Although I’ve been slow to document my growing list of favorites in Sacramento, California’s Capital has offered a steady stream of inspiration for the last handful of weeks. The discoveries are continual and impressive, stretching me to remain un-preconceived.

The quintessential example of this has been my dreamy meals at Enotria, in the pastel-dipped design district of town. I will recount the morsels I’ve eaten, but first, let this scenario illuminate the level of detail to which this place strives. Sacramento is a summery place – even as early as February – so restaurants serve ice in their water. On my second visit, my water came with no ice. I had only mentioned it once, late in February when I first visited, but apparently I had been placed on a customer list somewhere in the back of the house that specified my preference for no ice. As soon as I was recognized by the hostess, the whole staff seemed to know how I took my water. Shoe shine city!

Picture a restaurant just off an intersection, across from a place where you can buy industrial-sized blocks of ice, adjacent to a billboard advertising a gun convention. Other than a bright black valet booth and the neatly painted stucco panels surrounding Enotria, there are few signs that you’ve “arrived.” Once inside, it is a different story. The cocktail area is warmed by a lacquered bar and short leather chairs that look like they were lifted from a VIP lounge circa 1940′s Miami. There are two patio areas, each with heat lamps, one of which is a courtyard with a fountain, strings of twinkling lights, and a wise live oak whose craggy branches punctuate coral sunsets.

Although there is a retro charm and a tangible coolness to Enotria, the most notable renovation to this decades-old eatery hasn’t been the decor, but the people. The injection of life blood that local chef Pajo Bruich and his solid general manager Anani Lawson bring put Sacramento on the map in a new way. Pajo has previous experience at Lounge ON20 and at San Francisco’s Benu, and Anani hails from such culinary powerhouses as French Laundry and Per Se. They’ve got a commitment to lavish service and exquisite details that comes through in every interaction, not just on the plate where Pajo shines.

I recommend several visits, one to take in the full gesture of the season with the chef’s tasting menu, and another for a cocktail and a few orders from the delightful happy hour menu. You can order from the a la carte menu after 6:30pm and sit in the courtyard. If you snag a table in the main dining room, choose between the full tasting menu, the vegetarian tasting menu or a truncated 4-course menu.

My dining partner and I began to think the bartender was a mind-reader as she spoke of the cocktail of the day, that day a twist on the Jack Rose, a drink we had just been learning about for an Oakland cocktail tour we are leading. Her rendition was immaculate, with the zestiness of limes to cut the sweetness of house-made grenadine. Small, sweet oysters were served with horseradish caviar, a few other dapples of molecular gastronomy, and a micro-frond of lemon balm. But, fries were not so fancy they forgot to be fries. The quilted charcuterie plate looked more like a Gorky painting than a meal-starter, but with zingy mustards, pickled fruits, gem gelées, black garlic pastes, smoked salt-flecked lardos,and fanned-out slivers of other prime cures, it became a meditative play to identify each pure note from the symphony of flavors.

Be sure to make reservations for the full experience in the main dining room. Your menu, which may well bear your name, will take you through an undulating paradise of courses that reflect the most recent gastronomic conceptions of the chef. Don’t roll your eyes: one of the nine-odd courses is sure to have some sort of foam on it, but this is not the Michael Bay of restaurants. Most of the refined dishes are a balance of well-executed sauces and a triad of complementary flavors, intended to play off one another without becoming an undefined swamp. Restraint is practiced on dishes like the pea shoot agnolotti and in meat preparations like pork cheek and rib eye, where the innate umami flavor is coaxed.

Although it tacks another $65 to your fixed price meal, the wine pairings, chosen by Anani, are truly elevating. The white that was poured with our imaginative brassica course was Illumination from Quintessa, one of the best wineries in the Silverado Trail region of Napa, if not the whole county. I didn’t know Quintessa made white wine, so together with the miraculously un-oaky full body, it was doubly pleasing. The Argentinian red paired with egg-stuffed ravioli hidden under feathers of black truffle, was admittedly succulent.

