San Francisco Personal Chef Garbo Hosts 3rd Annual USPCA Local Bay Area Chapter Meeting – Inverness, CA – September 18, 2012
The 3rd Annual Bay Area UPSCA Chapter Retreat took place at Inverness, CA in the beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore. The purpose of the Chapter Retreats are to experience culinary field trips to several famous Point Reyes food purveyors, strengthen our bonds as a Chapter, and to develop our food styling skills which ultimately promote our Personal Chef services. Most importantly, we want to have fun while we showcasing our talents as Personal Chefs.
NICK’S COVE HISTORY
Nick’s Cove
The first stop was Nick’s Cove. one of the last remaining historic settlements catering to the early California tourist trade on the beautiful Tomales Bay coastland. It’s served as a depot for tourism, local fishermen and agricultural operations throughout its history. During the 1930’s the cabins on the water’s edge were rented to people from the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento Valley and beyond. Tomales Bay was a favorite spot for weekend fishermen and hunters, and the Kojich family owners catered to those seasonal attractions. The Kojich family remained at Nick’s Cove until their eventual retirement. The current owners of Nick’s Cove have taken special care to maintain the integrity of its traditional architecture in recognition of the cottages’ historical importance. Nick’s Cove restaurant features local seafood including the famous Hog Island Oysters, Dugeness Crab Cakes, Clam Chowder and much more.
COWGIRL CREAMERY AND POINT REYES BLUE CHEESE FARMSTEAD
The Giacomini commitment to producing superior quality, farmstead dairy products began over 100 years ago in the mountains of Italy. Today Bob Giacomini and his family continue the family tradition with their Point Reyes Original Blue™. Cowgirl Creamery crafts their own cheeses using Organic milk from the neighboring Straus Family Creamery. Mt. Tam, a triple-cream similar to Explorateur, and Red Hawk, a triple-cream, washed rind, unctuous cheese, are the more well known of their aged cheeses, but the company also makes Pierce Point, St. Pat, and Devil’s Gulch on a seasonal basis. Only two of their aged cheeses are in a slightly different format.
Cow Girl Creamery – Point Reyes, CA
FOOD STYLING AND TEAM BUILDING
When we arrived at Garbo’s cottage, everyone executed their mise-en-place. Garbo prepared the photo shoot area and lighting and everyone brought their favorit plate and props to feature their dish. Below is a photo essay of what everyone prepared for dinner and brunch:
Chef Garbo: Cucumber Mint Martini with Vodka, Elderflower, Ginger Beer & Lime w/Nuts and Baked Eggs with Bacon, Basil, Tomatoes, Goat Cheese and Cream
Cucumber Mint Cocktail with Elderflower, Vodka & Ginger Beer
Chef Garbo’s Baked Eggs with Goat Cheese
Chef Kara Lee: NY Prime Rib Steaks with Carmalzied French Onion Dip with Kettle Chips
Chef Shoshana: Warm Spinach Salad with Blue cheese, Beets and Nuts
Chef Dawn: Baked Risotto with Sausage and Artichokes Mixed Berries with Granola and Yogurt
Chef Dawn’s Fruit Cocktail Trifles
Chef Bourget: Fish Soup and Apple Crisp
Chef Bourget’s Bosc Pear Apple Crisp
Chef Greg: Stuffed Mushrooms and Grilled Shrimp Skewers with Pineapple
<a href=”https://chefgarbo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Stuffed-Mushrooms.jpg”><img class=”size-full wp-image-1489″ title=”Chef Garg’s Stuffed Mushrooms” src=”https://chefgarbo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Stuffed-Mushrooms.jpg” alt=”” width=”640″ height=”423″ /></a> Chef Garg’s Stuffed Mushrooms
<h4>MARKETING CHAPTER WEBSITE WITH OUR BLOG</h4>
Dinner was a knockout performance which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. The main dinner table discussion revolved around how to exploit our newly developed Chapter Website. Garbo announced that the site was officially up and running thanks to Polina’s stellar programming skills. Essentially, Garbo created the content and design and Polina managed of all the back-end programming work. The Chapter decided upon the WordPress blogging platform because it’s easy to use, cost-effective and has built in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Garbo stressed that everyone in the Chapter should blog away under our Blog Tab to promote their businesses and get more visibility on the web via our site. The best part is that the Chapter is appearing in the #1 spot on a Bing & Yahoo Search Result when the key words: “Bay Area Personal Chef” are typed which is a very popular search string. Our strategy is to maintain this #1 spot by continuing to add blogging content to our Chapter website. It will take longer to appear on the 1st page of a Google search due to their different algorithms but we will succeed in time! Check out our site at <a title=”USPCA San Francisco Bay Areal Chapter” href=”http://bayareauspca.com/site/”>http://bayareauspca.com/site</a>