I S'cream for Bi-Rite (Cook the Book August)

This month's Cook the Book cookbook is Bi-Rite Creamery's Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones.

In 1972, J.K. received a Salton Ice Cream Machine for her birthday. She hadn't used it since moving to San Francisco (yay! local ice cream!) in 1975, but after a test run with lemon ice, we discovered that it still works perfectly. Well, lime ice. Lime juice was what we had. We weren't going to risk J.K.'s frozen Meyer lemon juice* until we knew for sure the machine was working.

The Ice Cream Machine is no longer manufactured, but it is available on the secondary market. It goes right into the freezer and has a fan that draws the cold freezer air into the machine, so pre-freezing it isn't necessary. The cord is protected with a metal coating so it can have the freezer door closed on it. If you have one packed away but have lost the manual, you can find it here.

We chose the recipe for chocolate ice cream on page 78.

Not too many ingredients

First step:  Whisk the eggs lightly and add  sugar.

Cook cocoa powder with milk, sugar, cream and salt.

Add 1/2 cup of the hot mixture to the eggs, slowly, whisking constantly.

Then add the egg mixture back into the cream and cook until thickened.

Strain to get smooth ice cream.

Cool the mixture in an ice bath. We had to jury-rig this part. J.K.'s only large-enough bowl is plastic, and she doesn't keep ice cubes around, so we put a large blue ice in the bottom of the bowl, with a sponge on top of it to stabilize the bowl of hot ice cream base.

And into the metal Ice Cream Machine container to chill in the refrigerator.

When it was cold enough, we placed the container in the machine and the machine went into the freezer for 90 minutes.

The finished ice cream has a light color, but the flavor is very chocolate! It was also very soft at first, but firmed up after a few more hours in the freezer.

Here's our ice cream sandwich. The ice cream was a little hard for our soft cookie, but we squished it back together easily enough.

We also made a pear sorbet, which had a more granular texture than the lime ice. We had to improvise on the recipe, starting with the recipe for Mango Sorbet on page 205. This cookbook's sorbet recipes use already-prepared simple syrup, while the recipes that came with the Ice Cream Machine just start with boiling sugar and water.

Also, neither of us has a juicer, so we had to puree and strain our pears. Our juice was still fairly thick and our final product was more of a Sicilian granita than an Italian ice, but still delicious.

If you've read any of our previous ice cream posts, you know we love to hit up the Bi-Rite store to get our ice cream fix (walking to get there helps mitigate our caloric intake). So it was tempting to just sample all the various kinds they give recipes for in the cookbook. However we're glad we finally used J. K.'s ice cream maker and that now we can make our own flavors at home! This book would be ideal for Bi-Rite lovers who don't have the opportunity to walk across town for their favorite flavor. 

Do you have a hard to find flavor of ice cream you'd like to make at home? This book has great ideas and makes it easy to get inspired and create your own using the base recipes. Viva la Summer!

* Life gave her lemons, so she made limoncello, which resulted in a lot of leftover juice.

The New Bi-Rite-Get your Ice Cream fix NOW.

It is So the time to get some Bi-Rite! Luckily for you (and us!) there's a newish Bi-Rite in town, over on Divisidero. Prepare yourself for a roomy and bright store, but with the same knowledgeable and helpful workers awaiting on your every whim. The *only* thing we could even consider suggesting is for them to steal a meter spot and make a parklet for people to sit out and enjoy the treats/eats they get from the store. Of course it isn't that far to Alamo Square or even Golden Gate Park. However, sometimes when you've got that cup or cone in your hand you just want to sit down and Enjoy. This amazing summerish weather may not last, so grab your scoop while you can!

J.K. usually gets a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of peanut butter, but this time she couldn't resist the roasted banana, while Angela tried the dynamic duo of honey lavender and salted caramel ice creams.

I scream, you scream, we all...

Similar looking, but not the same!

Roasted B with C

Maybe you need it to take home?

It's worth the line!!

 J.K. and Angela grabbed their scoops,  but we still got seduced into taking home a few other things to try as well. Angela chose Acme walnut cranberry bread, which she paired with Soft Italian Taleggio cheese. J.K. found a new chocolate bar to try (of course) and also got some of her favorite citrus. The Sumo has an extremely short season and looks like a tangelo on steroids. Angela was quite tempted by a cake they were sampling in the store, but since we'd just had ice cream she reined in her sweet teeth and refrained from putting that cake in her basket. Phew!

