Carolyn Jung is a James Beard Award-winning food writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area with years of experience in traditional and digital media. She is the author of the cookbooks, "San Francisco Chef's Table'' (Lyons Press), and "East Bay Cooks'' (Figure 1 Publishing). She was a staff writer at some of the top newspapers in the country, including the San Jose Mercury News. Her work has been published locally, nationally and internationally in such publications as the San Francisco Chronicle, Modern Luxury Silicon Valley magazine, Food Arts magazine, Wine Spectator magazine, EatingWell, Via magazine, Edible Marin-Wine Country, Edible Silicon Valley, Every Day with Rachael Ray and Via magazine. She is also the creator of the award-winning blog, FoodGal.com. She has judged a bevy of cooking contests, including the biggie of them all, the Pillsbury Bake-Off. She has hosted cooking demos at Macy's Union Square San Francisco and been a moderator for the Ahwahnee Hotel's "Chefs' Holidays'' event. Additionally, she is a social media manager for local food companies.
T'Maro has arrived. Last month, it debuted as one of the few women-owned spirits companies in the United States. T'Maro was founded by Heather Freyer, a San Francisco spirits industry veteran; and chef Elizabeth Falkner, founder of San Francisco's groundbreaking bakery Citizen Cake and producer of the 2023 pandemic-era restaurant documentary Sorry, We're Closed.
The Best Recipes from Top Chefs in the West. 23 favorite recipes from some of the most popular restaurants in the West, past and present.
Whether you're in the mood for hiking, wine tasting, or exploring a historic downtown, you'll find delights here for the entire family.
A bespoke culinary collaboration at Proper Hotel draws inspiration from an arresting neighbor - the Asian Art Museum.
Personal computers, smartphones and self-driving cars have all left indelible marks on the world. Now, Elenor Mak is aiming to do likewise with a cute-as-a-button doll with almond-shaped eyes, long
Mr. Jiu's veterans Chris Long and Franky Ho will showcase Hong Kong-inspired casual fare at Four Kings when it opens in March. The duo hopes to bring their playful takes on iconic Cantonese dishes to a wider audience.
It's all of six miles from the blue-collar, multiethnic Excelsior District of San Francisco, where he grew up, to the hip, artsy South of Market neighborhood where he now works. But for Richard Lee, it proved a formidable destination that took nearly two decades of grit and diligence to reach.
Over the decades, herds of dairy cows have given way to well-heeled shoppers on land where now sits the upscale Stanford Shopping Center; and auto repair shops downtown have been supplanted by high-tech firms creating the latest and greatest. Throughout Palo Alto's seismic generational changes, though, one beacon of constancy has endured - the Peninsula Creamery Dairy Store & Grill.
Armed with audacity plus his lucky shovel, Raymond Vineyards proprietor Jean-Charles Boisset stood poised to plant something that might never fulfill its promise. On this St. Helena parcel in spring 2022, he placed oak and hazelnut trees inoculated with Tuber melanosporum spores.
On a fateful evening when he was 15 years old, Rogelio Garcia remembers his mother growing more lost by the minute as she drove with him and his sister and
With startup indoor mega farms proliferating, newfangled products crowding grocery store cases and a growing list of celebrated chef partnerships, the fungus among us is having a major moment.
At Firebrand Artisan Breads, wild yeast starters give hearth-baked loaves their loftiness, distinctive tang and formidable crust. But it's this East Bay bakery itself that has propelled an even greater
At downtown Los Altos' new Tal Palo, a winsome Mexican cafe and thoughtfully curated lifestyle boutique, it's all in the family. And this is one family who's clearly all in on their first venture together. In fact, husband-and-wife owners Aaron Porter and Adriana Dominguez are currently the only employees at their Main Street business that opened in December.
San Francisco chefs Jason Fox and Ian Gordon may be friends and colleagues. But once they step onto the mat, Fox, the executive chef of the Proper Hotel, and Gordon, a chef at two-Michelin-starred Californios, transform into fiercely calculating competitors intent on forcing the other into total submission.
