For the chocolate lover who thinks, local burgeoning flower Dandelion Chocolate is a smart, artisan bar as only SF can temper it: fueled by passion and dot-com dollars, hand-crafted in small batches on hacked or self-constructed machinery, featuring beans bought directly from small farms in the far flung cacao growing regions of the globe, flavored with nothing but roasted cacao and sugar. No dairy, cocoa butter, vanilla, or lecithin get in the way of the fact that it tastes really, really freakin’ excellent. “We get amazingly good beans, minimally process them, and give them a very, very light roast. We get the best flavor we can from each bag of beans,” says entrepreneur and chocolate maker Todd Masonis. Mission accomplished.

photo: courtesy of Dandelion Chocolate

Shoppers of the Mission Community Market and Noe Valley Farmer’s Market are quite familiar with Masonis, Cam Ring, and Alice Nystrom, the young trio who stand at their stall, bowls of teasing tastes in hand, asking passers by to appreciate the flavor profile differentiations of real chocolate bars made from beans from Venezuela, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and the like. Each batch of bars– about a thousand from 30 kilos of cacao — regardless of how popular or in demand it may be, is a unique snowflake of the beans, the roast, the process, and the flavor. And once the supply is gone, it’s gone.

Recent relationship-building visits to farms in Mexico, Madagascar, and elsewhere give these chocolate enthusiasts more to talk about with their growing audience of artisan food appreciators — as well as access to the farmers’ best beans. “Our plan is to try to educate our customer and hope they stick with and learn something,” adds Masonis.

photo: courtesy of Dandelion Chocolate

But education is not only for the consumer. Learning how to make chocolate, building the business, and now scaling the business has been a learning curve for the chocolate trio as well. Masonis and Ring sold their dot-com Plaxo in 2008, allowing them “free time enough to follow our passions.” According to their website, “Our friends often said that given enough time, it seemed inevitable that [we] would open a chocolate factory. They watched as we experimented with growing small cacao plants in our apartments, pan roasted beans in the oven, and ate our way through the many of the chocolate shops of the world.” Their passions fueled a garage hobby, often powered by machinery to roast, crack, winnow, grind, conch and temper the chocolate that they rigged together themselves. Nystrom heard of their unusual venture through friends — there are only about 15 bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the US, about half of whom have sprung up in just the last few years, according to Masonis — and she jumped at the chance to align herself with the team.

After making chocolate for family and friends, Dandelion launched at the now-defunct Underground Market before moving on to the farmers markets and other storefronts like Bi-Rite, Chocolate Covered, and Fog City News. Glitches with City permits have slowed the construction of the 740 Valencia Street operation, now under construction, which Masonis is hopeful will open in a matter of months.

“The vision is that there is a small factory and a little storefront where people can buy a hot chocolate and a brownie. Hundreds of years ago, they used to have coffee houses and chocolate houses. We’d like to make a chocolate house happen once again.”

Factory Cafe. photo: courtesy of Dandelion Chocolate

Dandelion Chocolate will be participating in a Valentine’s-themed sale, A Love Supreme, at Love & Luxe from 5 – 10 PM on Saturday, February 11th.

So, like other food preservationists and kitchen tinkerers, I love to dry things — fruit slices, fruit leather, cheese, beef jerky, etc. In the heat of summer the sun does the work for me. But the other ten months of the year in Northern California, however, I usually rely on my oven on a low setting, door slightly ajar to release moisture, to do the job. And while effective, each bite contains the residual taste of enviro-guilt that comes from leaving the oven on and the heat blowing upward for several hours. The results are excellent, but I cannot help but be haunted by the fossil fuel energy loss necessary for a homemade Fruit Roll-Up.

Certainly I could buy a food dehydrator (and I still may), but my gas oven runs therms, plug-in dryers run watts, and I’m not science-geeky enough to know if they are truly more energy efficient. Plus, I thought, I already own a large piece of heating equipment that dries sopping wet clothing in record speed (also fueled by gas), that spins with convection-like capability.

