For those who missed my debut cooking demo in person on June 11, 2011 at Macy’s Union Square San Francisco, please enjoy this abbreviated video of it.
My thanks to my husband, aka Meat Boy, who filmed this; and to Brett Yasukawa, a most talented Bay Area chef who also has mad skills as an editor, who helped put this video together.
If you were in the vicinity of San Jose’s Bernal Park last night, you might have noticed a line — a long line — of hungry folks.
That’s because the WOW Truck was parked there at E. Hedding St. at N. 7th St. for business of a rather exciting kind.
The food truck, which serves up Filipino fare, was being filmed by a crew from the Cooking Channel’s “Eat St.,” which is here in the Bay Area to put togeter a future episode that also will star a couple more kitchens on wheels, including San Francisco’s Le Truc.
WOW Truck, co-owner Tim Luym, passed out free pineapple fritters (turon) to folks who braved the long wait in line to purchase his popular silogs ($7) — plates of garlic fried rice heaped with your choice of meat (everything from corned beef to pork sausage to SPAM), as well as pickled green papaya salad and an over-easy, cage-free egg.
Patrons also were chowing down on the truck’s tacos ($4) and burritos ($7.50) garnished with calamansi pico de gallo. And nobody could resist the signature adobo wings (three for $5).
Periodically, the camera crew would come by to zoom in on folks taking bites of their food, especially if they happened to be young, attractive women, if you know what I mean. Hey, it’s TV, right?
Pica Pica Maize Kitchen, which serves up lusty Venezuelan food, is an ideal place for celiacs, as the menu is entirely gluten-free.
But more than that, it’s a must-stop place for anyone who just loves the soulful flavors of corn, yuca, plaintains, avocado, black beans, chiles and long-cooked, tender meats.
Adriana Lopez Vermut opened the first Pica Pica Maize three years ago in Napa’s Oxbow Public Market, with her father, Leopoldo Lopez Gil, who owns several restaurants in Caracas. A year ago, they opened their first San Francisco outpost in the Mission District, which is the one I visited when I was invited in to try the menu recently.
“Pica pica” means “a little bit of this, a little bit of that” and that’s exactly what you’ll want when you see the tempting offerings available as you scan the wall menu, then order at the counter.
It’s easy to see why Chef Mitchell Rosenthal would want to throw a party to celebrate his upcoming new cookbook.
After all, the 272-page book took him two years of hard work to put together — all the while running three very successful restaurants in San Francisco.
Last week, he hosted a summer feast to end all summer feasts for a small group of food writers, including yours truly, at his Town Hall establishment. It was a huge spread with all the dishes featured from his new cookbook, “Cooking My Way Back Home: Recipes From San Francisco’s Town Hall, Anchor & Hope, and Salt House” (Ten Speed Press). The cookbook, which he wrote with Jon Pult, will debut this fall.
The cookbook even features a rare forward by celeb Chef Wolfgang Puck, whom Rosenthal worked on and off with for 18 years at Postrio in San Francisco, Granita in Malibu and Coco Pazza in New York. The recipes in the book reflect the arc of his career: New Orleans specialties from his time cooking with Chef Paul Prudhomme, whom he called every Friday for six months straight until he snagged an internship at K. Paul’s; a deft array of global cuisines from cooking at the Four Seasons in New York; and classical techniques from Le Cirque in New York.
It’s not every day that you find giant canisters of liquid nitrogen and elaborate sous vide cooking equipment on a bucolic fruit farm.
But when “Top Chef All-Stars” Champ Richard Blais visits to cook an elaborate fund-raising dinner for 175 folks, that’s just what you need to make it all happen.
The occasion was Saturday’s “Peaches & Tango: A Dinner in the Orchard” at Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood, an evening of gourmet eats, live music and tango dancing performances by Trio Garufa. Proceeds benefited the Chez Panisse Foundation.
Yours truly served as emcee for the fun event, which marked my first time visiting this incredible farm.