Owner: Aza­lina Eusope

Aza­lina was born in a tribal vil­lage in Malaysia — her par­ents grew spices includ­ing cin­na­mon, star anise, and car­damom in her back yard. She always loved cook­ing and ended up train­ing as a chef and work­ing in the pas­try  kitchens of some of the finest hotels in the world in Malaysia and then in Japan.

When Aza­lina moved to San Fran­cisco with her hus­band, she began to redis­cover and rein­vent some of her favorite dishes. She started cook­ing the cur­ries she remem­bered from her child­hood because they were fla­vors that she wanted to pass on to her two chil­dren, even though they are grow­ing up so far from where she was born. She called up her par­ents and had them ship her some of spices and solid palm sugar so she could keep up with her fam­ily and friends’ demand for the unique Malaysian fla­vors she was cre­at­ing. Malaysian food is a unique com­bi­na­tion of influ­ences — most notably, Indian and Thai. Almost every dish uses over ten dif­fer­ent kinds of spice and ingre­di­ents like coconut milk and chilies abound.

So many of her friends loved the food that Aza­lina decided to start a busi­ness sell­ing at the Ale­many Farm­ers Mar­ket on Sat­ur­days. A year later, she began the pro­gram at La Cocina and is now sell­ing at Off the Grid Mar­ket at Fort Mason on Fri­days and focused more on cater­ing. Soon, she’ll being pack­ag­ing cur­ries and spice mixes to encour­age her cus­tomers to recre­ate Malaysian fla­vors in their own kitchen.

Tele­phone: 415.407.2038

Email:azalinalina20@gmail.com

Web­site: Com­ing Soon!

Owner: Anna Tvelova

AйDa Piroshki is an old tra­di­tion and with a new approach. Piroshkies are tra­di­tional Russ­ian food. They are individual-sized leaf-shaped baked buns stuffed with vari­ety of fillings.

Anna makes her piroshkis using whole­some ingre­di­ents choos­ing prod­ucts that have high fiber (whole wheat flour and wheat bran), lean pro­tein (1% milk, chicken breast, etc.), a vari­ety of veg­eta­bles, fruit and of course, no trans fat. Bak­ing is not only the tra­di­tional way to cook piroshki, it is also makes them health­ier and lighter. Anna also uses healthy cook­ing tech­niques such as steam­ing, boil­ing, bak­ing and sautéing, for all fillings.

In Rus­sia, the sym­bol of moth­er­hood is the MATRYOSHKA, which is fea­tured in the logo. Anna’s Russ­ian mother taught her how to cook piroshki and she learned it from her mother. Each Matryoshka in the АйDa Piroshki logo rep­re­sents each of the main food groups: Grains, Fruit, Veg­eta­bles and Pro­tein, the ingre­di­ents that every­one needs to stay healthy and happy.

AйDa Piroshki are avail­able by spe­cial order for par­ties or to sell at cafes and restaurants.

Email: info@andapiroshki.com

Web­site: www.andapiroshki.com

Owner: Maria Castillo

Maria Castillo was born in the neigh­bor­hood of Chi­mal­hua­can in Mex­ico City. Her aunt made the clas­sic botanas of Mex­ico from her home and sold them through­out the neigh­bor­hood in the stores, chains and cor­ners. Maria learned how to make these deli­cious treats from a young age, and she brought this skill with her to the States when she moved here in 2001. In 2003 Maria joined La Cocina, where she has spent time with some of the best chefs and cooks in the city, per­fect­ing her happy snacks. Maria is thrilled to share the taste of her child­hood with you, and she con­tin­ues to look for new ways to make your mouth happy. That’s what Botanas Felic­i­tas is all about.

Mis­sion State­ment

Botanas Felic­i­tas are the clas­sic botanas (snacks) of Mex­ico City made with the kind of love that only years of prac­tice can bring. Using the best ingre­di­ents avail­able, Maria Castillo’s snacks are the authen­tic taste of Mexico.

Email: botanasfelicitas@yahoo.com

Web­site: www.botanasfelicitas.com

Own­ers: Luis and Maria de la Luz Vazquez

Chaac-Mool Yucate­can Food would love the oppor­tu­nity to intro­duce you to tra­di­tional Mayan Cuisine.

