This past weekend many of my favorite activities came together under one roof for one night only in San Francisco. On Saturday August 12, from 7 - 9 PM Slideluckpotshow brought handmade food, art, artists, friendliness, beautiful thought-provoking images, eating new things, seeing old friends and making new ones, giddy excitement at the spontaneousness of it all, and deeply inspiring ideas about creating community together. It met me when I left the just cooling breeze of San Francisco's dusk and entered the vast white space that is Sandbox Studios on Minnesota Street. Slideluckpotshow met all my expectations and then far exceeded them in a few minutes, when, after arriving too early with my carpool, put me to "work" being a 20 minute volunteer.

The first time I read about Slideluckpotshow was in Time Out NY on a trip there. I kicked myself for not thinking of the brilliant idea myself. And then I wished I still lived in New York City. Well, for a minute, at any rate.

Recently, via Marcia of Tablehopper and through an odd series of random emails, all mere days before the event, I heard that Slideluckpotshow was coming to my fine, fair city. I could barely contain myself long enough to think about what dish I might create to welcome Slideluckpotshow's founder Casey Kelbaugh and his crew. How could I convince them to come to SF again? How could I gather all the troops possibly interested in coming to an event displaying such an incredible amalgamation of ideas?

It's true, Slideluckpotshow had little advertising. Until I posted the information on eggbeater no one I knew had heard of it or realized they were coming SF at all. Which is really unfortunate, because it was right up our alley!

The requirements for attending for Slideluckpotshow were easy. Make food (I made enough for 30 people but most people made enough for about 12, depending on the portion size), or bring really good dishes from a reputable prepared-food vending source. Make or bring great beverages. If the first two are not possible, give a good donation at the door. {My friend DB gave $10.} Come hungry at least a few minutes, or up to 2 hours, before the slide-show. Be prepared to sit on the ground if you don't get there early enough to nab a seat in a chair or on a comfy couch. Wear the eye glasses you do for watching a movie, if needed. Enter a small body of images for the show and make the deadline. Or don't submit "slides" but be prepared for seeing/ experiencing a wide range of aesthetics and mediums projected on a 20 foot screen via an Apple computer. There were two sections of the slide show, each running at about an hour, with an intermission in the middle.

My favorite artists from Saturday night's SF showing are the following:

Jessica Rosen's powerful images of transsexual women in Brazil, high contrast, slightly ironic (fashion or not?) portraits by Olivier Laude, Jonathan Solo's graphite pencil work wherein he, "collages the drawings... to create meta-feminine/masculine figures from a fantastical assemblage of physical characteristics." There were two artists whose photographic documentation of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reached into my core, but Heidi Schumann's images and astute interplay between sound (all the slide-sets were accompanied by music of the artist's choice) rendered me speechless. Although it's difficult to pick a favorite set and artist, I will. Tim Gasperak contributed a series of photographs stark, detailed, evocative, lovely and textured from two series, Mystery of Iceland and Isolated Landscapes. Even his bio is well written.

What did I make for the pot-luck? A fruit salad composed of the juiciest, most absolute ripe beyond ripe farmers' market fruit. Something similar to Shuna & Athen's Famous Gazpacho. A quick photo of the finished bowl can be found by clicking on this link. From my assembled posse there was also a beautiful pecan-peach cake made by Marc, and a clean squid and broad bean salad made by none other than Brett.

Slideluckpotshow could not be a better event for me: a chef with over 10 years of fine art training and a BFA in photography. If you're a person who appreciates Open Studios or museums, Flickr or JPG, or just the occasional food porn photograph, this is an event I beg of you to attend if it comes to a wide open room near you.

By the time you read this, I will be in Portland, Oregon, readying to teach four baking classes, back to back, over the course of two weeks. Although it might not sound like much, I have only been teaching 2 classes a month in the Bay Area for the last year or so. But I'm not complaining, I love to teach, and all the better to teach the students hungry to learn, no matter where they are. Portland, Oregon might be one of my favorite places that ever there was, especially in summer.

I'm excited to take the long drive north, and pass on the secrets of flaky pie dough, light cakes, easy biscuits for cobbler and anything else that strikes my fancy after I visit a few of the countless Portland farmers' markets the proud, diminutive city has to offer.

For a complete schedule of my Portland Baking classes and their locations, click here.

