Monthly Archives: March 2011

A Fish Story in Napa

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Ahi tartare with lovely pine nuts.

This is not about the one that got away. It’s about the lunch that hooked me.

Fish Story, which opened late last year in downtown Napa along the Napa River, is all about sustainable seafood. The restaurant is part of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group, which has partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. Seafood Watch pocket cards are available for the taking at the hostess stand. The menu is printed daily because it adheres to what’s fresh, available and eco-friendly.

Last month, I was invited to dine as a guest of the restaurant, which evokes the spirit of the ocean in its decor. There are fish tanks, and fish murals that are reminiscent of aquariums. Fish lures dangle from the ceiling. And a raw bar behind glass is on view with crab, oysters and clams all arrayed on ice. It sounds kitschy, but it’s actually appealingly modern with large windows overlooking the river.

Lightly battered and fried calamari.

We started with fried Monterey Bay calamari ($10.50), the rings and tentacles hot, crisp and just a little spicy. A nice touch were the slivers of pepper and thin lemon slices that also had been fried and heaped on top of the calamari. A creamy roasted tomato aioli came alongside for dipping pleasure.

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Food Gal Giveaway — Tickets to the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show

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A gorgeous protea. (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show)

Step inside the 26th annual San Francisco Flower & Garden Show, March 23-27, for a real whiff of spring.

Get ideas for your own backyard by checking out 20 full-sized garden installations from top Bay Area designers, including a 6,000-square-foot “Homestead” by Star Apple Edible Gardens of Oakland, which will feature a chicken coop and demonstrations on beer and jam making.

Indeed, this year’s show — which takes place at the San Mateo Event Center — is full of foodie fun. For the first time, the show will feature a series of cooking demonstrations by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley (March 26), Sean Baker of Gather restaurant in Berkeley (March 23), and Jeffrey Stout of Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino and San Francisco (March 25).

Additionally, the Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association will debut a new wine garden tasting area.

A garden exhibit from a previous year. (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show)

The show also will include seminars, book signings, a farmers market and a marketplace with more than 200 vendors selling everything from plants to seeds to tools.

Filmmaker Deborah Garcia will be showing scenes from her newest documentary, “Symphony of the Soil,” which examines the state of community based and scientific growing practices around the globe.

Advance tickets are $16 online for a single day or at the door for $20. A multi-day, all-show pass is $25; a half-day pass is $15; and children under $16 are admitted free at all times.

The Food Gal is happy to be able to give away three pairs of multi-day passes. Yes, tickets good for any and all days of the show. Tickets are valued at $50 per pair.

Contest: Entries are limited to those who can attend the show in San Mateo, March 23-27. Entries will be accepted through midnight March 12. Winners will be announced March 14.

How to win?

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En-dive or On-deev?

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Did you know there's only one company in the United States that grows Belgian endive?

I sheepishly admit that I always thought either pronunciation was correct. In fact, I thought only those know-it-all-types who speak with their pinkies held high in the air actually refer to this distinctive member of the chicory family as “on-deev.”

How wrong I was, as Rodger Helwig, so kindly set me straight by telling me there is a difference after all. Helwig is the spokesperson for California Vegetable Specialties of Rio Vista, Calif., the only producer of endives in the United States. It sells more than 4 million pounds of red and white endives each year.

The elongated Belgian endive with its slender, smooth leaves packed tightly together, and which is grown in the dark, is pronounced “on-deev.” Because it hails originally from Belgium, it is pronounced the French way. On the other hand, curly endive with disheveled, wild leaves, and which grows in light, is pronounced “en-dive.”

It’s not surprising that there’s only one producer of endive in this country, given how difficult it is to grow. Indeed, it must undergo two growth phases before it is ready for market. In the first phase, the endives are in the ground outdoors for 150 days, where it grows from seed to root. Next, the top of the plants are lopped off, the roots dug up, then placed in cold storage to enter a dormant phase. Then, the roots are removed from cold storage for their second growth, which is done hydroponically and takes place in a dark, cool and humid room.  They are left to grow for about 28 days before they are dug up for market. Because of this process, endives are available year-round in this country.

Helwig is hoping more Americans will discover the versatility, and wonderful crisp, nutty, slightly bitter taste of endive. Europeans love the stuff, consuming 13 to 15 pounds per person a year, he says. Americans, though, eat merely an ounce a year.

