Who needs a flourish of trumpets and fanfare when you can have cupcakes at your next big festivity?!

Whether it's a wedding or anniversary of the big day, it's time to bring out the delectable cupcakes for all to whisper, wonder, and be wow'd over.

Not sure what you want?

Lucky for you, Cooks Boulevard, located in Noe Valley, will be presenting

"Cupcakes to Celebrate!"

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

6:30pm-7:15pm, 7:30-8:15pm

Space is limited and our last event was totally booked so please RSVP at the bottom of this page…

We would like to welcome:

Jasmine Rae Bakery, as a native San Franciscan, Jasmine Rae started this bakery with the vision of bringing unique treats to the culinary-zealous people of this city.

Mission Minis, founded in 2009 by Brandon Arnovick right here in San Francisco. From small batches of mini cupcakes for coworkers to the current full-fledged baking operation, Brandon has always paid attention to the little details - it's what makes Mission Minis stand out from the crowd!

Teeny Cakes, ranging from flavors such as Ooh Wee PB!, flourless chocolate cake topped with peanut butter frosting, to It’s Mint to Be, chocolate cake topped with minty buttercream, these cupcakes make a regular appearance at Farmer’s Markets in San Francisco and San Rafel.

Kingdom Cake, with some sweet and some savory, there are over 50 flavors to satisfy palates of all kinds. And with organic ingredients when possible but always the finest, you can be sure to find something for every mood and every craving!

The best part is you can come taste for a cause. Donations will be made in support of The San Francisco Food Bank. This is an organization right in the city that provides healthy food to alleviate hunger through various direct distributions. Here at Cooks Boulevard, we have been working with the Food Bank to do our part with the food barrel program for fourteen months and filled nine barrels! Food is a fantastic help, but donating just $1 equals $9 worth of food. We would like to suggest a donation of $10 per person, which will allow you to taste all the hand picked favorites while supporting small and local businesses.

Visit our website for all the details. We'll see you there!

to Twenty-Ten!

We had a whirl wind of a holiday season, leaving us a bit dry in the store, but full of joy that people chose us as a hot gift spot. Now we’re settling into the first month, taking a moment to contemplate on the past year and how we can emerge to bring you another fantastic year.

Is you resolution for 2010 to up your cooking repertoire? Make your own meals more often? Maybe you are really raising the bar and cooking with friends weekly or your resolution is to simply eat in once a week.

Where ever you may be, we can help you get organized and on your way to a well suited kitchen! Check out our range of items from handy prepping tools to the gorgeous Le Creuset colors that can dazzle up your stovetop, counters, and drawers.

And we love to talk recipes! Find an assortment in the store’s new community corner or browse some of our previously held classes for posted recipes online. If you’re not ready to take matters into your own hands just yet, get a little help with our January cooking classes, especially Essential Knife Skills.

Let us know what we can do for you. As an independent and local store, we look to provide product as well (and sometimes more importantly, product knowledge). Pick our brains and we may just spill the beans on some very cool tricks of the trade!

Hope to see or hear from you all soon,

The Cooks Boulevard Crew.

Thank you everyone who was in attendance to the classy “A Cupcake Affair” Sunday night! There were many eager engaged couples anticipating cupcakes to go with their big day and I think its safe to say no one went home disappointed. Fima Photography from down the street joined us as well as Cafe Ponte who provided some java to wash down the yummy treats of the night!

 

Our cupcake baker-extraordinaires put up quite the show offering a smattering of flavors for all to try and taste. Sorry no bites for now, but take a peek!

Noe Valley Bakery

Mike and Terry swooped in from around the corner with some of their more popular styles:

Red Velvet Cupcake. A southern signature red velvet chocolate cake with traditional cream cheese frosting.

Most-est Cupcake. Chocolate cake with Bavarian cream filling topped with chocolate ganache.

Vanilla Cupcake. Classic vanilla cake with buttercream frosting.

   

 

That Takes the Cake

         

From the Marina, Keisha and Brian came loaded with perfect happy hour specials:

• Cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan flavored cake with a touch of Grand Marnier topped with Vodka and cranberry frosting.
• Strawberry Daiquiri. Rum spiked strawberry cake with rum spiked strawberry frosting.
• Chocolate Baileys.  Buttermilk chocolate cake topped with Irish Baileys Cream frosting.
• Fuzzy Navel. Vodka and Peach Schnapps spiked orange cake topped with Peach Schnapps frosting.
• White Russian. Buttermilk chocolate cake topped with Kalua & Vodka frosting.
• Screw Driver. Vodka spiked orange cake topped with Vodka frosting.
• Pina Colada. Malibu rum flavored cake topped with a Pina Colada flavored buttercream frosting and sprinkled with toasted coconut.
• Lemon Drop. Vodka spiked lemon cake topped with Lemon & Vodka frosting.

