About 16 years ago, right before I began cooking professionally, I met with a chef who gave me some advice about the path I was about to take. She said I had two choices: culinary school or just get into kitchens and learn from the bottom up. Behind curtain number two was a short list of all the magazines I should subscribe to, to amend my on-the-job learning in lieu of paying an establishment to teach me everything I needed to know.

Gourmet magazine was number one on that list. I promptly subscribed and read every issue cover to cover until I could no longer. I let my subscription run out in the late 90's. Gourmet stood still, was getting dusty and needed a breath of modern air.

In stepped Ruth Reichl, in the spring of 1999. Some say she ruined the magazine and the letters section for a number of months stated this angrily from innumerable longtime readers, many of whom stopped buying and reading Gourmet then and there.

But I happily picked it in the summer of '99 and haven't looked back since. I consider Gourmet magazine required reading for myself and anyone who works for me. Whether it be for thoughtful articles, controversial viewpoints, industry insider dish, lively photography, food travel-logs, or Ms. Reichl's editor page, I love Gourmet like never before.

And so when I learned that Gourmet.com was launching this week, I could barely wait! I'm sure I speak for many when I say that keeping up with media is overwhelming. Hearing about a new online community or an easier way to read a newspaper can feel like bad news because it means I might not have time for something else I barely have time to do.

But this is really good news. Because it means if you don't have access to Gourmet's printed pages, you can now see and read all there is if you have access to the Internet. Plus, for those of us without unlimited TV channels, there's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie. From Gourmet.com:

"With the breadth of international travel combined with a passion for food, Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie delivers a unique cultural look at the world, food first. Each episode dives into the diverse realm of the world's greatest cuisine, from New Zealand's purest honey to Italy's famous Parmigiano-Reggiano. Infused with 'green' elements, the delicious series reveals examples of sustainable farming and fishing, as well as new efforts to cultivate organic dairy, meat, and plant products."

With just a few minutes to spare this evening I caught the ineffable Marco Pierre White cooking Dorade (fish), "Jamaican-style," an Italian chef named Fabio Trabocchi reminded me how Nepotella could be used in the savory kitchen, (my favorite way to use Nepotella is to make "mint" chocolate chip ice cream), and I watched Sam Mason make desserts with beets and mustard.

Having Gourmet magazine online means I can now link to articles I loved reading, food reporting that makes me think, not just salivate. It means I can recycle piling magazines sooner.

Welcome Gourmet.com! Here here for dynamic reporting, envelope-pushing, well-researched, pavement-pounding food journalism!

Have you been yet? Thoughts?

Labels: gourmet.com, magazines, print media, shuna lydon, television

Writing about food and baking and cooking means celebrating joy. But there are many whose bodies and minds fight for and with daily sustenance. Whether it be because of one's class or struggles with weight, food can often be seen as the enemy. For an alcoholic whose disease is sparked into action by alcohol, becoming abstinent does not mean death, as it would be with food for a person with an eating disorder. Eating is something we all have to do to live, no matter what our circumstance.

A number of years ago I was met with the challenge of cooking for someone undergoing intensive rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. Chemotherapy is an umbrella name for hundreds, if not thousands, of combinations of specific cell-killing drugs used to attack various cancers. Every regimen, every specific "cocktail" of chemo, produces a whole slew of side-effects which affect people differently. Depending on any number of factors concerning the disease and its host, the specified chemotherapy treatment varies.

I did not consult books when I began cooking for my friend. I consulted her because I knew what she had liked before and we worked together to make food she could eat, had an appetite for, and could keep down. Because chemotherapy is poisonous and can kill the person before eradicating the disease, it is given in rounds with various lengths of time between them. It has a cumulative effect and one can only continue the regimen if one recovers enough in that time to do it again. Because the person undergoing treatment gets weaker as time goes on, and has no idea how the side-effects will progress, it's important to go with the flow and try a number of different foods prepared all sorts of ways to see what hits the mark.

There were a few guidelines I was following. Strong flavors such as garlic and onions, and all spicy additions were nixed, although onions cooked down very slowly until dark and caramelized became sweet enough to eat. Salt and pepper were omitted completely over time. Acidity in all forms was also left out. That meant no fruit, vinegar, black tea or coffee. Although sometimes very ripe fruit could be handled in small doses. Sugary sweetness went out the door although not-so-sweet baked goods could be enjoyed if their textures were easy to chew and swallow. Ginger was helpful in all forms because it is has anti-nausea properties, as does watermelon, which was news to me. Also watermelon is mostly water so it helped with hydration.

If the person you are caring for is open to using marijuana to stimulate hunger or as an antiemetic (a drug that prevents or reduces nausea and vomiting), there are a number of ways a person can ingest it. Doctor prescribed, or otherwise. Locally there a few people licensed to use marijuana in foods they make for people with cancer. For obvious legal reasons I cannot link to them but I found one such person and he made baked goods and confections easily ingestible by my friend.

My friend and I joked that it was with very bland foods she took most pleasure. A number of times internal mouth sores flared up and were so painful they made it impossible for her to want to eat anything, although cool, bland, soft foods helped soothe her. I cooked rice, vegetables, chicken, tofu in almost no oils or seasonings. Soup was always around. I made custards and brought fruit still warm from the farmers' markets. Plain yogurt garnished a lot of plates.

Cooking and baking for someone with a life-threatening illness changed my perspective about food and my profession forever. Until daily sustenance is unattainable or the enemy, it's impossible to understand what powers a simple meal holds. It is an honor to care for someone dying in this way because food is life and to give a person in constant pain one small sensual pleasure is an immeasurable gift and grace.

More information can be found here at The Cancer Project.

Labels: cancer, illness, perspective, restorative cooking, shuna lydon

Sometimes it seems if you're not up on the latest, newest restaurant, or are lagging behind while chasing San Francisco's food wordsmiths about what's happening right now, you might miss what's incredible. In the Bay Area you could miss The Dish everyone's talking about if you're not in 30 places on one night. So many restaurants here change their menus daily, and seasonally-- more than any city/ region I've ever cooked in, that it can take years to taste it all, plus there's always another eatery opening-- it makes our heads spin trying to keep them all straight.

Whew! All the head-spinning can blur what's right in front of us: a neighborhood joint, a down-to-earth 50 seat house, or the corner place you pass by every day on your way to work. In these Off-Broadway or Off-Off Broadway stages there are great plates going out every day, every night, year after year. The food is good or great, or it's consistent. The chef is famous or not, and the cooks on the line want to be chefs one day or they continue to collect the paycheck that keeps their family fed.

As a professional cook it's important for me to read and eat and meet new restaurants. But the dishes I crave, the dining rooms I want to have a good conversation in, are rarely those I've eaten at once. Anything can be amazing once. But how does that dish taste month after month, year after year?

Samovar Tea Lounge was going strong at 18th and Sanchez at the edge of The Castro District when I "discovered it" a few years ago. It didn't need me to talk about it's specialness. It's busy morning, noon and evening. People inside are studying, knitting, reading, sipping, recovering, dating, scoping, listening and imbibing. Samovar's food menu is straightforward and small, changing slightly with the seasons. There are breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and high tea offerings. Tea service menus include food and tea in a theme and they are always gracious about letting you order one of the components from these packages with another dish.

My absolute favorite dish is what Samovar calls their egg bowl. Two delicately poached eggs lay next to mounds of flavorful rice and are garnished with the protein of your choice; smoked duck, salmon and tofu are often in rotation, and there's a little ramekin of fresh ginger grated in soy sauce. I'm also a big fan of their house-made scones (some of the best in the Bay Area as far as I'm concerned!), not just because the little bowl of clotted cream for spreading is the real deal.

