After-School Sweets & Treats

That I have a sweet tooth is an understatement. My Twitter profile has "chocoholic" in it. That my kids like to participate in sugary adventures is nothing short of very true. Particularly after school when they look at me like they haven't been fed in 2 hours. That my husband can't live without his post-espresso treat is a genetic sugar reality. Take my tea-drinker word for it. Since we live in the Bay Area, what do you expect? We love discovering new bakeries, ice cream parlors and chocolatiers to satisfy our sweet tooth cravings. After school seems to be a particularly good time to go out and explore as my girls are ready to follow me anywhere just to eat. Lately, we've been pretty active on the sugar front so I thought I'd share three recent finds. Here's to the after-school explorer in all of us.


Scream Sorbet

5030 Telegraph, Oakland and select farmers markets



The scoop, the real one. Photo by Scream Sorbet



Thanks to my weekly Tasting Table e-newsletter, I discovered the only ice cream shop that I believe rivals Berthillon in Paris. Wherever I go, chocolate is always my number 1 (and 2, and 3) choice. It's rare that I taste another flavor so after all those years of tasting (geez, sounds like centuries!), I know my chocolate ice cream or sorbet.

At Scream Sorbet, I tasted hazelnut chocolate and askinosie chocolate. My kids had hazelnut chocolate and lemon rosemary. My husband tried askonasie chocolate and coconut kale. And we tried all the other flavors just for fun. All I'm sayin' is "wow." I want more! Actually I'll have more because a) there's three pots in my freezer and b) I need to return for the pineapple guava sorbet. It's that yummy. The only thing that's missing is cones. Scoops only come in tiny paper cups. They're not big scoops either. Don't expect the Ben and Jerry's size that feeds a family of five. They're precious scoops that scream for seconds. At the Oakland store, look for the map on the wall that provides the location of all the farms Scream Sorbet partners with to source their ingredients. Locavore, I say.

Dynamo Donuts
2760 24th Street, San Francisco

The whole donut story started for us when my piano teacher treated my girls to a donut at Happy Donuts in Noe Valley. That was last Friday. I'm not a donut fan but watched in awe as throngs of teenagers trickled in after school to get their donut fix. I learned that there were yeast-raised donuts and baking powder-raised donuts. That some are filled with custard, some with jam. Most important, my girls gulped their donut with a smile. This made me seriously reconsider donuts as a non-food item. Here was a huge piece of Americana I could not ignore. There had to be a gourmet donut shop somewhere in San Francisco. I Yelped my query and sure enough, Dynamo Donuts came up at the top of the list.

Photo by Dynamo Donuts

The next school day I took my girls after school. I was giddy with anticipation having read the different flavors on the website: caramel de sel, chocolate rose, candied orange blossom, saffron chocolate, lemon thyme. It was all so intriguing. Too much hype? At the counter, my hopes deflated when I realized there were only three types of donuts left that day: candied orange blossom, apricot cardamom and passion fruit milk chocolate. I took a couple of each to test them at home and the winner was clearly the passion fruit milk chocolate. What a flavor! Moist and light, it was well worth the extra 3 miles I'd have to hike the next weekend. The other two flavors were meh, fine but not worth 3 miles. The drag is that I know I'll have to come back for the one I really wanted all along: chocolate rose.

Miette Patisserie

San Francisco and Oakland

I have mixed feelings about Miette but not about their old-fashioned cupcake. It's delish. I tasted it three years ago. Loved it. Remembered about it last week. Tasted it again. Same taste. Yum. What I love about Miette (I'm talking about the Confiserie here, the one on Octavia) is how pretty everything looks. It's like you just walked into a 50s movie sponsored by 50s Disney. Pastel colors, cathedral-clear lollipops wrapped in shiny cellophane, vintage style candy, walls of glass jars filled with gummy fruits - it's eye candy before it's candy in your belly and it's wonderfully orchestrated. It's also a dream come true for my girls who enter the candy shop with eyes wide as flying saucers. The topiary tree with gumdrop "fruits" makes them drool.



Miette's old-fashioned cupcake.
Photo by Miette

However I've had mixed luck with their baked goods, mostlly macarons and lemon tart, and that kept me away a while. Plus, it's not cheap and I couldn't see myself spending our 401K on a sugar overdose. All that changed last week. I actually spent the 401K on an old-fashioned cupcake. Honestly for a cupcake, it's good. For $3.25 a pop, it better be. Simple and elegant, it could be stronger in chocolate but it's fine as it is. What takes the (cup)cake for me is the icing. I don't know what it's made of but it reminds me of a raw meringue topping my mom made on coconut cakes when I was a kid. When any food brings back good memories of your childhood, it's worth the 401K. So there. Miette is back in my books and I intend to keep tasting.

