Highlights from the blog this week:
2. Is Sweet Genius host Ron Ben-Israel an evil space-alien genius? After watching the show, Michael Leaverton is convinced he deserves recognition along the lines of Ming the Merciless and Khan Noonien Singh.
3. In his interview with Noah Sanders, Verve Coffee's Colby Barr talks frankly about the issue that perplexes many coffee drinkers and is ignored by the geekerati: customer service. If SFoodie lived in Santa Cruz, we'd patronize his shop every day -- as it is, we pick up his beans at the Frog Hollow Farms stand in the Ferry Building.
The new fall/winter cocktail menu at Jasper's Corner Tap has a lot to like, from old favorites like the Black Cross ($11, black tea infused Smith & Cross Rum, Dubonnet Rouge, Belle de Brillet Pear Liqueur, Angostura bitters), to the powerful Kentucky Two Step ($10, Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Wild Turkey Rye, Snap liqueur, allspice).
Of all the drinks, it was Kevin Diedrich's Orchard Malt Mule ($13, Glen Grant Single Malt Whisky, Belle de Brillet Pear Liqueur, allspice- infused honey, lemon, apple cider, ginger beer) that drank like a crisp, fall afternoon complete with a tinge of smoke from the single malt that made us want to huddle around the fireplace.
The mule part of the name is the term to describe a drink with ginger beer or ginger ale (and not a warning of the strength of the drink). The drink certainly has enough might to add some color to your cheeks, but the jolt you'll feel will come from the ginger, spices, and holiday cheer.
Jasper's Corner Tap & Kitchen, 401 Taylor (at O'Farrell)
• Chako, a pit bull rescue and education group, has put together an amazing calendar of sexy, sexy naked men and adorable, adorable pit bulls. Gift them to everyone this holiday season, especially your ignorant friends and relatives who say stupid things about pit bulls because they know nothing about them. They can be all, "Pit bulls are scary!" and then you can bust out the calendar and be all, "SCARILY SEXUAL." Changing hearts and minds!
• Last weekend I went to Harvest Home Sanctuary's Toast to the Turkeys and took a million photos of super cute animals and delicious food. Oh, what fun we had! I can't really tell you all about it because I'm starting to develop carpal tunnel with all this g-d educating I'm doing here, but there's still a chance for you to party with the turkeys at one of the nation-wide Thanksgiving celebrations with the animals. Get up on that!
International coffee powerhouse Illy is stretching its espresso-tinged fingers in to the heavily populated world of San Francisco cafes with Espressamente Illy, a high-end cafe now open at 123 Battery. It is Illy's ninth Esspressamente to open in the United States.
Though most Americans can only identify Illycaffe by the air-sealed cylindrical tubes of coffee that rest atop the hoppers of so many lower-end coffee joints, the company has been in existence since 1933 and is one of the originators of what we now call specialty coffee.
Illycaffe's founder, Francesco Illy, was the inventor of the first automatic espresso machine, the illeta, a precursor to the fancy doodads we see today. His son, Ernesto Illy, helped Illycaffe to become one of the first coffee roasters in the world to purchase beans directly from the source in countries like Brazil and Ethiopia. Without the Illy clan, our lightly roasted batches of micro-lotted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe may never have seen the light of day.
Life can go by at a blinding pace when racing across San Francisco in the pursuit of compelling cookies, but after one particularly large binge we settled down long enough to notice some intriguing parallels in the treats created by two young Bay Area companies.
The newest kid on the block is Bubala's Rugelach (available at Other Avenues), the SF-based company from Exploratorium editorial director Ellyn Hament. Rugelach and butterhorns are both steeped in East Coast heritage, where they're ubiquitous in New York's Jewish and Italian communities. They're also both traditionally made with cinnamon, sugar, and walnuts and rolled in similar formations. Hament plans to offer more than just the original flavor, with varieties including a vegan peanut butter and jelly, lemon with strawberry jam, and mocha (called Moch-ahh in the world of Bubala).
Even for a decadent Cook E. Monster, just one of these is pretty satisfying -- okay, two, maybe three, but we'll try to leave you a few.
The cookies from Christine Falatico Frey's East Bay company
CiCi's Italian Butterhorns (available at Rainbow Grocery) seem to possess more butter than Bubala's, and have a less dense mouthfeel, making them a bit more dangerous to consume quickly. But both will probably make one forgo politeness when confronted with the last cookie in the bag.
