Food and Drink

Appetite: 10 best spirits launched in 2012

12.11.12 - 2:31 pm | Virginia Miller |

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Each year holds a range of interesting spirits released from around the globe. As the craft spirit industry continues to explode, there were many exciting newcomers this year. Here are some of the best of what's crossed my desk in 2012.

FORD's GIN ($27) - The 86 Company is a new venture from spirits and cocktail world stars Simon Ford (former International Brand Ambassador for Plymouth Gin), Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric (owners of New York's Employees Only bar, authors of Speakeasy). Just last month, they released Caña Brava Rum (a Panama rum, aged 3 years), Aylesbury Duck Vodka, and Ford's Gin. It's the gin I've been mixing with at home in every kind of cocktail from a basic gin and tonic to complex Ramos Gin Fizz.

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Boy Howdy

Rollin out the red carpet in Hollywood, and eating it up at Sabina's Restaurant

12.06.12 - 12:51 pm | L.E. Leone |

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS This.

CHEAP SPORTS

by Hedgehog

I love my editor/column hostess. And not just because I'm domestically partnered to her (though that helps). Read more »

Orexi

West Portal's delicious, midrange, homestyle Greek secret is out

11.27.12 - 5:24 pm | Virginia Miller |

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virginia@bayguardian.com

APPETITE West Portal has long warmed my heart. Maybe it's the removed setting, tucked in the shadow of Twin Peaks where T line ends and the M emerges. Or it's a sense of stepping back in time to a 1970s San Francisco, a sleepy area unfazed by trends and hipsterization. It's a family neighborhood, residential and small town in feel — and like any corner of our city, has its food gems, like old school blue cheese buffalo burgers at charmingly dated Bulls Head, or vividly fresh sandwiches and salads at the original location of Market and Rye.Read more »

SFBG TV: Dinner with Cassava

11.23.12 - 9:46 am | Eric Cuadra |

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"This place just sort of fell into our lap" says Yuka Ioroi, who opened the Richmond neighborhood's Cassava Cafe and Restaurant earlier this year with husband Kristoffer. "We always wanted to have our own restaurant, but also wanted to start small with a cafe. So we thought, why not just serve a limited-seating dinner?" Read more »

Appetite: Learning from the best, eating like royalty at Flavor! Napa

11.21.12 - 10:19 am | Virginia Miller |

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Redd's confit chicken thigh in chocolate orange spice mole with cheddar cheese polenta and cracklins' at Appelation Trail

Chicken liver creme caramel with roasted grapes and bacon from the Thomas & Fagiani's Bar's Brad Farmerie -- at Appelation Trail

Appellation Trail wine highlights: Lang & Reed Cabernet Franc

Ca'Momi Enoteca's dreamy bigne (beignets) from chef Valentina Guolo-Migotto at Appelation Trail

A morning session with Thomas Keller on the importance of selecting fresh produce

An interactive lunch with Masaharu Morimoto, who helped attendees make sushi before a three-course lunch

The Morimoto lunch's second course was a lush, braised black cod paired with a 2011 MerSoleil Silver unoaked Chardonnay

All photos by Virginia Miller

Flavor! Napa is a five-day food and wine festival that took place last weekend in its second annual incarnation, potentially the definitive event representing the wines of the region, and the chefs and cooking that make this grouping of small towns and countryside one of the great culinary and wine destinations in the world.Read more »

Sattdown strike

It's hard to find good help these days

11.20.12 - 6:31 pm | L.E. Leone |

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Dang it, my sports writer has gone on strike. Over something really stupid, too. Really really stupid. How stupid? A couple columns ago, I changed her spelling of youse to yous. Why?

Oh, you escape my meaning entirely, don't you?

Youse. Yous. The former preferred by Hedgehog, whereas I like the latter.Read more »

Put some cream on it: Warming up the holiday kitchen with Studio of Good Living

11.20.12 - 11:24 am | Ariel Soto-Suver |

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Studio of Good Living Holiday cooking class, 11/17/12. Guardian photo by Ariel Soto-Suver

Five yogis walk into a kitchen and prepare seven dishes made with heavy cream.

This sounds like the beginning of a ridiculous and hilarious joke, but in all honesty, it’s pretty much how Saturday morning started out, with the very first recipe being homemade Irish cream (note: it was 11am). Things were off to an awesome start at the Studio of Good Living, Phoebe Schilla's school of experiential cooking.Read more »

Popping up

Air dodgeball -- and whiffing with KPOP

11.14.12 - 2:13 pm | L.E. Leone |

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Another new restaurant has sprung up at the corner of Castro and 18th St. across from Walgreens. Korean, this time.

CHEAP SPORTS

by Hedgehog

There are several problems inherent with writing a pirate sports column embedded within a "food" column in any free weekly paper, even when the "food" column isn't written by your domesticated partner. Which mine is. And don't think I haven't suspected that's how I landed the gig in the first place.Read more »