I've had this cake on my mind for some time. It has been years since I've eaten one-- not since childhood. I remembered it as being sticky and sweet, delicious and remarkably easy to prepare-- that is, I do not remember anyone ever slaving over the making of a Pineapple Upside Down Cake.

My fondness for the cake was shared-- to my great joy-- by a cartoon dragon who no one seems to remember any more, but has always been associated with the dessert in my head.

The upside down cake is essentially a skillet cake-- begun on the stove top and finished in the oven. Plums, apples, and cherries were popular topping (or bottomings, depending on your point of view) in the 19th century. The pineapple upside down cake, according to foodreference.com, dates to "sometime after 1903, when Jim Dole invented canned pineapple."

The Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole) held a pineapple recipe contest in 1925, with judges from Fannie Farmer's School, Good Housekeeping, and McCall's magazine on the judging panel. The 100 winning recipes would be published in a cookbook the following year. More than 60,000 recipes were sent in and 2,500 of them were for Pineapple Upside Down Cake. IF the cake was popular before the contest, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company took that popularity and ran with it, running ad campaigns based on the fact that so many recipes had been submitted.

I had a very specific reason for making upside down cake this week. I had planned on baking one in honor of the birthday of someone who had, well, turned my life upside down. And turn it he did. It was an obvious metaphor, certainly, but I loved the fact that this simple cake held a secret. Its fruits and its sweetness lay hidden as the cake develops and are then suddenly--almost violently-- brought to the surface.

In a way, I'm glad I didn't make him the cake-- it's too sweet and gooey for my tastes. It is insubstantial. And the thought of eating one now makes me sick to my stomach.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

This is as close to the original recipe as I could find. Typically, the maraschino cherries are placed in the middle of the pineapple rings before baking. I have chosen to omit this step. This way, garnishing with them is still possible, but I can immediately yank them off upon consumption. I dislike maraschino cherries. Intensely.

Serves: 8.

Ingredients:

1 large can pineapple, crushed or sliced
2 cups flour, sifted
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar
Maraschino cherries for garnish

Preparation:

1. Drain the juice from the can of pineapple.

2. Sift 2 cups flour. Sift again with 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

3. Cream 1/2 cup butter, gradually add 1 cup sugar; cream well.

4. Beat yolks and whites of eggs separately. Add yolks to creamed mixture, then add flour and milk alternately, mixing well.

5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and vanilla.

6. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large frying pan.

7. Spread 1 cup brown sugar over the pan.

8. Add pineapple, placing rings closely together in an attractive pattern.

9. Pour cake batter over fruit.

10. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

11. Remove from oven, turn upside down onto serving plate and garnish with maraschino cherries.

12. Promptly throw cake away.

It's time for kids to go back to school, but what are they eating? The foods children consume now can adversely affect their future health, particularly their risk of developing obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Join the September edition of Health Dialogues as we examine childhood nutrition -- in the busy home, in the lunchroom and in the lunchbox.

Listen to the program
Watch an audio slideshow of Balboa High School's Healthy Food Plan.
View a chart showing what some San Francisco elementary students are eating on a daily basis.
Watch a Sports4Kids Video
Join the Dialogue: Many schools in California ban junk food and sodas from campus. Is it wrong for schools to be enforcing eating habits? Or should they be doing more?

HOST: Scott Shafer

GUESTS:
Dana Woldow, Co-chair of the student nutrition and physical activity committee for the San Francisco Unified School District
Patricia Gray, Principal of Balboa High School, San Francisco
Round table of students from Balboa High School: Kristal Davila, Gisell Jimenez, Corrie Fong, Sylvia Brookback, Nancy Doan
Dr. Francine Kaufman, MD, Director of the Center for Diabetes at Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles
Matt Sharp, Senior Advocate at California Food Policy Advocates
Jill Violet, President and Founder of Sports4kids

KQED Public Radio 88.5FM premiere broadcast:
Thursday, September 18, 8:00 PM

Repeat broadcasts:
Friday, September 19, 2:00 AM
Saturday, September 20, 2:00 PM

Listen to The California Report: Health Dialogues -- Junk Food
Reporter: Sarah Varney
It's been a year since California's first-in-the-nation bans on soda and junk food have been phasing in on school campuses. Combating childhood obesity with these prohibitions is proving harder than advocates thought. But how well have the bans worked? Los Angeles was the first district in the state to go soda and junk food-free and provides a glimpse of the challenges other school districts will likely face.