Of course tea is Samovar's main attraction. From their website,

"Our goal is to create a company that is good for this world. We partner with tea experts and suppliers from small family farms and estates, and local businesses and organizations. Through our service and environment we aim to embody the tea lifestyle and provide a place for our customers to escape, relax, and be healthy."

I know little about tea intellectually. But on a recent visit I drank a Keemun that silenced me. Not being a tea sophisticate I like my black tea with milk. Samovar's staff are well trained, thoroughly knowledgeable and never judgmental. The woman who brought me this tea for which I am not worthy poured hot water into a tiny clear glass dollhouse teapot filled with twiggy leaves and immediately upon filling it poured the barely steeped liquid into a small, handle-less tea cup. She explained that this Keemun was so strong, even a 5 second steep would render the flavor too strong!

I sit here before you to report that this Keemun was not made better by milk. Brew of the gods. Hot liquid like no other. I didn't want to tell you because then there would be less for me. But then I thought you might not believe that Samovar, the place you barely see, the place producing no beeps on your radar screen, was as special as I said, if I did not tell you about this hot elixir, this liquid manna.

At Samovar I have been introduced to two other favorite teas I drink weekly. I go for flavor profiles which list pine, dark, rich, earth, chocolaty, peat, smoky and velvet as possible evocations. If you and I have anything in common, I suggest Pu-erh or Black Velvet.

There's now a second location of Samovar Tea Lounge in the Yerba Buena Gardens. It's located on top of the Martin Luther King Jr. fountain and although encased in glass, this location is as warm an environment as their original. You can buy some of the teas they offer, although when I made an inquiry about the Keemun they said it was too new to the menu to have packaged it yet, and there was no promise that it would be. Samovar's commitment to freshness is amazing and some of the more rare teas will only ever be available if you are drinking them there.

Sometimes I want to go where it's quiet. I enjoy the trust I feel in these places and feel grateful that they continue to survive in San Francisco-- a city not known for it's ease when it comes to owning and operating food businesses. I desire familiar food that's consistently good and sometimes blows my mind. I have a hankering for a little sameness and a dash of surprise.

And when it's time to take a break of trying the latest thing, I hope you'll take cover from the hustle and bustle, or just the fog, and give Samovar a try, even if it's a pot of tea. I can {almost} guarantee your pleasure at doing so.

Labels: bay area, Castro, clotted cream, keemun, Samovar Tea Lounge, san francisco, shuna lydon, tea, Yerba Buena Gardens

While on vacation in Hawaii I did not indulge in one of my addictions, watching food programs on TV. In fact, I watched very little TV at all on my trip. Vacation is my big chance to catch up on my reading. This time around I brought two books I had received review copies of--Best Food Writing 2007 and Service Included. I was thrilled to see that my friend and Bay Area Bites colleague Shuna Fish Lydon was included in the book. Past Bay Area Bites writers to make the cut include both Catherine Nash and Stephanie Lucianovic. The book seems to be equal parts angst and humor with some thoughtful and sentimental pieces thrown In for good measure. It's a good vacation read, and provides an interesting snapshot of the food issues and obsessions of the day. Some of my favorite pieces were Cast Iron Skillet by Andrea King Collier, and A Grandchild of Italy Cracks the Spaghetti Code by Kim Severson.

The other book I read Service Included, is really a gem. It gives us the flipside to Bill Buford's Heat. It's the story of being a waiter at Per Se in New York. Phoebe Damrosch is a fantastic writer with humor, wit and a great sense of irony. She is brutally honest about just about everything, herself included. Throughout the saga of the opening of Per Se in New York are little tidbits about service and how to be a good diner. The book reads like a guilty pleasure. I have even less desire to be a waiter than to be a chef, but to be a fly on the wall is just plain yummy.

Labels: amy sherman, books, catherine nash, shuna lydon, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

As we inch towards the ledge that is 2008 I am taking a lot of time for reflection. I'm thinking about transition and change and how we never know exactly where we'll land and how we'll feel about arriving there, even though we think, with all our planning and list-making and contriving, we can control everything.

This last year brought me back into the fold of an industry I wasn't sure I'd ever fully join again. Almost five years ago someone very close to me was given less than three years to live and I exited Restaurant Kitchens to take care of her, help her die, and then grieve fully. In this grieving period it's been impossible to tell whether I was done with my industry out of default, choice or exhaustion. And I had no idea if I'd ever go back, or if I wanted to.



Restaurant work is not part time work. It takes all of you and then some. It's intimate and physical the way sex and relationships are. It engulfs, and tars and feathers you. It's like your family of origin, cults, gangs and religion. We say you're either on the train or not and after working the line for a period of time it's easy to see why the military and kitchen work are so often compared.

For years I worked morning, noon and night and missed anything and everything important in anyone's life I knew or the world at large. To walk away from My Industry when my friend became terminally ill was no small feat. But I knew. I knew that I could only do this immense piece of life's work once. And then, without any warning, it changed me forever. It changed the cook I was to return to being, if I was to return.

In March my blog Eggbeater will be three years old, and I will be 40. I name the numbers because, in the time-line of this story it means that I began writing in a public forum while my friend was dying. I began writing about myself, being a pastry chef, fruit, teaching and local agriculture when I was not in A Kitchen per se. I was away for a long time, and yet I stayed close by keeping up with professional friendships and writing about the branches of my work. I worked hard to reconcile calling myself a chef and not having anyone's name on my jacket but my own.



In professional cook-speak, if you are not {actively} in a kitchen you are not a cook, or a chef. If there are stoves without your name and sweat on them, you have no business wearing whites or calling yourself a cook. And in turn you have no right writing like you're on the inside if you aren't. We're like punk rockers or OG's--- if you're not in the game, you're posing, full stop. It makes feelings more black & white than grey, and opinions about who deserves what title when are not hidden from audible view.

Those who write about my industry, and are not in it, are barely taken seriously. Sure there's hand shaking and schmoozing and photo shoots in cushy houses, but those people are considered Outsiders and are treated thusly. (We need them to "Become Known," they know it, and so the snake swallows its tail.)



But what does it mean to both hold the title of chef and writer? What does it mean to be both critic and critiqued? What does it mean to be the underdog cook and the despised? Who is allowed to write about the inside? And who can do it justice?

My industry has enjoyed it's day in the sun concerning major media outlets in recent years. We have dozens of cooking slots, reality chef shows, superstar chef darlings, and certain restaurants getting press week after week, month after month, in every magazine-- because they are so well known on TV.

But that's not my reality. And TV, no matter how "real," is edited beyond recognition: airbrushed, liposucked, botoxed, and teeth-whitened to a point of Hollywood psychosis, cannibalistically feeding on itself to survive.

The truth is that the truth still isn't out there. And my industry, like the insider's trade that they are, doesn't mind keeping it that way.

Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

We will happily feed you lies if it sells dinners, or we have no say in the matter because TV has historically been entertainment and we suppose you'll be smart enough to figure that out. Or we will happily let Them feed you lies because the dirty truth of the matter is that the restaurant industry is plagued by contradictions so entrenched, class and gender and racial disparities so vast, environmental crimes so grossly overlooked and gaping holes so wide, we look like a corrupt government with erased histories and disappearing leaders.



Am I allowed to report on the good, the bad and the ugly or should I keep our dirty laundry close? Should I stand back and smile cynically when person after person signs their life away to culinary schools and shiny happy media "chefs" tell them to follow the bouncing red ball as they join in one big sing-along to the tune of the Big Lie about how wonderful and easy being a chef is? Or maybe I should just stand by, keep my head down and shut up when a female cook gets passed by for a promotion or salary raise because of her sex?

