That’s way when one of my friends posted online pictures of the oreo-stuffed cookies she’d made, I knew had to try them. I didn’t even wait a full 24 hours to mix up those honnies and pop them in my oven. The appeal of them was how decadently sinful they sounded. Our mothers surely wouldn’t approve of us eating a cookie enveloped in another cookie .

The cookies are very easy to make and unbelievably tasty. You simply must eat one warm out of the oven when the chocolate chips are all gooey, a nice balance to the crunch of the oreo. Don’t forget your glass of milk, mom wouldn’t want you to neglect that.

The summer, or lack thereof, has left me craving hot chocolate, but I wanted something different. I am not a fan of those prepackaged too-sweet hot chocolate powders. My lactose intolerance makes these instant mixes even more lackluster since I can only use water. So I decided to look for another recipe. Unfortunately, I am not equipped with that kind of culinary cool where I can just strut into my kitchen and MacGyver the best new hot chocolate from the ingredients in my sparse cabinet. I needed a recipe.

This recipe (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/spiced-soy-hot-chocolate-recipe/index.html) is for spiced soy hot chocolate and you only need 3 ingredients (peanut butter, chocolate soy milk, and cinnamon), a whisk, and a pan. The soy milk is great because soy tends to be a little sweeter than milk and the chocolate is already mixed in although I am sure chocolate milk would work just as well. The best part is it is nearly as quick and easy as the powdered kind, yet I promise your friends will be impressed you whipped up your own hot chocolate. The peanut butter and cinnamon create a more intense flavor than regular hot chocolate. Whipped cream and marshmallows need not apply…

This past weekend’s seminar that I attended featured the sparkling wines of Iron Horse Vineyards, Gloria Ferrer Winery, and J Vineyards and Winery. Since moving to California I have been very lucky to have some family out here who have been very influential in the process of turning me into a proper foodie. My Aunt Ronie, who was my companion to this event, has been the biggest instigator. She has wined and dined me up and down wine country. Aunt Ronie loves champagne and sparkling wine. Needless to say, the pair of us had a blast.

At the event we tasted 6 Sparkling Wines:

Iron Horse Vineyards

2005 Classic Vintage Brut, Green Valley

1996 Blanc de Blanc, Green Valley, “Joy”

Gloria Ferrer Winery

2005 Blanc de Blanc, Carneros

1999 Carneros Cuvee, Carneros

J Vineyards and Winery

1998 Late Disgorged, Russian River Valley

NV Brut Rose, Russian River Valley

While I did enjoy each of the sparkling wines my favorites were they two from J Vineyards and the 1996 Blanc de Blanc from Iron Horse. The late disgorged sparkling wines really appealed to me with their very creamy, almost buttery, aroma and taste. I would drink the Blanc de Blanc with every meal were it possible.

Dinner was just as special as the tasting. It consisted of three courses we got to pick from a menu I chose:

SWEET WHITE CORN SOUP

BLACK TRUFFLE FLAN, SCALLION EMULSION, CRISPY SPECK HAM

PEPPERCORN CRUSTED PRIME NEW YORK STEAK

WHITE CORN TOMATO FONDUE, SMOKED BEEF ‘BACON’, GARLIC CONFIT AND COGNAC MERINGUE

VALRHONA CHOCOLATE MINT SEMIFREDDO

TOASTED MARSHMALLOW FLUFF, BROWNIES, COCOA SAUCE

I went home full of sparkling wine and delicious food a little more educated….

This business is not surprising simply because of its perpetually long line no matter the day or weather, but because they only make one type of pizza per day! Granted the varieties never contain meat so they appeal to Berkeley’s vegetarian masses, but  they are clearly doing something very right.

Cheese Board has been making Pizza since 1985 and the worker owned and operated Cheese Board Pizza Collective has existed since 1990.

The place definitely has a warm, welcoming, vibrant atmosphere. I waited outside in the warm California sunshine listening to the live jazz group play inside until I made my way into the brightly colored busy open- air restaurant.

The pizza is just my style too. I come from Chicago and am used to great pizza. However, any pizza place back home offers you about 3 different types of crusts, tomato sauce, and a wide variety of toppings. Don’t get me wrong I adore my deep dish done right. Nonetheless, I am a minimalist when it comes to sauce and prefer white or pesto to tomato sauce any day. Cheese Board Pizza makes a light, crispy crust from their own bakery and make their pizza of the day with whatever ingredients are in season now. And when you factor in that the pizza shop stemmed from the original Cheese Board Collective you can begin to understand why there is always such a long line.

My pizza ($2.50/slice, $10/ half, or $20/ whole) was made with Broccolini, onions, mozzarella and Fontina cheese, garlic olive oil, and gremolata (a mix of herbs and lemon juice).  Even though it took me 10 months to get to this Berkeley institution, I will definitely be going back soon.

After living in the Bay Area for nearly a year, I finally got  the chance to eat at Chez Panisse (well, the café) this week. I never had a doubt in my mind that is would be good, but I was doubtful that it would be anything truly special; something I had not had in the past 9 months from Berkeley which seems to thrive on the slow food movement Alice Waters propelled with Chez Panisse. Nonetheless, it was one of the best meals I have ever had.

