Solid Investment / Week of Dinners

Juniper Café Novato

Some time ago I sold a few shares of stock that I had received from a former employer. That action put me on a permanent cold call list at several brokers. A couple times a year they call me to ask if I would like to invest in whatever stock is hot. I blow them off by telling them that I am only investing in groceries. I guess they took that as an investment in grocery company stocks. I, however, was investing my money in groceries to feed my family. That’s how the working class lives these days. This week I made another investment in groceries.

Enter Chef Todd Davies. A CIA graduate, he has spent years in some of the finest kitchens in the country, including local luminaries The Lark Creek Inn and The Flying Saucer. His resume is impressive. His most recent enterprise is Juniper Café in Novato, California where he now resides. It is a café attached to a country club hidden on a hill. He also runs a catering business from his compact kitchen. A new part of the chef’s enterprise is Week of Dinners. I read an ad in the local paper that said “Healthy Home-cooked meals for busy people, seven dinners a week $159, each dinner feeds 4 to 6 people”. I was interested and signed up for a night session. I was told to bring a cooler to pack up my dinners.

It works like this. On arrival you prepay your tab and are offered wine and other beverages. This put the night into relaxed party mood. Chef Davies and his staff have prepared seven workstations, one for each dinner. Each station contains the ingredients, containers and instructions you need to assemble your dinners. As you finish each dinner you move clockwise to the next dinner station. All the shopping, washing, cutting and what not are done for you. The staff even does the clean up afterwards. If you’re a little timid about recipe construction Chef Davies is on hand to help you figure it out. He is calm and reassuring. Marin Farmer’s Market produce, natural beef and pork and free range poultry are the norm. You take it home and freeze your meals until you’re ready to cook.


Marjorie and Regina split a week of dinners


Chef Davies lends a hand


Is the food good? Oh Yeah! I spoke with Martha and Dennis Palm of Novato. They have been participating in the Week of Dinners since November and love it.

So far we have prepared the pork loin with rosemary stuffing and braised short ribs of beef with carrots and red potatoes. Both were stellar. The menu changes weekly and is posted on the web site.


Stuffed Pork Loin with vegetables and apple sauce


Braised short ribs of beef

de Young Museum

My wife the artist loves museums. I'm into people watching. We both love food. Today we covered all our loves. The newly remodeled de Young Museum is, in a word, magnificent. The building itself is a work of art. If they have any leftover wood from their flooring call me I'll come over with a truck. The following photos are probably not the works of art my wife would have chosen,but they tickled my fancy. The first is a beautiful set of ceramics in the shape of fruit. There I go thinking about food again.

This photo kinda looks like me with a hangover. Call it self portrait of self indulgence.

To me the best part of any trip is the food. The de Young Cafe is a brilliant place for food. It is run by Bon Appetit who has a good reputation for upscale commercial foodservice. The staff is young, well dressed, efficient and would look right in any local expensive bistro. The plates and tableware are heavy and modern.

The foodstuffs have listed pedigrees that are very familiar in San Francisco Area: Vella Dry Jack Cheese, Point Reyes Blue Cheese, Niman Ranch ham, lamb and bacon; Marin Sun Farms grass fed beef, Diestel turkey, Rocky Junior chicken, etc. The prices start at $6.50 and top at $12.50. A great value.

We decided to be good diet wise and bought salads. She had the "Today's Salad". Organic mixed greens, red onions, feta, tomato, cucumber, orange oregano dressing topped with grass fed skirt steak.

I had "The Arugula" with Point Reyes Blue, roasted chiogga beets, shaved fennel, toasted hazelnuts, dressed with sherry vinaigrette.

I watched a lot of food go by and almost wished I'd chosen the Marin Sun Farms cheeseburger, or the half Rocky Jr. Chicken with Meyer Lemon, butterball potatoes and garlic vegetables. They looked so good. To make the lunch not quite so diet, I assuaged myself with a healthy pour of Dynamite Vineyards Merlot ($7), a smooth, rich, oakey wine. In the words of The Governator, "I'll be back."

