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H A P P Y H O L I D AY S
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seeking a healthy lifestyle continue to increase. Travis Queen, the assistant store manager of Mollie Stone’s Market in Palo Alto, said that Mollie Stone’s has increased the number of raw-food items including kale chips, raw date crackers and trail mix. The market now has a centralized wall dedicated to its raw-food goods. Personal chefs Michelle Bailey and Jacquie Steiner have both seen street food and quick-food restaurants like Chipotle push more vegetables as well. “There is definitely a push for a lot more vegetables and more elaborate side dishes,” Bailey said. Vegetables are becoming the main focus of many meals. Chef Sare has noticed a difference in the way vegetables are prepared. “People are using ginger rather than garlic — ginger green beans. ... Ginger is bubbling up,” Sare said. In the past two years, Steiner has seen a surge in the use of bitter greens in home and restaurant meals. “People are using vegetables they had seen but hadn’t used before like purple cauliflower, which is delicious,” she said. Consumers want to know not only how food is cooked, but where it was originally prepared. They are moving away from American food and American-inf luenced ethnic foods, according to Garg. They want to try the kinds of foods they might consume if they really were in another country. “A number of people are looking for traditional European food or Peruvian food or Ethiopian food. It’s harder to find authentic compared to the run-of-the-mill American version of a dish,” Garg said. This has expanded the ethnicfood aisle in many grocery stores. Many individuals continue to leave their diets at the door in favor of full-fat gourmet treats. Salt seems to grace the most popular desserts these days. Draeger’s’ salted caramel ice cream has been selling really well, Draeger said. Piazza’s Fine Foods candy buyer, Sherri Love, says salted chocolate bars including its B.T. McElrath’s Salty Dog Chocolate Bar, Vosges’ Black Salt Caramel Bar and a dark chocolate caramel truff le sprinkled with Himalayan sea salt have been very
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popular this year. Food fads come and go, and how long they last is up for debate. Remember the muffin shops and chocolate-chip cookie stores that graced every down-
town thoroughfare not that long ago? A
Editorial Intern Lisa Kellman can be emailed at lkellman@ paweekly.com.
Bayer Ballet Company presents
A Winter Fairy Tale
Join Bayer Ballet Company artists as they bring to life a New Year’s Eve fairy tale. This original holiday youth ballet is set to the music of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, and performed in the world-famous Russian style. Enjoy a magical performance where good triumphs over evil as a Magician, beautiful Snow Maiden, Lovely Fairy, animated toys and other wondrous Fairyland creatures rescue a bunny who has been kidnapped by the wicked Bat Queen. This stunning ballet is sure to become a new holiday tradition for your family and friends! Three nights only.
December 14, 2012 — 7:00 pm December 15, 2012 — 5:30 pm December 16, 2012 — 2:30 pm FOR TICKETS PLEASE CALL (650) 903-6000 or visit WWW.MVCPA.COM
*Join our E-Mail List to receive VIP Seating Preferences For information about Bayer Ballet Academy please visit: www.bayerballetacademy.com *Offer good for 1st 100 tickets purchased with promotional code December 7, 2012 ■ Mountain View Voice ■ MountainViewOnline.com ■
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