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Thanksgiving Food Volunteering…and Thanks !
This Thanksgiving, the Epicuring team is thankful to see so many great small food businesses and farms creatively engaging and teaching people about good food! If you are able to donate time or food this year, here are some resources: Thanksgiving Day Volunteer Match lists opportunities to serve food on Thanksgiving Day across California. Feeding America lists statewide food banks. Yelp members share their suggestions. Please add more to our Facebook page! Check for needs at local churches too, before and after Thanksgiving. Spotted on Craigslist: Philanthropic Gingerbread Cookie Making Like to make cookies? The Gingerbread Project Needs You! (dublin / pleasanton / livermore) Tri-Valley Haven is looking for volunteers…
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Convivial Cocktails at CUESA Recap
Laiko and I were delighted to meet a bevy of cocktail loving, food event craving CUESA supporters who trudged through the raging snow storm to brave…oh wait no it was a beautiful warm fall night. So anyway, they braved getting to the Ferry Building and were not disappointed. Two long rows of interesting craft cocktails and appetizers delighted a couple hundred people. At only $35, be sure to come to the next one! Here’s who was there. It was fun to learn the Hotsy Totsy–which was a long-time fave dive bar–is now serving up craft cocktails. At this event they made a ginger apple concoction topped with a candied California-grown…
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San Francisco’s Sweet Shops Guide
We were asked by the Style editors of the SF Chronicle to co-curate a selection of our favorite places where a big kid might find tasty treats for Halloween. We were game–and narrowed down our favorites which are featured in Sunday’s Chronicle. Click here to read the story. Halloween may be over but the artisan chocolatiers, bakers, and dessert makers and shops we discovered for the San Francisco Chronicle are treat for visitors and locals to visit year round. Here’s the skinny: Cow Hollow: American Cupcake 1919 Union Street This is the only sweets cafe we can think of that really celebrates Halloween. They’ll have candied and caramel apples; pumpkin…
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Wild Food Walks with ForageSF
by Celeste Noche, Epicuring In a region as metropolitan as the Bay Area, it’s easy to think that our only resources for produce are markets, farms, and gardens. ForageSF has set out to correct this misconception by leading educational Wild Food Walks and working to “rediscover a forgotten food source.” While foraging is only legal by permission on private land, these Wild Food Walks offer more than a morning of searching for plants. This past Sunday, I joined Kevin Feinstein as he led a group of 16 people through Golden Gate Park. Having grown up in the Bay Area myself, I never imagined that edible plants were in such abundance…
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A Taste of Vermont in California
By Emily Shartin, Epicuring As a recent transplant to California and a lover of both cheese and beer, I’ve been excited to start learning about all of the great things this state has to offer with regard to two of my favorite fermented foods. However, I was also admittedly happy to discover recently that the Cheese School of San Francisco was welcoming two of Vermont’s finest artisan producers (ones whose products you can’t always find on the west coast): the Cellars at Jasper Hill and Hill Farmstead Brewery. Zoe from Jasper Hill and Shaun from Hill Farmstead create cheese and beer pairings that are an authentic representation of place: the…
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Buddha’s Hand Citron (fingered citron) and Finger Limes
By Susie Wyshak, Epicuring I’m posting this as a backgrounder for anyone interested in this citrus which we recently highlighted at the St. George Spirits tasting and tour we hosted. Buddha’s Hand Citron (fingered citron) Grown at Lindcove Farm by John Kirkpatrick, supplier to St.George Spirits. The trees are very cold-sensitive, and require an almost frost-free location. Harvesting is tricky,because the fruits can’t be processed on a standard packing line, need to be cleaned by hand, and tend to develop mold quickly. In China the Buddha’s Hand citron symbolizes happiness and long life, because its name, “fo-shou”, has those meanings when written with other characters. Chinese like to carry the…
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Californians Supporting Bristol Bay
By Celeste Noche, Epicuring Alaska’s Bristol Bay is renown among fisheries because of the amount of sockeye salmon that return each year is currently unprecedented in the world: up to 40 million salmon, migrating within the world’s only fully functional ecosystem. Native Alaskans have relied on Bristol Bay salmon for thousands of years– not only as a food source but also as a way of life. Now the livelihood of this ecosystem and lifestyle are at risk as large gold and copper deposits have been found at the headwaters of the rivers that feed into the Bay. The proposed Pebble Mine would create a hole 20 miles wide and deep…
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10 Liquor Factoids Absorbed at St. George Spirits
Post-Libation Thoughts from Susie: How often can cocktail conversation trivia actually revolve around cocktails? Not very. During our Epicuring Spooky Spirits event at St. George Spirits at Hangar 1 in Alameda, we not only enjoyed several creative libations such as The Root of All Evil – a root beer / absinthe concoction – we laughed and learned several important bits of information while touring the distillery: Bourbon only comes from the United States. Anything bourbon-like made elsewhere can’t be called bourbon. Consider it our “champagne.” California liquor manufacturers cannot directly sell their booze to the public. They have to sell it to a distributor then buy it back from the…
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The Other Wine Country Harvest
By Emily Shartin, Epicuring In California wine country, “harvest,” for the most part, refers to grapes. But in just over a month, after all the Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys has been picked, another important crop will be harvested in wine country: olives. If you’ve spent any time around wineries, you may have noticed that olive trees often grow alongside grapevines. This is because the two plants share similar growing conditions, and olive trees are often seen as a way to add some biodiversity to the vineyards. The trees may also be planted around the perimeters of vineyards to help protect vines against wind.…
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Mushroom Lovers’ Events & Classes – Epicuring Picks by Cindy Roberts
Thanks to Cindy Roberts, Palo Alto culinary instructor for sharing her picks for seasonal mushroom events in the area: ‘Tis the season for Northern California mushrooms and you won’t want to miss them. The rains in the last week herald the start of the season in California so prepare yourself for some great eats. Although I tout myself as a mushroom expert I have been humbled recently to find out 500 types of mushrooms grow wild in Mendocino County. That will keep me busy for a long time learning about all of them. Don’t worry if you’re too timid to forage for mushrooms yourself. There are a few upcoming events…
