It was the kind of trip that sort of happens to you. The kind you don't plan for in advance or research what to see or do. The sort of trip where you ask your friends the night before what they've loved and just take it from there, knowing full well you can't do everything in less than two days time, but you may certainly try.

That's where we found ourselves last weekend: with an itch to get out of Dodge and check out Portland. We managed to find a relatively reasonable rate at The Ace Hotel, and were looking forward to a few days without computers -- roaming a new set of city streets with little agenda except ice cream, coffee, and curry.

Strong Coffee at Stumptown

We started off the morning in the lobby of our hotel where Stumptown is the adjoining cafe. Depending on the time of day, there can be quite a line, so in addition to your wad of cash bring your patience. If you find yourself drawn to the design of the Ace Hotel, you'll probably really dig Stumptown too. Of course the coffee is spectacular, but beyond that, the spare design cues are spot-on with customized postcards, a super sleek espresso machine, and long and low bar for easy barista viewing. Even if you're not staying at The Ace, you can grab a cup of Joe and amble on into the hotel lobby for a seat at that big, low coffee table with the morning paper.

Kim Boyce's Bakery, Bakeshop

After coffee, we headed over to check out Bakeshop, the bakery owned by one of my favorite cookbook authors, Kim Boyce. Boyce's book Good to the Grain has been a constant inspiration to me as I took the leap into baking largely with whole-grain flours. Her recipes always test out perfectly, she's charming and gracious in person, and I'd heard her bakery sold lots of the same treats that filled the pages of the cookbook. When we arrived, Boyce was forming croissants and greeted us with a smile. I was pleased to find pastries from the cookbook, including the Strawberry Scones and the Figgy Scones along with those pretty-famous Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies. And while the treats were delicious, I ultimately wanted a bit more selection, a little coffee, and more of a sit-down atmosphere. But maybe that's not what they're going for here -- I know Boyce does a brisk wholesale business, so the retail portion of the business may not be the focus. If you're a Boyce fan, you must visit when you're in town. If you're looking for a decadent, special bakery where you can sit down and enjoy a few sweets, I honestly wouldn't make the effort.

Morning Bun, Oregon Croissant, and Cannele at Ken's Artisan Bakery

When you've only got a little over 24 hours in Portland, one bakery is surely not enough. We decided to check out Ken's Artisan Bakery, well known for their breads and laminated pastries (hello, croissants!). We managed to score an outdoor table and shared the citrus morning bun, Oregon croissant, and cannelle. The Oregon croissant was studded with local berries and slathered in pastry cream. It was one of the best things I tried all weekend, and I'm looking forward to attempting to recreate it one of these days at home. The cannelle was pretty close to perfect, with a crisp, buttery exterior and a soft vanilla-scented interior that crumbled easily with each bite. Ken's was packed: a sure sign they're doing something right. Judging from the pastries we ordered, I'd venture to say they're doing virtually everything right. The neighborhood is charming and walk-able, too. A perfect weekend morning stop.

Buying Chocolate and Salt at The Meadow

After two bakeries in one morning, a break is in order. We drove over to The Meadow where I'd heard you could buy every kind of salt imaginable. This is true. We took home Rosemary Salt, Chocolate Salt and Vanilla Salt but were tempted by Red Smoked Salt, Lemon Verbena Salt and Saffron Salt. You can buy small little tins to try or larger glass vials that make a beautiful gift. They also have an incredible selection of bitters and vermouth and ... chocolate. For some reason, no one had mentioned the incredible chocolate selection they have at The Meadow: everything from San Francisco favorite Dandelion to Brooklyn stand-out Mast Brothers and local Portland chocolate makers Woodblock. I stocked up for our own cupboard, for Father's Day, and for a few friends. A splurge indeed, but I've been loving the vanilla salt on popcorn at home, and am so looking forward to wrapping up the special chocolates I bought as gifts. The Meadow was a pretty comprehensive website, so if you can't make it to Portland (or their New York location) you can still order a few things to try.

A Peek Inside the Kitchen at Olympic Provisions

For lunch in Portland, I can't recommend Olympic Provisions enough. It's the one place I've been raving about to friends and family. In short, it's Oregon’s first USDA-approved salumeria, open just three years now but boasting two locations that operate as European-style restaurants, happening neighborhood delis, and onsite meat-curing facilities. We were there later on a Saturday so they were still serving brunch, and if you find yourself in a similar scenario, the eggs benedict is something pretty special. It's piled high with house-cured Canadian bacon, perfectly poached eggs and a smattering of fresh chives.

The Chef's Choice Charcuterie Platter at Olympic Provisions

We also shared the Chef's Choice Charcuterie Platter because it seemed silly to visit and not try a few different cured meats. The salami and mortadella were pretty incredible and came with a variety of pickled accompaniments, good grainy mustard, and sliced bread. A most generous and filling offering. The kitchen is beautifully designed and open, so you can pull up a seat at the bar and watch the butchers, chefs, and pastry folks work their magic. A treat for the eyes, stomach, and the senses.

Salt and Straw: Ice Cream Flight!

Later that afternoon after ambling about the Hawthorne neighborhood checking out shops and antique stores and spending a good chunk of time in Powell's Home and Garden it was time for an ice cream cone. Friends who live in Portland swear by Salt and Straw and I've been reading quite a bit of good press lately, so I knew we had to check it out. We ended up getting the Ice Cream Flight ($9) which allows you to choose four flavors -- a good option if you can't possibly decided where to begin. While their delicious all-the-time offerings are always a good choice (The Salted Caramel or the Balsamic Strawberry are standouts), the Seasonal Specials are a good place to start.

