Pick up a copy of the November issue of San Francisco Magazine now on newsstands to read my short piece on three new sustainable sushi guides.
A year in the works, the guides were put together by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Blue Ocean Institute, and the Environmental Defense Fund.
On each of the organization’s Web sites, you’ll find a copy of a free guide to download. All three are sure to make your next meal at a sushi bar more enlightening.
At last week’s fun-filled Pear Festival at Santana Row, yours truly was a featured guest on the James Beard Award-winning radio show, “A Matter of Taste” (960 AM), which airs regularly 11 a.m. to noon on Sundays.
Hosts David and Rachel Cane peppered me with questions about the South Bay dining scene, especially at Santana Row, where they were broadcasting live from last weekend. Take a listen.
Don’t let that scare you off.
It does take about three days to make this pizza dough. But most of that time, the dough is just hanging out in the fridge, doing its own thing.
This recipe comes from the new “A16: Food + Wine” (Ten Speed Press) cookbook by Nate Appleman, Shelley Lindgren, and Kate Leahy. Yes, it’s the new cookbook from one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants, A16, where I have swooned over many a thin-crust, Neapolitan-style pizza.
I call these my “Invisible Man” cookies.
OK, really they’re “Chewy Molasses Crinkles” from my newest fave baking book, “Martha Stewart’s Cookies” (Clarkson Potter). But you know how I can’t resist ginger? Well, I couldn’t resist tinkering with the recipe a smidge when I got a sample of the new “Ginger Babies,” made by the Ginger People and sold on the King Arthur Flour Web site for $10.95 for a 6.7-ounce jar ($7 on the Ginger People site). They’re crystallized ginger in the shape of tiny gingerbread men. How cute is that?
Since they’re packed tightly in a glass jar, some of them emerge less than whole. The ones with missing limbs? I just eat those str
aight out of the jar. Sorry, I can’t help myself.
The label says they go well with cheese, chocolate, muffins, creme brulee, and gingerbread. I, of course, had cookies on my mind. But then again, when do I not have cookies on my mind? In particular, I thought one of these cute little guys would look just adorable in the center of a chewy, spicy cookie.
The resulting cookies made me chuckle when they emerged from the oven. They reminded me of that famous scene in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, “Predator,” where before becoming Governor of California, Arnie outwits an extraterrestrial beast by coating himself with mud to blend in completely with his jungle surroundings. You can’t even see him until he opens his peepers to reveal the whites of his eyes.
My “Invisible Man” cookies are kinda like that. The little guy blends in pretty well with the molasses brown cookie after baking. But if you look closely, you’ll spot him — that little extra treat in a cookie that is soft, chewy, and filled with warm spices such as cinnamon and allspice. Eating one makes you feel as if you just got a great big hug.
I blame this on Nate of the House of Annie blog.
After returning from my Los Angeles vacation, where I made the rounds of bakeries, I thought I was done with nibbling on cupcakes. At least for a little while.
But then Nate had to tell me that one of my favorite South Bay bakeries had started making cupcakes.
Darn him. Darn him.
So, of course, I had to try them. Calories be damned.
Off I went to Sugar Butter Flour’s original location in Sunnyvale (there’s a second one in Campbell now, too). Last year when I was still writing for the San Jose Mercury News’ food section, I had picked Sugar Butter Flour’s pastry chef-partner, Irit Ishai, as one of the top pastry chefs in the South Bay. Consider her resume: Former pastry chef at Sent Sovi in Saratoga under then-Executive Chef David Kinch; former pastry chef of Kinch’s subsequent restaurant, Manresa in Los Gatos; and an apprentice at Fleur de Cocoa in Los Gatos, owned by Pastry Chef Pascal Janvier, whom I also singled out in that same story as a stellar pastry chef.
Sugar Butter Flour’s cupcakes are $3 each. I picked one of each available that day to cart home: a strawberry-filled vanilla cupcake, a marble cupcake topped with chocolate buttercream, a chocolate cupcake with a white squiggle a la Hostess, and a peanut butter-filled chocolate cupcake with peanut butter buttercream.