It was the details – the quiet atmosphere, the gently glowing lighting, the definitive vibe of striving for the best – that made Enotria such a memorable and worthwhile experience. It is surprisingly easy to spend $100 on a meal in California’s famed kitchens, and entirely possible that what wants to be a luxurious experience becomes one of status or show, or gets lost in the pomp and circumstance of fine dining that it becomes joyless. Enotria is refreshing, because it is a likely outcome of Pajo and Anani’s shared effort and vision, but in an unlikely place. It is fine dining muddled with the genuine hometown love the chef has for Sacramento. It is a sophisticated restaurant where you’ll be accepted in tennis shoes and won’t be stared down for asking too many wine questions or getting curious about what constitutes a “bloody mary disc” that is going to be coming to you on your oysters.

I get the sense that I am a part of what they are trying for just by attending their nightly show. I am certainly learning that the only thing worth expecting in Sacramento is surprise.

Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates, in Midtown, is a place that floored me. It was also the perfect sweet entrée into my adoration of Sactown. My knees literally started knocking when the owner – who is really named Ginger Elizabeth – brought out a slice of the formal layered gateau she had created with romance in mind. In addition to the five-some layers under the dark chocolate covering, she added her own twist: delightful pillows of angel food cake. As I ate this other-worldy cake, Ginger Elizabeth talked about her Sacramento roots and the other confections she and her team create in the 500-square-foot kitchen behind her retail shop.

During the past decade she’s graduated with honors from Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, worked for such chocolate gurus as Jacques Torres, started her own brand, married, and had two children. Her shop is designed to support other dedicated women coming into the male-dominated world of high-end pastry, following her belief that you shouldn’t have to choose between a successful career and family life. She provides health care for all of her full-time employees, too.

It is hard to believe this force of nature isn’t even 30. Her shop looks like an establishment, with imaginative but well-edited design. There’s a shelf of neat square truffles, another with trays of macaroons, packages of her tempting hot chocolate mixes and other desserts such as marshmallow batons, and boxed chocolate bars flavored with things like Kafir limes and amaretti. Such attentive and sophisticated iterations of these treats are almost impossible to find stateside, even in the chocolate-crazed  Bay Area.

She pours the truffles with measured accuracy, leaving only the thinnest and most consistent covering on her truffles, and never selling a too-chewy macaroon whose meringue hasn’t fully come to peak before blending the batter. Honestly there’s only been a couple other West Coast confectioners who have impressed me this much and embodied the high art of chocolate making and formal gateaus in a modern way.

Her husband grows rose geraniums, chamomile, and jasmine for some of her truffle flavors, a friend provides the Meyer lemons she juices or freezes for an entire year of consistently lemon-y treats, and she’s just planted a big patch of heirloom tomatoes to begin working on a chocolate barbeque sauce.

She feeds families and the afterwork crowd coming from Downtown and nearby neighborhoods like Mansion Flats, Boulevard Park, and Richmond Grove macaroons and house-made hot chocolate, going through about 1000 cookies in a day, including pre-ordered boxes. Unlike her truffles that have consistent flavors, her macaroons change on a whim or with the seasons. Nectarine nutmeg, vanilla almond, and Meyer lemon marmalade with poppy seed sounded especially good to me as she listed off some of her favorites.

Ginger Elizabeth considers the long view as well: she purchases boxes made in San Mateo and ribbon from the last American ribbon factory, she buys only chocolate from makers who get their beans at Fair Trade or better prices, and she uses only American Humane Certified milk from local organic dairies. Her community ethic is displayed with a regular line-up of events and her colaborations with other businesses, like the chocolate-covered marshmallow fish that she created especially for Chocolate Fish Coffee.

Celebrate Easter with her – the Easter Collection just came out yesterday, featuring filled eggs, hollow bunnies in an array of sizes, and bunny lollipops.

Needless to say, when I finished my box of truffles I had another 80′s tune in my head, much to my chagrin, Roxette’s It Must Have Been Love. Grrr. I have to go back to Sacramento.

Belmont is one of those places that could be easy to skip over—after all, it is less than five square miles in size and nestled between the county seat San Mateo and the affluent small town of San Carlos.

There is more to this South Bay town than the strict anti-smoking laws for which it is nationally known (no smoking in any business, park, or even apartment complex). There are hidden gems that make it an excellent stop off, like The Vans Restaurant, a truly old-fashioned bar and steakhouse located in one of the two remaining buildings from San Francisco’s 1915 World’s Fair – the other is the Palace of Fine Arts Structure.

