From the category archives:

comfort food

Marc Kelly Dishes on the Story Behind Berkeley’s Soop

February 20, 2012 berkeley bites

One man’s mid-life crisis, another person’s comfort food. Get the back story on Soop, nourishing customers for six years.

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First Lady, Food Deserts & New Fund for Hungry

July 21, 2011 bay area bites

First Lady Michelle Obama announces a new food financing initiative designed to increase access to healthy, affordable food in underserved communities in California.

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Farewell to Berkeley’s Frugal Foodies

December 16, 2010 berkeley bites

For the past five and a half years, J Moses Ceaser has opened his home every Tuesday night to old friends and complete strangers with the sole purpose of getting people in the kitchen cooking a vegetarian meal from scratch for a fraction of the cost of eating out — while creating community on the [...]

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What Next for Berkeley’s Multi Culti Grill and Birdland Jazz?

December 10, 2010 berkeley bites

The Bird Man, Michael Parayno, brings BBQ street eats and jazz grooves to a sleepy stretch of North Berkeley.

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Slow Food Folks Serve Fast Food with Style

August 6, 2010 berkeley bites

Chef owners Paul Arenstam and Charlene Reis have a slow food sensibility in a take-out business better known for fast food. That’s because the culinary couple (partners in life too) come with stellar cooking credentials: She’s an-ex Chez Panisse pastry chef, he did stints at upscale L.A. joints before landing at San Francisco’s acclaimed Rubicon. [...]

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Marvelous Mushrooms

February 17, 2010 comfort food

Regular readers may recall that every so often I get a bee in my bonnet about a particular kind of produce. Persimmons come to mind. Brussels sprouts too. No surprise that a blog named Lettuce Eat Kale showcases a certain dark, leafy green, whether roasted or dehydrated. Today, mushrooms get their due. Recently, I’ve become [...]

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Food Poisoning, Food Allergy, or Stomach Flu?

February 8, 2010 comfort food

Will depart from regularly scheduled programming today to bemoan the fact that for the third time in two and a half years I have some intestinal trouble that has had me completely off food since Friday. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: It’s almost impossible to write about food when you can’t keep [...]

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Seeking Comfort Foods During Season of Excess

December 28, 2009 comfort food

Had too many fancy-pants dinners lately? Sick of rich desserts? Over overindulging on the eating and drinking front at holiday parties? If I’m in Australia this time of year I start to O.D. on nibbles like taramosalata dip, champers, and triple-cream Brie. In California, it’s enough with the holiday cookies already. So, quick question: During [...]

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Gobble, Gobble & Gratitude

November 24, 2009 comfort food

Hello peeps.  I know many of you are busy prepping for the annual American food fest, so I won’t keep you long. First, full disclosure: I do not (heart) the holidays. And nothing announces the official start of the festive season than Thanksgiving. Well, I guess there’s also Halloween, the end of daylight savings, the [...]

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Stuck in a Dinner Rut? You've Got Lots of Company

November 17, 2009 comfort food

Fascinated by a report out of the UK (thank you Food News Journal) that reveals the average mother rotates through just nine different meals to feed her family. (Ah, why weren’t the fathers polled as well?) And one in four make the same meals on the same day of the week. Wow. You’d think with [...]

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Book Giveaway: My Nepenthe

November 13, 2009 baking

It’s always tricky to write about a pal’s book, you don’t want to come off sounding like a fawning friend, frankly. So, in the case of My Nepenthe by Romney “Nani” Steele, I’m going to let others hand out the praise. Sunset describes Nani’s cookbook-cum-memoir as “a valentine to one of the most beautiful places [...]

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What's for Dinner? Find Answers on the Web

November 4, 2009 comfort food

How many of you have found those email chain letters in your inbox asking you to share a recipe with a dozen or so others? How many of you actually respond? I’m not entirely sure why, but I never seem to reply to these recipe requests (sorry Anne, Katherine, Ellen, et al.) and wind up [...]

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San Francisco's Street Eats Scene

October 30, 2009 comfort food

Okay, so I’m a little obsessed with street food right now. First it was Oakland. Then Sydney. Last night it was time to check out the sidewalk scene in my old stomping ground San Francisco. It was the call of the Creme Brulee Cart that beckoned me across the Bay on a night when there [...]

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The Sweet Dish on Sydney

October 6, 2009 baking

Flickr photo by jcmurty used under the Creative Commons license. When you pop in and out of your homeland once or twice a year, as I do, it’s pretty easy to pick up on trends since you last touched down. I was in Sydney for a month this past Southern Hemisphere summer, that’s December-January for [...]

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Simply Delicious

September 16, 2009 comfort food

Dudley’s Rhythm & Motion dance class on Sunday. Yogurt, granola, and berries for breakfast — topped off with a fig, no less — from around the corner at the architecturally splendid Stable Cafe, once the site of the San Francisco mayor’s carriage house in the 1800s, now adding some sparkle to an otherwise scruffy stretch [...]

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A Shout Out for the Eat Real Food Festival

August 29, 2009 comfort food

A roasty toasty day by the bay and foodie folk swarmed Jack London Square in Oakland to sample cheap-yet-chic street eats dished out of food trucks and pedal carts at the Eat Real Festival, an outdoor event where small bites sell for five bucks or less. Thanks, in part, to Twitter, grabbing good food on [...]

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Eat Food, Cook Food, and Don't Forget the Salt

July 29, 2009 comfort food

Perhaps the best thing about Cook Food: a manualfesto for easy, healthy, local eating is that it’s a slim little volume. That’s not some snarky reviewer comment. Writer Lisa Jervis aims to demystify how to eat well and cook simple food by keeping her book brief. She includes 20 recipes of the beans, greens, grains, [...]

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What Do You Eat When You Eat Alone?

June 13, 2009 comfort food

True confession: When I’m home alone at night sometimes I forget to make dinner. Ten o’clock rolls around, the kitchen is closed, and so I grab a bowl of cereal and call it a night. Terrible habit I know. At least it’s whole grain cereal. It turns out, I’m in good company. Here’s another cereal-for-solo [...]

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The Comfort of Food

May 27, 2009 comfort food

It turns out it is impossible to write a food blog when one is struck by a violent stomach bug. Have no fear dear reader, no graphic details follow. Down for the count for most of last week, I lost six pounds (we’ll see how long that lasts) and am only now, gingerly, making my [...]

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Lentil Soup: An Antidote to Swine Flu Fever

May 8, 2009 comfort food

I knew trouble was brewing. The ol’ scratchy throat, lethargy, and pounding headache were all clues. So I started sipping lemon-honey-herbal tea, downed Airborne, Emergen-C, and some Chinese immune-boosting pills a pal slipped in my purse, wrapped my neck in a warm scarf, and tried to rest. I was determined to ward off whatever dreaded [...]

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