Chaac Mool is the ancient god of rain and inspi­ra­tion for Chef Luis Vazquez and his wife Maria de la Luz’s busi­ness. They cook up the best tra­di­tional Yucate­can food in San Fran­cisco. Chaac Mool is avail­able for cater­ing events of all sizes and sells every Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day from 11am to 7pm at Fort Mason Center.

Tele­phone: 510.508.3690

Owner: Chiefo Chuk­wudebe

Chiefo was founded on the basic agenda of cul­tural exchange. Chiefo strives to bring the best of West Africa, in par­tic­u­lar Nige­ria and Cote d’Ivoire, to the Bay Area though food, drink, laugh­ter com­mu­nity and music while at the same time giv­ing back to the regions in Africa where some of her ingre­di­ents are grown.

She sup­ports local Bay Area farm­ers and pro­duc­ers, uses sea­sonal ingre­di­ents when pos­si­ble, and are envi­ron­mently con­scious. Also, draw­ing on her Peace Corps expe­ri­ence in Cote d’Ivoire, Chiefo sup­ports the farm­ers in West Africa by prac­tic­ing fair trade and sup­port coop­er­a­tives in the vil­lages where her prod­ucts are grown with an empha­sis on woman-based small businesses.

Chiefo believes that a busi­ness, regard­less of the size, can fos­ter change, par­tic­u­larly in the lives of African women. Chiefo’s Niger­ian is a cater­ing and event company.

Email: chiefo3@yahoo.com

Web­site: Com­ing Soon!

Owner: Claire Keane

Although Clairesquares offi­cially opened for busi­ness in 2006, Claire has been mak­ing her delec­table treats since she was a child grow­ing up in County Cork, Ire­land. By the age of 12, she was bak­ing from her mother’s recipe books and exper­i­ment­ing with fudge, but­ter­scotch, tof­fee and caramel. She found that the best result was a mouth­wa­ter­ing com­bi­na­tion of short­bread, caramel and chocolate.

A young entre­pre­neur, Claire tried her hand at sell­ing the squares at school. It wasn’t long before her class­mates were addicted and she was sell­ing out every week. Over the years, Claire con­tin­ued to bake her famous squares, devel­op­ing a fol­low­ing among fam­ily and friends in Ire­land. Years later and miles away in San Fran­cisco, she whipped up a batch of her but­tery Irish treats for her friends. They had never tasted any­thing quite like them. Encour­aged by her friends’ enthusiasm—and con­stant harass­ment for just one more square—Claire decided to sell them again here in Amer­ica, and Clairesquares was born!

Though our prod­ucts may be sin­ful, Clairesquares is ded­i­cated to being a socially respon­si­ble busi­ness. We oper­ate out of a cer­ti­fied Green Busi­ness com­mer­cial kitchen and are licensed as a green busi­ness with the City and County of San Fran­cisco. We are com­mit­ted to an aggres­sive recy­cling and com­post­ing pro­gram, and we recy­cle 90% of our waste. Our online orders are shipped using recy­cled and biodegrad­able sty­ro­foam, which ensures that your prod­uct arrives to you in per­fect shape with min­i­mal effect on the envi­ron­ment. We are just as com­mit­ted to our local com­mu­nity as we are to the envi­ron­ment; through our dona­tion pro­gram, we have assisted local food banks and char­i­ta­ble non­profit organizations.

Tele­phone: 415.722.2080

Email: claire@clairesquares.com

Web­site: www.clairesquares.com

CMB­Sweets is a Grad­u­ate from La Cocina’s Busi­ness Incu­ba­tion Pro­gram!

Owner: Car­olina Braun­schweig

Start with North­ern California’s fresh­est fruit. Add a dol­lop of sugar, a squeeze of lemon juice and then crank up the heat. The result? A line of all-natural, micro-batch jams and jel­lies made in sunny San Fran­cisco called cmb­sweets. From olal­lieberry jam to pome­gran­ate jelly to a blood Orange mar­malade, cmb­sweets is best spooned straight from the jar. Or try it on a cheese plate, atop a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or spread it next to some peanut but­ter. It’s so good that Sun­set mag­a­zine named cmb­sweets “the best of the West.” Eat jam, be happy. Avail­able in 8-ounce jars for retail, single-serve 2-ounce jars, gift sets and half-gallon food­ser­vice containers.