Menu at Salt and Straw

We tried the Honey Lavender which was the loveliest shade of pale purple and just the right amount of floral and aromatic notes. Rhubarb with an Anise Crumble also made its way onto our sampler platter. For an afternoon stroll or evening dessert, Salt and Straw is my new favorite ice cream in the Pacific Northwest.

Of course after bakeries and ice cream cones, a proper meal is in order at some point and we ended up dining at Pok Pok, a restaurant specializing in the food served at pubs, restaurants, homes and the streets of Southeast Asia. Most of the dishes come from Thailand and, according to their website, "everything has been researched, eaten, and/or prepared in the country of it's origin." While many friends have reported that it's one of the best meals they've ever had, we both felt like it was good but not phenomenal and left wondering if perhaps we just hadn't ordered the right dishes. We did get the sweet and spicy chicken wings that folks rave about; I don't usually even like chicken wings nor does my partner Sam and we both loved these. While they're messy like most wings, they're different in flavor than any other wing I've tried and have a serious spicy kick to them. We also tried the green papaya salad and the coconut curry soup, a little sticky rice, and donuts with coffee and condensed milk ice cream for dessert. If you end up with a wait when you arrive, the Whiskey Soda Lounge right across the street has unique appetizers (try the "Chicken" Three Ways: a combination of peanuts, lemongrass, and shallot) and housemade cocktails. They're particularly well-known for their drinking vinegars -- the grapefruit will make the time spent waiting for dinner breeze right on by.

Late-night drinks at Clyde Common

Back at the hotel, we wanted to grab a quick drink before heading up to the room and Clyde Common is a very sweet, spare bar and eatery on the other adjoining side of the Ace. They're open relatively late and have a great bourbon and whiskey selection in addition to housemade cocktails (Negronis on tap!). The staff is warm and not at all pretentious, and we sat until they were closing up shop. If you can get a seat by the window, there's some prime people watching and you still feel some of the good energy from the folks at the bar while still maintaining a bit more privacy.

The Details:

• The Ace Hotel: 1022 SW Stark St., Portland, OR; (503) 228-2277.
• Stumptown Coffee: 1026 SW Stark St., Portland OR; (503) 224-9060; Hours: Weekdays 6am-6pm, Weekends 7am-7pm
• Bakeshop:5351 NE Sandy Boulevard, Portland OR; (503) 946-8884. Hours: Wed-Sunday 7am-2pm
• Ken's Artisan Bakery: 338 NW 21st Avenue, Portland OR; (503) 248-2202. Hours: Mon-Sat 7am-6pm, Monday Night Pizza 5:30pm-9:30pm; Sunday 8am-5pm
• The Meadow: 3731 N. Mississippi Avenue, Portland, OR; (503)-288-4633. Hours: Sun-Thurs. 10am-7pm, Fri-Sat 10am-8pm
• Olympic Provisions 1632 NW Thurman St, Portland, OR 97209; (503) 894 8136. Hours: Lunch, 11am–3pm Monday to Friday; Dinner, 5pm–10pm Tuesday to Saturday. For other location information, check the website.
• Salt and Straw: 2035 NE Alberta St Portland, OR; {503}208-3867. Hours: Open 11am-11pm Daily. For information on other locations, check the website.
• Pok Pok: 3226 SE Division Street, Portland OR.; (503) 232 1387. 11:30am - 10:00pm, 7 days a week.
• Clyde Common: 1014 SW Stark St, Porland OR; (508) 228-3333. Hours: Lunch Weekdays, 11:30am – 3pm. Happy Hour Weekdays, 3pm – 6pm, Sat-Sun 4-5pm. Dinner Mon-Thurs 6-11pm, Sat-Sun 5-11pm. Late Night Menu Mon-Thu 11-11:45pm, Fri-Sat til 12:45am.

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” So begins Steinbeck’s 1945 novel, set in a time when sardines created a boom economy in this fishing village; though these fish were once thought to be almost wiped out, this vast, silvered biomass has been making a comeback. Sardine fishing boats sway on anchor next to vessels that troll for tuna and hook-and-line for groundfish. This town has become epicenter of the sustainable fishing movement, with the venerable Monterey Bay Aquarium a main attraction, and their Seafood Watch a guide for consumers and chefs alike.

Schooners Coastal Kitchen and Bar is located in the Monterey Plaza Hotel on Cannery Row in Monterey. Photo: Marc Fiorito of Gamma Nine

This past January, Schooners Coastal Kitchen and Bar opened to an enthusiastic public. Located in the Monterey Plaza Hotel, once the site of a cannery, the dining room opens to views of the bay where sea otters drift in kelp forests and rafts of sea lions roar at one another. This restaurant used to be the Duck Club Grill, but Chef James Waller overhauled it into a no-fuss seafood restaurant with local, simple ingredients and transparency that includes an open kitchen and the menu lists where and how the seafood entrees were caught.

Chef James Waller at the grill. Photo: Maria Finn

Chef Waller got his start in seafood at fish houses on the Jersey Coast, where fishermen brought in their hauls of bluefish, clams, and scallops to feed the hungry beach-goers. When he started working in Monterey, he thought customers would insist on salmon year round, which means farmed, or Atlantic swordfish--seafood that’s not sustainable. “But I was wrong,” he explained. “People kept showing up with Seafood Watch cards or referencing their Smartphone apps from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They were totally onboard and appreciated the extra effort that goes into carefully sourcing seafood.”

The Angry Prawns appetizers at Schooners are a favorite. Photo: Marc Fiorito of Gamma Nine

Their appetizers, like angry prawns and plank-seared scallops, make visiting this beautiful bay that much better; fresh seasonal seafood like peanut crusted mahi-mahi in orange soy butter or California swordfish with beurre rouge, romanesco and grapefruit will win over any meat-and-potato landlubber, but the buzz here is due to their chowders and stews. They have six, including two vegan options—the roasted tomato and mushroom chowders. I tried the clam chowder and it was sublime. Each chowder is made to order, and so the wine, fresh herbs, rich cream and boiled potatoes keep their separate charms; the clams are from Tomales Bay and left their shells. These elements brought together make the chowder complex, comforting and sensual all at once.