Health Dialogues, a special series from The California Report, engages listeners in an ongoing discussion of California health care issues that are important to the underserved: children, low-income residents, minorities, people with disabilities, immigrants, and rural and migrant worker communities in particular. The series seeks to generate and facilitate dialogue between communities, health care providers and policy-makers.

I'm a very impatient person, but on this trip to Minneapolis patience and forbearance paid off in spades. That said, St. Paul-based Izzy's Ice Cream was harder to get into than SPQR at 7:00 on a Friday.

Our first attempt was via the web on Saturday morning. Since we were crossing the grand Mississippi to pay a virgin visit to the St. Paul Farmer's Market, we thought we'd drop by for a frozen scoop or two before lunch. The website put Izzy's opening hours at 2:00pm, which rather late for what is still essentially summer, but we decided to swing by anyway. Maybe the website was wrong.

We got Izzy's, which was clearly closed, and looked at the hours painted on the glass door. They stated they opened at 12:00pm. It was 11:00am. Without anything left to do in the capital city, we went back to Minneapolis to lunch at Bryant Lake Bowl. (This was a happy side trip because we had our first taste of Surly beer, but more on that later.) At 12:30 we headed back across the river. Izzy's was still not open. This time we found a red sign stating that their "fall" opening hours (valid only for September and October because true Minnesotans know that November is not fall but winter) was 2:00 pm. Lord.

Frustrated and yearning for the elusive salted caramel I had sampled over a year ago, we trudged to Kowalski's on Lake Street. We knew they carried Izzy's but sadly, not one pint of salted caramel could be found. I didn't want to be mad at Izzy's -- after all, they were (by their calculations) the first shop in the nation to be run by solar power! Also, I really wanted to get my husband in on that salted caramel because the lines at Bi-Rite have been Bi-Ridiculous.

Our third and final attempt on Monday afternoon actually got us in the open door, but as we scanned the list of ice creams, we saw no Salted Caramel. We looked in the pint freezer. No salted caramel.

We sighed sadly and made other delicious choices -- sampling an incredible pink grapefruit sorbet before settling on seasonal pumpkin and coffee -- but when I mentioned to the girl helping me that I had been hoping for the mythical salted caramel, she said, "We're making it right now. We'll have it tomorrow." I said, "Oh, I'm leaving town tomorrow..." She said, "We'll have it for you when you get back." "No, I live in San Francisco," I mourned. "Hang on," she said. She went next door -- TO WHERE THEY WERE MAKING THE ICE CREAM -- and came pack with a fresh pint. "We haven't blast-chilled it yet, so it's more like soft serve consistency," she told me apologetically.

Did I care? I would have taken it if it was fully liquid! (Also, since my father has this odd habit of microwaving his ice cream to make ice cream soup, this would be better for him.) It was served that night after dinner and received rave reviews from the whole family.

Sweet was the long-sought taste of salted caramel, but sweeter was the way we got it.

Local chef and blogger Jennifer Carden wrote the cookbook The Toddler Café for picky kids, but truth be told, many of the recipes would satisfy picky adults. A recipe for Pumpkin Pockets isn't so far from a very sophisticated Ravioli di Zucca.

The cookbook makes food fun, all the while introducing lots of flavors, textures and even temperatures to fussy eaters. Carden's book is whimsical and friendly and Matthew Carden's photos capture the joy of discovery and pleasure of eating. In the book you'll find over 50 recipes that are healthy, imaginative and stress free. Recipes have kid-friendly names and there are plenty of tips for toddlers, recipe notes and variations along the way.

What: Jennifer Carden demonstrates recipes from The Toddler Café

Where: Williams Sonoma flagship store, 340 Post St, Union Square, San Francisco

When: 12 - 2 pm, Saturday September 20th, 2008

How: Free!

