Tag Archives: Zola Palo Alto

Three Things to Enliven Shelter in Place, Part 3

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Nancy Oakes, chef-owner of Boulevard, will be teaching a virtual cooking class for kids. (Photo courtesy of Boulevard)
Nancy Oakes, chef-owner of Boulevard, will be teaching a virtual cooking class for kids. (Photo courtesy of Boulevard)

Kids’ Cooking Class with Boulevard’s Nancy Oakes and Dana Younkin

Your youngsters can take their cooking skills to the next level in a Zoom class taught by none other than Executive Chef Nancy Oakes and Chef de Cuisine Dana Younkin of San Francisco’s celebrated Boulevard restaurant.

The virtual live-streamed class, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.. March 21, is the brainchild of Sprouts Cooking Club in Oakland.

Oakes and Younkin will demonstrate how to make ricotta crespelle manicotti and strawberry shortcake. Ingredient and equipment lists are provided five days before the class.

The $45 class is designed for kids, 6 to 15 years old. The fees help fund Sprouts’ Chef-In-Training Program, a vocational platform that provides restaurant training to underserved women and youths of color.

If your kids can’t make that particular class, don’t fret. Sprouts has put together a whole line-up of celebrated female chefs to teach upcoming virtual classes, including March 20 with Mina Newman of Sen Sakana in New York City; March 27 with Emma Bengtsson of Aquavit in New York; and March 28 with Nite Yun of Nyum Bai in Oakland. The March 3 class with Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco is sold out, but there is a wait list. Find the complete schedule here.

Zola’s Fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula

Pick up some tasty takeout from Palo Alto’s Zola on Feb. 25, and 50 percent of sales from a special to-go dinner package will donated to the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula.

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Where I’ve Been Getting Takeout of Late, Part 3

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Poulet Grand Mere from Zola in Palo Alto.
Poulet Grand Mere from Zola in Palo Alto.

Zola, Palo Alto

On first reflection, you might not think that beef bourguignon and chicken with egg noodles in a lavish cream sauce would be what you really want to dig into on a warm summer evening.

But these French classics, done so right at Zola in downtown Palo Alto, end up not necessarily feeling heavy and rich, but downright as comforting as a hug. And in this time of upheaval, who wouldn’t want to be enveloped in that kind of contentment?

Zola only offers its to-go food on Fridays and Saturdays. The week’s menu is usually posted on Wednesday (sometimes on Tuesday), so you can start reserving your picks then. The earlier the better, too, because some items sell out fast.

The new sign in the window for these new times.
The new sign in the window for these new times.

While most other restaurants provide the food warm with instructions to reheat a few seconds in the microwave when you get home, Zola actually goes the heat-and-eat route, meaning everything is refrigerated, and you need to heat it to enjoy it.

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My Top 10 Eats of 2014

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Sokol Blosser Top 10

As we near the end of one year and ready for the start of a brand new one, allow me to toast my favorite dishes of 2014.

It’s never easy to narrow the list to just 10. But these are the tastes that lingered the most; the ones I’d want to eat all over again in a heartbeat.

Here’s my Top 10, listed in no particular order. I raise a glass from a lovely sample bottle of Sokol Blosser Evolution Sparkling, a blend of nine white wines, which give this method champenoise bubbly the complex flavor of apple, pear, peach and lemon. Here’s to all the chefs and restaurants that made 2014 so delicious and delightful.

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