June Taylor Fruit Syrups

Summer's peaches and tomatoes may be gone, but the farmers' markets in winter still offers myriad delights. These past few weekends, we've had crisp, nippy mornings and sunny skies giving a bright-blue backdrop to the crazy-colored squashes, brilliant orange persimmons and gold-stemmed chard. So far, the rains have held off but the temperature's finally gotten Bay Area-wintery, making a cup of hot chocolate a festively necessary hand-warmer for strolling from stand to stand.

And this season, while you're buying your pastured chicken and dry-farmed potatoes, spaghetti squash and sourdough bread, you can do your holiday shopping, too. At the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, there are lots of excellent and delicious treats on hand to provide a wonderful taste of our local terroir for friends and family near and far. And if you can't decide what your local pals would like best--lavender honey or cider syrup? quince cheese or goat cheese?--the market is offering its popular gift coins again. Each wooden "coin" is worth $1, and can be redeemed at any market stall. They're available in any amount, but you can get a cute, ready-to-go brown box filled with $25 worth of coins from the information booth. (A good trick to know if you run out of cash at the market: use a credit card to buy coins instead of waiting in the long ATM lines inside the Ferry Building.)

Is Dad finally upgrading to a new crock pot? Give him a little inspiration with Rancho Gordo's heirloom bean box ($50), a selection of five one-pound bags of organic dry beans (including, naturally, Christmas limas), plus a sturdy fabric totebag and a copy of Heirloom Beans: Great Recipes for Dips and Spreads, Soups and Stews, Salads and Salsas, and Much More from Rancho Gordo. The best stocking stuffer? Forget the Old Spice; grab a sheaf of Fatted Calf's awesome beef jerky instead. Fatted Calf also has a great selection of holiday gift boxes for the carnivores on your list; you can check out their selection on their website or at their retail shops in Hayes Valley and the Oxbow Public Market in Napa. If you want to pick up a gift box at the Ferry Plaza market instead, just give them a call at their Napa store (707-256-3684) to make arrangements.

Salty or sweet? Whichever way your pals' tastes swing, Eatwell Farm has a fragrant seasoning to match. They've expanded beyond their original (and still much-adored) rosemary and lavender salts; now, choose from smoked chili salt, thyme salt, dried heirloom tomato salt, and dried lemon salt ($6, or 5 for $25), all heavenly sprinkled over grilled lamb or steak. Got a sweet tooth? Add a few pinches of smoked chili sugar to fire up your hot chocolate, or make your Christmas cookies a little more grown-up with a sprinkle of citrusy-herbal lemon verbena sugar ($9).

Didn't get around to pickling this summer? Dirty Girl Produce has plenty of dilly beans ($8/jar) on hand, along with summer-bright tomatoes in quart jars. Put the two together, add some Square One organic vodka, and you've got a Bloody Mary brunch kit for your favorite morning-after buddy.

The Apple Farm has a stylish, all-American treat for those of us with Champagne taste but no bucks for French fizz: sparkling hard cider, made from biodynamically farmed apples, priced at just $8.50 a bottle. It's dry rather than soda-sweet, and makes a wonderful aperitif or festive toast.

In the more than a decade that I've been a fan of this wonderful organic apple orchard and kitchen up in the Anderson Valley, I've found any number of uses for their elegantly bottled apple-balsamic vinegar ($16), with its label hand-written in gold ink. To round out a holiday morning breakfast-in-bed basket, pick up a pint jar of rosy Pink Pearl applesauce ($14) and a jug of tart-sweet cider syrup ($16), perfect for pouring over gingerbread pancakes or eggnog French toast.

Jam maker June Taylor is back with her unsurpassed, brandy-soaked English Christmas cakes ($50), along with dense, sliceable, beautifully molded fruit "cheeses" ($18-$24) in quince, quince-rose geranium, Santa Rosa plum, and damson plum, perfect accompaniments to a cheese platter. Taylor also has a shimmering selection of all-natural fruit syrups ($10) great for all the SodaStream fanciers in your life. Boost their bubbles with flavors like raspberry, Summersweet peach-white sage, Dapple Dandy pluot-rosemary, or Meyer lemon-peppermint.

Conveniently for your party planning, the pretty goat, sheep, and cow cheeses of Andante Dairy are right at the next stall; don't miss the Pastoral, rolled in green herbs and topped with pink peppercorns. The only challenge? Getting all (or any) of these treats wrapped and given away before you make rather merry and find a home for them all right in your very own pantry.