Why: This is a great book for parents who care about what their kids eat. Get a chance to try before you buy at this in-store demo. A signed copy would make a great shower gift or holiday present.

Recipe from The Toddler Cafe, Chronicle Books.

Pumpkin Pockets
Makes 60 ravioli

8 ounces cream cheese
one 15-ounce can pumpkin purée
1 teaspoon kosher salt plus 1 tablespoon for pasta water
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 package (60) round gyoza wrappers
2 tablespoons butter
grated parmesan cheese

Place the cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat on high for 30 seconds to soften. Add the pumpkin and stir to combine. Add 1 teaspoon of the salt, the nutmeg, and cinnamon, and mix with a stick blender or by hand until the filling is smooth. 

Place a 1/4 teaspoon-sized ball of filling in the center of each wrapper. Wet the edges with water, and fold the ravioli over to form half moons. Pinch to close, pressing down lightly around the mounds of filling to prevent air bubbles.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of the salt. Gently add the ravioli, and cook for about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they float. (Depending on the size of the pot, you may have to cook them in batches.) Drain the pasta and toss them with butter and Parmesan.

Limon, the most popular Peruvian restaurant in San Francisco, closed for repairs in the spring after a fire in the hotel upstairs.

While fans of Limon wait for it to reopen, they now have another place to turn: Limon Rotisserie also located in the Mission.

Before going on, I need to 'fess up here: I am not hugely into Peruvian food. While I enjoy a good ceviche every once in a while, I just don't get the huge allure to the cuisine. Most Peruvian dishes I have fall flat, and I've found the flavors too subtle for me.

However, I was curious to try Limon Rotisserie. I was tempted by the rotisserie chicken, the casual atmosphere, and the inexpensive menu. Limon Rotisserie is a small corner location on Van Ness. The space is friendly with bright colors and comfortable seating.

A friend and I shared several dishes. The rotisserie chicken had flavor throughout, crispy skin, and delicious dipping sauces. The sauteed vegetables had been sauteed with soy sauce which gave them a great taste. The mixed ceviche was well balanced and generous. The fried yucca was crispy and went very well with the dipping sauces.

I will return. I enjoyed the casual atmosphere and came to the conclusion that maybe I've underestimated Peruvian food. The tab, including two Peruvian beers and the food mentioned above, came to $27 before tip -- an extremely reasonable price. I look forward to using Limon Rotisserie as a take-out place for chicken meals at home.

Limon Rotisserie
1001 S Van Ness Ave (at 21st)
415.821.2134
map

Last month, during one of those gorgeously sunny weeks, a friend visiting from China (read: escaping from Beijing's craziness) requested a fun outing that would include a meal highlighting local foods. The perfect side trip came to mind immediately. There's no better way to take in the Bay than on a leisurely ferry ride. And for local flavors, Restaurant Picco offers Marin Mondays, special weekly prix fixe dinners that highlight the best of Marin Country farms. I told my friend to meet me on the Larkspur Ferry.

Skimming along the water, with both bridges within view and plenty of time to catch up on the years that have passed, who wouldn't prefer a ferry ride over stop-and-go, rush-hour traffic? Add Chef Bruce Hill's special menu, and it's a dinner excursion that both visitor and local will long remember.
The Larkspur Ferry leaves regularly from the San Francisco Ferry Building, and a taxi at the other end whisked us within minutes to Restaurant Picco's door. That week's six-course Marin Monday menu featured crudo with local albacore, delicately fried squash blossoms, housemade fettucine with oven-roasted cherry tomatoes and Marin Sun bacon, roasted chicken with fresh butter beans, a cheese course with Point Reyes Original Blue, and for dessert a generous swirl of Picco's famous Strauss Dairy soft-serve ice cream.

After our dinner, I wrangled Bruce into giving us a tour of his amazing kitchens. Beneath the restaurant's hotline and his pizzeria's wood-burning oven lies another whole, wide world of food prep. We walk around back, descended the wooden stairs, and there entered a huge complex dedicated simply to prepping the food before it heads upstairs to be finished and plated and served.