Super Bowl Sunny/ Town of Sonoma

It was like old times today. The sun was shining and the urge to get away hit. Yeah, we had to be back for the afternoon football stuff. Lucky for us, we live very close to some world class destinations. About half an hour away is the Town of Sonoma. Back when our kids were little we would sneak away during the week and check out the square in the center of town and have a picnic. That was a while ago before the town had been "discovered" and the local wine prices skyrocketed. The square is still the same or better with picnic tables and play areas for kids. Also a duck pond with some hungry ducks and a colorful, aggressive rooster.

Hungry duck

Watch out for this bad boy
The surrounding shops and restaurants have gone upscale and "up priced." There are a lot of new stores catering to the landed gentry set. Clothing, art and housewares at San Francisco prices. Some places still reflect the small town feel. The popular Basque Boulangerie was packing them in. I counted eighteen people in line for their wonderful breads and pastries. The Cheese Factory is on the square and has a great selection of picnic foods. Another business that is good and reasonably priced on the square is the Sunflower Caffe with sandwiches, salads, and more. The garden seating area in the back is grand.

Sunflower Caffe garden seating
We wanted to check out Vella Cheese for some of their Dry Jack. It is located just a few blocks away from the square. To our disappointment they are closed on Sunday. Our final stop was Artisan Bakers just a short drive north of town. We got some bread for the game and just had to have some pastries. A nice walk in the sun and good food now that's the ticket. We'll still be home in time for Superbowl.

Artisan Bakery yummies

Will Frank Bruni Find Humility?

Every Wednesday morning I struggle into my local food megamart to purchase an array of newspapers. The friendly checker Phil always asks "are your going to read all those?". Well yes and no. The food section yes and the rest probably not. I will recycle the rest. I, like many other foodies/bloggers, fulfill my passion/addiction to all things food related by reading the latest food news. One of the best food sections around is the New York Times. I know I'm a little late in penning an opinion about this because other bloggers have already written about it. Shout out to Dr. Biggles. I have been kinda busy/tired/ lazy but I wanted to make mention.

Each week Frank Bruni writes a review of NY restaurant. The places he visits are normally way out of my league price wise. I read him anyhow just to see how the other half lives. I've found him to be a little snotty, in an 'I'm entitled cause I'm special way.' His recent article "My Week as a Waiter" has him working the other side of the table. He is funny and self deprecating in this article and sounds like the kinda guy I would like to hang out with. Will it last? Hard to say. Some of the quotes from the waiters at the restaurant he worked at are really insightful. I think waiting tables should be mandatory service for everyone. It will either make you into a cynical fool or make you humble and forgiving to those who serve. Frank stay humble.

Davis Farmers Market

Took a little trip to Davis, Ca. Saturday. On our last trip we spotted a butcher block top kitchen cart in the Ace Hardware store and fell in love with it. That was almost a year ago and as the old saying goes "you snooze, you lose". Turns out it was a close out sale at half price. If we want to order a new one it will cost double.

All was not lost. Davis has a year round Farmer's Market on Saturday. We bundled ourselves in layers of clothes to fend off the cold damp weather and went shopping. Some of the farmers were familiar from the S.F. Ferry market. Capay Organics' display was a work of art. We purchased some carrots and Meyer lemons from them.

Dragon Gourmet Mushrooms supplied us with Fresh Oyster and King mushrooms.

oyster mushrooms

king mushrooms

East & West Gourmet Foods of Concord was a new vendor to us. Their sign said Italian/Afghan foods. They offered an array of flat breads and dipping sauces. We purchased bolani, an Afghan flat bread stuffed with spinach, and a container of spicy cilantro pesto.