Each chowder is made to order. Here they are preparing clam chowder. Photo: Maria Finn

Not yet on the menu were sardines. These are slowly coming into vogue with San Francisco Bay area chefs, as eating smaller fish on the food chain helps keep the food chains in the ocean balanced. As well, they have far less mercury and other toxins than large fish and are very high in omega 3’s, and so are a healthy choice. Chef Waller said that he prepared them when he got them in, but admitted that these were a tough sell. “The great thing about sardines and mackerel,” he explained, “Is that they can stand up to spices and acidity. I might use harissa with them, or citrus or roasted tomato. You won’t lose the flavor.” Sardine season, coming up in June, seems like a great reason to return to Schooner’s Coastal Kitchen.

This restaurant used to be the Duck Club Grill, but last year went through a major renovation and reopened in January 2011 as Schooners Coastal Kitchen and Bar. Photo: Marc Fiorito of Gamma Nine

May 18-20, The Monterey Bay Aquarium is having their annual “Cooking for Solutions” with over 70 chefs and 60 wineries. Chef Waller and Schooners Coastal Kitchen will be participating. You’ll find them at the Sustainable Seafood Challenge with Carla Hall and other celebrity chefs. Saturday, May 19, 5-7p.m. at the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa. ($150.00, available to Aquarium members only. Tax-deductible portion: $50.00)

Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa
400 Cannery Row, Monterey, CA 93940

For reservations, call (831) 646-1706
Hours Of Operation
Breakfast: 6:30am-11:00am (12:00 noon weekends)
Lunch: 11:30am-5:00pm
Dinner: 5:00pm-9:30pm (10:00pm weekends)
Bar service from 11:00am-11:00pm (12:00am weekends)

Guests and host Leslie Sbrocco taping episode 704 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 7 episode 4 (704) airs Thursday May 17 at 7:30pm on KQED 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guests and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will continue to share wine tips with each episode.

The fourth episode of the season features these restaurants: Rivoli Restaurant (Berkeley), The Chairman (Food Truck in San Francisco, Bay Area) and Station House Café (Point Reyes Station).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- About Decanting

It appears to be the year of Julia Child and her cats, and as a cat and Child-lover, I am frankly thrilled. Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat, written by Susanna Reich and illustrated by Amy Bates, is the first of these two themed books from Abrams to hit our household, and it has already become a bedtime favorite with parents and child.

Julia and Paul Child did not have children, the discussion of which constitutes one of the more heartbreaking passages in My Life in France, but they did have cats. When Minette, their first cat, showed up on their doorstep, Julia noted, "Our domestic circle is complete." Pulling from Julia and Paul's letters as well as Julia's biographies, Minette's Feast tells the story of how Minette came to live and eat with the Childs in Paris.

Not only do Amy Bates' Hopper-esque illustrations capture the personalities of both Julia and Minette, but they make me want to spend so much time on individual pages -- absorbing every pinch of detail she's squirreled away in each one -- that Bug's two-year-old patience is sorely tried. I want to take in the length of Minette's whiskers, the shape and color of her eyes, every last morsel of food, and marvel over how Bates managed Julia's distinctive face and unruly hair. For his part, Bug just wants to get to the page where Minette chases a Brussels sprout tied to her tail. Once there, he chortles long and hard like he never has for any other book.

Click on image for larger view

Not every bit of text rhymes or patterns out a beat, but the few cases it does are enchanting: "And day and night, she could smell the delicious smells of mayonnaise, hollandaise, cassoulets, cheese soufflés, and duck pâtés..." And then there's my favorite repetition and internal rhyme, "But of course, mouse and bird were much preferred." Sprinkled throughout the story are smidges of French words and expressions that are also contained in a glossary and pronunciation guide in the back of the book.

What I adore most about Minette's Feast is how Reich recasts Julia Child's famous culinary beginnings -- her trips to the markets, her culinary experiments at home, and her tenure at Le Cordon Bleu -- as merely a quest to get her tortoiseshell "poussiequette" to eat something other than mice.

A contributor to Bay Area Bites since its inception, Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic is a Bay Area food writer and editor. Her first book Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater's Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate is a humorous non-fiction narrative and exposé on the lives of picky eaters. It releases from Perigee Books July 3rd.

What's in a name? For over three years, husband-and-wife team Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton have been exploring this question with their multimedia project, "The Lexicon of Sustainability." When you see the words "cage-free," "organic" and "pasture-raised" on a carton of eggs, what does it really mean? Can these labels change a consumer's perception of quality and impact their decision-making? Can language influence the way food is produced and purchased today?

They've interviewed 200 individuals from across the country involved in all aspects of food -- from farming, animal husbandry, foraging, production -- to answer these and other related questions. They've spoken with Alice Waters on edible schoolyards, Wes Jackson on reinventing wheat farming, Joel Salatin on ethical farming practices, mycologist Paul Stamets, urban farmer Will Allen, Temple Grandin and many more.

In addition to their interactive website, there's photographs featured in traveling "pop-up shows" and three short films about these industry leaders that are being co-presented by PBS Food and ITVS online. Douglas Gayeton corresponded with me via email to answer several questions about their ambitious initiative.

Douglas Gayeton. Image Credit: The Lexicon of Sustainability

You've had a long and varied artistic career thus far as a filmmaker, photographer, writer and producer. What was the initial inspiration for creating this new multimedia series, "The Lexicon of Sustainability"?