It is a rare and precious thing to have so much space in a restaurant. (I used to shape brioche bread for a leading San Francisco restaurant on a cutting board precariously balanced on a stack of milk crates in a tiny, dark storeroom.) So I took my time admiring the separate kitchen completely equipped with a functioning hood, shining tables that stretch over twenty feet, cavernous walk-in coolers and freezers, and numerous secret corners where Bruce's sous chef, Jared Rogers, cures salumi and experiments with naturally fermented pickles. (How many restaurants boast a working sauerkraut crock?)

Benefitting from the generous budget that spoiled Roxanne's, the previous business operating in that space, Bruce's kitchen staff certainly loves all that roominess. More importantly, though, they enjoy his encouragement and support to explore new techniques. Jared has learned to inoculate their salumi with good microbes against the unwanted molds, to cure dense yet silky coppa, and is currently nurturing a completely new colony of flavorful critters in that sauerkraut crock.

Curing meats involves a fair amount of guesswork and intuition, much trial and error. Some advice from Jared for home cooks interested in making salumi on their own: "Research, start small, take your time, and remember that it's a labor of love and dedication." He recommends starting out with coppa, the easiest cut of all to cure. (Check out Jasonmolinari's detailed blog, Cured Meats: The Art and the Craft, for illustrated, step-by-step instructions to make classics like coppa, braesola, pancetta, and salame al Barolo.)

Back in the prep kitchen, Bruce showed off a high-end Nilma vegetable washer and dryer. This enormous lettuce spinner is actually the baby of the Nilma family. With an office in Reno, the "American European" company sells large-scale kitchen equipment, including the Pioneer Integrated Potato Peeling Line, the Maxim Onion Peeling Machine, and the 3-D Super Dicer, the workhorse of cutting machines. It's rare to find one of their pieces in a small-scale restaurant like Picco -- again, a legacy of Roxanne's over-the-top extravagance -- but anyone who's ever been on spinach duty (like yours truly) will fall in love immediately with the Nilma spinner.

While few of you will need any of this specialized machinery, Bruce's prep kitchen includes a piece of equipment that many hunters, fisherman and serious barbecue folks do have in their home set-up. Those in the know don't waste hundreds or thousands on fancy smokers. Instead, they send off for one of Luhr Jensen's front-loading Big Chief smokers. Easy and efficient, inexpensive and effective, it's one of those perfectly designed pieces that will function exactly as it should free of all gilding and gadgetitis.

As for those who have neither the patience to cure nor the room for even a Little Chief, well, thank goodness we can depend on the good work of professionals like Bruce and Jared to create all these delicious foods.

Restaurant Picco
320 Magnolia Avenue

Larkspur, California 94939
(415) 924-0300

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Indian Summer indeed! Global warming is alive and well when it's pushing 100 degrees in San Francisco in September. Not wanting to make anything that involved getting near a stove, I called my friends J & J and asked if I could come over to their uber swanky and air conditioned kitchen and whip something up for us for dinner. When I woke up yesterday morning and it was 82 degrees, all I could think about was cold gazpacho soup with some thick crunchy crusty bread.

I asked J various questions. Do you have a Cuisinart? No. Do you have a blender? No. Do you have a stick blender? Yes. Is it charged? No. Ok, I'll run to the store, I'll bring my stick blender, and you chill the tomatoes. An hour or so of chopping later, accompanied by a glass of champagne, we dined on some darn good gazpacho soup, much to my amazement, relief and delight. I hadn't made it in literally years, maybe a decade (?!?!), so I was quite nervous but thanks to some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes and a lot of love, it was a hit. I showed some restraint in the chopped garlic area -- vampires, be damned -- but had I not, it would have overpowered, so go with 2 cloves, not the 4 that I originally intended. One jalepeno and we were sufficiently spicy.

J served the soup with a crisp rose, Domaine de Beaurenard, from the Cotes du Rhone and we toasted (our one minimal use of the oven) some thick country bread and rubbed it with a garlic clove and a roma tomato cut in half as they do in Spain. A little garnish of basil chiffonade and we were good to go...

