Posted by Jen Maiser, June 23, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Sometimes, it takes being away from my hometown farmers market for a week or two to really appreciate the turn in season.
I spent last week in Portland and visited the PSU Farmers Market, one of my favorite markets in the country. The PSU market was full of piles of porcini mushrooms, rhubarb and berries. The market vibe in Portland is like no other—a combination of completely relaxed mixed with a serious foodie vibe. I browsed through the market eating a Sol Pops paleta: cucumber, chile and lime-flavored.
Returning to San Francisco this week, I noticed that our market had switched from spring into early summer. Gone are most signs of spring, replaced with an abundance of early summer fruit.
I was most excited to find figs at the market. The figs were available from Knoll Farms, a farm in Brentwood that is about 60 miles from the market.
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Posted by Jen Maiser, May 13, 2008 at 11:15 AM
One of the joys of spring in San Francisco is the many types of greens that are available. In addition to regular greens like spinach, arugula, and romaine, the farmers' market is a terrific place to find greens that are not quite so common.
As much as I love spring peas, I am horribly selective about them. I taste pea after pea and then eventually settle on a few pounds per season that I deem sweet enough without the telltale starch that proves it was not picked that morning.
Luckily, pea greens are available from several local farmers, and they satisfy that sweet pea flavor in the form of a green that can be eaten raw or sautéed. My dinner tonight will be consisting of roasted chicken with a side of pea greens sautéed with green garlic, peanut oil and soy sauce.
Another green that is becoming more common in our market is fava greens, which can be treated much in the same way. Walking through the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market this weekend, I also spied beet greens and even radish greens, which make a delicious spicy pesto.
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Posted by Jen Maiser, May 1, 2008 at 2:15 PM
"Spring is so fleeting."
I thought this to myself this weekend as I came back from the San Rafael Farmers' Market. I live in San Francisco, so let's be honest: it's not like I just survived through a long, hard winter. Not as long and hard as some of you have. Through the shortest days, we still have lettuces and citrus, year-round markets, and quite a variety of fruits and vegetables. But even the heartiest locavores among us get a little weary of butternut squash and stored apples and canned tomatoes.
Enter spring.
The first signs of spring came about a month ago with the grand entrance of Delta asparagus from the Sacramento area. And now, we are in the midst of spring abundance complete with fava beans, artichokes, spring lettuces and strawberries. There is something about springtime to me that is extra special.
While we see the arrival of some crops that will stick around for many months—strawberries, for instance—many last just mere weeks. Spring is a series of short bursts of flavor. Miss a couple of weeks at the market, and entire crops will have passed you by.
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Posted by Emily Koh, April 18, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Food critics, such as Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle, are noticing that more restaurants are tacking on a surcharge to diners' final tabs to cover extra costs imposed by new programs that make all San Francisco businesses pay into a fund for universal healthcare.
People understand what the prices were and instead of raising them, adding a service charge simply points out what's going on. [...] I would think that at some point in the near future, those will go away and the restaurants will simply reflect the increase in the cost of each item on the menu.
[...] However, I understand the restaurants' dilemma. They want to provide benefits for employees, but they also want to remain competitive, and they want customers to know why it's more expensive to eat in San Francisco than it is in other parts of the Bay Area.
It's a delicate position for restaurants to be in. Epic Roasthouse, for example, has come under fire for adding on a 4 percent service charge to cover employees' health benefits. Trattoria Delfina, on the other hand, charges a $1.25 coperto per guest, explaining the reasons in a letter attached to the menu. Would you be willing to pay up willingly—or grudgingly? Or should restaurants just raise the prices of their dishes instead?
"Is San Francisco ready to embrace technique-based cooking?" the blog Gastronomie asks. "Ours has long been a culture of ingredient-driven food, and with good reason—just stop in at any farmers' market and you can see why. But in that process, we've effectively denied our restaurant kitchens the opportunity to develop and cultivate the use of creative techniques, styles, and flavors."
Posted by Harold Check, November 12, 2007 at 5:00 PM
It's that time of year again—casks of Beaujolais Nouveau are wending their way towards eager drinkers. Fans of the youthful French vintage might want to check out a new book on the subject, I'll Drink to That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World's Most Popular Wine.
Author Rudolph Chelminski will be in Bay Area today and tomorrow, signing copies and discussing the upcoming release.
Monday, November 12, 7 p.m.
What: Talk and wine-tasting
Where: Rakestraw, 409 Railroad Avenue, Danville CA 94526 (map)
Tuesday, November 13th, 7:30 pm
What: Reading and book signing
Where: Books Inc., 2215 Chestnut Street, San Francisco CA 94123 (map)
Next Sunday, November 11, FIERI hosts The Boss of the Sauce Competition in San Francisco. It's the nation's largest tomato based pasta sauce competition. 31 restaurants from throughout the Bay Area are participating, and 20 food vendors will offer tastings of olive oil, wine, cheese, breads, etc. A $20 donation gets you in the door. Donations are tax deductible, benefiting the San Francisco Food Bank and FIERI (an Italian non-profit for students and young-adults interested in preserving Italian-American culture).