Plus, a selec­tion of clas­sic cook­ies— choco­late chip, peanut but­ter & jelly, gin­ger­snaps. Hot cook­ies, cold milk. What more could you pos­si­bly want? Pack­aged in bulk for counter-top sales, and avail­able as ‘milk & cook­ies’ catering.

Tele­phone: 415.337.0846

Email: jamgirl@cmbsweets.com

Web­site: www.cmbsweets.com

Owner: Patri­cia Rodriguez

Patri­cia Rodriguez, owner of Deli­cias Sal­vadoreñas grew up in San Sal­vador, El Sal­vador, the daugh­ter and grand­daugh­ter of bak­ers. As a child, she was always cov­ered in flour and com­ing to the US, she knew she wanted to share the love and his­tory of these tra­di­tional breads with a new audi­ence. Deli­cias Sal­vadoreñas is com­mit­ted to using the high­est qual­ity ingre­di­ents, to hand-making the prod­ucts of her home coun­try and to allow peo­ple to come to know and love the rich tra­di­tion of El Sal­vado­ran breads and pas­tries. They are avail­able for pur­chase bulk for resale at bak­eries and gro­cery stores as well as directly for events.

Email: delicias.salvadorenas@gmail.com

Web­site: www.deliciassalvadorenas.com

Owner: Isabel Caudillo

El Buen Comer is a fam­ily busi­ness, Isabel works with Juan Car­los her hus­band and three of her sons, Hansel, Char­lie, and Vladimir to bring the most deli­cious, home­style Mex­i­can food to San Francisco.

El Buen Comer is best known for authen­tic Mex­i­can dishes made from scratch, using organic masa and hand-rolling enchi­ladas. At the heart of her menu are guisa­dos, the sta­ple of Mex­ico City home­cook­ing. Slow-cooked, earthy sauces stewed with meat or a veg­etable, they are served along­side rice and beans. Even the more famil­iar ele­ments of the El Buen Comer menu — tacos and enchi­ladas — are made accord­ing to Mex­i­can tra­di­tion, with melt­ingly soft shred­ded beef or chicken stewed slowly in Isabel’s sig­na­ture green and red sauces. Isabel also serves a vari­ety of other home­style dishes, rang­ing from albondi­gas (savory meat­balls in tomato sauce) to codi­tos con crema, a pasta and cream dish that has defined com­fort food for gen­er­a­tions of Mexicans.

El Buen Comer is avail­able for cater­ing, and sells every Sat­ur­day at the Noe Val­ley Farm­ers Mar­ket from 8am to 1pm.

Email: elbuencomersf@gmail.com

Web­site: www.elbuencomersf.com

Owner: Veron­ica Salazar

Veron­ica Salazar was born in the neigh­bor­hood of Ramon Mil­lan in Mex­ico City, Mex­ico. Veron­ica grew up around food, both in her home and in the restau­rant that her fam­ily owned in La Raza, Mex­ico City. It was there that she grew up, like her daugh­ters and son now, in the kitchen, run­ning between pots, pans and the smells of food.

When Veron­ica moved to San Fran­cisco, she saw taque­rias every­where but their food tasted noth­ing like home. Before long, Veron­ica was cook­ing all week­end and serv­ing between 20—40 peo­ple in her house. It was time for the busi­ness to begin. Veronica’s pas­sion for food quickly trans­lated into suc­cess when she launched El Huarache Loco in 2005 from La Cocina’s kitchen.

After her ini­tial suc­cesses in cater­ing, Veron­ica began her mar­ket stand at the Ale­many Farmer’s Mar­ket, bring­ing the authen­tic fla­vors of Mex­ico City (D.F.) to San Fran­cisco (S.F.). The busi­ness is still very much a fam­ily busi­ness, with her hus­band Miguel run­ning the busi­ness with her, her daugh­ter Diana learn­ing to cook in the same way that Veron­ica did, her son Joshua run­ning between everyone’s legs, and baby Luana observ­ing every­thing from her carseat.

El Huarache Loco believes that food is the most basic desire of every­one; to feel full, sat­is­fied and happy is not only some­thing nec­es­sary but some­thing that, when done cor­rectly, can bring home to wher­ever one finds one­self. El Huarache Loco loves San Fran­cisco, and misses Mex­ico City, and is ded­i­cated to bring­ing the fla­vors of the D.F., here, to their new home, in S.F.