The Newton’s apple (orange?) that struck me with the idea was a perfectly shriveled piece of orange peel found at the bottom of the clean laundry basket. Had I been sitting on (and ignoring) the world’s best food dehydrator next to the washing machine and not taking advantage of its power? Is it possible to more efficiently dry fruit, vegetables, and meat in the high-heat, high-motion clothes dryer in one round of Permanent Press? Sadly, at least in my scientific exploration, the answer is no.

I quickly sliced a navel orange into 1/8-inch slices. My hope was that a regular high heat setting would yield chewy, moist results. I didn’t want the fruit to touch the walls of the dryer directly, as I feared a future of sticky laundry as I scraped orange sauce from the inside of the machine’s barrel. I thought fabric assistance would help wick moisture and hold the fruit in place, so I grabbed a clean cotton dishtowel. Oh, and a knee sock. Everything’s better with knee socks.

I laid a dishtowel out into a rectangle shape and then arranged two rows of orange slices horizontally across the middle. I folded up the bottom and folded down the top, making sure fruit was tucked into towel completely. Then I folded one encased row over another to sandwich both rows of oranges together.

I used rubber bands to cinch the sides of the towels together and to keep the fruit from falling out. I had first tried this with clothespins, but they banged around too much and some of them broke. Safety pins work, too.

Then — my genius move — I cut the toe from an old knee sock (don’t worry, I’ll still wear it!) and wiggled the sock down like a tube over the entire length of the towel and fruit to secure it. Note that I first tried this with a polyester sock, a fiber known for keeping moisture in. Rookie error! Go with all cotton.

I moved the whole fruit-towel-sock contraption to a mesh laundry bag. If my experiment worked, my hope was that I could put several batches of fruit into the laundry bag and dry them all at once.

After 70 minutes on Permanent Press, the good news is that I managed to contain the fruit and I didn’t have to clean the machine. The bad news, however, is that the fruit was still very, very wet. I tried one more cycle but then gave up, because after two hours, it wasn’t drying nearly as quickly as it does in the oven. If you try a different method and you have any success, please let me know!

In the interim, I’ll go back to drying fruit the old-fashioned way in the oven (OK, modern old-fashioned, because true old-fashioned would be drying it over a fire).  Here’s how I usually do it.

Chewy Dried Orange Slices

Time: About 3 hours

Despite my continuous protests, my mother mails me Honeybell oranges from Florida every year. They cost her a fortune. Some of them always arrive moldy. They’re not organic. And, uh, I live in California where the oranges nearby are outrageously good. I feel bad just using them all for juice, so I dried them with just a touch of sugar to balance out the tanginess of the dried fruit. The finished results are far more complex than they appear: moist, sticky, and chewy, super tangy and super flavorful — like a slice of the best marmalade or orange candy you’ve ever had. Eat them straight up, or use their jewel-like demeanor to stunningly top iced cookies, cupcakes, or cakes. Of course, you can also do this with navel oranges or any other sweet variety.

Ingredients
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 large Honeybell oranges
• 1 tsp. flaked sea salt (like Maldon)
• Crushed black pepper, to taste

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper, and pour the sugar into a bowl or small plate.
3. Using a serrated knife, slice the rind and pith from the bottom and the top of the oranges. Stand the fruit straight up and cut off all of the skin — first cut from top to bottom and then flip the orange over and slice from top to bottom again to remove it all. Thinly slice the well-peeled fruit into horizontal rounds about 1/8-inch thick and move them onto a clean dish towel in a single layer. Once all oranges have been cut, lay another clean towel on top and press on it gently to absorb some of the juice.
4. Dip one side of the orange into the sugar and place it onto the baking sheet sugar side down. Follow suit with all of the oranges until the tray is full — it’s okay if the oranges touch one another, but don’t let them overlap.
5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place them in the oven on a low rack, and leave the oven door ajar with a wooden spoon.
6. Check the oranges after about three hours. They should be tacky on top and may pool some syrup, but not fully dry. If not, check them every half hour for doneness.
7. Eat them warm or pack the oranges in a single layer separated by sheets of wax paper in an airtight container. Store refrigerated for several months.