Cold Gazpacho Soup

Ingredients:
1 large can (20-something oz) whole peeled + 3 - 14 oz cans Progresso diced tomatoes + juice
2-3 heirloom tomatoes (diced, save juice and add to bowl)
1 basket small orange baby tomatoes (cut in half across the equator)
1/4 - 1/2 cup white wine or champagne vinegar (depending on consistency & taste)
1 red pepper (cut out ribs, seeds & dice)
1 yellow pepper (cut out ribs, seeds & dice)
1 jalepeno pepper (cut out ribs, seeds & dice)
1 avocado (half for the soup, half for the garnish)
2 large shallots, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 ribs celery, diced
1 english cucumber (cut off most of the green, leave a little for color, scoop out seeds, dice)
juice of 1 lime
sea salt, fresh ground pepper

Preparation:
1. Save a few tablespoons of the baby tomatoes, red pepper, yellow pepper, cucumber, celery, half the avocado, and 1/2 tbsp of diced jalepeno for the garnish.

2. Put everything but the avocado in a small bowl, add a swirl of olive oil, some sea salt, fresh ground pepper and stir. Add the avocado and stir gently. Set aside.

3. If using a stick blender, combine all the vegetables + lime juice in a large glass (or non-reactive) bowl along with half the vinegar and blend. I like mine a bit chunky, not super smooth, so I blended in pulses moving the stick blender along the outside of the bowl. If using a cuisinart, just pour it all in and pulse until you get the consistency you'd like. Add more liquid (vinegar, stock, water) if you want a thinner consistency. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as you'd like.

4. Mine didn't not come out a bright red as you might imagine because I added the avocado but I like the creamy consistency it gives the soup. I topped each bowl with a tbsp or two of the vegetable brunoise garnish, a few ribbons of basil, a drizzle of good olive oil and a few drops of really good balsamic vinegar.

Bon appetit and stay cool!

The espresso ganache-based Obama chocolates that Cosmic Chocolates pours out in Oakland as part of their "Cosmic Icon" collection is old news in the Bay Area. Tasty, but old. Therefore, our Bay Area political chocolatieres should step up their game because Boston-based Burdick's is seriously outclassing them.

Check out Burdick's separate Obama and McCain chocolate boxes. Not only do you get a jean jacket-ready button touting either campaign and a festive box tied with blue or red ribbon and bearing the party's animal, but each box of chocolates is flavored in line with each candidate's history.

For example, the McCain box features an "Arizona Citrus" chocolate and a "Hot Pepper Tequila" chocolate. Separately, they are sort of a mystery -- when I think of citrus, my mind does not jump to AZ -- but together maybe they make sense. Sort of a chocolate cocktail. Try shoving both in your mouth at once and see if I'm right.

Also confusing in the McCain box is the "Kentucky Rye" chocolate, described as "dark ganache with a strong rye whiskey, seasoned with citrus." Huh? I guess it could just be one of their signature chocolates, along with the tiny chocolate mice and Kentucky Truffles also included in the assortment, but wouldn't it have made more sense to developed a beer-flavored chocolate?

The Obama box features a dark chocolate-coated Hawaiian pineapple pate de fruit and another made from Kenyan coffee ganache and coated with crushed coffee. The "Kansas Corn Crunch" -- dark Bourbon whisky ganache -- might seem confusing until you recall Kansas is his mother's home state. (Note: Obama won't do well in Kansas this fall, so Burdick's might want to rethink that one.)

In order to remain fair and balanced, I bought and tasted both Obama and McCain chocolates. (That way, their voting system could just toss out my vote.)

I grew up in a house divided, so for my parents' anniversary (September 11th, no less), I sent them boxes from each party. My Dad's a definite Republican, and while my mother has always been a liberal, I'm never 100% certain which way she'll go. She might see this as a bribe. I wrote, "Happy Anniversary to a couple who have always remained strong individuals even after 40+ years."

So, if you're undecided about which way to go in November, buy a 1/4 pound of each and let your tastebuds decide, because unlike the actual political parties, neither of these will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Can't you just see Stephen Colbert chewing these over, trying to determine which one tastes "more presidential"?