They also brought their new fall favorite flavors:

• Cow Hollow. Pumpkin spice cake topped with cream cheese frosting and a dust of cinnamon.
• What Competition. Buttermilk chocolate cake filled with a lightly salted caramel topped with chocolate butter cream and salt.
• The Professor's Favorite. Ginger and spice cake topped with lemon butter cream makes everything nice.
• Humming Bird.  A twist on the classic fruit cake with bananas, pineapples, coconut, pecans, and dried cherries topped with cream cheese and dried pineapple.
• Mint Kissed. Peppermint cake with rich chocolate buttercream and crushed mint.
• Gentleman Prefer Reds. Lightly flavored cocoa buttermilk cake topped with cream cheese frosting.

 

Sweetie Cups

   

Doro brought her delicious treat with German flair and all:

Moonlight by the Sea. Chocolate cake with an almond chocolate
frosting topped off with almond pieces and sea salt.

Schnucki cup. Strawberry cake with white chocolate strawberry frosting topped off with fresh strawberry pieces.

Georgia on my Mind. Peach cake with mascarpone peach cream
finished with a peach piece.

Banana Split. Nutella filled banana cake, iced with vanilla whipping cream frosting and chocolate shavings.

 

Sugar Beat Sweets

    

Owner of the woman run vegan bakery, Melisser dolled out samples of:

• Peanut Butter Cup. Chocolate cake filled with Peanut Butter buttercream and coated in Chocolate ganache.
• Snickerdoodle. Vanilla-Cinnamon swirl cake covered in Vanilla buttercream, topped with a dusting of Cinnamon.
• Classic Vanilla. Fluffy Vanilla cake topped with Vanilla buttercream or Chocolate frosting.
• Orange Dreamsicle. Vanilla-Citrus zest cake filled with orange buttercream.
• Peppermint Patty. Chocolate cake filled with Minty frosting, coated in Chocolate ganache.

 

 

Citizen Cake

    

Filled plates with their favorites:

• Lemon Mania.
• Pumpkin.
• Carrot.
• Chocolate Chip.
• Sticky Toffee.
• Vanilla.
• Chocolate.
• Signature.

 

Cups and Cakes

 

Jennifer arrived armed with a mix of favorites:

• Rich Red Velvet. Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese frosting, red sprinkles.
• Deep Dark Chocolate. Dark Chocolate Cake with dark chocolate buttercream, chocolate chip.
• Killer Carrot. Nut-Free Spiced Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting and candied carrots.

 

 

If you are thinking of cupcakes for your wedding and would like to stay tuned for our next event, please contact Sara at the store, her email is

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Cooks Boulevard that is.

Our completely booked “A Cupcake Affair” will be taking place on Sunday, November 1st right at in the store. Featured will be wedding cupcakes, the ever so popular trend these days as a cake alternative, goodie favor, or a pre-party event treat. This round of bakers’ specialties range from traditional to vegan, each with their own funk and flair.

The invited are engaged couples from around the city. They will be flocking to our neighborhood cookware shop to test and taste as well as acquaint themselves with Cooks Boulevard’s wedding registry service. The registry option is a fantastic choice for those who are interested in a local alternative to the big box chain stores, or in addition too. The experienced and knowledgeable staff here at the shop happily assists couples to customize in-store and online wedding registries.

Think you missed the boat? You’re not out to sea yet.

If you are in the planning phases of your wedding and missed this opportunity to join us for “A Cupcake Affair”, don’t fret! Couples interested in setting up a registry with us are welcome at anytime.

Just pop into the store and start your list, before you know it, your list will be available online.

Or start from the comfort of your home and personal computer by registering right on the Cooks Boulevard website. After a few questions and a confirmation email, you can begin adding items for your guests to see and purchase

Enjoy easy pick-up at the store as well as a two-for-one seat option in our Essential Knife Skills class!

