The San Francisco Taste

The San Francisco Bay Area is a mecca for great food. Local, sustainable, organic dining may be a catch phrase in many cities, but here it’s the standard. You’ll find artisan chocolate, hipster coffee, the best pizza restaurant, Italian staples, dishes inspired by divas, and burritos that make grown men weep.

The following books and accessories will bring a wee bit of SFlavor into your kitchen.

Alice Waters

Alice Waters is more than a chef, she’s revolutionized the dining experience by establishing the local, sustainable, organic food movement.

Unlike other superstar chefs, Waters’ recipes focus on superior products and minimal manipulation. So you can do everything her book. Just make sure you use fresh, organic, seasonal ingredients.

Thomas Keller

While Alice Waters represents simple presentations of impeccably ripe ingredients, Thomas Keller’s French Laundry revolutionized Napa Valley dining and made Yountville a destination. Keller’s restaurants bring high-end French dining to ingredient
s grown across the street in a private garden.

Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook will teach you how to make the finest French breads and sweets. It also includes the world’s finest dog biscuits.

Tartine

Bouchon’s not the only bakery making waves in the Bay Area. Tartine opens every morning to a line of hungry customers and sells out before the last one is served.

While Tartine’s bread is epic, their tarts are even fancier than those lighting up the Castro district.

This video gives you a glimpse inside the book.

Tartine Bread from 4SP Films on Vimeo.

The San Francisco Treat

Do you remember the cable car commercials and game show features for Rice-A-Roni® ? It’s the San Francisco treat! But leave it to the Kitchen Sisters to interview the family that created this iconic meal.

“Mrs. Captanian, I had a liking for her right away. So we moved in. Tommy would work until about 7 o’clock at the pasta factory and I was alone a lot,” Lois said. “I was only 18 and I was pregnant. And I had kitchen privileges. Well, I really wasn’t much of a cook. And here was this Armenian lady, probably about 70 years [old], making yogurt on the back of the stove, all day, every day. I didn’t even know what the word ‘yogurt’ meant.”

Mrs. Captanian taught Lois how to make paklava (baklava), soups and her specialty, Armenian pilaf.

“We would bring her Golden Grain vermicelli from the factory,” Lois said. “She wanted us to break it as small as rice if we could.”
Birth Of Rice-A-Roni: The Armenian-Italian Treat – NPR Radio

You can learn more about this and much more in their book.

Hipster and Artisanal

The Bay Area is also home to many small companies that are gaining recognition and rewards for their hyper-attention to quality.

At the end of the day… It’s time for a Mission-style Burrito.

Surprise your honey with this hearty cake

Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to bake your honey something that rocks their house. Surprise them with this set of cake pans that create a hidden heart with every slice.

This kit has two pans, which create the top and bottom sections of the heart. After baking your cake layers, you fill the cake void with your favorite frosting, stack, frost, and enjoy.
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Add Unicorn Flavor to your Cupcakes

Take your cupcakes to the next level with sprinkles straight from the back of a pretty, little unicorn. Both children and adults delight in the sugary goodness from our sparkly ponies.

The reviews for this fabulous product are glowing

It is a unicorn that farts sprinkles…What else need be said?

A must buy for any guy with a princess. 🙂
David Avery – Amazon

This sparkle unicorn may inspire you enough to bake a full cake.

Cooking with Poo

Most people would prefer to avoid eating crap. Which is ironic, since there are so many restaurants serving crappy food. Just watch a random episode of a Guy Fieri show and the dung will be flying.

So, why would you want to buy a classy poo cookbook? Perhaps because the title is misleading and this poo is actually the talented chef Poo. That doesn’t mean this book isn’t a great kick to have on the coffee table when dinner guests arrive.

To finish the night, you should pour some crappy wine and watch the movies:

Simply Adorable Basil

Egglings are adorable little seed bombs that make it easy to grow your own herb garden.

Simply crack the little egg, add some water, and start planning your next plate of pesto pasta. Or at least that is the concept. Growing basil within eggs may not be what it’s cracked up to be.

To me it was a waste of money time and resources. DO NOT BUY. Get a plant from a florist or even from Home Depot- it’ll be better than this piece of crap.
Arielle Gray

Alaskan Ladies are Gonna Get Lucky

This cookbook is guaranteed to make Alaskan bachelors absolutely irresistible to the lady folks up north. It’s also versatile, as girls can also read it.

The Great Alaskan Bachelor’s Cookbook: Ok for Girls to Read Too!
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