Tele­phone: 415.572.6832

Email: elhuaracheloco@yahoo.com

Web­site: www.huaracheloco.com

Owner: Antoinette Sanchez

There is finally a place that can take you back with­out really going there, End­less Sum­mer Sweets pre­pares made to order gold old fash­ioned car­ni­val treats. Let your­self be swept away as you indulge in these favorite nos­tal­gic classics!

End­less Sum­mer Sweets exists to revive the kid in you, bring­ing back mem­o­ries of attend­ing neigh­bor­hood fairs with fam­ily and friends. We com­mit to using local ingre­di­ents when­ever pos­si­ble and offer fun and unique sea­sonal top­pings includ­ing: local straw­ber­ries and freshly whipped cream, cin­na­mon baked apples and caramel, fresh black­ber­ries and pow­dered sugar.

End­less Sum­mer Sweet’s deli­cious fun­nel cakes can be found on Fri­days at the Rich­mond Farm­ers Mar­ket (www.richmondfarmersmarket.org) and Sat­ur­days and Sun­days at the Berke­ley Flea Mar­ket (www.berkeleyfleamarket.com).

Email: antoinette_i_sanchez@yahoo.com

Owner: Maria del Car­men Flo­res

Maria del Car­men Flo­res is a natural-born entre­pre­neur. She began her culi­nary career on the streets of El Sal­vador, sell­ing cut fruit and home­made chips at a bus stop with her mother in San Sal­vador. Maria moved from El Sal­vador to Mex­ico and proudly brought her food to her own restau­rant in Oaxaca.

When she moved to San Fran­cisco, Maria began by sell­ing tostadas — hand cut plan­tain and yucca chips — from the streets of the Mis­sion Dis­trict. She began at La Cocina in 2006 and now does Sal­vado­ran food cater­ing, and has a booth at the Ale­many Farmer’s Mar­ket where she makes clas­sic Sal­vado­ran foods. Hers are some of the best pupusas and tamales in town. She still sells her famous tostadas in mar­kets through­out the Mis­sion and Excel­sior districts.

Email: estrellitassnacks@hotmail.com

Web­site: www.estrelltassnacks.com

Own­ers: Christina Aviles and Jes­sica Phadungsilp

Global Soul was born out of own­ers Christina and Jessica’s her­itage and their love of travel — they grew up eat­ing Nicaraguan and Cuban and Thai food (respec­tively) and both love to travel and eat like locals when­ever they are abroad, on the streets at hawker mar­kets and on street corners.

Global Soul brings street eats from all over the world to San Fran­cisco. From Thai Rice Pud­ding to Cuban Potato Salad to Spicy Ker­ala Curry, Global Soul does it all. They can cater any type of event (with or with­out a truck) and they sell at the Off the Grid Mar­ket at Fort Mason Cen­ter on Fri­day nights and will soon be pick­ing some new spots where you can get food from their street food truck.

Email: streeteats@globalsoultruck.com

Web­site: www.globalsoultruck.com

Owner: Dora Pare­des

Dora is from Ica, Peru and grew up drink­ing juices made with all of the deli­cious trop­i­cal fruits and veg­eta­bles that grow in that area. She worked at a juice stand and learned the fine art of squeez­ing juices fresh and invented her own suite of deli­cious fla­vor com­bi­na­tions that her cus­tomers came to love. In Ica, every­one begins their day with a juice or smoothie and derives joy from the daily rit­ual (much like the Amer­i­can cup of cof­fee) of get­ting to chat with the juice maker, see other reg­u­lars, and nour­ish the soul with fruits and vegetables.

Ica Juices brings this deli­cious and refresh­ing aspect of Peru­vian cul­ture to San Fran­cisco. Dora uses only fresh (never frozen) fruits, veg­eta­bles, and herbs to make deli­cious beverages.

Tele­phone: 415.724.7948

Web­site: Com­ing Soon!

Owner: Kelly Zubal

Intic­ing Cre­ations cre­ates cus­tom designed wed­ding and cel­e­bra­tion cakes. Owner and cake designer, Kelly Zubal, will work with you to design a cake that will taste amaz­ing, serve as a party cen­ter­piece for your event, and high­light your spe­cial day. Deli­cious and unique cake fla­vors such as Salted Caramel Choco­late and Caramelized Pear Pecan are sure to wow your guests.