Water Dog Lake Park puts Belmont squarely on my list of places begging repeat visits, the rural canyon is an absolute gem, preserved from the surrounding sprawl. In the spring there are lupins sprouting, making way for clematis in the summer, flowers I don’t recall seeing wild so close to urban towns. The lake is a reservoir – a damned creek that provided water to the early town residents in the 1920s; now it is surrounded by a rather wild network of trails, visited frequently by neighboring deer, who help trim the vehement invasive broom and poison oak.

Beginning in late February, there was a tasty newcomer on the map: Off the Grid moved to Belmont, featuring a slew of mobile delicacies to stomp out the Monday blues. Every Monday night from 5 to 9 pm, eight-or-so trucks with international flair gather at El Camino Real and Ralston Avenues, conveniently in the Caltrain parking lot, for your supping pleasure. I gravitated to Sanguchon, the Peruvian ‘sangucheria’, relishing a ‘lomo saltado’ hearty steak and french fry sandwich, dripping with cilantro soy sauce. Daniel tried the pork version, ‘pan con chicharron,’ piled with tender cuts of loin, complete with slices of fried sweet potato. We toasted Ralston, the street namesake, who was the founder of the Bank of California, with our chicha morada —a refreshing spiced red corn drink. This truck is the moveable member of several top quality Peruvian restaurants created by Chef Carlos Altamirano. Others at the inaugural feast were William Pilz’s Hapa SF, famous Kara’s Cupcakes, and El Sur. There will be a consistent mix each Monday going forward.

1. Beautiful breakfast.

Breakfast in bed can’t be reserved for once a year, oh no! I’m finding myself drawn to simple, yet thoughtful additions to a warm bowl of cereal – something that can surprise your partner, nourish them for the day, and can be easily enjoyed before getting out of the cozy covers. Midweek romance can be the best surprise.

Soak steel-cut oats overnight to reduce cooking time in the a.m., or try something different, like whole grain polenta as a first meal. I’ve been eating a stone-ground red flint version from Community Grains - an Oakland-based grain company - and dressing it up in ways that have delighted my hubby. The winner has been a topping of homemade applesauce and little squares of aged white cheddar, decking out our polenta and amping up the care quotient, an idea I got from a clever foodie friend of mine. It doesn’t have to be over-the-top sugar bomb breakfasts to be special.

2. Toasts are special, no matter what liquid you choose for the job.

Some of the most memorable romantic gestures are those that expose the thoughtfulness of your partner in unexpected ways. My hubby knows that as much as I love tasting champagne, a sip of it is really all I can tolerate and still sleep a restful night. Trust me, love is a restful night’s sleep. His hot pots of chamomile at the right evening moment have been cause for their own celebration, especially when he’s been reading my mind that a soothing drink was called for.

Another thing he does is fancify water. He pours pitchers of filtered water, adding a squeeze of a Meyer lemon from our tree, then letting half the lemon sit in the pitcher for an hour or two before we sit down to dinner. It’s really exciting when we discover together that a little branch of thyme, thrown in at the same time as the lemon gives the water a whole new aura. I’ve enjoyed a canned whole plum from our cellar, a few cloves (tied in cheesecloth), also a half a beet, and a sliver of fresh ginger make for a nice color and flavor. I admit I came up with these combinations – not he – but he loves knowing the things I like that aren’t complicated to replicate. Of course I’m not saying a champagne toast isn’t a nice thing – it’s just that raising a thoughtful toast in honor of your loved one can be done with coffee, hot tea, or some of this infused water. The more toasts the merrier, I say.

3. Classic dinner dates with ambiance.

There’s always a hot new restaurant to try here in the Bay Area, but the classics have stuck around for good reason. They may not be the edgiest places, but the food is good, the service is polished, and the view – well, I love a good view as much as the next person. I’m speaking here of one place in particular – One Market – where this past week I was invited to the 20th anniversary bash.

