Anna Mindess

Farid Rafaty dreams of opening a restaurant where he will cook dishes from his native Afghanistan. One of these would be the luscious mantu dumplings he recently made for a pop-up dinner sponsored by Oakland Bloom, an organization that wants to help him in his quest. It’s been a long journey...

Walk into any museum, and one of the first items you are likely to spot is a posted warning, a stern reminder not to consume any foods or beverages within its hallowed halls. Last Thursday night, however, visitors to the marble galleries of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum were met with welcoming signs promising savory tastings ahead..

A lovely garden party with delicate shrimp rolls and crusty banh mi sandwiches. But there is another powerful thread running through this recent South Bay get-together, brought into focus as hostess Thoa van Seventer shares her story of leaving Vietnam and suddenly chokes up with emotion...

They’ve won accolades for their silken hummus and rainbow of organic salads, but for the owners of Oakland’s Ba-Bite, the most precious thing the almost two-year old restaurant can display right now may be the Sanctuary Restaurant poster on their front door...

When baristas hand over your low-fat latte, you probably don’t consider the paths that brought them to stand across the counter from you. But at 1951 Coffee Company, the Berkeley café that opened in January and is staffed entirely by refugees, the baristas’ life journeys are actually the point...

Cambodian noodle soups make a big splash at newly opened Nyum Bai in Emeryville’s Public Market. Nite Yun wants to share her culture by sharing her favorite Cambodian street food...

Voices from the Kitchen, La Cocina’s latest storytelling performance at The Swedish American Hall featured the impassioned words of more than a dozen chefs, poets, writers, historians and activists on the topic of Race.

Winters around the Bay do not call for mittens, woolen hats, and snow shovels, but most of us still appreciate an excuse to share comforting soups, stews, and steaming drinks with friends and family around the holidays...

Reporter Anna Mindess finds out how a taste of pressed duck launched Alameda resident Carolyn Phillips on a cookbook career...

If you diss tofu by calling it bland, blah and boring, it’s because you don’t really know tofu. In the right hands, the soybean curd’s multi-faceted personality can reveal itself as silky, velvety, unctuous, even crispy, crunchy and chewy...

Refreshing Beijing yogurt, warming Hot Pot, succulent Peking duck, comforting han-pulled noodles, crunchy, tart hawthorn berry candy...

Growing interest in traditional grains—buckwheat, sorghum, and teff—goes far beyond their gluten-free credentials.
Story and photos by Anna Mindess

As a little girl, I only recognized two food groups: grilled cheese sandwiches and scrambled eggs. This presented a challenge for weekend sleepovers at my grandparents’ house. My grandfather, a Russian Jewish immigrant who spoke mostly Yiddish...

A pair of Gallaudet alums are behind the deaf-run Mozzeria in San Francisco....

Like a bowl of its intensely flavored noodles, Beijing is a tangle of contradictions. Gigantic public spaces display the still-proud face of Beijing’s past. Yet the narrow alleyways of its traditional neighborhoods known as hutongs preserve its cultural soul...