It's a big week for bookish San Francisco foodies interested in sustainable farming, vegetarianism, and foraging.
• Tomorrow, Wendell Berry -- writer, farmer, and godfather of the organic farming movement -- appears at Herbst Theatre (401 Van Ness at McAllister) in conversation with Michael Pollan for a City Arts and Lectures event. The utterings of both are often quoted (Berry: "Eating is an agricultural act"; Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Perhaps tomorrow's talk will yield more gems. (The event is sold out, but in the past, we've had success buying extra tickets from attendees outside Herbst.) In any event, it should be altogether more civilized than Wednesday's equally booked appearance by David Chang (with Chris Cosentino, among others) at Cafe du Nord.
• On Thursday, Nov. 5, super-committed foodies might want to attend two high-profile events. Langdon Cook, author of Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, appears for a free discussion at Omnivore Books (3885 Cesar Chavez at Church) at 6 p.m.• Then, at 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center (3200 California at Presidio), there's an appearance by Jonathan Safran Foer. The birth of the author's first child first child precipitated the comic novel Everything is Illuminated. A serious examination of the ethics of eating flesh resulted in his new nonfiction book, Eating Animals (the one-word response to the implied question of the title is No, by the way. Tickets are $10-$18 -- or wait till Friday, Nov. 6, and you can hear Foer for free at 7 p.m. in the Multicultural Community Center at U.C. Berkeley's Student Union (Telegraph at Bancroft, Berkeley).
We're no fans of the optimistic predictions that the recession is over. But October saw the fewest closures of San Francisco restaurants in the past six months. And for the ones that did close, new tenants were generally already in line.
After changing Hawthorne Lane to the more casual Two a couple of years ago, David Gingrass announced that, along with the end of his lease at the close of this year, he'd be vacating the premises while pondering his next move. French Laundry vet Corey Lee has already secured the space for the upcoming Benu. Two (22 Hawthorne at Howard) remains open through December.Meanwhile, the erstwhile San Francisco Brewing Company will become the Comstock Saloon, a new venture from the owners of Absinthe.
No plans have been announced for the next incarnation of the space atop the Embarcadero Center that spent two decades as Chevys. Nor for the storefront next to Lupa, whose owner -- Stefano Coppola -- tried out Bistro 24 for three months (Coppola's City Grill previously occupied the space for only six months). Got a sec? Read the short list of the 86ed (after the jump).
Earthy, fragrant truffles are among the most expensive and rewarding of rare ingredients. The hard-to-find fungal tubers often grow at the base of trees, to be snuffed out by truffle-hunting pigs and dogs. Pungent in a way that's frankly sexy, they enhance everything from scrambled eggs to more complicated preparations.
• At Americano in the Hotel Vitale (8 Mission at the Embarcadero), executive chef Paul Arenstam references the annual Fiera del Tartufo Bianco d'Alba with his own White Truffle Week, Nov. 2-6. Truffles will be featured all day long, on all of Americano's menus (even room service), simple preparations that allow the aromatic truffles to shine. They include breakfast eggs with shaved truffles (served all day); risotto al tartufo bianco; pizza bianco con tartufo; and buttered fettuccine with truffles. All dishes are $45, and include five grams of white truffle shaved at table.
The four panelists were collegial but wildly different. Soft-spoken professional cook Anthony Myint of Mission Burger and Mission Street Food was serious about making charitable donations (in his case, to organizations fighting hunger) part of the business plan. Gobba Gobba Hey's Steven Gdula, who turned to baking gobs when the recession made his freelance food writing career difficult, started baking a dozen pastries at a time in his home oven and has transitioned to being able to turn out six dozen in eight minutes in a commercial kitchen.
Didja get your free Bay Bridge broken hot dog yesterday at Zog's? Still hungry for schwag? This evening, samples of Divine Chocolate will be handed out at a number of BART stations: from 4 to 8 p.m. at Montgomery in S.F., and from 5 to 7 p.m. at 24th Street in S.F. and at the Ashby and Rockridge stations in the East Bay.
Turns out October is fair trade month, and Divine Chocolate is fair trade-certified, co-owned by the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Cooperative in Ghana, West Africa. We think it's only fair that your unfair commute is improved by bagging a bite of fair-trade chocs. For free.
Melissa Perello was born in Nutley, N.J., lived in Houston, and went to cooking school in upstate New York, but San Francisco is where the 32-year-old chef formed her restaurant bones. She arrived here fresh from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., to gig with mentor Michael Mina at Aqua. She later moved to Aqua's sister eatery, Charles Nob Hill, to work alongside Ron Siegel, eventually moving up to executive chef.
