Delitia Butter

As I am of the opinion that Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, produces the best butter in this country (their Cultured Butter), it seems odd that I would be recommending an Italian butter. Odd until it is noted that Delitia butter shown in the above photo can be purchased locally.

Delitia is an importer of Italian, high quality food products and their butter seems to be the only one of their products that I find on a semi regular basis here in the Bay Area. It has a very distinctive, only very slightly "Parmigiano" taste, very high in butterfat. It takes a concerted effort to find that nutty taste, but it's there, and that is why I like this butter as much as I do.

I buy it whenever I can find it and sometimes freeze it. It can most often be found at Bryans in Laurel Village and Milk Pail. Costco imported a different brand of butter from the same area and it was excellent as well, but seemed milder in flavor.

http://www.delitia.com/

http://www.vtbutterandcheeseco.com/culturedButter.html

Berkeley Bowl

Berkeley Bowl has to be the gold standard of super markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. When they announced a second store, many of us in San Francisco held our breaths and hoped it would be on this side of the bay; no such luck, but maybe the luck is in how close we actually are.

Can meat get any better than this? For the first time in 20 years, I made my grandmother's pasta sauce with a B.B. chuck roast from grass fed beef and it finally tasted like hers. As I forked over the money for it, I couldn't help but think that I could have purchased 2 from Costco for the same price. I could have but it would not taste the same. This says something very negative about agribusiness and their insistence on feeding cheap, subsidized corn to cattle )who cannot digest it properly), for better profit, not better animal husbandry or taste. 

The bakery department is also filled with products that are of better quality than we expect from a supermarket.

Just look at these photos for a sample of the variety of products available to a shopper for one particular item. The top left photo is just olive oil and vinegar, the top right shows the bulk olive bar. For someone who collects different types of pasta, this store makes it easy to purchase something new. And tomato sauce; the selection is so broad, it includes my grandmother's favorite brand "6in1" that I seldom find, except in specialty markets.
 

Produce at Berkeley Bowl is so special they even have multiple varieties of each fruit, and that is not limited to 3 or 4 Apples. I once counted 8 varieties of mangoes. Vegetables I have never even heard of before are abundant, but don't let me tell you, allow me to show you. I'm putting together a photo montage on the side bar of this blog. Here are just a few examples:

Pears and Apples

Cactus Pears

Mangoes

Black Apricots