Read What Former Google Chef Charlie Ayers Is Up To

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Former Google Chef Charlie Ayers. Photo courtesy of Mr. Ayers.

It wasn’t always easy to please his big bosses at Google in Mountain View, says Chef Charlie Ayers, who was hired as employee #53.

After all, back in 1999-2004, those guys working there weren’t exactly big-time foodies. Google co-founder Larry Page had a thing for Subway sandwiches, and for some reason, a vehement dislike of jerky. Even free-range, artisan-made, bison jerky, which Ayers learned about the hard way.

Ayers once put some out in the free-snacks area, and the engineers gorged themselves on it. But the next day, Ayers found the remainder of the jerky on his desk. “Larry didn’t want me to serve it,” Ayers says. “The only thing he said was, ‘I don’t like it.’ I thought, ‘Okayyyyy….I’ll just figure that one out on my own.’ ”

Then there was the time he thought his bonus check had a mistake in it. He thought there were too many zeroes in it. Ayers’ bonus was tied directly to the number of employees who stayed on campus to eat. So Ayers asked his boss, who looked over the check and said, “This is correct. And if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, there will be plenty more where that came from.”

Ayers wasn’t the only one who was incredulous. His sous chef also thought the bonus check he had received must be wrong. He showed it to Ayers who deadpanned, “No, this is correct. And if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, there will be plenty more where that came from.”

Enjoy more fun with Ayers in my column, “A Girl’s Gotta Eat” in today’s Metro. Read all about his newest project, the eco-friendly Calafia Cafe and Market A Go Go in the Palo Alto Town & Country Village, which is expected to open in November.

(Note: Because the Metro is late in posting the column on its online site, the column also appears at the end of this FoodGal posting, right after the recipe.)

For those who want to turn up the heat while reading, here’s a fiery recipe from Ayers’ new cookbook,
“Food 2.0, Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google” (DK Publishing).

Google Hot Sauce

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Craving Chinese Food, Part 2

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An easy stir-fry of pork, fresh corn, and Sichuan peppecorns

If you enjoyed yesterday’s posting, exalting the use of black olives in a wonderful dish of wok-charred long beans, then no doubt you’ll enjoy this next Chinese stiry-fry dish that uses fresh corn kernels.

Nope, not the canned baby corn we’re all too familiar with in Chinese dishes, but actual scraped-from-the-cob kernels bursting with sweet milkiness. “Miao Pork with Corn and Chiles” is a dish from the semitropical region of Guizhou in China. And it’s from the gorgeous book, “Beyond the Great Wall” (Artisan) by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, husband-and-wife writers, photographers, cooks, and global travelers. Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai usually get all the attention. But Alford and Duguid lead you to the even more interesting, off-the-beaten-path areas of Tibet, the Silk Road, and Inner Mongolia.

There’s no better time to make this dish than now, when fresh summer corn is in abundance. I’ve made only a couple changes to the recipe. I used jalapeno peppers rather than cayenne ones because I happened to already have them on hand. I also upped the quantity of Sichuan pepper to 1/2 teaspoon, just because I love its aromatic tingle. And because I thought the dish needed a little something to tie all the flavors together, I drizzled on a tiny bit of toasted sesame oil right at the end. You could also toss in a few slivers of green onion, too, if you like.

Miao Pork With Corn And Chiles

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Craving Chinese Food, Part 1

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Long beans and olives? Yes, it is Chinese.

I could say that it’s the sight of all those Olympic sprinters, synchronized swimmers, and gymnasts competing at full throttle that’s working up my appetite. But really, as I’ve watched the Summer Games, it’s China itself that’s really got me hungry for some delectable Chinese food.

So out came my wok during a break from all that athleticism. I decided to try my hand at these two dishes because they each make use of an ingredient we don’t normally associate with Chinese food. Enjoy one dish today, and the second dish in tomorrow’s FoodGal posting. Make both dishes together and serve with steamed rice for an easy, quick meal. The two dishes especially complement one another because one is a little on the salty side, while the other has a natural, subtle sweetness.

Today’s dish incorporates dry-cured black olives, of all things, which, surprisingly, turn out to be a little-known but traditional Chinese ingredient. “Wok-charred long beans with black olives” was published in the July 2008 issue of Saveur magazine. It’s an adaptation of the recipe from “Around the World in 80 Dinners” (William Morrow). Cheryl Jamison says the olives give the dish a salty pungency akin to Asian shrimp paste. I heartily agree. The beans get a nice smokiness from the high heat of the wok, and the olives, garlic and black vinegar make magic together.