After two long, delicious, educational weeks in Portland, I drive to Seattle for what may be one of the most delectable weddings I've been privy to an invitation to. Seattle is also home to, as I barely need to explain to you all, a concentration of possibly the best coffee houses in the country, (I like Vivace best), and some of my all-time favorite desserts can be found at Capitol Hill's B & O Espresso. I have been known to beg those coming to the Bay Area from Seattle to bring me a piece of their lemon pie on the airplane!

I'll be staying with the ever elusive Tea, meeting the beautiful and prolific Molly, and generally enjoying a summer that's a little behind Northern California's, but among those Pacific Northwesters as proud of their region as we are.

I come back for a minute, and then jump on a plane to get to Chicago, a city I have never visited, to attend and speak at BlogHer 07. I'm looking forward to eating BBQ, riding the L, going on an architectural tour, eating innovative raw desserts at Charlie Trotter, and touching base with Gale Gand again. Think there's something I must absolutely do or eat? Feel free to leave suggestions!

By the time I land once and for all in Northern California, it will be August and summer will be in full, opulent swing. Stone fruits will sweeten, tomatoes will overwhelm our kitchens, salads will be the dinner of choice, melons will arrive in a profusion of their sexy, musky, refreshing, honey-sweet selves, restaurants will have basil in everything and I'll be happy to go to the Ferry Building and pick up some Pimienton de Padron from Happy Quail and the love of my late summer life, okra from Short Night. It will be time to make sweet corn ice cream.

Strawberry varietals will get more tender, verbena will perfume the air, and figs in all their guises will be born out of their coconut leaf-scented trees second pregnancy. Eating and cooking will become easier and faster. When there are so many choices, summer's cup spilleth over and we are drunk with its heady voluptuous bounty.

It is in this sumptuous, sensual spirit I am announcing my August classes. I'm taking a gamble and offering 3, as opposed to my normal 2 per month. If you want to skip the descriptions below, follow this link to the current calendar of my upcoming Bay Area classes.

On Sunday August 12 I will teach a Knife Skills Class. Find a review of my last Bay Area Knife Skills Class at Albion Cooks by clicking on this link. The class is 1/3rd lecture, 1/3rd demonstration and 1/3rd hands-on. If you're not too shy you'll learn a lot. I bring all my various knives and explain the whys and hows of different metals, blades, brands etc. The class is vegetarian: we do not butcher meat or fish, and hopefully no one will butcher himself or herself after taking the class!

One week later, on Sunday August 19 I will teach another Ice Cream Class. In the last one students learned how to make Real Butterscotch from scratch, saw and felt how to bring creme anglaise to nappe by look and feel, heard the scientific reasons behind the secret to melt-in-your-mouth chocolate "chips" in creamy, frozen desserts, debated the pros and cons of various home ice cream makers and ate more than their fair share of the spoils. The frozen treat most people were surprised by liking so much? Redwood hill Goat Yogurt Granita. What was the easiest? Lemon Sherbet. Kat, of Kung Foodie took a lot of photos from the first and last Ice Cream Class, get there by following this link. Dolores of Culinary Curiosity wrote a very funny review of the class. If I know nothing else as a pastry chef, I know ice cream and sorbet. I've been making both for over 15 years.

And lastly, Sunday August 26 will usher in my third and very popular Seasonal Fruit Dessert Class. As a fruit-inspired pastry chef, the plated dessert possibilities are endless! In the first class rhubarb and strawberries were most of what was in season. We still managed to make and eat 8 separate items! In the second class we conquered 5, as cherries and stone fruit began their early march. Anita, one half of Married With Dinner reviewed my first Seasonal Fruit Dessert Class. Initially it had been Anita's idea for me to teach the class. So, see, I really do take requests!

All classes take place in North Berkeley, minutes from Downtown Berkeley BART on the Richmond line and close to plenty of parking.

I hope you'll consider taking one or more of these classes. I thoroughly teach the hows as well as the whys, both being major avenues which will lead to understanding the basics of baking and cooking so you can feel more comfortable with a myriad of cookbook recipes, innovative and modern or traditional cooking styles.