Nowadays, the Omakase Restaurant Group epitomizes laser-focused success with establishments that include two Michelin one-starred San Francisco restaurants, Omakase and Niku Steakhouse; the Michelin Bib Gourmand-anointed Okane in San Francisco; six wildly popular Bay Area outposts of Dumpling Time; and its newest San Francisco endeavor, the 3-month-old modern American-inflected Rosemary & Pine - its first non-Asian concept.
When invitations went out this summer for Webb Ranch's milestone 100th anniversary party, Tom Hubbard, president of this family-owned Portola Valley produce-growing and horse-boarding farm, figured maybe 30 people would show. Instead, an astonishing 450 current and past patrons turned out for the celebration featuring live music, food trucks and a dunking tank.
Located in an 1894 Queen Anne-style Victorian in downtown Mountain View, Chez TJ has embodied the little house that could.
If the once-friendly skies seem more fraught than not, skip the plane and get behind the wheel instead for a northward spin to Wine Country - Oregon style. In the famed Willamette Valley, not only do wineries abound, but also craft breweries, hip restaurants and bountiful farm stands, not to mention an endearing, quirky charm all too elusive these days.
For chef Douglas Keane, the road here has been not merely long and winding. It has been brutal. When his acclaimed Cyrus in downtown Healdsburg closed in 2012 following a landlord dispute, he vowed to reopen the two- Michelin-starred restaurant elsewhere in the Alexander Valley.
L'Apero les Trois delivers much-needed joie de vivre In this new normal, where home is work and work is home, the line between on-time and off-time has blurred unsettlingly, requiring near-herculean effort to entirely unplug and unwind.
A couple of tech veterans are making an award-winning whisky that merges Scotland and Silicon Valley.
Between the pandemic and the labor shortage, automation is having a moment.
A Chinatown museum returns with an unprecedented and inspiring tribute to a trailblazing native son.
Shekoh Confections marks the return of the chef-chocolatier behind Shokolaat.
Under its current leadership, a nonprofit that serves kids in the community has vastly broadened its offerings -- and shows no signs of slowing down.
When the pandemic first curtailed indoor dining, and with it the tech company private parties that were a lifeblood, owner Rocco Scordella stepped inside his Palo Alto restaurant, Vina Enoteca, and pondered whether diners would ever again fill this yawning 7,000-square-foot space. He thought he was done for.
A young couple revitalizes a Chinatown treasure, once the stomping grounds of Bruce Lee.
The newest wines arousing an insatiable thirst aren't crafted by the likes of Mondavi, Harlan or Rothschild - but by Patagonia. The Ventura-based, environmentally conscious outdoor clothing company may be best known for fleece jackets, alpine pants and tough-as-nails duffels.
When Guinness McFadden first laid eyes on remote Potter Valley in Mendocino County, with its expansive pasture lands and pear orchards, he was told he'd never prevail in growing wine grapes in such cool temperatures. But McFadden has never been one to take "no" for an answer.
For the past 46 years at Redwood City's Gourmet Haus Staudt & Biergarten, husband-and-wife founders Lothar and Lucie Staudt have been adored fixtures at this charmingly patchwork German grocery store and specialty restaurant. Even after retiring in 2009, and turning the reins over to son Volker and daughter-in-law Maryann, they couldn't tear themselves away.
For 18 months, Sophie Smith diligently worked on the line at San Francisco's A16, roasting shishito peppers drizzled with Calabrian chili, and twirling pasta in verdant pistachio pesto, dreaming of someday, somewhere, ascending to executive chef. To her astonishment, she's forging a name now in a whole different way.
Madera, Menlo Park As Michelin-starred Madera's new executive chef, Sulatycky strives for the "complexity of simplicity." Take his roast chicken. In his hands, it is anything but ordinary. Sulatycky, Team Canada's highest finisher (placing fourth) in the Bocuse d'Or, and now head coach for Team USA, has spent decades perfecting his roast chicken.
