So, about two months ago, SF foodie bloggers were a-twitter with the 7X7 article "The Big SF-Eat: 100 Things to Try Before You Die", and, right about now, I finally decided to get my ass in gear and mark off (or rather bolded in this case) the things among the 100 that I had eaten coupled with my often complimentary but sometimes snarky commentary. From here on, I'm going to write intermittent blog entries cataloging the dishes I do try but hadn't tried when this article came out, two of which have already occured...so look for those.

1. Roast chicken and bread salad at Zuni

2. Coffee-rubbed pork shoulder at Range

3. Carnitas taco at La Taqueria

4. Spicy crab and grits at the Front Porch

5. Chasu ramen at Katana-Ya

6. Burger with fries at Slow Club

7. Shaking beef at the Slanted Door

8. Morning bun at Tartine Bakery

9. Tofu soup with kimchi at My Tofu House

10. Baja-style fish tacos at Nick’s Crispy Tacos

11. Pork sugo with pappardelle at Delfina

12. Salt-and-pepper squid at Yuet Lee

13. Soup dumplings at Shanghai House

14. Beef brisket at Memphis Minnie’s

15. Oysters on the half shell at Swan Oyster Depot

16. Katsu curry from Muracci’s Japanese Curry & Grill

17. Tea-leaf salad at Burma Superstar YUMZZZZ!! (always my fav, even if Willi doesn't approve)

18. Salumi misti plate at Perbacco

19. Tuna tartare at Michael Mina

20. Chicken pot pie at Liberty Café

21. Pizza margherita at Pizzeria Delfina

22. Vietnamese roasted pork sandwich at Saigon Sandwich

23. Beer sausage with sauerkraut and grilled onions at Rosamunde Sausage Grill Without the onions and the sauerkraut, me no likey those things...

24. Blue Bell Bitter from the cask at Magnolia Pub

25. Loaf of bread straight out of the oven at Tartine (bonus: sliced while still warm and slathered with Brillat- Savarin cheese from Bi-Rite, down the block) Thank you Katie of kitchensidecar fame

26. A classic gin martini at Bourbon & Branch Maybe I went here to early in the game, but, on my first visit, I found this place snooty and their drinks to sweet, so have never returned.

27. Papaya salad with salty crab at Sai Jai Thai

28. A Gibraltar at Blue Bottle Café I'm actually drinking Blue Bottle french press, as I write...

29. Spaetzle at Suppenküche

30. Laughing Buddha cocktail at Cantina

31. Pan con chocolate with sea salt and olive oil at Laïola

32. Pupusas at Balompie Café #3

33. Prime rib at House of Prime Rib

34. Yellowtail collar at Oyaji

35. Salted-caramel ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery This was my H-Ween costume, circa 2007, for realz, son.

36. Dry-fried chicken wings at San Tung

37. Rotisserie chicken at Limón Rotisserie

38. French fries at Hayes Street Grill

39. Pierna Enchilada torta at La Torta Gorda

40. Cheeseburger at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher

41. Pho ga at Turtle Tower

42. Fried-shrimp po’boy at Brenda’s French Soul Food

43. Mint julep at Alembic (Just a hop skip and a jump from my apt, this place has some of the tastiest cocktails in the city and is one of those SF endroits you bring visitors to show off that SF is indeed worth the hype.)

44. Cannelé at Boulangerie Bay Bread

45. Galapagos cocktail at Absinthe

46. Chips and salsa at Papalote

47. Ceviche at La Mar Cebichería Peruana

48. Angels on horseback at Anchor & Hope

49. Ginger snaps at Miette

50. Giant pretzel with mustard at The Monk’s Kettle

51. Maccaronara with ricotta salata at A16

52. Fried brussels sprouts at SPQR

53. Garlic soup at Piperade

54. Spiced-chocolate doughnut at Dynamo Donut with a Four Barrel coffee

55. Milk-roasted pork at L’Osteria del Forno

56. Caponatina with burrata at Beretta

57. Goat stew at Kokkari Estiatorio

58. Absinthe daiquiri at Jardinière

59. Huarache with cactus salad at El Huarache Loco (Saturdays at the Alemany farmers market)

60. The Brass Monkey at Little Star Pizza (I just don't get the hype around Little Star...thick crust? Please. Go to Delfina. God.

