Williams-Sonoma is cooking up some fun

I stumbled around the new Williams-Sonoma store in a hazy fog of culinary lust, my desire for everything near blinding.  The just opened — reopened, I might say — compact shop is utterly packed with swoon-inducing cookware, stunning dishware, and delectable looking gourmet goods.  I longed for each sparkling item my eyes rested on, feeling torn between disgust at my envy and disgust at my own mismatched, years-old kitchen goods.

I don’t even bake, but I yearned for the rainbow of colored dusting sugars and my need for the La Cornue stove teetered on the brink of obsession.  Williams-Sonoma has always been known for procuring these remarkable items, leaving us all yearning to create a more beautiful kitchen, more beautiful food.  I love them for that, but what I truly love at our brand new, homage to Chuck Williams’ original, teeny little kitchenware shop is the array of cooking classes on offer.  Visit the store to pick up a calendar of upcoming events that include mornings just for kids to hone their culinary imagination and more in-depth classes to sharpen your own skills in the kitchen.

Chuck’s finds

Over his many years on the hunt, Williams-Sonoma founder Chuck Williams was the first to discover, import and popularize many well-known brands while they small producers. Among the items in your kitchen, or still on your wish list, you have him to thank for:

• Wusthof Knives
• Zelite Infinity Chef Knife
• Le Creuset cookware
• Mauviel copper pans
• KitchenAid mixers
• Peugeot Salt and Pepper Mills
• Mandoline
• Crepe pan
• Silicon Spatula
• Aceto Balsamic Vinegar

Are you ready for some football…and chicken wings?

Football season is here and for most folks that means donning their oversized jerseys, shouting at the television set, and plenty of super manly high five’ing.  I wasn’t brought up in a football family, we tended to be on the ocean most Sundays, but I can totally wrap my mind around the concept of spending the greater part of a leisurely weekend hidden away in a cool dark bar sipping something cold and eating something wonderfully not that good for you.  Football season for me is more about Bloody Marys and chicken wings than rooting for a team or even comprehending what is happening on the field most of the time.  It is definitely more about putting off what I maybe ought to be doing and leering at beefy guys in tight pants instead.

There is no better spot in Sonoma to while away a Sunday afternoon doing just that than at Rossi’s.  The cool, dark bar here has four big screens and Sunday morning beer and drink specials that include crazy-good Bloodys for five bucks and mimosas for three.  Football appropriate snacks include some of Sonoma’s tastiest chicken wings and often off-the-menu things like wonderfully greasy cheesesteaks or sausage sandwiches.  I can’t say I will know who is playing most of the time, but I definitely know a killer Bloody Mary when I taste one.  Visit Rossi’s Facebook page to stay up to date on all the fun happenings there.  401 Grove Street, 343.0044, rossis1906.com.

Fancy frickles, really?

Fried pickles, ‘frickles’ if you will, are a sort of Southern, trashy bar snack consisting of batter-dipped pickle slices, dropped momentarily into a deep fryer, and emerging drenched in a crispy, salty shell.  The frickle is just the kind of thing to cushion the belly while imbibing in an evening of alcohol-laden debauchery.  The genius combination of crunchy fried goodness paired with the vinegar-rich hunk of pickle is nothing less than a drinking snack perfected.

Over the last couple of years, fried pickles have been popping up all over town.  Years ago, I chronicled my first frickle eating experience, still my favorite, during a jello shot filled girl’s night playing pool at Steiner’s.  A slightly more gourmet, hand-dredged version, Murphy’s Irish Pub, while an acceptable rendition can now also be gobbled up between sips of perfect Whiskey cocktails at Rossi’s.  Nowhere have I ever been more startled to stumble across a frickle than at Thomas Keller’s mega posh Yountville bistro, Bouchon, just this week.  Scribbled in chalk on the specials slate board, I could hardly believe my eyes.  The wonderfully trashy bar snack has evidently managed to quietly sneak its way out of the dive bars of the world straight into four-star dining rooms.  Who would have guessed, Michelin-starred frickles?

The pull of pumpkin

I arrived home the other day to the unmistakable scent of baked pumpkin pie spices.  The smell of the holidays was heavy in the unusually warm, late afternoon air.  A deep-dish pumpkin pie sat cooling on the kitchen counter.  It seems my roommate had fallen prey to the pull of the pumpkin — that almost irresistible craving for fall foods that often strikes us all this time of year.  The hankering for roasted meats, long braised pots of beans, woodsy herbs, spiced cakes, apples baked in anything, and, of course, pumpkin everything.

The pull of the pumpkin no doubt eclipses the fact that there are still tomatoes at the market and the temperatures continue to boil well into the nineties. Oh well.

For many of us, it is pumpkin that defines autumn.  Be it from our memories of carving them for Halloween and roasting the fat seeds or, more likely, from the towering displays of pumpkin-based goodies that grace every shop and marketplace come the first of October.  From pumpkin butter for your toast to pumpkin butter for your body, pumpkin bread and pumpkin brittle, and pumpkin-spiced coffees and smoothies, the orange-fleshed gourd is currently celebrating its fifteen minutes of fame.  Around town, there are no shortage of ways to get your pumpkin on.  Following, find some of my favorite ways to succumb to the pull of the pumpkin locally.  None of them include an overly sweet Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks, by the way.

At Shiso Modern Asian Kitchen find smoked bacon cubes glazed with house made hoisin sauce and a Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) squash puree.

The super scrumptious sounding twice-braised beef tongue at LaSalette right now is very fall-y, arriving with a butternut squash puree and a chanterelle mushroom fricassee.

Over at the Harvest Moon Cafe you’ll find Jen’s gorgeous pumpkin cheesecake.

Roasted pumpkin ice cream tops a chocolate torte, with a scattering of candied pumpkin seeds at the girl and the fig.

Several pumpkin-y treats can be found in the coming weeks at Hot Box Grill.  Find pumpkin ravioli in a rich cream sauce, pumpkin pie, and wash it all down with a perfect-for-the-season pumpkin beer.

At the Friday Farmer’s Market find a spectacular array of pumpkins and gourds from Quarter Acre Farm, Oak Hill, and Paul’s Produce.  A visit to the Oak Hill Farm Red Barn is always an ideal way to get in the autumn mood.  There, find fall-inspired wreaths, dried flower arrangements, endless varieties of squash, and heirloom pumpkins.