Next week, Bay Area Bites heads north to find local food gifts from the Sebastopol and the Marin Civic Center farmers' markets.

Occupy Oakland General Strike on November 2, 2011. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Have you moved your money yet? A lot of imperatives have come out of the Occupy movement of late; this one is both concrete and far-ranging, something that anyone can do.

What does it mean? It started with a call to action for people to pull their money and investments out of the big banks, and put them into smaller, locally-owned and locally-responsible credit unions and community banks. It's like voting; the amount in my tiny checking and savings accounts means nothing to MegaBankUSA, but add my numbers to thousands and thousands of others, and suddenly a bank could feel some impact.

That's just one part. Like the concept of eating locally, which started with food miles and then grew into a much larger movement, even revolution, about how and what we eat, the idea of "moving your money" can be applied in so many ways.

And it's not limited to how or where you spend your actual cash. On the style blog Ironing Board Collective, my friend, writer and health coach Sara Seinberg, has posted a great Move Your Money gift guide, with suggestions for everything from art-museum memberships to shared activities and bartered services. Her list, and the fact that right now, like so many of us, I am luckily rich in friends, family, and good intentions, and not-so-rich in disposable income, have got me thinking even more about value this time of year. About surplus. About what we use to get what we need, and how we can support the needs of others--friends, family, your community, your neighborhood and beyond. This holiday season, what do you have that can bring delight and deliciousness to those you love, while keeping your money out of the coffers of the big corporations?

How about chocolate? There are lots of locally-made chocolate treats available to sweeten your holidays. Or you can make your own with this easy chocolate truffle recipe. Dandelion's bean-to-bar chocolate store will be opening in San Francisco next month or early next year; until then, find them at local farmers' markets, including the Mission Community Market and the Noe Valley Farmers' Market.

With the explosion of books, classes, and blogs dedicated to food preservation for fun (or profit), it's easy to spend a little time whipping up a gift batch of something, especially if you turn the simmering or brewing into an all-afternoon stir-and-gossip session. What do you like best to make? It's a little late in the season to make jam, but there's always apple butter, pear butter, slow-roasted quince paste (so tasty with cheese), Meyer lemon marmalade or tangy lemon chutney. WorkshopSF has classes in beer-making, tea-blending, cheese-making, even vintage apron sewing coming up in December; take one yourself, or take a friend along.

Does everyone rave about your ramen, your cranberry bread, your caramel apple pie? Do you want to share your mom's recipes with everyone who loves her? There are dozens of print-on-demand services that let you turn those scribbled-on recipe cards into a surprisingly chic and stylish personal cookbook. Pop-up holiday markets are also a good place to find quirkily perfect host/ess gifts made by your friends and neighbors. On Dec. 9, La Cocina is holding its 3rd Annual Gift Bazaar, featuring unique products developed in La Cocina's incubator kitchen in the Mission.

Or, depending on what you have to spare, you can give money, time, or expertise to organizations who redistribute the wealth across the Bay Area's tables. Did one (or ten) of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers post Mary Risley's hysterically practical YouTube video, Just Put the F*cking Turkey in the Oven? Now, with over 100,000 hits, let's hope she can make the follow-up, Just Give Your F*cking Leftovers to Food Runners.

Risley isn't just a cooking teacher, she's the founder of Food Runners, which moves thousands of pounds of fresh, useful leftover food from restaurants, grocery stores, and catering businesses into the kitchens of shelters, low-income senior and youth programs, and other organizations that serve the needy. Mary talks about Food Runners on this episode of Food & Wine This Week in Northern California.

A Fruit-of-the-Month Club subscription? Some Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark?

Oh, if only your holiday shopping could be that easy! Irresistible as that minty bark may be, would any foodie worth her Maldon salt be caught wrapping something that anyone with a credit card could secure with a few clicks or a trip to the mall?

This year, as the vogue for food trucks, bike-delivered treats and pop-up markets continues to grow, contemporary cachet demands not the most expensive gifts but the most hyper-local, made on a micro-scale by moonlighting chefs or your enterprising, underemployed neighbors who know how to rock their chocolate-covered bacon (and their Twitter feeds).