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Food Gal Giveaway — Chef Gabrielle Hamilton’s New Book

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Chef Gabriel Hamilton's new memoir.

“Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef.” The title says it all, doesn’t it?

It’s the new memoir (Random House) by Chef-Proprietor Gabrielle Hamilton of much-loved Prune restaurant in New York, which is adored by other chefs for its soulful, no-nonsense approach, as well as for its roasted marrow bones, fried sweetbreads and extensive menu of Bloody Marys.

I’ve always been impressed by the articles Hamilton has penned for the New York Times Dining section. With a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, she’s one chef who really knows how to craft a beautiful, evocative sentence.

I just started reading her book (which I received a review copy of). It’s  a frank, honest recounting of her rather bohemian childhood, raised by her set designer father and former ballerina mother in a burnt-out, 19th Century silk mill in rural Pennsylvania, where they threw great parties complete with baby lambs roasting on spits and wine bottles chilling in the nearby creek. That life came crashing down when her parents split up when Hamilton was only in her teens. She started smoking, shop-lifting and got her first job washing dishes in a restaurant when she was only 13.

She spent many tumultuous years trying to find herself, before opening her restaurant, which she called “prune,” after the nickname her mother had for her as a child.

As she wrote about her vision for the restaurant, “There would be no foam and no ‘conceptual’ or ‘intellectual’ food; just the salty, sweet, starchy, brothy, crispy things that one craves when one is actually hungry. There would be nothing tall on the plate, the portions would be generous, there would be no emulsions, no crab cocktail served in a martini glass with its claw hanging over the rim. In ecstatic farewell to my years of corporate catering, we would never serve anything but a martini in a martini glass. Preferably gin. I wanted all of that crammed into this little filthy gem….”

Meet Hamilton when she visits the Bay Area this week. She’ll host a dinner with Book Passage at Left Bank restaurant in Larkspur, 6:30 p.m. March 10. Tickets are $100 per person or $170 per couple, and includes dinner and a signed copy of her book.

March 11, she’ll conduct a book-signing at noon on March 11 at Rakestraw Books in Danville. Tickets are $20 each. Reservations are required by calling (925) 837-7337. Then, that evening, she’ll be the guest at a special dinner at Camino restaurant in Oakland. The evening starts at 6 p.m. with Negronis, hors d’oeuvres and a book-signing, followed by dinner at about 7 p.m. Tickets are $100 per person. Reservations are required.

March 12 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., Hamilton will swing by Omnivore Books in San Francisco for a book-signing.

If you miss those events, you’ll be glad to know that Food Gal is giving away one free copy of Hamilton’s book.

Contest: Entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be taken through midnight PST March 12. Winner will be announced March 14.

How to win?

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A Return Visit to Bardessono in Yountville

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See that little sliver atop the scallop? Would you believe it's chicken skin so crisp it's like a potato chip?

A lot has happened at Bardessono in Yountville since I last visited in 2009 a few months after the luxurious, eco-friendly resort opened.

First, it became one of only three hotels in the world to be LEED Platinum certified, the highest standard for environmental design.

Second, its opening chef, the very talented Sean O’Toole, has departed. The former group operations chef for the Michael Mina Group is now the chef and culinary director of kitchen operations at Quince and Cotogna, both in San Francisco. Bardessono is in the process of looking for a new executive chef to replace him.

Last month, I was invited to be a guest of the hotel for a night’s stay and to experience dinner in the soothing 93-seat restaurant with its towering windows that slide open to the main courtyard to let the breeze in on warm evenings.

The suites, which run about $650 or more a night, feature such touches as organic bed linens and robes, gas fireplaces, private courtyards with an outdoor shower, motion-controlled window shutters, complimentary bottles of filtered water, and enormous bathrooms that conceal massage tables.

The look is loft-chic with hard, industrial surfaces softened by natural wood and soft, natural fibers.

One of only three LEED Platinum certified hotels in the world.

The relaxing courtyard.

The resort sits on five acres of gardens and vineyards. Take a stroll around and you’ll find all manner of herbs and greens growing in the garden even in winter. They’re featured in the restaurant’s dishes, which are built on local ingredients.

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