Category: Food

Sunday Farmers’ Market a Real Catch

You can always catch a deal at the Sunday farmers’ market. Now, you can catch your own fish.

Last week marked the arrival of Passmore Ranch, a sustainable fish farm from Sloughhouse. Crowds gathered to watch as owner Michael Passmore and ranch manager David Kunce gave “fresh” food new meaning. Instead of recently-caught, neatly filleted cuts of fish, the Passmore Ranch stall featured live fish, swimming happily in large tubs of water.

How does it work? Customers can step up to the booth, request a fish, and watch as the farmers make their catch with the mere scoop of a net. Your fish is weighed, tossed in a bag, and handed over to you, still flopping. It doesn’t get much fresher than that!

The fish selection last Sunday included fresh white surgeon, silver carp, catfish, and black bass. The price is reasonable at about $3 per pound. What a catch!

SFist gets it

Girls drinking a Pina Colada

Sac Rag contemporary, SFist.com, made me chuckle today with this post (and photo) about the tanker truck that spilled 7,000 gallons of coconut oil last night in Sacramento.

Actually, I think I enjoyed the first comment more…

After getting caught in the rain, Sacramento residents braced for the eventual overturned semi-trucks bringing health food and champagne to the populace that loves making love at midnight.

Stickie, is that you?

TGIFIC? WTF

I feel so behind the times. Since my residential shift to Midtown, I haven’t had a chance to roll down Howe Avenue in a spell. So imagine my surprise when I spotted the rotted out shell of a T.G.I. Friday’s on Howe and Hurley yesterday. A little research tells me that this place has been closed since September. September?  Man do I feel out of it.

For decades, this particular corner has been known as the “Herpes Triangle” — the three points of the triangle being Friday’s, Chevy’s, and previously El Torito, now Tre — and now, one of the triangle’s points is no more. Somehow “Herpes Line” just doesn’t have the same ring. Should we have a renaming contest? Has this particular Sacramento corner lost its cultural relevancy like Craig Kilborn and the city of St. Louis? Does this somehow absolve Guy Fieri of spokesing for a competitor to his own restaurant? Was that Guy’s plan all along, to drive Friday’s into the ground by pitching its gooey meals? What other restaurants from my childhood are gone? Please tell me the Coral Reef hasn’t shuttered.

Odonata Saison Release Party

Odonata's beautiful new saison
Sacramento’s newest brewery, Odonata Beer Company, is making the big leap towards wider distribution and bigger sales. Sure, a handful of us have had their fantastic Rorie’s Ale, Beersel and Rosa and their name has gotten a bit more well known through their Water Witch, but their new Saison is intended to put them on the map as a larger player in the regional beer scene. Taps will be scattered throughout the area and bottles will soon be available at most places you buy beer.

Odonata is a boutique brewery owned and operated by Peter Hoey and Rick Sellers. Peter is the former brewmaster at SacBrew, while Rick is a well known beer journalist. Their focus is European-style beers, many of which are aged in the wine barrels from Odonata Wines, made by Peter’s brother Denis. While their other beers have been bold and adventurous, the saison is food friendly and approachable yet with deeply nuanced malt flavors. A few years back, Hoey’s saison won the gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival, so expect the best from this beer.
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Great beer, great causes on Saturday

Sacramento area beer folks are constantly donating product and raising money for local charities. Two great events on Saturday invite you to enjoy great craft beer while giving back to your community.

Rubicon hosts the 4th annual celebration of Women in Brewing all day Saturday, starting at 11AM. This year, they feature 13 beers from 7 breweries, all brewed by women. Selections will include a nitro choco-mint, a red IPA and a double IPA from Rubicon, Summerfest and a scotch ale from Sierra Nevada, Scarlet Harlot Red IPA from Auburn Alehouse, scotch ale from Lost Coast, Hell’s Export Lager from Moylan’s, a ginger/meyer lemon beer from Blue Frog, Witches Wit from Santa Cruz Mountain, Red Rocket from Bear Republic and two Belgian imports from Urthel, their Samaranth and Hop-It. Local businesses have donated prizes for a silent auction. This event benefits WEAVE.
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Sudwerk Imperial Pilsner Release

Spring is the beginning of beer season, warming us up for May and the weekly regional beer festivals. There are several great local events before May to wet your whistle. Here’s the next.

Tonight, The Davis Graduate hosts Sudwerk Brewery for the release of their Signature Series Imperial Pilsner. This is the second of several Sudwerk beers released to celebrate their 20th Anniversary. Their standard pilsner is one of the best on the market, so I am really looking forward to trying a mega version of it.

The Grad has been throwing great parties on almost a weekly basis (Last week was a giant tasting of Lost Abbey and Port Brewing), make sure you check them out if you are a craft beer fan.

Free Stuff: April 2010

In these tough economic times, it’s nice to know your local Web log is here to turn you on to a few deals.

Paso Robles Wines coming to Sacramento

Paso Robles is the third largest wine making region in California and the fastest growing, but seems to get neglected out there on the Central Coast. Let’s face it, with Napa, Sonoma, Lodi and the Sierra Foothills boasting great wineries only a spit bucket away, many Sacramento vinophiles aren’t going to make the 6 hour journey out to San Luis Obispo County unless they know that they are going to get stellar wines at a fair price.

This is why the good folks at the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance have decided to take their show on the road. 30 of the region’s best wineries are coming to visit us next week to hopefully seduce us into making the journey. I have visited this area several times and keep finding new hidden treasures tucked away in the rolling hills. One advantage to the remote location is that you truly feel like you are visiting a hidden paradise of wine. Unlike Napa Valley, you are not going to get caught in a traffic jam of limos and tour buses.
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Best. Pulled. Pork. Ever.

Imagine, if you will, a place that serves a pulled pork sandwich topped with bleu cheese Napa cabbage slaw, dill havarti, shallots, and spicy barbecue sauce, all on a toasty ciabatta roll. Now imagine eating such a sandwich and having never tasted its equal. Now imagine sitting down and writing about said sandwich on a local blog. If you’ve imagined all that, then we’ve pretty much had the same day: you in your head, me in reality.

All I can say is make the effort to go to Fog Mountain Cafe on the corner of 10th and I streets. Hell, even if you have to get a parking ticket so that you have to go to City Hall to pay it so that you have an excuse to be on that corner. Even if you have to taint a local well so that you have to go to the CalEPA building on the adjacent corner, do it.

Fog Mountain Cafe– 1000 I St. Sacramento

Open Mon-Fri, 7am-3pm

Pinkberry VIP grand opening

Benji Madden Jason Evigan and Joe Manganiello
Hope we get this kind of star studded affair.
Creative Commons License photo credit: @Photo .

By now you know that the LA frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry is moving into the Sacramento fro-yo market, with several stores “swirling soon” around the area, including Howe ’bout Arden and Loehmann’s Plaza, Elk Grove, Sunrise and Davis.

I’m not the fro-yo aficionado that some of my compatriots are, so I’m sure this will get adequate coverage here on this Web log. I merely want to highlight the fact that for the grand opening at Howe ’bout Arden on Thursday, the PR folks behind the Pinkberry entree into Nor Cal are setting up a “VIP tent” and inviting all the movers and shakers in the area including top bloggers and Yelpers as well as politicians. For their sake, they better make sure they don’t snub the Deputy Secretary on Dry Toppings or the Assistant to the Commissioner on Parfait Regulation, or their kiwi processing bill is going to stall in committee, that’s for damn sure.