While chefs like Daniel Patterson get bragging rights from the obscurity of their foraged ingredients (reindeer lichen, anyone?), the holiday-hostess gift of choice this month will be something made by one guy in the Mission and sold only every other Wednesday in a warehouse off Cesar Chavez or San Pablo.

For many, the charm of these places lies in the opportunity for community chat. You can talk to the person who made what you're buying, probably that very morning, and find out that she used to play in your buddy's band, or that you both once worked in the same overpriced Union Street restaurant. And, of course, there's the here-today, DIY settings where the soundtrack's more likely to be The Pogue's "Christmas in New York" than syrupy carols crooned by Carrie Underwood.

Produce to the People Jam. Photo by Lauren Anderson

On Saturday, Dec. 4th, from noon-4pm, youth-training organization Produce to the People will be running a foraged-fruit jam fundraiser at Mission Pie. For sale: quirky jams (plum with blue basil, apricot lavender, ginger pear butter) made from locally sourced fruit and herbs, hand-drawn fruit calenders, jam recipe cards, and more, plus you can chow down on some tasty pie while you're there.

Every Wednesday in December before Christmas, Real Mercantile will be running a food gifts-and-crafts market at Chez Poulet, a San Francisco warehouse space on Cesar Chavez St. from 5-9pm. (Full disclosure: I have sold homemade jam at this market, and may be selling there again.) Organized by Nieves Rathbun, who will be selling her own line of body-care products, this market started with crafts and fashion, but has been adding more take-home food products lately, as well as on-site tasty treats for noshing. Featured vendors include Underground Preserves, Cocotutti, City Smoke House, Mo Foods, Boffo Food Cart, and more.

On Wed., Dec. 8th and Wed., Dec. 22nd from 5-7pm, Oakland's chef-run Pop-Up General Store will return with its usual elegant (and pricey) eats from a long list of local chefs and artisans. (Pre-ordering online several days ahead is encouraged, since quantities are limited.) They'll also be including some non-food (but food-related) gift items, like handmade dishware by Diana Fayt, hand-sewn market bags, a seasonal-produce calender by Pie Bird Press, and a new addition, the Pop-Up Bookshelf, with signed copies of books by local authors such as Novella Carpenter, Alice Waters, and Vanessa Barrington.

On Friday, Dec. 10th from 4-9pm, La Cocina will be holding its 2nd annual Gift Fair at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco. On offer: well-packaged sweet and savory delights from the many small food businesses that use La Cocina's spacious kitchens-for-hire. And there'll be on-site gift wrapping!

The church-basement tradition of holiday markets gets a hipster makeover at St. Gregory's this season, with the advent of the New Taste Marketplace at 500 DeHaro St in San Francisco on Saturday, Dec. 18th. The requested sliding-scale door donation ($0-$10) goes to support the church's weekly free food pantry. There will be over 30 vendors, selling everything from granola to jam, sausage to soda, chocolate, flavored butter, DIY ramen kits, bbq sauce, and much, much more. The don't-miss item? Bacon Crack (chocolate-covered bacon brittle) and Irish Coffee on a Stick, both by Kai Kronfield's Nosh This.

"Nosh This" Medley. Photos by Kai Kronfield

Still hungry? On the same day, the SF Underground Market will be running a special holiday version of its uber-popular market, with take-home items for sale from 11am-4pm and hot foods to eat on the spot from 6pm-midnight. The market has grown exponentially from last year, and now fills the SomArts space at 8th and Brannan in SF. Admission is $5; free pre-registration required.

Know of another holiday pop-up market happening in your neighborhood? Tell us about it in the comment section below!

Cupid's arrows hit Bernal Heights hard this week. Along Cortland Avenue, every storefront from the card store to the cafe to the taqueria is emblazoned with huge red and pink hearts and flowers. What's so romantic about a quesadilla or a double nonfat mocha with whip? Well, anything's romantic when you're sharing it with your honey. Or maybe Bernal just loves window dressing.

Still, the holiday is nearly upon us, and if you've got a sweetheart, you're probably wondering, with eagerness or dread, what to do about it. Personally, I don't ascribe to the fancy-jewelry, table-for-two view of Feb. 14. If you asked me to name my most romantic gifts or moments I've had, I'd remember the poem by Sappho an old girlfriend inscribed for me in gold ink on pink rose petals, one word per petal. Or being picked up from work on Valentine's Day by another date, who whisked me across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Headlands, where we sat on the hood of the car, looking out over the bay and eating take-out shrimp dumplings boxed up from my very favorite dim sum dive. (He knew me well enough to know that heaven, for me, is an endless supply of shrimp dumplings.)

