Food & Wine This Week
San Francisco and San Jose are two of the top 20 caffeinated cities in America, according to The Daily Beast's online survey. This week, Leslie Sbrocco and her guests discuss the regions' growing number of small specialty coffee roasters.
Program airs on KQED 9HD on July 30 at 8pm. The segment will be available online July 31.

Guests:
Denise Santoro Lincoln, Bay Area Bites blogger
James Freeman, owner of Blue Bottle Coffee

Local Bay Area Coffee Roasters: Peet's and Blue Bottle Coffee

Related Posts:
3rd Wave Coffee Roasting in the Bay Area
Touring the Peets Coffee & Tea Roastery
Five Top Coffee Roasters Delivering to Your Doorstep

I have this thing that I do.

Some people find it annoying; others, fascinating.

People tell me when they were born, I tell them who won Oscars that year.

It's one of my little quirks. And a rather lame party trick, if you ask me.

When I tell someone he's A Man For All Seasons, I mean that he was born in 1966. And then that same person will look at me and ask, "Why the hell do you even know that?"

I just do.

When I was 11 years old, I came down with a very nasty strep infection, which is not typically good subject matter for a food blog, but stay with me here. My tonsils were so swollen that, at one point, I could feel them touch each other at the back of my throat. I couldn't eat or drink without discomfort, nor could I sleep because, every time I swallowed heavily, I would wake up in pain.

Those were good times. No cable television, no computer games to distract me, no talking, no singing of show tunes. Whatever was a pre-Information Age boy to do?

Fortunately, my father came to the rescue. He stopped by the house to see how I was doing and gave me the book that was to set me on a remarkable path of trivia absorption from which I have never strayed: 50 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards by Robert Osborne.

To both entertain myself and to keep my mind off the pain, I decided to play a little memory game. I wound up memorizing every Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, and Song listed in that damned book. Surprisingly, most of that information has never left this little head of mine.

And so... at some point I just started telling people who won Oscars the year they were born. I think you get the (best) picture. It's sort of like my own version of the zodiac. I'm a 1969 baby, so I see myself as a Midnight Cowboy with Maggie Smith rising. A little bit Goldie Hawn, a little bit Gig Young, but not a trace of John Wayne in me.

Of course, it got a bit boring being stuck with the same film year in, year out, so I started to look at my life in terms of films that won the Oscar for the year that correlated to my age. For example, I deemed my 39th year on this planet as my Gone With The Wind (1939) year because it was so full of melodrama and seemed to go on forever.

As for 40, though I could not afford the upkeep of a deranged housekeeper, I felt as if much of the year, in a sense, was spent coming into my own and out from under shadows of others, not unlike Rebecca's (1940) unnamed heroine.

On Wednesday, I turned 41 and, if I am to continue living my life according to Oscar, I must look to the film How Green Was My Valley to know just what this year will bring. I'm not certain what that's supposed to mean, but I fully expect to get very nostalgic and, perhaps, date a Welshman. I hope it doesn't mean I'm going to have an affair with a minister. Or die in a coal mine.

I am cautiously optimistic. And, for some reason, it has inspired me to bake something:

A Donald Crisp. No, really, it did.

And why a Donald Crisp. Why not bake a Donald Crisp? He won the award for Best Supporting Actor in 1941 as a stern-but-loving father (always Oscar fodder, if you ask me) in, conveniently enough, How Green Was My Valley. The decision to bake him into a dessert follows my own, particular path of logic. I could not have made anything else under the circumstances.

I considered other Oscar winners for that year, but they just didn't inspire cooking. Yes, I could have made a Sergeant Yorkshire pudding, but that seemed ridiculous. And under no circumstances was I about to make anything with the name Suspicion in it. In terms of baking, I firmly believe that anything Joan Fontaine-inspired is to be avoided, since the result will either be weepy or worse, too bitter to eat.

Truth be told, I'm a little disappointed that Barbara Stanwyck didn't win for Balls of Fire. I could have made something really, really interesting.

All this thought about how I am living my live according to the Oscars has really gotten me thinking about my future. For example, I can't wait until I turn 42 so that I might start suffering nobly like Mrs. Miniver. Of course, she had to deal with severe wartime rationing, so I'd better start saving my flour and eggs for next year's birthday recipe.

Until then...

Nectarine Donald Crisp

There is absolutely nothing about this crisp that screams the name Donald. Nor is there anything particularly Welsh about it either, but I wasn't about to put leeks into my dessert. It is what it is, which is good. And easy. Worthy of an Oscar, in my book. Or, at least a nomination.

You decide. Please submit your votes to Price, Waterhouse & Coopers. Thank you.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the fruit:

4 firm (but not rock hard) nectarines, pitted and sliced

1 tablespoon of sugar (taste the fruit, if it is sweet, add less. If not sweet enough, add more, got it? Good)

1 teaspoon of grated orange zest

1 tablespoon of Maraschino liqueur or kirschwasser.

For the frangipane:

3 ounces almond paste

3 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 egg

For the topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 white sugar

1 cup slivered almonds

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 tablespoons of butter, melted

Preparation:

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

2. Melt butter for the topping and let cool. Add all other topping ingredients and combine well. Place topping in the freezer as you prepare the rest of the ingredients, which will make it nice and clumpy, which is to be desired.

3. To make the frangipane, combine all ingredients until smooth. Set aside.

4. Slice your nectarines and toss in a bowl with sugar, orange zest, and maraschino liqueur. Look at bottle of liqueur. Notice that it roughly the same size as an Oscar. Clutch it to your bosom and practice your acceptance speech when no one is looking.

5. Arrange fruit in a shallow layer along the bottom of a small, oven-proof baking dish. Dot the fruit with spoonsful of frangipane, then top the whole thing with crisp topping, which you have sensibly removed from the freezer. There will be much left over topping, which you will want to have on hand when people command you to make more of this recipe.