Attractive young ladies be warned! The handsome young man behind the counter will seduce you into buying lots of food by flirting with you endlessly. I watched it happened several times. His banter is smoother than Tuscan Olive Oil. If his bedside manner is as good as his pitch you could find yourself compromised in a heart beat.

I know we may have violated some unwritten market law with our next stop, Pedrick Produce in Dixon. An ugly Quonset hut building at the Pedrick Road off ramp west of Davis. Hordes of people stop here on the return trip from Tahoe. Probably not all organic, but a great value, they offer fresh and dried produce of all kinds. A twenty five pound sack of sweet navel oranges for juice was $4.99. We also purchased some dried, candied cantaloupe that was tasty and very sweet.

Dried Fruit

Garlic Stuffed California Olives from Armstrong Olives rounded out our cart.

Dine on a dime

Ikea Emeryville

The first time I visited Ikea I was amazed and amused. That feeling lasted for about an hour and a half. Then I reached my retail tolerance level. Like a kid locked in a candy factory I had overindulged. Listen, I admit the place is cool and has some great inexpensive flat box furniture. Cookware and linens and just about anything you need for the house displayed in mountains of merchandise. In order to to make it a real pleasant experience you gotta have a strategy. Go on a weekday if possible. You can park closer and not feel like you're part of a sea of people on a forced march . Arm yourself with map (available at the entrance). Study it and look for the short cuts to the kind of merchandise you want. Otherwise they rat trap you into walking the whole distance of the store. Unless your a marathon person, pick your route carefully.

Fortify yourself. This is food blog after all. There is a couple of choices. Upstairs is the fancier restaurant. They serve big portions of food at extremely low prices. For about $5 dollars you can choose a number of healthy looking platters. I've tasted the Swedish meatballs and gravlox plates and both are excellent. For breakfast you get the full on American egg, bacon and taters for about $2.

On this visit we tried the snack bar located on the first level near the checkstand. Hot dogs at fifty cents seemed to good to be true. They tasted good albeit a little on the small side. The meal deal $3 gives you two hot dogs, a refillable drink and a ginormous bag of exceptional chips. If you got a sweet tooth cinnamon buns are $1 a piece or six for $4. There is also a number of Swedish products available to take home. The meatballs served upstairs come frozen so you can take them home for quick meal.

You have got to wonder if the food is loss leader to get people into the store. With prices this cheap and the quality so good I'm sure it attracts crowds just for the food. Out there in Google land I read about pensioners in England who used the restaurant to help make ends meet on a fixed income. Beats the heck out of a lot of our fast food joints.

Top my photo, bottom Ikea photo. Where's a food stylist when you need one?

Nice buns

Ok, that's $3 for food and $289 for furniture. Dine on a dime? Maybe not.

Mulberry Street Pizzeria

Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees. I have literally driven by this place several hundred times and never checked it out. Oh there's the Mulberry Street Pizzeria that won the Food Network pizza battle. I'll go there someday.

I finally made it there yesterday. It is located in low profile business park in the north end of San Rafael. The name pizzeria conjures up beer posters and picnic tables in my mind. This is not that kind of place. This is an attractive restaurant with light wood tables and a bright interior. Unlike Emeril or Flay's restaurants, Chef Ted Rowe is on site. He works the room greeting guests and such. The place was really slammed, but the smile rarely left the chef's face. You get the feeling he likes what he does.

The winning pizza, a mushroom with white sauce combo, is on the menu. I, however, ordered the 10 inch pepperoni. I know that's pedestrian, but it's what I like. Oh boy, did I like it! No hide and seek toppings here. Pepperoni covers every inch of cheesy goodness. The crust is crisp and the sauce right on. The leftovers cold out of the box later that day were better than most pizzas hot.

mucho pepperoni

My wife decided to check out the vegetarian black bean soup. I tasted it and it was good. It would have been better with some added pork product. Then it wouldn't have been veggie eh? A well executed small Caesar salad arrived on a chilled plate. Extra points points for the chilling.

just chilling

A most pleasant experience.