New Taste Marketplace, a fundraiser for The Food Pantry and St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, is hosting its November market Saturday, where small-vendor marketplace meets a church setting -- this time, with extra chocolate.
The market's lineup of usual suspects will be there -- Jablow's Meats, Nosh This, Uncommon Pickle, and Snapdragon Baking Co., and dozens of others -- but Coco Tutti is set to steal the show at 1 p.m. and again at 3 p.m. with a free truffle-making class.
This month's market also features a new set of art vendors: Faerie Goatmother (goat's milk soap and face masks), Drywell Art (illustrations of food and butchery), and Cottage Farm (vintage farmhouse items for the home) -- just in time to tackle that ever-growing holiday shopping list.
New Taste Marketplace
Time: Saturday, November 19, noon-5 p.m.
Place: St. Gregory of Nyssa, 500 DeHaro (at Mariposa).
Tickets: $0-$10 sliding scale entry fee
A weekly series on what to do with your farmers' market impulse buys and CSA box surprises.
Pomegranates have been celebrated throughout history, especially in the Middle East, and they hold significance for many world religions and cultures. NPR even calls them "the jewels in the fruit crown." They are also revered for their high content of antioxidant vitamins.
The inside of a the fruit are filled with garnet colored arils - crunchy seeds encased in a coating of juicy flesh. The arils, a perfect balance of sweet and tart flavors, are completely edible. Pomegranates can be found in Bay Area farmers' markets and produce stores from late summer until the beginning of winter.
The Bay Area's Dungeness crab season opened for the year on November 15, but fresh, local crabs still haven't appeared in the markets. On Tuesday, the Chronicle reported that the San Francisco Crab Boat Association is on strike, holding out for better prices from the seafood processors who buy the crab from them. The association is demanding $2.50 per pound, as opposed to the $1.75 per pound the crab processors have been paying for the past few years.
According to Paul Johnson, owner of Monterey Fish Market, as of today the fishermen and the processors still haven't come to an agreement. "They're still 20 percent away from each other," Johnson says. "There's bad weather today, so no one's going to come to an agreement right now. Monday we'll probably have one."
Mel Wickliffe, owner of Pier 45 Seafood, a wholesaler specializing in Dungeness crabs, thinks San Franciscans who want crab for Thanksgiving will be disappointed. "We have a world of crab pots on the dock right now, and it'll take a day and a half to get them in and out of the water," he says. "On Monday, if they go fishing, it'll take them Monday and Tuesday to get the crabs to us, and it takes time to process and distribute the crabs. By Wednesday [the crabs] will be useless, since most people will do their shopping on Tuesday or Wednesday., and it takes even after loading."
What: Snacks and Crafts Party
Where: Urban Bazaar
When: Sun., November 20, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Cost: Free
The rundown: Urban Bazaar will host "Snacks & Crafts," an art show and fundraiser to benefit San Francisco's City Arts and Technology (CAT) High School. The featured artists are two CAT students, Leilani Banayos and Michael Robins, who are currently interning at Urban Bazaar. These talented young souls are also very generous, donating 50% of the proceeds from the sales of their illustrations, photography, and prints to the school's art program. Urban Bazaar promises lots of delicious free refreshments to accompany the show, with the chance to pick up some great holiday gifts, while giving back to a local public school art program. Which, you know, can use all the extra money they can get. 'Tis the season!
Register on their website, or just show up.
Didn't your parents teach you never to go shopping on an empty stomach? Now, neuroscience -- science! -- confirms that, unlike the prohibition against swimming right after dinner, you should follow their advice.
As the UK Guardian reports, researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute have confirmed that your brain, under the influence of the hunger-inducing hormone ghrelin, is drawn to fattier, saltier foods. The researchers conducted a blind study in which they injected some study participants with ghrelin and others with saline, and then asked all of them to bid small amounts of money on hundreds of objects, some foods and some inedible. The extra-hungry subjects offered to bid higher prices on higher-calorie foods.
The researchers' conclusions: Don't skip meals. Also, cheap high-calorie foods are making us obese. Now, when you're imparting life lessons to your own children, feel free to back up your advice with academic research.