Can I make a difference as a chef-writer? When my voice is so small compared to the big stars? What does it mean to straddle a fence separating two historically enemied roles? Can I stay true to both crafts?

I don't have answers to my questions. I can blame the new media-ness of it all. For we are all a part of the Internet's Great Experiment. "Every one's" on the w.w.w. looking, eating, slurping, voraciously consuming, arguing, posing, learning, dishing, mud-slinging, opining, mis-informing and dawdling. The concept is that everyone can have a voice in a forum, and now those historically critiqued can talk back.

I might be naive to think that hearing from real chefs in real kitchens matters but I do. It's a very different experience now working in a restaurant, and then writing about it. Blogging buoys me-- writing down my life is my way of telling you, the you who read and listen and converse, what one real life in a kitchen among kitchens, a cook among cooks, is like. Writing from my heart, and being part of a small community of other chef and cook bloggers, is important because we can be a small movement educating those who want to know the true life of professional cooking, not the made-for-TV version.

You? Do you care where you get your truth from? Does it matter to you if said source has fact-checked, painted a pretty and easy-to-digest picture or done their time on the front lines? Do you think chef-writers are a good or dreadful thing? Do you appreciate a transparent restaurant industry or do you wish it would all stay behind closed doors like it always has?

Labels: chefs, community, cooks, critique, restaurants, shuna lydon

You have until tomorrow, Friday December 21st, to donate to Menu for Hope, and bid on any number of priceless prizes donated by food bloggers all over the world. As you already know, Ms. Pim of Chez Pim has organized this impressive fund raising event for the past four years. This year she's picked The United Nations' World Food Programme, as she did last year, but for 2007 she's made a special request,

"With a special permission from the WFP, the funds raised by Menu for Hope 4 will be earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement - buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there."

In the spirit of supporting local food economy, one of the USA West Coast prizes has been amended as of the afternoon of Wednesday December 19.

(UW17) Dinner for 8 prepared by Brett Emerson
Brett Emerson, owner of the soon to be opened Contigo, is offering dinner made for 8 people in his new Noe Valley home. Wines to be paired and picked by none other than our very own wine blogging superstar, Alder Yarrow of Vinography. And desserts will be made by yours truly, Shuna fish Lydon of Eggbeater. Triple threat, no doubt.

This all-star dinner could be yours for a mere $10!

More USA West Coast prizes can be found here at Rasa Malaysia. But if you're a jet-setting world traveler you may want to bid on a personal tour of the El Bulli kitchen {EU31}, or have lunch with your not-so-secret lover at Alain Passard's 3 Michelin star L'Arpege in Paris one lovely afternoon {EU40}, to name just 2 insanely amazing possibilities!

The prizes are varied and beyond your wildest imagination. Delicious in every regard. Please take a few minutes to head over to First Giving and help us raise a record amount this year. (Last year we raised $60,925.12)

How To?

- To donate, go to First Giving. To specify a specific prize, follow the instructions on the Chez Pim website (scroll down to the instructions and screenshots).

Labels: alder yarrow, bay area, brett emerson, chez pim, local, menu for hope, san francisco, shuna lydon

If you love produce as much as I do you know that living in the East Bay is better than living in San Francisco. I realize I could start a riot here, but I've lived in 3 out of four directions of the peninsula, in various neighborhoods and cities, and no matter where I was, no matter if I was in possession of a drivers license or not, I made it to Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market, and/ or the Berkeley Farmers' Markets, because there was more to see, smell, taste, touch and procure in these markets.

And until I moved to North Berkeley myself, I was a tried and true Berkeley Bowl Trooper, from the old school-- back when it started in the old bowling alley. I still love to get there when I have my list in Excel spreadsheet form and the time is early enough before rush hour clogs the insane parking lot and creates lines worse than LA traffic.

But now I have been seduced by Monterey Market. I used to laugh at its size, comparable to Rainbow Grocery but tiny compared to Berkeley Bowl. But then. But then I found its buried treasure. One day two summers ago I stopped by for a few things and bought an entire flat of the best boysenberries I have ever seen, smelled or tasted! I went home and ate about four baskets, made pie with a few more and froze the rest. Returning just a day or two later I found that I had bought something which would not be back again until the following year... Sad...but also something to look forward to.

You can go to the same place day after day, year after year, and find everything ok, get what you need for the price you like and shrug shoulders at the prospect of change.

Until. Until one day you pick the best looking toad you can find for toad soup and when you get through checkout you realize your bag is exploding with a Prince and your car has been moved closer to the horizon, where a pretty sunset awaits you.

A few days ago is a perfect example. I needed some citrus and butter and cranberries. I like to stock up on cranberries before they disappear so I can whip up a batch of my favorite walnut-cranberry-orange bread, which I love to toast and smother with butter. (It really can be whipped up-- it's a one bowl and wooden spoon recipe!)

I'm in love with citrus and I always look at what's going on. Scratch and sniff is the best way to learn about new citrus. Both blossom and skin will tell you what unique flavor and perfume are awaiting you. While scanning high bins of yellow and green and orange globes my eyes did a double-take on a gnarly looking fruit.

YUZU! Fresh, California grown Yuzu were staring at me. Like a collector at a yard sale discovering a priceless chair, I monitored my breathing and tried not to look around frantically. I bit my tongue when I wanted to jump up and down and yell, "Hey?! Do you see what I see?! Look! It's fresh Yuzu, here, in Berkeley, California, yours for the having!! Can you believe such a thing? It's so wonderful!!!!!"

But instead I kept walking and went back nonchalantly, looking puzzled on the outside and then hunkered in and bought at least 5 pounds.

Yuzu is a fruit I only saw one of once, while living in Napa. A famous chef I knew had smuggled one in from a recent trip to Japan. Like Bergamot, it's an ugly mottled fruit, but it's exquisite perfume and flavor lives in every molecule of its being.

Monterey Market is a cold market, mostly outside and seemingly unkempt. But it's a facade, truly, because you never know what you will find there. Bill Fujimoto buys small and large shipments directly from farmers single and corporate. The back room, unseen by the average consumer, is a carefully organized chaos of fruit and vegetable back-stock/ cases, available to restaurants, chefs and caterers who want to buy direct and avoid (or amend as the case may be) produce companies or farmers' markets.

And if I haven't sold you yet, I beg of you to rent or buy Eat At Bill's, a lovingly made documentary about Monterey Market and its beloved workers. Watch it just to see the massive pumpkins, which get brought in on elephant transport trucks and the joy so many people share about cherry season, and one particular cherry in particular.

When we talk about shopping and eating local we often overlook our markets with rooftops. But Monterey Market, Berkeley Bowl, The Food Mill, Rainbow Grocery, Bi Rite market, Farmer Joe's and so many more in the Bay Area are all about shopping locally. These businesses are still independent, many of them family and/or co-operatively owned. If you can't get to the farmers' market, find your CSA box lacking this week or next month, or just want to see that there are a dozen kinds of sweet potatoes, countless citrus varietals, far out and funky shaped mushrooms, head over to a new market for countless fruit and veggie adventures. They await you in one corner of the bay or the other...

Labels: bay area, berkeley, citrus, Eat At Bill's movie, food businesses, fruit, local, Monterey Market, shuna lydon

I have a radical idea. It's edgy. Cutting edge, perhaps. Or you could say I've fallen off the edge.

Being in the restaurant business means every one I know wants to tell me their latest eating-out stories. They want my ear, they want to run something by me. They whisper me close and want to find out the dirt I might know about so and so. "So," they start by leaning in and looking furtively around, "What was it like working for X?!"