I’ll always love the place for its fabulous Weekly Beast menu, but I met more than one couple at the fete who had become engaged over One Market meals. Seeing the warm smile of the ever-perservering Bradley Ogden, you can see how he and his veteran chef/partner Mark Domman and team have made the place sing with passion. One of my favorite flavors they have chosen as a key component in their month-long Anniversary Menu: golden-hued trout. There’s the bright ocean variety, sourced from the Tasmanian Sea, and the mellow golden river trout, which comes to the restaurant from Idaho, representing favorite dishes from the 2005 and 2006 menus, respectively. I sampled it perfectly poached atop a plume of silky squash with slightly sweet whole mustard sauce at the party. It is on the menu all February, served for lunch, grilled with chick pea fries, and, as a start to a memorable dinner, prepared lightly smoked with a potato rosti, pastured egg, and pancetta dressing.

The simple classics are sometimes best. It might take some saving up, but their memories are lasting. I’m looking forward to sharing spoonfuls of butterscotch pudding sometime this month, Valentine’s Day or not, hint, hint…

4. Hiking together.

My favorites dates with my hubby are long and meandering hikes. We take breaks for water toasts to take in the view, to smooch, and to appreciate the bounty and variety of nature. There are so many exquisite places to walk in the Bay Area, but perhaps our favorite memories are of Mt. Tamalpias. There are a network of trails to take, but for a day-long adventure, we highly recommend Fern Creek Trail, ending with tea and nosh at Mountain Home Inn. Bring your camera, or at least the one in your mind’s eye.

5. Solitude, fueled by creativity.

The false concept that we need a romantic partner in order to somehow be validated is way out of date. Romantic partnerships are great when there are equal amounts of admiration, loyalty, and commitment, but they are by no means a necessary ingredient in my definition of success. Whether or not you’ve got a Valentine, some of my most insightful and meaningful moments – ones that have fueled my creativity – have been solo. I think healthy partnerships can be strengthened by alone time, too, whatever the venue. My recommendation would be to gift yourself with some quiet time to sit where distractions are limited. It doesn’t have to be some big spiritual quest but a solo quest to the bookstore, the fabric store, a tea house, or a favored vista point. It could also be closing the door to your room and having a moment alone with no aim to be productive.

6. …a trip to the bath house!

I recommend the relaxed and thoughtful state of mind that a trip to one of the many types of spas in the Bay Area can bring. For $20-30 for a day pass, you can take yourself out to an utterly rejuvinating Korean or Russian spa. Try the Korean spas: PSY in San Leandro, Lawrence and Family Medical Health Spa in Santa Clara (I have yet to go to these, but I hear good things, including the word about excellent food served in the rest area), Imperial in San Francisco’s Japantown, which are smaller than those in Los Angeles and the big East Coast cities, but render me just as restored. PSY has a jade room with geodes, where time seems to fly by…

Also, try the Russian spa Banya Archemedes near Indian Basin Shoreline Park (a great place to sit and contemplate afterwards.) You can add scrubs and massages to your day passes, or keep it simple with the variety of hot  tubs, cold plunges, saunas, steam rooms, meditation rooms, healing stone rooms, and more that are available at these places. If you haven’t yet been, I say give it a whirl (pardon the pun). Most of the world’s cultures have realized the wonders of communal bathing and its regenerative powers. Puritan thinking be gone!

If you’ve got a few extra dollars to spend, point your compass north to Freestone, where Osmosis awaits. The unique cedar enzyme baths there have restored my sense of patience and purpose on more than one occasion. Here’s more about it, from a column I used to write for Inside Sonoma.

I hope whatever way you find to celebrate love brings a full year of passion, inner creativity, and self care! I toast to it!

Depending on who you are and what you’ve experienced at Oliveto, the place might signify salumi or roast meats, ignite memories of chef Paul Bertolli before he started Fra Mani, or remind you of your first experience eating an heirloom tomato. It could be the place you got engaged or the place you just had a blissfully lingering night out with friends. Last night it was the host of a memorable family dinner, our table laden with things like precious agnolotti and linzer torte made with locally grown, whole ground flour.

At Oliveto the flour discussion is reaching a fever pitch. It is difficult to imagine that Community Grains, the company Bob founded in an effort to create a local ‘grainshed,’ is getting truly whole grain pastas on grocery shelves and all the while the stocks and stews are brewing for 3-day agnolotti in the restaurant. It makes juggling sound like an exercise in twiddling.