6. Place your crisp-filled baking dish on a foil-lined baking sheet because the juices from the fruit will bubble and spill over the edges of your dish. If they don't then you don't have a proper crisp in my book. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until fruit is a-bubble and the topping is browned.

7. Serve warm on its own or with vanilla ice cream. Or eat it cold from the refrigerator for breakfast. It's even better-tasting the next day, though the topping will more than likely not be crisp, which might cause one distress, given the fact that the dish is called a "crisp." Feel free to rename it something else if this is a major concern.

8. Accept applause, but please keep your speech to less than one minute, otherwise the orchestra will try to drown you out and the teenage daughter of a celebrity will walk into your kitchen in a rented evening gown and usher you offstage.

Coffee roasting at Blue Bottle Coffee in Oakland

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my amazing tour of Peet's Coffee and Tea's roasting facility in Alameda. Afterward, I started wondering how many other coffee roasters there were in the Bay Area. I knew we had a few -- from Blue Bottle to Caffé Trieste -- but was surprised to find that we have a long and impressive history as a roasting capital. From James Folger selling freshly roasted beans to dusty and thirsty miners during the gold rush, to the new wave of single-origin roasters like Ritual and Four Barrel, the Bay Area has been at the epicenter of coffee roasting in the United States for over 160 years.

The story of James Folger is one of those classic gold rush tales where an entrepreneur makes his fortune selling a prized commodity instead of mining for gold. Because James was only 15 when he journeyed to the area with his brothers, he was deemed too young to mine. Lucky for him no one thought he was too young to sell coffee, which is what he did in the mining fields out near Nevada City. He then made his way further west where he worked in the first San Francisco coffee roastery on Powell Street, which he eventually bought and turned into the mega Folgers. Hills Brothers -- another local company -- was also part of that first wave of coffee purveyors in the U.S. making cups of American Joe for our grandparents and great grandparents.

It's an understatement to say that the 50s and 60s were a time of change for San Francisco, but what you may not know is that coffee was an integral part of the culture dynamic at that time. Giovanni Giotta opened Caffé Trieste, which started selling lovely dark European roasts in North Beach. In addition to becoming the local purveyor of coffee to the many Italian families in the area, his café was also the hot spot for people like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who, I hear, is still a regular). Where would American poetry and fiction be without Papa Giotta's coffee? It's also reported that Francis Ford Coppola wrote most of The Godfather script (pdf) there. Then, in the 60s, Alfred Peet started his now legendary store in North Berkeley, where he roasted and sold small-batch single-origin and blended coffees to all those students, flower children, and protesters.

Slideshow: Blue Bottle Coffee and Sightglass Coffee Bar and Roastery

Photos by Wendy Goodfriend

And, although you can still enjoy those rich dark roasts provided by Caffé Trieste and Peet's today, the Bay Area is once again at the forefront of coffee roasting in the U.S., this time to a new generation of roasters who are myopically focused on finding the finest single-origin coffees, paying a more than fair price for the beans, and then roasting them for their own unique qualities. These roasts are often lighter than what you'd find elsewhere, the philosophy being that roasting for each bean's unique flavors reveals the innate natural essence inside them. Much like wine, hints of spices, fruits and herbs emerge under the right conditions. When I heard this, I thought fine, but really how much of these can you taste? It wasn't until I had an amazing cup of hand-dripped Ritual coffee at Remedy-- a new café in Oakland -- that I became a true believer. That cup of coffee was actually so good I decided not to add my normal allotment of milk and just sat there, savoring the subtle hints of plum and chocolate arising from my cup.

This new wave of coffee roasters seems a direct response to the Frappuccino world of Starbucks. From baristas to roasters, people associated with these cafes and roasting facilities seem obsessed with the craft and art of making the perfect cup of coffee. Whipped cream and hazelnut flavoring have no place in these establishments -- these places are in business to sell coffee to customers who can appreciate the difference between a single-origin Guatamalan and a Sumatran blend.

Many are neighborhood cafes that roast on the premises. Companies like Blue Bottle, Ritual Roasters, Four Barrel Coffee, and Sightglass Coffee Bar and Roastery -- which are the principal third-wave roasters in San Francisco and the East Bay -- all roast on site and offer espresso drinks, hand-drip coffees (usually made in a Hario brewer or even one of those $20,000 Clover machines) and beans by the pound. Oh, and rest assured that you are drinking seriously fresh coffee. Blue Bottle, Ritual and Sightglass roast daily and sell their beans within 48 hours, while Four Barrel roasts 5 times a week and sells fresh beans within 1-4 days of roasting.

If you're interested in learning about coffee, you can take part in tastings, or cuppings as they're referred to, where you can talk to some very informed people about where the beans come from and how they're roasted, while of course getting to taste the merchandise yourself by slurping steeped coffee with a spoon (apparently this is the tried and true method of cupping coffee, but be sure not to wear your favorite outfit as there's a good chance you'll spill some on yourself). And, if you don't live near one of these coffee shops, most sell wholesale beans so the chances are pretty good that the independent cafe down the street, or a restaurant nearby, carries a local roast. You can also purchase these coffees at grocery stores -- Whole Foods seems to have the biggest local selection -- or even online directly through each company's web site.

I was amazed to learn that Blue Bottle, Ritual and Four Barrel have actually created the budget and resources to seek out relationships with farmers all over the world to grow their beans. When I called Four Barrel, the owner was in Indonesia, visiting a farmer. These companies seem incredibly dedicated to finding the highest quality beans possible. Yet what's equally important to me as a consumer is that they are also dedicated to paying at least the fair trade price, and often far above.

Following is a list of some of our local roasters. If you are a coffee lover, it's definitely worth seeking one or more out to experience the latest trend in Bay Area coffee.

San Francisco and East Bay Coffee Roasters with Cafes and Outlets

Blue Bottle
Blue Bottle obtains its beans in three ways: from farmers at origin; through auctions; and through a network of U.S. brokers who have presences in particular growing regions. James Freeman, the owner of Blue Bottle, is dedicated to finding not only the highest quality beans, but paying more than fair trade for them.

