Start at Acme Bread Company, the legendary all-organic bakery begun in Berkeley. The classic baguettes will transport you as close to Paris as it’s possible to get from the West Coast of the United States. For a fancier San Francisco experience, grab a slab of olive rosemary bread. Be sure to bring cash—Acme doesn’t accept credit cards.

Read more at Oyster Locals…

Seriously.

I am all aglow with the awesomeness of this…or maybe that’s just the clarified goose fat smeared all over my face.

This article focuses primarily on San Francisco and the East Bay, but there are fabulous indie and small-chain ice cream shops all over Northern California.

Yes, it’s a chain. And yet I simply adore Gelato Classico. I’ve stood in the line that poured out the door and onto the sidewalk to get a scoop of Chocolate or a cup of Raspberry Sorbet on hot summer nights in Mountain View.

For a change of pace, how about an article about food?

Even restaurants can have eensy little kitchens!

I get inordinately tired of people who bitch and whine that they can’t cook anything because they have small or imperfect kitchens. Bull****. Got a stove burner? Got a pan? You can cook. I’ve made and canned jam on a pullman unit in my family’s one-room tumble-down lake cabin. I once assisted in making a full Thanksgiving dinner using a grand total of 2 mini-microwaves, a rotisserie, and a toaster oven. (Now that was an experience.)

I haven’t gotten a copy yet, but I was so excited to see a book and blog addressing exactly this style of cookery, Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens.

Read more on examiner.com…

I spent 9 months traveling almost every weekend to research Moon California. During this period, I ate California Cuisine, Wine Country Cuisine, Haute Cuisine, Fusion Cuisine, Pan-Asian Cuisine, and just about every other form of Cuisine imaginable. Much of it tasted amazing. I got great service, cool atmospheres, original menus, and stunning wines.

At the 6 month mark, I found myself standing before a nice inkeeper who desperately wanted me to get dinner at the new high-end wine bar and restaurant in Nevada City, California. My traveling companion had to physically restrain me from grabbing the poor man by the collar of his shirt and screaming into his face, “I just want a burrito! Is that so wrong?!?!!?”

(That night I compromised with a plate of ravioli, then hit the wine bar afterwards for a glass of dessert.)

The bottom line: there is such a thing as too much of a good (or even wonderful) thing. California’s fine restaurants serve some of the best high-end fare you’ll ever eat. But you, or at least I, can’t eat it 2-5 times every week. It’s too rich, too fancy, too *much*. I understand now why all major restaurant reviewers end up waxing poetic about their favorite hole-in-the-wall sushi joints and taco trucks.

Happily, my beloved home state also hosts an endless array of fab cheap ethnic eateries. (“American diner” is an ethnic food, as far as I’m concerned.) And in my ‘hood, the year-round farmer’s markets and sustainable meat and bread purveyors make it easy to cook great food at home.

Okay, I’m hungry now…

Overall experience: Fabulous.
Chance of returning: Good.

For an appetizer, I ordered the asparagus salad with smoked sturgeon and poached quail eggs. Except for the poached egg, I was delighted. With five spears of perfectly cooked (IMNSHO) asparagus lightly coated in an intense lemon vinagrette and just enough little cubes of smoked sturgeon, the flavors were balanced, bright, and perfect as a starter.

One small complaint. Memo to all chefs everywhere: do not serve ice-cold poached eggs. Ever. For any reason.

Catherine got the beet salad, which she liked very much. I believe beets are evil, so did not taste any, but the multicolored presentation looked gorgeous on her plate.

My entree, the potato-crusted striped bass with Dungeness crab beurre blanc, was a welcome surprise. Way more crab meat than the menu implied, a sauce that didn’t smother the delicate flavor of the bass, and a better potato crust than I’m at all accustomed to.

Catherine’s duck was also superb, and as a connoiseur of blini, she was happy with the accompaniment.

