Mission fishin': While the idea of urban farming continues to crackle through the zeitgeist, for most of us it's still more romance than reality, even in hotbeds like S.F. and Oakland. But what about the notion of urban fish farms? Could they be a way for cities to feed themselves more efficiently than some notion of turning street medians into apple orchards?
Today in Slate's The Big Money, Dan Mitchell asks if urban fish farming could be the next big thing. No, here in our fair city, that wouldn't mean stocking Stow Lake with crappie, but building huge indoor tanks under artificial lights, aquaponic systems that are the equivalent of hydroponic setups for growing cucumbers or indica bud.
Five morsels ― electronic or, um, flour and water ― that struck my fancy this week:
He'll be preparing them three ways tomorrow: in rice, fried with pork and panko, and simmered with wakame. Drop-dead cool details after the jump.
In California, Twain Harte and Jackson, which is southeast of Sacramento, are prime hunting spots this year, Garrone says. Also Medford, Ore.
Currently, the price per pound of morels is still pretty steep at $48, which is actually down from a whopping $65 back around Easter. Garrone, however, is optimistic that it will be a great season for morels and expects that the price will drop down to the low 20s when the season peaks in a couple of weeks. So stay tuned!
With kombucha trades on Craigslist and Facebook trending harder than Tiger Woods, self-canned jam a Christmas-present go-to, and home-brewed beer practically a rite of passage for the post-trustafarian set, this year's edition of Ferment Change couldn't come at a riper time. The merriment lasts through May. For starters, there's a "culture swap" Saturday (tomorrow) in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood. Mixed drink and food purchases will, naturally, help support City Slicker Farms programs. There's a semi-secretive free beer-brewing demo on Sunday too. Write Chris to RSVP and snag the address.
Check out next week's happenings here, and stay tuned (or check the Awesome Pickle blog) for more. Details on tomorrow's event after the jump.
SFoodie: Talk about the idea behind Central Kitchen.
White: Well, we just got this great space, and the things we want to do ― the salumeria and catering and these big, banquet-style dinners in the evening, and à la carte brunch ― it all necessitates a very big kitchen. When we were conceiving this, that was the starting point. It's like this super kitchen.
As far as the theme dinners go, we want there to be exclusively community tables, like a banquet, an event, a celebration, a party. It leaves a lot of opportunities to do so many things. There are so many farmers in the environs, so many great chefs, so many great people interested in these things. Education about food ― learning ― is integral to what we're doing.
What kind of themed dinners are you guys thinking about? Well, we're thinking of starting (hypothetically, because we're still a long way out) with a butchery demonstration, maybe butchering an animal, and then cooking and eating it right there. It's about connecting people with what they're eating. It's more than a trend here, it's a movement, really.
Thank goodness we have so many tech whizzes and design strategy firms tackling the task. Back in September, San Francisco's Digging Deeper competition invited participants to "design an urban agricultural product, system, retrofit, service model, or communication campaign/platform that is simple to set up/manufacture/produce and/or implement/sell/distribute, and maintain within the context of the urban environment with existing neighborhood, city and state regulations."
Frog Design (there's a San Francisco office on Third Street) delivered two concepts: Mobile Market and Stones Throw Harvest. In the first proposal, a supply chain ferries produce from local farms to a central pickup location for vendors, who then wheel carts to high-traffic areas in San Francisco. Frog envisions that the carts would sport an RFID card-reader systems. Simultaneously, cell phone apps would give shoppers heads-ups with regard to what's being sold in their immediate path.
19, we've teased out 92 of our favorite local dishes that taste like
here.All the tasty details after the jump.
We stopped in on a recent evening, when sheets of rain streamed down on the Embarcadero and almost formed an impromptu river for our imaginary pirate ship to sail down. Once inside, we were rewarded with warmly balanced cocktails, served in the shadow of a blackboard touting quotes by two of our favorite late luminaries, Oscar Wilde and Notorious B.I.G.
Particularly delightful was a Green Eyed Monster of Hendrick's gin, green Chartreuse, jalapeño, lemon, and sage, from the "tippler" section of the drink menu. The herbal vivaciousness of the Chartreuse is a lovely foil for the pepper, effectively neutralizing its heat while highlighting its other flavors.
Lafitte Pier 5 (at the Embarcadero), 839-2134
