When Megan Gordon got pink-slipped from her high school teaching gig, it didn't take her long to realize what it was she wanted to do: become a baker. "I felt that I'd reached the end of a road," Gordon says, "but I always loved to bake. Even if we were doing Shakespeare, I'd bring something baked to class that tied in with it somehow."
Last fall, after a couple years of freelance food writing, Gordon made her move, launching Marge Bakery with a regular Saturday slot at the Marin Country Mart farmers' market in Larkspur Landing. Gordon is one of 12 pastry shops who'll be selling at Sunday's One Love bake sale at La Victoria, organized by SFoodie as a benefit for the S.F City Clinic.
Marge does classic American baking: pies, cookies and bars, granola, and something Gordon calls Mo's. "They're made with Valhrona chocolate and fall somewhere between a MoonPie and a traditional Oreo," Gordon explains. The name? It's Gordon's grandmother's. "Since we do nostalgic American desserts, I was looking for a punchy, old-school woman's name." Gordon's dad suggested grandma Marge. It stuck.
Heath Ceramics has started selling Marge granola at the Ferry Building, and Gordon's done a couple of SF Underground Markets. Meanwhile, she says, she's planning some future brick-and-mortar shop, probably in the East Bay. "I want to have a storefront, but I want to grow slowly," Gordon says. Stop by La Victoria Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., buy a Mo for a good cause, and say hi.
Follow us on Twitter: @sfoodie, and like us on Facebook. Contact me at John.Birdsall@SFWeekly.com
Food From the Heart
Where: Ferry Building Marketplace, 1 Ferry Building (at Embarcadero)
When: Fri., Feb. 11, 5-8 p.m./ Sat., Feb. 12, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Cost: Free entry, $2-$4 for wine and hors d'oeuvres
The rundown: Eating at the Ferry Building is always a treat, but no one ever accused it of being budget-friendly. Take solace, thrifty foodie: It's time once again for Food From the Heart, where romance fills the air, and wine and snacks run $2-$4. For this, the eighth (!) annual incarnation, expect a range of seasonal hors d'oeuvres, chocolates, and Napa Valley wines. Shops will stay open from 5-8 p.m., with candles and classical music to set the tone. As in the past, proceeds benefit Slow Food San Francisco, with this year's funds earmarked for its work building gardens in local schools. The event continues on Saturday morning, with chef demos, music, and special Valentine's treats.
SFoodie's countdown of the 92 best things to eat and drink in San Francisco, 2011 edition.
Maxine Siu reverse-engineered her side potatoes, based on what she didn't like about every other version in town. "Nobody does good home fries," says Siu, who with husband Joel Bleskacek opened Potrero Hill breakfast-and-lunch place Plow last fall. (The couple also owns Ruby Wine, a shop two blocks up on 18th Street.)
"They're always soggy or mushy, never crispy," Siu says of most breakfast potatoes. Before Plow's opening day, she worked out a better version at home. Siu started with Yukon Golds ("they're sweeter," she says, "and have a decent amount of starch"), boiled them slowly in salted water, drained and cooled them slightly, then semi-smashed each by hand. At home she browned them in a hot oven, but at the restaurant the cooks drop them in the deep-fryer till they crisp and the skins open up, like petals dangling from dried roses. Last step: a quick toss in a mixing bowl with salt, herbs, and caramelized onions.
I wasn't the only person who consumed hearts in honor of/protest over Valentine's Day. Avedano's Meats, the sustainability-minded butcher shop in Bernal Heights, is making hearts the focus of its first event open to the public.
The Lonely Hearts dinners take place in the butcher shop's private dining room on Feb. 13 and 14, featuring duck and pork hearts as part of a six-course meal. (Avedano's co-owner, Melanie Eismann, says that in lieu of a heart entree they decided to substitute a "sweetheart" steak. "I could eat heart for every course," she said, "but we didn't want to make people feel like they have to.")
Stories abound of Belgian monks who toiled through laborious days with nothing to nourish them but low-alcohol beers designed for sustenance. But you're no monk. You're a hungry beer geek. Luckily, multiple beer dinners and pairing seminars are offered each day of SF Beer Week, Feb. 11-20. The biggest challenge is deciding where to use up your stomach (and liver) space. To help, here's part one of SFoodie's picks for daily beer-themed meals to soak up the suds. Note: Requested attire for some of these dinners is listed as "clothing, please." Let's all take that more as a rule than a suggestion.
Friday, Feb. 11
Prix Fixe Menu with Magnolia Beer
Where: The Alembic, 1725 Haight (at Shrader), 666-0822
When: Each day of Beer Week, 5 p.m.-1 a.m.
Cost: $35 for food; suggested beer pairings extra
What: Three courses designed to pair with Magnolia beers. If you're feeling courageous, pop over to Magnolia after dinner for a strong-beer sampler nightcap.