61. Crab soufflé at Café Jacqueline I would say my most favorite is the chocolate souffle...light and fluffy, chocolaty goodness...now that is something special!

62. Shrimp-and-chive dumplings at Ton Kiang

63. Meatballs with grapes at Aziza

64. Paper masala dosa at Dosa I don't get the hype nor the reason for the long wait about/at this place

65. Crispy eggplant at Jai Yun

66. Pig parts at Incanto Does Bocalone count?

67. Sand dabs at Tadich Grill

68. Irish coffee at the Buena Vista Cafe

69. Licorice parfait at South

70. Omakase menu at Sebo

71. A Fernet at R Bar

72. Arancini at Ducca

73. Popovers with strawberry butterat the Rotunda

74. Corned-beef sandwich with Gruyère at the Sentinel

75. Fried green beans at Coco500 I heart Peter Duyan

76. Chicken hash at Ella’s

77. Eggs benedict on the back patio at Zazie Um, if not, I challenge your SF foodie-hood.

78. Chilaquiles with a fried egg at Pastores

79. Onion strings at Alfred’s Steakhouse

80. Apple fritter at Bob’s Donuts

81. Chicken curry at Punjab Kabab House

82. Fried chickpeas at Piqueo’s

83. Sweet-potato fries with banana catsup at Poleng Lounge

84. A margarita at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant

85. Pulled-pork sandwich at Roadside BBQ

86. A cheese slice at Arinell Pizza; I mean, who hasn't?

87. Fresh spring rolls at Out the Door

88. Buckwheat crepe and a French cider at Ti Couz The only crepe in SF worth it's weight in flour

89. Lamb schawerma at Truly Mediterranean

90. Slow-cooked egg at Coi

91. Albondigas soup at Mijita

92. Bacon-wrapped hot dog from a cart in the Mission (preferably when you’re drunk)

93. Seven courses of beef at Pagolac

94. Mango with chile, lemon and salt at Doña Tere’s cart (At the corner of 21 and Treat Streets, no phone)

95. 3 a.m. bowl of caldo verde soup at Grubstake

96. Baby-coconut ice cream from Mitchell’s

97. Sesame balls at Yank Sing

98. Basil gimlet at Rye

99. Clam chowder at Hog Island Oyster Co. I don't eat Clam Chowder outside of New England.

100. Cheese course at Gary Danko

VICTORY!!!! (garden)

So, as of now, this might not be news to everyone, but I wanted to take a brief moment to acknowledge Michelle Obama's breaking ground on the White House Victory Garden, or the White House vegetable garden last Friday, March 20. It was a pretty exciting moment for the Food Movement as we were not only getting a victory garden on the White House lawn, or as close as we're going to get, but it seems we finally have an administration that is in support of reforming our food system. From Tom Vilsack proposing cuts in corn susidies as well breaking ground last month on the the people's garden to the appointment of Kathleen Merrigan, a long supporter of reform of our food system, as the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, it seems, a food revolution is indeed in the air, as the New York Times apply said last weekend.

In the New York Times article Michael Pollan is quoted as saying that the food movement might not be ready to go "prime time". While I do agree, that it seems that in only a few short months, a movement that was once seen, by both itself and the nation, as an underground constituency is taking the hot seat. I would like to remind Pollan, however, that books such as his very own Omnivore's Dilema have educated Americans about what is wrong with our food system, and with rising energy costs and health problems nationally, I believe our nation is in fact ready to reform. To me, it seems that it not just the food activists that are powering this movement, but rather the government and the people themselves.

Also, the layout of White House vegetable garden is pretty amazing; I was sort of drooling over just the picture.

Alice Waters on 60 Minutes

So, next week my dad is in town, and, as per his suggestion, we're going to Chez Panisse; I couldn't be more excited! I've been once before, about three and half years ago, but after living in California for almost three years (GASP, has it been that long), and know a lot more about Alice's Water's movement as well as having socially met some of the people that work at Chez Panisse, it's going to be a much more special occasion. Over the years, I've also learned a lot about Alice's mission that has made me question some of her dreamy ideals. Is it actually realistic to expect the United States to be fed on natural organic food? While her statement of "Good food is a right, not a privilege" is certainly inspiring, and in some ways true--why doesn't our government subsidize organic permaculture rather than genetically modified corn?--it's a bit unrealistic considering our economic times: People who are loosing their homes, jobs, and life savings aren't really going to care if they are eating cheetos or organic apples, nor, sorry to say, should they. I mean, if my day really sucks, I don't think an organic pink lady apple is going make it all better...maybe some Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby might, but I guess, even that is a bit towards to whole food side of things.