After a helter-skelter year of one too many Instant Pot stews and limp takeout pizzas at home, we've fallen into a major culinary rut. Been there, chewed that. The time has come to heap our plates again with thrills and excitement. Get your gourmet groove back with a virtual cooking or tasting class.
Arif Mehmood once had what he considered an enviable life as a corporate chef. He earned a $120,000 salary overseeing breakfast, lunch and dinner services for the Bay Area offices of ByteDance and First Republic Bank. He also set up splashy new Silicon Valley tech cafes, and even cooked alongside Wolfgang Puck every year at the celebrity-studded Governors Ball in Los Angeles.
Three restaurateurs. Three di!erent Bay Area regions. Three tumultuous experiences. What they share is unwavering resilience in a cataclysmic year.
Ryan Cole has learned to live life in two-week increments.
As a child growing up in San Francisco, I knew Chinatown innately. It was where my mother would shop for glistening, bronzed roast ducks for dinner; where my dad would pop into a bakery to pick up strawberry chiffon cake in a pink box; where we'd get our fill of dumplings at cacophonic dim sum parlors; and where I'd joyfully run up the iconic wide spiral ramp of the landmark Empress of China on my way to many a Chinese wedding banquet in its expansive hall.
When the House of Prime Rib reopens today for the first time in seven months - the longest closure sustained by this San Francisco institution since opening in 1949 - much will be the same, but a few things will definitely be altered due to pandemic protocols.
Chef Cindy Pawlcyn of legendary Napa restaurant Mustards Grill lost her house in the Glass Fire - and her prized collection of cookbooks. Shortly after, friends, colleagues and strangers approached her with cookbooks from their own collections. "I burst into tears," Pawlcyn said of the first donation she received.
Napa chef Cindy Pawlcyn lost her home in the Glass Fire. With it, she lost thousands of cookbooks that she's been collecting since she was a young girl, including signed editions by James Beard and Julia Child, as well as vintage ones collected on her travels.
On a fateful evening in late March, chef John Paul Carmona and his two business partners gathered for dinner after a taxing day of painting walls, hammering banquettes and polishing vintage brass lights for their impending casual French restaurant. Their timing for opening Routier in San Francisco couldn't have been worse.
The custom-made, quadruple-decker trolley that once rolled to tables at Protégé to entice wide-eyed diners with latticed pies, golden kouign-amanns and burnished canelés, is now parked unceremoniously in a corner.
As it marks its 50th year, the nourishment that Meals on Wheels provides is more vital than ever.
Fabrice Caporal's retirement plan is unusual, to say the least. To call it audacious would be a vast understatement. The Alameda software engineer with a wife and two teenage children didn't sink his million-dollar life savings into tech stocks or mutual funds, but into 26 acres of dirt.
Before sunrise one eventful summer morning, a double-decker 18-wheeler pulled into a sprawling ranch north of Calistoga, completing its 2,500-mile journey from Florida ferrying a precious and unique cargo. When the ramp descended, out waddled one black pig, which sniffed around curiously before 79 others disembarked.
As wild populations falter, aquaculture will be essential if we want to eat seafood in the decades to come. So it’s more important than ever to find ways to do it like Michael Passmore does—better, cleaner and more efficiently.
You know you've achieved world domination when you win a top international prize so often that you're ruled ineligible for it ever again. Such is the case for Trick Dog, San Francisco's trailblazing bar, which was honored with the Spirited Award for "world's best cocktail menu" from the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation in 2017 and again this summer.
Last month, Jason Fox, chef and owner of San Francisco's MICHELIN-starred Commonwealth, closed his restaurant. And in the past nine years, Fox has done something rather uncommon: he managed to donate a portion of sales-more than $400,000 in total-to local charities. All the while, he weathered the doubling of food expenditures.