Hopefully you haven't overdosed on sugar reading this. I was about to write about chocolatiers too but I realized I needed to do some more field testing. Until then, I'll be writing about hikes next. And if you want to follow me on Twitter, it's @frogmomblog.

Night hikes: what's so cool about being in the dark?

On July 4th, I was camping at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma with family and friends. After the burger and corn BBQ, my husband and I kissed good night to our girls, left them with our friends and started the 2.9 mile trip to the top of Bald Mountain with a heart-pumping 1,500 feet elevation gain. At 2,729 feet, Bald Mountain towers over Napa and Sonoma valleys, 360 views all around.

We set off right before dusk and arrived at sunset an hour later. On the way, we saw deer, wild turkeys and quails. On top of Bald Mountain as chill was settling in, we saw the sun melt away in the crimson horizon.

Right under the top we heard laughter. We were not alone on top of that mountain but we already knew it. The ranger had told us there was a hiking club of about 20 people doing the hike that night.

Individuals were pulling wine bottles and home-made cookies out of their bags, waiting for their leader who was staying behind with the slowest revelers. They were greeting each other and laying big lens cameras on their blankets. We didn't partake in their celebration (all we had was a water bottle) but our motivation was the same.

In the starry night, we were treated to the fireworks of a dozen cities from the Bay Area and the Carquinez Strait to the Sonoma or Napa valleys.  Though the Bay Bridge fireworks were barely more than red blurs in the night, Santa Rosa's were closer, Sonoma's made it above Red Mountain in front of us and we enjoyed St Helena's pyrotechnics in full view. Everybody's comments on how each city compared with the previous years added spice to the visual enjoyment.

Once the final explosion over, headlamps on our forehead we darted down into the dark of night. No moon in sight. We chose to go the long way all along the fire road so as not to miss a trail junction. We arrived at the campground when our friends just got back from Santa Rosa. They probably had a better view from the ground on that night's fireworks but we saw handfuls of them. Over both I still pick the mountain view. While the next July 4 fireworks are a year away, I am sharing this experience because night hikes are cool and you may want to give it a try.

At night nature is different. It smells different. It sounds diffferent. When our shadow on the trail comes a silver moon, you appreciate the surroundings differently. We are so used to being outdoors in broad daylight that we tend to forget what night really is like. Owls hooting. Bats flapping their wings. Coyotes howling. Quails scurrying away, mom and dad in front of triplets in a row. Animals getting out for their errands, protected from daytime raptors by a nocturnal cloak. Night hikes are, in a way, more sensory experiences than day hikes because you have to rely on different perceptions of the terrain around you. Perspective is altered, your usual landmarks disappear.

Organizing a night hike

Obviously, you need to be prepared, especially if you are going with children. I took friends on a night hike in the Marin Headlands last year and in hindsight, I could have thought about bringing flashlights. I knew it was going to be a full moon night so thought we'd have no problem finding the trail. Big mistake. The moon doesn't pop out right in the middle of the sky full floodlights on as soon as it gets dark. Yes Galileo, the moon orbits around the Earth. It rises and declines. From that night on, I made a headlamp a permanent staple of my backpack. Other items to pack: good trail map, compass, extra layers.

Explore the Bay Area outdoors by night: Moon walks and night hikes 
There are lots of local organized night hikes that you can join. Make sure you check restrictions before going but here is a short list to give you an idea:

• The Marin Moonshiners, a hiking & picknicking meetup group, organize monthly hikes on full moon nights. The next date is on August 25 at 7pm, meeting at the Pelican Inn.
• The Mt Tamalpais Interpretive Association organizes Saturday moon hikes around each full moon to enjoy the beauty of Mt Tamalpais. Led by Rob Ross, the 2-mile hike starts at Pantoll and lasts 2 hours. The next date is "Ripe Corn Moon" on August 21st, 8pm.
• The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy organizes full moon hikes or night tours at the following parks: Muir Woods, Point Bonita,  Alcatraz Island. The thing is, they are so popular that getting a spot is like winning a jackpot. Check the calendar and call the rangers to reserve your spot.
• The Midpeninsula Open Space District organizes evening hikes in the Santa Cruz mountains. The next date is August 1, 4pm, "Sunday Eve Coming Down" at Montebello Open Space Preserve. There are also evening night for children such as  "The Bats of Alpine Pond" on August 21st at 6.15pm.
• The San Francisco Botanical Garden organizes two yearly full moon hikes to explore the gardens and enjoy the reflection of the full moon next to the Japanese moon pond. It is a lovely way to increase your appreciation for this wonderful place. The next Japanese Moon Viewing Party is on September 22nd at 7.30pm. Note that the event might last beyond the announced hours if the moon feels shy that night.
• The East Bay Regional Park District organize night hikes at their parks. The next date is August 29th at Sunol Regional Park, "Extreme Evening Hike" at 5.30pm.
• The California State Parks open some of their parks after hours to explore special themes. The next date is August 7 from 5 to 10pm, "Olompali Bat Night" at Olompali State Park.  