Another food purveyor tempting the nation's political palate is Northbrook, Illinois deli, Max and Benny's. They've baked and frosted cookies in the likenesses of Obama, McCain, and Biden. I'm not so sure I'd want to eat a McCain, though; check out the expression on his face! It's got indigestion written all over it.

Also, one of my favorite beer companies from back east, Magic Hat Brewing, has tricked out their 12-packs in all sorts of vote-happy colors and images as part of their get out the vote campaign with Head Count.

I've served dinner to thousands of people over the span of my adult life. In that time, I have been alarmed-- though seldom to the point of fits-- by the number of those people who do not know how to behave at table. Proper table etiquette is often poorly executed.

I don't mention this for reasons of stodginess, I mention it because I see what is happening at the tables of countless business dinners and first dates-- people trying to impress one another and failing miserably. On one end of the spectrum, there are the overly cautious-- those who navigate their dinner with extreme caution, eating their olives with knife and fork, for example. Then, of course, there is the other, cork-sniffing variety too hideous to mention this morning. Most people, fortunately, fall somewhere in between, but are sadly unclear on the finer and much more subtle points of dining. So I thought I might drop in from time to time and explain, as gently as I can, how you might avoid some of the most common pitfalls of eating in public.

Since my mood this week is decidedly morbid, I thought I would share with you the proper way of ending it all.

Finishing Your Meal

When one has had enough of whatever is placed in front of him, no pushing away of the plate is necessary, no handing your mess off to the first member of the wait staff who passes by, no verbal proclamations other than those that convey how lovely everything was, is necessary to let others know your condition.

Only one simple, silent act is necessary to communicate your state of doneness. For those of you who do not already know this, here's how:

The above photo illustrates the proper way to tell the world "Yes, I have finished with my meal." Place your knife and fork together, with the business ends point roughly to "10 o'clock" on the clock face that is quite often your dinner plate and with the sharp end of your knife facing inward to avoid any show of aggression, no matter how you might actually feel. It is a clear and, hopefully, unmistakable signal to your fellow diners and to whomever may be clearing your plate.

Do not make an "x" with your utensils. Not only is this incorrect and, frankly, boorish, it is a potential hazard-waiting-to-happen. Proper placement of utensils allows whoever is removing your plate to stabilize the knife and fork with his or her thumb, ensuring that, upon removal, they do not slide off the plate and on to your clothing. Improper placement means your server must spend more time interfering with the flow of business conversation or the ogling of your date's décolletage. And no one wants that-- not you, not your server.

You should also be aware of when you finish. It is just as rude to lag far behind in pace with your fellow diners as it is to race too far ahead. Though you may be engrossed in deep conversation with the person sitting on your right, you may have failed to notice that everyone else at your table has been finished with their meal for a good fifteen minutes. No fine dining server worth his or her grey sea salt is going to clear anyone's plate from your table until the last person has finished. But patience has its limits. For example, I occasionally have to let some of my guests sit with dirty plates for up to half an hour while their blithely unaware tortoise of a tablemate chews and chatters while everyone else squirms, wants coffee, or is jonesing for a post-prandial sugar rush. In such cases, I feel I have to act in the interest of the table as a whole and somehow signal to the lagger that he is on his own. The irritation of everyone from one's boss (or clients) to the wait staff is palpable. Be aware of your surroundings.

I hope this has been enlightening. It felt very, very good to share it today.

Now, if you will please excuse me, I have to go to work and wait on some more people so I can come back and tell you you what they're doing wrong.

When people tell me they're going to New York City I ask where they will dine. Then I make suggestions. Sometimes I'm even crazy enough to ask someone living there which restaurant is their favorite. People who love to eat get a pained expression on their face when they attempt to take in my queries. They tell me it's impossible to choose just one. While I can see their point, I disagree.

My favorite restaurant in New York City is Prune. It's on first street between first and second avenue, and it's so small that a lazy blink will guarantee completely missing it. Prune is Paris small, and if you need a lot of personal space, it’s not the place for you.

