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The trade is invited to taste Robert Lambert's food artistry at the Savor California booth #206, Fancy Food Show, San Francisco's Moscone Center, January 17-19, 2010.

Robert accepted the 2008 sofi Award from Jacques Pepin at the New York Fancy Food Show (above right). Robert won the Gold for his Dark Cherries Preserved in Merlot Syrup.

NEW! Marmalades --
“In these fine hand-cut marmalades I blend multiple exotic citrus fruits and juices to create a complex and intense flavor profile. In some cases only a few trees exist, propagated by growers and collectors who are passionate about preserving these wonders of nature.”
Seville Orange • Blood Orange• Bergamot Orange • Calamondin • Five Grapefruit • Exotic Lemon Trio • Five Lime

Chocolate Sauces --
“These sauces are based on one from my award-winning 1989 cookbook Fantasy Chocolate Desserts (Chronicle Books). Rich, dark chocolate is my first ingredient.”
Ginger Pear • Raspberry Rose • Four Orange • Deep Dark • Malted Milk • Mexican • Mocha Latté • Extreme Vanilla Bean • Mojito Mint • Coconut Dark.

Syrups --
“Use these honey-like simple syrups as a new ingredient anywhere you would add a sweetener and want to intensify flavor.”
Blood Orange • Rangpur Lime • Meyer Lemon • Bergamot • White Grapefruit • Kaffir Lime • Texas Lemon • Thai Ginger • White Ginger • Golden Date

Fruits Cakes --
“Based on the ones my English grandmother made 50 years ago, but I use exotic home-candied citrus peels and young ginger, and fruits and nuts from small California farms.”
• White Fruit Cake •Dark Fruit Cake • Summer Fruit Cake

Salt-Preserved Citrus --
“Salt-preserved fruits are a centuries-old tradition in many parts of the world. I use these anywhere I’d add salt-–in marinades, on vegetables, in dips, soups, salads, rice or grain dishes.”
Salt-Preserved Meyer Lemon • Salt-Preserved Rangpur Lime

Pickled Fruits & Relish --
“A new kind of savory and sweet condiment to enjoy with main course meats, cheese, or on ice cream.”
Black Grapes in Pinot Noir • Green Grapes in Chardonnay • Dark Cherries in Merlot • Cranberry Raspberry Relish

Robert Lambert

When asked why he has chosen to make the particular things he does, Robert Lambert explains very simply, “I’m applying my history and my capabilities to California ingredients.”

His history is a fascinating story of both departure and return. Summers during his childhood were spent at the Northern Wisconsin farm of his grandparents, John and Florrie Follstad. Florrie is clearly the inspiration for Robert’s work, and he wrote eloquently about her and other family history in his book, “Journey Home.”

“Though cleaning and laundry were approached with a grudging vengeance, she truly loved to cook, so tending the garden was the toll for that pleasure. But after that garden work was done, she’d picked and prepped food for dinner and put the roast in the oven, Florrie would turn to her other great love—her flowers.”

Her legacy has become evident in two of her grandchildren: Robert and his younger brother Jim, who now lives on the Follstad farm and has lovingly restored the orchards and flowerbeds. Robert, who first made berry jams at the farm and still returns for a month every August, fulfils the other of Florrie’s great passions—cooking.

When Robert first left Wisconsin for California in 1972, his brother quipped, “It was pretty clear you weren’t cut out for country living.” But after 5 years in Los Angeles, Robert and his partner moved north to western Marin County. ”For the first time, I planted my own garden,” he recollects. “Under the increasingly insistent pull of my past, I began to teach myself to cook.”

The first thing Robert wanted to make was his grandmother’s Indian Relish. “The scent of the odd yet somehow logical balance of 12 apples, 12 tomatoes, 9 onions and the spices bobbing in their cheesecloth bag evoked a revelation of deep warmth and comfort.”

Soon Robert was involved in food professionally, first as a pastry chef, then caterer, stylist and writer at the dawn of the California food revolution in the 1970s. The Indian Relish became a sensation, served with cold meats on the lavish buffets of one of San Francisco’s top caterers. “Grandma would have been proud of the way the opera crowd worked their way through her relish, and then her pickles and jelly, her cookies and cakes.”

Robert has since developed his sauces, fruitcakes, syrups, salt-preserved citrus and pickled fruits to evoke and honor both his roots in rural Wisconsin and his adopted home in California.

“Most important to me are the friends I have found with whom I share the true spirit of family—all of them great storytellers, gardeners and cooks. Over the years, I have come to realize that all my greatest pleasures and rewards derive from having known the peculiar mix of poverty and luxury at my grandparents’ farm during my childhood.”

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