The most romantic notion is the most personal, the gift that makes you feel truly seen. So, what does your husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend secretly like best? At home or in the company of like-minded sensualists, this week offers dozens of ways to tease and titillate your valentine.

Popping the cork on a bottle of good champagne may work for me, but for plenty of people, beer's the drink of choice. And conveniently enough, it's Beer Week in San Francisco now through the 14th, with dozens of bars offering many delectable suds, along with brewmaster meet-and-greets. And who says beer and chocolate aren't a perfect match? Serious Eats has an exhaustive guide to pairing the two. Although many of their picks are geared towards East Coast brands like Jacques Torres, the flavor profiles can certainly apply to your favorite Bay Area treats.

Or you can head to Humphry Slocombe and bring home a pint or two of their this-week-only beer ice creams, made with local brews. Beer ice cream! I think someone out there is just waiting to plant a big wet Homer Simpson m'waaah on you for thinking of this, and better yet, bringing it home, stripping down to your underwear, and grabbing a couple of spoons. Especially if you add a side order of Slocombe's cult-favorite caramels (made with Boccalone lard, and much better, and more bacony, than they sound).

In fact, caramel is breathing hard down chocolate's neck this year, a happy development for those less inclined towards the bean. Bi-Rite Market has a particularly fetching selection right now, starting with the salted caramel ice cream from their own Bi-Rite Creamery. Then there are the tamarind-spiked treats whipped up by local Indian baker and confectioner Spice Vice, as well as the vanilla-speckled, cajeta-inspired softies from Happy Goat, enriched with caramelized goat's milk.

Can't decide between caramel and chocolate? Local Charles Chocolates offers the best of both worlds: fleur de sel caramels covered in chocolate, arranged in an edible, flower-printed chocolate box. Or you can invest in Michael Recchiuti's dynamic duo, a jar each of Extra-Bitter Chocolate Sauce and Burnt Caramel Sauce. Who needs a spoon when you can just pour it on and...well, the rest is up to you.

Prefer to play with your food? Check out this list of chocolate spa treatments for two. Get rubbed down (or revved up) with a chocolate-espresso scrub, let yourselves be macerated in rose petals or painted with cocoa butter and chocolate oil, all while enjoying truffles and bubbly. Remember that goofy Axe chocolate man commercial? Like that, only pricier (and presumably, much more pleasing to the nose).

Can't quite swing that spontaneous weekend in Paris this year? Happily, in our European-minded city, there will always be croissants to wake up to (I may be Bernal-biased, but the delicate, extra-flaky ones at Sandbox Bakery are worth the trip up the hill) and pastel macarons in more flavors than Hermès has scarves. People who love macarons really, really love them, and while Miette has its fans, the latest buzz is about the stylishly packaged dainties at Paulette in Hayes Valley, the first NorCal branch of a popular shop in Beverly Hills. Or you can dream of escaping to the French countryside, à la Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, as you melt and roll your own ravishing truffles at La Cocina's chocolate-making class on Feb. 10.

Got a honey who's more salty than sweet? Well, take it from the Fatted Calf: the couple that grinds together, stays together. Head over to the Calf's headquarters in the Oxbow Public Market in Napa for their I Heart Sausage class on Feb. 13th, and get busy making it all: fresh, smoked, poached, and, for all you vampires out there, boudin noir, the infamous (and delectable) blood sausage. Or pencil in a plan for Whole Hog Butchery, Part 1, upcoming on Feb. 27.

To go with your sausage-fest, pick up a bloomy Heart's Desire cheese. Molded in the shape of a heart, it's named after a charming beach along Tomales Bay and made by Cowgirl Creamery this month only, available in their store in San Francisco's Ferry Building as well as at Tomales Bay Foods in Point Reyes. Out of town? You can order it online in a gift pack along with Jasper Hill Farm's Constant Bliss and Redwood Hill's Camillia cheeses, plus a selection of Tcho chocolates. Farmstead Cheeses and Wines in Montclair and Alameda will also be carrying a selection of heart-shaped cheeses this week, including French goat cheese Coeur de Gariottes, sold with rose petal jam; creamy cow's milk Coeur de Bray; and Coeur Cendrée, a goat cheese dusted with ash. And in keeping with the holiday, their weekly Friday & Saturday wine tasting will focus on sparklers and rosés.

