Posts filed under 'Travel Food'
The folks at the Cowgirl Creamery in Pt. Reye’s Station, CA are amazing artisanal cheesemakers. My Remodelista friend, Julie, recently turned me on to this incredible wasabi goat cheese sold at Cowgirl Creamery. This chevre presents an amazing range of flavors. The wasabi makes you think this will be spicy hot. Instead, it is only the complex flavor of the Japanese horseradish you get, not the heat.
Cowgirl Creamery is a small producer of exceptional cheeses using organic milk from Straus Family Farms. While they only make a few cheeses themselves, they help to bring artisanal cheese from around the world to us. They have a couple of storefronts in Northern CA and sell their cheeses to a few Whole Foods throughout the U.S. Amazingly enough, they now have a store in Washington, D.C. but if you can not make it to their locations, they have an online business. What a great unique gift for the holidays.
December 5th, 2008
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Located in the picturesque refurbished S.F. Ferry Building, Boulette’s Larder is a true foodie paradise. Amaryll Schwertner and Lori Regis hold a special place in my personal life as an aspiring foodie new to the city by the bay.
In 1989, I had the distinct honor of being able to assist Amaryll as a sous chef for Food Talk Catering company. In the bowels of the Davies Symphony Hall, with hundreds of pounds of fresh swordfish before us to prep before dinner service to the patrons of the Symphony, a 6.9 earthquake hit. Being a recent transplant from D.C. I had no idea what was happening as the cupboards flew open and the china started crashing to the floor. Amaryll swooped me into the door frame and we clung together in disbelief. We parted ways that evening and I did not see her again for many years.
Coincidentally, a few years later, Lori Regis also swooped me to temporary safety. I was floundering as the young, naive chef of Val 21 Restaurant. After relentless months of trying to get this restaurant going and in deep need of a break, Lori came in and not only provided the relief but also awakened my senses to new tastes. She left me with the with new sensation of skate wings, blood orange granita and brown butter almond cake.
These women are incredibly talented, knowledgeable and Boulette’s Larder is a testment to their combined passion for ingredients and cooking. Not only is it a restuarant, but it is also a great place to purchase interesting spices and prepared meals. It is a wonderfully intimate setting that makes you feel as if you were in their home. The food is inspired. These ladies are definitely flavoristas.
Sample Lunch Menu – Boulette’s Larder
December 3rd, 2008
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If a vacation to Hawaii is not on your calender, the next best thing is wonderful friends who bring you an edible souvenir of Hawaiian shortbread cookies from Honolulu. I am not sure if it is the cuteness of these cookies that gets me or the fact they that are really, really yummy. I could honestly hear them calling me through the cabinet as I typed into the night. I actually hid them from my husband and children.
Now, I know that Hawaii is not known for its cookies. When one conjures up Hawaii, it involves beaches, amazing seafood, hula dancing, volcanos and pineapples. Honolulu Cookie Company should make the list! There was a tie for my favorite flavor: Dark Chocolate Kona Coffee and straight Butter Macadamia. I am not sure when I’ll get to go to Hawaii (it’s on the "when I win the Powerball list"). Until then, I can always order more cookies and daydream.
November 7th, 2008
Years ago, Kimberly and I were at the Natural Products Expo East working at the Odwalla/Fresh Samantha booth and we needed a serious break from the convention floor. I had lived in D.C in the 1980′s and loved making the pilgrimage to the Eastern Market.
Ready, willing and able to look at produce just like me, Kimberly and I set out. There we discovered that Market Lunch in the Eastern Market makes an amazing crab cake sandwich. It was an ethereal food moment: A crisp, perfectly seasoned crab cake layered into a homemade, yeasty white roll with crunchy, sweet coleslaw on the side. If you go, keep in mind that Market Lunch is closed on Mondays. I had to learn the hard way. Sadly, the original Eastern Market burned in April 2007. Luckily, the shell of the building was salvaged and the interiors were rebuilt and the Market Lunch Crab Cake Sandwich lives on.
October 30th, 2008
On a recent jaunt to San Francisco, I had to stop into Noe Valley Bakery and grab the family favorites: Double Raisin Bread, teeming with plump juicy raisins, Chocolate Cherry Bread, chunks of dark chocolate and whole preserved cherries, and a new favorite, Apricot Ginger Bread. The founders of Noe Valley Bakery are a husband and wife team that know their way around a mixer and an oven. Their breadsticks are the absolute best, light, thin and very crispy. There are several varieties of wonderful cupcakes (think homemade Hostess Cupcake, chocolate dipped with whipped cream filling) and even a new cream filled chocolate wafer (think homemade Oreo).
For those lucky enough to live near by, they offer a whole line of ready to bake cookies, uncooked pie crusts and puff pastry! Owners, Michael and Mary Gassen, have created a true gem. If you are in S.F. make this a destination. It is definitely one of the places that I miss the most living here in Colorado.
October 17th, 2008
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