In the baking classes I make room for 2 students at $55, if cost is what's keeping them from attending. Email me directly if you feel you qualify. The Knife Skills Class is $68 and the baking classes are $100. Payments can be made by using the Paypal link on Eggbeater or you may email me for a snail mail address if a check feels more comfortable. {I also have a private mailing list if you want to get the information without trekking over to Eggbeater for it. To be placed on it, email me directly. I share it with no one; it's for the purpose of announcing future SF/Bay Area classes only.}

San Francisco Magazine recently covered my classes as well as many other individual and small cooking school classes, see the whole spread by clicking on this link.

See you soon?

Come One, Come All. Come Hungry To Learn!

This Sunday June 10th I will be teaching my second Seasonal Fruit Dessert class in North Berkeley from 1 - 3:30 pm. Might you wish to join me as I conjure a number of sweets simple and complex, whose main focus is fruits at the peak of their early summer season's best? Those who took the first class were lucky enough to eat: Verbena & Meyer Lemon ice cream, Redwood Hill Goat Yogurt Pannacotta with rhubarb miroir, Roasted Lucero Strawberries, Rhubarb-Cornmeal Cake, Crunchy Poached Rhubarb Dice, Strawberry Coulis, Pavlova with whipped cream and strawberries, and Rhubarb-Walnut Crisp.

But now, there's so much more in season!

The possibilities are endless...

Shall we conjure a sublime cherry clafouti? Roast apriums in black pepper and Banyuls vinegar? Concoct a clear peach leaf consomme? Try our hand at whole almond frangipane with noyau and pluots? Layer light vanilla cake with brown butter pastry cream and fresh peaches? Finesse a batch of fresh cherry granite? Whip up some biscuits for cobbler? Fill the kitchen with the heady scent of warmed blackberry compote? Whip up an easy fresh fruit and cornmeal cake? Tremble with joy at the lightness of pannacotta? Learn what to do with a cherry pits' inner secret? Sneak some herbs from the garden and see what goes with what best?

I've lost count of how many classes I've taught now. And I'm happy to report many of us independent cooking instructors in the Bay Area were recently featured and reviewed in this months issue of San Francisco Magazine, click here to see the whole spread. I always have a lot of fun, but moreover, I love getting reports back about how people are less afraid to tackle homemade pie dough, ice cream and caramel or were excited to learn the secrets of how to make egg whites do what they want them to do, use their knives better or allowed my class and instruction to break down the last wall between them and their pot de creme molds.

This Sunday's Seasonal Fruit Dessert class will be my last Bay Area culinary class until August. On June 21 I'll be teaching my popular Knife Skills Class in NYC and come July I will teach 4 (!!) Pie Dough & Seasonal Fruit Dessert classes in Portland, Oregon. A good friend of mine said I should buy a silver Airstream trailer and take my show on the road! Hey, where the students want to learn, that's where I'll go, I say.

This Sunday's class is filling up quickly. Although the 2 spots I offer at almost 1/2 the price are still empty. I keep these spots open for those who love to bake but might not be able to afford the full cost. Those two folks come a wee bit early and stay a little later, to help me clean up.

The page that always has the current calendar of my classes can be found by clicking on this link. Register by going to the Paypal link in Eggbeater's right hand column and if you want to send a check, email me and I will send you a snail mail address. I also have a private mailing list for those of you who like the info to land on your email-doorstep.

See you soon?

Come One, Come All. Come Hungry To Learn!

It's that time of year. When Bay Area markets are jumping with stone fruits. Names whimsical, actual and unpronounceable and downright silly fill signage over mysterious glowing orbs. People want to know, "What's the difference between a pluot and a plumcot, a nectarcot and an aprium? Why all the funny names? What happened to the straight up plum, apricot, nectarine and peach?"

The full answer is too wordy for this medium. But, truth be told, there are almost no fruits we eat out hand today which are their true selves in their original form. All stone fruits are hybrids of the bitter almond tree, and all have been developed by horticulturalists for hundreds of years to withstand certain weather conditions, soils and various interfering pests. And in the last one hundred years or so, farmers have been juggling/gambling with different trees in an attempt to provide Americans with what appears to be one fruit during the course of a season. The peach you eat in May is not the peach you eat in June or July. But the hope is that on each of these hot summer days, you can find, buy and eat a peach.

It's almost impossible to keep up with all the stone fruit hybrids once summer begins. They rush at us like stars in a meteor shower. Some varietals last a month, but many come and go within a week or even days! My favorite farm for stone fruit is Blossom Bluff. Ted and Fran Loewen grow dozens of varietals, oftentimes experimenting or sticking with more difficult trees and fruit to provide their customers with a delicious spectrum of complex, aromatic, texturally sensuous fruits.

