Baked in the Bay Area

I know I just moved back to the Bay Area a few weeks ago, but I am ready to move again.

If Omnivore Books on Food in Noe Valley needs a roommate, I'll have my bags packed in the time it takes to cook a two-minute egg.

(You do the math.)

The tiny bookshop is filled with books, new and vintage, all about food. It hosts readings by all sorts of notables in the food world. Alice Waters, Thomas Keller, Frank Bruni, and Deborah Madison have all made an appearance; Diana Kennedy and Madhur Jaffrey are on their way. It even has eggs, laid in nearby Tomales, for sale at the counter.

























Eggs at the counter! I'm all over this place.

But it gets even better.

On Tuesday, I got a taste of Brooklyn when two of my favorite bakers, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito from Baked in Red Hook came by to share some banter and brownies with a crowd of fans.



















They passed out their signature brownies, dark and intense, before their talk began.
























T was a good sport listening to all the baking fanatics talking about Jell-O molds (the staggering number of recipes that exist out in the world), Cher (apparently one should never attempt to make the prune-chocolate cake in her cookbook), how much people are willing to pay to have brownies shipped to them (a lot), and making caramel sauce (and how it can be the nemesis of some bakers).
























After a very amiable chat, I grabbed my copies of both of their books and lined up to have them signed.
























And T was there with his iPhone to capture the happy moment.



They are such nice guys. I met them briefly once before when they were doing a cooking demo for a food event in New York. I told them about how much I miss going to Baked and how happy I was to see a little bit of Brooklyn in San Francisco.



















One of their recipe testers made a towering apple caramel cake that tasted like fall.


























Renato and Matt signed lots of books...

... while I eyed a couple of leftover brownies. Leftover brownies? Who ever heard of such a thing?

The smiling woman on the right in the picture is Celia Sack, the owner of the store. I'd be smiling like that, too, if I had that much deliciousness coming through my store on a regular basis.



















See you soon, Omnivore! Clear out a drawer for me!