But mostly, people want to tell me about how much the service sucked at their latest eating-out experience. Customers pull me aside, friends and strangers alike, and tell me about a faux pas they witnessed, or experienced.

Because I wear a double-breasted button up white coat for most of the hours during a given day or week, I am now The Expert On All Aspects Of The Restaurant Industry. I'm supposed to offer advice, help, insight, compassion, dishing fuel and maybe I'm even supposed to solve the state of the service industry in North America restaurants.

But what I've come to is something I've felt and known for some time now: being a waiter is one of the hardest positions in a restaurant. It's neck-in-neck with washing dishes. Before my fellow whites clad brethren walk away and label me a traitor, pick up and deftly pocket stones a la Shirley Jackson-style, let me clarify.

A waiter is the liaison between kitchen and diner. She/ he must intuit the tone of a kitchen, its cooks and what moods Chef is in. He/ she answers to a myriad of managers (hopefully, although I've worked in some restaurants that have no one in charge on the floor), needs to be on the good side of who's hosting (oftentimes this can be an alliance worth more money than either one would care to admit or have anyone know) hungry and impatient diners, and on top of it all, waiters must have multi-tasking skills far outweighing those of a juggling, elephant- training, acrobat.

At the end of their shift, if they're not shifty, waitstaff "tip out" bussers, bartenders, hosts, and (sometimes) dishwashers. And still, to this day, some diners don't have enough math skills to figure out percentages translating into the only language which waiters speak fluently: money.

A few years ago, well-spoken NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni went under-ground and became a waiter just to see how hard it was. "... I traded places and swapped perspectives, a critic joining the criticized, to get a taste of what servers go through and what we put them through, of how they see and survive us."

"How they survive us."

An apt line. Which brings me to my radical idea.

Many say that the only way to end America's wars in the Middle East would be to have a mandatory draft. If everyone could feel how war presses down on us all, then maybe we would be a little less clueless and apathetic.
My radical idea is this: I say we should have a mandatory service industry draft. I am the first to admit what a terrible waiter I make. I worked for over a decade behind a counter, tried on being a waiter once or twice, and now, although my position is called Chef, I cater to the needs of people I may never meet face to face. I am their servant, so to speak.

I'm in the pleasure business. In the business of pleasuring people.

And when you've catered to stranger's needs, not because it was fun, but because it was paying your way in the world, your compassion gear shifts and fires on a denser oil, through a different, more varied, set of pistons. Your ability to assess the whole situation, not merely your own, changes. When you wait on people all day who treat you like a servant, like you're stupid for the mere fact of creating their double-decaf-single-shot-soy-mocha latte with extra foam or bagging your croissant or pointing you in the direction of the clear, waterproof band-aids, you tend to become a different customer when it's you looking for the newest gadget at Sur La Table or bagging onions at the farmers' market or ordering your sweater over the phone.

In the United States we don't treat front of house staff like professionals. We assume they're writers and musicians and actors or students saving money for the other thing they'd rather be doing. Diners and restaurant management staff treat them like this, so it would make sense that most waiters do not treat themselves like professionals. If the circle turned in a different direction, imagine what kind of service you'd have!

My inner cook folds her arms angrily and pouts. "Why are you standing up for them? Look how much money they make!" Yes, you'd think a person who takes home 15-30%, working in a business that makes, overall, at the end of all that's said and done, about 3-5%, selling a product made by persons earning one third to one tenth (yes, this is not an exaggeration) what said staff will take home in a year, might want to work a little harder, for you, the diner, and me, the kitchen manager and food creator, but...

maybe we will all remain complacent, lazy and apathetic until our name is called in the:

Mandatory Service Industry Draft.

Labels: crazy, front-of-house, politics of food, radical ideas, restaurants, shuna lydon, waiters

Happy November! Happy cool weather, foggy evenings, cozy couch lounging, flannel sheets, soft scarves, cashmere sweaters, one pot meals, soup and stock simmering in the kitchen, and hot cocoa for breakfast.

People often ask me what the difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate is. I like to think the answer is something akin to the difference between Soul Food and Southern Cookery/ Cuisine. Both are from the American South, but Soul Food is a little more specific.

Hot cocoa and hot chocolate are basically the same animal, but hot chocolate is a mink and the former is more like a very soft cat. Hot chocolate is made with bar chocolate and hot cocoa, with, yes obvious - cocoa. Both can be made with milk, cream or a mixture of both.

Depending on your age, and the particular geography you were standing in when you had your first sip of hot cocoa, means the cocoa your body registered as the correct hot cocoa taste will differ from someone else of another age and of another place.

For the sake of this discussion we will say there are two kinds of cocoa. Natural and European or Dutch Process. Natural cocoa is light in color and DP is dark. For baking, knowing the difference is of utmost importance. But in the case of a drinkable, it more has to do with your taste memory and preference. If you were me, or from New York City, you might have had your hot cocoa epiphany at the now, sadly, closed Rumplemeyer's. Hot cocoa at this venerable restaurant was served in silver teapots. It was rich and aromatic and very hot. You sat in plush pink banquets surrounded by other reverent small people and their adult companions. It was benchmark hot cocoa. I have a feeling it was made with natural cocoa because when I make hot cocoa now it is the cocoa I have the strongest emotional memory reaction to.

Hot chocolate is a rich enterprise. Although you can use milk, bitter/semi-sweet chocolate begs {heavy} cream, and then what you have on your hand is the opinionated view of your expensive chocolate versus how you're going to explain to anyone else why it's ok to drink ganache. We're talking seriously supple, silky and smooth, but at the cost of your arteries, and for me I would rather slather a wide mug of hot cocoa with whipped cream to amend the whole milk.

The most famous hot chocolate of my generation is created by the slightly wicked, darkly humoured Maury Rubin, pastry chef/ baker/ owner of City Bakery in NYC and Los Angeles. He is smart enough to serve it in a thimble-sized portion for reasonable, informed persons, and has a larger portion for those unawares of what lies within. Not only are there no words to describe what Maury's hot chocolate is like, even if I had any, they would disappear under the weight of this brutally rich concoction. Yes, I like it, but I have been known to share the shot size with more than one other person. No joke, yo.

I have a few tricks should you like to take hot cocoa on as a end of year meal amending or replacing project. Years of making beverages, ice cream, cakes, frostings, ganache, truffles and more with cocoa and chocolate have given me insight to a number of cocoa and chocolate personality quirks.

Chocolate and cocoa have little to no flavor when they are cold or frozen. Cocoa's chocolatey-ness can only be achieved if added to warm or hot liquid. If cocoa is added to cold or cool liquid and then heated up, the cocoa will float to the bottom of the pot and burn on the bottom. This scorching will destroy the flavor of the dairy.

Every cocoa is not only different in terms of its manufacturing process, but not one of them is ground to the same particle size. You may think you don't care about such minute details, but 4 teaspoons of one cocoa is not 4 teaspoons of another. If you are making a large batch of hot cocoa, as I have begun to at work in preparation of all the ice skaters in Justin Herman Plaza, measure cocoa by weight. If you have a scale that can be adjusted to grams, do so. Good quality cocoa is strong and a smidge goes a long way.

If you are making hot chocolate, it is best to chop chocolate fine and place in a large, wide mouthed bowl. Heat cream/milk until just boiling and pour over chocolate. Let sit a few minutes and then whisk in tight concentric circles, from the interior, out. Although you can make hot chocolate with milk, you will find that cream or half & half will emulsify with the solid chocolate better. It's never a good idea to cook chocolate right in a saucepan because it burns so easily, but if you want to heat up your mixture again or more, place bowl over a pot of boiling water and whisk until desired consistency. Or a microwave can be you fast friend.

