Cordoza’s Deli Cafe and Catering

Cordoza’s Deli and Cafe is a great local family deli run by Bonnie Cordoza and her husband in downtown Petaluma near the theater district. They have amazing foods, like sandwiches and salads, for decent prices. The atmosphere is open and welcoming, and the staff is really friendly. AND they have foods I can eat! In fact, they just won Petalum’a Best Deli in the 2012 People’s Choice Awards through Petaluma 360! Congratulations, guys!

Cordoza’s carries Mama Baretta’s award-winning multi-seed loaves of bread for sandwich making upon request. The multi-seed bread is so tasty and wonderful with the deli’s Number 3 sandwich, which I get without mayo and cream cheese but with pesto added on. I usually get the mixed berry or green salad with a gluten-free dessert to accompany my sandwich, taking half of the entree home. They also sell bags of gluten-free crackers in their chip and cracker area of the deli. I also found out that their meats are sulphate and nitrate free!

Cordoza’s has a daily special, which includes sandwiches, wraps and other dishes. Every time I check out it out, the special always sounds wonderfully mouth watering. Sometimes Cordoza’s asks for suggestions from their Facebook followers. There’s also usually a couple kinds of soup available in the refrigerated case. If you arrive at the deli early enough, you can also get breakfast, from breakfast burritos to oatmeal with fruit. I haven’t had any of those dishes, but they look really tasty. It may not sound like anything special, but they often have flavored ice water, coffee and hot tea available all day long, too, which is important to me, since hot beverages aid in digestion. There are also at least two cases of cold beverages.

Her catered meals are so good. If whatever you want isn’t on their menu, just ask. They can accommodate for your needs. They’re rather flexible and will adjust for special dietary needs, which is fantastic, since I know I’m not the only one with allergy and digestive issues. Cordoza’s is catering all of the Petaluma-Hamilton Masonic Lodge’s monthly stated meeting dinners this year, and they also catered the officers’ installation lunch and my husband’s congratulatory dinner afterward for our family and friends at the deli.

My husband loves her meaty lasagna, and her vegetable pesto lasagna is a smash hit, too. She made me a special gluten-free penne pasta dish with a superb pesto sauce made with brown rice noodles on the spot when she found out that I couldn’t eat her gluten-free veggie lasagna due to my dairy issues. How great is she?! Bonnie also makes a killer flourless chocolate torte served with fresh fruit. I have eaten many of her catered meals, and I have never been disappointed. Her family also has a small vineyard and winery, and she offers bottles of her wines in her cafe and with her catering.

Cordoza’s is also now featuring Jill Habansky’s Sweet gluten-free baked goods. Jill has her own gluten-free space to work in within Bonnie’s kitchen in the back. How cool is that?! So far, I have tried the salted chocolate chip cookies and almond scone, fennel scone and vegan chocolate-frosted chocolate cupcake. Bonnie also has some of Jill’s lightly sea salt-sprinkled chocolate chip cookies, white chocolate chip cookies, carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing, cardamon crumb cake, rosemary cornbread, morning glory muffins and more. She does not make the same things every day, so it’s always a surprise to see which little delectable goodies are in the case. Jill supposedly makes great baguettes that have really nice flavor and great textures, nice and crunchy on the outside with a soft airy inside. Bonnie told me that Jill’s goodies were featured at the Petaluma Valley Rotary’s Edible Art Tasting in March. I can’t wait to taste her other baked goods.

Recently I learned that Sinful Delights mini cheesecakes, made by Amber Merkel, are now being featured at Cordoza’s Deli. They are so cute! I love the bright and dark color contrasts and the way the layers are stacked. These little morsels look so tasty! (I was “good” and ate one of Jill’s deliciously amazing chocolate cupcakes instead. ;P ) The prices aren’t bad either, considering what they are and how they are made. I couldn’t resist! I bought one for my hubby, hoping that I could enjoy it vicariously. He’s rather picky about food, but he totally approved with a big grin on his face and a compliment. I’ll have to buy him another one the next time I go buy a sandwich. When I pied them in the case, I knew I had to buy one! Yesterday, they had three different kinds, New York with various fruits, chocolate, and caramel macchiato, but the choices seem to change often. Amber also makes full-sized and mini cheesecakes for whole sale orders and catered events, too. The pictures of her treats are gorgeous! Oh, how they really make me wish I could eat dairy foods easily!