Saturday, Feb. 12
Brouwerij Van Steenberge Beer Dinner
Where: La Trappe (http://latrappecafe.com/), 800 Greenwich (at Mason, 440-8727
When: 7-11:30 p.m.
Cost: TBD
What: Jef Versele of Belgian brewery Van Steenberge joins revelers in "an evening of gluttony," i.e., beers paired with unique chefs' creations. You had us at "gluttony."
Our refrigerator is rarely without nduja, Boccalone's spicy spreadable salame. When preparing a meal, we've often asked ourselves, "Would this dish be better with nduja?" The answer has so far always been a resounding yes, but we never thought of mixing it with chocolate ice cream. Luckily, Chris Cosentino and crew at Incanto did.
Boccalone previously explored the frozen meat dessert category with Humphry Slocombe in a prosciutto blend, but Incanto's chocolate-nduja ice cream is more harmonious, maybe from the chocolate base (72% Guittard) combined with the nduja's heat. Since Boccalone doesn't have freezers, Incanto is the exclusive spot for this meaty frozen delight, served with a "waffled" cookie on select evenings.
Incanto: 1550 Church (at Duncan), 641-4500.
It was born in 1880, and four years later came to California. But for another 80, almost nobody knew it.
Petite Sirah is one of California's historical vines and among the earliest varieties introduced to the state, but for decades it languished as an anonymous blending wine. Blame the color, a Dracula-dark, rug-ruining reddish burgundy-blue, which also made it an excellent addition to other reds in need of a stiff body-boost. Still, no winemaker dared stamp "Petite Sirah" on a bottle label.
Then in 1961, Jim Concannon, winemaker at his family's namesake vineyard in Livermore, set aside a small portion of that year's Petite Sirah, previously used only for blending into Concannon's other reds. The wine matured and showed promise as a varietal release. In 1964, the Concannons deemed it ready and able. They stamped the label with the grape's name, a reference to its small berry size, plus a misspelled rendering of one of the variety's parent grapes. The first-ever vintage bottling of a Petite Sirah had arrived.
With the Concannon release, Petite Sirah (still called Durif in France after the Montpellier breeder who created it) underwent a revolution, from blending grape to tasting-room draw. The variety would become Concannon's signature wine, while beyond the Livermore Valley Petite Sirah was suddenly fashionable. Winemakers took a second look at their Petite vines and, one by one began bottling the wine unblended. Petite Sirah's growth has accelerated in recent years. In 2001, 65 California wineries released one; in 2010, the number surged to 723. More will surely join the movement this year, as the trendiness of this reddest of red wines shows no sign of cooling.
To taste dozens of Petites at a go, visit the Rock Wall Wine Company in Alameda on Feb. 18 for the annual Dark and Delicious Petite Sirah food-and-wine tasting event.
Unwilling to wait? We were. SFoodie recently gathered up a panel of eight tasters to evaluate five Petite Sirahs.
Making heart the subject of my Valentine's Day review may be a stunt, but eating heart meat isn't. Whether it comes from a chicken, duck, pig, lamb, or cow, heart is an amazing cut: smooth and yet not slippery-gushy, lean and robust. Heart meat readily takes to fire, smoke, chiles, but can also be prepared with great delicacy.
Really? The asking price of $9.95 seemed a bit steep for what appeared to be a glorified Egg McMuffin on Show Dogs' recently unveiled breakfast menu, especially considering our front-row view of a local taking his morning whiz on Sixth Street. But the Sunrise ShowDog was tasty enough to take some of the sting out of both. Other breakfast options here are huevos rancheros, silver dollar corn pancakes, a merguez frittata, even steak and eggs. The morning ShowDog is a house-made maple-bacon sausage under a fluffy scramble of eggs with onion, green peppers, tomatoes, arugula, cheddar, all nestled in a lightly toasted sesame bun from Acme. Miraculously, we could actually lift it to take clean bites, no fork necessary. The bun took us back to third-grade days, when mom would toast up a few slices of white bread breakfast, but a cold, thin, bitter-tasting disc of celery-root hash browns killed our nostalgia. Still, service was cheery and the manager offered to refill our mug with more Four Barrel ($2.25). He told us takeout isn't yet available for breakfast, and weekend service is coming soon.
Show Dogs: 1020 Market (at Golden Gate), 558-9560.
Just before the start of the Year of the Rabbit celebrations, SFoodie canvassed San Francisco Chinatown, looking for New Year special menus to post online. Many, many thanks to Adobo Hobo's Ed Chui and his parents for doing the translations. (Click on the above image, and you should be able to download a printable PDF.)
The above menu comes from New Woey Loy Goey, a home-style Cantonese restaurant near the corner of Jackson and Grant. The underground restaurant isn't fancy, but it has lasted for generations, surviving both fires and the tourist-ization of Grant Street. New Woey Loy Goey's set new year's menus are the cheapest SFoodie encountered.