Intic­ing Cre­ations puts a cus­tom flair on spe­cial occa­sion cakes!

Tele­phone: 415.205.9422

Email: Kelly@inticingcreations.com

Web­site: www.inticingcreations.com

Kika’s Treats is a Grad­u­ate of La Cocina’s Busi­ness Incu­ba­tor Pro­gram!

Owner: Cristina Besher

Kika’s Treats is a small arti­san com­pany that hand­crafts chocolate-covered organic baked goods in San Fran­cisco, Cal­i­for­nia. Its premise (and com­pro­mise) is to use only the best LOCAL and ORGANIC ingre­di­ents, which are the sole rea­son why they are so deli­cious. Our prod­ucts con­tain no arti­fi­cial fla­vors, col­or­ings, preser­v­a­tives, no trans-fats, no GMOs noth­ing but 100% nat­ural ingredients.

Cristina Besher (or ‘Kika’, her fam­ily nick­name) is a life­long baker and choco­late lover. Kika grew up in Brazil, one of the trop­i­cal lands of cacao, and moved to San Fran­cisco in 1999 straight from Sao Paulo, Brazil. She was very for­tu­nate to have the oppor­tu­nity to work at many dif­fer­ent won­der­ful eater­ies around the Bay Area, where she learned her craft from some of the finest chefs around. In 2006, she made a list of her favorite treats and decided that it was time to share them with the world.

When you buy a pack­age of Kika’s Treats, not only are you treat­ing your­self to some­thing all nat­ural and deli­cious, but you’re also sup­port­ing our Amer­i­can econ­omy and help­ing the envi­ron­ment, since Kika’s Treats always sources locally, both ingre­di­ents and pack­ag­ing, as much as pos­si­ble. It’s a win-win for all!

Email: info@kikastreats.com

Web­site: www.kikastreats.com

Owner: Elvia Buen­dia

Ever since Elvia was a young girl, she became excited when she ate and savored dif­fer­ent cakes at par­ties. How­ever, being the fifth child of six, Elvia’s house­hold rarely ever had sweets.

When Elvia grew up, she con­tin­ued to buy and try dif­fer­ent pas­tries. Nonethe­less she was dis­ap­pointed when she saw very pretty cakes but they would taste very sweet; or at times the cakes would not have gor­geous dec­o­ra­tions, but the bread would be tasty. After fol­low­ing and try­ing some of the best cup­cakes, Elvia found the right com­bi­na­tion of dec­o­ra­tion and sweetness.

Her love of sweets and pas­tries moti­vated her to take pas­try and dec­o­ra­tion classes, so she could learn to mix dif­fer­ent ingre­di­ents and cre­ate new fla­vors with inno­v­a­tive decorations.

Elvia makes cup­cakes, to order, for all kinds of occa­sions in deli­cious and unique fla­vors includ­ing Tres Leches Cakes and Tiramisu.

Phone: 510.904.2864

Email: lalunacupcakes@gmail.com Web­site: www.lalunacupcakes.com

Owner: Dilsa Lugo

Dilsa who’s from Cuer­navaca, More­los has been in con­tact with food since she was a girl. She comes from a large fam­ily where eat­ing all together at home hap­pened at least twice a day. Being from a town, she grew up with a gar­den where they grew corn, pump­kins, beans, lemons, man­goes, guayabas, green beans, chilies, and more. Her fam­ily did this for the love of see­ing their food all the way from seed to table but also to help out eco­nom­i­cally. The pas­sion Dilsa has for cook­ing and for fresh ingre­di­ents comes from there—from when she was a lit­tle girl help­ing her mom with the har­vest. When she went to col­lege she stud­ied hor­ti­cul­ture and learned a lot about pes­ti­cides and the harm they cause peo­ple and the environment.

When Dilsa came to Berke­ley it was very excit­ing for her to dis­cover the organic food movement—a move­ment that’s only recently begin­ning in Mex­ico. She real­ized that there weren’t many Mex­i­can food places that had these issues in mind and that offered alter­na­tives that were health­ier for peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. This is what inspired her to start a Mex­i­can food busi­ness using local, sea­sonal ingre­di­ents that are organic when­ever possible.

Los Cilantros is a cater­ing and events com­pany whose mis­sion is never to lose authen­tic­ity and that peo­ple always enjoy the fla­vors of food that is sim­ply but care­fully pre­pared using the best ingre­di­ents available.