GREEN TEA AND HONEY MAKE FOR A KINDER, GENTLER KOMBUCHA Carissa Ashman was spooning up a steaming slurp of chicken pho at Napa's Kitchen Door restaurant, a bottle of sparkling mineral water alongside, when she found herself longing for more. More, that is, beyond the bland beverage at hand.
No matter the direction he steers his pickup truck from his home, Douglas Keane inevitably confronts a vista so wrenching that it haunts him. Not far from where he lives in Sonoma County's Alexander Valley, four properties have come to symbolize promise and, ultimately, defeat.
Built on pilings over Tomales Bay to accentuate the soothing feeling of floating in the azure water, this quaint seafood shack on Highway 1 in Marshall couldn't be more peaceful and picturesque. But Tony's Seafood proved to be one deceptively turbulent ride for John Finger and Terry Sawyer, founders of Hog Island Oyster Co.
TYLER FLORENCE'S UNCRUSHABLE CELEBRATES THE LIGHT OF A DARK ERA FOR WINE COUNTRY On a frightfully windy night three years ago, Linda and Clyde Lorentzen fled their Santa Rosa home of 48 years-where they had raised their children and babysat their grandchildren-uncertain if they would ever see it again. They didn't.
Palo Alto's Olenka Villarreal is on a mission to bring inclusive recreational spaces designed for all ages and abilities - to more communities. It's telling that two play areas in Palo Alto's Mitchell Park are as deserted as a ghost town. After all, they're just not where the magic is.
At Sabio on Main in Pleasanton, in the dead of winter, chef Francis X. Hogan was serving something unheard of in the Bay Area. On the menu were locally grown, vine-ripened tomatoes. They were not only green, uncharacteristically crunchy and imbued with an astonishing flavor of stone fruit, but were still in peak condition - even after being harvested two months earlier.
Unlike some contemporaries, husband-and-wife San Francisco restaurateurs and Lindsay Tusk are not all about stamping out cookie-cutter establishments one after the other as quickly as possible. No, they prefer to do their own thing in their own good time, opening their Michelin three-starred haute Cal-Italia Quince in 2003, then coolly waiting seven years before launching their casual trattoria Cotogna next door.
Where to shop like a chef in California wine country. Explore the best California olive oil and wine, still-hot pastries, and local cheese. Visit Oxbow Public Market, Model Bakery, Sunshine Foods Market, Rancho Gordo, Oakville Grocery, and Finesse The Store.
You may think you know babka, especially if you've howled over that notorious Seinfeld episode in which Jerry and Elaine are foiled in their attempts to buy a chocolate one. But you haven't experienced the full potential of this Eastern European specialty until you've had Babka by Ayelet.
There's no need to pitch a tent or pack a bedroll to be a happy camper at downtown Menlo Park's buzziest new restaurant. Camper, now open in the former LB Steak space, aims to celebrate the great outdoors with casual yet thoughtful cuisine dictated by the freshest bounty of the seasons.
Skip the trip to the coffee shop, and save a few bucks, by perfecting your own version of a pumpkin spice latte. This easy recipe uses whole, natural ingredients for a healthy twist on fall's favorite drink.
KELLI DUNAJ CREATES ART OUT OF THE TAPESTRY OF LIFE AT SPRING COYOTE RANCH Five years ago, Kelli and Ken Dunaj swapped their hard-charging big city lives for a different kind of hard work on Spring Coyote Ranch, a 210-acre olive and sheep ranch overlooking picturesque Tomales Bay in Marshall.
The Chronicle has launched a new weekly Travel newsletter! Sign up here. Enter your email at the top and check the box marked "Travel." When he first moved to Monterey County in 2013, chef David Baron and his family were driving around one night in search of a place to eat, when they stumbled upon a restaurant at a hotel right on the beach.
Much like the growth of the World Wide Web itself, Yahoo co- founder Jerry Yang's passion for art has been an evolution of sorts. It started out with a definite whimper-not a bang-when he was a child in Taiwan, forced reluctantly to study calligraphy in school.
