Category Archives: Going Green and Sustainable

Artisan Energy Bars — Say What? Plus Winners of the Food Gal Contest

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A breakfast bar you'll actually enjoy eating.

Remember those energy bars of yesteryear?

You know, the ones you ate because they were compact and handy on those sweaty, strenuous hikes — not because they tasted any good.

Newark, Calif.-based FullBloom Baking Company will erase those unappetizing memories once and for all.

Company founder Karen Trilevsky has created an individually wrapped Toasted Oatmeal Bar that’s made with 12 organic whole grains, plus tart cherries and raisins. It’s a palate-awakening alternative to other breakfast or energy bars on the market.

It’s almost cookie-like in texture, but more crumbly. The oat flavor and texture really come through in this crunchy, buttery bar. It tastes very much home-made rather than mass-produced.

Each 2.5-ounce bar has 350 calories, 18 grams of fat (8 grams of which are saturated fat), 44 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of protein, 210 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, and 44 grams of total carbohydrates.

The Toasted Oatmeal Bar joins the 12-Grain Bar released earlier this year. FullBloom will add two more flavors before the end of the year: Cranberry Almond Bar, and Bacon Cornflake (Oh my!).

The bars retail for about $1.49 each. They are available at Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl, Cosentino’s, and Peet’s Coffee & Tea.

In addition to her baking endeavors, Trilevsky also started a “Smart Cookes Scholarship” to pay for the college education of promising Hispanic youth in the Bay Area. So far, she’s help pay for 57 kids to attend college.

Her baking facility also is in the process of securing LEED platinum certification for adhering to best environmental practices.

Sahale Snacks nut mix.

And now, without further adieu, I’m happy to announce the winners of the latest Food Gal contest, in which I invited all of you to tell me what your nuttiest cooking experience was.

I say, “winners,” because there were so many good ones once again that I decided to award second- and third-place prizes, too. Those winners will receive a cookbook from my vast collection. The grand prize winner will get four bags (2-ounce each) of Sahale Snacks nut blends, three (4-ounce) glazed nuts packages, and a Sahale Snacks apron.

Here are the winners:

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An Autumn Apple Treat

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A crust to bring tears to your eyes. And a filling with a secret ingredient.

We all know it’s what’s on the inside that really counts.

But boy, what’s on the outside sure can titillate, thrill and work us into a frenzy, too.

Oh, come on. You know I’m right.

Take this “Open-Faced Apple Galette with Quince Paste.”

What attracted me in the first place to this recipe from Flo Braker’s “Baking for All Occasions” (Chronicle Books) was what was inside. After the rectangular galette emerges from the oven with its filling of sliced apples, walnuts, sugar, cinnamon and allspice, it cools just until you won’t burn your fingertips. Then, you carefully slip tiny pieces of sweet, deep, rose-colored quince paste between the apple slices.

The quince paste, which you can pick up in the cheese section of any well-stocked grocery store, not only adds color, but a brighter, more complex autumn flavor to this wonderful rustic dessert. I loved the interplay between the sweet-tangy, tender apples (I used Pink Lady ones) and the sticky, gooey sugary quince with its subtle acidic note.

The recipe calls for Golden Delicious, but I used Pink Lady apples.

Yes, I loved the inside. But boy, let me tell you about the outside, too.

It’s a beaut.

Braker, who lives in Palo Alto and has been teaching baking for 35 years, sure knows how to put together a crust.

If there ever was such a thing as a perfect crust, this could be it. It’s very buttery, so crisp it shatters when a fork cuts through it, and so multi-layered flaky that my husband thought it nearly bordered being puff pastry’s more svelte cousin.

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Zanotto’s Monthly Wine Dinners — A Deal If There Ever Was One

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Chicken with sage, figs, and pancetta -- served at a supermarket.

Imagine a six-course dinner with six wine pairings — for all of $35 per person.

You don’t have to don fancy duds to enjoy it, either. But you do have to make reservations early, as it sells out faster than you can uncork a bottle of Chardonnay.

Zanotto’s Family Market in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood may very well have the best wine tasting deal around.

The family-run supermarket, which has been in business since 1967, offers the wine dinner every last Wednesday of each month. Tickets go on sale three weeks before, and usually sell out within the first week. Indeed, since the store started hosting these dinners 30 months ago, 29 have sold out.

“We just wanted to create a casual learning experience with great food and wine,” says store Manager Fred Zanotto.

Wednesday was always the store’s slowest day, Fred Zanotto explains. So, he decided to start holding wine tastings to try to entice more shoppers into the store. They proved so successful that he decided to add dinner to it, too.

It's almost a sell-out crowd.

Picture a neighborhood block party held inside a grocery store. That’s what this fun, lively dinner is like, where so many folks are regulars, attending each and every one.

Tables are set up inside and out (except for the winter) to hold 237 people (129 in winter). Folks, who have purchased tickets ahead of time at the store or over the phone, start lining up early by the ice cream freezers to get the best pick of seats, which are first-come, first-serve. Reserved seats are only available if you have a party of six or more.

The tables are draped with floral cloths that can be purchased in the store. The food, served family-style, is arrayed on pretty, rustic platters, which also can be purchased at the store. Fred Zanotto’s two sisters-in-law, who normally man the store’s deli, create the food to pair with the wines. Many of the ingredients — you guessed it — can be purchased at the store.

Cutlery and plates are of the plastic variety. And you get only one wine glass. But that just adds to the informal charm of the event.

DeRose Vineyards was featured at the September wine dinner.

The wineries featured each month are from all over the world. But six months of the year are dedicated to spotlighting local wineries.