Wok-Charred Long Beans with Black Olives

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Meet Food Gal At Draeger’s in San Mateo in October

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Yes, those are blondies next to me, and mostly cookbooks behind me. Photo by Joanne Hoyoung-Lee.

Between food bloggers, Yelp reviewers and Zagat voters, it does seem like everyone is a food critic these days. Here’s your chance to learn how to become a better one (or at least better articulate to your friends what you loved and what you despised about the last place you dined).

Join me and Sheila Himmel, former restaurant critic for the San Jose Mercury News, on Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Draeger’s Cooking School in San Mateo, when we host the class, “Everyone’s A Critic.” We’ll teach you how to judge a great or a dismal dining experience, while entertaining you with stories about our own experiences in the eating arena. Join us for an evening of wonderful wine, delicious food, and fun banter.

Price is $55; class size is limited to 40 people. Sign up here, and hope to see you there.

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Titillating Tomatoes

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German pink tomatoes. Photograph by Victor Schrager.

When I leaf through the pages of the glorious looking new book, “The Heirloom Tomato, From Garden to Table” (Bloomsbury), I fairly blush.

I’m just going to come out and say it: This is tomato porn.

Rippling, curvy, plump, and with bodacious glistening seed sacks, tomatoes have never looked so utterly sensual as they do in this book written by gardener, seed savor and heirloom produce advocate, Amy Goldman, and photographed by the incomparable Victor Schrager, whose works have graced the Museum of Modern Art in New York.Â

Talk about tomato on tomato action; wait until you see these photos of half a dozen beefsteak tomatoes piled pyramid-style on top of one another, with each a different glorious color and size. It’s tomato as high art. It’s tomato as sex object. It’s tomato beauty you can’t stop staring at.

Thankfully, though, you don’t have to hide this book under your bed or pull it out only when nobody’s looking. This can proudly grace your coffee-table. And anybody who grows tomatoes _ even I, who can barely keep my plants alive half the time _ will lust after the beauties in this book.

Goldman produces hundreds of tomato varieties on her farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. She offers growing advice, as well as information on dozens of varieties, including what shape and color fruit they produce, what the flavor is like, what the texture is like, and what its origins are. Fifty-five recipes are included in the book, as well as more than 200 of those luscious photographs.

Cherry tomato focaccia. Photo by Victor Schrager. Recipe follows.Â

Yearning for more tomatoes? Head to Sutro’s at the Cliff House in San Francisco on Aug. 13 for a very special tomato dinner. Guest Chef Ron Siegel of the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room in San Francisco, and his pastry chef, Alexander Espiritu, will be on hand to create a four-course dinner that will showcase the organic, heirloom tomatoes grown by Cliff House General Manager Ralph Burgin on his family’s Sonoma farm. Think grilled skirt steak with tomato compote, and tomato tart tatin with yogurt mint sorbet.

The dinner is $55 a person ($80 with wine pairings). A portion of proceeds will benefit the non-profit Community Alliance with Family Farmers, which fosters family-scale agriculture.

Sutro’s Chef de Cuisine Brian O’Connor also will be featuring heirloom tomatoes in dishes on the daily summer menu in an “Ultomato” celebration.

At PlumpJack Cafe in San Francisco, Executive Chef Rick Edge gets into the tomato spirit, too, with a four-course tasting menu featuring lovely heirlooms. The tasting menu, $45 per person ($21 more with wine pairings), will run through the end of September or when the tomatoes run out. Dishes include seared day boat scallops with golden tomato vinaigrette, and tomato-braised Kurobuta pork shoulder.

Additionally, more than 52 San Francisco restaurants will be participating in “Heirloom Tomato Week” (which is actually longer than a week since it goes from Aug. 14-24). The restaurants will feature heirloom tomatoes in a la carte dishes or in tasting menus. Its their way of trying to help farmers who were impacted during the recent salmonella scare that mistakenly identified tomatoes as the culprit.

Every diner who pays with a Visa card also will receive a commemorative book with tomato recipes from the participating restaurants, which include Coi, Piperade, and Poleng Restaurant & Lounge. View a complete list here. Reservations are available on OpenTable.com.
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