On Tuesday’s regular visit with Jeffrey Callison on Capital Public Radio’s “Insight,” we discussed this week’s unveiling of the arena financing deal, the long-awaited passage of the backyard chicken ordinance and the opening of a new gelato shop in Midtown. The highly anticipated report by Mayor Kevin Johnson’s Think Big Sacramento committee should give Sacramentans a better idea of possibilities for financing the entertainment and sports complex the mayor has been pursuing for more than a year. It will be unveiled at a luncheon at the Sacramento Press Club on Thursday, and we will be there. Meanwhile, here’s our most recent story on the subject.  On a much less grand scale, after two ye

For weeks, a sign saying “so close you can almost taste it” hung in the window of the storefront vacated by Le Petit Paris last year, and on Tuesday, Sacramentans got their chance to go in and sample authentic Italian gelato in Midtown when Devine Gelateria & Cafe opened. “The opening went really well,” owner Elizabeth McCleary said Wednesday morning as she prepared to make gelato and sorbetto from scratch for the upcoming day. Originally planning to close at 8 p.m. on the opening day, there was a line of people as late as 7:45 p.m., and McCleary said she might adjust her hours to stay open another hour if the trend continues. Flavors include roasted almond, pistachio, dulce de leche, b

An East Sacramento couple will open an Italian cafe specializing in handmade gelato and sorbetto in Midtown this summer. Elizabeth and Brian McCleary decided to open Devine Gelateria & Cafe after she spent a month in Italy learning how to make the icy Italian confections. Elizabeth McCleary will operate the gelateria ("je LOT uhria") at 1221 19th St., where a Parisian boutique and cafe called Le Petit Paris closed last fall. McCleary, who is part Italian, went through a four-level course to become a gelato maker at Carpigiani Gelato University near Bologna. She also spent a week working at the school's gelateria to get some real-life experience. While there, an ABC TV crew interviewed h

I love to eat out. I mean, I love to eat in too, but I really love to eat out. When I worked in the restaurant industry, in those heady woebegone days of the mid-aughts, I used to go out to eat four or five nights a week. These days, I have less disposable income, so I rarely get a chance to indulge myself in such a manner.  When I found out about The Downtown Sacramento Partnership's "Dine Downtown Restaurant Week," I leapt at the chance to review one of the participating restaurants’ prix-fixe offerings. I was given a 6 p.m. Tuesday reservation for two (I would be joined by my lovely girlfriend Jess) at Dawson's, a classic American chophouse found in the lobby of the Downtown Hyatt.

In the hot Sacramento summer, knowing how to make ice cream may come in handy when trying to cool off. Thankfully, that’s exactly what was on the agenda for Ginger Elizabeth Hahn’s summer class last Saturday. Thirty-five students gathered at Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates — Hahn’s boutique — which offers classes for $35 per person. The class was located at the 1818 L St. Lofts penthouse kitchen across the street. Hahn, a chocolatier, taught two sold-out classes that day. She first told the class of her training, which includes the Culinary Institute of America in New York. She has worked with world-renowned chocolatiers such as Jacques Torres and pastry chef En-Ming Hsu and had the chance

Sacramento's Italian community is known to produce gourmet food, but there's much more to the community than Biba, Sofia's and Hot Italian. With this weekend's Festa Italian opening Saturday and running through Sunday at The Croatian Culture Center, we take a look back at the role Italian immigrants and their descendants played in Sacramento's history. Italian Americans have a long history in the Sacramento area. Agriculture and food processing are just some of the many successes of Italian Americans who settled in the area in the early 1850s, but their successes are hardly limited to that. Early Italian Americans Many of the earliest Gold Rush settlers who migrated in the "Mother Lode