Gabrielle Hamilton is Prune's chef-owner. The first time I met her it struck me that she was unafraid of voicing strong opinions, but didn't take herself too seriously. Her food is soulful, clean, clear, straightforward, homey, and humorous. While many chefs speak a rhetoric the media adores, Ms. Hamilton's restaurant walks a talk unspoken, but felt down to your very toes, should you have all your senses open when you dine there.

Prune's tiny space presses disparate people against one another and the conviviality is sweaty and infectious. That close, familial feeling starts with the staff first, and many people who work at Prune were only going to stay there for a few weeks but are there year after year, still, when I make my pilgrimages.

Luckily for us, two Prune chef alums, Ginevra Iverson and Eric Korsh have recently migrated West to Sebastopol and opened Eloise, in fact. After getting ahold of the news on EaterSF some time ago, I knew I would make the drive, and who I would take. My friend DB said, after looking at the menu for the first time, "Yeah, but the problem is we're going to need to order everything on there. I will not be able to choose."

Luckily, DB and I are both famous eaters, and we didn't have to do much choosing last night, because we ordered all the appetizers except one and for that we substituted a Hudson Valley free-range foie gras torchon with Eloise garden grown peaches and pears.

What we ate, in order from extra ordinary to just great:

Chilled Tomato Soup, Heirloom Tomatoes, Mint & Chives; Mushroom Toast, Poached Egg, Black Truffle, Bordelaise; Roasted Bone Marrow, Parsley & Shallot Salad; The Foie Gras Special; Bibb Lettuce, Warm Feta, Scallion, Red Wine Vinaigrette; Puntarelle, Chopped Egg Vinaigrette, Candied Bacon; Octopus and White Anchovy Salad, String Beans, Fingerling Potatoes; Crispy Sweetbreads, Pickled Vegetables, Raisin-Mustard Vinaigrette.

Next time we’ll focus on entrees.

If we could have ordered one it would have been Ricotta and Chard Gnocchi, Brown Butter, Sage. But after eight dishes, in three courses, we were happy to get the dessert menus and call it a night well spent.

Eloise is aesthetically stunning. Seeing its understated sign on Gravenstein Highway South won't prepare you for a restaurant both elegant and comfy, country and city, understated and decorated, whimsical and clean, open and intimate. Upon entering you're greeted with small bar and a fabulous floor of Moroccan tiles. A number of vegetable gardens, currently in seasonal transition, flank the kitchen; and a wall blocking the old highway from the dining room's view is terraced with herbs and wildflowers.

If you can get to Eloise before night, it's one of the best restaurants to watch day turn to dusk and then thick inky blue sky. Sebastopol remains a mostly agricultural town and the air, especially as we Northern Californians gently enter autumn, is redolent of apples, grapes turning into wine, and cow pastures; sometimes all at once. Night skies are dense with stars when clear.

Eloise’s dessert menu is tiny compared to it's salty side. Three items were offered and Ginevra's special of rhubarb crepes and vanilla ice cream was offered verbally by our gracious waiter. Off the menu we ordered Sugared Doughnuts with Raspberry Jam, and the special. While I can appreciate offering simple, straightforward plates in the last course category, I found desserts lacking. I'm a tough customer, though, and I was glad not to see San Francisco's ubiquitous lowest-common-denominator pannacottas and molten chocolate cakes.

Cooking in and for New York City is a very different experience than that of Northern California. Chefs Iverson & Korsh have given birth to a bi-coastal restaurant, both in technique and inspiration, and my hope is their success makes way for other chefs inspired by farm-kitchens to journey West or East, depending, expanding our ideas about what ingredient-driven cuisine can be.

Eloise, at its nascent six weeks old, is doing a great job. And my belief is that it will only get better. As leaves turn, and fall arrives, Sebastopol explodes with the fruit it’s famous for: apples. And perhaps these chefs, inspired by Gabrielle Hamilton’s unique humor, carry with them a mischievous secret: they’ve moved from the Big Apple to seduce California’s apple county.

Restaurant Eloise
2295 Gravenstein Highway South
Sebastopol, California 95472
707. 823. 6387

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