Category Archives: Health/Nutrition

Special Perbacco Dinner, Dine About Town Time and More

aStaffan Terje of Perbacco in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Perbacco Welcomes Special Guest Chef Jan. 14

Chef Tony Mantuano of Chicago’s acclaimed Spiaggia and a recent contender on “Top Chef Masters” will join forces with Executive Chef Staffan Terje at Perbacco Ristorante in San Francisco for “Winter in Piemonte” — a special dinner Jan. 14 to benefit the James Beard Foundation.

The Perbacco dinner, which starts at 6 p.m., will feature four courses paired with wines. A live auction also will take place.

Price is $165 per person or $150 per person for members of the James Beard Foundation.

Chef Tony Mantuano visits San Francisco to cook at Perbacco. (Photo courtesy of Bravo TV)

“Dine About Town San Francisco” Time

The 11th annualDine About Town San Franciscorestaurant promotion returns Jan. 15-31, in which more than 100 restaurants will be offering up either/and two-course lunch menus for $17.95 and three-course dinners for $34.95.

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Speedy Chicken Chilaquiles with Less Guilt

A more healthful version of chicken chilaquilles.

Chilaquiles are a guilty pleasure — a traditional Mexican brunch dish of fried tortillas, salsa, eggs, loads of cheese and a generous amount of thick, tangy sour cream.

If you’re wanting to dial that back a bit in the New Year, cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough have a version that won’t bust any waistbands.

It’s included in their new cookbook, “Cooking Light: The Complete Quick Cookbook” (Oxmoor House), of which I recently received a review copy. The book is filled with recipes to get dinner on the table fast during a hectic weeknight. The straightforward recipes make use of time-saving ingredients such as quick cooking grains, bottled minced garlic, canned chickpeas and store-bought rotisserie chicken as in this dish.

A tangy, spicy tomatillo sauce gets whizzed up in a flash in a blender. Corn tortillas are simmered in the sauce, rather than fried. Low-fat milk and a modest amount of Monterey Jack with jalapenos add creaminess without a ton of calories. And shredded rotisserie chicken substitutes for the usual eggs for a more substantial dish.

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Dragon Fruit Juice for a Healthful Welcome to 2012

A dragon fruit juice that's a brilliant fuschia color. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

After imbibing perhaps a little too much on New Year’s Eve weekend, you’re probably in dire need of a quenching drink right about now.

How about one made from the exotic dragon fruit?

The fruit, which looks a bit like a hot pink flower bulb from outer space that’s about to unfurl who knows what, is the primary ingredient in Pitaya Plus, a new juice drink launched a year ago in San Diego.

Company founder Chuck Casano was working for a non-profit in Nicaragua when he got his first taste of pitaya or dragon fruit. He was so smitten with it and the people there that he wanted to forge an even greater bond to bring a taste of Nicaragua to the United States, while helping employ impoverished Nicaraguans in his new venture.

The unique dragon fruit. (Photo courtesy of Pitaya Plus)

The result is Pitaya Plus, two juice blends high in Vitamin D, dietary fiber and other nutrients. There are 70 calories per 8-ounce serving. They’re sold in more than 100 Whole Foods nationwide, where they rank as having the lowest sugar level of any juice on the shelves there, according to a Pitaya Plus spokesperson.

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Not Your Usual Spinach Dip

Dip into this spinach-walnut-dried mint dip.

When the champagne glasses start clinking on New Year’s Eve, you’ll want something tasty to go along with all of that bubbly.

But why settle for the same old spinach dip in a hollowed-out bread loaf when you can have this instead?

“Yogurt and Spinach Dip ‘Borani Esfanaaj’ in the Persian Manner” sure looks pretty, doesn’t it?

It’s also a bit more healthful than the old standby because it’s made with thick, creamy Greek yogurt instead of cream cheese or sour cream. You can make it with low-fat Greek yogurt, but it’s far more satisfying with the whole-milk version. If you insist on being virtuous (even on New Year’s Eve), use both — a tub of each. Just make sure you get some of the full-fat version in there.

The dip is by Shayma Owaise Saadat, a Toronto economist, whose recipe is featured in the new “The Food52 Cookbook” (William Morrow) of which I recently received a review copy. The book is by illustrious food writers, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, whom as you may now developed the Web site, Food52.com, which each week for 52 weeks ran recipe contests to find the best recipes from home cooks all over the country.

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Hawaii Part 3: A Tale of Two Very Different Farmers

Can you guess what this is? It's banned on airlines because of its smell.

HONOLULU, OAHU and KONA, HAWAII — Ken Love has had a multitude of careers in one lifetime: Associated Press photographer, Chicago Sun-Times restaurant reviewer and Tokyo culinary student.

But it is as a farmer on the Big Island that he is perhaps most happiest.

I can’t help but get that feeling as Love, a big bear of a man with a desert dry sense of humor, showed me around a five-acre plot of wild Eden on a friend’s property that he looks after. I had a chance to meet Love, president of the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers Corp., on my recent trip to Hawaii, courtesy of Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

A specialist in tropical fruit horticulture, he’s also quite the activist, rallying for the Big Island to feature home-grown fruit and veggies in school lunches rather than the rock-hard peaches and tasteless imported apples that often end up on cafeteria trays instead.

He’s also about to become a film star. Love recently filmed a documentary with actor Bill Pullman, who happens to be a fruit activist, himself. (Who knew?) The film, “The Fruit Hunters,” is based on the book of the same name by Adam Leith Gollner. It looks at the diversity of fruit in the world, as well as folks who become almost fanatically passionate about fruit. The movie is expected to be released by the end of next year.

Tropical fruit farmer Ken Love knows everything there is to know about fruit in Hawaii.

On this quiet afternoon, as we thread our way through this lush five-acre spot, Love stops every few steps to point with pride to a tree or bush, and to pick something amazing for me to taste. It’s a veritable fruit smorgasbord before my eyes.

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