You can also stay tuned for round two! Coming late winter. Contact Sara at sarae@cooksboulevard.com if you have any questions about the event or registering for your wedding at Cooks Boulevard.

Things are getting busier and it's time to bring on someone to help us out. Check out the job description for the details.

Oh peach season has passed, so one has to bring on the pears!

Frog Hollow taught us in their last newsletter that pears are most often picked this time of the year and then stored in a cellar so that the starches turn to sugars, making them sweet and more often associated with the colder months. But they have slipped a few of the first pears into our boxes recently-Asian pears. Small, speckled, and crisp. I noticed recently my small pile of peaches and pluots dwindling while the six or seven little pears hung on tight. I tried one sliced up with my oatmeal the other morning but decided it was time for some real fun with these special first of the seasons.

So here comes the result of my dire need to do something with my Asian pears before my next fruit delivery. Ginger Pear Bread. The complementary flavors are excitingly unusual with the sweet pear and subtle ginger. And vegan. And easily gluten-free if you swap out the flour. Just all an around fantastic recipe for cute muffins, muffin tops, mini muffins, or a single loaf. I added some slivered almonds to the top of my muffins and loaf for a nice crunch and I bet rolled oats would be good as well.

Enjoy!

Never-To-Linger-Ginger-Pear Bread

1 ¼ cups pear puree
½ cup sugar or agave nectar
½ cup canola oil
2 Tablespoons soy milk
1 Tablespoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons of hot water mixed with 1 Tablespoon of ground flax seed
1 cup diced pear, peeled
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon non-aluminum baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

First, preheat oven to 325F.  Peel and core about 2 ½ medium sized pears and blend or process into 1 ¼ cup of pear puree. Add the sugar, oil, soy milk, ginger, lemon juice and salt and process until smooth.  Add the water and flax mixture and process until smooth.    

Then, in a small bowl, gentle mix together the diced pear with 1 teaspoon sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ½ teaspoon nutmeg.  Cover the diced pears evenly and then set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda.  

Combine the wet ingredients into the bowl containing the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.  Stir the diced pear mixture into the dough.

To Make Muffins:
Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners or grease pan.  Pour the batter into the muffin pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Makes 6 to 8 muffins.

To Make Bread:
Pour the dough mixture into a lightly oiled loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Adapted from Mattie’s recipe.

We have certainly been blessed with some truly wonderful summer days recently!

They are perfect for pineapple juice rocket pops and Frog Hollow’s uber ripe peaches and nectarines. People have been really enjoying the Frog Hollow’s fruit and Eating with the Season’s vegetable, fruit, meat, and eggs CSA boxes that arrive weekly to the store. These are boxes that come right from the farm to the store and are devoured within the week. The options are endless with the wonderful produce from Eating with the Seasons and everyone has their own favorite methods of enjoying the Frog Hollow’s stone fruit. Dehydrated, with granola, blended in a smoothie, grilled out back for a sweet dessert (or indoors!), even fresh out of the box.

So, with September approaching, we are only now entering the season we truthfully have all been waiting for. Tomatoes. Heirloom, cherry, dry-farmed early girls (tomatoes that are not watered after they are transplanted thus the roots must grower deeper for water and produce a more concentrated flavor), and more.

Tomatero Farm’s Tomato CSA weekly delivery started last week! What this means is that you can be the recipient of a lovely 4-5lb box of fresh tomatoes from some of the best growers in their field (love the pun). Imagine a Lasagna Tart (another good way to use all that farmer’s market zucchini), a nice Tomato and Quinoa dish, or a simple TLT sandwich with a side of good fun, family, and friends! This would require sharing some of your mouth watering tomatoes, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t always like to do.

Stop by and ask Martha, Malcolm, or Sara about signing up with for Tomatero’s tomatoes or check out more information on our Tomatero Farm's CSA page.  If you know you want in, you can find their contact info on that page as well. The rate is very well priced and runs for $15 per week with sign-ups available for two weeks at a time.

Thank you Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks for her fantastic recipes, Tomatero Farm’s for their lovely produce pictures, and UCSC where I learned about dry farmed early girls! Hope you check them all out.

Noe Valley certainly has their share of this liquid gold and we were recently blessed with a warm, freshly decanted jar of it! From right up the Castro Street hill, the raw honey was still settling by the time it reached us at 24th street.