To make a very long story short, Community Grains wants to solve a few problems the Klein’s have noticed in the restaurant and in the greater community. The problems are perhaps best illustrated by a comment that a miller from Certified Foods made to me as we finished off a plateful of completely whole wheat apple pastries and salted chocolate cookies. He said his wife, who is in rice farming, had been called by a UC Davis student on the path to finding the farms that were connected to a single pint on Haine Rice Dream. It took the student and his entire class eight months to retrace the path from farm to food for rice ice cream. Many of the products at the grocery store would require similar diligence to determine their origins.

It is hard to get good flour, but in the process of searching for it they discovered what good flour really is: that which has been milled with the germ and bran intact rather than being separated from the endosperm, which is actually not living cell tissue. Stone-milled flour. I know this because I was recently invited over to the restaurant and found myself in a room of not only food writers but farmers, scientists, bakers, and millers. The dynamic perspectives on this universal food staple made me want to rethink my own kitchen pantry.

Luckily, Community Grain flours, like the Hard White Winter Wheat I’ve been playing around with, can be found on local Bay Area grocery shelves, and are beginning to catch on with Whole Foods. Community Grains pastas are getting better and better with the new Identity Preserved line, which includes a marvelous Fusilli Lunghi. I met the farmer who removed rows of old grape vines in Healdsburg in order to grow Desert King variety wheat. He’s a part of a greater experiment to find out which wheats grow best in which Bay Area micro-climate and which stone-milled flours work best for which uses. Hard Red Winter Wheat isn’t as good for pastry or tea buns, but it can yield an incredible sourdough loaf, for instance.

I encourage you to build sauces around Community Grains pastas, and to use these stone-milled flours in your cooking and baking as much as possible – after all, the simple-starch flours we’ve grown accustomed to are directly indicated for GI tract inflammation and all the health issues that steam from it. This isn’t a dieting or gluten-free issue, but rather represents the greater context around which both obesity and food allergies have arisen. It is a switch in taste, but if handled with enthusiastic openness and willingness to try new recipes, it will be a wonderful transition for you and your family. There are some good-looking recipes on the Community Grains website, as well as tricks from baking master Craig Ponsford, past gold medal winner of the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, he uses exclusively stone-milled flour at his bakery in San Rafael, Ponsford’s Place.

With the Lunar New Year coming up soon, I love resurrecting childhood memories of celebrating with the Tibetan monks whom we often hosted. They were big on sharing plentiful food during this holiday, and the urge has definitely passed to me. I snagged a big bag of Community Grains Hard White Winter Wheat from Monterey Market and have found it works very well for making momos—over-size Tibetan-style dumplings.

Serena’s Momos

Dough
2 cups Hard Winter Wheat Flour from Community Grains
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
2/3+ cup warm water (not hot)

Filling
3/4 ground beef or lamb
10 or so fresh shitake mushrooms (or dried and re-constituted)
2 stalks celery with green tops on
oil and butter, about a tablespoon each
fresh ground black pepper
3 TB grated ginger (I recommend using a Microplane)
1 tsp chili paste, or 1 minced, de-seeded hot chili pepper
2 tsp kosher salt
2 scallions, chopped
optional: cilantro or chopped caramelized onions
*basically any combination of herbed and spiced veggies and/or ground meat can be used as a filling. If you don’t use any meat add mashed yam or an egg to keep the filling together. Even though these are far from traditional fillings they are still quite good and fun for experimentation.

Measure out the flour, salt, and baking soda into a large bowl and mix to incorporate. Slowly add the warm water until a dough starts to firm, adding less or more as needed to make a dense dough. If you add too much water and the dough begins to feel slimy add a little more flour. Once a ball is formed, turn out onto a clean counter or stone surface and knead a dozen or so times. Place in a clean plastic bag (I reuse them from other packaging, cleaned and dried, of course) and let rest for 20 minutes to 2 hours, 2 hours if you have the time.

