If you think you have the cooking chops to make the cut, here’s your chance to audition for season five of Bravo TV’s popular, “Top Chef” show.
An open call will be held in the Bay Area, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 21, at Postrio restaurant, 545 Post St. in San Francisco. Both self-taught and professionally trained cooks are eligible. Just download an application here.
Hope to see you in the next ”Quick Fire” challenge.
It will be pig and more pig at Sent Sovi’s fifth anniversary Open House, noon to 3 p.m. April 20. Chef-proprieter Josiah Slone will be roasting a whole pig in a Caja China box. It’s a sight to see, and a treat for the taste buds with its ultra crisp skin and super moist flesh.
Slone will be pouring his special sangria, too. Best yet, it’s all free — his generous way of saying thanks to all who have supported him and his Saratoga restaurant.
Yahoo! , Oracle, eBay, and Cisco Systems have all left giant imprints on the tech world.
But on April 22, these monster corporations will take deliberate steps to shrink their footprints — their carbon ones, to be precise. On that day, which is appropriately enough Earth Day, chefs at these corporate cafes and others around the country that are all overseen by Bon Appetit Management Company, will serve low carbon meals to educate diners about the role food plays in climate change.
Of all the activities done by humans, studies have found that food and all the energy it takes to make it is one of the largest contributors to global warming. One third of all greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food production, processing, transportation, packaging, preparation, and waste.
All in all, 400 cafes in 28 states will take up the challenge. They include those at DreamWorks, the de Young Museum, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
That translates into reducing the use of imported foods such as rice and bananas. It also means cutting out beef, and even much of the cheese normally served. After all, cows (whether raised for dairy or for meat) emit a huge amount of –errr — methane gas, to be polite. And that gas is said to be even more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat against the Earth.
On “Low Carbon Diet Day,” diners will see more turkey burgers, portobello burgers, pizza with white bean sauce, salad bars stocked with veggies only from North America, and agua frescas made from regionally grown fruit (tropical ones are definite no-no’s). Every food station in each cafe will have to offer one low-carbon meal option and post a sign explaining the principles involved.
If you can’t make it to one of the public cafes that day or aren’t lucky enough to get a coveted invitation to dine at one of the private Silicon Valley tech cafeterias, there’s another way you can learn more about the carbon footprint of food. Just click here to find a calculator that will compute the total carbon emissions of your average breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You might never look at that plate of bacon and eggs quite the same way again.
The Green Restaurant Association has bestowed a “Certified Green Restaurant” badge of distinction on Trevese in downtown Los Gatos. It is the first restaurant in the Bay Area to be so honored.
Housed in a landmark Queen Anne-style Victorian, the restaurant features locally grown, sustainable, and organic ingredients. It serves shade-grown and organic coffee.
Additionally, the restaurant recycles all glass, cardboard, grease, metal, plastic and paper. Food waste is composted. Low-flow faucet aerators have been installed throughout the building to reduce water consumption and energy use. Low-flow spray valves in the kitchen save upwards of 135,000 gallons of water a year alone. The bathrooms are stocked with 100 percent recycled and chlorine-free tissue, as well as recycled multi-fold towels.
Trevese plans to implement more environmental steps each year, according to Chef-Owner Michael Miller.
When diners time their reservations specifically for when fried chicken makes an appearance on the menu, and when lines snake out the door midweek as late as 9 p.m. in sleepy Yountville just for a taste of it, you know that’s got to be some darn good bird.
Since Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc opened a year and a half ago, the storied fried chicken has been a hands-down favorite. After all, who can resist chicken brined for 10 hours in honey, salt and lemon, then dipped in buttermilk, flour, and cornmeal, before being fried crisp and golden? The fried chicken used to be available only every other Monday night at the casual restaurant, where there is only one set menu each day and everything is served family-style. Now, due to overwhelming demand, Ad Hoc has declared every other Monday and every other Wednesday, of alternating weeks, to be fried chicken nights. If that’s a bit confusing, bear with us: It means fried chicken is on the menu this coming Wednesday night, and then the following week on Monday night, April 21. Then it reappears on the menu again on Wednesday, April 30. Whew, got that?
For fans of the melt-in-your-mouth short ribs (cooked “sous vide” or in a sealed pouch in a temperature controlled water bath, for 48 hours), you’ll still have to take your chances on when those beauties pop up on the menu because it all depends on when the meat is available.
As you can tell, none of these photos are of fried chicken, alas. My hubby, aka Meat Boy, and I missed fried chicken by mere hours. You see, we went to Ad Hoc, 6476 Washington Ave., to try its new Sunday brunch. Like dinner ($48 for four courses), brunch also is one set menu each Sunday (three courses for $38). And fried chicken and sourdough waffles (oh my, oh my!) were supposed to be that Sunday brunch’s main attraction. That is, until the restaurant decided to go with fried chicken only at night. Sigh.
Even so, we had a marvelous brunch. It started out with the lovely salad you see above with watercress, and Easter egg, watermelon, and black and white radishes, all tossed in a light lemon chive vinaigrette with toasted pine nuts. The stellar veggies were picked from the “farm” across the street from the French Laundry. Alongside the dish were lady-like cucumber mint finger-sandwiches.
Next came “steak ‘n’ eggs,” beef sirloin tips alongside Clark Farm’s hen eggs cooked like an omelet and then cut into pappardelle-like ribbons. Alongside was a colorful, flavorful medley of fava beans, roasted red peppers, and super crispy and creamy Yukon Gold potato hash.
The finale was D’Anjou pears poached in white wine and dolloped with vanilla whipped cream; and served with buttery shortbread cookies.
We enjoyed brunch on one of those really perfect, sunny days in Yountville, where locals and tourists were strolling about. And where a chef or two could be spotted, including a sporty Richard Reddington of Redd, the one-Michelin-star restaurant just up the block. Reddington cruised by on his bicycle, stopping briefly to check his pulse rate just outside of Ad Hoc.