Blue Bottle has various local cafés and kiosks. You can also go to their roasting facility and café in Oakland's Jack London Square area or their new café at SFMOMA. They are also available at farmers' markets, in retail stores (such as Whole Foods), various local cafes and restaurants, and through their online store. Cuppings and tours are available at the Webster St. Oakland location.

And, if you go to the cafe, try their New Orleans Style Iced Coffee. It's amazing.
Twitter: @bluebottleroast

Ritual Roasters
Ritual purchases most of their beans directly from farmers, but they are not opposed to buying "spot" (from an importer) if the coffee is delicious enough, especially from countries like Ethiopia and Indonesia where their sourcing relationships are not as strong. The price ritual pays for green coffee is always well above fair trade.

Ritual has three cafes and also sells their beans wholesale to various local cafes and restaurants including my new favorite, Remedy, on Telegraph in Oakland. You can also buy Ritual at the Alemany Farmers' Market, The Creamery at 4th and King, Haus on 24th St., La Stazione in the dogpatch, The Coffee Caboose in Yountville, and Slow City Cafe which operates on the Civic Center green in front of City Hall. Various restaurants, such as Delfina, Firefly and Heirloom also offer Ritual coffee.

Ritual has three cafes:
• 1026 Valencia Street
• Inside Flora Grubb Gardens 1634 Jerrold Ave
• Oxbow Public Market 610 First Street, Napa

The Roastery is located at 1050 Howard Street, but is not yet open to the public.
Ritual Newsletter
Twitter: @ritualcoffee

Four Barrel Coffee
Four Barrel has one café on Valencia Street in San Francisco. They also roast their beans at this location. Roasting takes place five times a week. The café serves various espresso drinks and hand-dripped coffee, as well as beans for purchase. Cuppings are offered on site.

Four Barrel has invested time and resources to work with farmers and build relationships to put together micro lots of the highest quality coffee at origin. They also work with farmers to raise the quality of the beans.

Four Barrel Coffee
375 Valencia St., San Francisco
Twitter: @fourbarrel
Four Barrel Coffee Blog

Other cafes serving Four Barrel include: Tartine; Subrosa; Grand Coffee at 2663 Mission St at 22nd; Dynamo Donut; and Ironside
Grocery Stores selling Four Barrel include: Bi-Rite; Whole Foods; and Rainbow Grocery

Sightglass Coffee Bar and Roastery
This is the newest coffee roaster in San Francisco and everyone is talking about it. They are currently building their café, but have an espresso bar and coffee-making stand next door on 7th at Folsom. Sightglass roasts daily (they started only four weeks ago) and they offer cuppings for the public daily. Their barista, Kelly, made me a truly excellent latte.

Although Sightglass currently purchases their beans from boutique importers, who buy directly from origin at direct-trade prices, they are looking into forming their own relationships with farmers. You can buy Sightglass at Matching Half Café, Hooker's Sweet Treats, Outerlands, Comstock Saloon, Hapa Ramen, Farmer Brown, and Rainbow Grocery.

Sightglass Coffee Bar and Roastery
270 Seventh Street at Folsom in San Francisco
Twitter: @sightglass

Other Bay Area Coffee Roasters
Barefoot
Located in San Jose and Santa Clara. Beans available at local grocery stores, and various San Francisco cafes sell their coffees. See the Fully Caffeinated map for details.

Ecco Caffe
Located in Santa Rosa, Ecco Caffe is a Certified Organic coffee roaster that sources directly from growers and importers. They roast in a Northern Italian style. All coffees are shipped within 24 hours of roasting to insure optimal freshness. See the Fully Caffeinated map for cafes and restaurants carrying Ecco in San Francisco.
Twitter: @eccocaffe
Ecco on Facebook

Verve Coffee Roasters
Located in Santa Cruz. Some San Francisco cafes and restaurants also sell Verve coffee and beans. See the Fully Caffeinated map for details.
Verve on Facebook

Weaver's Coffee and Tea
John Weaver was a master roaster at Peet's Coffee and Tea for years and was trained by Alfred Peet. He started his own roasting facility in 2007 in San Rafael. Weaver's Coffee and Tea distributes widely in the Bay Area.
John Weaver's Blog
Weaver's on Facebook
Twitter: @WeaversCoffee

Mr. Espresso
The first and only roaster in the United States to roast coffee beans exclusively over a fire fueled by Oak Wood. Carlo Di Ruocco began selling espresso equipment to Italian restaurateurs across the Bay Area in 1978. In 1980 he officially began commercial roasting in tiny batches. Today Mr. Espresso is a main provider of espresso equipment, service, training and coffee to numerous Bay Area restaurants and coffeehouses.
Mr. Espresso
696 3rd Street in Oakland
Mr. Espresso blog
Mr. Espresso on Facebook
Twitter: @OakWoodRoasted

Wholesale and Online Coffee Roasters

Roast Coffee Co.
The Roast Coffee Company has a roasting plant in Emeryville, where they roast small batches of coffee daily. Their coffees are organic, shade grown, and fair trade whenever possible. Each batch is roasted to order for their wholesale customers, which include Whole Foods and Spruce. They also take online orders.

Roast Coffee Company is located at 1552 Beach Street, Emeryville
Where to find Roast Coffee Company coffees
How to order online

Scarlet City Coffee Roasting
Located in Oakland, Scarlet City Coffee Roasting focuses on roasting only single-origin beans to "their fullest flavor potential." As a woman-owned, organic and green certified company, Scarlet City tries to promote coffees grown, milled or imported by women. You can purchase Scarlet City coffees at Berkeley Bowl West, Cafe Biere, and Blackbird Cafe at the Marin Farmers' Market.

Scarlet City Coffee Roasting
Scarlet City on Facebook
How to order online

Nectarines & Raspberries

Summertime in California means stone fruit heaven. Peaches, apricots, nectarines, they are all gorgeous right now. If you time it right, you can buy them at a steal at the supermarket when they've reached the peak of ripeness.

