The other day I did one of those double glances -- the kind you do when a super hot guy walks past you and you reflexively jerk your head back twice to confirm he was really that good-looking. Except I did it with beans. I walked past these little babies in Berkeley Bowl and after [...]
I feel like Kraft Mac & Cheese defines every millennial's childhood. Who doesn't remember throwing down their Jansport backpack, grabbing their Skip-It and working up an appetite until mom served you a pile of that gooey mac & cheese for dinner. The truth is my mom almost exclusively served us healthy, homemade, unprocessed food, to the point [...]
Last week I got to do the equivalent of hanging out back stage at a Rolling Stones concert -- I got to go to a "managers' breakfast" with the rock stars of Berkeley Bowl. Diane and Glenn Yasuda opened up Berkeley Bowl in the 1970's and have built a dedicated team of produce buyers and managers that [...]
This week's recipe is one that I developed for an article I wrote for Bay Area News Group, just released this morning. Given the "mainstreamedness" of the readership, I had to keep things a bit more tame to be accessible to a wider audience, while still giving the recipes an "exotic" spin to stay true to [...]
There's a satisfying logic to why I named this salad after the legendary music producer, Quincy Jones. (Well, it's satisfying if you love puns and music trivia as much as my family does.) Here's the logic: The exotic fruit I feature in this recipe is quince, Mr. Jones' fruit namesake. I'll talk more about quince in a [...]
You probably think I'm crazy. Salsify is a food photographer's worst nightmare. Why would I ever choose something so ugly for my blog? I have to throw out my usual hashtags of #foodporn and #veggieofthegods in place of #eatmuddysticks.If you've ever seen salsify at the farmers market or a specialty produce store, you probably walked [...]
Okay, I have two apologies to get out of the way: #1 - I'm sorry I have been MIA . The craziness of summer caught up with me and I've fallen behind. Roaming the aisles of Berkeley Bowl looking for exotic produce inspiration takes quite a bit of time, which I haven't had any extra [...]
For some, the plantain might be the exotic part of this dish. But to me, the milpero were the little nuggets of exotic, tangy perfection that inspired this concoction. If you're debating whether to read on, let me just say that my trusty taste-tester Mike threw his hat on the floor and cried out "this might be [...]
Hippies and foodies seem to rave about kohlrabi but, outside of this circle, this veggie still seems to be quite exotic. Maybe even unheard of. Unless you're a Fraggle Rock aficionado and remember that in episode 506, one of the fraggles uses kohlrabi juice to poison the knobblies. Don't let kohlrabi's five minutes of TV infamy make [...]
A few years ago, my sister Catherine surprised me with her invention of an amazing culinary treat: "fawafel." No, that's not a typo or a speech impediment. It's falafel waffle. She wanted the delectable taste of falafel without the extra mess and calories from frying, so she threw some falafel mix into waffle batter and [...]