Tag Archives: Alex Hozven
Four East Bay names finalists in Good Food Awards
Four East Bay food producers are finalists in the national 2013 Good Food Awards.
West Berkeley salumi company, Fra’ Mani, run by former Oliveto chef Paul Bertolli, is a finalist in the Charcuterie category for its Salame Toscano. The Cultured Pickle Shop, owned by Alex Hozven and Kevin Farley and also in west Berkeley, made it to the finals in the Pickles category for its Japanese Cucumber and Arame Kimchee and its Kasu-Zuke Jalapeños. INNA Jam, which owner Dafna Kory recently moved from Berkeley to Emeryville, is a finalist in the Preserves category for its Pretty Spicy Fresno Chili Jam. And Alameda-based St. George Spirits, reached the final stretch in the Spirits category for its Agua Libre California Agricole Rum and its Aqua Perfecta Poire Eau de Vie.
A total of 114 winners, representing 132 products, are set to be announced tonight at a ceremony held at San Francisco’s Ferry Building presided over by Berkeley restaurateur and sustainable food champion Alice Waters. … Continue reading »
Berkeley acupuncturist finds bliss in seasonal food
“We Americans are eating ourselves to death” sounds like a total Debbie Downer way to begin a book, doesn’t it? But the recently released cookbook Real Food All Year, by Berkeley’s Nishanga Bliss, offers an opportunity to explore seasonal eating in tandem with the principles of Chinese medicine and holistic nutrition in a manner that isn’t overly negative or earnest.
Bliss, a professor of Chinese medicine at the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College (AIMC) in downtown Berkeley, where she works as an acupuncturist, nutritionist and herbalist, peppers her book, published by local press New Harbinger, with her professional expertise. She focuses on the healing potential of seasonal eating and cooking to support the health of key organs and overall energy.
So readers will find cheery chapters such as “Feeling Spring,” which encourages eaters to embrace the appearance of fresh, new greens at the market, cleanse, detoxify the liver, and cook for shorter times, with less oil, and lower temperatures than in winter. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Tuesday farmers’ market moving to Lorin District
Some say change is as good as a holiday. Others counter that most resist change. But here’s what everyone can agree on: change comes, regardless.
And so it is that the Ecology Center’s Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays is set to move to a new location. The first formalized farmers’ market in the city, which has called Derby Street at MLK Way in South Berkeley home for 25 years, is slated to relocate come July 10 to the parking bay at Adeline and 63rd Streets in the Lorin District. The market will run, as it does now, from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 6:30 p.m. (It’s a half hour earlier, to accommodate a church service on the site.)
The Ecology Center views the switch to a new spot in South Berkeley as part of an overall plan to increase access to farm-fresh food to areas that lack a major grocery store, though the shift also comes because the Berkeley Unified School District will be converting the adjacent playing field at the markets’ current location into a regulation-size baseball field. … Continue reading »
Awards tap Berkeley taste makers for national contest
Berkeley’s food mavens will likely be out in force tonight at the Good Food Awards at San Francisco’s Ferry Building and many of the judges for this annual event — sponsored by Seedling Projects and now in its second year — hail from this city’s gourmand ranks. But only one Berkeley name may find a place on the winners’ podium.
The concept behind this socially and ethically responsible food contest is to highlight “best in show” from five regions of the country in various edible categories. This year, prizes will go to makers of beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, pickles, preserves, and — a new area — spirits.
At last year’s soirée — with a keynote address by restaurateur and sustainable food champion Alice Waters — three Berkeley winners emerged in the beer, charcuterie, and pickles categories. … Continue reading »
June Taylor’s way with fruit: esoteric, steeped in history
June Taylor crafts the kind of conserves and fruit confections that make food writers swoon.
Case in point: Amanda Hesser’s description of Taylor’s preserves. “They are unlike any commercial preserves, not simply because she uses esoteric — virtually all organic — fruits like bergamots, kadota figs, and Santa Rosa plums, but also because she cooks them in such a way that underlines their essence,” wrote Hesser in a New York Times Magazine piece. “Sugar is used not as a crutch but a tool. Her silver-lime-and-ginger marmalade has a sting to it; her grapefruit-and-Meyer-lemon marmalade is bright, concentrated and vigorously bitter.”
Don’t just take a food scribe’s word for it. My son is partial to Taylor’s candied peels — Rangpur Lime, Oro Blanco grapefruit, and Citron — popped into porridge (oatmeal), granola, or directly in the mouth for a bittersweet treat. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Bites: Minh Tsai, Hodo Soy Beanery
Minh Tsai is on a mission to make tofu the next hip artisanal food. He knows he has a ways to go to get many Americans to even taste tofu, but if anyone can make it cool to eat bean curd, this enthusiastic self-described tofu master is the man for the job.
Tsai grew up eating fresh tofu from street vendors in his native Vietnam. He arrived in the U.S. via Malaysia, part of the so-called boat people exodus. Both … Continue reading »
Berkeley Bites: Alex Hozven and Kevin Farley, Cultured Pickle Shop
Sour foods really appealed to Alex Hozven as she battled brutal pregnancy-induced nausea with her first son.
Nothing unusual there, right? Millions of women crave pickles to combat morning (or all-day) sickness. But Hozven’s obsession with fermented foods didn’t end once her baby was born.
Instead, she set out to master making naturally fermented foods (no vinegar, water, or heat) like sauerkraut, kim chee, and kombucha with a locavore sensibility and seasonal twist – and built a thriving business that … Continue reading »
Berkeley Bites: Amy Murray, Venus and now Revival
Amy Murray moved to Berkeley and opened Venus Restaurant on Shattuck Avenue in 2000. The restaurant began serving up seasonable, organic, sustainable California cuisine with worldly accents — which was something of a novelty back then.
A nice nod early on by Kim Severson, then a restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, now at the New York Times, gave the funky little brick cafe just the kind of exposure it needed to draw in diners.
Last month, Murray … Continue reading »