I'm one of those odd ducks who likes a big mug of hot cocoa to be unsweetened or barely sweet. But if you like yours a little sweeter try using brown or raw sugar. The caramel-ly flavor of these sugars backs up the chocolate taste nicely. And lastly, a tiny pinch of kosher salt is a nice finesse.

Because hot cocoa and hot chocolate are made up of just two or three ingredients, making sure your dairy is the best quality is a good idea. Ultra-pasteurized milk and cream can sometimes have stabilizers that read on the tongue as bitter and can interfere with your hot cocoa purr.

This is how I make hot cocoa:
I pour about 2 cups of whole milk into a non-reactive saucepan, sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar in, and then turn flame to low or medium. When milk is hot to the touch I sprinkle in cocoa one teaspoon at a time, whisking constantly, until it tastes right. I continue to whisk for about 5 minutes, but I try not to let it boil.

I don't know about you, but I'm glad it's cold again. I love summer, but as an East Coaster originally, I like autumn to give way to winter, without a 90-degree October in between. Because without a bunch of cold and dreary months I would have a hard time explaining away my hot cocoa for breakfast, lunch and dinner habit.

Labels: beverages, chocolate, dessert, shuna lydon

On Monday, Sens opened to the public. It's located in the old Monte Cristo Cafe space at the tippy-top of a curiously exhilarating spiral staircase at Embarcadero Center 4. It's an odd place for a restaurant, but the cityviews from its windows -- of the Ferry Building, beautifully lit at night, and the Bay Bridge beyond -- are stunning. I hope the location will work for it, rather than against it.

The large interior has the feel of an elegant hunting lodge, with stone walls original to the restaurant, wooden beams, and cocoa brown leather armchairs at every place. Chef Michael Dotson (Evvia Estiatorio, Slow Club, PlumpJack Cafe) has crafted a menu focused on an area of the southern Mediterranean not well represented in San Francisco, traveling from Greece to Turkey to North Africa. According to the press release, Sens will pair "ingredients indigenous to these lands...with locally sourced organic and sustainable produce, meat and fish." The wine list, from General Manager and Sommelier Saeed Amini (Mondavi, Cetrella, Kokkari), includes biodynamic and seasonal selections.

At last week's Friends & Family preview, the menu included things like crispy-fried veal and olive meatballs, braised lamb shank spiced with za'atar, whole roasted sea bass, and cumin pot de creme. Eating there was a full circle moment for me, as I have been following along with Pastry Chef (and Bay Area Bites contributor) Shuna Lydon's (Aziza, Citizen Cake, Bouchon, The French Laundry) pre-opening jitters on eggbeater. Shuna has christened her "fruit and aroma inspired desserts" with intoxicating names like "soft & evocative", and though this is not a review, may I simply say that my heart stopped when I tasted the verbena brown butter on the peaches?

Sens Restaurant
4 Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level
San Francisco
(415) 362-0645
Open for lunch and dinner.

Labels: catherine nash, restaurants, Sens, shuna lydon, Southern Mediterranean

Opening a restaurant in San Francisco is not easy, especially right now, but not for the reasons why it was so difficult in the 90's or five years ago. It can be said, opening a restaurant at all, in any city, is difficult. But because I have cooked professionally in other American cities, have seen a number of my colleagues open restaurants, and have recently begun working for a soon-to-open San Francisco restaurant, I can say that opening a restaurant here is a difficult proposition, even if you have a lot of factors on your side.

Labor: In SF Magazine last month, food editor Jan Newberry spoke to new local labor laws San Francisco is imposing, in an inciting article titled, Is San Francisco Killing Its Restaurants? Although the new labor laws sounds fantastic on paper, they have the capacity to hurt many restaurant employees, mainly back of house employees. For full transparency I will state here that I am, and have maintained, a pro-union status for most of my adult life. The issues are confusing, in part because restaurants are not a necessary establishment the way, let's say, hospitals are. And because I worked for minimum wage for much of my career, I do agree that it should be a living wage.

Culture: It could be said that although restaurants are a luxury business, they do play a major part in distinguishing the landscape of one city from another. As a person who loves to eat out, I can easily name five restaurants in each city I love and they make visiting there far more appealing.


A16 Restaurant. The Line.

Risks: The restaurant business, and the business of opening a restaurant is only for the crazy and the passionate. Who else would open an establishment considered to have the highest risk factor by banks? Who else would pour their life savings into a business that may or may not be liked by the public, or be sunk by one review in the local newspaper? Who else would open a business even if the glass ceiling on profits is less that 7% yearly? {The margins are extremely slim in the restaurant business.}

It can be said that a restaurant owner is a rebel with a cause; opening a business against all odds. Attempting the impossible, confident in the face of harsh realities. A dreamer, in short. Like many other gambles, a restaurant's statistics change city to city, and after New York City, San Francisco has the highest fail-rate in the shortest span of time, than any other city in the United States. What makes a restaurant stick is as much about the fickle public, concerned with hipness above all else, as it is about the actual food being served and by whom, or what neighborhood it's located in and what month of the year it swung open its doors.

Press: In July I spoke on a panel of food bloggers in Chicago as part of BlogHer 07. As the sole professional cook-blogger I had the difficult honor of answering a question from the audience concerning Mario Batali's latest vitrolic comments concerning food bloggers. The funny thing was that, as yet, I had not read his comments on our kind. As Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic has recently pointed out in her site Grub Report, food bloggers are made out to be the villians by my profession.

What, or who, Mario Batali is railing against, is those writing for the Internet with no concern for the business they are admiring or panning. Many food bloggers want to have their slice of the famous pie without taking responsibility for the power of their words-- or taking the first slice. And, something many web-savvy people know, their power to have their words found first is all to often used to threaten and destroy restaurants, chefs and owners. Google is an interesting animal indeed, and being a blogger means catching a ride on its gigantic sweeping monster tail, if even for 15 minutes of fame.

In Chicago I asked everyone to please know and remember that their words were far more powerful than many food and restaurant bloggers have been willing to take responsibility for until recently. I reminded the audience that there are few professions skewered by non-colleague critics publicly.

Chefs and chef-owners pour everything they have into new businesses. They know dozens, if not hundreds, of people's lives are being supported, or not, based on the thousands of decisions they make about opening a restaurant. So when a food blogger, whose credentials they know nothing of, representing an individually promoted news source, like a single-authored blog (as opposed to a newspaper or magazine), comes in on the very first night, or within the first few weeks (a time period we know that newspaper critics are going to, yes, visit, but not base their official review on that sole meal) and reports on the experience, good or awful, the restaurant owner is cornered. She/he knows that, (or maybe they don't because few restaurant people are Internet-smart), those blogger's words are going to be the ones their other prospective diners are going to find first.

Issues: Why is this relevant and/or important to why opening a restaurant in San Francisco is so difficult? Because blogging and the Internet's speed, as an opinion gatherer and reporter, has leveled and expanded a press playing-field, giving chefs and owners one more thing to reckon with in an already seemingly futile battle of pushing a boulder uphill.

I realize I straddle a fence now, and my perspective as a chef and also a blogger has been inexorably altered by having five toes in each grassy knoll. I have made, as I've dubbed it, my Sinead O'Connor mistakes concerning words and quotes and media, self made and not. I know that now I am an easier target for both good and awful press as a pastry chef, becuase I am a presence on the web.