Anthony Tam was a supply chain manager at a Fremont tech firm when he embarked simultaneously on his own startup-waking up in the wee hours to handcraft one exacting piece at a time. His focus wasn't hardware, but rather software of a decidedly delicate nature.
Beyond the dramatic backlit bar, tufted banquettes, and custom cheese and tart carts, there is a seemingly inexplicable memento tucked away on a back shelf at what is arguably the most anticipated restaurant to debut in Silicon Valley of late.
Silicon Valley's elite can easily jet to the poshest spots around. Yet, increasingly, when it comes to vacation destinations, some local movers and shakers are opting instead for some of the world's most impoverished places-to pick up paint brushes, hammers and shovels, and to listen to heartbreaking accounts of violence, upheaval and turmoil.
BAY AREA CHEFS AND FOOD COMMUNITY NOURISH THOSE IN NEED DURING THE 2017 WINE COUNTRY FIRES Whenever the wind starts to howl now, Kelly Smith reflexively tenses. It's enough to bring her nearly to tears, as the terrifying memories of fleeing her Santa Rosa home in the dark of night come flooding back.
Guneet Bajwa, managing principal for Presidio Companies, knows what it's like to jump through the bureaucratic hoops involved in building hotels in California and the west. But his Sacramento hospitality development company nearly met its match when it first applied to build Las Alcobas, the tony resort that opened last summer on Main Street in St.
Bold flavors and nuanced spice combinations are hallmarks of Ethiopian cuisine. Here, Chef Fetlework Tefferi shares some of her favorites from this intoxicatingly aromatic cuisine.
CHRIS COSENTINO COMES TO NAPA Chris Cosentino is in a good place now. Not just geographically, even if his surroundings at the moment are quite enviable. Fresh off a 25-mile bike ride, the 45-year-old chef is bolting down an egg-white frittata on the veranda of a historic St.
Th e Valley’s art scene is fl ourishing, thanks to passionate supporters like those featured on the following pages—including a major collector and a consultant to newly minted millionaires, as well as forward-thinking leaders at established institutions.
She is known as "the bag lady.'' But to Shujan Bertrand, there is no higher compliment. Since founding Aplat in 2014, her line of novel, hand-made-in-San Francisco totes have become the darling of discriminating shoppers. Heath Ceramics, her first retailer, sold out of her culinary tote in one week.
The historic, barrel-tiled building on West St. John Street is a cornerstone of San Jose's Little Italy. When built in 1925, though, the original Italian business there took pains to cloak its ethnicity as animosity toward anything Italian reached a pinnacle. Now, a new venture is settling in at the site, proudly and fiercely proclaiming its Italian roots.
In recent years, the startup and tech boom has had a mouthwatering repercussion in the Valley: a thriving culinary scene marked by a fresh crop of chefs, buzzy restaurant openings and enterprising edible pursuits. Here, we spotlight a handful of individuals-both well-established and under-the-radar-impacting where and what we want to eat right now.
Gordon can make a foamy cafe latte in less than a minute. Little Toro can take a ball of dough and flatten it into a perfect round of pizza crust in 5 seconds.
The tech industry's appetite for good food and its wealth of discretionary income has been a major driving force in the past few years in invigorating the restaurant scene in Silicon Valley. Just consider that when the Michelin Guide released its first Bay Area edition in 2006, only two Silicon Valley restaurants were honored with star ratings: [...]
When Andrea Nguyen, noted Asian culinary expert and cookbook author, left Los Angeles for Santa Cruz County 19 years ago, she was surprised to encounter a rather dispirited food scene. Despite local farmers' markets carrying the most vibrant of produce, the dining landscape was lackluster, dominated by the frozen, the fried and far too many flabby clam chowders.
