I can’t exactly afford to do that, I am amending my prizes to include not only first-, second-, and third-place winners, but also TWO honorable mentions, each of whom will win one food or wine book from my collection. The rest of you already know that third place garners you two such books, second place wins three said books, and first place gets a whopping four books.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for participating. For those of you who weren’t victorious this time around, don’t worry. After the great response to this one, I’m sure I’ll hold another Food Gal contest in the months to come.

Without further adieu, here are the winners:

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A Fruity Jerky

Not your grandfather's jerky.

This is not your min-mart jerky.

Thank goodness.

When Wichita Falls, TX-based Jerky.com sent me a sample of its new “Pineapple Jerky,” I had horrifying visions of sinewy, jaw-breaking dried meat sheets doused in pineapple juice arriving on my doorstep.

What came in the mail was something all together different: Thin, dried rounds of actual pineapple. No meat was involved; only honey. And this “jerky” was actually pretty, almost resembling a dried flower.

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