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Please pardon the empty looking deli shots, I snuck in at the tail end of the day; I took these pictures as I was waiting for my order to be filled, I think. There are usually many more people inside eating, ordering and snacking earlier on in the day. If you want something from the gluten-free Sweet case, make sure you get there at least 30 minutes before the deli closes, otherwise you may find the case empty. Trust me. I already made that mistake. Oh well. There’s always next time.

San Francisco Farmers Market at the Ferry Building

Earlier this month while Anise and I went to  the San Francisco for the Chinese New
Year celebration, we also decided to peruse the Saturday Ferry Building Farmers Market before heading over to the street fair. Below are some of the farm merchant booths that we visited. There are also market days on Thursdays (which we attended last time) and Tuesdays. Every time we we go, we have a ton of fun smelling and tasting food and looking at all of the beautiful flowers. There are all sorts of neat and beautifully made crafts and goods. It’s always a ton of fun to visit this market.

Mariposa Baking Company They carry many gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free and vegan delectable baked goodies, and I can never resist buying something from them to snack on. Please read my blog entry on them for more information. See my previous entry.

Sweets Collection was amazing. All of their edible fruit gels were not only gorgeous but super tasty. I will post more information later in a separate entry. My previous entry is here.

Scream Sorbet Delicious gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free sorbet in 6 or 8 very intriguing and interesting gourmet flavors that routinely get changed out. Very good! I usually try them all, except for the coffee flavors. Last time I bought two huge scoops!

Here I am enjoying Scream Sorbet at the SF Ferry Building farmers market.

Anise enjoying Scream Sorbet at the SF Ferry Building farmers market.

Farmhouse Culture They make sauerkraut of all kinds. Our favorite, by far, is the dill pickle kraut. It’s delicious and mostly tastes like pickles. It’s great by itself but especially on sandwiches. You can also buy shots of sauerkraut juice, which is kind of like taking a shot of wheat grass juice. It was actually pretty tasty. When you buy the sauerkraut, you can get it in a really nice ceramic jar with a rubber gasket-type cap top. That way when you go back to buy more, you can just get a refill. Unfortunately this last time we not only forgot to bring our jar but also forgot to buy more sauerkraut. There were so many neat booths filled with marvelous looking distractions.

Flying Disc Ranch grows a wide variety of dates sorted according to their degree of sweetness. Medjhool dates are the ones that you most commonly find in grocery stores and are one of the sweetest kinds, a bit too sweet to me, whereas I sometimes have found deglets noor dates in organic markets, a much less sweet but dry kind. I use both of these in making recipes from raw food books but do not really eat them otherwise except on rare occasion. I wanted to try something different, so I got three about a pound of dates recently, half a pound of unpollinated derrie (not actually formed into a date) and half a pound of zahidi. These are two of the least sweet varieties with excellent flavors. I found out that dates have to be hand-pollinated by humans (and have been for centuries), since pollinator insects won’t go near them. Flying Disc also had date coconut rolls, date nut bars and date paste, but I resisted the urge to buy any with the rationalization that I can make my own for probably cheaper. Wow! “Dates are a cross between a grain and a fruit. Dates contain one of the highest nutritional food value of any food! Protein and minerals abound.” “Dates are a cross between a grain and a fruit. Dates contain one of the highest nutritional food value of any food! Protein and minerals abound.”

Blue Bottle Coffee Company Anise bought some of their coffee for herself and her mom. (I’ll leave this for her to review, since I am not a coffee drinker.) I will tell you though that they have some really neat coffee pots by Chemex and amazing looking coffee siphons by Hario (in Bonmac boxes). They look like really cool chemistry or mad-science equipment.

After the farmers market, we went across the street to the Arts and Crafts Market at Justin Herman Plaza next to the Embarcadero Center. There are so many really talented artists and craftsmen there. There were more than a few items that we liked. They have all sorts of great items there, like cute hair clips, stuffed animals, scarves, sweaters, jewelry, trivets, sculptures, nick-nacks, decor, paintings, hats, gloves, etc. I never know what treasures we’ll find. Image Source