Throughout his career, Charlie Parker has been a chef at impressive restaurants far and wide, including Manresa in Los Gatos, The Village Pub in Woodside, Ubuntu in Napa, Freddy Smalls in Los Angeles and three Daniel Patterson establishments (Plum Bar in Oakland, Haven in Oakland and Alfred's Steakhouse in San Francisco).
Carolyn Jung | Photo: Cody Pickens | March 2, 2017 As the QVC cameras roll, a young woman, dressed in a festive frock, with glowing complexion and lustrous ebony locks, uncaps a jar of thick-as-butter anti-aging cream made from wild shea nuts grown deep in the Nile River Valley.
The app that pairs restaurants with on-demand workers Because it's booked solid every day, San Francisco's Michelin two-starred Lazy Bear restaurant can't afford to lose any of its workers for a night. [...]
Inside a secluded test kitchen on a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Napa, innovation of a most tantalizing type is brewing.
Chef Kyle Connaughton's singular focus leads to a singular sensation Chef Kyle Connaughton has treaded a most purposeful path in life. It started at age 9 with a bite of raw fish. He was so enraptured by that first encounter with sushi that he knew he had found his life's calling then and there.
Discover which of Hawaii's six main islands is ideal for which type of traveler.
Chef Dustin Valette is a third-generation Healdsburg native whose downtown restaurant Valette is proudly housed in his great-grandfather's former bake shop. A quarter century ago, he remembers the plaza as sleepy, with a vacant lot where the Hotel Healdsburg now stands, a funeral parlor across the street, empty parking spaces galore and just one restaurant of any distinction.
How one native Hawaiian brought back his family's abaondoned farm with an ancient tradition.
Chefs Jessica Carreira and David Costa had but a modest dream: to elevate for a new generation a most soulful yet unheralded cuisine, one based upon their Portuguese grandmothers' cooking, marked by time-honored techniques and humble ingredients like tripe, pig ears and the indispensable salt cod known as bacalhau.
The founder of Imperial Tea Court, the venerated Chinese teahouse in San Francisco's Ferry Building and Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, Fong is on a remarkable journey to create what he hopes will one day be the highest-production tea farm in the United States.
Chef Douglas Keane Makes His Mark in Napa While Plotting Cyrus 2.0 When Chef Douglas Keane first stepped inside the renovated Freemark Abbey Winery-with its rough-and-tumble stone walls and dramatic steel-beamed, plank ceiling gently curved like a wine barrel-words fairly failed him. "It took my breath away," he says with a wide smile.
Brazenly buttery, studded with dried fruit and blessed with an ethereal texture, the Italian Christmas bread has produced a precipice of untold awe, anxiety and failure in many a pastry chef attempting it. A classically trained pastry chef who has worked at elBulli in Spain, Bouchon Bakery in Beverly Hills, and Pierre Hermé in Paris, he started his Richmond baking company, Panettone From Roy, last December.
He is an angel investor and serial internet entrepreneur who founded such successful startups as Hotbar, the first company to commercialize a browser toolbar. Yet Oren Dobronsky knows his true legacy will probably lie in something entirely different-a humble chickpea dip.
Carolyn Jung | Photo: Darlene Phan | November 14, 2016 If he bakes it, they will come. Such has been the response to the pop-up bake sales that pastry chef John Shelsta began hosting this summer on Saturday mornings at Zola restaurant in downtown Palo Alto.
Phat Vu's journey to opening his first restaurant required navigating turbulent waters-in more ways than one. At age two, Vu, his eight siblings, his parents and another 25 family members crammed aboard his father's shrimping boat in the middle of the night, setting sail to escape the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Ulli Bisono grew up in an Austrian Alps village with the centuries-old tradition of homemade brandies distilled from local fruit. In fact, no Christmas was complete without the custom of marching bands going door to door to entertain before receiving at each stop a few coins and a glass of brandy.
When longtime Peninsula restaurateur and caterer Maurice Carrubba first heard about an old restaurant for sale atop Santa Clara County's Mount Hamilton, reachable only by a serpentine road built with more curves than a Kardashian, it took his breath away-in more ways than one.
