ward ranch tour & jam tasting

ward ranch tour & jam tasting
Originally uploaded by bluepupae.

yesterday was a day of leisure. jeff ward of ward ranch in sierra madre gave a group of us a tour of the gourmet food business built by his grandfather. we tasted some delicious jams, jellies and marmalades, as well as hand-stuffed hand-packed spanish olives, which reminds me that i want to find out what exactly is the difference between jam, jelly and marmalade.

post tour, we had a nice lunch at "the only place in town" cafe. because i was with a group of foodies, our conversation somehow moved to bulgarini gelato, which is in nearby altadena, a bit out of the way from long beach, but not if you're having lunch in sierra madre. one thing led to another, and we found ourselves on a hot and dry saturday eating some very good gelato. i had a small cup with three scoops that included coconut, bacio (chocolate hazelnut) and strawberry custard. mike had the stracciolo (chocolate chip), espresso and pistachio. apparently, the owner imports the pistachios from europe, since the ones here aren't good enough. it's been a while since i've had gelato ( i think the last time may have been in italy like a zillion years ago!), and i haven't had bad gelato, so i have little to compare what we had to, but i found it to be quite good. the bacio was very rich. my only preference would be for the coconut to be less sweet.