I, like many people before me, am learning the hard way how to open a restaurant in San Francisco, and I am far from being the owner. This piece, as well as the series I'm doing on Eggbeater, is an attempt at reporting the process from the inside. The issues are multi-faceted, dichotomous and oftentimes confusing. While writing I am attempting to sort some of them out, and also speak from and to a perspective rarely found in major press sources.



And, as this is a blog, where comments are welcome and part of creating a place for discussion and public opinion, what are your thoughts on these matters?

------------------------

Other pertinent links speaking to these political and personal issues on the subject of opening and operating restaurants in San Francisco:

Brett Emerson, local chef and food blogger, whose site is the much loved In Praise of Sardines, has been extremely candid in reporting the process of opening his own restaurant, Ollalie.

Michael Bauer, restaurant critic for the SF Chronicle, on his blog, Between Meals, reported on the cost of doing business in San Francisco called, Is San Francisco Killing Restaurants?
{And Brett's commentary on this important article.}

At the end of the year in, "Is The Public Ready For A Transparent Restaurant Industry?" here on Bay Area Bites, I asked difficult questions after a horrific accident took the life of a young waiter and put the sous chef of Bar Crudo in the hospital.

Last November SF Business Times reported on an enigmatic lawsuit the Golden Gate Restaurant Association filed against San Francisco about the newly imposed labor laws.

Labels: bay area, chefs, labor issues, restaurants, san francisco, shuna lydon, where to eat in San Francisco

Last week Tutti Foodie, Scharffen Berger, and Marcia Gagliardi of Tablehopper joined forces and unveiled The Chocolate Adventure Recipe Contest with a number of events at local restaurants featuring pastry chefs and chocolate. On Monday August 13 I went to Campton Place to see what Boris Portnoy {pastry chef of Campton Place, the restaurant) might make and talk about. An innovative and forward thinking chef, Boris's desserts guarantee a challenge to the palate as well as mind.

Much to my delight there was more in store than the same old chocolate thang I, and other pastry chefs, often find ourselves at. The afternoon at Campton Place was spent in a small private room on the second floor with some of California's most dynamic food writers, bloggers, bakers and movers and shakers in the local chocolate scene.

Before we set about eating the arranged chocolate on our plates, John Scharffenberger gave a short but thorough history of cacao and chocolate. If you work for a school, or just love chocolate, give this semi-retired chocolate maker a call! His talk was engaging, funny, compassionate and delicious in every sense of the word. While leading us through the earth's best rain forests for cacao growing, harvesting and fermenting, he directed us to eat the disparate chocolate shapes on our plates, in the order his lesson informed.

Much to the surprise of many of our virgin mouths, we tasted a number of chocolate examples which were not chocolate in the truest sense of the word. We learned that when tasting chocolate in its pure form, tongues met with acidity and tannins most commonly found in wine and bitter edges associated with dark-roasted coffees.

After eating 8-9 versions of cacao and chocolate we listened to Boris talk excitedly about his love for cacao nibs; their texture, flavor and versatility tantalized his sweet imagination. And discovering how to make his own chocolate in a food processor appeared to have changed his life! Yes, he encouraged, go and try this at home. After a short demonstration he motioned with a regal flourish, and quiet waiters appeared with a three component cacao nib-themed plated dessert.

You'd think after three hours of smelling, tasting, eating, talking, inquiring, and listening to chocolate I would have left the hotel without a desire to ponder the chocolate contest... But the truth is that my friend and I discussed what we would do if we could enter the contest. {I cannot, but he can.}

I thought I would share a bit of our conversation. Think of these word formations the way you would poetry, a game, an interpretive dance or maybe like you were sitting near us on BART, overhearing our chocolate-meal fueled crazytalk.

Theme: Bacon & Chocolate

Render bacon fat brunoise or dice, caramelize crispy pork fat cubes and make chocolate with this in food processor with cacao nibs.
Pork cracklins (like the snack food found at gas stations) enrobed in bittersweet chocolate.
Bacon lardons half dipped in chocolate.
Fatback chocolate with quince paste.
Pork belly & rosemary infused chocolate pot de creme, quince paste (?) & sea salt garnish.

Don't worry, these ideas won't end up on a dessert of mine.....

The Chocolate Adventure Recipe Contest website. "You. Dark Chocolate. And A Special Ingredient."

The Rules are simple: pair a list of innovative/ aromatic spices and flavors with any of Scharffen Berger's exquisite dark chocolates. The prizes include both money and fame. If you don't want the Bacon & Chocolate dessert to win, enter soon.

And, as Jen Maiser said aptly, "What could be better than the opportunity to create an interesting recipe using chocolate?"

Related Links:
The Art of Tasting Chocolate
Jalapeno Girl
Ladle and Whisk

Labels: bacon, bay area, berkeley, chocolate, culinary education, dessert, food businesses, games, recipe contest, scharffen berger, shuna lydon, tuttifoodie

This past weekend many of my favorite activities came together under one roof for one night only in San Francisco. On Saturday August 12, from 7 - 9 PM Slideluckpotshow brought handmade food, art, artists, friendliness, beautiful thought-provoking images, eating new things, seeing old friends and making new ones, giddy excitement at the spontaneousness of it all, and deeply inspiring ideas about creating community together. It met me when I left the just cooling breeze of San Francisco's dusk and entered the vast white space that is Sandbox Studios on Minnesota Street. Slideluckpotshow met all my expectations and then far exceeded them in a few minutes, when, after arriving too early with my carpool, put me to "work" being a 20 minute volunteer.

The first time I read about Slideluckpotshow was in Time Out NY on a trip there. I kicked myself for not thinking of the brilliant idea myself. And then I wished I still lived in New York City. Well, for a minute, at any rate.

Recently, via Marcia of Tablehopper and through an odd series of random emails, all mere days before the event, I heard that Slideluckpotshow was coming to my fine, fair city. I could barely contain myself long enough to think about what dish I might create to welcome Slideluckpotshow's founder Casey Kelbaugh and his crew. How could I convince them to come to SF again? How could I gather all the troops possibly interested in coming to an event displaying such an incredible amalgamation of ideas?

It's true, Slideluckpotshow had little advertising. Until I posted the information on eggbeater no one I knew had heard of it or realized they were coming SF at all. Which is really unfortunate, because it was right up our alley!

The requirements for attending for Slideluckpotshow were easy. Make food (I made enough for 30 people but most people made enough for about 12, depending on the portion size), or bring really good dishes from a reputable prepared-food vending source. Make or bring great beverages. If the first two are not possible, give a good donation at the door. {My friend DB gave $10.} Come hungry at least a few minutes, or up to 2 hours, before the slide-show. Be prepared to sit on the ground if you don't get there early enough to nab a seat in a chair or on a comfy couch. Wear the eye glasses you do for watching a movie, if needed. Enter a small body of images for the show and make the deadline. Or don't submit "slides" but be prepared for seeing/ experiencing a wide range of aesthetics and mediums projected on a 20 foot screen via an Apple computer. There were two sections of the slide show, each running at about an hour, with an intermission in the middle.

My favorite artists from Saturday night's SF showing are the following:

Jessica Rosen's powerful images of transsexual women in Brazil, high contrast, slightly ironic (fashion or not?) portraits by Olivier Laude, Jonathan Solo's graphite pencil work wherein he, "collages the drawings... to create meta-feminine/masculine figures from a fantastical assemblage of physical characteristics." There were two artists whose photographic documentation of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reached into my core, but Heidi Schumann's images and astute interplay between sound (all the slide-sets were accompanied by music of the artist's choice) rendered me speechless. Although it's difficult to pick a favorite set and artist, I will. Tim Gasperak contributed a series of photographs stark, detailed, evocative, lovely and textured from two series, Mystery of Iceland and Isolated Landscapes. Even his bio is well written.

