Hey, over here!: We weren't the only ones to go all WTF after Michael Bauer answered a reader's query to Between Meals about how much to tip on a multi-hundred-dollar bottle of wine. Today Bauer turns to a reader's complaint - a gentle whine, really - about the "obscure" topics all food writers address. Here's the reader: Why not cover food information a higher percentage of readers can relate to, such as where to get great french fries; where to find the best chow mein at a reasonable price; fine dining at affordable prices; establishments with enticing happy hours; and so, so many more. Hell-ooo, lover of fries, bad Chinese food, and cheap drinks, do you even read SFoodie? Bauer, for his part, is merely breezy and evasive. Illogical, too. "It's a constant struggle to engage readers and to bring something new to the page," he writes by way of defense -- like "interesting" and "new" are mutually exclusive. Whatever. We're outta here for some $2 chow mein. You comin'?
Enter the Monte Cristo doughnut ($3.50), a heavenly blend of classic fillings in a sweet, light casing that is in no way soggy. Dynamo Donut + Coffee (2760 24th St. at York) began serving its Monte Cristo doughnut about four weeks ago. Ham and cheese form the filling's top layer, above house-made plum jam. Now, before you start thinking the ham must be at least a little weird, consider it (and the cheese) a complement to the doughnut's prevailing sweetness, even if committed carnivores might wish for a tad more of the salty meat. This is not Dynamo's first foray into savory donuts, of course; its maple glazed bacon-apple is the stuff of epic.
In addition to dinner, the evening promises entertainment and a Chiang tribute, with an honorary committee of celebrants that, besides Waters, includes Thomas Keller, Margrit Mondavi, Gene Burns, Ruth Reichl, and Patricia Unterman. There's a silent auction for items like a 14-course dinner prepared by Chiang and a jet copter ride courtesy of KGO radio. The event starts at 6:30 p.m.
Unterman, author, food critic, and co-owner of Hayes Street Grill, told SFoodie that Chiang is "a force of nature in every way, a model for all of us in what it is to live an energy-infused life. She's going to be 90, and I can hardly keep up with her! Her absolute love of food, and life, and conviviality -- she's a natural in this business."
Tickets to the September 18 banquet are $200, with proceeds to benefit the Cecilia Chiang Scholarship Fund at the Chinese American International School. They can be purchased through the Chinese American International School Development Office at 861-0866, or by e-mailing j_lor@cais.org.
Amazon calls this book "the most comprehensive full-color chicken book ever," which is about as good a blurb as a book about anything at all could ask for. Buoyed by Megyesi's advice, Mulvihill recounts his foray into fowl-rearing with delight, describing how his family's "picky-eater preschoolers" provided plenty of scraps for the growing flock, how he had to slaughter, pluck, cook, and eat "Tillie" when she turned out to be, not an egg-layer, but a small, strutting rooster with an ever-growing comb and an ear-splitting cockle-doodle-doo. He shares some good information as well. In San Francisco, you can keep up to four chickens -- or any legal animal for that matter. Hens are hardy; you can leave them unattended for days on end, providing someone -- a neighbor, a friend -- regularly harvests the eggs. It might be easier than you think. If you're curious, read the bulletin, buy the book, and keep checking Craigslist for coops.
Who, exactly, will be jamming? Behold a partial lineup: Pizza Hacker, Toasty Melts, Adobo Hobo (unveiling vegetarian adobo), Wholesome Bakery, Sexy Soup Cart, Brazilian Bites, Lumpia Cart, Adobo Roll-O (a debut appearance), Magic Curry Kart, Gumbo Cart, Soul Cocina, Sweet Cart, the Chai Cart, Bike Basket Pies, and Gobba Gobba Hey.
Children of the pavement, this is your motherfreaking Woodstock.
On Sunday, we went to the First Annual Center for Lao Studies benefit at the Women's Building. In a way, our table exemplified the crowd.
A young well-dressed Lao guy was there alone. We overheard him telling the white American couple sitting across from him that he had come to forge business connections within the community. "We're pretty much here for the food," said the couple.Of course, you can't assess a benefit banquet the same way you'd critique a restaurant meal. The form rests somewhere between haphazard home cooking and a Clintonian rubber-chicken flesh-presser. Nothing is prepared to order. There is no service, and to expect it would be rude. You don't complain when the sticky rice disappears. You don't fret when you have to pay for water. You just eat something else. Instead of demanding gratis quaffables of some sort, you just drink beer, which you feel much better paying for -- even though you're already yawning through a double-dose of brain-fogging cold medicine.
We weren't expecting the kind of food we'd eaten at Champa Garden, Green Papaya Deli, and Vientian Café in Oakland; just a good feed, authentic and fun. From what we could manage in the way of taste, the chicken laab was delicious, and the papaya salad, a dish subject to much cultural wrangling, well-balanced and semi-searingly hot. At least, it provided more nose-clearing relief than those ominous dark-blue gelcaps of acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine succinate we'd popped down the hatch hours earlier. We should really read labels.
If so, the upcoming 32nd Mill Valley Film Festival will certainly appeal. Apron Strings, (playing Oct. 15 and 18), a first feature from a New Zealand woman director, contrasts a glamorous TV celebrity chef with the owner of an old-fashioned bakery, in parallel mother-and-son psychological dramas.
The remaining four appear in the festival's Valley of the Docs section. The timely Tapped (Oct. 11 and 14) examines bottled water in all its aspects, from sources to plastic containers. Eat the Sun (Oct. 9 and 17) is about a man who claims not to have eaten solid food for 411 days -- he absorbs nutrients by staring directly at the sun for 44 minutes a day. (Can the Sungazing diet book be far behind?)
Two short documentaries, HomeGrown and Hidden Bounty of Marin: Farm Families in Transition (Oct. 11 and 13) are an irresistible pairing. HomeGrown chronicles the back-to-the-land, off-the-grid quest of a Pasadena family that grows 6,000 pounds of food annually on an 1/5-acre site right off the 210 Freeway. Hidden Bounty of Marin visits nine of the more than 200 small organic and sustainable family farms in the county, including Marin Sun Farms, Straus, Hog Island, and Cowgirl Creamery. Marin's Peter Coyote narrates in seductive tones.
Tickets go on sale to California Film Institute members this Sunday, September 20, and to the general public next Thursday, September 24.