The wine dinner I attended in September featured DeRose Vineyards of Hollister. The winery has 100 acres of vines, including 40 acres that are dry-farmed. Those vines, which get no water, produce intensely fruity wines, says winemaker Pat DeRose.

The wines poured that evening included the Parrone 2007 Sparkling, DeRose Chardonnay 2006, Continental Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, Nick DeRose Sr. Zinfandel 2006, and the Negrette 2006. The latter, made from 115-year-old vines, is such a rarity these days that even in its native France, there are less than 100 acres grown there today. DeRose grows 10 acres that are dry-farmed. The result is a wine bursting with jammy plum and berry flavors, and gentle tannins.

Zanotto’s also provides recipes to take home from each event. Dinner that night was as follows:

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Discover the Produce Peddler in San Francisco and San Mateo’s Thriving Downtown

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Fresh, organic Yolo County Farms' produce now featured a select neighborhood corner stores in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of Brian Collentine)

Corner markets aren’t the first places you’d normally seek out produce — unless you need something basic and fast.

Brian Collentine is seeking to change that.

When the economy fizzled, the freelance creative director found he had too much time on his hands. So he came up with the idea to set up displays of fresh, organic produce and flowers inside San Francisco neighborhood bodegas where you’d normally be hard pressed to find a squishy onion amid the six packs and cigarettes.

Instead of jumping in cars to shop at supermarkets miles away, city dwellers in certain parts of the San Francisco now can walk around the corner or a mere block away to buy just-picked potatoes, peaches, and figs from Yolo County farms.

Read more about Collentine’s fresh and delicious endeavor in my story in the October issue of San Francisco Magazine.

While you’re perusing the magazine, also check out my other story on San Mateo’s lively downtown, which has managed to thrive when other downtowns on the Peninsula have suffered untold business closings this past year.

Fancy soap from a 1905-era hardward store in San Mateo.

With its sprawling 70 blocks, downtown San Mateo is an intriguing mix of centuries-old businesses (Wisnom’s hardware store opened its doors in 1905) and new, unique attractions. It’s where both YouTube and Napster got their starts, too.

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Inside the Cafe at Facebook Headquarters

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Employees of Facebook eat THIS for lunch.

Black mission figs with Serrano ham. Tiny beef meatballs with pine nuts and sweet yellow peaches. Tender braised rabbit with moscatel, cinnamon, and fresh cherries. And rich chocolate roulade cake shot through with rum.

That was only a small portion of my incredible Spanish lunch last week at the Palo Alto headquarters of Facebook. After all, social networking — and creating the tools to do it — sure does work up a hefty appetite. No one knows that better than Josef Desimone, Facebook’s “culinary overlord.” And yes, that is his real title.

The energetic, fast-talking, 40-year-old chef invited me to come for lunch to see how his kitchen staff of 50 turns out 2,300 meals a day for more than 800 Facebook employees. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks are provided to this hungry crew — all of it for free. Make friends with someone at Facebook, and you, too, can partake of the scrumptious offerings that change daily, as employees are allowed to bring guests to dine.

Facebook's ''culinary overlord.''

The food, by this former chef of Cafe de la Presse in San Francisco, is so delicious and of such high-quality, it rivals that of restaurants where you’d have to pay a pretty penny to eat. Kathleen Loughlin, a Facebook communications person, jokes that the food is so irresistible that she’s had to frequent the gym more since Desimone came on board a year ago. Job applicants are always invited to come interview near lunch time, too, Loughlin says, because Facebook is well aware that its cafe is a monster recruiting tool.

If Google set the bar for gourmet cafeterias on Silicon Valley high-tech corporate campuses, then Facebook is aiming to push it even higher. Desimone has the cred to do it, too. Back in the day, he was the second sous chef hired at Google by the search engine giant’s famous original executive chef, Charlie Ayers. It was Desimone who designed the layout for the kitchens at Google in Mountain View, and who did the same for Facebook, when it moved into its S. California Avenue building three months ago after outgrowing its 10 buildings scattered around downtown Palo Alto.

“I’d do the Pepsi Challenge with them any day,” Desimone says about Google’s culinary program. “Google was good, but all the original chefs are gone now. And I got my pick of the litter. Eighty percent of my staff came from Google. We work our asses off here. But we have fun doing it.”

Indeed, they do.

One of Hawaii’s most well known chefs, Sam Choy, has cooked here. Charles Phan of the Slanted Door in San Francisco, is scheduled to drop by later this year to do the same. So is New Orleans legend, Paul Prudhomme. They don’t get paid to do so. They just want to do it, because they’re friends with Desimone.

A tapa of rustic bread drizzled with dark chocolate, olive oil, and sea salt.

Marinated Idiazabal cheese with rosemary.

Squash blossoms for Castilian-style zucchini with eggplant and tomatoes.

Meals are structured around cultural or global themes, which change not only daily, but between lunch and dinner. For instance, lunch might be a southern barbecue, while dinner might center around Cuban food. Desimone mixes it all up, never repeating the exact same menu again. He’s so organized that he can tell you what is on the menu for June of next year and which chef is in charge of it.

Employees can make requests. Someone once asked for an all-chocolate menu. Desimone complied with a “Willy Wonka Menu” of chocolate ravioli with pepper ricotta, lamb with a chocolate rub, and mole, of course. Then there was the tribute to “The Simpsons” TV show, which featured deep-fried pork chop in honor of Homer Simpson, and brown rice in an homage to his straight-laced daughter, Lisa.

“We’ll take on any challenge,” Desimone says. “If someone asks me to do their mom’s chicken and dumplings recipe, I’ll do it.”

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