Anyways, this dialogue around Alice Waters is, I'm sure, pretty familiar to us all. 60 minutes, however, recently did a piece on her (I think it aired last week) that did show some changing of opinion about Alice, if not a glossing over of some details--that "San Francisco food stall" was in fact Primevera (local SF provider) at the Slow Food nation "Slow Food Served Fast" event, not a "friend of Alice's" who is always in that location...anyways, the excerpt is interesting, so what, and maybe get a little bit jealous of her fireplace right inside her kitchen--did she just poach/fry that egg in a spoon? WANT.


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What Foraging, Permaculture, and Dumpster Diving have in common

So I realize: I've been very, very bad blogger. I'm sorry. But, I have a good reason.
My job has changed (as in my 9-5 one), as many of you know, and I'm now working on a social networking site for professional chefs and other individuals in the cooking industry, which is called Chef's Blade. I'll write more on it later, but the transition has been a twee bit of worky work, and well, it's exciting, but it's made me a bad food blogger.

But, anyways, back to the task at hand: Foraging.

Forage SF has been organizing the Wild Kitchen, which, so far, has been a mini series of foraged meals; the first one they had was Valentine's Day and the last one they had was this past Saturday. Both were amazing amazing and delicious. Foraged food, boiled down to the essentials, is food that has been gathered from naturally-occurring places instead of, say, farms.

Forage SF is a foraged food co-operative, whose goal is to collect foraged foods both from the urban environment – for example, from fruit trees in backyards and sidewalks – but also from the surrounding Bay Area and distribute it to its members. The foraged food movement has grown out of a desire to challenge our dependence on industrial agriculture and to begin using the foods naturally available to us again. For me, what is most interesting about foraged foods is the dialogue it creates with our agricultural system, not to mention the questions it raises concerning what classifies as “foraged”.

During the first dinner I attended, Forage SF gathered the food from a variety of sources. Some of the greens – such as miner’s lettuce, mustard greens, and wild nettles – were growing naturally in the Presidio while other ingredients, like the acorns used in the acorn ice cream, were foraged by local foragers, such as FeralKevin. All of these ingredients were noticeably fresher and more flavorful than anything from the Ferry Terminal farmer’s markets. Sad. But maybe I should just "shop" at the park at the end of my block?

Personally, the most exciting aspect of these ingredients is that they grow naturally and without the interference of human cultivation. In addition, foraged foods grow sustainably in that they are part of the natural ecosystem already in place; foraging and consuming wild foods is thus part of the ecosystem itself as long as the consumption is not greater than the wild food supply.Herein, however, lies the catch: It is not possible to feed the world’s population on foraged food. Enter: Agriculture.

Currently, most of our food comes from monocultures, in which farms produce one type of crop over large areas of farmland. While agriculture’s use of monoculture has enabled us to feed our ballooning population, it has also led us to eat only a few food types. In addition, monoculture has caused massive crop failures, such as the Irish Potato famine, due to a crop becoming susceptible to a specific pathogen during a growing season. Permaculture, in comparison, seeks to design man-made systems after nature ecological systems. Polyculture, for example, grows multiple crops on the same agricultural space, mimicking plant ecosystems. While foraging wild foods will never be able to feed our large population, it does remind us of the importance of respecting the rules of the natural ecosystem.

Back to the first foraged dinner: The main course of last weekend’s meal was elk, wild boar, and venison. What I find interesting about foraged meat, besides being totally tasty, is the dialogue around foraged meat. For some foragers, foraged meat must be found already dead, while for others, foraged meat is wild game that has been killed by the forager in its natural habitat, the sum total of hunted animals never offsetting the natural balance of the ecosystem. Thankfully, the meat at this dinner was not found dead, as I’m not sure my almost-always stomach of steel could handle the extra “gaminess” (read: bacteria) that could be found in the prior type of foraged meat.