Tele­phone: 510.230.7350

Email: loscilantrossf@yahoo.com

Web­site: www.loscilantroscatering.com

Owner: Donna Sky

Love and Hum­mus is born out of owner, Donna’s mem­o­ries of a child­hood spent with her grand­mother  mak­ing hum­mus from scratch from a recipe passed down through her fam­ily for generations.

When Donna’s daugh­ter, Bria, was old enough to enjoy hum­mus, Donna, a busy work­ing mom, started buy­ing hum­mus from stores but they always came up short of what her expec­ta­tions and mem­o­ries of home­made hum­mus were. She called up her grand­mother and real­ized that there was an oppor­tu­nity to share her recipe for hum­mus with peo­ple like her­self who were look­ing for a high qual­ity prod­uct that was still quick and convenient.

Love and Hum­mus Co. is pas­sion­ate about cre­at­ing deli­cious hum­mus and Mediter­ranean food that is all organic, lov­ingly hand­made in a green kitchen, and scooped into earth-friendly pack­ag­ing.  Donna’s hum­mus will be sold in glass jars that can be recy­cled or re-used and a per­cent­age of prof­its will go to nonprofits.

Love and Hum­mus is still in the final stages of prod­uct devel­op­ment but will be on the shelves soon!

Email:donna@loveandhummus.com

Web­site: www.loveandhummus.com

Owner: Con­stanza Ortiz

Maite Cater­ing is a cater­ing com­pany focused on mak­ing bite-sized treats. Con­stanza Ortiz, the owner, went to culi­nary school and found that of all the dif­fer­ent skills, what she loved best was mak­ing things small. From mini empanadas to tiny lit­tle ceviche cups to gor­geous and deli­cious Petit Fours, Maite cater­ing can make any deli­cious small bite for your next cock­tail party.

Maite Cater­ing puts together par­ties focused on food that can be quickly and eas­ily eaten and can take care of every­thing includ­ing flow­ers, music, and table set­tings. Maite Cater­ing can also work with other cater­ing com­pa­nies to pro­vide the appe­tiz­ers and mini desserts for a larger event.

Phone: 415.632.8329

Web­site: www.maitecatering.com

Owner: Chris­tine Doerr

While won­der­ing what she’d be when she grew up, Chris­tine Doerr found her­self watch­ing a lot of Julia Child. It was the late 1980s, and cook­ing shows were becom­ing pop­u­lar. One day, Chris­tine announced, “I think I’ll be a chef!” and promptly moved to San Fran­cisco to attend the Cal­i­for­nia Culi­nary Acad­emy; After being turned off by a butch­ery class, she decided she liked sugar and flour more than raw meat, and her career as a pas­try chef began!

Chris­tine per­fected her craft as a pas­try chef dur­ing her more than 10 years of work­ing in mul­ti­ple estab­lish­ments in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area such as Palo Alto Bak­ing Com­pany, Draeger’s Mar­ket and Flea St. Café. She wanted to open her own busi­ness. “Wouldn’t choco­late truf­fles be yummy?” she asked her­self. Rather, she stuffed her back pock­ets full of culi­nary knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, and went back to school to study graphic design. But soon, her long-held dream of cre­at­ing choco­late truf­fles using fresh, local, organic ingre­di­ents once again came knock­ing at the door. This time, Chris­tine answered, and Neo Cocoa was born.

Email: Email: christine@neococoa.com

Web­site: www.neococoa.com

Own­ers: Koji Kane­matsu and Kan Hasegawa

Onig­illy was the vision of two young Japan­ese friends who decided they wanted to share a tra­di­tional Japan­ese snack with the US.  After mov­ing from Japan, Kan Hasegawa and Koji Kane­matsu won­dered about the abun­dance of sushi restau­rants and the lack of oni­giri shops. With the easy-to-eat and healthy ingre­di­ents they were sur­prised to real­ize that oni­giri didn’t exist in the US and so with the inten­tion to re-imagine a Japan­ese sta­ple along with their excite­ment to share a healthy snack alter­na­tive they formed Onig­illy™.