Make the filling by sautéing the celery and mushroom in the oil and butter and add a generous amount of ground pepper. Add half of the salt. Cook until tender and slightly caramelized. Add the ginger and chili paste and stir to combine, then turn off heat and let cool to room temperature. Mix with the raw meat and add the rest of the salt and the chopped scallions and cilantro, if using.

Roll into a snake and cut into 16 even pieces. Roll each piece into a round and place a tablespoon of the filling into the center. Pinch either by pressing into half-moon shapes, or by folding and pinching as if making small pleats. You can also twist the tops in a bun shape. Any matter of folding the momos that doesn’t have any areas where the dough is too balled up will suffice. Folding these is often best taught hands on and gets easier with practice.

Place in a steam basket lined with parchment and work in batches (unless you have a giant steamer!). They take about 12 minutes t cook through, but check doneness by sacrificing one and cutting in half to see. Serve hot with chili paste mixed into some soy sauce, strands of quick-pickled daikon, or straight hot sauce. Make double and triple batches and share with friends.

All across the city there are restaurants offering reasonable lunch and dinner prix fixe menus, an ideal way to explore restaurants you haven’t yet tried, or marinate in the chef’s inspiration at your favorite East Bay foodie outposts. There are 45 restaurants who have joined in, including Amba in Montclair, Tanya Holland’s B-Side BBQ, Flora in the heart of Uptown, The Terrace Room, which has the best view of Lake Merritt of any Oakland eatery, Marzano on Park Boulevard and dozens more. Restaurant week continues through Sunday, January 27th. Contact the restaurants directly to make reservations, and get more details at Visit Oakland.

Oakland has been at the heart of America’s food scene since its earliest days, even the Ohlone tribes that called this area home were known to welcome tribes from elsewhere who were suffering drought conditions. The edible bounty has been supported by a network of producers, growers, and the other industries like packaging and machinery necessary to make this such a center of food. Oakland has a bright and sustainable future, building on the days when this city was the capital of canning to the present day where an interconnected group of passionate chefs, restaurant patrons, and pioneering producers like Peerless Coffee, Linden Street Brewery, and Numi Tea are putting their skills to use while staying dedicated to this special place.

It’ll be hard not to eat out every night this week and toast this soulful city!

Seeking a silent moment, I went to Glen Ellen, in the valley between Napa and Sonoma. I skipped the fancy tasting rooms and restaurants that would only have fueled feelings of disconnection that difficult change can sometimes incite. After a weekend of writing from my lodge room, and visiting these special places, I felt I could see the world anew, and once more rejoice in nature’s curious beauty.

Jack London Lodge is clean, affordable, and located right on Sonoma Creek, which is running high and mighty this season. From the hot tub you can watch the tall waters press downstream in an orchestral woosh. They just got new mattresses, so sleeping in was very doable even for this early riser with a lot on her mind.

A booking at Jack London Lodge gives you a $15 credit at Jack London Saloon, just next door. It is one of those bars where the wood is shiny with age, the bartender makes you feel you’re at a family pub in Ireland, and there’s unexpectedly good and comforting food. I think I was the only non-local in there.

Jack London State Historic Park is a pristine place, maintained with the idea of preserving the majestic landscape that mused Jack London. Pay a $10 day fee to support their efforts with the House of Happy Walls Museum, Jack London’s cabin, several other historic structures and a network of trails. You’ll find benches punctuating your walk with mailboxes – just open them up and you’ll find some Jack London to read while you sit in nature. The flora and fauna are abundant and rich, worth taking a moment to breathe in the peaceful surroundings.

Before heading home I checked out the Fremont Diner. The rain kept others away so I had the place to myself, and the hostess served me a homemade cheese biscuit with marmalade her boss made from her backyard quince.

The hills were gilded with rainbows on the drive, more than I’ve ever seen.

Everything was right with the world once again, or at least I felt flexibility returning to me – that feeling that I would be able to face changes with elastic skill. Instead of being focused inwardly I was basking in gratitude for the beauty and grandeur I experience every day. Sometimes hardship can cloud that, but even an hour or two “away” can be an effective reset button, if you can take a day away, even better.

They are eaten on Rosh Hoshana, the Jewish New Year, and one tale is that the earliest Jewish settlers to America brought their tradition to 1730s Georgia where it spread to the South for our January 1st New Year, strengthened by the proliferation of the crop brought to America by African slaves.