I want to take a bit of a tangent at this point to talk about freeganism, a new food movement that has arisen in New York out of a desire to “forage” for free food within the urban environment. Freegans “reclaim waste” left by the “capitalist society” from dumpsters outside supermarkets and restaurants (also known as Dumpster Diving), as well as forage for wild foods like mushrooms in city parks. The movement is centered in New York City but, with the recession, it has become more and more popular in other urban areas. To me, eating food out of a Dumpster is strange. It’s not something I would ever do; I like to know where my food comes from and diving into a Dumpster for almost expired milk and eggs doesn’t exactly fulfill my desire to know if the chicken and cows producing my food are treated well. Still, freeganism has a core value I do understand: We, as a population, are wasteful and we don’t always take advantage of the foods that are readily and freely available to us.

For me, the foraged food movement, coupled with permaculture and freeganism, teaches a lot of lessons. As I said at the beginning of this article, the world’s population could not be fed entirely on foraged foods. This does not mean, however, that the population shouldn’t be fed partially on these foods. As our food system has become increasingly complex, it appears we have forgotten that we can grow edible plants in our backyards, our fire escapes, and flower boxes and that food sources such as wild mushrooms, greens, nettles, and other edible wild plants grow naturally in our parks and are there for the free taking.

Foraging, permaculture, and feeganism produce very different food but all challenge us to consume the foods that are available to us and not to waste the foods we have. In addition, wild foods as well as foods grown in polyculture are certainly tastier than our average food source.

I find it hard to fathom, however, that freegan food has anything on wild boar.

PS. Was this post worth the wait?

PETA Brands Fish, Sea Kittens

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has attempted to rebrand fish as sea kittens, because kittens are cute and one would never want to eat a kitten (unless you are George Bush). As we overfish our fish and our fish farms become less and less sanitary places, a movement to eat sustainably fished poisson has begun, PETA leading with its sea kitten campaign. But, hold up PETA, kittens don't like water.

Still, PETA's goal to educate fish consumers about the harm their consumption is doing to our underwater friends is well placed. Mark Bittman, in a recent NY Times article, spoke out against how we consume fish. Bittman, always an avid eater of fish and of all things really--considering his NY Times food column and cooking videos--has noticed, as has every person who reads the labels on their fish, that our fish is becoming increasingly raised on farms. As Americans and the world began to increasingly eat fish (global consumption has doubled since 1973, 90 percent of this growth being from developing countries), we also began to over fish the wild populations and had to find a solution to meat the fish consumption demand, which meant farming fish.

This movement to aquaculture, sometimes called the blue revolution, while it superficially stops us from fishing wild fish has us feeding fish with edible food that could be used to feed people; very often, farmed fish are fed smaller foraged, wild fish. What is particularly frustrating about this is that most fish don't convert a high percentage of the food they consume into edible flesh: it takes three kilograms of forage fish to produce one kilogram of farmed salmon, while it take 20 kilograms of forage fish to produce one kilogram of farmed tuna.

There is, however, some "good" aquaculture. China, which accounts for around 70 percent of the world's aquaulture, focuses on herbivorous fish, who consume water plants; this practice, which is often small scale, is not only sustainable but environmentally sound. Industrial aquaculture, on the other hand, is very different. Most fish farms use fish meal, which is made from wild-caught smaller fish, to feed the larger fish; one third of the wold's wild caught fish is reduced to fish meal in addition to a quarter of the wild-caught fish being thrown back, dead, as "bycatch." Considering the inefficiencies of farm raised fish in converting feed mass into human-consumable food mass, using wild-caught fish to raise farmed fish is terribly inefficient. In addition, farm raised fish pollute waters via their fecal waste and degrade the land near to wear they are farmed.


Still, the point is not to stop eating fish all together--sorry PETA, I like it too much and I get grumpy without it. We need to change the fish we eat and the ways we raise fish. Long term, through preservation practices, we can help wild fish populations grow to their original sizes. This means new laws reducing bycatch and regulations on how much fishermen can catch in a certain fishery, a limit which would be a scientifically determined percentage of the harvest. For consumers, this means consuming smaller, more bottom-of-the-food-chain fish, like sardines and anchovies, more frequently, while only consuming more top of the food chain fish, like wild-caught cod and salmon, once a month. Thinking of this another way, we'll be eating tastier wild caught fish while also preserving our ability to eat this fish.

