What to do when a neighbor leaves a bag of Fuyu persimmons on your porch?  When firm, they’re great sliced in salads, for example, with baby arugula or fast pickled with carrots and daikon.  But when they get riper and softer, I love using them in cookies.  These have a little more persimmon pulp in it, making them chewy.  I almost always use the chubby Fuyu persimmons but I’m sure Hachiyas would work just as well.
1 stick Smart Balance 50/50; or 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup nonfat Greek yogurt …

A great way to use a lot of fresh shiso leaves is to make a pesto, Asian style.  I was inspired by traditional pesto but replaced the basil with shiso and the pine nuts with widely-available edamame soy beans.  Asian flavors give the pesto lots of umami.
When shiso grows in abundance during the hot summer and early fall, making something that is cool to eat and fast to make without heat is welcome.  All you need is a stick blender and one container like a glass measuring cup.
For this recipe, …

Shiso, aka perilla frutescens, is part of the mint family that grows abundantly during the summer.  The green variety is pungeant, with citrusy, floral and mint aromas that complement asian flavors very well.  Shiso leaves are high in beta-carotene and equivalents which are great antioxidants, and vitamin K for bone health.*
Growing up, we used to call shiso our “million dollar crop” because it grew abundantly in our backyard while being sold in neatly stacked packs of ten leaves at our asian grocer for a handsome sum.  Today, it’s not unusual to find micro-shiso …

No matter where you turn, Downtown Napa has great bakeries and sweet shops for a relaxing breakfast with coffee, that afternoon treat with tea, a take-out snack or freshly-made bread to bring home.
Model Bakery at Oxbow Public Market is the go-to bakery for artisanal bread made with organic ingredients.  A branch of the Model Bakery in Saint Helena which was established over 80 years ago, the bakery serves a variety of breads – including a to-die-for Fatted Calf bacon bread on weekends – as well as breakfast breads, cakes, cookies, …

 With a brand that is synonymous with high quality fresh goat cheese in the U.S., Laura Chenel is beginning a new era with the opening of a 30,000 square foot, state-of-the-art creamery in Sonoma that promises new products due to the addition of much-needed space for ageing cheeses.  The building, which was opened to its trade partners yesterday for a preview, is scheduled to be operational on February 21st.  General Manager Marie Lesoudier demurred on the production capacity of the creamery, saying that the goal is not to increase volume, but to introduce new cheeses …

One of my favorite foods is a simple one – bircher muesli.  It’s a concoction of whole grains, nuts and maybe dried fruits soaked overnight in a mixture of milk and yogurt and then topped with fresh berries and honey.  So simple, but packed with so many good things and so appealing that it was always easy to choose this over bacon and eggs.   It was created by a Swiss physician named Maximilian Bircher-Benner for hospital patients, but has since become a breakfast staple at top hotels around the world and I order …

Since the Napa Valley is about food and wine, a great complement to wine-tasting is food-tasting, and there is no better, authoritative place to receive food education than at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.  As the CIA is situated in the heart of the Napa Valley, visiting this National Register Historic Landmark is a great way to pace your wine tasting experiences.
With the lastest Flavor Bar, the CIA fills a spectrum of educational experiences for food enthusiasts at all price points that range from the 15-20 minute Flavor Bar to one-hour cooking demos to two-hour, six-hour and multi-day …

Given that Yountville has some of the greatest restaurants in the country, it was fitting when the Kelleher family sought a new chef for Brix Restaurant in late 2008 that it select an iconic chef like Anne Gingrass-Paik.  Having begun her career with Wolfgang Puck at Spago in LA in the 1980’s and then as executive chef at Postrio and Hawthorne Lane in SF, Chef Gingrass-Paik has perfected the art of California Cuisine which focuses on the use of fresh, local ingredients and infusing them with international flavors. From bold and …

The Napa Valley Mustard Festival not only celebrates the warmth of the yellow mustard flowers in bloom, but also the wealth of great chefs that we have in the Napa Valley.  Chef Gingrass-Paik of Brix Restaurant loves the slight bitterness and heat of mustard and over her illustrious career at Spago, Postrio and Hawthorne Lane, has made it in several ways.  She loves the sweet-hot of Italian Mostardo di frutta which is made with candied fruit, a great contrast served with salty prosciutto.  She also makes an asian style mustard with …

Cakebread Cellars commitment to food extends beyond its wines.  As part of Cakebread’s community outreach, Culinary Director Brian Streeter visits the Mount George elementary school in Napa once a month during the school year to educate the children about where their food comes from, to gain confidence with cooking and to experience international cuisines.  For example, a recent class centered around the different flatbreads of the world.  Chef Streeter has only two rules that he gives the children at the outset of each class.  “You cannot say yuck,” in part …