Culinary Muse

San Francisco's Favorite Summertime Drink

While Parisians are sipping rosé this summer and New Yorkers are knocking back iced coffee, we San Franciscans will be huddled over our favorite summertime drink: Hot Chocolate.  Whether served in a mug with a shot of bourbon or in a paper cup, there is nothing better to ward off the bone-chilling effects of San Francisco’s dense summer fog.

If you plan to be in the City in June, July or August, here are a few hot chocolate stops that you won’t want to miss:

Empirical evidence shows that the Ferry Building Marketplace has the highest ratio of gourmet hot chocolate per square foot than any other place in San Francisco, maybe even the world.  On a typical Saturday morning there are five places that you can purchase a cup of over-the-top, to-die-for, hot chocolate. Blue Bottle Coffee  has three locations where you, too, can queue up for twenty minutes for your chance to order hot chocolate made with chocolate from confectioner Michael Recchiuti .  Rumor has it that if your cup is not deemed perfect by the barrista it will be tossed away and a new one will be constructed.

 If you would rather sit while the magic of creating a perfect cup of thick hot chocolate is performed, then Boulette's Larder  is the place for you. Not quite a sidewalk café in Paris but pretty darn close.  Better even. Boulette’s is more like a carefully curated culinary museum where you can eat the exhibits.  Their hot chocolate tastes as though they have melted a bar or two or three of fine dark chocolate into the best organic milk you can imagine. 

If you had something more quicker in mind, then Peet’s is the place for you.  The line moves fast, so within 5 minutes you will have a perfectly delicious cup of hot chocolate made with Scharffen Berger dark chocolate.  I know someone who then heads outside to one of the benches overlooking the bay and discreetly slips a shot or two or three of Maker’s Mark into the her cup.  I doubt that you would ever tag this French Market Basket toting grand dame as a lush as she weaves her way through the aisles.

Now, if you are in Union Square there are two great choices within the same block.  Crepe O Chocolat at 75 O’Farrell Street has two different hot chocolates to choose from. One is listed as ‘Homemade Hot Chocolate’ and the one that I recommend is the ‘Melted Chocolate Drink’. It might be billed as a drink but I would argue that it is just one tablespoon of hot milk short of a pudding.  A few doors down at Cafe Madeleine  they start their drink with a generous spoonful of ganache - a thick concoction of chocolate and heavy cream that has been whipped together – to which they add hot milk.

Mark Twain may have complained that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco but that’s only because the he didn’t know where to find a great cup of hot chocolate.

Can't get to San Francisco this summer? Then try our recipe for hot chocolate for one: 

Recipe:

1 c milk

2 heaping T unsweetened cocoa

1 T sugar

pinch of salt

In a small saucepan, stir together ¼ c milk, cocoa, sugar & salt to form a smooth paste. Whisk in the remainder of the milk.  Heat over low heat until it reaches a simmer, stirring constantly.  Serve in a heated porcelain tea cup. Enjoy!

Cupcakes are the Puppies of the Food World

They oohed. They aahed. The cable car conductor exclaimed (I never use the word ‘exclaimed’ but there is no other way to describe it) that he was sure there were enough for everyone, didn’t I think so? When I presented the tray to my friends they shrieked with delight. What could evoke such spontaneous glee? A Baked Alaska? A two story high souffle? A serving of flaming crepes Suzette? No, dear reader. Just a tray of cupcakes. White cupcakes in heart patterned paper cups topped with pale pink frosting and sparkles to be exact. Nothing that I thought was particularly brilliant culinary-wise but apparently I was wrong. Witnessing this response immediately reminded me of the days when our Boxer dogs were puppies. Take a puppy anywhere and you will not be alone for long. You could be dressed as the Grim Reaper and people will drop to their knees in front of you to play with a puppy. People will do almost the same thing when presented with a cupcake.
My earliest cupcake memory goes back to nursery school.  Yes, I can remember back that far.  This nursery school was a co-op which now seems very progressive for what I would describe as my very conservative suburban hometown across the bay from more progressive San Francisco.  It was a wonderful school run by a woman named ‘Miss Lorna’.  Birthdays were celebrated with a cake (which your mother was expected to provide) as well as cupcakes.  This was before the days of concern over children’s sugar intake, obviously.  (I can honestly say that I don’t remember one overweight child in my class).  Anyway...you received a slice of cake to eat at once and a wrapped cupcake to take home with you.  Two cupcakes if you had a sibling.  These were carefully wrapped in wax paper and packed away in your lunch box for the trip home. 
So where did the cupcake come from? It may be that the name comes from the measurement of ingredients needed to produce a cupcake.  Just as the pound cake is a result of a pound of butter and pound of flour the cupcake required a cup of flour, a cup of butter and so on.  You get the idea.  Also, these small cakes were originally baked in earthenware cups.  Therefore the small cup shape and size and the name. Cupcakes were mostly confined to children’s parties, the Hostess Cupcake and Saturday School Bake Sales and mediocre bakeries until 1996.  That was the year that the Magnolia Bakery opened in New York.  They created a cupcake buzz (lines out the door).  And then all the buzz needed was a nudge from an appearance on ‘Sex in the City’ and it became a cupcake craze.  Former employees left and opened more cupcake bakeries.  Then SPRINKLES opened in Bevery Hills.  More lines out the door.  So what is the big deal, anyway? Why have people become so possessed by a sweet treat that they are willing to wait in a line that winds down the street?
I have been aware of this cupcake phenomena for a few years now and am surprised that it has lasted as long as it has. I have tried a couple of the most au courant versions, organic no less, from very good bakeries and found them dry and flavorless.
So what is it exactly that people are reacting to if not the flavor and texture? I think it must be a fond childhood memory of Room Mothers (remember those?) baking a batch to be distributed during the Valentine’s Day party. But the appeal here goes beyond the concept of comforting food. People do not giggle when a plate of macaroni and cheese is placed in front of them. A cupcake is about the compact cuteness of something that fits into the palm of your hand that does not require a fork and knife and will sometimes even be dyed pale pink or blue and often leaves a speck of frosting on the tip of your nose.Bigger than a cookie but not quit as big as a slice of cake.  And you can eat it with your hands.  Can’t do that so easily with a slice of cake which requires a plate and a fork. Not culinary brilliance but maybe folks don’t need food brilliance in their lives. What people seem to be craving is whimsy and silliness and a chance to shriek with delight over a simple pink cupcake.  It may also have something to do with portion control.

