Category Archives: Cheese

Cheese, Chocolates, Wines, Tributes and San Jose Eats On TV

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Delights from the California Artisan Cheese Festival. (Photo courtesy of Karen Preuss)

Deliriously delicious events you won’t want to miss:

*3rd Annual California Artisan Cheese Festival: The Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma will host this cheese extravaganza, March 20-23. Meet artisan cheesemakers at the March 20 reception and tasting. March 21, listen to a panel of experts including Laura Werlin and Clark Wolf.

Kelsie Kerr, director of the cooking school at Cavallo Point, will teach a cooking class about incorporating artisan cheese into everyday cooking. The March 21 gala dinner will feature five courses by a bevy of Bay Area chefs. At the Artisan Cheese Marketplace gets underway March 22, look for cooking demos by chefs such as Joey Altman.

Ticket prices range from $40 to $170. Ten percent of ticket sales will benefit five non-profits that support the artisan cheese-making community and its sustainability.

(Photo courtesy of the International Chocolate Salon)

* 3rd Annual International Chocolate Salon: Yes, chocolates, chocolates everywhere. That’s what you’ll find at this decadent event, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 21 at the Fort Mason Center’s Herbst Pavillion in San Francisco. Stroll through 30,000-square-feet of chocolate, wine, and confections to discover and taste. Chocolate demos, chef talks, and author signings also will be spotlighted.

More than 50 confectioners and wineries will be there, showing off their ware.

Yours truly, the Food Gal, will be there, too, as one of the tasting panel judges. Oh my. I better start fasting now in preparation.

Tickets are $25 for adults; $10 for children ages 6-12; and free for children under age 6 (limit two children per adult).

Chef Laurent Manrique of the Aqua Restaurant Group. (Photo courtesy of Justin Lewis)

* James Beard Foundation Benefit Dinner: Chef Laurent Manrique and his culinary friends will honor esteemed cookbook author Paula Wolfert at a special dinner, March 16, at the Fifth Floor in San Francisco.

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Marvelous Mac ‘n’ Cheese

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 The ultimate comfort food.

In the parlance of journalism, Clark Wolf is what we reporters gleefully call a “quote machine.”

If we need a pithy, memorable quote about food, chefs, restaurants, or eating trends, who we gonna call?

Invariably, Clark Wolf.

The restaurant consultant, who lives in Sonoma County, has a gift for gab, a way with words, a wondrous wit, and is not shy in the least about giving voice to the downright outrageous. Plus, as a former manager for the San Francisco Oakville Grocery and a foodie who’s rubbed shoulders with everyone who’s anyone in the culinary world, he definitely knows his stuff.

Former New York Times food writer Marian Burros and I once joked to each other that the day was coming when our respective publications would issue a moratorium on Clark Wolf quotes because they were just so prevalent.

Fortunately, that day never came.

You’ll still find him being quoted in many a food story. And now, you’ll also find him on the book shelves with his new “American Cheeses” (Simon  & Schuster) tome.

Wolf, who ran a cheese shop in San Francisco in 1976, profiles the men and women whose work created the incredible artisan cheese industry in this country. He also includes recipes for everything from A Perfect Pimento Cheese to Escargots with Roasted Garlic and Gorgonzola. And it’s all told in a way only he can tell it.

“The way a cheese, or any food, looks has a lot to do with my decision about whether or not to toss it into the shopping basket,” he writes in the book. “Some of it is learned. A lot of us have gotten over the need to pick what looks like picture-perfect fruits and vegetables, realizing that sometimes, say, an apple bred for visual perfection can taste a lot like packing material. We’ve come to know that a bruise here, a funny stripe there, an odd shape, or a varied coloration, can, for the right variety, mean peak seasonal bliss.

“So, too, with cheese. Sometimes the moldy, aged, smelly slime on the outside suggests creamy within.

“But mostly, it is good if it looks good. And if it looks like fermented roadkill, it might be best to ask a few questions and inquire about trying a little taste.”

Aged white cheddar macaroni and cheese.

You have to smile at that. And at this sublime macaroni and cheese recipe from the book. This one was created for a restaurant Wolf was a partner of in 1990s. The dish was then redeveloped for the SoHo Grand Hotel in Manhattan. Finally, Burros adapted it into a more home-kichen-friendly version in her book, “Cooking for Comfort” (Simon & Schuster).

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Your One-Stop Shop For French Gourmet Goods

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Le Fermiere honey yogurt (2-pack for $6.99) in pretty ceramic jars.

See that creamy, dreamy yogurt above?

People drive miles and miles for it. Because once you’ve had full-fat French yogurt, there’s no going back.

The bare-bones Gourmet Corner store, 873 N. San Mateo Dr. in San Mateo, is one of the few retailers in the Bay Area — if not the only one — where you can find it. Surely, no other establishment has the variety of French yogurts that this one does.

Find a good selection of French cheeses.

