Unterman Tips

391 days ago - The leaves on the vines have turned brown and the ground looks like a green carpet in the Napa Valley. This is the moment for locals to visit. No traffic. Exquisite light. A bracing chill in the air. I spent a day in the Chiles Valley, east of Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail via Highway 128, an elevated swatch of hills and vineyards that runs parallel to the valley floor. This hidden area is known for zinfandels and lush Bordeaux-style blends. The red wines have a characteristic spicy, peppery quality that I like. My faves include Green and Red 2004 and 2005 Zinfandels ($20 to $25); the soon-to-be-released 2006 Brown Estate Chiles Valley Zinfandel (around $55); Volker Eisele's 2004 cabernet sauvignon ($40); and the super-spicy Nichelini Primitivo ($35). Take a drive through this hilly subsection of the Napa Valley to get a sense of what wine country used to feel like, and then get a bite at Ad Hoc, Redd or Bistro Jeanty in Yountville to see what it has become.

398 days ago - Many dim sum shops line lower Clement Street, where you get in line for triplets of hot dumplings directly from the steamers at very cheap prices. Though I often end up at Wing Lee, irresistibly convenient across the street from Green Apple Books, I like Good Luck Dim Sum, three blocks west on Clement, best of all. Try savory, juicy, pork-filled shark’s fin dumplings; round, flat, translucent chive dumplings with shrimp; and crystal dumplings filled with pork and cilantro — all of $1.55 for three. The sweet rice bun (65 cents) — a huge ball of black, mushroom-scented sticky rice — reminds me of stuffing. I love it. Be sure you know what you want when it’s your turn or you’ll get dirty looks from those waiting behind you. You can circle what you want on a reassuringly short pink menu sheet as you wait in line. See what others get and ask them what it is.

426 days ago - Elizabeth Andoh, anthropologist, food journalist, and inspired cross-cultural explainer, can deepen any traveler's experience in Japan. After her talk to the San Francisco culinary delegation to Osaka, the food started making sense. Andoh came to Japan 40 years ago as an American graduate student and stayed. As an outsider who has become an ardent insider, she brings a perspective that solves the mysteries of Japan's customs for Westerners. A longtime New York Times and Gourmet magazine columnist, she runs A Taste of Culture (www.tasteofculture.com), a Tokyo and Osaka-based culinary arts program with a Web site rich in links that includes a charming online newsletter on seasonal food and life in Japan. Prepare for a trip by reading her cookbook “Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen.” Once there, a cooking class followed by a meal in one of Andoh’s home kitchens in Osaka or Tokyo, or a food shopping tour, will set you on the path of rare enjoyment. When Andoh teaches, nothing, at least culinary, gets lost in translation.

433 days ago - Elizabeth Falkner likes to play the naughty girl in the pastry kitchen. She breaks all the rules. Goat cheese ice cream? Cayenne in a parfait? Basil in an ice cream sandwich? The very form of her desserts, full of trompe l’oeil and sly juxtapositions, stretch the imagination. She picks up ideas from every dessert tradition — Japanese, European, Latin American, American, South Indian — throws them up into the air and lets them float down to the plate.

440 days ago - If you find yourself anywhere near Petaluma at lunchtime, consider stopping at this charming self-serve cafe that not only sells its famous, chewy, wood-oven baked breads, but makes sandwiches and salads of exceptional provenance using produce from nearby farms. Though the kitchen takes ages to make the food, the wait is worth it.

447 days ago - Frontera Grill, the progenitor of the regional Mexican restaurant in the United States, opened more than 20 years ago in Chicago. Chefs Rick and Deann Bayless continue to run an exemplary restaurant. At a dinner there last week, two of us had lively ceviche ($11) with crispy tortilla chips; turnover-style quesadillas with guacamole ($8); a cazuela of chicken and potatoes, with smoky chipotles and charred tomatoes ($8.50); and a big juicy grass-fed rib-eye steak marinated in green chiles ($36). Frontera pioneered using locally raised and sustainable products in its Mexican kitchen, an inspiration for other restaurateurs.

454 days ago - Proust got it right: Nothing so vividly conjures up the past as a meal, a scent, a texture. Cecilia Chiang, now, unbelievably, 89 years old, has drawn upon her food memories to tell a personal story, full of suspense and fascinating detail. Yes, each gripping chapter ends with a handful of doable and tempting recipes adapted from The Mandarin, her groundbreaking, elegant northern Chinese restaurant in Ghirardelli Square, but it is the narrative that grabbed me, from her aristocratic childhood in Beijing in the ’20s, to her almost accidental entry into San Francisco’s restaurant scene in 1961. Assistant Lisa Weiss magically caught her voice. I must disclose that Chiang has been a pal of mine for 25 years, but it wasn’t until I read “The Seventh Daughter” that I understood why she remains a force of nature, who in her Chanel suit and pearls, still eats and drinks everyone under the table.

