When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, it’s a good core workout. If you’re sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
Many of us remember coming home from our elementary schools with freshly glazed pinchpots, cups, or whatever else our young imaginations could conjure up. Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum can bring that memory back, or create a new one for the youngsters. Ceramics make great gifts — especially on Mothers' and Fathers' Day. Hop on board for the Randall's once-weekly class, and for $6 and two weeks to have your work fired and glazed, you'll have all the materials you need.More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
The conscience of the Ferry Building, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) has been getting urbanites to know where their food comes from since 1994.
At Between Meals, Michael Bauer pens a sweet farewell to Carlo Middione, whose Vivande Porta Via at 2125 Fillmore (at California) was sort of the Delfina of its day, lately growing all but invisible. Vivande shuttered quietly on New Year's Eve after nearly 30 years, due in part to Middione having lost his sense of taste and smell. Here's Bauer:
Much of what he offered in the early 1980's was was groundbreaking; now it's commonplace. My last review was in 2002; and I, like others, took him for granted. Without him we might not have had restaurants such as Delfina, A16 or Flour +Water. He's trained many chefs and has been an inspiration to many more.
Middione pans to teach and consult; read the Bauer tribute here.
PostedByTamara Palmer
on Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:45 PM
cookingconcepts.com
The Ham Dogger makes hot dog-like hamburgers via the wonders of plastic technology.
We're still dreaming of the day we'll have our very own KitchenAid mixer, let alone some of these startling feats of culinary technology. Most awesome doesn't always mean most expensive, but if you have the extra scratch, you sure can snag some insane kitchen appliances.
8. Ham Dogger While the tech behind this gadget is nothing more than a plastic mold with no bells and whistles, you can make a quarter-pound of ground beef look like a quarter-pound of ground beef shaped like a hot dog.
Credo, the FiDi trattoria owned by political consultant and real estate macher Clint Reilly, is planning a Jan. 18 opening, according to GM Tim Felkner. Chef of the 75-seat restaurant in a one-time Chinese bank at 360 Pine (at Leidesdorff) is Italian-trained Mario Maggi, who's been overseeing catering at nearby Julia Morgan Ballroom, another Reilly property.
The cuisine? Old school-ish Northern Italian, lunch and dinner, with entrees from $10 to $18 at the former, and $12 to $28 at the latter: thin-crust pizzas fired in a gas oven, house-made pasta, and risotti, with dinner entrees like braised lamb shank with polenta, roasted Cornish hen, and pan-seared potato-crusted salmon. Felkner was most recently assistant manager at Corso in Berkeley, reportedly a Reilly favorite.
Maybe the most striking thing about Credo ("I believe" in Latin) is its arty wall panels incorporating quotes from historical figures and celebs, each starting out with "I believe." "Everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Howard Stern," Felkner explained. "We're the only restaurant that has an editor." A helpful thing to have around, in case the food is in need of a drastic rewrite.
Carte415's Joshua Skenes told SFoodie his downtown lunch cart is, in fact, dead, and won't be returning to its space in the Atrium Lobby of 101 Second St. (at Mission). "I've been busy focusing on Saison," Skenes explained, "doing three nights a week, plus a lot of great changes to come." For weeks now, rumors have been swirling that Saison would start a wine bar and small-plates program at Stable Cafe, in addition to its formal prix-fixe dinners.
Just as we speculated earlier today, Saison's expansion in September took the chef's attention away from Carte415. Skenes said he'd consider doing some entirely different street-food concept down the line, but not in the foreseeable future. He said the downtown location wasn't great, and while he's glad he went through the process of establishing Carte145 as a licensed business, he doesn't necessarily think a cart is particularly cost-effective in San Francisco.
"There's definitely a significant amount of costs up front," Skenes said. "It's not the best option, especially if you're one person and you're going to run the business day in and day out ― you might as well stick to a brick and mortar, and not deal with the logistics of moving food back and forth."
The airy, panko-dusted pillows conceal the scent of beef stock and curry.
Boramy, steadfast employee at Bernal's new Japanese/French Sandbox Bakery, has a favorite: the katsu sandwich on a challah roll. It comes with coleslaw and yuzu marmalade, an update on katsu's expected side of shredded cabbage. Sadly, there were none available when we paid a visit yesterday.
C. Alburger
Choosing can be tricky.
So we went with Boramy's next suggestion: the curry bread ($3) containing a traditional Japanese spicy beef stew with potatoes, carrots, and onion. The airy bread pillow, baked not fried, carried a hint of salt and a feather-dusting of panko. Rip it open and you're immediately hit with the rousing scent of beef stock and curry. We also tried negi miso: a shiny, plump challah knot woven with green onion, miso, sesame seed, and coarse salt. Pulling both buns into edible pieces was a sensory pleasure almost as great as eating them.