I spent nearly ten years living in Pistoia, a Tuscan town set between Lucca and Florence. When I arrived my Italian was poor and I didn’t know many people. Then a comedic sequence of events led to my working in the kitchen of a trendy hillside restaurant. I say “comedic” because I didn’t really cook before that experience, nor did I have much interest in food. What I learned there became my introduction to Slow Food, even if I didn’t know what the term meant. That accidental awakening started me on a journey to document the people of my town, how they lived, and the role food played as a fundamental part of their lives. My work began as a film, then a series of essays which culminated in the information artworks that eventually were published in a book called "SLOW: Life in a Tuscan Town."

As I traveled around the USA with "Slow," I was struck by how little the principles of the Slow Food movement, borne from over 2000 years of Italian cultural evolution, made sense in America. Our experience in this country, our historic relationship with food, and primarily the broken state of our food system require us to look at food in a much different way.

Since World War II, we have raced to centralize our food system, to consolidate manufacturing and eliminate local distribution hubs. We have become dependent on inefficient and inequitable farm subsidies and addicted to chemical solutions to maintain agricultural production at artificial levels, with no care for the environmental consequences. In doing so we have turned food into a commodity utterly stripped of its most precious cultural aspects.

The solution? We need a Marshall Plan to fix our food system, one that rebuilds the infrastructure necessary for healthy local food hubs in each community. We do this first by living more sustainably. Our project is an attempt to identify the most authentic voices in this movement and illuminate the terms and principles that define their innovative work.

Image Credit: Douglas Gayeton / The Lexicon of Sustainability

"The Lexicon of Sustainability" is therefore based on a simple premise: people can’t be expected to live more sustainable lives if they don’t even know the most basic terms and principles that define sustainability. By illuminating the vocabulary of sustainable agriculture, and with it the conversation about America’s rapidly evolving food culture, the "Lexicon of Sustainability" can help people to pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system in America.

The visuals for "Lexicon" are stunning, particularly the mosaic-like compositions that marry photographs, text, animation and video interview in a truly unique way. How did you develop this unique aesthetic?

The Italian images in my book “SLOW” began as a happy accident. I quickly learned that a single image was not enough. Not only were my images too small, but they also lacked the ability to convey the concept of “time,” of the beginning, middle and end of things. The idea of capturing hundreds of images, at times over long periods of time, then creating mosaics seemed like the only solution.

The decision to overlay these images with text came at about the same time. I wanted to convey what these people said to me as I worked. I wanted to share their insights, their observations. And I also wanted to solve another problem I had with photographs, namely that they often left so much unanswered. I wanted to provide as much information as possible within an image, to create what someone once called a “flat film,” a single image that actually uses time, that tells a story.

Image Credit: Douglas Gayeton / The Lexicon of Sustainability

Regarding my typographic process: after completing a photo collage, my staff assembles a list of every possible question a viewer might ask, ranging from “What’s that strange thing in the corner of the picture?” to “How does that machine work?” to “What is that person thinking?” After our subjects answer these questions their words are meticulously applied to the image. The process is lengthy. One image with noted farmer/photographer Michael Ableman -- from taking the initial photographs to building the photo collage with text -- took over a year to complete. The result is a handmade and hopefully authentic artifact that explains a fundamental principle of sustainability in highly personal terms.

How did you find the individuals to feature in "The Story of An Egg," and why were you drawn to them?

“Pasture Management” and “Pasture-Raised vs. Cage-Free” were among the first images I created for the project, so they will always be special, but also because the two individuals I profiled are such admiral folks. David Evans, featured in “Pasture Management,” is a renegade. He created Marin Sun Farms, which has pioneered a number of sustainable agricultural practices in the Bay Area.

David Evans, Marin Sun Farms. Image Credit: Douglas Gayeton / The Lexicon of Sustainability

The second image features Alexis Koefoed from Soul Food Farm. She has a deep knowledge base on the poultry industry and is extremely eloquent. A real deep thinker. Way back in 2008, she told me that the terms “cage-free” and “free-range” were meaningless and that we needed to focus on a poultry practice called “pasture-raised.” Her convictions let me to make a short film called “The Story of An Egg." I find it very rewarding that four years after that image was created, supermarkets have started to carry “pastured” eggs. Some farmers markets (the Ferry Building in San Francisco being a notable example) have even decreed that “pastured” eggs and poultry are the only type available for sale. This shows, I think, that language is important. Consumer can make informed decisions -- and vote with their wallets -- if they know what the terms which define sustainability mean.

Alexis Koefoed, Soul Food Farm. Image Credit: Douglas Gayeton / The Lexicon of Sustainability

4) Can you give us an update on the current status of the project?

We have created almost 200 information artworks to explain how we can fix our food system. A selection of these are available as a "pop-up show." Anyone in the USA can apply to be a curator, unless they are actually curator. Farmers, students, teachers, librarians, activists and even government officials can go to our website to apply. They need to show how they will put on five shows in their community, involve their local food system, then serve as a “lending library” so that other schools and organization can use the show for their events. It’s a radical form of crowdsourcing, one taken from the web and applied to the real world. We anticipate over 500 shows in the USA in 2012.

Image Credit: Douglas Gayeton / The Lexicon of Sustainability


Image Credit: Douglas Gayeton / The Lexicon of Sustainability

In addition to the pop-up shows, we are making short films with ITVS and PBS, as well as a social network of ideas which we hope to launch later this year. And a book that sums everything up will become available next spring, while we turn our team’s attention to the next tasks at hand, namely taking on sustainability in water, energy and climate change.

Watch "The Story of an EGG" from the "Lexicon of Sustainability" series.

