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Food & Drinks

Yelp says Modesto restaurant is one of the most romantic in California. Vote for your faves

in Events/Food & Drinks/News

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, love is in the air across Stanislaus County — as are a lot of lost people looking for good date ideas.

For those searching for the most romantic spot to take their someone special, Modesto and the surrounding area have plenty of places that can help set the mood.

Continue reading on Newsbreak

Ready to celebrate wine and cheese? When, where, and other fests coming to Modesto region

in Community/Food & Drinks/News

Popular community festivals abound in October throughout the greater Modesto region, signaling the start of fall.

Among the larger events are the Riverbank Cheese & Wine Festival, the International Heritage Festival and the All Hallows Fantasy Faire.

Continue reading on Modesto Bee

This Is California’s Best Breakfast Restaurant

in Food/Food & Drinks

Some say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, regardless of the time you choose to eat it. If you prefer to start your day sunny-side up, than look no further than this state-wide breakfast staple. The best breakfast restaurant in the entire state serves meals that will not only kick start your day, but healthy plates that you can enjoy with friends. How can you go wrong with a hearty stack of waffles topped with butter and fruit, or a tall glass of freshly pressed juice? This restaurant offers those options, and many more!

Continue Reading on KIIS FM

Why one of California’s most powerful wineries is rebranding as an organic company

in business/Food & Drinks

One of California’s most visible wine companies is changing its name to emphasize its focus on organic and sustainable farming. As of Tuesday, Mendocino County’s Fetzer Vineyards — the 19th largest winery in the U.S., according to Wine Business Monthly — will be known as Bonterra Organic Estates.

The rebranding shows the power that organic messaging increasingly holds for wine consumers, and it follows a string of moves by other mass-production wine companies to signal their environmental stewardship. The country’s largest winery, E. & J. Gallo, for example, recently launched a line of organic wines with its ubiquitous Black Box brand.

Continue Reading on San Francisco Chronicle

JavaView: National Coffee Month

in Food & Drinks

August is National Coffee Month and if you are like me, you start your day off with a cup of coffee, I am and have been a serious coffee drinker my entire life, I buy whole beans and grind fresh daily(no Folger’s Crystals for me). Back in the nineties when friends would be out at the bars drinking I would be at a coffee shop(even going on trips to find cool cafes around the region.) I am even part of a rock n’ roll coffee-drinking gang(let’s call it a club)the US Mugs whose motto is Death Before Decaf. If I am addicted to anything it would be caffeine and music.

Those living in Modesto are pretty fortunate to have so many great locally owned cafes to choose from.

Continue Reading on ModestoView

THE DISH: Treat yourself to celebrate food holidays

in Events/Food/Food & Drinks

Sunday is National Ice Cream Day and, like all food holidays, it's a great time to discuss some preferences.

We have the favorite flavors for California (and the nation) thanks to the Ice Cream Index, a study on U.S. consumption preferences and trends conducted by market research Top Data.

Consumption is up — not surprising given our sustained interest in comfort food — 29% from last year, with the biggest gains in June and July.

The top three flavors in the nation this year are chocolate, rocky road and Neapolitan. For California, the top five varieties are rocky road, Neapolitan, green tea, coffee and coconut.

Continue Reading on Bakersfield.com

Mac and cheese tacos, other comfort foods coming to Turlock with new national chain

in Food/Food & Drinks

Do you love macaroni and cheese? Stupid question, let me rephrase that. How much do you love mac and cheese?

So much that you’d eat it in a sandwich? Or maybe in a taco?

Because both those versions, plus a variety of regular mac and cheese bowls and other cheesy comfort food offerings, will be served at the new and aptly named I Heart Mac & Cheese. The national chain is coming to Turlock to open its first location in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

Based in Florida, the franchise has expanded in recent years. Now it has a location planned along West Monte Vista Avenue, across Crowell Road from Stanislaus State University. The new restaurant will go between the existing Domino’s Pizza and Sourdough & Co. in the Warrior Crossing retail strip shared with Dutch Bros Coffee. The company also has locations under development in Fresno and Sacramento.

Continue Reading on The Modesto Bee

Decanting Digest: Fire up the grill and enjoy these California wines

in Food & Drinks

In Canada, we know all too well that summer deserves our appreciation. After months of cold-weather hibernation, it’s liberating to return to balmy afternoons, dockside sessions at the cottage, and delicious meals enjoyed in the great outdoors.

Firing up the grill is part of many summer rituals, and a great grilled meal calls for great wine. There are plenty of refreshing patio sippers out there, but when dinner is on the table, it’s time to pull out the bottles with enough depth to stand up to the complexity of textures and seasonings created on the barbecue.

Here’s a pair of California wines special enough for honoured guests yet approachable enough to serve alongside a variety of dishes on your favourite private patio.

Continue Reading on Modern Mississauga

Cheesecake business booms in first weeks of operation

in business/Food/Food & Drinks

Three weeks ago, Turlock’s Jessica Hostetter took her baking skills and love of cheesecake to officially launch her new business, Sweet Cheeks Cheesecakes. While the business is still new, she is already busy fulfilling orders from multiple customers.

Hostetter began baking three years ago and explained why she chose to focus on the cheesecakes over any other type of baked good.

Continue Reading in Turlock Journal

West Coast Wines: Still Big, Still Bold After All These Years

in Food & Drinks

Back in the 1980s a California writer for Wine Spectator, for which I was also writing at the time, accused me of having an “East Coast palate,” by which he meant I was so used to drinking French and Italian wines that I could not appreciate the wines of California for their regional distinctions. To say that I preferred European wines back then, as I do now, had nothing to do with bias but to a well-founded assessment that at the time, when California wines were in fast ascendency in the wine press, far too many of them were deliberately made to be what were called “blockbusters,” high in alcohol and terribly over-oaked.

Chardonnays lacking acid tasted more like vanilla caramel than wine, which is easy enough to accomplish with a grape that is fairly neutral on its own. The reds were usually made from a single varietal like Cabernet Sauvignon, which produced wines one wine steward in Colorado said would “blow your doors off”—not a quality I look for in a wine. Zinfandels tended to be heavy and dull, Pinot Noirs tasted like fruit bombs, Sauvignon Blancs like fruit punch and Rieslings were flabby.

Continue Reading on Forbes

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