Eat this now: Insalata Caprese

“Meh” is about the only word I can think of to describe my feelings about eating out lately. When the bounty of summer threatens to overwhelm my refrigerator it seems criminally wasteful to let so much good food go to waste. Well-meaning friends overwhelm my cupboards with figs, zucchini and tomatoes. A former PD employee […]

The French Laundry farm

Jacobsen Orchards in Yountville grow produce, snails for Yountville's esteemed French Laundry

The French Laundry’s farmers

Peter Jacobsen doesn’t get mad at the herds of snails that have made Swiss cheese out of his organic kale. He gets even. At the edge of his 1.5 acre Yountville orchard and farm, the dentist turned dirt-under-the-nails grower pulls open the lid of a wooden box to reveal hundreds of the slimy pests. Instead […]

Eat this now

“Meh” is about the only word I can think of to describe my feelings about eating out lately. When the bounty of summer threatens to overwhelm my refrigerator it seems criminally wasteful to let so much good food go to waste. Well-meaning friends overwhelm my cupboards with figs, zucchini and tomatoes. A former PD employee […]

BLT Brew Ha!

The bacon has hit the fan. Seems that longtime PD food writer and cookbook author Michele Anna Jordan isn’t too happy about Windsor’s most recent attempt to create the World’s Largest bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Chris Smith recently wrote about the flap which boils down to the fact that Jordan (who wrote the BLT […]

I AM HUNGRY

Are you Grateful? Are you Charistmatic, Sassy, Golden or Abundant? Prepare to be all of them…and much moremore when SF’s Cafe Gratitude opens in Healdsburg in mid-September. Are we ready for all this raw, vegan, healthful positivity? The restaurant has been a whirlwind success elsewhere in the Bay Area with its combination of rejuvenating foods, […]

Tosaki Sushi

It used to be that you could pretty much throw a slab of raw fish at me and I’d clap my hands in joy — kind of like a sea lion. I’m over it. Truth is that like taquerias, there are far too many Japanese-style eateries churning out mediocre imitations of the real deal in […]

Battle of the Chefs

After two weekends of judging Iron Chef-style smackdowns — first at the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend and most recently at Kendall Jackson’s Heirloom Tomato Festival — I’m stuffed, exhausted, dehydrated and thoroughly impressed. From the haze that is my addled brain, some juicy tidbits I wanted to share with BiteClubbers. – The big winner during […]

Slow Food Nation Photos

I’m stuck between a food coma and a philosophical mind meld after spending part of the weekend at Slow Food Nation ’08 in San Francisco. Not surprisingly lots of locals were represented at the events including (and this is hardly comprehensive) Cowgirl Creamery, Ecco Caffe, Medlock Ames, many Mendocino Wineries, Nana Mae Organics, Valley End […]

Chef Smackdown Videos

Four chefs, one winner. Who will reign supreme at this weekend’s Steel Chef competition? Check out the trash-talkin’ smackdown videos where Zin’s Jeff Mall, Sonoma Meritage’s Carlo Cavallo, Carneros Bistro’s Janine Falvo and new kid on the block Thomas Schmidt get serious about their craft. Let’s just say there’s some serious produce-abuse involved. And meat […]