Can learning the meaning of a single term actually help change the food system? David Evans and Alexis Koefoed think so. These poultry farmers explain the real story behind such terms as “cage-free, “free-range” and “pasture-raised” so that consumers can make informed decisions when they go to their local supermarket.

Watch The Story of an Egg on PBS. See more from The Lexicon of Sustainability.

CREDITS

Produced by Laura Howard
Directed, Photographed and Written by Douglas Gayeton
Edited and Animated by Pier Giorgio Provenzano
Music by Rumplefarm and Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

And learn more about Douglas Gayeton and his artistic process with this video "Douglas Gayeton At Work."

When eating is your job, how do you stay in shape? I’ve often wondered how people in the biz do it. Some are just lucky. Ruth Reichl and Dana Cowin have both attributed their svelte physique to good genes. (Oh, if only I was blessed with a hummingbird’s metabolism. I’d be unstoppable.) For the rest of us, maintaining balance can be a daily struggle.

Michelin three-star chef Masa Takayama runs every morning…and has lost 30 pounds in the past five years doing so. Jonathan Kauffman, SF editor of Tasting Table and former food critic at SF Weekly, follows a sensible plan of exercising 4-5 times a week (a mix of biking and an hour of cardio at the gym) and eating healthy on nights off. He shares:

I don't believe in detoxing, or rather, I never have a few days away from reviewing restaurants. I do cook mostly vegetarian on my non-review nights, just to make sure I eat as many fruits and vegetables as I can.

Marcia Gagliardi (The Tablehopper) at the Wine Museum in Barolo, Italy

If you follow Marcia Gagliardi’s Tablehopper (and you should), you know that this woman’s life is a decadent flurry of wining and dining, so I was delighted to pick her brain on this topic. Here’s what she had to say:

How do you stay balanced?
This is a constant and daily challenge. If I know I am going out for dinner that evening, which is usually the case five or six nights a week, I try to eat very clean, low-fat, and simple food at home for breakfast and lunch. I try to stick with oatmeal, or yogurt, flax cereal, and fruit for breakfast (although I am a huge fan of eggs, and just finished a two–week long breakfast taco bender when my friend brought me tortillas from Austin—I am hopeless). I also allow myself to indulge twice a week in a bagel with cream cheese and lox, one of my very favorite things for breakfast. If I let myself enjoy the thing I love a few times, I find it easier to stick with oatmeal, cereal, or breakfast shakes made with kefir on the other days.

I absolutely SWEAR by drinking Green Vibrance every single morning. I call it the green menace, but it’s really my best friend, packed with every green thing you can imagine. It’s the first thing I eat or drink in the day, every single day. Makes me perk right up, especially after a night of indulgence.

On Monday when I am home writing all day against my deadline (and most of Tuesday), if I was organized, I will have made a nice soup on Sunday or the makings for some dish I can quickly put together on Monday night for dinner, like kale with chorizo tofu or something like that. Since I eat so much meat and fish when I dine out, I try to eat vegetarian at home on Mondays. I really adore cooking from Heidi Swanson’s cookbooks when I am home, Super Natural Cooking and Super Natural Every Day.

I also try not to schedule two meals out in a day—if I do lunch somewhere, then I try not to dine out (or at least eat a lighter dinner). If you want to see a week in my life of eating, check out this “San Francisco Diet” piece on Grub Street from a year ago.

I also don’t drink at home, unless I have company—just the occasional nip of bourbon, or a split of Champagne if I’m heading out on the town or about to go dancing.

Lastly, I get my sleep. People ask me why I have so much energy, and it’s because I try to get at least eight hours, five nights a week. It’s what my brain needs. Deadline nights I get much less, so I try to keep it steady on the other nights. I find I have more productivity and less hunger and cravings when I get my rest.

You've talked before about detoxing every once in awhile. What's your detox regiment?
I am so grateful I met Lawrence Kampf of Hermetic Workshop, who hosts a Core Vitality Detox twice a year. He gave me the tools to really step back and reprogram a couple times every year. It’s three weeks long, mostly about no meat/sugar/caffeine/booze/processed foods/gluten—it’s about eating whole foods, raw when possible. And there are many other components, from meditation to group workshops to yoga to hot steams. It’s great to say no to everything for a while, slow down, and get in touch with your body’s needs, instead of jacking it with coffee, booze, and foods that are hard to process. I really do love my morning shot of espresso, however. That’s a hard thing to say goodbye to.

Do you have a workout routine that you swear by?
Again, this is always an adjustment. I have an awesome trainer, Joe Peteque, who I interval train in Alamo Square with twice a week. He makes me do all the things I don’t like to do, like sprint up hills and do pushups. I also ride my bike a lot during the week to meetings and dinners and errands. I love it. I also go for a couple long, brisk walks every week—it’s good to clear the head. I started running again (am using the app From Couch to 5k), however, because right now I’m at my heaviest. It doesn’t feel good to have the calories winning at the moment, so I have to kick some more cardio back in, and try to eat less. The chefs in this town need to stop making everything taste so good, criminy! I have also been missing yoga, and that great mental space/break/energy/insight it gives you, so am planning to get a day or two of that back in my life. Setting intentions!

*****

Setting intentions is right. Goals are important, whether it’s training for that half-marathon, or that pretty summer dress hanging in the closet. For now, I’ve found a nice balance between getting in a healthy dose of veggies every day, juicing, and simply trying to burn more than I consume. How do you maintain balance in your life?

Happy Mother's Day, and happy strawberry season! While fresh-picked California strawberries have been brightening up the farmers' market for a while, those first fruits are never the sweetest ones. It's different with vegetables; the first pick of spring's tender young fava beans, English peas, asparagus, and new potatoes may well be the best.