Acclaimed Chef Ron Siegel Dazzles at Rancho Nicasio's Western Room Through soaring redwoods, past undulating hills and beyond stables of plaid-blanketed horses, no less, sits a low-slung building straight out of the wild, wild West. It sports a teeny post office, a not-much-bigger general store and a restaurant long known more for its live music than for any trend-setting cuisine.
Alan Lovewell found a market for underutilized species of fish: school cafeterias
Dan Gordon and Steve Sinchek prove you can go home again.
Where's the beef? Introducing the Impossible Burger.
Commuting is such a chore these days. Good thing so many Caltrain stations are mere steps away from surefire sustenance, guaranteed to get any weary traveler going again.
If one local inventor has his way, the future of furniture and home design will be fungal.
Food waste is a mounting problem in our landfills. Alarmed that 40 percent of all food in this country ends up trashed, intrepid companies are turning former discards into innovative artisan finds. Here are 3 companies that are preventing tons (literally thousands of pounds) of food from ending up in the trash.
Ostrander, who grew up 40 minutes away in Sacramento, had never visited Winters, but he was lured by the opportunity to create a restaurant from scratch in an unlikely setting. Aaron Babcock, who came on board from Michelin three-starred Manresa in Los Gatos, oversees the wine program that eventually will grow to 500 selections, including Park Winters' own Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel, made in partnership with Berryessa Gap Vineyards.
With its deep blue waters now teeming with life, it's hard to fathom that there was a time when whales, otters, sardines, kelp and other marine life were stricken here, fished to near depletion or driven elsewhere by the warming and changing of the currents.
In the stillness of sprawling forest in Angwin, fallen twigs and leaves from mighty oaks and manzanitas snap and crackle under the feet of chef Christopher Kostow. On the tail end of winter break from the Restaurant at Meadowood in nearby St.
A Little Bit Of Everything, And It Works He may be known for his electric-socket blond curls, his sizzling chart-topping Van Halen vocals, and his devilish declaration that he just "Can't Drive 55." But these days, the Red Rocker also wants you to know he makes a mean red sauce.
Bay Area chefs embrace elaborate Japanese dried persimmons Carefully wrapped inside the back of the freezer in his San Francisco home are the precious dried persimmons known as hoshigaki.
A Sanctuary Above the (Michelin) Stars Right before service begins at Quince restaurant in San Francisco, Chef de Cuisine Jonathan Black keeps to a ritual that girds him for the intensity of a kitchen soon to serve 100-plus exceedingly expectant diners on this typical evening.
When sipping that daily espresso, cappuccino or other cup of joe, you may pride yourself in knowing where the beans originated, their roasting method and whether they're Fair Trade certified. But what you might not realize is that every pound of coffee produced creates an almost equal amount of waste.
Aged pa’i ‘ai, akule, pohole, limu salsa verde, Town Restaurant
Derived from the French word "to find," the name refers to the mission to express the singular terroir of its Central Coast varietals. [...] it also reflects the remarkable narrative of its founders, two siblings who spent half a lifetime apart on different continents, unaware of the other's existence, until a fateful phone call, a serendipitous letter and a shared love of wine reunited them.
Like the pivotal climax of a drama unfolding on the big screen, Kevin Longa's freeze-frame moment jarringly came when he was all of 11 years old.
PHOTOS BY ROD LAMBORN Fairytale Jack's Magic Beans Have Nothing on These Beauties BY CAROLYN JUNG French Laundry culinary gardener Aaron Keefer knew what he cradled in his hands was special. Even legendary.
"When you talk about Korean food, you think of Santa Clara immediately," says Sung, board member of the Korean-American Chamber of Commerce of Silicon Valley and of Cupertino's Silicon Valley Korean School, the largest Korean school in the world outside of South Korea. [...]