I came home with three pounds of juicy, ripe nectarines last week. I prepped and froze some of them for smoothies, for the rest, I quickly dispatched into a beautifully hued Nectarine and Raspberry Crisp.

Makings of a fruit crisp

I adore fruit crisps for the fact that they are a no-brainer. With no dough to fuss with, crisp topping is essentially a super simple mixture of flour, rolled oats, sugar, and butter. You don't even need to bust out the mixer for this. I've found that my own two hands are the best tools to use for cutting in the butter.

Crisp topping

Top this over any fruit that is in season and you are golden. Apples? Piece of cake crisp. Blueberries? Easy as pie crisp. Ok, I'll spare you any more bad puns. My point is, you can top virtually anything with this crumbly, crunchy mixture and end up with something delicious.

Pretty

Peach-raspberry is the traditional combo, I suppose, but the peaches were rock hard while the nectarines were plump and tender when I bought them, so nectarine-raspberry it was. The sweet tart factor was right on, and that shock of pink and oranges was almost too pretty to eat.

This is the ideal, no-stress dessert. Instant home-baked goodness that looks like you spent way more time on it than you actually did. I love a deceptive dessert.

Fancy it up by making individual servings in ramekins, and finish it off with some ice cream or softly whipped cream.

Now doesn't that sound like the perfect ending to a summer night?

Nectarine and Raspberry Crisp

Nectarine and Raspberry Crisp

Ingredients:
For the fruit:
2 pounds ripe nectarines
6 ounces raspberries
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch

For the topping:
½ cup all purpose flour
½ rolled oats
½ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch salt
1 pinch nutmeg
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cut the nectarines into slices and combine with the raspberries, sugar, and corn starch in a large bowl. Mix gently to coat evenly. Place in a baking dish or ramekins.
3. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and mix well. Cut the butter into the mixture (using a pastry cutter or your fingers) until the butter is the size of peas and evenly distributed.
4. Bake until the top is golden and the fruit starts to bubble, 35-40 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream or softly whipped cream.

A few months ago, as we waited in vain for a table at Flour + Water, my uncle described something he'd eaten for lunch: the "extremely hot pepper" (#28) at Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant, essentially, he said, a massive jumble of dried chili peppers with, in a little protein-flavoring agent role-reversal, a small quantity of chicken mixed in as well. Although my uncle is a demonstrative lover of hot food who grows big swaths of peppers in his Fairfield backyard, he reported (with a grin) that he’d managed only a few bites of the dish. He'd packed it up though, he said, envisioning, perhaps dangerously, that he might keep the capsaicin-logged concoction in the fridge indefinitely, and occasionally pluck out spoonfuls to add to his weekly stir-fries.

He told me all this because he knows I like hot food too. My tendencies border on the anti-social. I tell servers I want dishes advertised as spicy to be "hot, for real," and enjoy powering through the molten reality with which I'm soon confronted -- even if my dining companions are put off by my sweaty face and pained countenance. At El Metate, I'll ask the owner for a cup of the habanero salsa he often keeps in the back. At Vientiane Cafe in East Oakland, I’ll take a nibble from one of the whole Thai chilis interspersed throughout a pile of rare beef larb -- just to see if it’s hot. Of course, it’s hot, I find out five seconds later. The larb itself was delicious and just hot enough. Shouldn’t that be enough to know and savor? No, I need to taste the heating agent, to put my hand on the burner. That moment invigorates me, and I revisit it when I can: paring off a half-centimeter-length sliver of pepper, downing it, and waiting gleefully for lightning to strike my tongue, chest, and gut. There’s an element of daredevilry at play, which is an odd impulse for someone normally quite adverse to risk-taking -- afraid of heights, wary of germs, and, when possible, disinclined to drive on busy highways.

As I flipped through the restaurant’s menu on Sunday though, the “extremely hot pepper” didn’t call out to me -- perhaps because I’d breakfasted on thick Casa Sanchez chips, homemade guacamole, and sriracha sauce. If I were handy, I’d affix a bottle to a sprinkler set-up and have red ribbons spitting around the breakfast table every morning, but after the wake-up call I’d given myself, I needed a balanced lunch, not a saucer of lava. Entranced by the promise of authentic, Halal-ified Beijing cuisine, we ordered too much food -- a customary decision given our habit of picking at leftovers before bed-time -- sipped some tea, and surveyed the surroundings.

The restaurant has some quirks. Water comes in plastic cups of varying sizes and hues. Mine was green and translucent, but I saw several customers sipping from flimsy red “keg party” numbers and tall, clear, non-disposable ones too. The store-front outside seems scarcely wider than my outstretched arms. A mirrored wall inside makes the room look twice its size, but it really boils down to eight tables or so, a tiny counter, a clean-looking kitchen you can peer into, and a bathroom located beyond the kitchen. When we arrived towards the end of Sunday’s lunch service, the place was full of adorable children, and for the entirety of our meal, they scampered past our table, to and from the bathroom in the back, which didn’t bother us at all. The owner was gregarious. Initially, he stopped by our table every few minutes. He hovered, asking questions, and then stepped back briefly, before leaning in to hover some more. He was nice though, not nosy, and once the dishes started landing on the table like chili oil-dosed bombs, they were all we could focus on.

The "warm pot with sour green sliced fish" (#54) began with frills of Napa cabbage nestled in a clear, sparkling broth. Perfumed with sprigs of cilantro, the liquid had a slightly sour, vegetal flavor; it recalled fresh pickles, specifically a sauerkraut that had been just briefly brined. Logs of soft, lovely tofu and boneless sections of flaky white fish poked out from under the cabbage, and cellophane noodles squirmed at the bottom of the bowl. A few drops of chili oil added a gentle, burning undercurrent, balancing out the sourness whenever it began to build. As we hadn’t guessed the "sour green" in the first dish meant cabbage, more followed -- hot and sour-style (#40). Cloaked in a smoky, sweet sauce studded with dried chili segments and ginger, each thick, slippery band of cabbage was soft and yielding, melting in the middle, yet just firm enough on the outside to hold together.