We’re used to buying cardboard boxloads of factory drone candy canes that are uniform, neatly wrapped, shapely, laden with high fructose corn syrup, and positively soulless. But me — I’m the gal who likes my candy lumpy. If there were an Island of Misfit Toys for food, these “special” little guys would surely be inhabitants (along with Dingle Berries Candy and Hot Pockets, most likely).

Making candy canes is a lot of fun, and the sweat equity can’t be beat. The flavor is clean and super minty (with a little creaminess to it, thanks to the vanilla extract), and the yield is ample enough to allow me to hand them out generously. And despite the number of words in the recipe below, the whole thing took under an hour. There is a knack to it, however, as pulling hard candy can be a tricky mistress. A couple of things to keep in mind, particularly if you’ve never made candy before:

  
•  A candy thermometer is a very, very, very good idea. No reason not to have one, as they are about $15 and they can be used for frying as well. You can buy a cheaper one made of glass, but they’re pretty breakable. I recommend one like this made of metal, with a sturdy clip, and a protector on the bottom to keep the thermometer off the bottom of the pot.

 

• Heat-retardant gloves. These are great to use as oven mitts as well. But if you’re just dabbling and you don’t wish to invest, you can get by with snug mittens covered by disposable gloves (I always have a couple on-hand for kitchen use and home hair dying stolen from my gynecologist’s office), but you will indeed have to endure a little heat.

    

• Be generous with the oil. A light sheen on the pans and on the bench scraper ain’t gonna cut it. Don’t be shy. Speaking of which…

   

• A bench scraper. This is a small wonder in the kitchen, and an inexpensive and easy-to-store must for baking, candy making, pasta making, etc. Two is better, but you can certainly get by with one.

One other thing: despite the candy appeal, I’m sorry to say that this is not a good project for kids. Scalding fluid and fairly quick work don’t mix well with young’uns.

This recipe took a lot of inspiration from this recipe and this video posted by Slashfood.

Let’s candy cane away!

Homemade Candy Cane Recipe

Time: About one hour

Makes: About 16 3-inch candy canes

Ingredients you will need:

3 cups sugar
1 cup corn syrup (Don’t be scared. It’s not HFCS. Totally different thing.)
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. kosher salt
Vegetable oil for pans, tools, and gloves
2 tsp. peppermint oil (ideally not extract, but ok to use if that’s all you have)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Red food coloring — about 1/3 of one of those tiny bottles (however, next time I make these I will first make my own food coloring. If you get to it before me, let me know how it works!)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Oil two large baking sheets, a bench scraper, and kitchen shears or a sharp knife. Lay a piece of parchment paper or a Silpat on the counter where the canes can dry. Move one of the baking sheets to the warm oven.
2. Meanwhile, in a straight-sided deep saucepan off heat, combine the sugar, corn syrup, water, cream of tartar, and salt and stir them together well. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot and move it onto medium-high heat. Without stirring, let the syrup come up to 305 degrees. Using a pastry brush or a paint brush dedicated to culinary use, wash down any stray sugar crystals from the side of the pot. Ready the peppermint oil, food coloring, measuring spoons, and vegetable oil. Glove thyself with either heat-retardant gloves or snug mittens covered with disposable gloves.
3. Once the syrup has reached temperature, pour it out onto the room temperature baking sheet. Drizzle the peppermint oil on top, and using the bench scraper, scrape the hot candy up from the bottom and fold it over onto itself to stir it through. Once it has cooled slightly, mix in the vanilla as well. Note that the peppermint scent in the air will be strong.
4. Continuously scrape up and stir the syrup to cool it until it becomes a pliable dough. Cut the dough in half and move one piece to the baking sheet inside the warm oven. (First, we’ll “pull” the white half of the candy cane. Then we’ll color the red half.)
5. Quickly oil your gloved hands, as it’s now time to pull the candy. Scrape up the candy dough into one piece and, working as quickly and as continuously as you can, pull it out into a rope, double it over onto itself, and twist it together. Pull it, double it, and twist it again. Keep on going this way at a quick clip, and you’ll notice that the candy will start to take on a ribbon-y sheen. This is how the candy will turn white, so keep going until the color is pure. Embrace the upper body workout. Note that anytime the candy becomes too stiff, simply warm it up again in the oven to soften.
6. Don’t let the candy get too hard. When it’s reached a nice white color, place it onto its baking sheet and move it to the warm oven. Re-oil your bench scraper. Take out the second tray of candy dough and pour on the red food coloring — about a third of one of those tiny bottles for a good rich color. Use your scraper fold the candy onto itself to incorporate the color completely. Note that this side of the candy cane does not need to be pulled. Move both candy cane trays to the oven and let them warm through for about 5 minutes until pliant.
7. Once warm and squishy enough to work with, take both pieces of candy from the oven and roll them into logs as long as the baking sheet. Cut each log into four equal pieces. Hang on to one red piece and one white piece, moving the rest of the candy back into the oven to keep warm.
8. On the countertop, line the red and white logs alongside one another and begin to twist from one end, stretching as you go, making the candy canes as thin or as thick as you like. Use your oiled shears or knife to cut the length of each cane. Shape the hook of the cane, and press down on the ends to taper. Set the canes aside to cool. (Know, of course, that you could also cut into sticks, rounds, or individual peppermint sucking candy). Admire the individual quality of your handiwork.
9. Repeat this process with the remaining 3/4 of the candy, one piece of each color at a time.
10. Allow candy to cool until completely hard; about 15 minutes. Wrap each cane in plastic wrap to keep it from sticking. Store in an airtight jar for several months.

