Sweet-and-Sour Braised Lamb with Tamarind

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Lamb braised with tamarind -- a taste of South Africa.
Lamb braised with tamarind — a taste of South Africa.

If there are cuisines of which we are woefully uncultivated, they are surely African ones.

Somali chef Hawa Hassan aims to open our eyes — and palates — wide with her new cookbook, “In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean” (Ten Speed Press), written with best-selling cookbook author Julia Turshen.

Hassan has gathered stories along with 75 recipes from bibis (grandmothers) from eight African nations: South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, and Eritrea.

You can’t help but be touched by the personal stories and soulful recipes, which might otherwise go unrecorded and be lost for all time.

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Where I’ve Been Getting Takeout of Late, Part 19

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A Friday special at the Village Bakery.
A Friday special at the Village Bakery.

The Village Bakery, Woodside

The colonel’s got nothing on The Village Bakery, when it comes to a grand bucket of fried chicken.

The Woodside restaurant and bakery’s newest offering is “Fried Chicken Fridays.” And if last Friday’s experience was any indication, it’s already a hit. When I went to go pick up my order, the entire bar was covered with takeout bags, most for the chicken.

For $34, you get an actual bucket containing eight pieces of fried chicken, as well as containers of coleslaw, mac ‘n’ cheese, and two buttermilk cheddar-chive biscuits.

Oh, yes!
Oh, yes!

It’s designed to serve 2 to 4. The chicken alone is definitely more than two people can finish in one sitting. As such, you might want to order another biscuit or two ($5 each) to go with the leftovers the next day. Crunchy on top and fluffy inside, the buttery biscuits are definitely hard to resist.

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Three Things to Enliven Shelter In Place, Part 2

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Celebrate the Year of the Ox by learning how to make banh chung. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective).
Celebrate the Year of the Ox by learning how to make banh chung. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective).

Celebrate Tet with A Banh Chung Online Cooking Class

Join in on the festivities for the Vietnamese New Year — from the comfort of your own kitchen — as Los Angeles chef Diep Tran instructs you virtually, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 6, with an ingredients kit you can pick up at participating restaurants in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and New York.

At the end, you’ll have your own sticky rice dumplings to feast on, filled with pork belly, shallots, and mung beans — all wrapped snuggly in banana leaves.

Festive packages of sticky rice dumplings. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective)
Festive packages of sticky rice dumplings. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective)

The $46 kit with class also includes a signature New Year dish from the participating restaurant or bakery to enjoy.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the kits can be picked up prior to the class at: Buku Bakes, Little Window, and Noodle Girl.

Tran, who is also the research and development chef for Red Boat Fish Sauce, has been hosting her Banh Chung Collective for the past nine years. This time, she’ll be streaming from Alma Backyard Farms in Compton.

For tickets to this event, click here.

Luv’s Brownies Dessert Truck

South Bay chocoholics will be glad to know there’s a new dessert truck in town. Luv’s Brownies, known for its heart-shaped brownies, has launched its own food truck, which will be bringing sweet creations to the San Jose Rose Garden farmers market on Saturdays, and the Cupertino farmers market on Sundays.

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What I’ve Been Drinking of Late, Part 7

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A Brunello worth seeking out.
A Brunello worth seeking out.

Frescobaldi CastelGicondo Brunello di Montalcino DOCG 2015

Transport yourself to Tuscany with a sip of Frescobaldi CastelGicondo Brunello di Montalcino DOCG 2015, a big, bold, inky wine that lingers on the palate, giving you plenty of time to daydream any troubles away.

Made by a winery with more than 700 years in the business, this Italian beauty ($69) is made with Sangiovese grapes that have attained Italy’s highest classification.

With substantial tannins, this is a wine that will age gracefully. But if you’re like me, you’ll be impatient to uncork a bottle, as I admittedly was when I received a sample to try.

Blackberry, raspberry and evergreen are heady on the nose. On the palate, it’s rich with deep cherry, leather, earth, tobacco, and cinnamon.

Try it alongside roast leg of lamb, a steak smothered in fresh rosemary, bolognese pasta or beefy Italian meatballs.

Cheers: If you mindlessly reach for a Cabernet Sauvignon to pair typically with red meat, next time try Brunello instead. Find this wine at Wine.com and Total Wine & More.

WineSociety

Whether it’s because we’re all sheltering at home now or maybe social-distance picnicking in parks, canned wine sure seems to be having a moment.

One of the newest is WineSociety, founded by Angela Allison, who fell in love with the Napa Valley as she and her husband split their time between his tech work in San Francisco and their home in Cincinnati.

A trio of WineSociety's canned wines, which even comes with a plastic cap in case you can't finish the entire can.
A trio of WineSociety’s canned wines, which even comes with a plastic cap in case you can’t finish the entire can.

Made with California grapes, the wines come in 500ml cans, the equivalent of 2/3 of a bottle, making for two generous-sized glasses for two people.

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Nik Sharma’s Beef Chilli Fry with Pancetta

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An easy flank steak stir-fry with the unexpected addition of pancetta.
An easy flank steak stir-fry with the unexpected addition of pancetta.

Nik Sharma is not a triple, but a quadruple threat. And we’re all the better for it.

Writer, photographer, recipe developer, and food scientist, he does it all. And those talents are on big display in his new cookbook, “The Flavor Equation” (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy.

Born in Bombay (Mumbai), Sharma studied molecular genetics at the University of Cincinnati, before getting a a full-time research job at Georgetown University’s Department of Medicine. His creative side soon took hold, though, as he started cooking his mother’s recipes, as well as developing his own, which he chronicled on his award-winning blog, A Brown Table.

That led to his first cookbook, “Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food” (Chronicle Books, 2018). His follow-up makes use of his science background even more, along with his always beautiful food photography.

Through more than 100 recipes, he teaches how certain techniques or ingredient additions can heighten brightness, bitterness, saltiness, sweetness, savoriness, fieriness, and richness — the flavors that make food taste so good. Sharma also delves into how sight, sound, mouthfeel, aroma and taste all play into how we react to food.

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