It's been as big a surprise to me, as anyone else, that peaches and various plum-apricot hybrids are arriving at the farmers' market as early as this. It's May; still spring by the calendar! But here they all are, available for the picking, and in wide sweeping arrays and displays at Berkeley Bowl, Monterey Market and local farmers' markets.

Unless a farmer has stayed loyal to calling these hybrids their proper names, what you buy here will be named something different there. As of yet there's little regulation to insure names stay consistent. Train your nose and mouth to recognize new varietals. Pick fruit that has a strong scent when you go in for the smell. All stone fruit can ripen off the tree. Unless your house is very hot or humid, ripen fruit further by setting fruit on its shoulders, stem side down, until, when pressed, flesh has a bit of give. If the fruit you buy is very ripe, be sure to refrigerate it immediately.

Early fruits will be smaller and higher in acid than their later cousins. Fruit whose color bleeds right down into the stem end will ripen sweeter than those whose color is yellow or green by the stem. Look for fruit with saturated color. The sun's blush is what determines sugar in stone fruit.

But remember, some of these varietals will be gone before you can decide if you'll like them! Buy a few of each as the season progresses and jot down the name on the placard as well as the name of the farm stand. These notes will help you get a head-start on next years stone fruit onslaught.

If you have an interest in the history of these quirky hybrids, Mr. Floyd Zaiger is the first person to learn about. He has contributed more to stone fruit hybridization than any other person to date.

Short Pieces on Floyd Zaiger:

Your Produce Man
News from The Dave Wilson Nursery (where many California farmers buy these various hybrids.)

And if you are a nerdy (budding) fruit historian (pun intended) like me, you'll enjoy words written by and about the infamous David Karp, Fruit Detective extraordinaire:

California Heartland . Org
John Seabrook from The New Yorker spends a few days with our man.
Smithsonian Magazine interview.

My birthday is tomorrow. Depending on whose age you look at in my family I am either not yet approaching middle age or will die in about 20 years. Supposedly this means I am to look at where I've been and where I'm going.

Up until very recently much of who I was, was one thing. Pastry Chef. The title, the position I'd been working for the last fourteen years, although much of the time unbeknownst to me, towards this goal. I identified myself with the restaurant I worked for. Which is a very good thing, because the second question people ask me, after learning how to pronounce my name, is, "Oh really, where do you work?"

I worked as a pastry cook and assistant for almost 8 years when I was given my first pastry chef job. Many of the assistants I worked alongside went on to be famous pastry chefs themselves. And I watched many cooks and sous chefs become chefs of their own restaurants. From my point of view one worked themselves up in the ranks before being given or holding a chef title.

In the last few weeks I have consumed more desserts at restaurants (A16, Campton Place, Rubicon, Two, Delfina.) than I did all last year. And this week I'll be eating more. In part due to birthday dinners, but also as research for a position I'm interviewing for. The object is to find out who is making what in San Francisco. The goal is to assess the palate of the person I may work with, and for him to see what I might make or what sweet things inspire me. We are both looking at where our foggy city, one of the most food and restaurant-centric in The United States, stands on the platform of pastry chef hiring.

I have even called upon the Chowhounders to help me track down the best sugary courses within these forty-nine miles. Sadly, it's been like getting a straight answer out of a lawyer. One dessert here, another there. Some have even been so bold as to tell me about the artificially-flavored butterscotch pudding at Town Hall. (An article about real butterscotch in The Washington Post here.)

I'm not looking for all the sweets to be the same. One dessert at Chez Panisse will be like another at Zuni, Quince or Oliveto. (In fact, if you look at the lineage, these restaurants practically trade pastry chefs like baseball cards.) I want to try the homey American desserts at Salt House as well as Citizen Cake's kooky innovative concoctions or straightforward, simple, seasonal creations like those found at Delfina or Foreign Cinema.

My hope is that I will be eating a pastry chef's creations. I'm not so interested in restaurants that buy their desserts from an outside source. (Think I'm making this up? Read this short article about the disappearing restaurant pastry chefs in NYC.) I'm also a little biased against the chefs who say they're not only the savoury chef of their kitchen, but also the pastry chef. I realize this saves them a lot of money, but I'm really tired of eating warm oozy chocolate cake, creme brulee and tough crusted out-of-season fruit tarts or dishes that look like they just stepped out of the pastry and baking program at CCA.

