Monthly Archives: October 2010

Luke’s Local: A Taste of Local and Sustainable at a Caltrain Station

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Owner Luke Chappell outside his Luke's Local store at the Caltrain station.

As you race to catch the train home after a day that’s left you running on empty, wouldn’t it be great to pick up a fresh, nourishing, convenient meal for the ride home?

You can if you stop at the San Mateo Hillsdale Caltrain station, where Luke’s Local opened this spring in an old, vacant ticket office.

This is a convenience store that’s all about local and sustainable food products, as well as gourmet-to-go meals, made fresh daily by a former San Francisco restaurant chef. We’re talking Dungeness crab mac ‘n’ cheese, skirt steak with creamed corn, and chicken stuffed with chevre — all precooked and packaged (at $7.99 each) for you to take home to heat up easily.

Or grab a dripped-to-order Blue Bottle coffee, a pastry from San Francisco’s Sandbox Bakery, an organic locally grown apple, a Free-Trade banana, or a chorizo breakfast burrito ($3.49) that you can nuke in the microwave there to nosh on your morning commute. And yes, Caltrain does allow food and beverages on its trains.

The front of the store, just a few steps from the train tracks.

Sure, the Palo Alto Caltrain station boasts a gourmet coffee kiosk. And the San Francisco station has a coffee stand and a Subway sandwich shop. But the Hillsdale station, where 1,300 passengers go through daily, is the only one with meals like this, prepared by Adel Benmahdi, who used to work at Orson in San Francisco.

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New Pinkberry, Free Pasta and More

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Another Pinkberry Opens:

The tart fro-yo craze continues as the South Bay welcomes another Pinkberry, this one at 2362 El Camino Real in Santa Clara.

The grand opening, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 22, will feature free samples and celebrity guest DJ Joe Manganiello from HBO’s “True Blood,” spinning tunes.

Wine Dinner at Red Crane:

Chef Royce Mori of Red Crane in Cupertino. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)Join Burrell School Winery and Chef Royce Mori when they host a special wine dinner at Red Crane in Cupertino, 7 p.m. Oct. 26.

The four-course dinner includes such delightful pairings as crispy snow crab cake with papaya salsa matched with the 2006 “Teacher’s Pet” Estate Chardonnay; and pan-roasted petit filet mignon with roasted gold beets accompanied by the 2007 “Honor Roll” Estate Merlot.

Price is $80 per person. For reservations, call (408) 725-1990.

Prime Time for Prime Rib:

It definitely will be at Sent Sovi in Saratoga, Oct. 28, when Chef-Owner Josiah Slone hosts the “Big Scary Prime Rib” dinner.

Nothing to fear; the scary part refers to those big bottles of wine (magnums and larger) that we have stashed at home, wondering when we’ll ever have the occasion to uncork them.

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Nutella Pound Cake; Need I Say More?

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Pound cake with a big swirl of lovely Nutella.

Nutella is like a cherished old friend.

You know the kind I mean.

The kind that you grew up all sweet on. Then, as you got older, maybe you lost touch, preoccupied instead by so many other nuts in your life.

But every time your paths would cross at the supermarket, it was like old times again. You found yourself smitten just like before by Nutella’s comforting yet indulgent nature.

If you haven’t seen your friend, Nutella, in awhile, this recipe surely will make you want to get reacquainted fast.

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Tacos? Bien Sur!

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Papito's duck confit taco. Yes, indeed.

It isn’t exactly France meets Mexico at the new Papito in San Francisco.

But you will find a thoroughly wonderful duck confit taco at this tiny restaurant in Portrero Hill, which was opened in August by the restaurateur behind the popular, Francophile Chez Papa and Chez Maman, both in San Francisco.

That would be Jocelyn Bulow, who opened Papito with one of her chefs, Oaxaca-native Rodolfo Castellanos Reyes, who got the 17-seat cafe up and running, only to leave to return to Mexico to start up his own restaurant. Not to fear, his replacement, Reynol Martinez, also from Oaxaca, seems to have a good handle on the menu.

The ingredients are top-notch. Many are organic. The pork is Berkshire. The chorizo is house-made.

Recently, I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant, a short drive from the Holiday Inn Civic Center, to check out the bustling cafe adorned with warm, terracotta walls and big sombrero hats for decor.

Three salsas arrive at the table when you sit down — a zesty tomatillo, a sweet and fruity mango, and a spicy red chile one. If that’s still too tame for you, your server is only too happy to bring you an even hotter version.

Grilled corn with Mexican mayo.

We started with a Mexican street-food staple — grilled corn on the cob ($5), smeared with Mexican mayo and queso cotija. Bowls of house-made red chile salt and wedges of fresh lime let you customize just how spicy or tangy you want it. The corn is sweet, smoky and tender. The squirt of lime really makes it special, cutting through its creamy coat.

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Artisan Chocolates — From the Region Synonymous with Chocolate; And Food Gal Contest Winner

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Derry Church Artisan bon bons -- made in Hershey, PA.

It was almost destined that Eric Clayton grow up to be a chocolatier.

After all, he and his family are fifth-generation natives of Derry Church, PA — the historical name for modern-day Hershey, PA.

Yes, that Hershey’s.

Many of Clayton’s relatives worked for Milton Hershey at his original chocolate factory. Moreover, Clayton’s great-grandfather, a dairy farmer and stone mason, laid part of the foundation for that building and sold milk that went into making the milk chocolate.

So, it’s understandable that Clayton has a serious thing for chocolate. When he was 5, he would collect wrappers from every kind of candy bar he came across. As an adult, he worked as both a chef and a pastry chef. But all along, he knew he wanted to start his own chocolate factory one day.

Thus, Derry Church Artisan Chocolates was born. The chocolates are made by hand in small batches, using certified organic cream and butter from local Pennsylvania dairies, as well as Felchlin couvertures from Switzerland, considered among the best in the world.

I recently had a chance to try samples of some of the bon bons, which come in a wide variety of shapes and are named playfully for different cities around the world. A 10-piece box is $22.

The "Burlington'' bon bon.

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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