But fruit needs a little time to bask in the newly warm sunshine and longer days, and right now, strawberries have finally come into their own, ripe and red and lovely, ready to perfume the table and delight moms everywhere. They are versatile and delicious every way, although you can't beat breakfast in bed highlighted with a simple bowl of strawberries and cream.

First, though, you need to pick your berries right. If your mom taught you lots of great stuff but not this, well, here's what you need to know. Having harvested strawberries every day for months during my time at the UCSC's Farm and Garden program, I learned a few protocols beyond the obvious one of red=ripe. There are gradations of red, for starters. Orange-red, pinky red: these aren't the reds you are looking for. A red somewhere between stop-sign and wine: that's what you want.

Then, no white shoulders. Look around the stem cap; is the berry red all the way up to the top, or is there a tell-tale patch of greenish-white up there? Berries ripen tip first, so they're not fully sweet and ripe until the very top is red, too. The second test is scent; a box of truly ripe berries will pamper your Mom with its sweet, summery perfume. Finally, a truly ripe berry will be red through and through; a white, chalky-looking core means the berry was picked too soon.

Finally, the berries shouldn't have soft, shriveled spots or squishy tips; a mushy spot in the morning is a rotten spot by afternoon. Especially in organic berries, a few peck-holes are OK; we called jabbed specimens "bird-certified ripe."

Different types of strawberry have different balances of sweetness, tartness, and flavor. Our coastal climate calls for berries that can handle cool nights and foggy days. Seascape, Chandler, and Quinalt are all delicious berries that do well here, in both farms and backyard gardens, but to my taste, Albion, a cultivar introduced by UC Davis in 2004, is the champ.

For making this excellent strawberry salsa, I picked up a great flat of organic berries from Watsonville's Rodriguez Ranch at the Diablo Valley Farmers' Market. Right now, they've got sensational Albion berries as well as great Seascapes. I'm also fond of the organic berries grown by Swanton Berry Farm, Tomatero Farm, and Yerena Farms. It's worth it to seek out organic berries; conventional strawberry farms are big pesticide consumers, as the recent debate over the use of methyl iodide revealed.

Once you've got your berries, remember that heat and moisture are the enemies of a fresh strawberry. While nothing's better than a freshly picked, sun-warmed berry, if you want to keep your berries for a few days, you need to keep them cool. For best results, lay your berries out in a single layer on a paper towel inside a glass or plastic box. Place another paper towel on top and cover. Held like this, berries should last up to 3 or 4 days. Don't rinse or hull your berries until just before you want to eat or use them.

So, you're well stocked with beautiful berries for Mom. Strawberries and cream, a surefire hit. But what if you want to dress up those berries a little, show Mom you've learned a thing or two since your macaroni-necklace days? Meyer Lemon Ricotta Pancakes or Cottage Cheese Pancakes would go perfectly with a scatter of cut-up fresh berries. You could impress Mom with a pink-and-green souffle or this can't-miss breakfast strata, strawberries on the side. Or you can whip up a plate of her very favorite breakfast just the way she likes it, and serve these lovely muffins in a basket alongside. The real appeal? Baking, they'll make the kitchen smell like heaven in springtime.

The secret ingredient in these early summer morning berries is lavender sugar, made from sugar scented with a handful of lavender blossoms. It's easy to make: just let a handful of fresh, unsprayed lavender blossoms dry out for a few days, then mix them into a jar or canister of sugar (the pale gold, organic kind, by my preference). Close tightly and let the lavender perfume the sugar for a few days before using. You can use a similar technique to make vanilla sugar. Plunging a few split whole vanilla beans into a canister of sugar; after a few days, the sugar will have a subtle but delicious whiff of vanilla (leave the beans in the sugar; the flavor will deepen with time). Or, for a quickie version, split a bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife. Rub the vanilla seeds into 2 cups of sugar; store in a tightly closed container to preserve the flavor.

Strawberry Lavender Muffins
If you don't have lavender sugar available, you can substitute vanilla or citrus-flavored sugar in these muffins. For citrus sugar, finely grate the peel of 2 lemons or limes or 1 orange into 2 cups sugar. Mix peel thoroughly into the sugar and store in a tightly closed container.

Yield: 12 muffins
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 18-20 minutes
Total Time: 28-30 minutes

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour or whole-wheat pastry flour, or a combination of the two
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup lavender sugar (see note)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
5 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup chopped strawberries, about 10-12 berries
2 tsp lavender sugar

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan or line with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift flour, cornmeal, baking powder, soda and salt together. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and milk together. Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients and mix quickly but gently together. Pour in melted butter and stir a few more strokes. stir in strawberries.

Spoon batter (it will be wetter than most typical muffin batters) into muffin cups. Bake 18-20 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and muffins are golden brown. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove muffins from cups. Serve warm.

The owners of Mission Dolores's new beer cafe.

Matt Coelho and Jim Woods have opened Cervecería de MateVeza on the corner of 18th and Church. The little beer shop is as authentically Argentinean as anything I've experienced since moving away from Buenos Aires at the end of 2008.

Tucked away behind Dolores Park.

In addition to bottled beers and beers on tap, Cervecería de MateVeza serves empanadas, small savory pastry pockets similar to Italian calzones. The empanadas are made by the Argentine-run company El Porteño, and are muy auténticas. Cervecería de MateVeza serves savory and sweet empanadas that pair well with the beers.

An empanada and draught beers.

Sweet empanadas and alfajores.

The three MateVeza beers on tap are:

1) IPA. Floral, Citrusy, not bitter or hoppy-tasting like a traditional IPA. It's lighter-bodied than I'd expected and absolutely delicious. Recommended pairing: Fuggazzetta empanada, with aged cheddar cheese, organic onions, and oregano.

