Top “Foodie” Destinations for San Francisco /  by George Geary

The city by the bay! Since I took culinary classes in the city I get asked where are the places not to be missed. One day a place is hot the next it’s closed. Here is my personal list in no special order…

San Francisco Ferry Building  One Ferry Building

(415) 983-8030  ~ www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com

In 1898 opened as a transportation hub for the area. In 1989, it once again served as a transportation hub as the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the bridges and ferry service once again was used. In 2003 it transformed into the beautiful Ferry Building Marketplace.

My love for this building goes beyond the foods and historical value.. It’s now the center core of the city mainly during market days and mornings.

 

  1. Acme Bread. All over bread of the city are judged by Acme. Crusty, Fresh, Messy on your table! I love going to a restaurant in the city and right when the basket of bread is delivered I can tell if its ACME!
  2. CowGirl Creamery: This place takes me to my favorite cheese store in Cannes, Ceneri Cheeses. Here the gals from Pt. Reyes know how to create a stir. When you pull a ticket and wait your turn don’t be intimidated by all of the cheeses and aromas. Talk to the very helpful staff and tell them what you are thinking of doing with your bounty. Last time I was there I picked out 6 cheeses for a nice platter. The sales gal was impressed! I told her about Cannes.. Which she knew of and always wanted to see. 
  3. Recchiuti Chocolates: Two words.. Salt Caramels! I get cravings for these little squares of salty chocolate creaminess.  The packaging alone is priceless and perfect for a gift. My birthday is in June
  4. Farmers Market: Tuesday, Thursday and the very busy Saturday. I try to get to the market at least once a visit, and with three days a week its easy.. Saturdays are the bridge and tunnel people… But fun and exciting!

18th Street Food Rumble Area!

Between Delores and Mission…. A long block of bliss. First watch the parking signs. It’s not easy to get into these places… 

 

Tartine Bakery: 600 Guerrero

415-487-2600 http://www.tartinebakery.com

My favorite bakery for breakfast and coffee. If you go.. make it a weekday when the locals line up. Know what you want.. check the website out.. You order your pastry in the first line and the drinks in the second. If there are two of you.. You better not hold a table while one is ordering.. That’s a no no… Any of the fresh blackberry or cherry yeast things and a must are the Morning Buns.. If you are daring.. try making your own from their book Tartine Bread. If you want a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving order a month ahead.. order two in fact.. pick up the day before which you will see a line about 100 people deep (you get to cute to the front since you have a pre-order) and you can sell your extra pie for $200!

 

Bi-Rite Creamery 3692 18th Street

www.biritecreamery.com 

It can be foggy and cold and Bi-Rite will still have a line with 30 minutes wait.  Check their website for the flavors of the day.. Again.. its best to know what you want prior to getting to the front of the line.. If you don’t want to wait.. You can always pick up a copy of their new book.. But really that would take so much longer.. My holiday flavors I love are Ginger Pumpkin and the egg nog.

 

Defina  Restaurant and Pizzeria Delfina

3621 18th Street ~ 3611 18th Street

415-552-4055  www.definasf.com

This Italian establishment has won numerous awards from James Beard Foundation (2008 Winner). You can get a table as long as you book in advance or an early spot like 7pm. When I ate here after a wedding at city hall we sat next to a group of 12 spry 90 year olds.. They all were from an assisted living home and they go out to eat once a month to a fine place. Now this is a place I want to end up!

Again, check the website for the menu of the day. I love how so many are doing this without having to guess what you want.

 

Omnivore Books  3885 Cesar Chaves Street

415-282-4712  www.omnivorebooks.com

Bookstores come and go.. (Borders, B.Dalton).. Cookbook stores come and go.. (The Cooks Library)… But Omnivore is here to stay. Celia Sack, owner of this small tiny yet functional cookbook store does it different. You have to think out of the box.. With the giants like Amazon selling books so low and postage free how does one have a store? Celia’s ideas are inspirational. All stores could work this way not just cookbook stores. She has a book signing at least once a week, most are free, so you can exchange cooking stories with your icons. A quarterly cooking contest with procedes going to charities, She sells vintage and Antiquarian books (I have jumped on a number of candy, baking and one of my favorite Brown Derby books) She has huge events sometimes at the Castro Street Theater.. Also a worthy signed book of the month type club. You should at least receive her tweets and newsletter as to what’s going on in the publisher world. Once I wanted a book signed for a friend and the author was coming the next week. They took care of it for me. Now just try to get that on Amazon!

Tante Marie’s Cooking School  271 Francisco Street

415-788-6699    www.tantmarie.com

I must say I have never taught here.. But I have taken a number of specialty classes. If you are in the city for a few days and would like to hone your skills on a subject like knife skills or pies and tarts.. This is the place.  Since 1979 Mary Risley has been teaching the world is a better place when you know your way around a kitchen!

The Ice Cream Bar 815 Cole Street

www.theicecreambarsf.com

Just the name itself insights the taste buds to jump.  A 1930s ice cream soda fountain. The owners found the back bar on ebay and drove miles and states to get it.. When you walk in you can see the bar is the focal point of the operation. All of the concoctions are named with humorous over tones. Try the Hot Fudge Sundae as the fudge is home made as the ice cream has been churned and the whipped cream is silky and smooth.  

Let me know if you have a favorite foodie haunt in SF..

 

SD Living and Marmalade /  by George Geary

Today after the SD Living Show I headed into my kitchen to make a batch of Orange Marmalade. Its not one of the go to flavors of the jarred fruit for me.. In fact I cannot think of when I put some on toast.. Humm London maybe? But I wanted to create a batch of flavorful orange Marmalade.. Here is the recipe for you to try. Here in Southern California the oranges grow everywhere so the cost is only in the sugar.

