Anna Mindess

Most of the hundreds of diners who come to the elegant dining rooms at Oakland Chinatown’s Peony Seafood Restaurant each week sit in groups—large and small—around tables covered with white damask tablecloths. They relax, chat, and share a wide variety of dim sum delights that come piping hot from the Peony kitchen. Here’s a peek into that extraordinary culinary workshop...

“Homemade Cafe is rising from the ashes like a pancake-wielding phoenix,” announces its owner for more than a decade, Collin Doran. This surprising, crowd-pleasing turn of events is made possible by Doran’s longtime neighbor and friend, Rohit Singh, CEO of Breads of India, two doors down on Sacramento Street. When the beloved corner cafe closed suddenly on Jan. 1, 2024, Singh was in India and only learned about it on social media. “I had tears in my eyes. I thought, ‘How can this happen?’”....

It might be Oakland’s most deeply loved bakery, but it’s been tucked away in an underground space on an unlikely street for 25 years. The shop at 285 23rd Street is so small that only one, maybe two people can enter at a time to pick out their portions of cheesecake or cobbler...

Taya Marroquin grew up in Bakersfield with a Mexican father and a Salvadoran mother. She fondly remembers trips to Los Angeles, where her grandmother would take her to the local panaderías. Enchanted by the cookies covered in a rainbow of sprinkles, she soon found her way to the kitchen...When Marroquin was 21, she made a decision that would shock her family...

Should you find yourself in front of a table filled with sweets strikingly adorned with handcrafted carnations, sunflowers, cherry blossoms, cosmos, hydrangeas, and other blooms, you may have happened upon an Ohana Floral Sweets pop-up. The business was started in 2023 by Berkeley-based mother and daughter team Mie Suzuki and. Mana Hasegawa. Their delicate mochi—glutinous rice flour treats—pay homage to seasonal flowers...

Mooo-ve over, Mona Lisa, there is another must-see attraction in Paris! Le Musée du Fromage, a museum celebrating the world of French cheeses opened in June 2024. It’s housed in a stately 17th century stone edifice located on the historic Île Saint-Louis. Looking at the sign above the entrance, another word jumps out, “vivant,” which translates as “living,” to emphasize that this is not a dusty old museum full of ancient cheese crumbs, but an exploration of the vibrant world of more than a than a thousand French cheeses...

In all great art, there is a place for classic masterpieces as well as contemporary innovations; this maxim applies perfectly to the Paris hot chocolate scene.
I have been lucky to visit Paris several times, but never in winter. I always wished I could partake in the warming ritual of steaming cups of chocolat chaud. French versions are often made directly from chocolate bars or cocoa beans and as far away from the powdered stuff I grew up on as our packaged bread is from a fresh baguette...

If, like me, you are an amateur de chèvre (goat cheese lover), spring and early summer are the times to head to France to satisfy your cravings with an array of classic and creative chèvres.
My guide for exploring goat cheese was Jennifer Greco (aka chezloulou) a French cheese expert who has lived in France for 21 years, teaches brilliant classes about a wide range of French fromage and is a Cheese Professor contributor. Greco explains what makes a good cheese shop,...

New York City is often referred to as a melting pot, but a closer look reveals a celebration of diversity in people, art, music, and more. One of the joys of New York City is enjoying flavors from a wide array of cultures. You may be thinking of iconic foods like pizza, fried chicken, Peking duck, and sushi, but chocolate also offers the perfect vehicle to impart delectable, culturally rich flavors. Here are five spots to taste some of the finest chocolates, infused with culture: Harlem Chocolate Factory, Stick with Me Sweets, Kee's Chocolates, Noé No Omise, Brigadeiro Brasileiro

WINNER FIRST PLACE - PROFILE - SAN FRANCISCO PRESS CLUB AWARDS 2024
Executive Chef Abigail Serbins is responsible for serving three meals a day to 600 diners who hail from 80 countries and live at UC Berkeley’s International House. Her goal is to make every student’s favorite dish from their homeland, like a United Nations culinary ambassador.

A vibrant bouquet of locally grown parsley, mint, dill, and green and purple basil holds a secret: The seeds for these herbs came all the way from Iran. The grower, Sama Mansouri, 26, started farming only last year, brimming with enthusiasm but without much practical experience. The learning curve was steep as she and two partners tilled the soil, laid compost, built an irrigation system, and planted their seeds...

Every Easter, a brood of volunteers in Bessières, a small town in southern France, collects 15,000 eggs — not to dye them pastel colors or even hide them for children to find. Early on Easter Monday morning, they will crack open the prodigious pile, add two pounds of salt, a pound of pepper and a bucket of herbs, then whip it all up in massive pots. Another team, sporting tall chef’s hats, plops a dozen gallons of duck fat into a 13-foot-wide frying pan that weighs more than a ton and, wielding huge wooden paddles, stirs up a humongous omelet...

Sitalbanat Muktari’s life made a turn on a vegan donut.
Born in Utah, Muktari lived for many years with her family in Northern Nigeria, steeped in the local Hausa culture. Sital—as she is known to many of her friends—returned to the United States after graduating high school, and on setting down roots in Richmond, California, she worked at various jobs and studied at various jobs and studied at local colleges throughout the next decade. By 2019, she was feeling ready for an adventure,...

The pale-yellow walls of Haleluya Ethiopian Gourmet in Fremont are festooned with traditional art, woven baskets, and a chart of the Ethiopian alphabet—familiar symbols to diners who may venture here from the Bay Area’s large Ethiopian communities in Oakland and San Jose. But many of the hands busily tearing off pieces of spongy injera to dip into mounds of spicy stews spicy stews are occupied with a less-expected aspect of their convivial gathering: conversation in American Sign Language (ASL).

In the Auvergne region of central France, 80 dormant volcanoes (which last erupted in 4000 BC) left behind a soil rich in phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium, where verdant meadows are now home to an abundance of wildflowers and grasses, and the lucky rust-colored Salers cows who graze there for at least 140 days a year. Their milk, plus skilled cheesemakers, produce one of France’s most popular cheeses, Saint-Nectaire AOP....