It sounds like I'm hard to please doesn't it? I'm actually the biggest fan of delicious food you might ever meet. Give me simple, complex, hole-in-the-wall, humble, bold, a quiet ice cream cone, standard traditional fare, technically seamless, fussily plated or a cookie on the go.

Just let me taste the taste of skill, perhaps a dash of inspiration and/or innovation, a love for my craft, tiny sprinkles of deference, whiffs of hope for mastery, half cup of practice, grams upon ounces of question-asking-inquisitiveness, and, although not absolutely necessary: when I close my eyes I'd like to taste that that person's hard work over the years that they've read and worked and asked questions and eaten and tasted helped them land a job where they were taken seriously, and give them the chef title they deserved.

Might you have a favorite pastry chef whose desserts I must have on my extreme dessert-eating spree this week? Any and all suggestions taken into consideration!

Between Meals: SF Chronicle's Michael Bauer blog on desserts in the Bay Area.

In this age of Google and Wikipedia, it's easy to forget the joy of getting lost for hours deep in the stacks of a three-dimensional library. To entice you back to these important anchors of our community, here's a short list of culinary exhibits and events worth adding to your list of food adventures:

READING AMERICA: Reconstructed Books by Mary Marsh

"Snack." Mary Marsh, 2004. Coffee, ink, gouache on found book.

Head to the airy, sunny sixth floor of the San Francisco Main Library to find a wonderful exhibit of new work by artist Mary Marsh. Using comfort food as an analogy, Marsh explores the intersection of eating and reading. Discarded books and old library catalog cards (remember those?!) find new lives with bits of linen tape, layers of gouache and coffee as ink. Marsh explores issues of privacy, consumption and narrative with these evocative creations. Her artwork will be on display at the library galleries though April 5, 2007.

While you're at the top of the SF Main, visit one of my favorite local resources: the Koshland SF History Center. If you can't make it there in person, it's almost as fun browsing their amazing photo collection online. Their "Picture This" series includes a line of serious-minded, long-aproned butchers at the Stadium Market in the Sunset District (1935), a proud baker at Dianda's Bakery in the Mission (1980); and a birthday party in the Western Addition, when Japanese-American families still flourished in the neighborhood (1938).

San Francisco Main Library, 6th Floor
100 Larkin Street, San Francisco
(415) 557-4400

TASTE MATTERS: The Role of Food and Drink in Jewish Culture

Detail of "Pesach" by Mary Thorman

The Magnes Museum, a stately building tucked in the foothills of Berkeley, has launched a series of cross-disciplinary presentations of gastronomic narratives in Jewish culture. These intimate gatherings are open to the public ($8 for nonmembers) and offer a valuable resource both for those attempting to understand their own heritage and those trying to learn more about the history of an important but largely invisible group. Last week's conversation with Eleanor Kaufman from UCLA highlighted Eastern European homesteaders keeping kosher under harsh conditions on the plains and utopian farming communities, such as Petaluma's chicken and egg producers, that succeeded for a brief period in the early to mid-20th century.

On May 31, Alisa Braun from UC Davis will discuss the depiction of Jewish foods in films, and on August 16, Benjamin Wurgaft from UC Berkeley will show how food writers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, shape perception and identity.

In addition to its ceremonial, decorative and modern art collections, the Magnes houses an excellent research library for scholars of Jewish history and culture.

Judah L. Magnes Museum
2911 Russell Street, Berkeley
(510) 549-6950

ALICE STATLER LIBRARY

The menu cover from a 1930s "Bohemian" restaurant near Coit Tower.

To support its stellar culinary arts and hospitality program, City College maintains a reading library of books about food, restaurants and anything remotely related to the history, culture, science, politics and business of cooking and eating. Their periodical collection alone could occupy a dedicated cook for years.

Though nearly everyone in the Statler Library is wearing chef whites, it's open to the public. You're welcome to read for hours whether you're browsing for random discoveries, honing a research topic or filling up on glossy food mags.

You can also enjoy the library's beautiful menu collections online. With their covers and inside pages lovingly scanned, the menus highlight restaurants across the nation as well as concessionaries at the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco.

