Category Archives: Going Green and Sustainable

Three-Hour Polenta

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Heritage corn polenta, now available for sale at Oliveto Restaurant.

You might think I’m playing an April Fool’s joke on you when I tell you I spent three hours cooking polenta on the stovetop.

But I kid you not.

That was part of the careful cooking instructions I was given when Oliveto Restaurant in Oakland gave me  a sample bag of Floriani Red Flint Corn Polenta to try at home. The medium-course grind polenta is made from heritage red field corn that was originally developed in Northern Italy. It is whole-grain milled, meaning that the entire grain — including all the germ, bran and endosperm — is milled without separating any of those components out.

Because of that and because it’s a harder corn, it takes three  hours to cook.

I was ready to start lifting more weights at the gym for this polenta workout that awaited me. My husband half-jested that he was going to hire a legal day-laborer to help me.

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Oliveto Keeps On Going Strong

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Crudo of local halibut with shaved purple artichokes.

Twenty-five years is a very long time in restaurant years.

But that’s just how long Oliveto in Oakland has managed to not only survive, but to flourish.

A parade of talented chefs have manned the kitchen over the years, including Paul Bertolli (who went on to found his fabulous Fra’Mani salumi company in Berkeley), and most recently, Paul Canales, who was at Oliveto for the past five years.

In December 2010, Jonah Rhodehamel took over as head chef, after previous stints as sous chef at three San Francisco establishments:  La Folie, Zinnia, and Americano.

He’s already started putting his stamp on the rustic, Italian fare here. He started a new dry-aging program to age rib-eyes for three weeks to concentrate their beefy flavor.

Recently, I had a chance to try his menu as a guest of the restaurant.

Enter the doors, and to your right will be the cozy, more casual cafe. If you go up the stairs, you’ll find the warm, inviting restaurant with its bank of windows that overlook lively College Avenue.

My husband and I started with a crudo of local halibut ($13), clean and bright tasting, with the slight bitterness of puntarella chicory and shaved purple artichokes.

The prettiest salad ever.

Rhodehamel also sent out a roasted root vegetable salad ($11.50) that was as gorgeous as a still-life painting. This seemingly simple dish was spectacular, with the carrots, beets and turnips roasted in salt to concentrate their flavor and sugars, and render them tender-crisp. Even an avowed vegetable hater would have a hard time not eating every last bite.

Oliveto has long been known for its house-made pastas, now made with local flours, so we just had to indulge.

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Healthful Pizza, Ruth Reichl Visit, Chef Demo & More

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The Mexican pizza at ZPizza in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Organic Wheat Flour Pizzas in San Francisco

Laguna Beach, Calif.-based ZPizza, which has more than 90 locations nationwide, now has a locale in San Francisco at 833 Mission St., Suite C (at Fourth Street).

The pizza dough is made from certified organic wheat flour, the sauces are prepared fresh daily, and the cheese is part-skim, rBGH-free mozzarella from grass-fed cows. Gluten-free crust and vegan cheese also are offered. Gourmet ingredients include cremini and shiitake mushrooms, as well as truffle oil and the African hot sauce known as pili pili. For delivery, the pizzas are ferried via bicycles to reduce carbon emissions. Gourmet salads, pastas and sandwiches round out the menu.

Pizza choices include the Thai, with peanut sauce, mozzarella, spicy chicken, cilantro, bean sprouts and serranos; the Mexican with housemade salsa, mozzarella, spicy lime chicken, green onions, avocado, sour cream and cilantro; and the Casablanca, with roasted garlic sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and parmesan. Pizzas are $10.95 for a small, $19.95 for a large, and $24.94 for an extra-large.

The one and only Ruth Reichl. (Photo by Fiona Aboud)

Ruth Reichl at Stanford University

Join former Gourmet magazine Editor-in-Chief Ruth Reichl at a free event at the Cubberley Auditorium on the Stanford University Campus in Palo Alto at 6 p.m. March 29.

Reichl, now an editor and author at Random House, will be speaking on “The Intersection of Food, Culture and History.”

A Different Look at Vanilla, Saffron and Chocolate

Sure, they taste good. But did you know all three of those ingredients are rife with politics?

Learn all about the intrigue in getting these three ingredients from harvest to plate at “Politics of the Plate — What’s Behind the Silky Sexiness of Vanilla, Saffron and Chocolate,” 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. March 16 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco (Starr King room), 1187 Franklin St. at Geary Street.

Experts Patricia Rain (vanilla), Juan San Mames (saffron) and Mark Magers (chocolate) will be on the panel with moderator Janet Fletcher, a San Francisco Chronicle food writer.

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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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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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