About the prod­uct: Writ­ings dat­ing far back as the 17th cen­tury states that dur­ing war many samu­rais stored rice balls, oni­giri, wrapped in bam­boo leaves as a quick lunchtime meal. Nowadays, these bite-sized meals that cater to on-the-go, healthy lifestyles are iron­i­cally, much more com­mon than sushi in Japan. Onig­illy, Kan and Koji’s new word for oni­giri, is a sta­ple of the mod­ern Japan­ese diet, one they are look­ing to intro­duce to the Amer­i­can consumer.

Onig­illy sells at Off the Grid Mar­ket at Fort Mason and will soon be unrolling their new food cart in Justin Her­man Plaza, downtown.

Email: Email: info@onigilly.com

Web­site:  www.onigilly.com

Owner: Guisell Oso­rio

Sabores del Sur (“Fla­vors from the South”) is the Bay Area’s pre­mier South Amer­i­can cater­ing com­pany. Chef—owned and oper­ated, Sabores del Sur uses only the fresh­est ingre­di­ents in all of our recipes. We empha­size organic, free trade and locally grown prod­ucts. We take great pride in ensur­ing each dish is “made with love”—a philos­phy Chef Guisell H. Oso­rio inher­ited while cook­ing side by side with her grand­mother dur­ing her child­hood in Chile.

After com­plet­ing her culi­nary and busi­ness train­ing, Chef Guisell was finally able to real­ize her life-long dream of own­ing and oper­at­ing her own food and cater­ing busi­ness. She started Sabores del Sur at a San Fran­cisco com­mer­cial kitchen in 2002. “As word spread about our authen­tic South Amer­i­can foods and menu, we have dou­bled or tripled our pro­duc­tion every year” says Oso­rio. “I’m so lucky to be doing what I love”. Our sig­na­ture prod­ucts, Empanadas and Alfa­jores, are a nat­ural favorite of our reg­u­lar clients, espe­cially those crav­ing an authen­tic taste from South Amer­ica. They are burst­ing with fla­vor while offer­ing the famil­iar warmth of South Amer­i­can cuisine.

Sabores del Sur—trusted cater­ers that add the per­fect fla­vor to any event.

Tele­phone: 510.406.4980

Email: Email: chef@saborsur.com

Web­site: www.saborsur.com

Owner: Morsi­nah Katimin

SAJEN strives to pre­serve ancient and indige­nous heal­ing prod­ucts and offer them as health and well­ness prod­ucts. Morsi­nah decided to cre­ate JAMU, a heal­ing bev­er­age of the Javanese and Bali­nese tra­di­tions, as it deserves to be hon­ored, pre­served, and remembered.

Mak­ing JAMU is Morsinah’s fam­ily tra­di­tion. Her ances­tral grand­moth­ers blended JAMU for their fam­i­lies and their neigh­bors in small ham­lets (Para’an and Gagaran) in the moun­tain­ous region in Cen­tral Java, Indone­sia. They blended JAMU using only organic fresh ingre­di­ents. That same blend is what Morsi­nah is offer­ing to you.

Sajen makes arti­san bev­er­ages by hand in small batches using fam­ily– recipes of more than five gen­er­a­tions. Sajen uses 100% nat­ural unprocessed ingre­di­ents, her roots are sourced from a cer­ti­fied organic farm in Hawaii.

Tele­phone: 415.264.1835

Email: Email: sajen.jamu@gmail.com

Web­site: www.sajenjamu.com

Shi Gourmet is a Grad­u­ate of La Cocina’s busi­ness incu­ba­tor pro­gram!

Owner: Ana Shi

Shi Gourmet was born out Ana’s con­cern for good health. She real­ized that there are many health ben­e­fits to eat­ing less meat and wanted to cre­ate fresh veg­e­tar­ian meals with­out sac­ri­fic­ing taste. Ana is a chef who is pas­sion­ate about cook­ing and cre­at­ing prod­ucts that are truly deli­cious while also being good for you. Her mis­sion is for you to expe­ri­ence my great tast­ing tofu. You can enjoy it as a healthy, protein-rich snack or take it home and incor­po­rate it into your favorite recipes.

Shi Gourmet tofu spring rolls are sold at Whole Foods Mar­kets through­out the Bay Area and her tofu is sold at Rain­bow Grocery.

