SF Food Wars: Pie or Die Challenge

Although we didn't win anything, I still feel like I accomplished a great feat - over 200 olallieberry pies baked and consumed by eager patrons at the SF Food Wars Pie or Die challenge at Stable Cafe (which, by the way, has the cutest outdoor patio!) on Sunday! It was such a fun project from start to finish; from picking way too many olallieberries by hand with Fen at Gizditch Ranch in Watsonville to hand rolling Katy's perfect buttery crust and then putting the finishing touches on our way too cute booth - it was an all around great experience and I can't wait to jump into more culinary adventures in the future.

SF Food Wars: Pie or Die Challenge

I'm excited to announce that my culinary partner in crime, Katy Gaul, and I made the cut and have officially been selected as one of the 20 competing teams at the upcoming SF Food Wars "Pie or Die" challenge on Sunday, July 25th from 3-6pm at Stable Cafe in the Mission!

No Bay Area pie competition is complete without olallieberries, our special ingredient. Our pies will consist of hand picked olallieberries sourced from local farms, nestled between flaky layers of all-butter pastry, topped with turbinado sugar. A simple, seasonal and delicious hand-held treat!

Come and cheer on the Ohh La La Ladies and VOTE for our Ohh La La Olallieberry Pies!

Culinary Creations: Macaroons!

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the bite-sized French macaroon will soon replace cupcakes as the latest sweet culinary trend in San Francisco. It seems people are tired of all the trendy boutique cupcake dispensaries popping up charging $4 a pop. I love this old poster with it's pastel array of the light as air, melt in your mouth morsels!

Culinary Creations: Olallieberry Pie

Behold! My very first hand-picked home-made olallieberry pie! June marks the beginning of Olallieberry season, and there's nothing I love more than the tarte-sweet taste of what I consider to be a cross between a red-raspberry and a blackberry. Fen and I drove down to Santa Cruz to visit the fam, with our friends Greta and Chris in tow, and headed down to Watsonville for some good ole' fashioned berry pickin', "pik-yor-sef" to be exact, at Gizdich Ranch. It was a huge success and we ended up with four massive zip lock bags full of olallieberries in our freezer. My new friend and co-worker at HEAT, Sarah's birthday picnic was the perfect occasion to bust out my new found culinary skillz, along with the help of Mumsy's famous recipe for olallieberry pie. Needless to say, it was deeelish!