2) Morpho Herbal Ale. "This is the most unique thing we do," explains Woods of the collaboration beer he created with the brewmeister of Mill Valley Beerworks. "In beer, the sweetness of malt is usually balanced by the bitterness of hops, but in this case we decided to use bay leaves and mate for the bitter component," says Woods. "After the first batch, it was still lacking in something, so we added hibiscus to give it a little tartness, with the ascorbic acid--Vitamin C naturally found in hibiscus flowers." The hibiscus also gives the brew a pretty, light ruby color. The essence of the bay leaves is one of the dominant flavors, and this beer would be great for the adventurous drinker. Luckily, the "beertenders" will pour a small flight gratis for any customer unsure of what they'd like to order. Recommended pairing: Pollo empanada, with Fulton Valley chicken, chicken chorizo, raisins, and olives.

3) My unabashed favorite of the three beers Cervecería de MateVeza has on tap was the Black Lager. It's a dark, black beer, with ingredients similar to a porter or a stout, but it's light bodied because it's brewed with yeast normally reserved for lagers, making the taste crisp and easily drinkable, and belying the rich, dark color of the beer and its foam. Recommended pairing: Champiñones empanada, which contains fresh, seasonal, local, organic mushrooms by Far West Fungi, shallots, Parmesan cheese, and crème fraîche.

The draught beers also come in bottles.

The loose-leaf "tea," which is actually the leaves of a tree in the holly family, goes into the mixture during the mash, which is then gently warmed to about 150 degrees Fahrenheit. "It's like steeping the tea by mashing and warming the grain," explains Coelho. "Then, you're basically boiling this [naturally] sugary tea water, which is used as a bittering agent before fermentation." Unlike many traditional beermaking processes, the hops gets added in at the end of the fermentation cycle, purely for aromatics.

In addition to a changing selection of the MateVeza beers that are brewed at the Mendocino Brewing Company on tap, there is a carefully curated selection of bottled beers from Europe and the US, which ranges from the hard-to-find like "Rigor Mortis" to more "sessionable" beers, which is brewmaster speak for beers with lighter body and less alcohol that can be drunk with...less moderation. Think Scrimshaw.

"We will typically have three MateVeza beers on tap, two beers brewed in house on our 20-gallon system which will change weekly, and two or three rotating guest beers," says Woods.

Regarding the brewing process, Woods says, "I provide the recipe, the ingredients, and the packaging materials. We also have a very detailed process for each beer. I go up on most brew days. The system is pretty much automated and Mendocino's brewers are overseeing the whole process."

What Woods and Coelho are doing are ultimately trying to raise awareness for their own brand, MateVeza, but "I don't drink it all day," says Woods. "I drink it only every other beer," he laughs. The slim Woods, who says he drinks about 4-5 beers a day on average (and Coelho admits to 2 or 3 beers daily), says "I've lost a lot of weight since we started. Hauling all of this beer around and being on our feet all day keeps us fit!"

"I started my morning with Bikram yoga," says Coelho.

"And we're like those monks, the ones that substituted beer for their bread. I eat smaller meals now because a lot of my carbs come from beer."

Inside the cozy space, a "curiosity cabinet," made of four salvaged windows, houses an extensive selection of mate gourds. Woods says that should a customer care to partake of yerba mate, the service costs $5. The "draft board," or the list of beers available, is made from a vintage card game, Parker Brother's "Probe," which the duo describe as an odd, "Scrabble-like" game from the 1960's. "I scored five sets on eBay," says Woods proudly.

On the wall above a custom-made wrought-iron chandelier hang not one, but two giant velvet portraits of Elvis Presley. "When my girlfriend and I started dating three years ago," says Woods, "we discovered straightaway that we both owned a 'Velvis'." Clearly, some pairings: like velvet and Elvis, and yerba mate and beer--were meant to be.

The rules are pretty simple at Cervecería.

Cervecería de MateVeza
Address: Map
3801 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Phone: (415) 273-9295
Hours: Tue-Sat: 12:00 pm-10:00 pm; Sun: 12:00 pm-6:00 pm
Facebook: Cervecería de MateVeza

I'm a huge fan of any recipe that uses the entire fruit or vegetable, especially when you consider that we waste 50% of our food here in the United States. So the more I can get out of something, the better.

Plus, it makes it a lot cheaper to eat!

Which is why the pesto in this recipe is not the traditional recipe you are used to. It is made from the green leaves of the cauliflower plant. Yes, we are going use it all!

Here is what you will need:

• 1 Cauliflower
• Pine nuts (about 1/8 cup)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Garlic powder (optional)
• Sea salt (optional)

If you're wondering why I chose a purple cauliflower, well there were two reasons. One, it is pretty. Yah, I'm that shallow. But regular cauliflower also doesn't photograph as well. The purple pops! Secondly, purple cauliflower has a sweeter and nuttier taste. It's subtle but it is there. And since I was going to use pine nuts in my pesto, I figured it would pair nicely. And it did.

1. Remove the cauliflower's leaves and chop the head and the stalk.

I prefer to clean cauliflower after it has been chopped. It's all those nooks and crannies.

2. Using a large mixing bowl, cover the cauliflower with about an inch of cold water and add 1 tablespoon of vinegar. It helps get the dirt out. Let it soak for about 15 minutes and then rinse it thoroughly. You don't want your "mashed potatoes" to have a vinegar aftertaste.

3. Bake the cauliflower (any parts that aren't leafy) for about an hour at 350 degrees until it is very tender.

4. To create the pesto, finely chop the leaves and the pine nuts, and combine them with some olive oil in small mixing bowl. You want to use just enough olive oil to coat the ingredients.