Sorry PETA, your efforts to convince me to stop eating fish by dubbing them sea-kittens has failed, but your heart was in the right place. I'll make sure to only eat wild-caught fish and up my consumption of sardines and anchovies.

Avedano's Meat Market; Local People, Local Food

I first read about Avedano's Meat Market in Meatpaper, issue one, I was not only excited about the local people, local food moto, but also, the feminist in me was incredibly proud that three women were hacking apart cows and bringing us Kobe beef steaks. For about a year, I had had the intention of visiting their meet shop in Bernal Heights and I finally did visit the small shop on Cortland Ave last week. At first, I saw many of the staples of local and humanly raised meets, such as Rosie's Chicken, as well as wild Alaskan salmon (the only type of salmon you want to eat), but then, looking closer in the smaller coolers, I was happy to find chicken and pig feet as well as some animal insides not consumed by the average Safeway shopper.

Also, and probably most importantly, the staff was friendly and knowledgeable. They engaged us in conversation about their store, about the meats they had, and enjoyed making jokes about the over sized, plush t-bone steak pillows/toys they had for sale as well. It was fun and tasty; you should visit.

Happy New Year! (yeah meat)

So, on New Years Eve in New York, I saw this lovely window and thought it was pretty much the best way to bring in the New Year. So, I thought I would share. I was walking with a few friends in the pleasant New Years Eve snow on 52nd street (just west of MoMA) and stopped in my tracks as I saw this beautiful collection of meat in the window of Gallagher's Steakhouse. Gallagher's has been around since 1964 and isbest identified by this signature meat aging room stocked with the best USDA Prime dry aged beef. Yum. Meat. Fucking freezing New Years Eve in New York...must eat more meat to prepare for next year.

Art. Food. Give.

Add to the list of most sought after inauguration events, Alice Waters will be "cooking" a dinner for 80 people on January 19th; the tickets are $500. We all know, however, that Alice doesn't actually cook herself (way to do your research NYT); she just tastes and tells her cooks if it tastes good. In addition, other renowned chefs, who do actually cook themselves, have also agreed to participate in the event and will be cooking dinners for 20-30 people in homes around DC on the same night. In addition, several arts related guests will be in attendance, including Maya Lin.

The event is called Art. Food. Give. and proceeds will benefit D.C. Central Kitchen and Martha's Table, which both operate soup kitchens and help to run FarmFresh Markets, which gave 17,000 pounds of food to emergency food providers during its first year. In addition, in keeping with Water's rhetoric for locally produced foods, the ingredients for the dinners will come from local and sustainable farms. In addition, Alice Waters' organization of this event is significant considering her role in trying to persuade President-elect Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama to plant a victory garden on the White House front lawn. Her role in "cooking" this inaugural dinner indicates her possible role in shaping food and agricultural policy in years to come. Let's hope at least.

Ruminations on Christmas Cookies

So this Christmas, my lovely roommate and I decided to get our bake on just a bit. Our bake on as well as our drink on, evidenced by the Knob Creek in the background of this photo. (Actually that second bit is a joke; I can't drink bourbon with a straight face for the life of me.) Anyways, the five batches of cookies we baked required a disgusting amount of butter, somewhere north of 12 sticks; I'm not going to say exactly how many north as many of the readers of this blog ate the cookies we baked. Sorry for those of you who have hereditary tendencies towards high cholesterol.


The two cookie types I baked were white bark balls and chocolate chip cookies, which would eventually have white chocolate covering and fleur de sel topping respectively. In the above photo, the initial batters are sitting in the fridge to cool down for their respective times.