So what do I do when I need a cupcake fix?  I bake up a batch of cupcakes using a Duncan Hines Yellow Cake mix but I add a teaspoon of almond extract to the batter.  For frosting I recommend the recipe that appears on the side of the C & H Sugar Powdered Sugar box.  Use sweet butter and add a generous pinch of salt (finely grained sea salt is best, also known as ‘fleur de sel’.  Delicious!

STAY COOL WITH PEET'S

How does a wilting Muse stay cool on these too hot days in the City? By drinking tall, cold glasses of Peet’s new Scharffen Berger Chocolate Mocha Freddo. We were introduced to this addictive drink last week at the Coffee and Chocolate Pairing free event hosted by the PEET'S in the Ferry Building and SCHARFFEN BERGER CHOCOLATE. The tasting was led by Peet’s John Reynolds, roastmaster emeritus, and John Scharffenberger. Four separate pairings were offered. Our favorite was the pairing of Peet’s Guatemala coffee with Scharffen Berger’s 62% Cacao Mocha semisweet chocolate. Sublime.

Sign up to receive Peet’s and Scharffen Berger's newsletters where these events are listed. We note that on Saturdays, August 12 and 19 Peet's will be sampling this delicious new drink from 2-4 at all of their stores.

The Muse’s love affair with Peet’s coffee goes back to college days at CAL. Berkeley flipped this suburban white girl’s world upside down. And the flip side of my family’s percolated coffee was a cup of Peet’s sipped on the way to campus. The dark, bitter brew was the magic potion that spoke of other worlds and promised a transformation that only Berkeley could provide. Thank you, Peet's.

BIG NATE’S BBQ

An article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle reminded me that it was high time that I sing the praises of BIG NATE'S BARBEQUE. I met Nate Thurmond over ten years ago when we were both members of the same gym owned by Jim Simpson. The gym was then located in the basement of the Marine’s Memorial Building on Sutter Street at Mason. And what a great, funky place it was. I usually worked out on the men’s side of the gym because the men, who worked out in their underwear, were always nicer than the women who would snarl at me if I was on ‘their’ exercise bike for longer than 5 minutes. Anyway, the men who went to this gym included a retired NAACP lawyer, a judge, a hippy songwriter from North Beach, a musician, an evangelist, a retired FBI agent and a stockbroker or two for good measure. They had all been going there for many, many years. That is where I met the jazz musician Vernon Alley. He would tell me great stories about Billie and Carmen and Ella and Sarah as I sweated on the Stairmaster. He introduced me to Dinah Washington's music and her ‘Blue Gardenia’ CD. Another interesting man named Robert told me that you could always tell someone from Los Angeles (this would have been during his downtown days in the 40's through 60's) because the men did not wear hats. Take that, LA!  Back to Nate. We started ordering home delivery of his barbeque in 1996 and still do today. Our favorite is the ‘Memphis Pork Dinner’. Pork shoulder is slowly smoked until it is tender and falling to pieces. The pork ribs are great, too. Mr. Culinary Muse loves their coleslaw.  I love their potato salad.  It took me a long time to understand the purpose of the slices of brown wonderbread. Now I stuff them with morsels of smoky pork bits and nibble away as sauce pours down my hand past my wrist along my arm to my elbow.  Elbow licking good!

Mr. Weil, Fantasia, Blums and me

It was one of those marvelous life moments when you realize that all the stars, moons and planets have somehow aligned themselves in your favor.  There I was, sitting with Ernest Weil and his charming daughters, sipping tea and eating his famous Florentines and Almond Macaroons which he had baked just for us.  A little background: Mr. Weil is the man who created the Coffee Crunch Cake and he is the man who founded FANTASIA BAKERY in San Francisco.  When I wrote an article a few months ago entitled "Blums, Where are you?" I was contacted by one of his daughters, Sandy.  She was pleased to tell me that he was writing a cookbook which would be out in the Spring, 2006.  I had to meet this legend.  And I did.  An appointment that was only scheduled to last one hour was still going strong three hours later.  Only a previous engagement tore us away.  I am so honored to have been in his company for this time and to hear him share the stories of his emigration from Germany, his time in a French orphanage, his education at the Cordon Bleu and his arrival in America.  His is the story of so many of our own grandparents fleeing for their lives from Europe with only the clothes on their back. With luck a guardian angel lends a helping hand once they arrive in this country and then their own hard work that resulted in great success. 

The cookbook is now available through the website LOVE TO BAKE COOKBOOK.  It is a must for anyone who wants the original recipe for Coffee Crunch Cake, Florentines and great stories about San Francisco's beloved Fantasia Bakery.