Pop-Up General Store

Usually, we limit our offerings to delicious, edible products. But since it’s the holidays, and since we have so many talented friends, we’re using this holiday Pop-Up to sell some of their wonderful items. They all make pretty unique holiday gifts, all while supporting some of really creative local folks!

For example, check out Diana Fayt’s gorgeous ceramics for your holiday dinner table. Or give your friends a seasonal Young American Creative seasonal produce calendar to celebrate the beginning of another year.

Or how about mrcw’s handcrafted wood cutting boards and knife magnets? Or Atomic Garden’s quaint, beautiful objects? Or, for the first time at Pop-Up, check out the Fat and the Moon’s amazing beauty products!

Did we mention we had talented friends? Help support them with your holiday shopping by stopping by the last Pop-Up General Store tomorrow, Wednesday, December 14th from 5-7pm at Grace Street Catering.

Pizza Politana brings Naples to you, on a custom-built trailer—in the form of an authentic Neapolitan wood-fired oven!

And after the oven, everything else stays local– Pizza Politana uses organic, seasonal ingredients from farmers and artisan producers in the area. Come by Pop-Up this Wednesday December 14th, 5-7pm to get some of their piping-hot pie!

What better way to spice up your holiday than with…spices! Fresh, high-quality culinary spices, herbs and hand-crafted blends, no less.

We’re really excited to offer Oaktown Spice’s incredible spice collections: pre-order your Tellicherry Black Peppercorns, Salt and Pepper Gift Boxes, Pumpkin Pie Spice Kits, Ground Saigon Cinnamon, and two different kinds of Sweet Spice Kits from the online store today.

These make delicious and unique holiday gifts not only for avid cooks, but for anyone who can enjoy the incredible depth and flavor a pinch of fresh spices can add to…well, almost anything.

Pre-order by noon on Monday, December 12th!

Thanksgiving is always the time for a little sweet-toothed self-indulgence. And here at the Pop-Up General Store, we think both the classic holiday desserts as well as the unique, surprising ones can really spice up the end of an already great meal.

So at this Thanksgiving Pop-Up General Store, we’re excited to offer you both. These pre-made or easy-to-assemble sweets that will both amaze your guests and allow you to focus your energy on the other 30 dishes you’re putting together. (Or, for those of you lucky enough to be hosted for Turkey day, what better host gift could you bring than a Pop-Up General Store dessert?!)

Starter Bakery will offer a delicious Trio of Holiday Kouign Amann (pronounced KOO-ine ah-MAHN; see photo above), a pastry from Brittany, in the northwest of France. Crispy outside; light & flaky inside; buttery, salty and sweet, you can read more about Kouign Amman in Brian’s Modern Baking article. Filled with holiday flavors, these treats will be both a delight and a discovery.

Or, for those of you who like to stick to your classics, Starter Bakery is also offering kits to make your favorite pies: Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, and Apple Pie. These come with crust, filling, and instructions, allowing you to serve fresh-baked pie without doing mountains of prep work. Or if  you’re eager to make your own fillings: you can buy their delicious (and so much tastier than supermarket-bought) homemade Puff Pastry!

And for those of you who somehow are still hungry for breakfast the next morning, Starter Bakery will also be offering their phenomenal and ever-popular box of Mixed Croissants.

The only trouble here is: what will you pick? Whatever you decide, make sure to put in your order before the noon on Sunday 11/20 deadline!

We love Studebaker Pickles‘ Kate Hug because her products are just the best pickles around. It’s not a surprise that they’re reated from locally sourced produce which captures the peak, Northern Californian freshness available for our vegetables and herbs. They use only natural ingredients, and organic when possible. Kate’s ethos is one of sustainability and fosters a sense of camaraderie between farm and jar. And her products are the result of patience – each jar is individually packed and Kate has her labels locally letterpress so as to create small batch, artisanal pickles, compotes and savory sides for you.This pretty much sums up what Pop-Up is all about.

These pickles are made in very, very small batches and as such, each of their  products are in very limited supply. At this month’s Pop-Up, you can have your choice of the full range of Kate’s masterpieces: Classic as well as Spicy Dill pickles, Israeli Pickled Cauliflower, the rare Sa’Or, Roasted Pickled Beets, two different kinds of Haricots Verts, and a range of Moroccan products from Preserved Lemons to Tomato Compote to Harissa.

Don’t miss out!

Click here to pre-order your Studebaker pickles, and other Pop-Up goodies, for pick up at the November 22nd Pop-Up General Store! Store closes at noon on Sunday, so act fast…

As we enter the holiday season we want to thank you for all of your incredible support over the past two years. We started Pop-Up General Store on a lark, because we missed cooking for our community after we closed Eccolo restaurant in 2009. With little more than a short list of email subscribers and a passion for pasta and sausages, we began offering the fruits of our labor to friends who missed the foods we love to cook.

The initial response was incredible! Quickly realizing that the two of us had no way to keep up with demand, we began to expand the market by inviting our friends to offer their own specialties, and suddenly we found ourselves managing a growing artisan food market!

The way the Pop-Up has grown since its inception has exceeded our hopes and expectations in every way: by bringing so many new friends into our circle, by allowing us to promote colleagues whose products we believe in, and by serving you the foods we know you love. Never could we have dreamt that we’d receive this much positive attention for simply doing the work we love to do!