What did I make for the pot-luck? A fruit salad composed of the juiciest, most absolute ripe beyond ripe farmers' market fruit. Something similar to Shuna & Athen's Famous Gazpacho. A quick photo of the finished bowl can be found by clicking on this link. From my assembled posse there was also a beautiful pecan-peach cake made by Marc, and a clean squid and broad bean salad made by none other than Brett.

Slideluckpotshow could not be a better event for me: a chef with over 10 years of fine art training and a BFA in photography. If you're a person who appreciates Open Studios or museums, Flickr or JPG, or just the occasional food porn photograph, this is an event I beg of you to attend if it comes to a wide open room near you.

Labels: art, bay area, California, events, local, san francisco, shuna lydon

Love is in the air: peaches are here, and all is right with the world. Yes, my sunglasses are rose- tinted, why do you ask?

I've been on the road, taking my show with me. First NYC, then Portland and most recently, Chicago. It's been fun, educational, hot, and delicious, but I've missed being home. Home is where the peaches are. Home is where I know the season's signage at my local farmers' market is. I wait and pine for strawberries, cherries soon follow, and after cherries, O Glorious stone fruit arrives, bang! a cornucopia drops out of the sky and lands on my head! It's fast. It's furious. And no one can keep up. Chefs and pastry chefs change menus daily, attempting to think of newfangled dishes to highlight summer's overwhelming, non-stop conveyor belt of tree fruit to farm, to market. It's all about pitting and prepping and ripening, and those of us who really care, trying to keep our fruit out of walk-ins.

We want our diners to get a taste of what we felt when scooping up the first apricots, felt their soft downy skin and licked our chins attempting to keep every last drop of apricot nectar, spilling out like the well which Micky and the sinister brooms let loose in the night.

This past weekend I had the extraordinary pleasure of working for my favorite peach farmer, Carl Rosato of Woodleaf Farm. On Saturday and Sunday I joined an exceptional crew to sell August's first Cassie peaches, pears, a few undercover Pink Pearl Apples (!!!), tiny sweet green grapes, red pears, mixed figs, white peaches, a dozen or so nectarines and Suncrest peaches.

Cassie peaches, in my humble opinion, are a reason for living.

While working at the markets this weekend I gave out a lot of peach advice. Peach advice for ripening, baking, storing, freezing, jamming, eating, and handling. I received a funny email, in fact, from my friend Guy today,
"That was cool running in to you yesterday, selling peaches. Can't imagine what the customers though when they asked, 'Do you have any good ideas what to do with them?' AHAHHAHAH."

A fruit-inspired pastry chef could not be happier having a job wherein he was surrounded by exquisite fruit all the day long. Fruit is an exciting field of study because not all fruit is created equal. One must know the inner workings of the family of fruit when one approaches a new branch.

Some fruit must always be picked unripe from the tree, the best example being pears. Certain fruits will continue to ripen off the tree, two examples are pineapples, and most stone fruit. There are cranky fruits who do not like to be picked with a machine, cherries, for example. And there are laid back fruits which can go either way, they're easy, like oranges or walnuts.

Peaches will ripen off the tree, on your counter, if you so wish. A good farmer will pick fruit right at the moment where she/he can get it to market looking alright and then allow the eater to ripen it a bit more to get it where it's desired. Many fruits will get softer but not sweeter if picked too early; mangoes are a great example of a fruit whose perfume is stolen when picked green or green-ish.

This weekend, in the midst of excitedly talking a mile-a-minute about peaches, I heard some great peach advice from customers. My favorite tidbit came from a fellow at the San Rafael market in Marin named Patrick. It made me stop dead in my tracks and so I wanted to share it with y'all.

What works for me, and so I share it with others is this: place peaches shoulder side down (aka "stem end"), on a flat surface, at room temperature, just until there's a bit of give under the skin, then refrigerate or eat.

But Patrick had a brilliant idea. Refrigerate peaches/stone fruit all at once and take out, placing on counter (or plate) as I've described, a few days before eating. Refrigerating fruit at home, (as opposed to the massive cold storage facilities in the "produce stream" wherein "refrigerators" are the size of private airplane hangers and temperatures are kept between 30-34F), means the fruit's ripening process is slowed down, but not stopped. With Patrick's method you don't have a lot of really ripe fruit in the fridge at once. And, also, you horde a some power over the ripening process, therefore giving yourself more time to relax, find recipes you love, and do with that fruit what you want without the pressure of doing that right now!

Patrick's method also allows you to buy a little more fruit than you might need or want to consume in one day or week. (Which of course makes the farmers happy.)

Every peach is a snowflake. Every varietal is different, every farm growing a particular varietal grows them differently. Every soil and location and method will produce a different peach. Every tree on in that orchard growing that peach will ripen and concentrate its sugars and acids differently. Depending on how much of one kind a farmer has, and which market they're selling them at, will determine or fetch a different price. And every mouth eating that peach like a snowflake will react to it differently.

We all know at what point exactly we like to eat a banana. Even within one family each member will like a slightly more or less green specimen.

My Peach Advice? Jot down the names and details of the peaches and the farmers with whom you interacted with this year so that next year you will leap at the chance to buy your favorites, have mouth notes from which to comparison shop/eat, and ripen gently and slowly the fruit you choose to buy.

And if you see me selling peaches, please stop by and say hello, I'd love to expound further, or just introduce you to my favorite fruit!

Labels: berkeley, farmers, farmers markets, fruit, local, Marin, seasonal, shuna lydon, summer fruit

Disclaimer: this is not an "Official Restaurant Review," it is merely a mention of a place to eat I loved when I was in Portland last. Clyde Common is the name. Ace Hotel is its location. I ate there once for each lunch and dinner a few days apart. And I would go there tomorrow if it were not an eleven hour drive away.

I have a favorite restaurant in NYC. It doesn't seem possible to single one place out on a flat, tiny island teeming with enough restaurants to fit on a small continent. But I do. And I send anyone there who asks me for NYC eating recommendations. My favorite place to eat in my old home town is Prune, a slip of an eatery on first street crammed tight with tables and exceptionally happy waiters. Gabrielle Hamilton is one of the most down-to-earth chefs I have the pleasure of knowing. Her food is not exceptionally innovative. She doesn't wow with new spices or chemical induced textures. There's little on the menu you've never heard of or eaten before, albeit in some other form.


Cauliflower soup.

But Prune's food is brilliant. It's simultaneously inspired and soulful, flavorful and simple, honest and satisfying. There are traditional pairings, and seasonal ideas. But somehow, when Gabrielle puts these proteins and vegs together, something like earthy faerie dust gets thrown in, a dash of whimsy, a pinch of what-the-hell and voila, a Vogue-ing, lip syncing, twink of a beautiful creature is born. Always delicious, often exclamatorily so.

But why on earth am I waxing poetic about Prune when I began by talking about a new restaurant in Portland, Oregon?


Ace, A Friendly Hotel.

Because the food at Clyde Common is also inspired, whimsical, down-to-earth, laid back, seasonal, exceptionally delicious at times, and it could turn into my favorite restaurant in Portland if I'm not careful. I don't think the chef behind its menu is as brilliant as Gabrielle, but at least he's reaching, standing on the diving board' edge, toes dangling. Most of the cooks in the kitchen understand how to cook, and many know finesse and flourish are important parts of making a dish day after night after day still taste good. I'm as big a fan of consistency as the next diner, but eating in a plated-food factory is not my idea of a great meal.