Asian cuisine in the Bay Area has a new crop of intensely passionate leaders with enough talent and culinary chops to lure Martha Stewart to the table. Anthony Myint and Danny Bowien stand behind big, bold Mission Chinese. Sylvan Mishima Brackett of PekoPeko Catering’s insanely articulate and authentic Japanese food will certainly land him on the map of grander things — one hopes the rumors are true that he’s seeking his own location.  And scheduled to open in January, FuseBox, the West Oakland eatery of Korean-born Sunhui Chang, will add fuel to the Korean food fire with housemade gochuchang, exquisitely crafted pickles, bacon mochi, and well-honed culinary passion.

What’s pucker-worthy about Chang’s cuisine is its pickle-centric nature, many varieties of which he’s been sharing with the pickling community. He’s currently crafting several different varieties of kimchee, using the standard cabbage and daikon, and also rapini and turnip greens. He prides himself on making use of the “offal of vegetables” and thereby using ever part — including radish greens, and reusing a vinegar pickle brine and the pickled garlic that flavors it. He dunks in the drink your standard vegetables such as cucumbers (see the recipe for Oiji below) and breakfast radish, but also more experimental concepts such as blueberries, summer squash, and fennel.  FuseBox is equipped with some vegetable boxes that will grow some of the produce, and Chang is currently working with the People’s Grocery to have them grow additional vegetables for him. Everything pickled and fermented from Chang’s kitchen will be as closely sourced as possible.

Of course, pickles aren’t the only things on the menu. Bacon-wrapped mochi are satisfyingly stretchy and smoky, and Chang will be grilling ko chu jang pork and chicken yakitori, and caking housemade tofu.

Chang takes regular trips to LA to procure quality, small-batch artisan soy sauce — he says it’s the closest place to find it outside Korea.  But another of the most impressive aspects of Chang’s cooking is that he makes his own gochuchang, the hot, salty and sweet fermented red pepper paste that is the basis of Korean cooking (akin to what miso is to Japanese cuisine). Few are the Korean chefs who make their own. Most Korean markets offer several different varieties, and if you’ve ever eaten Korean food, you’ve tasted it.  It’s used in stir fries like bi bim bab, as a marinade for bulgogi, to flavor stews, as a condiment for crispy lettuce wraps, as the base for soups, and in many varieties of Korean pickles. I’d never tasted good gochuchang until I’d encountered Chang’s proprietary blend of glutinous rice, soybeans, red chili powder, and sugar. The sauce ferments for about 60-90 days.