"Where the Mellower Wine Enthusiast Wanders''
On the edge of his Sonoma vineyard aptly named Scintilla ("spark of an idea"), vintner Robert Sinskey has yanked out grapevines to make room for a few hundred oak and filbert trees.
With a glass of Madeira appropriately in hand, Jacques Pepin leans back in a leather wingback chair beside the kitchen adorned with his own watercolors of fanciful scallions and a whole fish.
Thirty-five years ago, Calvin Lamborn matched A with B and wound up with the world's first sugar snap pea. He's still at it, bringing to light a bushel of kaleidoscopic peas and leaves that make chefs swoon. At 80 years old, Calvin Lamborn would not be faulted for riding into the sunset.
Nathan Myhrvold's technological solution to the kerfuffle unleashed last year by Time's "Gods of Food" dust-up: transform them into Goddesses and invite them to dinner. Carolyn Jung goes to his lab to taste how it all went down.
Chef Joshua Skenes created the ultimate pop-up success story in one of the world's most discerning cities. (Story pages 94-96)
Just ask Tim Stannard, founding partner of Bacchus Management Group, which includes the plush Village Pub in Woodside. BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse is so close to Apple's Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino and such a hangout for its engineers that it's jokingly been dubbed IL 7, an Apple building that doesn't actually exist.
Green Gold Grown by the Coast Story by Carolyn JungPhotos by Stewart Putney Fresh wasabi is not easy to grow. It takes skill, fortitude and endless perseverance. That's why in all of North America there are only a handful of farms that cultivate this nobby-looking Japanese rhizome, not the faux mash-up paste of horseradish, mustard and green dye most familiar to us at run-of-the-mill sushi bars.
Chef Curtis Stone offers tips and recipes for effortless summer entertaining.
Meet rocker Neil Young's son and the golden eggs he sells.
A specialty, high-tech farm that aims to change the face of urban farming.
With California’s foie gras ban set to take effect July 1, a slew of the state’s chefs hold last-hurrah dinners as protesters howl. And behind the scenes, a stir to amend or repeal the law.
The best places to get your veggie fix in the West.
How Tom Douglas' famous pie came to take on a life of its own.
Don and Sally Schmitt's enduring legacy in the Napa Valley and beyond
When John Tudal purchased the unassuming, 6,000-square-foot, three-story property across from Jack London Square in Oakland three years ago, the real estate developer thought he was merely acquiring another old office building to refurbish. Little did he know that this once-cold storage building would be the catalyst to take him on a special journey home again.
In the pint-size kitchen of his San Francisco home, chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Carlo Middione hunches over a counter, methodically rolling veal meatballs as tiny as necklace beads to add to a pot of simmering chicken broth. At the dining table, he ladles the soup into bowls, adding a shower of freshly grated Parmigiano to each.
How adding brunch service has boosted or become the bane of restaurants in this laggard economy.
How Oakland became the next Brooklyn, with a profusion of exciting new restaurants.
One woman. One restaurant. Together, they seduced us...
Videos and Podcasts
On November 7, 2021, Acterra hosted a holiday cooking forum featuring a diverse set of notable Bay Area chefs demonstrated how to prepare their favorite plan...
Host Liren Baker talks with James Beard award-winning food and wine writer Carolyn Jung about the rich food culture in the Bay Area, and appreciating the food communities that inspire her to write for the top publications in the country, as well as her books "San Francisco Chef's Table'' and "East Bay Cooks.”
Listen to this episode from The Well Seasoned Librarian : In conversation with Writers, Chefs, ,Bakers and Farmers. on Spotify. Carolyn Jung is an award-winning food and wine writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Join Carolyn Jung in conversation with Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters and her daughter, author Fanny Singer.
James Beard-award winning food writer Carolyn Jung discusses her latest book "East Bay Cooks", which features profiles and recipes from 41 chefs and business owners based in Berkeley, Oakland, and the surrounding areas. She shares her knowledge of Bay Area restaurants and food culture, and how to support restaurants during this time.