After the bark ball batter (love the alliteration) had cooled in the fridge for 24 hours, I took the balls out one by one and covered them each with melted white chocolate. I would like to point out at this time the smaller than normal "sheets" of wax paper I used; I realized around 8:45 at night that we didn't have any wax paper left. By 9 I was out the door, only to find that almost every grocery store in Cole Valley/Upper Haight/Ashbury Heights was closed or didn't sell wax paper. As a last resort, I went to the wine shop just off the Carl and Cole intersection, and asked the man behind the counter, "I know this is a long shot, but do you have any wax paper?" To which he responded, "You mean something like this?" as he pulled out the used backs of UPS labels. "Well, yes I responded. But a few more. I'm baking cookies." The wine merchant then proceeded to take the UPS labels off all the wax covered backs he had and said, "I don't care, it's just UPS that's paying for it." Ha. A man after my own heart...and a man that allowed me to finish baking my white bark balls.


And here they are, the finished product! On some of them, I sprinkled little mint crumbles, which made for nice decoration.


And so now, back to my chocolate chip cookies. So after, 72 hours of refrigeration, I took the batter out, made little golf ball sized balls, sprinkled salt atop each ball, and put them into the oven at 350.


And here, my friends, is the glorious results of possibly the most delicious chocolate chip cookies you have ever tasted. For serious. Especially when they were fresh out of the oven. I would like you all to pay note to how the chocolate chips melt into the batter itself. The recipe I used called for dark chocolate disks rather than chocolate chips so the chocolate morsels have a larger surface area and thus exposure to heat so they melt that extra little bit. YUM! And the salt on top makes these by far the most complex (in a good way) chocolate chip cookies I have ever eaten.


My lovely roommate Nikki took a different approach to her baking and baked two types of cookies that were rolled out and cut with cookies cutters as well as a batch of oatmeal, cranberry, white chocolate cookies that I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of. In any event, above is pictured her sugar cookies just about to go into the oven.


Here are her sugar cookies just after they have left the oven and are cooling. Please note the delightful golden brown edges that are evidence of a perfectly cooked sugar cookie.


So every year around Christmas time, there is an onslaught of sweets and other tooth rotting treats, some of which are delicious and some of which (like say fruit cake) are horrible, but in the end, all of it looks good. So after Nikki's and my little adventure in cookie baking, I think the point of Christmas cookies isn't if they actually taste good or not (although, all of ours were amazing, of course) but if they look good.


Case in point.

Tao Cafe does Thanksgiving-stylin' dessert

On Saturday I went to Tao Cafe and enjoyed a pleasant meal with friends. Nothing special, but tasty and across the street from Lone Palm. What was stupendous, however, was the special pumpkin creme brule, served in a pumpkin! This choice of serving vessel was not only pleasant to look at but was also tasty to eat as the creme brule had been baked in the pumpkin thus making the sides of the pumpkin soft enough to eat. The added pumpkin to the already tasty dessert gave each bight an awesome texture and interesting flavor. The coconut ice cream is also a must :)

The Anti-Restaurants, Bay Area Style

In a recent New York Times, I read an article about the underground eating clubs, which I only vaguely knew about before. These "anti-restaurants", as dubbed by the New York Times, work to challenge the way we eat food. The eating club highlighted in the NYT article invited eaters, mostly from Brooklyn, up to a farm town 30 minutes outside of Ithaca, NY for an all day affair that began with butchering a boar at an ungodly pre-brunch hour and ended with a six course meal. Throughout the day, the participants learned how to make pasta, use hydrocolloids to make fluid gels, and improved their knife skills, strengthening the farm to table connection.

When I read this article, I got incredibly excited about the idea of these eating clubs and signed up for the listserve of the Bay Area based Ghetto Gourmet and two Sundays ago I participated in my first underground eating experience. I went with three friends and a tasty bottle of Honig wine to the address we were emailed two days before the event, just to add to the mystic. Each dinner the Ghetto Gourmet does is at a different location, which on one hand adds to the adventure and mystery of it, but on the other stops the organizers from getting in trouble with the food and wine board. Anyways, upon entering a stranger's home and taking our shoes off, we were greated by the host and told to take a seat at oneof the low lying tables around which the other guests were already sitting indian style.

At our table were several other guests already, and we began chatting with one woman from Minneapolis and a 20 year old tween from Westchester, NY along with some other folks. Eventually the food started coming out. The first course was a beet salad with a light vinaigrette. The second and third were a spicy pumpkin broth based soup and a polish chicken dish, respectively and dessert were thin, crepe-like pancakes with rose petal syrup (yes, with rose petals still in the syrup--the chef for the night had picked the petals from his in-laws bush and put them in simple syrup a few weeks before). All were tasty, but truthfully nothing really wowed me.