The Pop-Up General Store has been a labor of love from the start, and we’ve consistently struggled with balancing the needs of our community, neighbors, customers and vendors with our own. It’s been a wonderful, difficult, topsy-turvy path of trial and error for us to figure out how to best serve everyone, and we appreciate the adventurous spirit with which all of you have approached the project.

Now, in an effort to turn our attention to other projects (for Chris, making salumi and cured meats on a larger scale, and for Samin, writing and teaching cooking classes), we have decided to end the current incarnation of Pop-Up General Store at the end of the year. We will undoubtedly turn up again eventually, and encourage you to stay in touch with us by following our personal blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. If and when we reappear, we will resurrect the current email list to contact all of you. If you do not wish to be contacted by us in the future, please feel free to unsubscribe using the buttons at the bottom of this email.

As we end this two year cycle, we’ll offer two final holiday-themed Pop-Ups, one for Thanksgiving on November 22nd and one for the winter holidays on December 14th. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us for these last two markets, as they promise to be joyous and filled with will all of our Pop-Up favorites.

Together with the following vendors, we have put together a fantastic list of items and dishes perfect for your Thanksgiving table:

• Katz
• MR/CW
• BN Ranch
• Baia Pasta
• Jojo Goodies
• Chris & Samin
• Starter Bakery
• Blue Chair Fruit
• Scream Sorbet
• Soul Food Farm
• Atomic Garden
• Four Barrel Coffee
• Back to the Roots
• Damn Fine Bacon!
• Studebaker Pickles
• Devil’s Gulch Ranch
• Oaktown Spice Shop
• Double Dutch Sweets
• Young America Creative

Please click on over to our online store to see a description what each vendor is offering, and to place your pre-order.

Pre-order and pay for your items by noon on Sunday, November 20th, then come visit our pop-up location in the historic Temescal streetcar depot that houses Grace Street Catering. We’ll be there Tuesday, November 22nd from 5pm to 7pm awaiting your arrival! We’ll have lots of extras for sale, so feel free to pop in even if you don’t place an order!

Don’t forget your reusable shopping bags! And please remember, for day-of purchases, we can only accept cash or checks at this time.

We’ve been overwhelmed by all of your love and support, and thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Best,

Chris & Samin

Nearly ten years ago, Samin learned how to make this pomorola sauce from the Italian nonnas she worked with in Tuscany.  Every year since, she’s taken great pleasure in putting up dozens of quarts of it to last through the year, and now she is thrilled to be able to share the sauce once again with you, our the Pop-Up’s customers.

Made with her favorite tomatoes, Dry-Farmed Early Girls from Dirty Girl Produce, this sauce is packed with flavor, both rich and sweet.  Seasoned with nothing more than organic onions, garlic, basil, olive oil and salt, this sauce is a great addition to pastas, pizza, braises, stews and soups.  Consider stocking up on a few quarts to freeze for the coming winter!

Each order consists of one quart of fresh tomato sauce.  Use fresh within a week or freeze for up to six months. Click into our online store to order your Dry-Farmed Early-Girl Tomato sauce today! Pre-orders close Monday, so act fast…

Historians believe pita’s history extends far into antiquity. Flatbreads in general are among the most ancient breads, needing no oven or even utensil for their baking and making them common across many cultures throughout the ancient world. And okay, yes, as a species we’ve since fine-tuned loaves of bread, sourdoughs, and even the not-really-bread or wonderful Wonder Bread–but still….there’s just still amazing pita!

And so! For the first time at Pop-Up General Store, we’re featuring Pizza Politana’s incredible pita bread. After we tasted these amazing whole wheat pita breads made by Joel and Naomi of Pizza Politana at the Chez Panisse Family Party last month, we begged them to offer them at the Pop-Up so we could enjoy them again, and share them with all of you, of course.  Sweet, nutty, and, well, pretty much perfect, we’ve never had a pita so delicious!

Make sure you get some by pre-ordering through our online store before Monday! And feel free to browse around–you can also secure some great fillings to make a rocking pita sandwich.

Hi Folks!

The Pop-Up General Store is finally back after our summer hiatus. We’ve been tasting all sorts of samples from some of the Bay Area’s most talented culinary artisans and are thrilled to offer you a well-curated selection of our favorite foods. We’re really looking forward to sharing all these goodies with you.

The following vendors will be offering their delicious items:

Katz

Baia Pasta

Damn Fine Bacon!

Back to the Roots

Dirty Girl Produce

Double Dutch Sweets

Chris & Samin

Pizza Politana

Starter Bakery

Blue Chair Fruit

Scream Sorbet

Atomic Garden

Soul Food Farm

Four Barrel Coffee

Studebaker Pickles

Devil’s Gulch Ranch

MR/CW

Please click on over to our online store to see a description what each vendor is offering, and to place your pre-order.
Pre-order and pay for your items by noon this Monday, October 3rd, then come visit our pop-up location in the historic Temescal streetcar depot that houses Grace Street Catering. We’ll be there Wednesday, October 5th from 5pm to 7pm awaiting your arrival! We’ll have lots of extras for sale, so feel free to pop in even if you don’t place an order!

Check out our website for more information about our purveyors, recipes and cooking instructions for our artisan foods, as well as details about other projects we’re involved in.

If it’s been a while since you checked out our Wednesday evening market, then we urge you to come on back.  We’ve implemented several new systems, including a streamlined pre-order pick up area, to reduce crowds and make for a much more enjoyable experience for everyone!

Don’t forget your reusable shopping bags! And please remember, for day-of purchases, we can only accept cash or checks at this time.

Best,
Chris & Samin