After 22 years, we finally renovated our kitchen. Refinishing our cabinets and removing the old countertops was a fun project for our family. During this process, our kitchen has been a semi-functioning mess: cabinets covered with plastic wrap, cookware on the dining table and a bare countertop. Luckily my sink and stove were still hooked […]
chocolate
Posted inEat + Drink
I’ll Have My Spinach with Cheese and Chocolate, Please
“Chocolate is a vegetable,” read a sticky note placed on the refrigerator door in the kitchen of the office where I worked some years ago. I smiled when I read it — that chocolate could be consumed with other vegetables, a culinary path I was not interested in exploring at the time. Then something happened. […]
Posted inEat + Drink
What-if Cookies
In my first piece of the new year, one might expect me to urge readers to eat more vegetables and offer one of the recipes I seem to be constantly developing. In our household we consume plenty; I find them endlessly inspiring. Often, my last thought before falling asleep is some idea for a soup, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
A Coffee and Chocolate Pairing on the Waterfront
If all goes to plan, by this time next year, the sea air along Eureka’s waterfront could carry notes of coffee and chocolate. The former home of the North Coast Co-op, empty since 1992 and rehabilitated by the late Pierre LeFuel and Karen Banning, is to be home to an expanded Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate […]
Posted inEat + Drink
It’s OK, Dick Taylor Will Bring You Milk and Cookies
Sitting at home wanting chocolate when there is no chocolate is not a new problem. However, it’s one the folks at Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate have been prompted to solve during shelter in place. After closing in accordance with the county shutdown in March, the local bean-to-bar retail operation began offering its bespoke bars and […]
Posted inEat + Drink
The Cookies
My answer for any emotional extreme — sadness, joy, stress — is food. Recently my partner, who works in the production department at the Journal, was under a tight deadline. Naturally, the voice in my head was screaming: Must. Make. Cookies. But here’s the thing. Even though (or maybe because) I have a culinary background, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Love it or Hate it: Valentine’s Day Suggestions
Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love and romance that dates back hundreds of years. Once associated with the martyrdom of various Christian saints, as we well know, it is now one of the biggest grossing holidays of the year, propelled by sneaky, sneaky marketing. For most of us, Valentine’s Day is complicated. It can […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Champurrado
As the weather gets colder, the drinks get warmer. While I do appreciate a good seasonal drink, I’m not talking about pumpkin-spice-anything. It’s time to let atole warm up your heart. For those unfamiliar with atole (pronounced ah-TOH-leh), it’s a corn-based drink made throughout Mexico and Central America. With origins dating back to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Candy House: See’s Returns to Henderson Center
Are you finally out of Halloween candy? It’s going to be OK. The See’s Candy once available next door to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop in Henderson Center is back after a brief residency blocks away and it’s got its own little candy house in the corner. The kiosk, the exterior of which mimics […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Cookies from the Burrito Place
Amigas Burritos has long had a loyal following, one that’s hanging in with the change of ownership since Jorge Bravo, who worked there some 12 years, bought it two years ago. Regulars come for the burritos but we’re here for dessert. The saucer-sized cookies in plastic wrap by the register are unremarkable looking but they’re grandma-level […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Treat Yourself
If you stroll by between 7 am and noon, go around the side to the walk-up coffee window at Sweetness and Light, and you might get a peek at Matt and Tami Toste tempering chocolate or hand dipping the old-fashioned candies that fill the cases at this Ferndale institution. Inside, treat yourself to browsing the […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Sweets by the Sea
When you step into Humboldt Chocolate, tucked behind the gazebo in Old Town Eureka, breathe deeply. The air is heavy and sweet in the little shop. That’s because chocolatiers are hand-making each molded, cream-filled, foil-wrapped piece right on the premises. Peek through the window into the kitchen — you may glimpse Ken Buntin at the […]