Palo Alto Weekly 07.20, 2012 - Section 1

Page 25

Eating Out

Music@Menlo t e n t h

a n n i v e r s a r y

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FOOD FEATURE

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Michelle Le

Now celebrating its tenth season, Music@Menlo—the Bay Area’s premier chamber music festival—offers an incomparable musical experience including world-class concerts and numerous free opportunities to explore classical music. The 2012 festival, Resonance, examines music’s impact on humanity—its ability to nurture mind and spirit, to transport listeners to new places, and, ultimately, to delight us all.

The grilled-asparagus salad at Calafia has baby frisee and radishes, with a lemon-olive oil vinaigrette.

Celebrating summer veggies

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Local produce inspires chefs to get creative with their menus

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alafia chef Charlie Ayers says he always keeps an attentive eye out for the season’s best when it comes to produce. “The berries were amazing this year: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries. This season also produced great asparagus, and it was a strong year for sweet English peas,� he said. “June produced wonderful peaches. You can still find some artichokes and baby lettuces out there, and the season’s corn out of Brentwood was great.� Ayers has created an eclectic menu at his restaurant at Palo Alto’s Town and Country Village, and the majority of the ingredients are produced in California from small farms. Only items such as the sustainable salmon from Scotland are from out of the area, he said. “We get our berries from a Palo Alto grower who harvests them in his own backyard by Embarcadero. We get our chili peppers from Happy Quail Farms located in East Palo Alto,� he said. “We get our eggs from Pescadero, tomatoes from Los Altos, and Brussels sprouts from Half Moon Bay.� Cooking with seasonal produce can dramatically influence the look, smell and the taste of food, Ayers said. “As soon as produce is plucked off the vine, the nutritional value and freshness diminish. Year-round produce can be shipped a long distance,� he said. “The result is that the taste is obviously much better with seasonal ingredients; it just doesn’t taste the same when you get them out of season.� Another fan of seasonal ingre-

by Junesung Lee dients is chef Gary Alinder, who cooks meals using them for the Peninsula Macrobiotic Community every week. “Seasonal is the best for you; it has the best nutritional value. It just makes sense because it’s more interesting, it’s more fresh and the flavors are better,� Alinder said. The community meets Monday nights at the First Baptist Church in Palo Alto to share a vegan menu prepared by local chefs. The themed menu changes each week. Chef James Holloway, who also cooks for the macrobiotic community, said he does most of his shopping at farmers’ markets, and enjoys getting to know the vendors. “You can’t build relationships like that at the grocery store.� Alinder said he remembers a time when local, seasonal produce was the only thing you could get at the market. “It used to be that farmers brought in everything from peas, alfalfa, squash, fruits and so on. Then with the advancement of huge, mechanized agriculture, that died down and we had monoculture, or specialization of just one or two different types of produce,� he said. At Calafia, the menu changes four times a year, with new dishes introduced each season. “It’s very special to try to use ingredients within a small window. You have a limited time to come up with a creative item,� Ayers said. He added that buying seasonal can be kinder on the environment because the food doesn’t have to travel as far — an idea that has been

enshrined in the burgeoning “locavore� movement. “It’s better for the local community and the environment as well because of the reduced carbon footprint,� Holloway said. “Food doesn’t have to travel across entire oceans just to get here.� For those who aspire to use seasonal ingredients to try for themselves, Ayers recommends Palo Alto’s California Avenue farmers market and Sigona’s produce markets in Palo Alto and Redwood City. Alinder said he frequently shops at the Berkeley Bowl for his ingredients. The market carries many items but specializes in fresh produce, he said. He has created a blog at macrochef.wordpress.com

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FOR TICKETS AND INFORMATION:

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(continued on next page)

T GREA S SHOW Y EVERT! NIGH

7/19

Vertical Vo ices “All at once, everyone in the room realized that something special was happening.� —Washington Post

7/21

Houston Person

7/25

Charles McPherson

7/28

Wycliffe Gordon

Photo: John Abbott

Soak up the sounds of summer at these and other shows: 7/22 7/29

More shows, details & tickets at

Julian Lage:

7/30

Taylor Eigsti/Kendrick Scott

Le Jazz Hot

7/31

Kenny Barron/Terell Stafford/

stanfordjazz.org

Dayna Stephens

650-725-2787

Matt Wilson

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