Tag Archives: Alice Medrich
The frenzy around Chez Panisse’s 40th anniversary
The next few days in Berkeley will be all about Alice. You know, Alice Waters. Forty years ago, on August 28, 1971, she opened Chez Panisse in a small shingled building on Shattuck Avenue. The inaugural dinner consisted of pate en croute, duck with olives, salad, and almond torte. The dinner was a few hours late, cobbled together by a number of well-meaning but amateur chefs, but it was good. And fresh. And it started a transformation in California cuisine … Continue reading »
Alice Medrich’s sweet life
Alice Medrich, the author, is best known for her high-end sweets cookbooks devoted to serious bakers and dessert makers, including the bestsellers Pure Dessert and Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate. Alice Medrich, the dessert chef and chocolatier, is best known for her influential and ahead-of-its time shop Cocolat. Medrich ran the store, opened on Shattuck Avenue in 1976, for 14 years.
In both careers Medrich earned a reputation for meticulous recipe testing, a commitment to quality ingredients, and originality in her elaborate baked goods.
So some may be surprised to learn that her eighth cookbook is about, well, the humble cookie. Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth-Cookies (Artisan Books, hardcover, $25.95) in fact. And, as is today’s norm for authors of new books, Medrich, 60, is even blogging about her latest work.
Medrich’s foray into food started in her early 20s with a hand-written recipe for the tiny cocoa-dusted chocolate truffles given to her by her Paris landlady in 1973. Truffles were virtually unheard of in America at the time.
She sold the pure bittersweet confections at the Pig-by-the-Tail Charcuterie (since replaced by The Cheese Board Collective, which has a memento to the shop’s past on display in the store). She also carried a sign and took orders for elaborate cakes and desserts that people could pick up at the end of the week. Sometimes, she says now, she needed all week to perfect the recipe. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Bites: Marc Rumminger
Engineer Marc Rumminger grew up in Michigan on a then-typical Midwestern diet: casseroles, canned soup and jello.
When he moved to Berkeley for graduate school his culinary world expanded and he became an avid home cook.
Rumminger experimented with Asian flavors, particularly Indian cuisine, and he immersed himself in pressing food issues, including the concept of locavorism.
Relatively early on in the world of blogging, Rumminger, 41, started writing about food on the group blogs Eat Local … Continue reading »
Bittersweet: Artisanal chocolate made in Berkeley
Tucked away behind a glass door in a new block of buildings on Fourth Street sits Berkeley’s only chocolate manufacturer.
Bittersweet, best known for its string of cafes in Oakland, San Francisco and Danville that serve delicious cups of hot cocoa, has started producing its own chocolate bars. Made from single-source farms or collectives in Bali and the Dominican Republic, the Bittersweet bars are made in small batches that can take up to a week to finish.
Berkeley Bites: Anand Chokkalingam
Each Friday in this space food writer Sarah Henry asks a well-known, up-and-coming, or under-the-radar food aficionado about their favorite tastes in town, preferred food purveyors and other local culinary gems worth sharing.
Meet Anand Chokkalingam, UC Berkeley professor by day and chocolatier by night.
This cancer epidemiologist pursues his passion for high-end confections in his off hours and puts his scientific sensibilities to sweet use by hand-crafting artisanal chocolates with top-notch ingredients.
Turns out that Anand is … Continue reading »
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