“It took a while to learn the gochuchang. I went through so many batches where mold had developed. What I make is not as sweet as the store-bought stuff; more earthy.” Chang reports that in anticipation of the FuseBox opening, he’s experimenting with different varieties of gochuchang, including one for fish stews, and another to be eaten fresh.

Chang has kimchee and other Korean flavors flowing in his blood. As a child born in Korea, family friends gathered to play cards at his house and eat his mother’s well-loved kimchee chi gae. “There’s a Korean expression, ‘She just had her hands in the food,’ and that’s why it was so good. We didn’t have recipes or grow up with cooking books. Cooking was just innate to her.”

Eventually, after Chang’s family moved to Guam, his mother opened her own Korean restaurant when he was 13 years old, and he immediately began helping out by cleaning dishes, sweeping, and mopping. Later he was allowed to slice meat and occasionally pop into the kitchen. “I’m so grateful for everything she taught me, and I wish I’d followed her more. However, at the time, I didn’t think she was really, really cooking. It wasn’t as exciting as watching chefs on the cooking shows!” Growing up with Guam’s tiny and remote culinary culture, Chang laughs as he recalls that the PBS show Great Chefs, Great Cities was a huge influence on his career choice.

Just a few days after his 17th birthday, Chang moved to Berkeley by himself to begin qualifying for in-state tuition at UC Berkeley, where he later studied sociology. To fund his schooling, he worked in a bagel shop, then as a butcher and a fishmonger at a market. He soon became a cook at the now-defunct Hwang Won, a Korean restaurant in Oakland, before launching his own catering business for 14 years.

After two years of effort, FuseBox has secured over $17,000 via Kickstarter (where I invested $25); enough to finish construction and, hopefully, have the inside complete for an opening this January. Expansion plans are already underway to offer outdoor seating and possibly open a market next door selling fresh fish, local artisan goods, and of course Chang’s pickles by the jar.

Oiji—Korean Cucumber Pickle

Recipe by Sunhui Chang of FuseBox Oakland

5 small cucumbers—Either Pickling (Kirby), Persian, or Japanese
2 tablespoons kosher salt
3 cloves garlic
The whites of two green onions, cut into 1’ pieces
4-5 Korean chili pepper threads (available at Korean markets)
3/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup water

Wash cucumbers, leaving them wet.  Sprinkle salt on cucumbers and let them sit in a flat dish for three hours, turning them occasionally.

Wash the salt from the cucumbers and trim the ends so that they’ll fit standing upright in a pint-sized jar.  Add them to the jar, along with the garlic, green onion, and pepper threads.

Meanwhile, make the brine.  In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, sugar and water.  Bring to boil.  Lower heat and simmer for 1-2 minutes.

Pour warm brine over cucumbers.  Cover, cool, and refrigerate.  Enjoy the pickles after two days, but they will last up to two weeks.

Makes one pint.

Photo of Bacon Mochi by SunIm Chang. Photo of Kimchee and Gochuchang by Sarah K. Khan.

For the food shopper who thinks, the positively indispensable Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food: A Grocer’s Guide to Shopping, Cooking, and Creating Community Through Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough (Ten Speed Press) released this month is the holy reference guide/blue book that clues consumers in to the real value of what’s on the grocery shelf. At a time when so much is being written about atrocities in our broken food system, consumers looking for sound, actionable advice on making grocery store purchasing decisions will appreciate this neatly compiled background check on everything from canned tuna to flour, fresh meat, fish and milk, and every manner of produce under the sun.