As far as Sandbox's savories go, Boramy tells us there's always an apple and cheese sandwich available with optional bacon. More savory options start to show up in the case at 11 a.m. So if you want the katsu challah concoction, call ahead to make sure it's there. Then arrive early to make sure you get one of the limited batch made daily.
Or just stroll in on your own time and snag the curry like we did. Katsu shmatsu.
PostedByTamara Palmer
on Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 1:00 PM
slowfoodusa.org
Slow Food Berkeley has planned its New Year's Potluck for this Saturday, Jan. 9, noon to 3 p.m. in the auditorium of Berkeley Adult School (1701 San Pablo at Francisco). RSVP your attendance, group size, and dish you will bring to events@slowfoodberkeley.com. While it is a free event, donations to Berkeley's Bread Project, which trains low-income citizens in baking and pastry arts, are definitely encouraged.
A medical emergency put the skids on Ari Weinzweig's last lard-flecked lap through the Bay Area. Next weekend at Omnivore Books (3885a Cesar Chavez at Church), the high priest of pork makes his triumphant return for a signing of Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon, the recently published book all about every wavering vegetarian's softest spot. Weinzweig outlines the long, streaky history of the delicious cured substance, calling it (a little glibly) "the olive oil of North America" as he introduces readers to his favorite smokehouses and bacon-y personalities around the country. He also provides recipes, nearly 50 of them, for chest-thumpers, like bacon-cheddar scones and chocolate and bacon fat gravy. Zingerman's is, of course, Weinzweig's famous Ann Arbor deli ― these days, a major hub of food-community consciousness in Southeast Michigan as well as a college town's beloved small-time vendor of prepared goods. He'll be at the bookstore from 6 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 16.
PostedByTamara Palmer
on Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 11:00 AM
T. Palmer
Based in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the vibrant pickled vegetables and juices from Happy Girl Kitchen (which you can learn to emulate) will star with Square One spirits and Elixir bar master H. Joseph Erhmann in an educational cocktail night at Bi-Rite's nonprofit community/art space 18 Reasons. Ehrmann will share secrets on crafting balanced cocktails, as you sip drinks made with HGK libations such as pickled beet juice and tomato juice.
This impossibly fresh cocktail party takes place Tuesday, Jan. 12, 7-9 p.m. at 18 Reasons (593 Guerrero at 18th St.). Admission is $25 ($15 for 18 Reasons members).
The cart brought street food with a chef's touch to lunch patrons downtown.
UPDATE: Owner Joshua Skenes has confirmed that Carte415 is gone for good. Full story here.
Has downtown street-food vendor Carte415 quietly folded? SFoodie paid its last visit to the mobile kiosk in the Atrium Lobby of 101 Second St. (at Mission) a week before Thanksgiving (when we tasted the mushroom-Madeira soup we blogged about in yesterday's Morning Buzz). But, tipped off by a commenter, we checked out Yelp: Looks like Carte415 rolled it up for the Thanksgiving weekend, and never returned (its last tweet was Nov. 24). Even more ominous, Carte415's phone seems to have been disconnected, and e-mail bounced back. Chef-proprietor Joshua Skenes didn't return SFoodie's call yesterday.
If Carte415 has folded, it wouldn't exactly be a surprise. In September, Skenes' prix-fixe fine dining pop-up Saison expanded from one night per week to three, and it no doubt started to take up more and more of the chef's attention. Or if it has failed, is it a comment on the viability of legal street-food carts, which incur huge up-front expenses?
Upper Haight's Alembic (1725 Haight at Cole) is serving notice that it's now offering lunch seven days a week by handing out free pulled pork sliders today, starting at noon. The new lunch program kicked off yesterday, actually; proprietor and brewmaster Dave McLean painted today's giveaway as a sort of bubbling over of enthusiasm. "We're just really excited about our lunch program, and we're hoping the neighborhood, especially, knows we're here and adds us to their lunch rotation," McLean told SFoodie. The free sliders come two to an order, and you don't even have to actually buy anything to get them. Alembic' lunch menu (previously offered weekends only) is available from noon to 5 p.m. daily. McLean sounds pretty confident that the giveaway should last till 3 p.m. today, but there are no guarantees.
Alembic's lunch mains include the pulled pork sliders (with smoked Coke barbecue sauce ― they're replacing the pork belly sliders on the dinner menu, too), a beer-battered rockfish sandwich, mushroom "meatball" banh mi, and slow-poached egg with bacon marmalade.
Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