5. Once the cauliflower is done baking, puree it in a food processor or mash it.

6. Mix in some garlic powder and salt.

While I use fresh garlic 99% of the time, I really wanted the flavor you find in garlic powder for this recipe. I do something similar in my pasta sauce. I will use both fresh oregano and dried oregano; they taste different but add something special to the dish.

You can serve the cauliflower now by finishing it with the pesto or serve it twice-baked as I did in the video.

Enjoy!

Kathy and Leroy Looper (Rebecca Frank and David Sinaiko), owners of the Cadillac Hotel and Tenderloin community activists, describe the Tenderloin as a “containment zone.” Photo: Rob Melrose, courtesy Cutting Ball Theater

In an innovative melding of art and food, the Cutting Ball Theater kicked off a month-long series of restaurant crawls called Tenderloin Trail. Held in conjunction with the theater company’s new documentary play, Tenderloin, theater-goers have the opportunity to check out several neighborhood restaurants before or after the play.

I had the chance to attend the play and the crawl last Saturday, and it was quite the immersive experience. Located in the heart of the Tenderloin (277 Taylor, at Ellis), Cutting Ball is the ideal location for a piece that gives voice to 40 people who live and work in the neighborhood. The street scenes you witness before and after the play meld seamlessly into the performance itself.

Theater documentarians documentarians (l-r Siobhan Doherty, Rebecca Frank, Tristan Cunningham, and Michael Uy Kelly) portray residents encountered on the street. Photos: Rob Melrose, courtesy Cutting Ball Theater

Tenderloin is the product of a year’s worth of interviews, wherein the actors recorded massive amounts of spoken testimony. Spending so much time with their subjects also gave them the opportunity to study their mannerisms, accents, and general personas, in order to replicate it on the stage.

The result was a vibrant, powerful work of art that showcases the joys, pains, and essential humanity at play in the Tenderloin. The same compressed intensity you can feel after walking for a few blocks in the neighborhood was handily replicated on stage. Characters included caregivers and service workers, immigrants and ex-convicts, artists and the down-and-out. There were small-time hustlers, cops, war veterans, gentrifiers, grade-schoolers, and a transgendered barkeep. It all wended together to create a complexly textured portrait of a neighborhood that defies easy categorization.

Killing time between the 2pm matinee and the 5pm food crawl, you could witness that same density of human drama right on the streets. I saw a high-speed police chase, replete with dozens of people stepping out in the street to gawk in its aftermath. I saw a raucous game of streetside dominoes. I met a woman, a self-proclaimed street-corner mayor, who complimented my girlfriend’s style and gave me a hot tip on where I should lock up my bike. I couldn’t keep all the interesting characters in my head because each one was replaced by the next colorful persona.

The food crawl itself took us to some of the more upscale eateries in the Tenderloin, places that are newer on the scene. Managing Director Suzanne Appel, who guides the tour, said this was largely a result of the newer places having a more sophisticated marketing structure, as well as more space to accommodate large groups. She attempted to involve more old-school, low-end Tenderloin restaurants like New Delhi, to no avail.

“The goal of the Tenderloin Trail is to give our patrons a broader perspective on what the Tenderloin has to offer,” said Appel. “We believe that the arts are a critical piece of the revitalization of the Tenderloin, but we need small local businesses, such as these restaurants, to make this a neighborhood where our patrons can have a great night out.”

Though some might say these restaurants don’t have the authenticity of Turtle Tower or Saigon Sandwich (both name-checked in the play), they are all chosen with care and well worth visiting. Highlights included the legendary fried chicken at farmerbrown, a newly invented drink called Tenderloin Tommy (ingredients included tarragon gin, egg white, homemade grenadine, grapefruit juice, and allspice) at Fish & Farm, and a beer and charcuterie sampler at 50 Mason Social House. I went on the inaugural Tenderloin Trail crawl and there were some logistical issues -- restaurants weren’t totally prepared for our visits and the food selection was spotty -- but Appel says these wrinkles should be ironed out by next weekend.

I also enjoyed the communal aspect of tromping around the Tenderloin with a crew of art-loving strangers, discussing the play and how it jibes with our own perceptions of the neighborhood. Of course, some participants were seeing the play after the food crawl, so I had to be mindful of giving away spoilers.

Tenderloin will run in conjunction with the Tenderloin Trail food crawl for the next three Saturdays. You can either see the 2pm matinee or the 8pm show, with the crawl running for about two and a half hours starting at 5pm. Tickets are $75 ($32.50 for just the play) and proceeds go to benefit Cutting Ball Theater’s ongoing programs. The tentative menu for each crawl is as follows:

May 12
farmerbrown - fried chicken, pork sliders, jalapeno cornbread muffins, and a Tenderloin Shandy cocktail

Jasper's Corner Tap - a cocktail and appetizer TBD

50 Mason Social House - a flight of three local San Francisco beers, and local cheese and charcuterie plate

May 19
Fish & Farm - Tenderloin Tommy cocktail and oysters

farmerbrown - Fried chicken, pork sliders, jalapeno cornbread muffins, and a Tenderloin Shandy cocktail

50 Mason Social House - a flight of three local San Francisco beers, and local cheese and charcuterie plate

May 26
farmerbrown - fried chicken, pork sliders, jalapeno cornbread muffins, and a Tenderloin Shandy cocktail

Jasper's Corner Tap - a cocktail and appetizer TBD

50 Mason Social House - a flight of three local San Francisco beers, and local cheese and charcuterie plate

To learn more, or to purchase tickets, please visit the Cutting Ball website.

Listen to KQED's Forum: Voices of the Tenderloin
Fri, May 11, 2012 -- 10:00 AM
Conversation with Annie Elias, director of Tenderloin and members of the cast.

Disclosure: My girlfriend is a former colleague of Suzanne Appel and I had met her a couple of times socially prior to the restaurant crawl.