In the Kitchen

What’s New at Paulding & Company

March 2010

Through the Looking Glass, for the SF Junior League

Paulding & Company has contributed to an auction item set up for the San Francisco Junior League's 84th annual Fashion Show Gala auction, March 19th, at The Fairmont Hotel.

The event is Savor a Year in Food: a collection of unique foodie experiences around the Bay Area for a party of six. It includes dinners with Chefs Michael Chiarello, Chris Cosentino, Hubert Keller and Blair Warsham of graffEats, along with a special Top Chef Dinner at the first season filming location (the Paulding & Company kitchen), with Top Chefs Jen Biesty, Jamie Lauren, Mattin Noblia and Laurine Wickett. This package includes four beautiful cases of wine generously donated by Ridge and Pena Ridge.

Spring Break at Cook! Culinary Programs

Join Tracy and staff for a special Spring Break Tapas and Small Plates series of classes, either April 5-7 or 12-14, from 10 AM to 1 PM. Tapas- small plates! Learn a plethora of easy to prepare, super flavorful, colorful and delicious dishes. We will make everything from stuffed, baked dates to spicy shrimp with pimenton, with lots of fabulous, seasonal dishes between. These are $200 per session, and you can register on the Cook! website.

Summer at Cook! Culinary Programs

Tracy has the session descriptions up, postcards made, and registrations are already rolling in. She will have a table at the AAUW 28th Annual Summer Camps and Programs Fair on Sunday, March 14th, from 1-4:30 PM, if you’d like to come chat about the program. It’s at the Scottish Rite Hall on Lake Merritt. She will also host an Open House the next Sunday, March 21st, from 1-3 PM at the kitchen, where interested families can come and get a taste of camp life. If you would like flyers or postcards for your kids’ school, let us know—we are accepting 9-17 year olds this year, in mixed group classes.

Kitchen News

Bitten by the ‘spring cleaning and repairs’ bug, we’re taking advantage of a little window of opportunity to put in a new hot water system—we’ve been saddled with an inefficient electric hot water heater, that runs out half-way through every event, for long enough. Moving to an on-demand gas system is exciting, albeit a bit costly. Every year we make a few needed improvements, keeping the kitchen in tip-top condition.

Classes

We are honored to introduce two new teachers! Welcome to Selome Haileleloul, teaching Ethiopian food, and Maria Teresa Capdeville, teaching the cuisine of Abruzzo and Italian baking.

Ethiopian Cooking

Selome has already taught two well-received classes, and has two more scheduled for March. I came to the first, two weeks ago, and learned all about the special Ethiopian spices, flavors and techniques that make this cuisine unique. In March, she is offering an Ethiopian Vegetarian meal, on March 13th, and another on March 27th, a Vegetable and Fish class. If you want a little inspiration before you come learn, a meal at Cafe Colucci on Telegraph & 64th St. is a good start, as it’s Selome’s families restaurant, a vibrant, busy place with great food and stellar Ethiopian beer and wine, as well.

Italian Baking and Chocolate

Maria starts with a Focaccia Workshop on March 20th, and then will teach an All-Chocolate Menu from Abruzzo on April 3rd. The author of My Sweet Abruzzo, Maria is a professional pastry chef and a baking & pastry instructor from Abruzzo (Italy). She learned the art of slow cooking and bread baking with her family, and honed her experience in local restaurant kitchens, including Rose Pistola, The Waterfront, Market Hall, The Townhouse Grill & Restaurant and Chez Panisse, where she learned about hand-selecting and gently preparing perfect produce from Alice Waters. She is writing her second cookbook, about Italian small plates.

Knife Sharpening

Eric E. Weiss, our extraordinary knife sharpening instructor, is teaching a new subject. Join him April 12th, for a Serrated Knife Sharpening Class. If you thought those worn-down bread knives were ready to replace, here’s your chance to resurrect them, and learn how to keep them happily honed and doing their job!

Cooking with Rosetta

Rosetta Costantino continues to sell out all her classes, this spring being no exception. There are still some spots in the April 30th Southern Italy Seafood Extravaganza, and the May 7th Ricotta Class. Other classes do take waiting lists, so check if you’re interested in a particular subject. We all look forward to the publication of Rosetta’s book, My Calabria in November, packed with her great, easy recipes—and Rosetta’s garden blog, Calabria From Scratch, is the best primer on local vegetable and fruit gardening I know.

Knife Skills Class

Lots of people have told me they were sad to have missed my recent Knife Skills and Pressure Cooker class, so email me if you’re interested in another—once I get enough interest, I’ll find a date that works for all. In our class we learned how to cut a myriad of ingredients easily, and used them to make minestrone, leek and potato soup, carrot and ginger soup, and an Asian slaw—all this in a 3 hour long class!

Diet and Stress

Paulding & Company will be co-hosting an event for the women entrepreneur network, Savor the Success: Eat Smart, Work Smart on Thursday, April 1 from 6:30 to 9:00 PM. The fee is $35 for the public or $10 for members.The evening will feature a talk about diet, health and energy by diet consultant Simla Somturk Wickless, along with a group cooking event, with a light tasting menu of Paulding & Company’s seared scallops served over sunomono (Japanese vegetable salad), and carrot soup with Moroccan spices, plus Simla’s raw kale salad.

In the Market

Signs of the upcoming spring are finally here, as the first Delta asparagus, spring onions and green garlic have arrived at the farmer’s market. Fava beans and peas are due in next. Strawberries are arriving from points south whenever it’s not raining, and while they’re not yet sweet enough to be exciting, they’re nevertheless a welcome change from citrus and the now-waning apples and pears. With blooms all over the neighborhood plum trees, we can finally all predict an end to this long, cold winter, and the coming of spring. In my little garden, the first peas are tender and tiny, and the fava plants have blossoms, promising a crop to come. One thing for sure: there was no drought this winter, and we shouldn’t have too many water restrictions this summer—hopefully meaning good crops to come, and some relief for beleaguered farmers. One note to Grand Lake market-goers, the parking enforcement police have started ticketing those of us who take advantage of space that’s not officially designated for parking in the lot—so beware!

Recipe of the Month

I’ve been working on my old favorite muffin recipe, one I created when I was in culinary school. It was both a school project, to come up with an innovative recipe for food chemistry class, and a task dear to my heart—the food we were offered at breakfast was, quite frankly, not appealing. I needed something to sustain me through days that started at 7 AM, that was nutritious and delicious. Paired with a scrambled egg, they did the trick. My latest iteration adds some bran to the muffins, which were already about as healthy as you can get—made with old-fashioned oats, moistened with grated raw apple (or pear), buttermilk and egg, with no added fat, they were always a bit ugly but very tasty. With the bran, they’ve reached a new dimension, better looking, and with a great flavor. They keep extraordinarily well, too. I vary the added ingredients, the latest version used figs I’d preserved in honey from my own tree this summer, and walnuts.

See the recipe »