The beef pancake (#62) arrived, a misshapen satchel of bubbly, brown-blistered dough wrapped around thin, salty beef pounded or pressed into sheets. Green onions wafted from each rough-cut slice. It was surprisingly hard to eat neatly. The layers of pastry and meat fell apart with a little prodding, and grease gushed out. The flaps of dough were quickly slick and chopstick-resistant. Looks weren’t the point though, and fingers worked just fine. The lamb dumplings (#63) looked like pale pot-stickers awaiting a dip in hot oil. The skin was thick and chewy, but not doughy, a jewel of juicy, chives-scented lamb lurking within each tidy sack. They were fantastic with chili oil and a touch of black vinegar.

It was a rare journey to the edge of the city, a drive down Portola, then Sloat, and its rows of cookie-cutter houses, a flat, spare, washed-out landscape so unlike the one I usually wander. The Mission wasn’t warm by the Mission’s standards that afternoon, but when I emerged from the car on Sunday afternoon, stepped past the intersection of 43rd and Vicente, and felt a cool mist speckle my face, I inhabited a different world. At that moment, I felt blessed by San Francisco, its ridiculous micro-climates. It was the edge of the city, it was the edge of August, the time when tomatoes just a few miles inland start to pucker and weigh down their vines, and I was going to eat a "warm pot" -- not because someone on Yelp recommended I do so, but because it just felt right.

I romanticize the South. I know I do it and I also know many others fall prey to thoughts of afternoon mint juleps, big willowy trees, and visions of a slower pace of life. Recently during one of my Craigslist property searches/obsessions, I ran across a little Craftsman house in Durham, North Carolina and fell in love. I called the realtor. I’ve never been to Durham and actually, I've never really been to the South (I hear Austin, TX doesn’t count). The house had sold. My coworkers rejoiced; they'd no longer have to listen to my sudden, out-of-left-field obsession with a town I'd never been to and a house I couldn't really afford. So here we are. Back to reality—and a great book by James Beard Cookbook of the Year winner, Joseph Dabney. The publisher contacted me to see if I'd be interested in checking it out, knowing that I have a fondness for Southern food and food history. After reading a brief description, I was sold. In The Food, Folklore and Art of Lowcountry Cooking, Dabney takes readers on a tour of the various regions of the Southern Lowcountry including Charleston, Beaufort, and Savannah. In this tour, he offers traditional recipes, first-hand history and lore, and stories from long-time residents and high-end chefs alike. This is, I'm guessing, a truly representative swath of a part of the country I can't wait to visit.

The book is organized into thematic chapters detailing the history of various cities and moving on to focus more specifically on infamous foods from the region like Hoppin' John, Goobers and Grits. The first chapter lays out the "big picture" and the mystique of the Lowcountry nicely. Dabney calls it "a different world," and describes coming to Charleston for the first time in the 1950's and experiencing culture shock. Many of the homes were elegant, the gardens lush, and the locals spoke in a much different-sounding dialect than the oft-recognized "twang" up North. Dabney proceeds to discuss the history of the dialect, explores the role of the rice plantations, and sheds light on the West Africa connection.

The inside pages of The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking

What I love about the book are the little interviews and profiles of real people discussing their towns, family histories, and connection to the Lowcountry. There is a true sense of pride and a love for place that is becoming rarer and rarer these days--something I certainly envy as a consistently transient, mostly urban dwelling gal with little lasting history in any one place. Much more narrative than traditional cookbook, this is a great read for folks who are interested in Southern culture, history, and language and how all three affect the foodways and traditions of the South. To be honest, I don't know that this is a book I would sit down and read cover to cover, but it is a nice one to pick up every so often and explore bit by bit.

The recipes, while quite varied, are split into logical categories such as Soups, Stews and Gumbos; The Glories of Chicken; and Wild Game in the Lowcountry. There are little tales to accompany each one, so you actually feel as though your great aunt is passing down an old church recipe or you're stumbling across your grandmother's accompanying notes. These traditional recipes have been served at church functions and picnics, and have graced many a casual wedding table. Each inclusion is almost more of a modern-day jewel or legend rather than your average run of the mill recipe. I'm so looking forward to trying the benne seed (sesame seed) biscuits, the different varieties of spoonbread, and their version of Southern banana pudding. But for now, for today, I need a drink.

Gathering my ingredients

There are many great cocktail recipes in Dabney's book but most of them appear to be pretty darn sweet to me. With rather large quantities of grenadine, sugar, and peach brandy I can feel a hangover coming on already. But at the same time, there's something extremely likeable about old Southern drinks. You can almost see yourself sitting on a wide open front porch in the afternoon without a care in the world. So after reading through the history and stories behind each of the Southern cocktails in the book, I created my own version of a Southern Rum Punch with just a little less sugar, some bubbly water for a summery kick, and a few sliced limes. Enjoy.

Two glasses of Sort-of Plantation Punch on a Friday afternoon

Sort-of Southern Punch
Inspired by: The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking

Makes: 4 cocktails

Ingredients
1 cup mango or pineapple juice, chilled
1 cup orange juice
1 1/2 cup dark rum
Juice from 2 limes (almost 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup sparkling water or club soda
1/2 cup brewed black tea

Method:
Mix all ingredients together in a pitcher. Stir vigorously a few times to combine the juices, teas and rum. Fill 4 glasses with ice and pour punch to the brim. Serve with lemon or lime wedges as garnish. Preferably on a patio.

Karen Peteros Explains Bee Crime at Farm. Photo by Booka Alon

What do you do when someone willfully destroys hundreds of thousands of hard-working, plant-pollinating, food-making creatures? Creatures that you'd raised and nurtured yourself in your backyard, then brought over to live in a community growing space, where they would be a living educational installation, a buzzing, honey-making science lesson for anyone curious about the very useful life cycle of the domestic honeybee?