I cooked mine yesterday with some verdant tree collards from the garden. They are a tasty, nourishing, and lucky way to ring in 2013, here are a few ideas for how to prepare them:

♥ Sauté onions and leeks and a diced apple in a little grapeseed oil until wilted. Add the dry beans and let sit unstirred on low heat so that they start to toast for about 60 seconds. Then stir and add water, for these peas I use 1 cup beans for 7 cups water. Add a tsp of salt for every cup of beans. I added smoked salt and a pinch of chili flakes and the collard stems, chopped thinly. Cook on low for 3 hours and add the chopped greens for the last 20 minutes of cooking. Serve as a broth-y stew. My dad would sprinkle Grana Padano his bowl, I just know it.

♥ The Lebanese tradition is to make the peas with marinated tomatoes, onions, and plenty of seasoning and serving them at room temperature.

♥ In India black-eyed peas are called iobia and cooked down into daal.

♥ Hoppin’ John!  Yum!

♥ Mash cooked black-eyed peas with minced cooked onion and salt and pepper and fry in patties Caribbean style.

♥ Try them in an Indonesian-style curry

♥ Head to Cam Huong or Ba Le in Oakland’s Chinatown for black-eyed pea chilled deserts with tapioca, sticky rice, coconut, and sometimes sweetened seaweed strands. If you haven’t tried this before don’t let the ingredient list macerate in your mind, just try it. It is good.

Urban Indigo has a colorful array of housewares, jewelry, and other lovely local finds, most between $10 and $30. Plus, gift wrap is free! 3339 Lakeshore Avenue, Grandlake, 510.419.0451

Laurel Book Store is home to an inspired collection of books; it is the kind of place where you kind the perfect book you didn’t know you were looking for. 4100 MacArthur Boulevard, Laurel, 510.531.2073

Crimson Horticultural Rarities, in Temescal, is a haven for design-savvy nature lovers. Also, they stock a ravishing potpourri that’s been made since Napoleon’s time. 470A 49th Street, Temescal, 510.992.3359

Someone’s In The Kitchen is heaven for home chefs. The owner is a baker and she’s been sourcing the best equipment for her warm Montclair shop since 2005. 6128 LaSalle Avenue, Montclair, 510.339.3837

Owl N Wood stocks almost exclusively Bay Area fashion designers in their suave Uptown space. The shoes and sweaters are 10-20% off right now, tempting… 45 Grand Avenue, Uptown, 510.579.1439

Pop-Up Hood Oakland is a hotbed of creativity and style. Check out the current network of shops, all within the stunning blocks of Victorian Old Oakland: McMullen, Crown Nine, Umamnimart, Marion and Rose’s Workshop, Piper and John’s General Goods. All locations near 9th between Broadway and Washington and most shops are open for extended holiday hours.

I’m happy to say that minus the hats, the experience is still awaiting. The Top of the Mark is open for tea and cocktails most nights of the year, and in the wintery months they serve special Holiday Tea and Magical Tea menus for those who want the complete and iconic experience. Three-tiered trays of dainty sandwiches, of course sans crust, arrive at your table with special sweets like mini pumpkin cheesecakes and fluffy house-made scones to slather with decadent Devonshire cream and quintessential lemon curd.

For younger tea-goers, the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins is putting on the aptly-named Magical Tea, complete with a magician and facepainter. From the buffet of tea sandwiches sample additional specialties like Kobe beef sliders and pulled pork sliders. Guests can design their own gingerbread creations to take home.

It’s an update on the classic 19th Floor experience Top of the Mark visitors have been treated to since 1939. (Check out the photos here of past and present views.)

Now I just have to see about getting some hat pins!

The Top of the Mark at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins is in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, a steep walk up from Union Square. Traditional Holiday Tea is offered from 2:30 to 5pm until December 19th and then again from December 26-28 and the Magical Tea is this Friday the 14th and also the 15th and the 20-22nd. Bring a toy for their drive and receive $2 off your tea service price.

(Thanks for your patience while GrassRoutes went on a mini-break these past few weeks!)