When I go out to eat I want to be tempted, turned-on, pushed, inspired, and given too many options to choose from. I want to see items that sound intriguing but not too wacky, ones I never would have thought to do myself. Appetizers like, "asparagus with caul fat wrapped egg," "beef tongue, seared scallop, beets and tomato jam," "chicken-fried chicken liver, cucumber salad and citrus mayonaise," "fennel sausage, octopus, fried potatoes and ink."



Words. On a page looking torn from a child's 1950's blue-lined notebook. Typewriter written letters, in all their skewed arty loveliness.

For design is our first visual. Our first amuse bouche. The way she styles her hair, and the strands which refuse to be bound, falling lightly at her collarbone. The way he suavely matches green pinstripes with a shiny blue tie. The way the light in the room greets you, soft from a few dozen candles, and a menu with the restaurant's name in red rubber stamp ink and today's date in black, upper left hand column, in a hurried angle. You're going to get a special meal no one else will get. Unique. Just like you.


Chicken-Fried Chicken Livers.

But there's always the moment. The dish that makes the rest of the menu fall away, West Side Story style. You take a bite and you wish you didn't have to share.

chicken-fried chicken liver, cucumber salad and citrus mayonaise 9.

You moan audibly. You say, "[expletive deleted] yeah!" And then you consider ordering one for dessert. If Clyde Common pleases you in no other way but the way you feel when this exquisitely delicious combination of inspiration, technique, texture and flavor reach your mouth and then your taste buds, so be it. Leave happy.

Or go on to order the "fishboard" of the day, a generous side dish of "roast cauliflower," "seared chicken thighs/pork shank, refried peanuts, frisee salad and pork jus," or "risotto: fennel, finicchiona, walnuts and grano padano."


French Fried Potatoes with Harissa and Creme Fraiche.

Clyde Common is not for the vegetarian in you. It's for the adventurous, slightly silly, open- minded diner. People are pretty but casual. If you sit near the kitchen be prepared for a conversation with the person plating your salads and desserts. Cooks are white-jacketless, heavily tattooed and young enough to look like college drop-outs. Think Zuni Cafe meets Blue Plate.

Unfortunately the desserts are too sweet, boring and sloppily plated. Someone had a good idea but not the skill or follow-through to make it taste good enough to order again. Dessert as afterthought: not my favorite way to end a blush producing meal.

Believe me when I tell you to walk a few blocks into the Pearl District and go to Blue Hour for dessert. Or drive 15 minutes across one of Portland's beautiful bridges to SE for desserts at ClarkLewis. Or plan ahead and stop into Sahagun for sumptuous chocolates... Any of these three options will satisfy any sweet, seasonal craving you might have.


Clyde Common, Domestic & Foreign Cooking
SW 10th and Stark in the Ace Hotel
503.228.3333
Monday - Thursday open 5 until late
Friday - Saturday open 5 until later
Open Sundays starting June 17th
{More photographs here.}

Labels: Clyde Common, New York City, portland, restaurants, shuna lydon

In a few hours I will be attending the wedding of a friend who has Celiac Disease. Her wedding will be a gluten-free picnic and all the guests will bring something in this theme.

I know very little, almost nothing about what I call "alternative baking." Luckily for me crisp topping is not really considered baking. There are no eggs, no chemical leaveners, no attempt at expecting something to rise in the oven, no faerie-dust finesse needed in the mixer. I need to put a bunch of gluten free flours together with various sugars and spices and butter, and hopefully, voila! Crisp topping baked onto glorious Pacific Northwest berries galore.

"Alternative Baking" is tricky business. Little has been written about the properties of these new flours as they relate or translate to what we know of wheat flour. Although wheat has not always been a year-round crop, almost all American and European baked goods start with it.

Celiac Disease is not the only major food allergy gaining momentum today. With the prevalence of soy and corn and wheat in almost everything consume, whether we know it's there or not, we are developing allergies to ingredients we are eating far too much of. Baking, cooking and eating that is considered "alternative" today may well be considered normal/standard/conventional in a dozen years or less.



Books like Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking have helped me to understand new flours like Mesquite, Teff, Sorghum. In her beginning chapters, she gently and thoroughly explains the nutritional, taste and baking properties of many of these almost mysterious new things.

But, like all new ingredients, one must experiment until one gets what tastes good to them. Because crisp topping has no dangerous raw ingredients you can taste it, and adjust according to taste when it looks ready.

Follow instructions for the crisp topping I made last year near this time. It is exactly the same.

Here is what I put together for today's gluten free challenge. I used a scale so I could check proportions better. And I wrote it all down as I went along, tasting a tiny bit of each flour first to check texture and flavor. All these flours are ground to a different consistency, so measuring them in cups would have been dangerous. Some are heavier than others. (All Purpose unbleached (white) wheat flour generally weighs 5-6 oz. per cup)

2.5 oz Teff flour
4 oz. Sorghum flour
5 oz. Sushi rice flour
1.25 oz. Tapioca flour
1.75 ounces Mesquite flour
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamon seeds*
1.75 sugar
3 oz. raw sugar
8 oz. Dark brown sugar
1 pound unsalted butter
*optional

All of these flours can be found at Rainbow Grocery. If you have a friend who is gluten-free, I hope you get the chance to make this for them!

Labels: dessert, gluten-free, heidi swanson, recipe, shuna lydon

I've been in Portland, Oregon, now for about a week. Initially I was going to come here for a few days before heading up to a wedding in Seattle. I love Portland, and have since the first moment I saw this small city. But soon after I mentioned that, after two long years, I would be heading up to the Pacific Northwest, I received an inquiry asking whether I might be interested in teaching my baking classes in Portland. Yes, I immediately replied, I'd be honored to.

And so here I am, for two luxurious, long weeks. I could not be happier. Fourteen days to explore, eat, nibble, adventure, photograph, visit, suntan, bake, go to farmers' markets, stain my fingers with berry juices, talk to farmers,berry picking, make new friends, re-acquaint, stroll, drive, and just take it all in.

Some highlights of my trip so far:

A perfectly executed, seasonal, eclectic dinner at 23 Hoyt, in Northwest.
Late night tapas at Toro Bravo. Find yourself there? Get the grilled onions.
Pecan pie made with real leaf lard at Podnah's. (I'll be going back for the ribs, mark my word.)
An inspired fennel and golden raisin scone at Bakery Bar.
Perhaps some of the most amazing nectarines of my entire life at the Saturday Portland Farmers' market.
Marionberries.
Blueberries from Sauvie Island, picked by me.
Refreshing, smooth & sweet cold-steeped iced coffee at Random Order Coffee House. Their baked goods are also amazing. I have now eaten the bacon-green onion muffin twice.
Stumptown coffee.
Three spot-on, seasonal fresh fruit desserts at Blue Hour. (Jenny Raines, who was a pastry person at Chez Panisse for many years, is the pastry chef there now.)
The best French bread outside of France at Fleur de Lis Bakery in Northeast.
Succulent tacos (my favorite is their carnitas), bright agua frescas and fresh chips at Por Que No? on the hip and hopping N. Mississippi street.

With two classes and one week left I am hoping to get jumped up on some of the best tasting caffeine in North America, eat and explore what may be my future home. I love the nooks and crannies of Portland: the self-supporting neighborhoods, the community driven mentality of businesses, the effusive Portlanders who want to make sure I taste and see and go to their favorite spots. I love the trees that make wide arcs of shade, the various bridges connecting west to east, and the feeling you get when you're here. Like opening a business and buying a house are not just possibilities, but realities for someone like me.

I love living in Northern California, don't get me wrong. But Portland might well be in my future. So it's important that I sniff my way around, pay attention to the details, and have fun while I'm snooping.

Labels: portland, restaurants, shuna lydon, travel