by Christina Waters | Dec 11, 2007 | Holidays, Home |
Some people go shopping, I get baking. Immediately after Thanksgiving I lay in a supply of pastry flour, candied citron, pecans, walnuts, almonds, cranberries, oatmeal, raisins, oranges and spices — oh, and butter and eggs. And then I retrieve my vanilla-stained copy of the Sunset Magazine from four years ago — the one with a few dozen award-winning Christmas cookie recipes. This is my template. I have embellished each recipe over the years, adding twice the amount of spices, plus coriander and white pepper, to the Pfeffernusse recipe. Stepping up the amount of grated orange peel, and substituted almonds for coconut in the cranberry-orange recipe. You get the idea.
Then – for two weekends – I bake. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 6, 2007 | Home |
Here are two of Rebecca King’s week-old lambs, happily lounging with their moms on the panoramic Watsonville pastures of Deep Roots Ranch.
Seriously adorable bits of life.
(See my profile on King and her fledgling artisanal sheep cheese biz in next week’s Metro Santa Cruz.)
by Christina Waters | Dec 6, 2007 | Home |
Before he was the Executive Chef of the University Center’s dining room, Terra Fresca, Jamie Smith was chef at Sestri, where he won a following for his stylish and delicious variations on Mediterranean and New California cuisine. At the upstairs dining room in the centrally-located UCSC University Center, Smith has not only created a go-to lunch menu of standards and daily specials, but his handiwork is further finessed by a crew of polished waitstaff.
I joined Inca scholar Carolyn Dean last week for lunch at Terra Fresca and was wowed by the distinctly non-institutional nature of the menu — and of the flavors. Packed with faculty and guests from the “Science Hill” cluster, Terra Fresca has managed to give a sense of atmosphere to the enormous room — sensational views of the surrounding redwoods — with gobs of botanicals. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 6, 2007 | Home |
Cynthia Sandberg, whose Love Apple Farm is the biodynamic kitchen garden for Manresa (two Michelin stars, David Kinch chef), emailed to show off her new mouth-watering eNewsletter/blog – Grow Better Veggies. It’s loaded with wonderful ideas, recipes, growing intensives and more good stuff to motivate your inner gardener. Add it to your daily web grazing. And sign up so it will come directly to your email in box.
That’s the tomato queen herself on the right, holding one of her hefty heirloom pomodori.
by Christina Waters | Dec 5, 2007 | Food, Home |
First off, there are changes on Water Street. Il Trullo is changing hands – and soon to become something called Limoncello. The word on the street is that Giovanni di Maiao, chef of the original Cafe Bella Napoli, might be coming back to the kitchen. Mangiamo, and stay tuned!. . . And work continues to progress on the long-awaited reincarnation of Oswald. I talked with Eric Lau yesterday and he admits that the opening date has been pushed back to mid-February. But that yes, Damani and Keet are both be on board as partners. “We’re ready to shift into restaurant mode,” said Lau, who admitted the whole build-out of that corner space at Front and Soquel is “very complicated. There are lots of engineering issues.”
Lau also revealed that the new Oswald will open with a full bar — “and that’s pretty exciting. We’re really striving to create something that can deliver the excitement that Oswald did in 1995,” he said. “We want to grow it and redefine it – polish up the concept a bit.”
I told Lau that we were all getting hungry. . . .