I started with an a citrus avocado salad with the most perfectly soft, salty avocado I’ve ever had, grapefruit that I ate all of even though I don’t remember ever liking grapefruit, small bright orange cumquats and tangerines. My entrée was a chicken ala diavolo, thought surprisingly not the slightest bit spicy, with green beans and polenta with corn. The chicken was so moist and the polenta, a new obsession of mine, added the perfect texture complimenting it spectacularly. For dessert I had a strawberry and cherry shortcake with fresh creme The thing about my whole meal is that it was so simple with not a lot of ingredients, but each ingredient was so fresh and crucial to the dish. The crème was so fresh and the shortcake so crispy and just the right amount of sweet. And I could have bathed in the rich, tart and sweet cherry sauce.

This is one Berkeley experience I will definitely repeat.

My best friend Brett and i get along well. Really well. However, when it comes to food we’re pretty different. You know that guy on Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel? That’s pretty much how Brett eats minus the extremely spicy food challenges.  I eat a few chicken fingers and some fries at the airport and call him to pass the time at the Tucson back in November. Inevitably I ended up up clutching my stomach and dominating the conversation just complaining about how too much fried food doesn’t agree with me. Brett, on the other hand, is a fried food aficionado, a master of buffets, with astounding culinary adventures of the mediocre kind.

Today began with me waking up, deciding to go to the gym. Then, I ate some vanilla almond special K for breakfast, leftover vegan chili I’d made last night for lunch (a recipe from the aphrodisiac queen herself), and scrambled eggs with a little chorizo and cheese for dinner. I polished off the day with some chocolate soy ice cream mixed with peanut butter pretzel nuggets and strawberries mixed in for dessert. All in all, my new resolve to be healthier was a success today.

Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum (and country) I begin to receive texts from Brett about his food exploits at the Florida Strawberry Festival. Naturally (or perhaps unnaturally) not a single strawberry touched his lips. Instead I received a text on my phone with a picture of a hamburger topped with bacon sandwiched between two donuts. Officially its called the Krispy Kreme burger . He also told me he had deep fried oreos as a side. When I spoke to Brett later tonight I was (sort of) surprised to learn this was not all he ate at the fair. He’d had:

fried cheese on a stick

footlong italian sausage sub

fried chicken on a stick

fresh cut potato chips

krispy kreme donut burger

deep friend oreos

When I try to picture eating that amount of food all my mind comes up with is ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ children’s book. And he still came back to his apartment and ate dinner!

As we continued talking he informed me he was, yet again, hungry. The conversation goes at follows:

Brett: some quaker chewy granola bars hit the spot

good -3 down

Me: something not artery clogging

Brett: well i put salt on them

Me: what?!

Brett?: haha im kidding!

I almost had a heart attack for him.

Anaba is named for the Anabatic winds there in Sonoma, which allow them to grow certain delicate grapes that cannot grow in other regions. And the wines there are amazing. Like I said, I am still a bit of a newbie when it comes to wine and wine tasting, but I loved every single wine I tried both white and red. That has never happened to me before and it was hard to decide which wine to take home at the end of the day. I left with the exact same wine I had at Dry Creek Kitchen, the 2008 Coriol, but I will be back for more…

Perhaps what I love most of all is also what makes my love of Tara’s most difficult; her daily flavors are posted on Facebook every day. It is a small miracle that I can refrain myself from going and trying two two flavors everyday. You can taste the fresh, quality ingredients in the ice cream and see them as well. When I went backpacking through Europe in college I remember reading in my travel guide that the best way to find quality gelato in Italy was to look at a place’s banana flavor. If the banana was bright yellow it meant that the gelato was made with artificial banana flavor and nor fresh ingredients. Tara’s banana agave sorbet was that greyish color indicating fresh bananas and it sure tasted that way too! However,  I think my favorite flavor so far has been strawberry rose with its really fresh strawberry taste and the subtle underlying rose flavor that makes it so much different then any other strawberry ice cream you’ll try. Yum!

case cloched.

Corso is a small Italian restaurant on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. I immediately liked the atmosphere of the small place at I walked in. It was modern but warm and menus from restaurants in Italy were framed on the wall.

I must confess, in my excitement I picked out what I wanted from the menu online before I arrived. I was then pleased to find my dish, the pan roasted chicken, getting good reviews my guide. Well, thats a bit of an understatement. The Michelin guide said, ” the pollo al burro- crispy skin-on chicken sauteed liberally in butter- is revelatory.” I definitely didn’t disagree. The chicken was delicious and not only was it sauteed in butter it was served in the small metal roasting pan it was cooked in bathing in the butter. Very simple, not too many spices, but very flavorful.

I also ordered the duck fat roasted Yukon potatoes with garlic confit and rosemary. I am sure that it is evident by the description alone they they were quite good although I wished they had a little more duck flavor in them. I finished the meal off with a scoop of chocolate gelato which was rich, creamy and the small scoop was the perfect amount to finish the meal.