There are many other night hikes I don't know about so if you want to share other ones, please add them to the comments below this post.

Now tell me: is there a night hike in your future?

Fort Ross: From Russian-America With Love

1811. Europe is at war with Napoleon. On the North California coast then known as Upper California, Vologda native Ivan Kuskov gets his men ready to drop anchor in a cove next to a rocky promontory. The spot, 15 miles north of Bodega Bay, is the seasonal home of the Kashaya Pomo native people. They call it Metini. Satisfied by the terrain, Kuskov returns to Russia to report on the area. In 1812, Kuskov comes back to purchase the land from the Kashaya Pomo for "three blankets, three pairs of breeches, two axes, three hoes, and some beads."

Heading 25 Russians and 80 native Alaskans, Kuskov builds a wood fortress for the Russian-American Company, a government-sponsored trading company established by Tsar Paul I. Their mission is dual. First and foremost, they need to find alternate sea otter hunting grounds to Alaska whose waters have been excessively plundered. Sea otter pelts are precious commodities for trade with China at the time. Fort Ross is also to become the company's agricultural base in America. Fort Ross will be the new and southernmost outpost of the Russian enterprise.

As it turns out, Fort Ross never lived up to its promise for the Russians. Sea otters disappeared quickly, the cost of shipping agricultural goods outweighed the efforts spent growing them, and hunters-turned-farmers lost their illusions. Sold by the Russians in 1841 to John Sutter (8 years before the Gold Rush), Fort Ross still stands today as Fort Ross State Historic Park, a rare testimony to California's Russian ghosts.

Having already visited Fort Ross three times in the past, we decided to explore the coastal trails right on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. We sort of knew about the history. Now we could focus on the nature and it is every bit as majestic as the area's quietly troubled history is intriguing. Welcome to Big Sur's little sister.
As we exited the fort, we followed the stockade wall and walked towards the sea. This might have been where the sloped fields were tended for produce, where wooden shacks lived the rythm of civilian life next to the army barracks inside the fort. Nature has now reclaimed the views.

There was a nice wide path on the left that soon winded down towards Fort Ross cove, one of the first California shipyards. Shoes sinking in the black sand, I tried to imagine the criss-cross of jetees and pullies, ladders and washed canvas next to the wood working shops. It seemed like a stretch. Nothing remains. Even the clams at Clam Beach are gone. Fort Ross today is not 1820 Fort Ross.

At this point, Fort Ross creek separated us from the trail so we made our way through thickly tangled willows and alders to find a tree stump to reach the other side. Some of us made it standing up, others went more cautiously crawling. To each his own way.

A lone pelican graciously landed on the beach and clumsily strolled down to the lagoon where we were able to admire him on a backdrop of bull's head kelp. The bird was amazingly oblivious of our presence. I don't think I've been able to check the colors on a pelican's beak that well before.

After a while, we kept on going and followed the trail leading up to a vast coastal terrace. In between muddy spots, we walked along the coast towards Ross Ross reef. In the mud we spotted raccoon and deer tracks, the local regulars. We could have kept on going for 4 miles until Reef Campground but we turned around after roughly a mile. The young 'uns were getting hungry.

Coming back on Fort Ross cove, we spent a little time building a rock dam just to see if we could cross the creek at another spot. Having done our deed, we took a few steps back and watched as other visitors arrived on the beach, looked for crossing options and hesitated between our rock dam and the not-so-easily-accessed tree stump.

It was in fact a great game and I can proudly say that 8 to 5, our dam didn't look that bad to newcomers.

Lunch was getting more and more appealing so we hiked back up and set up shop on the picnic tables right next to the fort. The field of blooming sour grass was incredibly pretty and we did our best not to disturb the grasses by crushing them. Futile effort since the sour grass is probably the most resilient grass around and it will be gone soon to be replaced by other wild grasses anyway.

Nonetheless, the sight was too close to a pre-impressionist painting to be disturbed. As we left, I was already planning the next visit with a walk through the former orchards and an excursion next to Plantation to check the hills. Great area. May it remain pristine and undeveloped long.