At San Francisco's Hayes Valley Farm, where earlier this week an unknown person purposefully sprayed pesticide into the entrance holes of the farm's two beehives, the deliberate destruction of so many healthy, thriving bees was a particular blow to the hives' manager, Karen Peteros.

Peteros, a former president of the San Francisco Beekeepers' Association, recently co-founded SF Bee-Cause, a non-profit organization geared towards charitable, educational work with bees. (Her partner in the venture is Cameo Wood, founder of Her Majesty's Secret Beekeeper), the Mission's only apiary-supply store.)

The hives at Hayes Valley Farm hives were intended to be the cornerstone of a hands-on, seasonally-focused series of classes for everyone: established urban beekeepers, curious novices, science-minded kids, anyone, who, as Peteros put it, "wants to get their face into a hive (while protected by a bee suit, of course)!"

"There's really no place to do hands-on bee education in the city," said Peteros last Thursday afternoon, as she and a helper scraped and scooped handfuls of the dead bees into buckets. "Nowhere that you can have the experience of going through a whole year in the life of the hive." A hands-on honey extraction class was planned for next month, after which the hives' honey would be sold as a fund-raiser for SF Bee-Cause. "We wanted to send a message that there's a place for bees in the urban environment, that pollinators are a good thing, not something to be afraid of."

Indeed, there's a big difference between mild-mannered honeybees, their equally placid native-bee brethren, and aggressive hornets and wasps. Skinny and shiny, with narrow, neon-yellow-and-black stripes, wasps and hornets are the stingers that ruin your picnic, horning in on your baloney and fruit punch. They eat meat, love sweets, and will sting repeatedly.

Hayes Valley Farm - 7/21/10 Photo by Zoey Kroll

Honeybees, on the other hand, have rounded bodies that are fuzzy and golden-striped. They eat nothing but pollen and nectar; even the most icing-piled cupcake is of no interest. Stinging anything but another bee means certain death, so they sting only as a last resort. In general, only a small number of protective guard bees directly in front of the hive have any motivation to sting. And even more importantly, they are a crucial part of our ecosystem. One third of all food plants that we eat depend on insect pollination. Even the smallest backyard garden is more fruitful when it's planted with pollinator-friendly flowers.

Before bringing in the hives, says farm co-founder Jay Rosenberg, the farm's founders attended many community and neighborhood association meetings, hoping to educate the surrounding neighbors. Rosenberg and Peteros both note that there was one person in the neighborhood who seemed to have an irrational fear and hostility to the idea of bees on the property. But with no hard evidence, they can't point a finger, although a police investigation is ongoing.

Right now, they're focusing on moving forward. A memorial is planned as part of this Sunday's usual volunteer workday at the farm. There will be something like a wake for the dead bees, and an open forum for friends of the farm to express their feelings and make suggestions. "People here have developed an affection for the bees. This will give people a chance to vent," any anger or frustration they may have, although Peteros hopes to keep the mood geared towards kindness and the need for education. She'll be bringing a gallon of honey to share, made by the "mother hive" that spawned the farm's bees.

"We're going to give the empty hive boxes to our Art Guild to decorate, to make public art for future hives," Peteros says, before picking up a frame that's glowing amber in the late-afternoon sun. "Look at all that beautiful pollen," she says, pointing out the rows of golden-tan cells ringed with milky, wax-capped honey. In one corner, somehow, a brand-new bee is being born, her curled torso struggling out of a tiny wax-walled cell.

Will bees come back to the farm? Peteros isn't sure. While the farm is fenced, it's still open space. Bees need free access to the outdoors, so enclosing them in a locked shed isn't really an option. Still, Peteros has hope.

"We're trying to turn this into something positive, make it an opportunity to do some educating en masse," says Peteros. "Everyone that learns something about bees as a result of this can become a bee ambassador."

Bee Power Granola
Adapted from Honey: from Flower to Table by Stephanie Rosenbaum
Makes approximately 6 cups

Ingredients
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup slivered almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, or to taste
¼ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated if possible
¼ cup flax seeds
1/2 cup hulled sunflower or pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey
1 1/4 cups raisins, dried blueberries, dried cherries, or chopped dried apricots
2 tablespoons bee pollen, optional

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 325ºF. Stir oats, almonds, salt, spices, flax seeds, and sunflower or pumpkin seeds together. Add oil and honey, stirring until mixture is thoroughly coated.

2. Spread mixture in a single layer on a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 30-40 minutes.

3. Remove from oven, stir in dried fruit and bee pollen, if using, and let cool. Store in an airtight container.

For more information or to make a donation, go to Hayes Valley Farm. A memorial for the bees will be held as part of Sunday's volunteer workday, 12:30-4:30pm on Sunday, July 25. A class on Honey Bee Basics will be offered at 10am on Aug. 1. The farm is located at 450 Laguna St at Fell in San Francisco.

The other morning, I was awakened bright and early by a phone call:

"Uhhh... Hey! What you are doing Saturday night?"

It was my friend Shannon. I'm not very good at making up lies first thing in the morning, so I told her I was free that night.

"Can the girls have a sleepover at your place so Craig and I can have a night out on the town to celebrate our 15th anniversary?"

Let's see. My oldest friends in the world want me to hang out with their two (usually) adorable daughters so that they can seize a rare opportunity to have a carefree evening to commemorate a milestone in their relationship?

"Of course I will," I said.

And then I flew into a panic as soon as I hung up the phone.

I live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. I own no plastic cups. I have a glass coffee table with sharp corners. I live on the 3rd floor. I was temporarily immobilized by the fear that something was going to get broken. Like a willful five year-old.

I ran to the medicine cabinet.

