Do Right with Bi-Rite

I’ve been in San Francisco long enough now to have sampled some of the city’s finest food offerings. There are many to choose from, but the one worthy of my first SF entry is hands-down the amazing ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery. Their cold concoctions evoke delicious childhood memories of monkey bars, birthday parties and light-up sneakers. . . Well, maybe not the sneakers.

Bi-Rite has been around for over 50 years. The small, locally-owned joint makes batches of artisanal ice cream in unusual but scrumptious flavors. They've nailed the basics - the ice cream is light, airy and not too sweet. In fact, the flavors are the creamery's biggest highlight! The combinations are not predictable, but they sing on your tongue and usually pair two seemingly mis-matched ingredients which complement each other well. The creamery offers up to 49 such flavors – I tried to sample them all and failed, but here’re some of the highlights: salted caramel, balsamic vinegar and strawberry, honey and lavender. The Mint Chip is great too.

Bi-Rite’s salted caramel deserves a special shout out. The salty-sweet combination is incredible. It’s like caramel popcorn without the annoying bits that get stuck in between your teeth!

A double scoop will set you back $4. The portion sizes are just right, and come with cute wooden spoons to boot. If you’re feeling like a real cacophony of flavor, go for one of their many sundaes. The banana split comes with caramelized bananas! Otherwise, for the lactose intolerant (or diet-abiding people who foolishly venture past), the creamery has popsicles in refreshing flavors like pineapple mint.

Bi-Rite is a quintessentially SF place – quirky, exceptional . . . and a bit of green mixed in. After you order your cold or baked goodies, you can walk just across the street and enjoy them in beautiful Dolores park! (If you have time, be sure to check out Bi-Rite Market just down the street for unique, hard-to-find gourmet food items)

Beaches, Pink Flamingos - and Key Lime Pie

I made a lot of key lime pie this summer in Florida. It’s one of my favorite parts of going home. My neighbor has this prolific citrus grove in her backyard, and her key lime tree usually has plenty of little yellow-green gems begging to be mix with condensed milk and turned into a delicious tart pie. It’s such a quintessentially Floridian thing, I can’t say no.

Before I share my tried and true recipe for key lime pie, it’s worth mentioning that key limes really are different from the standard Persian limes that you see in grocery stores. They taste and look different. They’re a lot smaller – about the size of a ping pong ball. When they’re ripe, the skin thins and they turn a bright yellow color. It’s got more zing too – more acidic and a touch of bitterness, and a more floral bouquet than the normal grocery store lime.

Key limes are named after the Florida Keys, where they grow well and are the signature ingredient in our state’s best dessert. The limes themselves are said to have immigrated to Florida from Malaysia or somewhere else far east, transported by Spanish ships. Key lime pie is from Key West, which helps explain the other unusual ingredient in the recipe – condensed milk. The recipe originates at some point in the 19^th century, when shipping families in Key West had to substitute canned condensed milk, since few people had ice boxes to keep fresh milk. originated in

Aficionados will argue incessantly about the proper or best way to make key lime pie. Graham cracker or pastry crust? Sour cream or crème fraiche? Meringue or whipped cream topping? Cooked or uncooked filling? I’m taking my own stand. Here’s my favorite key lime pie recipe. . .

Ingredients
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
½ cup vanilla wafer crumbs
¾ cup brown sugar
4 tbspn butter, melted
2 (14oz) cans condensed milk
1 cup key lime juice
2 whole eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
¼ cup whipped cream
2 tbspn powdered sugar
1 tbspn key lime zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Mix the crumbs, brown sugar and butter together in a medium bowl until well blended and moist. In a lightly greased 9” pie pan, press the crumb mixture in, distributed evenly along the bottom and up the sides, to form the crust.

3. Bake crust in the oven about 20 minutes, until browned. Remove and let cool.

4. Decrease oven temperature to 325F. In a large bowl, combine the condensed milk, lime juice and eggs. Whisk until well-blended and pour into cooled pie shell.

5. Bake 15 minutes in oven. Remove and let chill in fridge for 2 hours.

6. Once chilled, in a separate medium bowl, mix powdered sugar, whipped cream and sour cream. Use to top pie. Sprinkle with lime zest (and optionally a sprig of mint) to garnish. Serve cold.

"Expateries" - a (Delicious) Traveling Phenomenon

In my travels to various countries, I’ve encountered one ubiquitous feature in just about each place I’ve visited: the expat-run gourmet eatery. On the one hand, these establishments stick out like sore thumbs – imagine an amazing gelateria on a remote Kenyan beach. On the other, they also channel their strangely cosmopolitan environs – remote towns often chalk-full of international visitors. For all the assumed contradiction between the local and global, however, these kitchens often manage to fuse the best of both realms.

While the category encompasses a wide variety of restaurants, cafés, bakeries, etc., these expat eateries tend to share a few traits. For one, their offerings usually meld elements of two countries. Indeed, the owners are often aspiring and adventurous cooks from other countries who have made a new home in distant lands. A green chili-white chocolate-vodka cheesecake that I had in Mumbai’s Theobroma dessert café (run by sisters Tina and Kainaz) comes to mind, for example. Yum!

Second, their décor and ambiance offer a little taste of home and respite for the travel weary or home sick. They can channel aesthetics that seem to appeal to citizens of the world. At Yacout in Marrakech, for instance, I remember recalling flashbacks to The Park lounge in New York, with its indoor trees and chic fairy lights. As a result, they often stand apart from typical restaurants – just like their food.

More often than not, they rely on imports – imported food items, wines, and recipes. Even décor is inspired or borrowed entirely from far away places. In a sense, their offerings are real fusion food – melding local ingredients with foreign recipes or techniques, which are sometimes acquired with real effort. In Zanzibar’s Stone Town, for example, Amore Mio (see photo above) is a real labor of love run by an Italian family that moved to the East African island and set up a bonafide gelateria – with an imported gelato maker! In pursuit of such eclectic visions, great pains can be taken. In Santo Domingo, for example, the owners of Hotel Ataranzana bed and breakfast (Bernhard and Suzanne) imported their own cheeses and salamis from Europe for the delicious daily breakfast service!

But the most recent ‘expatterie’ experience I’ve had, which really inspired this whole entry, was a chic-comfy Peruvian joint called Cicciolina in the heart of Cusco. Its owned by, as you probably guessed, an Italian replanted into the Inca heartland. The café-resaurant- tapas bar serves delicious food to the hike-weary, fresh from its imported gourmet oven, stellar tapas with a local twist, and great cocktails. In fact, the owners have also gone into the wine importing business, opening a distributor called Baquito, that supplies other area restaurants with imported South American and European bottles.

The décor in Cicciolina deserves special praise. The restaurant is on the second floor of an old colonial building, with a gorgeous bar bedecked in red flowers and hanging ornaments, and black or espresso tables, mirrors – very chic. Someone’s clearly put a lot of effort and love into the place. Perched from one of those corner high tables, I enjoyed a whole range of offerings – the Pisco sours are excellent, and the bartenders offer an informative intro to various types of the grape-based liquor.

I was so enamored with Cicciolina’s foods that we ate there three times in our three days in Cusco. I can strongly recommend their brunch foods – I had a great poached egg-asparagus and brown bread open sandwich. Not sure what they put in the balsalmic sauce, but it had a nice special sweetness to it. And the evening tapas are wonderful – showcasing typical Peruvian flavors in a classic Spanish form. Savory mushroom bruschetta and a roasted red pepper bite come to mind. What a delicious postcolonial concept!