Alice Statler Library
City College of San Francisco
Room 10, Statler Wing
50 Phelan Avenue, San Francisco
(415) 239-3460

I heard a rumor from a farmer: we're supposed to have very warm weather all week. Is it possible our government planned an environmental change? To coincide with our new, nice and early Daylight Savings Plan? Hey I'm not being paranoid, if I were them I'd warm things up a bit too. To encourage people to actually spend that new hour outside, picnic-ing, giving the dog more exercise or just basking in a later setting sun.

I love the warm weather. It makes me think I live in sunny California; the one many of us imagined when our plane landed here from coasts with harsher climes.

I'm not fooled. It's not summer. In fact Spring hasn't even truly begun. (I know this because March 20th, the Official First Day Of Spring, is my birthday.) Sure I'll put on shorts and open all my windows. Maybe I'll even tempt our foggy fate and put away my long underwear.

But I'm not about to start buying strawberries. Or any other berries for that matter. I don't care that they're in season a few thousand miles away. The fruit that makes the most sense to me right now is citrus. I had the best time going to Berkeley Bowl last week. Walked down 8 foot displays of yellows, safety-oranges, ochres, deep red-oranges, chartreuses, lime greens and red- blushing pale yellow shoulders of shiny grapefruits. I bought little tangerines with pretty leaves and stems, crinkly skinned large pored seedy mandarins, dusty wax-less outy belly-buttoned Minneolas, and baseball sized navel oranges. I perused, tasted, peeled and nibbled.

Whether fruit appreciation is your own private secret, or you could shout your love from the mountaintops, Berkeley Bowl will not disappoint; it is a temple for fruit worshipping. A church where the fruit prayer is answered. A freshly gilded Mosque dome for paying homage to seeded creatures. An outdoor pagan meadow complete with ancient rocks for free-spirited fruit raves.

And what better way to refresh one's electrolytes and vitamin C cravings, than with these bright and dangerous fruits?

As a citrus afficionado I tend to like sweets that err on the puckery side. If I'm going to eat a Minneola, I'm looking forward to a swift "kapow!" of distinct flavor characteristic as well as a brief, but perceptible jolt, like the volume has been turned up loud for a nano second.

In kind, I offer Lemon Sherbet, a dessert bridging our new gift of warm weather and the fruit that is actually in season. If you don't have an ice cream maker, check out the Glazed Meyer Lemon Cake recipe in the Winter 2007 Edible San Francisco issue.

LEMON SHERBET

1 1/2 Cups Lemon Juice
1 1/2 Cups Whole Milk
1 1/2 Cups Organic Cream (my favorite is Clover)
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
7 each Lemons Each Zested

1. In a food processor fitted with a blade attachment, whir lemon zest and sugar until the lemon scent is powerful.
2. Whisk all ingredients together and let sit overnight in the fridge.
3. Before churning, give liquid a good whisk and pass through a fine meshed sieve.
4. Churn in ice cream maker per manufacturer's instructions.
5. If you are going to make an error in the time it takes to churn Lemon Sherbet, err on the side of being under churned. If you over churn sherbet there is no saving it, as it is not an emulsion the way creme anglaise is for ice cream.
6. Lemon Sherbet is best eaten the day it is made, but like all frozen treats, it will last for an awful long time in the freezer.
7. If it becomes frozen solid, "temper" sherbet back to a scoopable consistency by placing container in the fridge until desired texture. (It's a trick we do in restaurants so that we can make perfect hand spooned quenelles.)

Happy Citrus Celebrating!

If you don't have an ice cream maker and you don't want to bake the cake, head over to Ici where Mary Canales is making some of the best citrus ice creams, sorbets and sherbets in the Bay Area!

It's that time again: time for teaching, inspiring, educating, and eating delicious Spring and Summer produce. Who's not looking forward to rhubarb, strawberries, cherries? Besides the obvious: eating them out of hand, fresh from the farmer's market, wouldn't you love to know how to whip up some Pavlovas, Angel Food Cake, creme anglaise, pannacotta and smooth, silky pot de creme to go with those long awaited warm weather fruits?

I'm teaching two classes this month that may be able to help you with these, and many more sweet projects. By popular vote, the first class on Sunday March 11 will be on the subject of Egg Whites. Understanding what egg whites can do, as well as knowing how to get them to do it might pose a daunting task. Perhaps you've already attempted egg white based desserts? A short, but incomplete, list of confections where egg whites play a starring role: buttercream, mousse, Angel Food Cake, meringue, cupcake frosting, Pavlova, French Macarons, and sponge cake.

