I love farming, but from a distance. Enter farming, and suddenly you’re shellacking your kitchen table with bills, breaking your back, never to see a skyscraper again. Kiss off health insurance and an IRA account. And holidays. But, knowing all this, I still feel a longing to tend cabbages. I’m almost sure it’s lunacy, this longing, but I’m not so [...]
My kitchen table is the focal point of my Oakland, California apartment. Scratched up, the veneer held in place with Elmer’s Glue, it’s a constantly shifting still life of garden seed packets, farmers’ market produce, and flowers. In one corner, nectarines blush amongst the pluots and French prunes. An avocado lolls beside them. Heirloom tomatoes ripen on a cloth napkin. [...]
“It’s not just phở and egg rolls!” exclaimed cook Linh Nguyen, about Vietnamese food. “There’s a lot more to it.” But much of it is unavailable to the average restaurant-goer, as the heavier, meatier food of the north is largely nonexistent in Vietnamese restaurants. But the curious cook can learn to make it at Culture Kitchen. Launched just this year, [...]
“When the fog rolls into San Francisco, we get a breeze here,” says Scrivner Hoppe-Glosser. Here, by the way, is Gouge Eye, his father’s farm, located a hundred miles away from the city itself, in Sacramento Valley. “It blows the mosquitoes away. It’s a relief.” Nearby, a peacock trails its feathers through a puddle. Chickens squawk, doves coo, and other [...]
Every Saturday morning of summer, tucked behind a green two-story craftsman home in the Bushrod area of Oakland, there is a pop-up shop called Rogue Café. Here, between the seed starts and the chicken coop, Eric Thoreson, the owner of OneNinetySeven Coffee, asks a customer which dripper to use on his latest roast. Which dripper to use? One is reminded [...]
1. Much ballyhoo has been made over Wings Wings, the new take-out place that opened up in the Lower Haight yesterday. The chef, Christian Ciscle from Little Skillet, promises eight varieties of free range chicken wings with sauces like a classic buffalo and Korean style. Bike delivery is soon to come. 2. Here’s a rarity: a steak focus at a [...]
Stacy Ventura is one of those lucky people — she does what she loves and gets to call it a job. In the past two years, she has made her presence known as a Bay Area food photographer, most notably through magazine work with Edible and Food and Wine Magazine. Her photos are crisp and elegant but also full of [...]
1. Churchill, a new Castro bar, opened Wednesday, promising classic cocktails and local beers on tap. Owned by the same team behind Bloodhound and Double Dutch, the swanky, masculine design is inspired by WWII — hoping to appeal to straight and gay peeps alike. 2. Also opening, in North Beach in the former gargantuan Enrico’s space, is Txoko (“tchoke-oh”), a [...]
“Pickled pearl onions are gross,” said Kate Hug, sipping on a Gibson. “You ever had them? Yech.” These are the words spoken by the head pickler of Studebaker Pickles, a young Oakland business. Although it should be said that she meant the garden-variety pickled pearl onion — because most pickles are an afterthought. Pickling is what you do right before a [...]
1. Off the Grid North Berkeley plans to kick off as early as June 1st at the corner of Rose and Shattuck, perhaps making the Gourmet Ghetto relevant again. Off the Grid, a food truck gathering that has its beginnings in Fort Mason, was born a year ago. Another Oakland nighttime food truck event, Bites on Broadway, is also ramping [...]