The population of these lovely little honey producers have hit an astonishing low just a few years back. Healthy bees were fleeing their hives leaving crops un-pollinated and then posing huge risks to the crops we love most! Without the bees hard at work, food from apples to nuts, avocados, broccoli, onions, pumpkin, and peaches and more are affected. I can’t bear the idea of this world without blueberries or kiwi.

According to the National Resources Defense Council’s website, this mass disappearance of bees from their hives is referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder. The numbers are huge, some estimated “one-third of all honey bee colonies in the country have vanished”.

It seems that the bees know what a nice neighborhood is when they see one. Most of the bees were directed to nearby apiaries when their swarms were detected in undesired places. In Noe Valley, there are a few options for local honey. And very tasty! The bees pick nectar from fruit trees and other blooming flowers leaving each batch with a distinct underlying taste of melded lavender, cherries, and more. I was very impressed as a licked the honey from my freshly dipped spoon. Another delicious way to eat and be a part of our community!

Check out Noe Valley honey at Video Wave, 24th Street Cheese Co, Lovejoy’s Tea Room, Of Barbers & Bears, and Mission Pie for your own delicious jar. And we have a great small Le Creuset honey dipper to pair with it for a great local gift!

And for those who may be into their own urban beekeeping, have you made a visit to Her Majesty's?

Information drawn from Noe Valley Apiaries and the Natural Resources Defense Council

Bee in Hive courtesy botheredbybees

If you can wrest your Tovolo Rocket Pops away from the kids, Gourmet Magazine’s July issue and Fine Cooking’s August/September issue both offer some tasty sounding cocktail ice pops. (Or leave out the booze, and share with the kids)

From Fine Cooking

Bellini Pops

Bittersweet Chocolate-Bourbon Pops

Lemon-Vodka Cream Pops

From Gourmet

Bloody Mary Ice Pops

Watermelon Margarita Ice Pops

Peaches and Cream Yogurt Pops

Mint Caipirinha Ice Pops

Piña Colada Ice Pops

(Photo by Scott Phillips from Finecooking.com)

Yesterday I saw FOOD, INC., a film that begins to uncover the truth about the nation’s food and agriculture industry. I am going to highly suggest that you all see it as well.  It’s only playing at two cinemas in San Francisco, down at the Embarcadero cinema and at The Bridge on Geary. I shouldn’t complain because two theatres are more than most cities right now. And lucky for me, I only have a two minute walk which doesn’t usually happen very often over in the Richmond area. Check out show times for this fantastically captivating and eye opening documentary featuring many leading advocates including our hometown spokesperson, Michael Pollan.

FOOD, INC doesn’t leave you, the concerned movie-going-meat-eater, wanting to give up eating meat for life, but it does encourage you to take a political stance on the food in your shopping cart or reusable bag. Much is said and seen in the 1 hour and 90 minute film directed by Robert Kenner. Kenner claims not to be so much of a foodie as a filmmaker, but advocates for conscious decisions about the businesses we choose to support.

I read an interview published  by Jane Black of The Washington Post's Food section with Robert Kenner and would like to share his response that resonated the most with me and for our community:

 

What action do you want people to take?

One thing is that people say to me, "I'll never eat chicken again." And that's not what I intended. What I intend is that there's a [food] system that's bad. Your tomatoes are as bad as your chicken. The whole system is industrialized. You don't need to tell them the dark side of every item. And you don't have to stop eating foods you love. You can eat chicken, but try not to eat industrial food.

Many vegetarians make a stand by omitting meat from their diets because of the generally awful conditions animals undergo to become food on our plates. But I will go as far to say that many of these same vegetarians opt to purchase, cook, and nosh on vegetables that have undergone their fair share of poor treatment. Together we need to make choices that will create a demand for the fair treatment of workers, animals, and the consumers as well. Demand will make waves for change.

Hungry for Change is the movie’s official website and I urge you to check it out as well as more information on issues which can also be found there. Key topics range from genetic engineering, cloning, environmental impact, and farm worker protection, to food borne illness, factory, farming, healthy eating nutritional labeling on restaurant foods, and pesticides.

Another do-good option is to support local farms. We have a direct connection with three right now in the form of Community Support Agriculture programs, Frog Hollow, Eating with the Seasons, and Terra Firma. Weekly, they have drivers come up from the farms with boxes of their goods- this week members are picking up delicious peaches, apricots, and PLUMS from Frog Hollow. Tomorrow we’ll see what we get from the others two drop offs! You can join us too, check out our website link above.