If my first installment of great, non-fresh-produce finds at local farmers markets introduced you to some new, tasty discoveries, Part 2 no doubt will do the same. Read all about it my column, “A Girl’s Gotta Eat” in today’s Metro.
Mark Sullivan, chef-partner of the Village Pub in Woodside and Spruce in San Francisco, is a self-taught cook who holds a degree in philosophy. Now, he’s turning that introspective nature on a new cookbook.
Sullivan is working on the book with his sister, Katy Sullivan-Morford, a Bay Area food writer. It will be about cooking in restaurants and at home, and about the importance of the shared experience of gathering around the table. There will be plenty of personal stories and photos, too.
What there isn’t yet is a title or a publisher. But given Sullivan’s talent and prominence — he was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s best new chefs of 2002 — one is bound to snap up the project.
Perfection – we strive for it, and envy those who come close to it.
Well, at least a little.
Take Martha Stewart. Can the woman do no wrong? She can paint Keds sneakers with intricate paint hues to make them rival glam Christian Louboutin heels. She can arrange flowers like nobody’s business. She can even do time behind bars with class.
Moreover, she can bake. Boy, can she.
Regular readers of Food Gal know that I simply cannot resist a great, chewy cookie. It’s one of the true pleasures in life.
In Martha’s “Brown Butter Toffee Blondies,” I have found nirvana – chewiness of the perfect texture. How good are these cookies? Let’s just say that I made these not once, but twice in one month. I probably would have made them a third time had I not run out of butter.
Speaking of butter, don’t let the added step of browning the butter scare you off. It does add a little more time to cookie-making, but it is so worth it for the superlative nutty, rich, intense flavor it adds. Just be sure to watch the butter closely on the stovetop, because once it starts to color, it happens fast. The last thing you want is burnt melted butter to ruin these fab blondies.
Perfection in life may be impossible. But perfection in baking is only a Martha Stewart blondie recipe away.
Brown-Butter Toffee Blondies
If you’re like so many of us with recipes tucked away all over the place, ProjectFoodie can be your savior.
It’s like an old-fashioned recipe box — only its online. In this modern version, you can keep track of your favorite recipes from magazines and newspapers electronically so that when you are hunting for them, you need only look one place now.
Yours truly just became an advisor to ProjectFoodie. You’ll find my recipe rankings and cookbook reviews posted there regularly.
Labor Day weekend (Aug. 29 to Sept. 1) in San Francisco is sure to bring out even more foodies than usual this year.
That’s when Slow Food Nation takes place. bringing together farmers, food artisans, political leaders, environmental advocates, health-care experts, and artists at a mega-event to celebrate the connection between plate and planet.
There will be a 50,000-square-foot food pavilion, a marketplace where farmers and producers will show off their wares, a music festival, workshops, films, dinners, and hikes.
The “Food for Thought Speaker Series” ($5 to $25 per ticket) will feature author Wendell Berry, author Marion Nestle, Slow Food organization founder Carlo Petrini, author Michael Pollan, author Eric Schlosser, author Vandana Shiva and Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse.
The huge Taste pavilion will showcase such artisan products as beer, bread, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, fish, honey & preserves, ice cream, native foods, olive oil, pickles & chutney, spirits, tea and wine. In the “green kitchen” there, chefs will demonstrate techniques for making simple, everyday dishes sustainable. Tickets to the Taste pavilion are $45 to $65.
For more information, click here.
To get into the spirit, sit back and take in a thought-provoking flick, 6:30 p.m. July 25 at the Delancey Street Theater, 600 Embarcadero in San Francisco. That’s when “Strawberry Fields,” will show. The film depicts a day in the life of Palestinian farmers in Gaza.
Ticket are $15, and includes Fra’Mani salami, Harley Farms cheese, dessert, and beverages. For tickets, click here, or send checks made out to Slow Food San Francisco to Slow Food San Francisco, 210 Littlefield Ave., South San Francisco, CA 94080.
And if you notice the lawn in front of San Francisco City Hall looking a little different, that’s because it is being transformed into an edible garden.
July 12, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Slow Food Nation founder Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse restaurant, and more than 100 volunteers will begin planting seeds for herbs and produce.
The project, dubbed the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden, takes its name from 20th Century wartime efforts to tackle food shortages. Back in the early 1940s, San Francisco residents were encouraged to plant gardens on private and public lands to add to the supply of domestic food during wartime. Back then, San Francisco’s program was one of the top ones in the nation. Golden Gate Park alone boasted 250 garden plots.