Posted by Emily Stone, October 23, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Web-based food reporting outlet TasteTV is in the chocolate show business. Its first San Francisco Chocolate Salon over the summer awarded gold medals to chocolatiers such as L'Artisan du Chocolat, Poco Dolce, and Lillie Belle Farms, as well as chocolate-makers like Amano and Divine. (I'm happy with that lineup, but, then, I was one of the judges). The second TasteTV-sponsored event in San Francisco (called a "Single's Chocolate Salon") followed so quickly on the heels of the first that we missed it completely (it was last week).
Luckily, TasteTV has a couple more West Coast events planned. In addition to a Los Angeles Chocolate Salon planned for December, TasteTV is hosting a kinky Halloween event called the Dark Dining Dinner Party (I'm not really sure how it works, but the website says something about 9 1/2 Weeks-style blindfolds).
Emily Stone, a food writer and proprietor of Chocolate in Context, is a chocolate enthusiast, itinerant traveler, and a lover of literature who lives in Pittsburgh.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 27, 2007 at 3:25 PM
The folks behind New York's restaurant-obsessed blog Eater have planted a flag in San Francisco with Eater SF:
It's taken us a while a to get here, in part because, we'll be frank, San Francisco is a serious place when it comes to restaurants. We don't half-ass the eating here, so we didn't want to half-ass Eater either. (So, for those that have been waiting, we thank you for your patience.)
The site's editor is Paolo Lucchesi, who, it seems until recently, served as editor of Menupages SF. Eater SF follows the debut earlier this year of Eater LA.
Good luck, break a leg, and bon appétit!
Posted by Alaina Browne, September 24, 2007 at 4:55 PM
Google cafeterias are legendary for offering an orgy of delicious, local, organic, free-for-employees eats. But did you know that another Bay Area–based tech-oriented company, Wired magazine, has been serving local, organically grown food since 1997? For the past ten years Wired chef Phil Ferrato has been cooking breakfast and lunch for the magazine employees, which costs them $2 for breakfast (on Fridays it includes Fatted Calf bacon!) and $4 for lunch. Read all the delicious details on the Ethicurean.
Posted by Alaina Browne, September 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Bay area farmers and farmers' market burnout after two major departures from the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, Terra Firma and Andy Griffin and Julia Wiley of Mariquita.
While these departures may just be part of the regular business life cycle, farmers' markets are becoming more competitive marketplaces with more farmers offering the same goods, as well as a diluted market, thanks to the proliferation of so many farmers' markets. The question is, how does the current farmers' market business model scale, if at all? Some farmers are adapting by shifting more of their business to a CSA model, while others are branching out into unique crops.
Posted by Ed Levine, September 11, 2007 at 6:30 PM
I woke up Sunday morning thinking I was going to go to the Farm Aid concert and feed, but I went to Serious Eats world headquarters instead and cleaned my desk. I wanted to see what kind of local, family, farm-oriented food they had, and I really wanted to see the Allman Brothers Band, who I hadn't seen since the Watkins Glen rock festival in 1973.
But Kim Severson went and reported that Alice Waters took offense at the corporate nature of the food sponsors. Companies like Horizon Organic and Clif Bar apparently paid sponsorship fees to be able to sell their products at Farm Aid.
What is Alice's remedy for all this Farm Aid–sanctioned corporate food?
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Posted by Harold Check, August 6, 2007 at 11:45 AM
Two of San Francisco's glossy local magazines, 7x7 and San Francisco, published their food issues this month, and you'll find plenty of culinary spots to try (or rediscover) among the pages.
San Francisco offers a trio of diversions: Writer Josh Sens describes the most sublime tastes he's experienced in the past year. Then, a more dire piece on how new San Francisco legislation is making the restaurant business harder than ever.
Finally, you'll find the obligatory reader picks roster, which runs down the top three selections in traditional categories such as "Best restaurant," "Best new restaurant," "Best cheap restaurant," as well as only-in-California "Best eco-friendly restaurant" and only in 2007 "Best white-linen hamburger." The picks look solid, judging from what I know, what I've heard, and the general buzz around town. Perhaps a little bit of a surprise stand-out, tiny Mission eatery Maverick won mentions in both the "Best weekend brunch" and "Best restaurant" categories. Must be the fried chicken.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 1, 2007 at 7:30 PM
A head-to-tail dinner thrown at San Francisco's Incanto by chef Chris Cosentino was documented in glorious multimedia detail on Hungry Magazine by Michael Harlan Turkell. The children of Fergus Henderson (the original head-to-tail chef) are popping up at restaurants all over Europe and the U.S., and, from our vantage point, that is indeed a good thing.
Posted by Harold Check, July 31, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Chicago, which is certainly a hotbed of great cuisine these days, has been tapped as the next locale to host Bravo's culinary cookoff. Unfortunately, the press release hit our inbox a couple days late to let you know about this past weekend's open casting at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Still, if you think what you've got to be a "cheftestant" and want to brave the Top Chef pressure cooker, you can still send in a tape or show up at the open casting calls in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Just remember, the weather in Chicago during taping is unlikely to resemble Miami's balmy temps. It's gonna be a whole lot chillier when you step out of the Top Chef hot tub. After the jump, audition times and locations.
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