468 days ago - Eating at Tajine sent me to my food encrusted copy of Paula Wolfert’s classic cookbook, “Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco.” Published in 1973 but released in paperback by William Morrow in 1987, it was the first American cookbook on real Moroccan cooking, and it remains the best.

475 days ago - “The Way to Tea” (Earth Aware Editions, $21.95), a slim, handsome, hardcover guide, explores the range of tea possibilities in the Bay Area with alluring photographs and straightforward text. Commercial photographer and tea enthusiast Jennifer Leigh Sauer shot 18 tea destinations encompassing traditional Chinese, Japanese, English and San Francisco’s own eclectic tea houses. Like any well-researched and opinionated guidebook, “The Way to Tea” awakens curiosity, gets the reader to try new places, answers questions and, in this case, opens up a culture that is blossoming right here. Sauer accidentally discovered the world of tea when shooting photos in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The owner, Uncle Gee, of Vital Tealeaf at 1044 Grant Ave., invited her in from the street for a tasting. She was drawn by the visual but hooked by the convivial spirit of the place. Though tea drinking confers many health benefits, the greatest of all may be the balm of inclusiveness, respite and relaxation. For more information, visit www.waytotea.com.

482 days ago - The Knight Center for Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is sponsoring a provocative weekly film festival about the ramifications of food production. Each week brings different films, topics and speakers, including Michael Pollan with a sneak preview of “King Corn”; a panel on corn, farm subsidies, rural communities and the Food Bill; and experts Anuradha Mittal and Michael Watts, who is a UC professor of African studies and geography, discussing the international politics of food supply and global commodities trade after the film “Darwin’s Nightmare.” The free programs take place at various UC Berkeley locations. You can hop on to the series on Oct. 11 for two documentaries, “Our Daily Bread” (pictured) and “We Feed the World” followed by a discussion on global vs. local and the divergence of food culture, with Acme Bread founder Steve Sullivan.

489 days ago - Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown Wednesday, is celebrated with a meal that incorporates symbolic ingredients such as raisins, apples, figs and honey, harbingers of sweetness and good fortune for the year ahead. Noe Valley Bakery, an excellent neighborhood bakery opened by Mary and Michael Gassen in 1995, will be offering four different kinds of challah ($5/$5.50), a braided egg bread with a light, cake-like texture (plain, poppyseed, sesame seed and raisin); an airy apple cake ($10) studded with apples and topped with buttery streusel; a fig tart ($4.50/$25) with almond paste topped with fresh figs; and a rich honey cake ($10) with almonds and raisins. When they started, the Gassens specialized in dense, chewy fruit breads. Now the bakery turns out breads, pastries, cookies, cakes, pies and a new line of voluptuous cupcakes ($2-$2.50), like a Boston cream pie cupcake filled with vanilla pastry cream and topped with fudge frosting. I buy their flaky croissants and crumbly orange-currant scones every Saturday at their booth at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

510 days ago - John Cawley of Pacific Gourmet, a longtime wholesaler of specialty foods for Bay Area restaurants and stores, says that the big story in food imports these days is the 400 percent drop in the price of bourbon vanilla beans. Three years of typhoons and bad weather in Madagascar, Reunion and the Comorro Islands (the source of 80 percent of bourbon vanilla), had run the price sky-high. So, growers from other countries where the vine-like orchid plant can grow, like Uganda and Indonesia, jumped in to fill the gap and the commodity price has dropped from $180 to $20 a pound. Bourbon vanilla beans have a sweet, tobacco aroma that actually reminds me of bourbon whiskey, though the name derives from the Isle de Bourbon, now Reunion, where the French first built plantations. When we think of the vanilla flavor in cookies or ice cream, it is bourbon vanilla we are imagining. However, the price of indigenous Tahitian vanilla, a different species with a more delicate and floral nose and a plumper, softer pod holds steady at $160 a pound.

566 days ago - Those who work in the multifaceted Bay Area food industry can apply to attend a culinary tour to Osaka organized by the Japanese Cultural and Community Center celebrating the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco-Osaka Sister City relationship.