Hydrogen peroxide? Check. Band-Aids? Roger. Ace bandages? Yup. I hoped that was all the triage equipment I'd need. I reassured myself that I could keep the girls safe on this, my first ever babysitting sleepover.

And then I thought of something even more terrifying to a single gay 40-something man faced with having to entertain little girls that (seem to) look up to him?

What if-- G-d forbid-- they get bored?

Over my dead body. I quickly sketched out the evening:

1. Bacon cheese burgers and french-fried, wholesale bribery at Grubstake where we might celebrate both cinematic history and Portuguese heritage in one sitting.

2. Make your own sundaes at home.

3. A Marilyn Monroe film like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or How To Marry A Millionaire to instill some good, old-fashioned American values in the little angels.

4. Organic beauty treatments. Namely: guacamole face masks.

I thought I was being brilliant. However, I quickly realized that obsessively planning out an evening of "fun" is nearly impossible when a five year-old is involved.

Upon arrival, Craig and Shannon scanned my apartment for potential dangers, made a little chit chat, and then escaped.

"Well, girls," I said with a little clap of my hands,"I thought we'd start the evening off with a little beauty treatment!"

"I know," said India the five year-old, "Guacamole face masks..." She sounded less than pleased.

"It'll be awesome!" I said. I brought out two bandanas to protect their hair from avocado, and two small, grey t-shirts to protect their clothing, asked them to put them on and then made them pose for photographs, like any annoying adult with a camera might do.

"Why do we have to be Chinese women?" asked India. Chinese women? I had no idea what she was talking about, unless she read that the t-shirts were manufactured in China.

Zelly, the eleven year-old, looked at her little sister and then up at me. "I have no idea where she got that," she said.

"Is there anything particularly wrong with being a Chinese woman?" I asked India.

"I just don't wanna be one," was her response. Fine, I thought. I doubted that anyone would mistake a little girl with curly red hair for a Chinese woman, t-shirt or no. We got down to making the face masks:

Avocado (for dry skin), tomato (for those dreadful oily patches), and lime (for flavor and eye-irritation). Both the girls enjoyed mashing the ingredients together.

Zelly was game for smearing the mush on her face, but India would have none of it.

"But India, it'll make your skin soft and beautiful," coaxed Zelly.

"I already have soft, beautiful skin," countered her sister.

I was about to explain that it would do her a world of good by making her look years younger until I realized that a five year-old might end up looking like a newborn and therefore wouldn't find that appealing in the least. I let the matter drop.

"This is booooooooo-riiiiiiiiing," she moaned, "When are we going to go eat?" She just sat there and pouted until Zelly and I got cleaned up.

On our way to dinner, we passed the Asian travel agency around the corner from where I live. In the window was a poster for the Shanghai exhibit at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. The image showed a beautiful woman representing the prosperity of that city in the 1930's. I pointed it out to India.

"She's beautiful!" she gasped. Suddenly, being a Chinese woman was appealing to her.

Zelly and I enjoyed our bacon cheeseburgers and beautiful skin, while India dined on about a quart of ketchup and french fries that were hailed as "better than Frjtz." When we returned home from dinner, she put the grey t-shirt back on to resume her Chinese womanhood. She refused even to take it of to sleep.

All was peaceful. The make-your-own sundaes a smashing success. And then I learned the first of two very important life lessons:

Never load up a five year-old with sugar and then expect her to sit through a feature-length 1950's comedy.

Bored, India set about annoying her sister and disrupting the film.

"This is boring! I thought we were supposed to have and adventure! I don't want to watch this stupid movie!"

She was dripping with charm. Her sister wisely suggested that, for the sake of peace, we watch Wallace & Grommit instead. I reluctantly agreed.

And then, of course, the dvd player broke. Being the adult in the room, I showed no outward sign of my panic. Instead, I grabbed my lap top and downloaded streaming episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Evening saved. Sort of. I won't go into the false accusations of biting or the door slamming incidents or child-gassiness. We all survived and I lived long enough to recount the evening to their happy parents over brunch the next morning.

When I returned home, I was exhausted, but rather pleased with myself: No children were harmed during the course of the evening. They were fed, cared for, and more-or-less entertained. And, except for the sure-fire french-fry-and-ice-cream bribery, nothing at all went according to plan, which lead me to a deep understanding of the second-- and most valuable-- life lesson of the day:

Never underestimate the power of improvisation-- especially when five year-olds are involved.

And speaking of improvisation, here's my recipe for today:

Gringo-Gwai Lo Guacamole

"Gwai lo" in Cantonese means "ghost person." In certain circles, it's how they refer to white people. Well, since I'm a ghastly pale gringo making up a Mexican dish out of Chinese ingredients, I'm just going to embrace my gringo-gwai lo-ness and just go with it. And, since it's essentially guacamole we're talking about here, there are no specific amounts for the ingredients-- just go with what feels and tastes right to you.

Believe it or not, this recipe really, really works. I think I must be developing a knack for dips.

Serves no 5 year-olds I know, since there isn't any ketchup in the recipe.

Ingredients:

3 ripe avocados

2 to 3 cloves of garlic, depending on your love of the bulb

Coarse salt, as much as you like

Toasted sesame oil

A splash or two of rice wine vinegar

A pinch or two of ground Chinese five spice

Black sesame seeds for garnish.

Preparation:

1. Split avocados lengthwise around the pit. Twist halves, remove pit, and scoop into a medium sized bowl.

2. Place garlic cloves in a mortar and pestle with a little bit of salt. Since you can neither morally nor legally take out your physical frustration on a five year-old girl, this is an excellent release valve. Mash to a pulp. Add to avocados.

3. Now mash avocados with a fork to attain a chunky/smooth consistency. Add sesame oil, vinegar, a bit more salt, and Chinese five spice. Taste, adjust seasonings. Garnish with back sesame seeds.

4. Serve on fried wonton wrappers to the eleven year-old, who behaved so beautifully. Sit back and enjoy the five year-old's resulting temper tantrum.