And, by perfect reciprocity, the second class on Sunday March 25th will be on the subject of Custards. On that day we'll learn how to use and get to know the whole egg. Achieving light, gorgeously smooth, rich custards is no easy job. But pastry chefs and Jell-O shouldn't have the corner on the market. Learn why water baths are necessary when baking custards, how to get the most out of infusing various flavors and scents, just how rapidly to whisk pastry cream, and more.

I am a student of the egg and have been studying it for almost 15 years. For a post written about my classes from the perspective of some of my previous students, check this one out on pate a choux.

My hope is that those who take my classes will go home and have the confidence and foundation knowledge to not only replicate what we made in class, but more importantly, to understand enough of the "whys" to be able to correct mistakes and experiment further. My hope is that my love and my passion for sweet things will be infectious, touching you with the bug to make beautiful desserts at home.

Future classes include, but are not limited to: more Knife Skills classes, seasonal fruit desserts, chocolate, caramel, and whatever you're in the mood for... Many of the class subjects come from past and future students' requests.

These classes will take place in North Berkeley (exact location disclosed upon registration) on Sundays from 12:30-4 PM. They are $100 per person with two spots in each class for "assistants" at 1/2 price. The format is a mixture of lecture, demonstration, hand-on, and eating the end results. Classes are small, usually no more than 12 students.

If you're interested in signing up for my March classes, or just want to learn more, head over to Eggbeater. There's both an email link for correspondence as well as the Paypal link for direct registration.

Come One, Come All. Come Hungry To Learn!

In the early 20th century, the area now known as Old Oakland was the commercial nerve center of the East Bay. Today, after a few decades in the shadows, the blocks bordered by 8th, 10th, Clay, and Washington streets are bustling once again.

Exploring the area may only take an afternoon, but the charm of the neighborhood will draw you back time and time again. And, undoubtedly, as Oakland's tarnished reputation begins to shine again, Old Oakland will continue to flourish as well.

The best day to visit is a Friday, when the bustling Farmer's Market (voted the best by East Bay Express) is operating. Open from 8am - 2pm every Friday year round, you'll find everything from Asian produce to live oysters and other fish to all manner of flowers and potted plants.

Wander the streets, marveling at the gorgeous brickwork and Victorian architecture, then head to GB Ratto's, an Italian market that's been in continuous operation since 1897. The current site (827 Washington St.) includes a wonderful deli and cheese counter, along with all manner of pantry staples in bulk and specialty items from Europe.

By now you'll want a bite to eat. Caffe 817 at 817 Washington Street) serves up wonderful breakfasts, sandwiches, and salads (all made with organic ingredients) in a charming Tuscan-inspired atmosphere punctuated by artwork from local artists. Don't miss their perfect lattes and espressos, best enjoyed at a sidewalk table watching the world go by.

Continuing down Washington St., head to the Housewives Market (between 9th & 10th streets), housed in the former Swan's Marketplace building is an old-fashioned market with several vendors including a fishmonger, two butchers, a sausage-maker and liquor/wine shop.

The Swan's building also houses the Museum of Children's Art, or MOCHA. Founded in 1988, MOCHAs mission is to "ensure that the arts are a fundamental part of the lives of all children." This adorable urban museum is a great way to keep the kids entertained for a couple of hours--don't miss the drop-in workshops.

Spend the rest of the afternoon perusing the shops and galleries tucked away all over this little gem of a neighborhood. Don't miss A-1 Fish Market (which isn't really a fish market at all, but a store for anglers!).

As the day winds down, head over to Pacific Coast Brewing Company for a sampler of their tasty brews (I love their Imperial Stout, brewed in the style of the Russian Czars).

Dinner is at the newly-opened Tamarindo Antojeria Mexicana, a delightful small-plate restaurant showcasing the regional flavors of Mexico. Don't pass up the Cajeta Crepe for dessert.
And thus your day in Old Oakland comes to an end. Hopefully, you'll have a sense of the history that Oakland bears witness to, and you'll understand that the analogy that Oakland is to San Francisco as Brooklyn is to Manhattan really does apply.

posted by Fatemeh Khatibloo-McClure