I don’t mention Andrew’s dishes because he ordered all the same things I did. Heh.

For dessert, A&C split the Vahlrona chocolate souffle, while I went for the house-made s’more. OMG yum! Totally decadent and well balanced, plus a bonus smear of my new best friend–salted caramel. The only false note was the house-made graham cracker, which tasted a little bit stale to me.

The lengthy wine list runs heavily German–the Pub seems to specialize in Rieslings, which didn’t go with my meal. Good by-the-glass section with a mix of Euro and Cali wines, and some genuine bargains are tucked in there.

The service was a bright spot in an already polished and shiny birthday dinner out. The staff were quick without being pushy, listened well, and kept an attentive eye on us without hovering. We didn’t wait too long between the appetizer and the entree–one of my pet peeves. My thanks to the wait staff for their dedication.

Another of my personal peccadillos is portion size, and Village Pub nailed it. The plates looked rich and full, but I found myself able to clean each plate. Because I’m not physically capable of eating half a dozen pounds of food at one dinner, I cleverly deduced that the actual portions were quite reasonable.

Atmosphere and physical details: loud but attractive club-style white tablecloth dining room. Lighting at just the right dimness–romantic but I could still read the menu. Pretty but ill-designed bathrooms. (One of the stall doors opens into the restroom door.) Strange but functional sink basins.

Baconwood runs from May 14-17, 2009. Tickets cost $130/person and include all campground and parking expenses, plus all the bacon you can eat.

I’ve eaten bacon while camping. There’s nothing better than the scent of frying bacon wafting through the trees and into your tent in the morning, or afternoon, or evening, or midnight. Unless it’s the taste of that perfect smoky meat as you sit around the campfire sipping coffee and frying up still more bacon.

In honor of the holiday, I give you:

Peeps
Things People Have Done With Peeps
More Things People Have Done With Peeps

I have, in the interest of…um…science (that’s it, science!) committed my own experimental atrocities against peeps. The following results were obtained:

* Peeps don’t burn!!! When put in the middle of a campfire, peeps do not catch fire or melt immediately. Instead, they sit frighteningly unaffected while the flames surround them for up to 15 minutes. At that point, the peeps start to slowly expand and bubble. 10 more minutes, and the peeps begin to shrivel. After the fire is out, expect to find a strange gooey black lump where the peeps were.

* When soaked in cheap bourbon for a minimum of 2 minutes, a peep tossed onto a bonfire catches fire almost immediately.

* Bourbon-soaked peeps taste somewhere between repulsive and appalling.

* No one I know, with the noteable exception of Daymon, will eat a bourbon-soaked peep.

When I mentioned salmon fishing as a California recreation activity in Moon California, it seems I was being optimistic. In 2009, for the second year in a row, the commercial Chinook (King) salmon season has been called off. The number of Chinook salmon running up the Sacramento River to spawn has plummeted in the last few years, leading to the ban on all salmon fishing in 2008.

A 10-day Chinook sportfishing season for California has been proposed for late August, 2009. If it is approved, you can purchase a license and board a charter boat to fish on the far end of the North Coast, between Eureka and the Oregon border. (See the North Coast chapter of Moon California for a few suggested charter operators in Eureka and Crescent City.) Expect to pay a premium for these trips!

On the other hand, you can still sport fish for halibut, rock fish, Dungeness crab, and other local Pacific species in their seasons.

You’ll see the results of the commercial salmon fishing ban on the broad white service plates of upscale California restaurants. Some chefs have chosen not to serve King salmon at all, sticking with the “100 mile” rule for local-only ingredients. Others import wild Washington and Alaskan King salmon or serve organic farmed Atlantic salmon.

Buying your own salmon from a CA fish market or grocery store? Try a non-King variety–salmon comes in many delectable subspecies that come from healthier fisheries. I particularly love the succulent deep-red flesh of Kokanee salmon!

For more information about the California salmon situation, read this article on SFGate.