Then again, what about dinner? Just about every restaurant in the city will be angling for your V-Day dollar with passion-fruit mousse and hearts of palm salad. Still, I'd like to imagine that all kinds of polyamorous, four- or more-some wake-ups will be happening the morning after the Wild Kitchen's Valentine's Day Dinner. That secret Mission location, those candlelit communal tables full of curious couples, those shared platters of candycap mushrooms and foraged mussels...how can they not inspire more than just gustatory exploration?

As an appetizer, the two (or more) of you can tango down to the Ferry Building on Feb. 12, from 5 to 8pm, for the annual Food from the Heart. After the food-court tourists have gone home, the elegant main promenade will be transformed into a place to sip, nibble, flirt, and perhaps even dance. Local restaurants and wineries will have tables set up offering drinks and small plates for tasting, $2-$4. The money goes towards sending one lucky Ferry Plaza Farmers Market seller to Slow Food's Terra Madre event in Italy this fall.

Homemade Food Gift: Christmas Cookie Jars

Now, I realize that my timing may be off on this. Christmas has come and gone, and if you're like me, you are in detox mode from indulging over the holidays. But, if I may…I'd like to offer up some residual Christmas cheer.

I made these festive cookie jars this holiday season after seeing them on Brown Eyed Baker's list of homemade food gift ideas. Number 2 on her list is Bakerella's Homemade Cookie Mix (Be forewarned, if you have a sweet tooth, enter this site at your own risk. You will be dazzled by the goodies she whips up!).

At the Brown Eyed Baker's wise counsel, I turned Bakerella's Cowgirl Cookie Jars into the most adorable Christmas Cookie Jars. I lucked out and found 2 cases of canning jars on Craigslist, hit up Walgreens for some glitzy tinsel, and got my arts-and-crafts on.

Homemade Cookie Mix

I wasn't going to blog about this, since it seemed as if I had missed the sleigh on timeliness, but the feedback I got after giving these has been amazing! Everyone is clamoring for the recipe. Not only are these pretty, thoughtful, and homemade gifts…they are really delicious. Don't take it from me though.

Real live testimonials:

"These are SO good. I can't stop eating them, and I've been eating cookies all day." - Carly

"Holy gods of cookie heavens have shined down upon me! Best f-in baked dessert product of this Xmas season!" - My Brother

People loved these cookies. They made them with their kids. They horded them from visitors. They ate them all in one day. Warm, gooey cookies on a cold winter's day? Now that is Peace and Joy.

Now that the holidays are over, the last thing you may want to see is another cookie. Don't fret. Give it a day or two. It will pass.

Joy to the World

Christmas Cookie Jars
Adapted from Bakerella's "Cowgirl Cookies"

Makes: 27 cookies

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup M&Ms
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Wet Ingredients:
1 egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Stir all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add 1 slightly beaten egg, 1/2 cup melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients thoroughly.
5. Roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.
6. Enjoy while warm and gooey!

To assemble the Cookie Jars:
Start with a 1 quart smooth, glass, canning jar. Layer the ingredients in this order:

1. Flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt (stir these all up before pouring in the jar so they are well distributed)
2. Oats
3. M&Ms
4. Chocolate chips
5. Brown sugar
6. White sugar
7. Chopped pecans

Pack each level down *really* tightly or else it won't all fit. You can get the most packing power after the oats layer and the brown sugar layer. I used that top piece from the lid of my food processor (the thing you use to push veggies in through the hole in the lid) to really jam it all down.

Add the chopped pecans last, because depending on how well you pack the layers, you can add more or less pecans to adjust. As Bakerella notes, better to sacrifice nuts than chocolate. But also, for practical reasons, it helps keep the white sugar from spilling out all over the place when the recipient opens the jar.

The ingredients will be flush to the top of the lid when you seal it up. To decorate the top of the jars, wrap 16 inches of decorative wire tinsel around the top. Print the Preparation instructions on little cards made from wrapping paper, and punch a hole in the corner so you can attach it to the tinsel. Voila! Instant Christmas Cheer.

Bakerella's non-secular version involves decorating with suede cord and some fabric. She cuts the fabric into 6 inch squares and the suede into 25 inch pieces. Place the fabric on top and tie ribbons around the lid to hold it in place.