The Culinary Timeline is a side-project that I've been working on since October. I'm hoping to have most of it complete by the end of January, with any luck. Until then, updates around here will be weekly, rather than twice weekly. Do stay tuned.
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Pizza @ Arizmendi Bakery, Emeryville: Housemade Tomato Sauce, Kalamata Olives, Spinach, Parmesan and Garlic-Herb Oil.
Arizmendi Emeryville lies in the shadow of Pixar Animation Studios, and although the bakery may not provide the ideal venue for a high-level power lunch, it certainly must be a welcome oasis for those who don’t occupy Pixar’s corner offices. And that’s the point, really: Arizmendi Bakery is steeped in the ethos of the everyman, an owner-operated cooperative and a spin-off of the famous Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley. Since its initial launch in 1997, the Arizmendi Bakery has expanded to four locations [... read more ...]
Gateway Market, Emeryville: Adorned with a fantastic mural alongside its parking lot, the Gateway Market is tough to miss on San Pablo Blvd. The artwork has a definite graffiti vibe, but the details are fantastic. Luckily, it hasn't been tagged over. The "W" in Gateway is pictured above (each letter has its own theme). Click on the photo to reveal all of the great flourishes.
Most of these pictures have never appeared on this site, although a couple did appear a few years ago, long before I sharpened my photo-editing skills. Many readers have emailed me about my [... read more ...]
Try a Little Tenderness: The Back Rib Sandwich @ Solbar, Calistoga.
I’ve cooked plenty of baby back ribs in my day. When I worked at Houston’s Santa Monica (many moons ago), I prepped the restaurant’s pork ribs on a nightly basis. It went something like this: At the end of the night, the ribs were rubbed down with a mixture of sugar, Kosher salt, and spices, before spending about eight or 10 hours in a 250°F Alto-Shaam. In the morning, the now-tender ribs would be carefully dipped in bacon fat and wrapped in plastic. At this point, the [... read more ...]
Cheese Pizza @ Little Star, Albany.
For the most part, Little Star Pizza trades on its reputation for baking one of the Bay Area’s best (albeit few) deep-dish pizzas. That certainly isn’t a bad thing, although in my opinion, deep-dish pizza is barely analogous to thin-crust pizza (same flavors, yes, but so much different in nature). Being a West Coast native, my sensibilities naturally lean towards a more Neapolitan-style pie, and Little Star’s thin-crust alternative, pictured above, is a pleasant and competent offering. Without being specific, or overly back-handed, I’d probably rank it near the bottom of my [... read more ...]
It’s usually surprising for most people to learn that, by volume, the Napa Valley accounts for just 4% of California’s total wine production (in total wine revenue, Napa would earn a much larger percentage, though I don’t have the specific figure for this category). Still, as one of California’s most important wine regions, it’s interesting to learn some of numbers that shape the Napa Valley. At my last board meeting with Slow Food Napa Valley, one of our members distributed copies of Napa County’s 2010 Agricultural Crop Report, which is published by the Department of Agriculture and Weights [... read more ...]
Stay Golden. The Pan Dore @ Mama's on Washington Square, San Francisco: Sourdough French toast, thinly sliced apples, and a sweet lemon-butter sauce.
Although my kitchen Spanish is pretty sharp these days, I’ll admit that it took some googling to decode the etymology of Mama’s delicious pan dore, pictured above. The word pan, of course, means “bread” — I did know that much already — but the word dore had me stumped. I eventually concluded that the dish must take its name from a conjugation of the Spanish verb dorar, to gild, or in the culinary realm, to [... read more ...]
Planned Pizzahood: The Margherita @ Emilia's Pizzeria, Berkeley.
I’m not an actual resident of Berkeley, so I don’t claim to know all of the subtleties of ordering a pizza at Emilia’s on Shattuck Ave. But I do know that Emilia’s is not your typical drop-in pizza joint like, say, Cheese Board, or Gioia, or Blondie’s, or Fat Slice. Unlike most other college-town pizzerias, eating at Emilia’s requires some planning: To begin with, the restaurant itself seats less than 10 people, and is only open from 5pm to 9pm, Tuesday through Saturday. It’s friendly, but it’s geared for take-out. [... read more ...]
Al Pastor Tacos @ La Luna Market, Rutherford.
When I was working as a wine educator in Rutherford and Oakville, quick lunch options were unusually scarce. Aside from an occasional Dean & DeLuca sandwich, Mexican food was the only feasible option up valley — not that I ever complained all that much. Being a native of California, Mexican food will always be a staple for me, and the tacos on this page represent literally hundreds of past lunches, especially the tacos al pastor at La Luna Market, pictured above. Conservatively, I’ve eaten over one thousand tacos at La [... read more ...]
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