Category Archives: entertaining

DIY Delicious at Jimtown—ajvar, crackers, cheese, yogurt cake, sauerkraut canapés and more!

The inaugural DIY Delicious book event was held recently at Jimtown Store in Healdsburg, CA. Since working on the recipes for the Jimtown Store cookbook was my first foray into cookbookery, it only seems fitting. Plus it’s a warm, welcoming space that feels like home and Carrie Brown and her staff know how to make [...]
Also posted in Books, DIY, book events, community, stores | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Really Underground Restaurant

The term “underground” as it relates to food had come to sound ridiculous. These days it’s code for places where droves of in-the-know people in a certain age range and from certain segments of the population gather to wait hours in line for homemade, DIY, fermented, foraged, bartered, guerilla gardened, dumpster plucked, or street vended [...]
Also posted in DIY, Food and Drink | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

What I Finally Did with my Massa Organics Duck

Last fall, Greg tweeted that he’d be selling rice-paddy raised ducks at the Berkeley market if folks wanted to order ahead. I did. I picked mine up on a bright day in September or October. I have no idea which. It was frozen so I put it in the freezer thinking I’d cook it within [...]
Also posted in Asian, Books, Food and Drink, from the market | 3 Comments

On Smuggling, Renaissance Men & Chile Baked Beans with Nopales and Queso Fresco

I found these beans back in January while wandering around the big market in Cuernavaca Mexico. Like almost all markets in Latin America, there’s so much to look at it was a little hard to take it all in. At one vendor’s stall I looked down and there, among the usual plastic woven bags filled [...]
Also posted in Food and Drink, Latin American, from the market, healthy, hearty | Leave a comment

A Sort of Persian, Mostly Vegetarian Passover

I finally wrangled an invitation to a Seder. For years I’ve only heard about the ceremony and the food, and finally this year I got to experience both. I also had the opportunity to help cook this one, so I was really excited.   Our hostess, Haven Bourque, decided on a Persian menu. There were [...]
Also posted in Food and Drink, community, from the market, healthy, holidays | 1 Comment

Delicious Spiced Lamb Patties

Last month when I was working my shift at The Cog, I happily discovered a rancher selling lamb out of a refrigerator in the back of a truck parked just up the street. How exciting is that? I couldn’t help but wonder how many other illicit direct-from- farmer-to-consumer meat purchases were happening all over the [...]
Also posted in from the market, holidays | Leave a comment

Turning Sunburned Persimmons into Persimmon Butter

Blackened organic persimmons for 75 cents a pound vs. around $3 a pound? Sign me up because I’m making persimmon butter. Bought these from Kaki at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market. They told me the alarming-looking sooty skin wouldn’t affect the fruit and they were right. This and the galette I’m using it for are the [...]
Also posted in DIY, dessert, from the market, fruit, holidays, pantry staples | 5 Comments

The ever-giving gift of squash: Squash Souffle for Thanksgiving

The squash from the last post that I used to make the pasta with chanterelles got quite a workout last week. The parts of the squash that I hadn't diced got roasted that same night in wedges until tender. So there was all this squash flesh in my refrigerator. On my bike ride home, where [...]
Also posted in from the market | Leave a comment

Something to Relish

I'm rarely compelled to blog about a product, but here's an exception. I found this at The Pasta Shop in Berkeley just as they were building the new display. They found it at the Unfancy Food Show in Brooklyn. I was smitten by the packaging first and that's about as far as it would have [...]
Also posted in Books, Current Affairs, Film, breads and pizzas, breakfast, community, from the market, pantry staples | Leave a comment

Chicken Empanadas with a Spicy-Smooth Green Salsa

I’ll be teaching a hands-on Mexican snack class at Kitchen on Fire in Berkeley on May 3 for Cinco de Mayo. This is one of the recipes I developed for the class. The recipe requires quite a few steps, but they are all easy and relatively quick. This dough is an adaptation of the empanada [...]
Also posted in Latin American | Leave a comment
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    The recipes and images on this site belong to Vanessa Barrington. Feel free to link here and if you’d like to use a recipe or image, please ask permission first. Thank you.