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 [...]
Cardoons, or Cardoni, are one of those things that you've probably passed by in someone's garden or a city park, not realizing that a delectable treat was just at your fingertips (if you're willing to brave the prickly leaves, peel away the fibrous strings, chop them, and boil them for thirty minutes before you even get [...]
We're in the midst of a big rain storm in the Bay Area, which happens about as often as a lunar eclipse. We've been trudging along for three years in a drought-induced haze, giving the stink eye to the neighbor who's washing his car with the hose running, turning off the shower water between shampooing [...]
Anyone living in California has seen nopales before, even if they don't realize it. Those cactus with the big oval paddles topped with spiky red fruit you see on the side of the road or invading your neighbor's yard? Yup, that's a nopal, also known as a prickly pear cactus. But unless you are from a [...]
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 [...]
As I already explained in Part I of Squash Week, this is a big freakin' deal in our household. It's like when the fair comes to town, except that instead of feeling all gross inside after gorging on funnel cake and corn dogs, we feel all warm and gooey inside after gorging on one of [...]
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/12/03/blogger-inspired-by-unique-exotic-at-berkeley-bowl/ I had the immense pleasure of being interviewed by Alix Wall, a writer for Berkeleyside Nosh and fellow Berkeley Bowl fan. She really captured the inspiration behind this project and what drove me to this insane challenge of designing a recipe for each and every unusual fruit and vegetable at Berkeley Bowl. Please check out [...]
As fleeting and wonderful as Shark Week, another much-anticipated period hits my household each year: Squash Week (Dun dun dun!). But unlike Shark Week, Squash Week is free of junk science and sensationalism. Well, fine, here's a little sensationalism for you Shark Week fans:Squash Week airs in the McLively household mid-November, when Berkeley finally gets a mid-60's "crisp" [...]
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 [...]