 

Orange Marmalade 

The Toll Of It All… /  by George Geary

Reasonably I don’t have too many pet peeves. Or at least I don’t think I do. When I do thou I voice it in my classes and presentations to see if I get a laugh out of it and if others feel the same way… This one is a keeper.

Toll House Cookies. Purchasing a 12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips just to make a batch of the famous cookies. Bliss.. until you mix up a batch and start eating the raw creamy buttery chocolate dough.  I only yielded about 18 cookies! I looked on the package and the recipe states.. Makes 60 cookies. Sixty Cookies! Did I eat that much dough? The next time I made them, I didn’t eat any dough, not a smidgen.  I took the dough and cut it into 6 equal pieces. Then I took each of those pieces and cut those into 10. What I had was ten smaller than marble size cookies that were actually burned when I baked them for the exact timing that the recipe called for. I don’t think Mrs. Ruth Wakefield really intended us to eat cookies with only 2 chips in per cookie.

Here is the original recipe and yes it states the yield is 60!

Toll House Cookies

I really think it should say. Yield: 1 dozen plus dough eating.

When I am working on a recipe I am always making sure the yield will come out the same for you as it did for me. I would hate to have made a batch of muffins that supposedly yielded 24 and I only got 18. 

Here is a great cookie that I have put together.. They are moist and full of flavor. Browned Butter Pecan Chocolate Chunk Cookies. They yield 20 cookies, but if you eat any dough you will get 12!

Here is the recipe.. Enjoy!

Browned Butter Pecan Chocolate Chunk Cookies 

Brandied Cherries! /  by George Geary

Last week when I was at the farmers market I almost bought a bag of cherries. Almost does not cut it! I had bought peaches to make jam and tomatoes that tasted unlike their distant relative from the supermarket. I got to thinking this morning that maybe I had time to pack some brandied cherries. After going to two farmers markets today I found some for $4 a pound.  After a few stops (Kitchenware store for an OXO cherry pitter), BevMo for Brandy.. supermarket for more jars and sugar.. I finally got the jars of Rainier Cherries jarred and ready for their 4 month in the dark.. Oh how I wish I had a root cellar!

 

If you would like to make my Brandied Cherries here is the recipe:

Brandied Cherries

 

Banana Pecan Three Layer Cake! The Power of the Internet... /  by George Geary

Banana Pecan Three Layer Cake

Last night I thought I would bake a cake... I was about to get out the normal 9-inch pans and then decided that a taller version would be oh so much better! I had about 5lbs of over ripe bananas that I kept in the freezer. Time to defrost them! 

After mixing the batter and popping the cakes into the oven I thought I would check out Facebook.. After a short chat with a few friends the buzzer rang... I took the cakes out and placed them on a cooling rack.. Grab the iphone... snap snap.. Posted! Within 5 minutes these pictures went viral! You would have thought it was a star in trouble. No just a pastry chef that has baked for the stars!

The excitement of the posts were overwhelming.. From the high seas of crews around the globe to a colleague in the sky flying 40,000 feet in the air to UK and French friends.. to even my buddy Brian that is serving in Africa in the US Army. I wish I would have had a cake for each of them!

Today I iced and decorated the cakes.. Again. mayhem. This time from a few of my friends that are tv and music stars!

If you want to create mayhem and the world to talk here is the recipe... If you would like to get the pans to make the cake in.. you can order them from my store.. Also check out my new book you can pre-order!

Banana Pecan Cake with Cream Cheese Icing.  

 

Where has George Been? /  by George Geary

It has been too long! I have been out of touch and here is a little blog entry!

I conducted 2 back to back tours of the South of France! It was our last tours! They went out with a bang.. Here I am in the former kitchen of Julia Child. This year she would have turned 100! I have a few talks in last summer that I am doing.. One in her home town of Pasadena! 

If you are on my Facebook page you will see the day to day tour in pictures! 

Check them out!

George

Classes in Ohio... Gervasi Vineyard /  by George Geary

I am so exicted to be teaching at this new venue.  Here is all of the information on the classes and the links to register:

Gerasi Vineyard Cucina Cooking Classes

The Cucina at Gervasi Vineyard
1700 55th Street NE
Canton, OH 44721

Saturday April 22nd, 11am-2pm: Fast and Easy Entertaining with Sauces

Sunday: April 23rd 11am-2pm: Cruising Austraila 

Both classes are hands on and lots of fun. Check the site for the full menus

Register for a class

Down Under... Lamb /  by George Geary

While on the ms Amsterdam on the World Cruise I was in New Zealand last year.. I created a full menu using the flavors of "down under". Here is the recipe from the classes in Florida at Publix last week...

Down Under Lamb

The key to perfect meats is by using an instant read thermometer. Cook meats by temperature not how many minutes per pound.. 

1960's Eggnog Recipe /  by George Geary

This morning I received an instant message from my good friend Mary…

“I love all of the recipes.. Do you have an eggnog recipe with the raw eggs to where it has so much brandy that the salmonella is all killed?”

 

OK first of all.. YES. From my old recipe collection. These recipes are in a file with the real Cesar dressing, Pasta Carbanara and Hollandaise sauce that I don’t use in recipes in class because of the raw scare.  But here is a recipe as it was intended to be made. 

1960's Eggnog Recipe

Now if you dont want to make your own.. And you live in the greater Los Angeles area try Broguieres Dairy. You can find it at the dairy in Montebello and some selected stores. When I host my holiday food tours we always have the eggnog.. 

Briguieres Dairy