And note that this cannot be dismissed as a mere starter’s guide. As a veteran food nerd for decades, I thought that I knew a something about eating mindfully, ecologically, locally, and sustainably. But a primer on avoiding genetically modified organisms, and a full list of foods that are most commonly GMO? I am edified (sugar, milk and dairy, oils, corn and soybeans — page 12). The pleasures of the texture of bronze die-cut pasta? I had no idea how this aspect of artisan pasta production can be essential for clinging sauce (page 37). And a list of all of the product acronyms on European foods that signify it is a product of protected origin (such as true, regionally-specific Champagne as opposed to methode champenoise) — AO, DO, AOC, DOC, DOP, PDO, and IGT, page 47. And that’s just chapter one, people.

Just as one pushes the cart down the grocery aisle, the uber-brainiac education rolls through every department, well-captured in France Ruffenach’s bright, busy photography that conveys what it feels like to shop in Bi-Rite on a sunny Saturday afternoon or at the 5pm dinner rush. Mogannam and Gough give faces to food throughout the book as well, introducing readers to the likes of his brother Raphael, grocery buyer; farmer for the store’s self-grown produce and produce buyer, Simon Richard; and a smattering of farmers that are enmeshed in Bi-Rite’s business and mission — some, like Drakes Bay Family Farms, purely as retail partner; others, like Soul Food Farm, pet investments to help propel local and sustainable agriculture.

The Eat Good Food shopping information stands alone as a necessity for any kitchen bookshelf. But the tome is also comprised of recipes from the Bi-Rite deli and beyond which, while well written to induce drool and craving, they feel awkwardly placed and difficult to find plunked at the end of each chapter. As a frequent Bi-Rite shopper, I was excited to finally crack the code on their addictive Mujadareh (see recipe below), and their heavenly and rich deli counter summer staple, Sergio’s Gazpacho. Even Delfina’s spaghetti makes a cameo, simple and delicious and part of the book’s neighborhood charm. And thumbing through I quickly found a new favorite, Mom’s Pear Skillet Cake from, you guessed it, Sam’s mother, which yields results that far outshine the effort, and is the perfect thing to be doing with pears right now.

Another challenge of the book is that it’s so much information, it’s nearly impossible to remember the essentials when you’re actually cruising down aisle six. Seafood shoppers striving to do the right thing really benefited from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s wallet card guides to sustainable seafood and then later, their mobile apps. But when pondering the entire grocery store of everything from coffee to celeriac, tri-tip to crème fraiche out in the trenches — well, we could really use an app for that.

In my favorite cookbooks, encyclopedias, or reference books, I turn down page corners and make notations freely, and my copy of Eat Good Food is already remarkably dog-eared. Essential as a shopping list, I’ve no doubt that it will continue to serve as reference and advisor. And that’s far more valuable than a coupon.

Serves: 4 to 6 as a main course, 
or 6 to 8 as a side

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked black or green lentils
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 medium or 2 large onions, diced (about 41/2 cups)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice, such as jasmine 
or basmati
2 tablespoons mild curry powder

Instructions:
Rinse the lentils and pick out any stones or foreign objects. Put in a bowl, add water to cover by 1 inch, and soak for at least 2 hours or up to 6 hours. Drain the lentils and set aside.

In a Dutch oven or soup pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Add half the onions and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and translucent and golden on the edges, about 4 minutes. Add the lentils, rice, curry powder, 
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add 3 cups water, increase the heat to high, and bring the liquid to a boil. Then lower the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cover the pot. Cook until the rice and lentils are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. At this point, it’s okay if there’s still a tiny bit of bite to the lentils; they will continue to absorb water. Remove from the heat and let rest with the lid on for 10 to 
15 minutes.

While the rice mixture is cooking, caramelize the remaining onions: heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add the remaining onions and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally at first and more frequently as you go, until the onions are soft and almost at the brink of burning, 9 to 11 minutes (lower the heat if the browning seems to be progressing more rapidly than the softening).

Set aside.

To serve, fluff the rice mixture with a fork and transfer to a serving platter.

Top with the caramelized onions.

Serve hot or at room temperature. You can make this up to 2 days ahead. If desired, reheat in a covered, shallow ovenproof dish in a 350°F oven for about 
30 minutes.

Reprinted with permission from Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam & Dabney Gough, copyright © 2011. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.

Photo credit: France Ruffenach © 2011