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 5: episode 6 airs Thursday July 22nd at 7:30pm on KQED TV 9HD.

You can watch individual restaurant segments online as well as view the entire episode. The website also provides restaurant information not specified on the show, written reviews from the guest and restaurant recipes. If you have opinions on the restaurants featured please feel free to share your thoughts.

The sixth episode of the season features these restaurants: Incontro Ristorante (San Ramon), Auntie April's Chicken, Waffles & Soul Food (San Francisco) and Butterfly Restaurant (San Francisco).

It's the weekend. You rolled out of bed craving something good. It's been a long week, you've been working hard, and you deserve some carbs that have been slathered in butter and griddled. And bacon. Definitely some bacon. The answer is, obviously, brunch.

Orson has been my go-to weekend indulgence ever since they started their brunch service months ago. This industrial-chic space is well known for its nighttime vibe, but in the light of day, the modern, artsy décor translates well. With one of the most well-composed brunch offerings I've seen in awhile, it won't be a neighborhood secret for long.

True to form, executive chef Elizabeth Falkner has put together a stellar menu that features comforting classics, amped up with gourmet ingredients, nuanced flavors, and out-of-the-box combinations.

Blueberry and Thyme Monte Cristo

Cue: Blueberry and Thyme Monte Cristo with House-made Breakfast Sausage. Love at first sight. This sandwich makes all other sandwiches pale in comparison. It will make you go weak in the knees and will haunt your dreams for days months after.

It's savory, it's sweet, it has melty cheese, and powdered sugar. What else could you ask for? Nothing. But Orson gives it to you anyway, like flowers, just because. The entire dish is like a big game of call-and-answer. The blueberry compote calls, and the French toast answers. The cave-aged Gruyere calls, and the Canadian bacon answers. A touch of thyme whispers aromatic notes to the house-made breakfast sausage, and staccato slices of pickled red onion keep it fresh amongst all that richness.

To my disbelief and heartbreak, I recently returned to Orson and discovered that the Monte Cristo had been taken off the brunch menu. Nooooooooo!! Just when we had found each other! The menu changes frequently depending on seasonality and the market, and I saw that a handful of other items had also been cycled out:

Fried Chicken Sandwich with Pickled Red Onion and Spicy Sesame Aioli, on a Parmesan Bun

Eggs in Brioche with Duck & Pistachio Sausage, Fava Bean Pesto, and a Shower of Pecorino

Orson Burger with House-made Steak Sauce, Cobb Relish and Truffle Mayonnaise, on a Parmesan Bun

Despondent and stricken with grief, I considered drowning myself in $10 bottomless mimosas and making friends with The Mary's.

The 7 Sisters

I was consoled by the sight of ol' faithful, the Pastrami Sandwich.

House-cured Pastrami Sandwich

Rightfully lauded as one of the best sandwiches in the city by the likes of San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, and the Wall Street Journal, just to name a few, Orson's House-cured Pastrami Sandwich with Cave-aged Gruyere and Russian dressing, on Sourdough Rye is all that it's cracked up to be. Katz's has nothin' on this bad boy (sorry NY, it's true).

The beef brisket is cured in-house with chili flakes and caraway, cold-smoked, then slowly steamed. The sourdough rye is baked in-house, and griddled to crispy, buttery decadence. And, needless to say, melted Gruyere and Russian dressing make any sandwich a winner in my book. Served with a side of Duck Fat French Fries (or salad), if you're going for the glory, be sure to ask for the Brown Butter Bernaise dipping sauce, the stuff is like crack.

This sandwich is no joke -- you can easily split it between two people. If you're going to risk finishing it by yourself, be responsible and plan not to do anything that requires heavy brain function or operation of motor vehicles directly afterwards. A food coma and belabored heart is pretty much guaranteed.

House-made Bacon with Cane Syrup

Speaking of heart trouble, the Extra Thick Cut House-made Bacon with Cane Syrup is one of the most obscene displays of porcine glory I've ever seen. It's more like bacon steak. It's ridiculous. Please share it. Half of one strip is usually enough to satisfy my bacon craving for the day.

French Toast with Peaches, Lavender, and Whipped Brown Sugar Butter

The good thing about a restaurant that changes up the menu regularly is that you get to enjoy the bounty of what's in season. The French Toast on the menu is a sure bet here, expect a big portion and seasonal flavors. This summery take featured juicy white peaches, lavender, and whipped brown sugar butter on top of thick slices of homemade milk bread that had been soaked in egg batter overnight. Solid.

Eggs Benedict

Not so solid were the Eggs Benedict. Our server warned us that the Eggs Benedict were like none we had ever encountered. She actually used the word, “gnarly,” which I should have taken as a warning. She said it was rich (the hollandaise is made with bacon fat), but I thought, well yeah, any eggs benedict is rich…I was up for the challenge and went for it.

The order came out, and our waitress was right. Like nothing I have ever seen. The sous vide poached eggs and boudin blanc were floating in a swamp of creamed corn and scallion hollandaise sauce. Pieces of basil biscuits were buried beneath. Rich was an understatement. This monster was rich on rich. The boudin blanc and the biscuits had good flavor, but they were drowned in cream. Maybe Eggs Benedict in a Bowl and I just weren't meant to be. Not like Monte Cristo.

All in all though, I think Orson has one of the best brunches in town, with staple dishes that you can't go wrong with. It's also a large space, which means you can sleep in and not face repercussions of an hour-long wait for a table.

Citizen Cake's French Macarons: Basil, Salted Caramel, Tangerine, Raspberry Rose

Added bonus, there's a Citizen Cake bake sale every Saturday and Sunday at the bar counter. They usually have an assortment of cookies, cupcakes, and brilliantly hued macarons.

Elizabeth Falkner

Interesting News: It looks like Chef Falkner will be teaching cooking classes in August at $65 a pop. Maybe she'll teach me how to make the Monte Cristo?

Orson
508 4th Street
(between Bryant St & Brannan St)
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-777-1508