Sunday, November 28, 2010

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

The holiday feel comes around soon after Thanksgiving (and oftentimes before), and the cold freezing weather in the Bay Area lately has really emphasized the point. But for me, it's not the glittering lights or Christmas tree lots that make me think of the holidays but the smell of roasting chestnuts.

You can find them being sold from a stand at Union Square in San Francisco, but I see them when I walk home from the Rockridge BART station in Oakland because that means I pass by Oliveto restaurant and its makeshift chestnut stand in the patio seating area of its cafe.

I love the smell of roasting chestnuts, and in cold weather its so nice to hold in your hands some freshly roasted chestnuts. Oliveto sells theirs in a paper cone for $3, which holds only six chestnuts. Kind of pricey, but a nice treat now and then. This particular weekend, the chestnuts were especially huge so they seemed well worth the price.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not a fan of chestnut, but I like the idea of roasted chestnut. I recently tried chestnut honey & it really is not tasty - as RL said "chestnut honey is the stinky tofu of honey"

foodhoe said...

I love chestnuts, although we always steamed them. I tried roasting them in the oven this weekend, and guess who really liked them? My cat!

Anonymous said...

My first experience was in Hong Kong, walking by this vendor, roasting chestnuts with this big drum. The chestnuts in a cone paper bag were hot and tasty. I felt like a kid eating them.

Mrs. L said...

The only time I've ever seen chestnuts roasting for sale was in Japan in the month of October many years ago. Several little stands were selling them.