Flayed: At Chez Pim, ambivalence about the lineup at tomorrow's Great American Food and Music Fest (a mashup of Food Network stars and actual chefs) bubbled over into a sticky brown goo. Pim? Totally stoked -- she called it the place to be this Saturday. Commenters? Not so much. Dr Fred sniffed Why would you go? Food Network is not about cooking and their stars are not chefs. DaTruff had a full-on hissy fit, food-nerd style: French foie gras paired with that $100,000 bottle of 1787 vintage Sauterne served by naked supermodels wouldn't justify getting within a country mile of Bobby Flay... Oh, snap!
What, no foie gras?: Oh, Bunrab, you're so bad! Reporting on last night's World Oceans Day Celebrations at the California Academy of Sciences, the waggish Daily Feed blogger writes: Chilean Sea bass with a panda reduction over kitten tail tagliatelle in boxes constructed of old growth redwoods harvested by KKK members didn't make it to the final menu this evening, but there were some nifty Acme Chophouse boxes. Don't it feel good to slip in even a whisker of subversion sometimes?
• Local news took notice, enlisting SFoodie's own Tamara Palmer on a fruitless search for mobile eats. Film at 11.
• And with even the Wall Street Journal drooling over street food, we corralled some national stars of cart and truck cuisine.
• Robert Kenner, director of the new shock-doc Food, Inc., talked with SFoodie about Big Ag: They largely refused to talk for his film, but now that's it out, they won't shut up.
• Meanwhile, Tyler Florence, the handsomely doughy TV food star holed up in Marin, was super pissed about the disappearance of a certain ginormous utensil. Have an extra mojito during cocktail hour tonight, TyFlo -- like the rest of us, you survived a janky week in local food.
Indian Bento owner Pashmina Chaudhary set us straight on the fruit -- including the town the best Alphonsos come from . "They have to come from Ratnagiri, or else they're not the real deal," said Chaudhary, who grew up in Bombay. "The season starts in late March and lasts perhaps until June. Typically, from June onward, they're not that sweet."
Chaudhary scores her Alphonsos from a store in Foster City. They're pricey -- a box of 12 costs between $35 and $45. Besides mango, Indian Bento's lassi contains organic milk and yogurt, a bit of sugar, cardamom, and nutmeg. When the fresh fruit dries up, Chaudhary says she'll switch to canned Alphonsos. She swears the flavor is similar: sweet, but otherwise indescribable, especially when fused with memories of India. "It just transports you to another place," Chaudhary said.
Fernald, executive director of last year's Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco, promises an amazing array of meals-on-wheels. There'll be more than a dozen taco trucks, each selling one or two items featuring at least some sustainable ingredients. "We did our research -- dozens of tastings," Fernald said. "Eight or nine of the taco trucks will be from the streets, and the rest will house special vendors offering everything that we want fast food to be: healthy, local, inexpensive. Everything will be priced between $1 and $5. This is about an alternative fast food: pho, chaat, dosas. There'll be food carts, too -- all vendors have to be on wheels! We want to support and celebrate local vendors and artisans, taking the lessons we learned from Slow Food Nation and building on its momentum."
SFoodie: How has making the film changed the way you eat?
Kenner: The most shocking thing to me in making this film was just how much information has been denied to us. I've become much more conscious of a system that's been hidden from me. Some people have seen this film and say, I'm never going to eat chicken again. Well that's not the point of our film. It's to show the lack of transparency. And we're up against billions of dollars of advertising from the other side -- if my distributor spent half a million getting the word out about this film I'd be thrilled! All we want is transparency and a good conversation about these things. Eric Schlosser said that after Fast Food Nation came out there wasn't that much interest in this stuff. Today we're part of a huge movement -- even Michelle Obama is part of it, whether she knows it or not, just by having the audacity to grow a vegetable garden without chemicals. And there's organized resistance against it! It's truly an Orwellian world out there.
"As far as I know, this isn't going to be a throwdown," she said, a reference to the Food Network series Throwdown with Bobby Flay, a testosterone-fueled cook-off pitting the star against another chef. Oakes' husband, sausage-maker Bruce Aidells, is also slated to appear tomorrow in a steak-cooking demo. Oakes said she agreed to appear after being asked by friend Ed Levine, the New York food writer and publisher of the blog Serious Eats, and a festival organizer. "I said, 'Okay, Ed, I'll do it for you.' He's always been my go-to guy in New York whenever I've asked where to get the best sandwich, or the best whatever," Oakes said. "And so many people watch the Food Network, it'll be interesting to see who shows up."
| Chris Cosentino's tasty salted pig parts on the go. |
Let's do lunch:
Ah, the joys of hanging out at the mall -- only instead of giant pretzels and pizza dripping orange grease, grab something delicious: SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody says seek out the fresh spring rolls and caramelized chicken claypot at Out the Door (Concourse Level, Westfield San Francisco Centre, 865 Market at Fifth St., 541-9913).
Drink therapy:
Get $1 off all drinks during Friday happy hour at Skylark Bar (3089 16th St. at Valencia, 621-9294), 5-8 p.m. Once loaded, wallow around in Music Like Dirt, featuring Jamaican oldies and reggae.
It's Alisha's Home Cookin' Friday: chili con carne, chicken pot pie, and something called blushin' bunnies (no clue), plus happy-hour drink specials at The Riptide (3639 Taraval at 47th Ave., 681-8433), 4-7 p.m.