It was at Charles that Perello's California-inspired French cuisine won her a trophy case worth of accolades; 2002 Chronicle Rising Star Chef, three James Beard Rising Star nominations (2002, 2003, and 2004), and a spot on Food and Wine's list of best new chefs for 2004. She joined Fifth Floor as executive chef, and snagged a Michelin star in 2006. And yeah, that was Perello (with friend Anna Wankel) racing across San Francisco this summer in the hometown episode of Food Network's Chefs vs. City, battling Chris Cosentino and Aaron Sanchez.Mondays, Perello's been drawing foodies to Sebo in Hayes Valley, for ingredient-driven menus with a whiff of American rustic. But these days, she's in the final throes of opening her own place in the Castro, Frances (3870 17th St. at Pond) -- look for it to open around Thanksgiving. It's named after her grandmother, with whom she spent summers cooking in Northern Texas. After the upscale settings of Aqua, Charles Nob Hill, and Fifth Floor, Perello is eager to offer seasonal American cooking, showcasing artisanal products from Northern California farmers, in a neighborhood setting.
SFoodie: What definitive moment made you realize you had to be in the kitchen?
Perello: No true definitive moment, really. I was just always a very strangely focused kid -- knew I wanted to go to culinary school by the time I started high school. My mom has a story she loves to tell of how she came home from work one day to find me boning out a leg of lamb. I was like 10 or something. I would watch cooking shows 24/7 (such a dork!) and try to re-create them for dinner. My grandmother Frances (the restaurant's namesake) was a big encouragement. I would spend summers with my grandparents and she was always cooking, me at her side, peeling, rolling, cutting, etc.
Flavors, ingredients, or techniques you have an irrational attachment to?
I'm big on braising or roasting almost anything you throw at me. If all else fails I love to throw it in the oven with a fair hand of seasoning, a little olive oil, and cook until the flavors of a slow oven make the ingredients shine.
Most overrated ingredient in S.F?
Pork everything ... not that I'm not a fan, a huge fan, cuz I am! And I cook much of it myself. Just a little oversaturated with hog exposure.
Extra points for the swirls of strawberry sauce "ketchup" and the adorable mouse garnish composed of a puff of whipped cream, almond ears, and infinitesimal chocolate dots for eyes and nose. Excellent work, Burger Bar pastry chef! Minus points for Keller's insanely complicated Web site, complete with weird clicks and annoying techno music we could only manage to turn off on certain pages.
By the way, Keller now offers a FleurBurger at Fleur de Lys, inspired, apparently, by the ones at Burger Bar. The menu describes it as "lightly spiced dark chocolate ganache, home-made Beignet, cherry-flavored milk shake, & frozen fennel ice cream 'Pommes Frites.'" The prix-fixe menus there range from $72 to $95. But that whipped cream mouse is priceless.
Zog's Dogs One Post (at Market), 391-7071. Free dogs today from 10 a.m. until supplies run out.
Which means that after the discussion, everybody will take to the streets, walking over to 111 Minna Gallery (111 Minna at Second St.), where they can sample some freebies and purchase full-size treats from such heroes of the movement as Bacon Potato Chips, Bike Basket Pies, Crème Brûlée Cart, Gobba Gobba Hey, Magic Curry Kart, Mission Street Food, Soul Cocina, Sweet Constructions, and Smitten Ice Cream. "It should be a great snapshot of our local scene, especially for those who have yet to run around the streets looking for vendors," Palmer said.
The Street Food Movement: SF Hearts the Cart Commonwealth Club, 595 Market (at Second St.), 597-6700. Thursday, Oct. 29, 6:30 p.m. Tickets: $12 for club members, $20 for non-members, and $7 for students with a valid ID.
We already have a sister and two friends we regularly give castoff food books to, and we're pretty attached to the ones that remain. So we scrounged around and came up with a couple of paperbacks: Havana Salsa and The Bad for You Cookbook, plus a hardcover copy of Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books -- who co-presented last night's event -- greeted us at the door and placed our books on the proper tables, without scoffing. Rachel Cole of 18 Reasons served up wine and told us about two book clubs starting in January, one devoted to food writing and another to cookbooks.
There were several hundred books to choose from, food-themed games, even a couple of recipe boxes. We ended up with a beautiful copy of L'Atelier of Joël Robuchon; Mark Kurlansky's brand-new The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food -- Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal (whew!); Eat My Words: Reading Women's Lives through the Cookbooks They Wrote; and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements. Thanks to a surfeit of books, we were all allowed to take one more than we brought, a haul considerably better (and cheaper) than the one we got at the massive Friends of the Library sale last month at Fort Mason.