CHEESE!

Lots n Lots n LOTS!

Plus wine! Perfect picnic please.

Seafoods and fresh meats, prepared dinner entrees too!

Ask your friendly fish monger what's fresh for dinner.

What a meaty spread...

Cutie Bunny.

Many flavors of chocolate too.

Fresh, often local, fruits.

Veggies and greens.

Breads

Delicious

CARBS.

Just peek in the window at Bi-Rite and you'll see treats all around. 

Lots of cranberries and walnuts in this bread! So tasty with the melted cheese.

You may even be inspired like Angela, see above. Do you have a favorite local market? Bi-Rite makes its own ice cream too!

4th Annual San Francisco Street Food Festival pt. 1

For the third year in a row, Angela, J.K., and our friend Mel went to the San Francisco Street Food Festival (Saturday, August 18, 2012) sponsored by La Cocina. This was such a massive event that we're going to have to tell you about it in several posts. We purchased the $100 Passport, which gave us $115 of food tickets and 4 soft drink tickets. (We were expecting more people, but knew we could make it work out if they didn't show.) Tokens ($4 each) were available for alcoholic beverages, but at one token for beer and two tokens for very small drinks, we decided to forgo the adult beverages.

The day was glorious. Hot, but not too hot, so we could spend the whole day outside, eating, people-watching, and generally enjoying ourselves. We arrived early, picked up our passport and two flavors of Hint water (watermelon and pomegranate-tangerine). This brand has hardly any flavor at all, but good smells waft around every time you open the bottle. If you're looking for a sugary soft drink you won't like it, but it's a refreshing change from the “raw water” taste of most bottled waters.

This year's arrangement was much better than last years festival. Instead of a “square” of streets, the whole festival ran along Folsom, from 20^th to 25^th, with limited use of cross streets for non-food booths, so it was easy to find all the vendors, who were lined up on one side of the street. There was plenty of table and seating space, much of it under trees, so there was shade for those who wanted it.

State Bird Provisions was by far the most popular booth at the Festival. They just won Bon Appetit's 2012 Restaurant of the Year, so people were eager to try them out. There was already a substantial line at 10:45, but the line moved fast, and we had to wait only 15 minutes after the Festival opened at 11:00 to get our delicious garlic bread with cheese and tomato giardiniere. The giardiniere was delicious, but not what we expected. Instead of having a tangy vinegar flavor, it was sweet.We paired the State Bird selections with sweet potato fries from Liba Falafel. Also delicious. Actually, almost everything was delicious, so we're going to stop using that word. We'll just let you know if we didn't happen to like something, and why.

Next we tried the grilled leg of lamb and and lemon verbena lemonade from Radio Africa Kitchen. Mel and J.K. grabbed some table space while Angela went to get a tinga tostada from L's Caffe to go with it. The lamb was rare and tender; the veggies were good, especially the carrots. We liked the tostada with its creamy mexican cheese and crunch from the 'shell.' The lemon verbena lemonade was a surprise pink, but we learned that comes from the root of the plant. The flavor was subtle and yummy.

On the way back to eat Angela spotted the watermelon ice at the Bi-Rite Creamery stand and couldn't resist getting that, too. The popsicle tasted like summer, a yummy watermelon puree. We could have cheerfully eaten another one, but knew from past experience to save room for more culinary delights.

We hope you enjoyed reading part one of our adventure. There is much more to blog about the Street Food Fest and we are delighted to share it with you. You'll notice following the links that this festival is about everything from well-established restaurants to food trucks, catering and even food businesses just getting started. This helps make the venue fun and brings together a wide (tasty) variety of choices for the consumer. The tiered pricing allows people to try a variety of  foods even on a budget. (small bites $2-4/large bites not allowed to cost over $10) Viva La Cocina! Next year let's figure out how to make a tequila jello shot NOT cost $8, eh?

P.S. Angela also hopes they adopt this pricing structure if they continue forward with the charity event Night Market, which was Friday night. I attended and was disappointed by the prices vs. small unimaginative portions at some booths. The lack of preparedness at other booths made me hope it was just first year wrinkles that will be ironed out by next year!