Tele­phone: 415.717.5163

Email: Email: shisuisun@sbcglobal.net

Owner: Shaki­rah Sim­ley

Slow Jams is a woman-owned busi­ness ded­i­cated to cre­at­ing small-batch arti­san jams, pre­serves and spreads that show­cases the bounty of the Bay Area and fos­ters com­mu­nity through can­ning. To ensure that our prod­ucts are truly fresh, sea­sonal and local, Slow Jams is com­mit­ted to using sus­tain­ably grown ingre­di­ents locally sourced from urban and rural growers.

Slow Jams’ prod­ucts are unique in that they incor­po­rate ingre­di­ents from small fam­ily farms and urban grow­ers, such as urban farms, com­mu­nity gar­dens and even back­yard gar­dens. Slow Jams offers prod­ucts that have more than a local flair, these prod­ucts uti­lize an untapped grow­ing net­work of urban farms and gar­dens and turn them into deli­cious home­made preserves.

Slow Jams keeps it sim­ple by using as few ingre­di­ents as pos­si­ble; never resort­ing to any arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents or sweet­en­ers, fla­vor­ing agents, com­mer­cial pectin, GMOs or pesticide-laden, waxed or frozen fruit or herbs in our products.

Slow Jams are always made by hand, in small batches, and con­tain inno­v­a­tive, fla­vor pair­ings based mainly on sea­sonal avail­abil­ity of ingredients.

Email: shakirah@eatslowjams.com

Web­site: www.eatslowjams.com

Owner: Rosa Rodriguez

Sweets Col­lec­tion is inspired by the idea of an Art Col­lec­tion – our art is edi­ble and sweet.

Rosa is an artist from Mex­ico who had her paint­ings exhib­ited in gal­leries before learn­ing the art of paint­ing into gelatin. This type of art in gelatin orig­i­nated in France, it was imported to Mex­ico by a cit­i­zen who emi­grated. There it was devel­oped and per­fected then it was exported to other coun­tries in Latin Amer­ica. In the United States this art is just begin­ning to develop very suc­cess­fully, because is a new and unique option in the area of desserts. Rosa is proudly bring­ing it to San Francisco.

Begin­ning this com­pany, Sweets Col­lec­tion, is Rosa’s way of cre­at­ing a space for her edi­ble art. It is impor­tant to her that in the world of sweets, which we all enjoy, that fla­vor and cre­ativ­ity as well as the abil­ity to share some­thing spe­cial with fam­ily, dear friends or clients all come together.

Her sweet, artis­tic cre­ations are avail­able by spe­cial order.

Email: info@3dartdesserts.com

Web­site: www.3dartdesserts.com

Owner: Dionne Knox

It’s said that when you’re born you come into the world know­ing exactly what you’re sup­posed to do with your life. Due to numer­ous dis­trac­tions, most of us take detours on our jour­neys spend­ing quite a lot of time try­ing to dis­cover our way back to that know­ing­ness. At the young age of 8 years old, Chef Dionne Knox remem­bers spend­ing most of her time in the kitchen with her grand­mother, Zella, cook­ing meals and bak­ing deli­cious desserts. Zella was a dynamic chef known for cook­ing every­thing from scratch. To ensure the best fla­vors in her cook­ing, Zella grew fresh veg­eta­bles in her gar­den, raised chick­ens for fresh eggs, made her own jam, baked bread every day and churned her own butter.

Zella’s abil­ity to nour­ish her fam­ily extended beyond feed­ing them. The fam­ily reg­u­larly came together around the kitchen table to pre­pare fresh ingre­di­ents and share their lives to develop the close­ness and inti­macy that comes from prepar­ing and shar­ing a meal together. The idea of “fam­ily” was extended to guests enter­ing Zella’s home who were fed and treated with warmth, gra­cious­ness and a meal in the tra­di­tion of south­ern hospitality.

Hon­or­ing her legacy, Dionne fol­lowed in her grandmother’s foot­steps and cre­ated a cater­ing com­pany named Zella’s Soul­ful Kitchen in 2005. As a pro­gram par­tic­i­pant at La Cocina, Dionne grew her busi­ness cre­at­ing menus by sourc­ing ingre­di­ents from local farm­ers and tak­ing care to hand make the deli­cious foods she learned to make as a child. Clients enjoyed her healthy take on South­ern Food at wed­dings, din­ner par­ties, busi­ness meet­ings and in the com­fort of their own homes.

Tele­phone: 510.532.6652

Email: Email: zellaskitchen@sbcglobal.net

Web­site: www.zellassoulfulkitchen.com