What was amazing and wonderful though was the random people you meet while sitting at your table. Half way through the meal, the tables were switched up and you were at a table with entirely new people. It was a wonderful experience talking to total strangers about their lives, about how they got to San Francisco and this underground meal, and about the meal itself. What was anti-restaurant about this meal was the deliberate strengthening of the community formed over the meal; at the end of the night, I ended up driving a couple home, along with the three other people I already had in my car.

They Eat Food in London too...

Here is a sampling of my food photographs in London; the food both in London and in Berlin focused a lot on meat, and has made me very happy to be back in my vegetable and fruit friendly San Francisco.
New British cuisine seeks to reinvent traditional British foods (read meat and potatoes) to become something along the lines of haut cuisine intended to rival French Cuisine. Needless to say, um, it doesn't quite rival French Cuisine, but it was better than bangers and mash with a side of mushy peas. Photographed here, is liver (I think) covered in Japanese breadcrumbs.

So this I believe is London's attempt at "healthy" "California-style" nouriture. It was good, but well, not amazing. It sort of felt like beginner vegetarian cuisine. Still, it was nice to see vegetables on the menu :)

One thing that I thought was terribly cool were these wooden "sustainability" spoons, personally dubbed as such. While our corn spoons are nice and might not have a woody taste, our dependability on corn is not exactly the best for the world food economy. So, way to go Europe!

So, this is the top of the tastiest hot chocolate I have had to date. I believe it cost over 5 American dollars, but was well worth it. The top was frothy foam and the bottom consisted of a rich chocolate/milk mixture that still had some of the chalky texture of good chocolate.

Brixton Market dubbed as both the "whole cow market" and the "smelly fish market". Both definitions are true.

Whole cows...with cow hooves in background.

These pretty fish weren't the smelliest, but sure were lovely to look at...

Dried catfish carcasses. There were three types of dried catfish, each used as different spices and these did smell a bit fowl.

One of my most favorite fall plants is squash, specifically butternut squash. Here is a photo of a meal of butternut squash and mushroom pasta I made for my friends Phil and Tamara.

These are Cornish Pastries. They are quite the tasty buggers, but were initially designed for mine workers rather than fancy London-ites. The crust was intended for mine workers to hold onto the pastry as they ate down, the pastry containing all the parts of a complete meal, from vegetables and potatoes to meat at the bottom. At the end, they threw out the crust. Today, the crust is the best part :)

Dim Sum, London style! (sorry, SF is till better...)


Beautiful cupcakes in Covent Garden.

A surprise farmer's market in Central London...

A funny little sign that I thought was good to end this posting on...

Berlin Essen! (Berlin food!)

Writing from London (writing that sort of makes me sound like a slightly fabulous world traveller...) after having spent the last five days in Berlin. I had an amazing time in Germany and have so many stories and photos to share, but, before I get to those, I thought I would quickly post a survey of photos of the food I ate while in Berlin. There were some amazing markets, tasty restaurants, and lovely meals shared with new friends. So, here is just a sampling:

Bulk olive oil AND liquor; take that Rainbow Grocery!

First night in Berlin and feeling a little nostalgic for San Francisco, so I went to Dolores for a buritto.

While note quite a burrito from El Feralido, it was tasty in its own right. Also, please note that I was reading "Tale of the City" while eating my meal. ha ha.

Amazing mushrooms at the Wednesday farmer's market.

Big, juicy raspberries...2 euros a box! damn. Take that Ferry Terminal Market.

Really delicious pasta with truffles and saffron; first full meal with my Israeli friends Matan and Noa!

Tasty souffle with mango sauce...

Turkish Market; swoon!

They even clip off the thorns for you!

prickly pears....

Grape leaves, not wrapped over rice and cheese...

There was an impressive selection of fish across the market...

Feta never looked so good...I also bought some amazing, clear, yes clear, honey that will go os so very tastily with Bodega Bay feta upon return to the Bay.

Kepern means caper, and yes, they are huge.

Dragon fruit was 2 euros for 2; at Rainbow it's $20 for on. Dear god. I wish I could take fruit across international boarders outside the EU.

Before.

After.