recipes

If anyone has made beans a cool commodity, it's Rancho Gordo, the heirloom bean company owned by Steve Sando. Sando recently co-authored a cookbook called Heirloom Beans (Chronicle, 2008) and here are some of our favorite recipes from it. Get out the Le Crueset: Winter's on.

Hey, this has been kind of a rough year, eh? The last couple of months have kind of made us want to hide under our desks. But as this year ends and the next begins, it would seem a shame to let it go by without a proper toast, something like “Thanks for nothing, 2008. See you on the flip side.”

Every year here, the beginning of Dungeness crab season and Thanksgiving collide, making crab for Turkey Day a great SF tradition. Friday was the beginning of the crab season here, so to celebrate, Joe went down to Clement Street and bought six hefty—very feisty—live crabs and brought them home, stuffed in his messenger bag, to cook for an impromptu dinner party.

This hot drink from Absinthe is a pyrotechnic showstopper. Serves 1

Sugar for coating rim of glass
1 ounce 151-proof rum
ground cinnamon (preferably in a shakable container)
4 ounces hot coffee
1/2 ounce Kahlúa
1/2 ounce brandy
whipped cream

A week ago, I didn't think I'd be able to write this post about autumnal drinks. But then the fog rolled in, and with it came the rain, and then all of a sudden it did feel like fall. The proverbial frost is on the proverbial pumpkin.

I’ve heard that in places where the days are very short in the winter—Alaska, Finland, Iceland—that people drink a lot more. This makes perfect sense to me—I mean, what else are you going to do? Drinking is a good way to defend against cold and darkness, particularly if the beverages in question are hi-test and hot. We’re here to report on a happy little phenomenon sweeping our freezing, fogged-in city: the resurgence of the boozy, hot drink.