That’s because proprietor Hugues de Vernou knows his stuff. Well, he’s French, for one thing. And two, he’s been in the food import/export business for more than two decades. For years, he ran the Made In France/Village Imports business that sold European gourmet foods wholesale. It was most famous, though, for its occasional public sales, which would prompt foodies to line up for hours to load up on imported cheeses, wines, olive oils, and canned goods at bargain prices.

Owner Hugues de Vernou

De Vernou sold that business last year. In December 2008, he opened this store in what was once a car dealership. In two rooms, totalling 5,000 square feet, you’ll find an array of French products for sale, including chocolates, cookies, foie gras, dried morels, mustards, dried green lentils, jars of duck fat, canned hearts of palm, frozen escargot, and duck confit. De Vernou recently got his liquor license, and now sells wines, too, $8 to $25 per bottle (you get a 10 percent discount if you buy by the case).

Plans are to expand the store even more, to add a selection of prepared foods, and even a barbecue outside in the summer, when the floor-to-ceiling bay doors can be retracted to create almost an open-air market feel.

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Gingerbread Galore, Cooking Shows, Olive Blessings, and More

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The 2007 gingerbread creation crafted by Pastry Chef Carlos Sanchez of Parcel 104.

If you missed seeing last year’s incredible gingerbread creation by Pastry Chef Carlos Sanchez of Parcel 104 in Santa Clara, you really missed out.

His gingerbread dreamscape of the world was the stuff of sweet dreams (see photo above). But this year, he’s turning over the hard work to students at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell. The students are tasked with creating gingerbread houses at the school, then carefully transporting them to Parcel 104, where they will be put on display in the lobby of the Santa Clara Marriott at 5 p.m. tonight.

Let’s hope they survive the move, because 10 houses are expected to be on display. Sanchez, members of the local Chaine des Rotisseurs, and Marriott guests will get to cast votes for the best house based on creativity, festiveness, and attention to detail.

First place will win $250, second place $150, and third place $100. Winners will be announced in a ceremony later in the month at the school.

Tune into KTEH Public Television (channel 54) in San Jose at 7 p.m Dec. 3 to watch “KTEH Cooks with Garlic.” Nine local amateur cooks will be strutting their culinary skills live on TV as they cook with — you guessed it — garlic. The nine were selected from 40 videotapes submitted.

These recipes and others will be included in a future “KTEH Cooks with Garlic Cookbook.” To submit your own recipe for the cookbook, go to www.kteh.org/garlic.

Sonoma olives. (Photo courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau)

If you prefer olives to garlic, head to historic Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma in Sonoma at 10 a.m. Dec. 6 for the start of a three-month long Sonoma Valley Olive Festival that kicks off with the blessing of the olives. Admission is free.

That will be followed at 10 a.m. that day by an open house and tasting at the Olive Press in Sonoma. Noon to 3 p.m., author Carol Firenze wil sign copies of her book, “The Passionate Olive — 101 Things to Do with Olive Oil.” Admission is free.

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Being Frugal with Ricotta, Part 2

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Fruit-studded ricotta biscuits perfect with jam, butter or all on their own.

After staying up late to witness last night’s historic presidential election, all you sleep heads might need a little pick-me-up today.

Look no further than these tantalizing Ricotta Biscuits with Dried Cherries, Apricots & Raspberries.

We refer to ricotta as cheese. But did you know that it’s really not? So says the must-have, go-to book, “The Food Lover’s Companion” (Barron’s) by the late Sharon Tyler Herbst and her husband, Ron Herbst.

Ricotta is technically not a cheese because it has neither a starter or rennet in it, the Herbsts state. Ricotta is actually reheated whey (the watery liquid that separates from the solids or curds when making cheese). When the whey is reheated, “protein particles rise to the surface, are skimmed off, strained, then placed in perforated molds or baskets to drain further.” The result is ricotta.

This great recipe comes from “Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook” (Sasquatch Books) by Seattle bakery owner, Leslie Mackie, with Andrew Cleary.

These fruit-studded biscuits were the perfect way to use up the last of my leftover ricotta. In my posting yesterday, as you recall, I raved about another baked good that put some of that remaining ricotta to good use.

The dough for these biscuits is very wet and loose. So much so that I needed a dough scraper to turn out and fold the “dough” as it called for in the directions. I also needed a spatula to lift the cut biscuits onto the baking pan. Either that or they would have stuck all over my hands. Yes, this dough is a mess to work with, but don’t let that discourage you from trying it.

These treats taste like biscuits and look like scones. They are not dessert-like sweet, but pleasantly sweet enough from the infusion of all the fruit. The recipe says it makes eight biscuits. It does if you want ones the size of individual meatloaves. Personally, I think you can make 16 biscuits out of this, easily. Freeze some to enjoy with coffee or tea for breakfast another time. As winter approaches, you’ll be so glad you have a stash of these hearty babies tucked away.

Ricotta Biscuits with Dried Cherries, Apricots & Raspberries

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