When a world-famous and beloved chef gathers together sixty years of the recipes he "love[s] the most" and stuffs them in a hearty cookbook that measures two inches thick, it's time to make room on the bookshelf. This fall Jacques Pépin publishes his newest cookbook, Essential Pépin, and gives his hungry fans over 700 of his favorite recipes culled from his six decades as an apprentice cook, professional chef, and cooking school teacher.

Always the perfectionist in and out of the kitchen, Jacques didn't go easy on himself when putting this book together. In his introduction, Jacques admits that he could have simply sent off all 700+ recipes to be published with no additional changes, however, he instead decided to reconsider each one and "adjust, correct, and retest [them] for a modern kitchen to make them usable, friendly, and current for today's cook, while retaining the spirit and flavor of the originals." Essential Pépin is essentially Jacques, and the recipes reflect his life in food from the fanciest French dishes to the homiest American comfort foods to his personalized approach to "fast food" cooking.

I don't know what Jacques' original recipe was for Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style, but this one did me just fine on a pre-Autumnal evening. As I swim my way through a practically tangible haze of slowly simmering onions and browning mountain cheese, I will say that I wish Jacques had been a little more specific about what port is "sweet port." To me, all port -- ruby, tawny, vintage -- is fairly sweet. It's not like sherry where one is clearly sweet and one is clearly dry. I went with ruby for this recipe, but might try tawny another time just to experience a taste comparison. Also, I didn't use canned stock. What with all the scary news about what is going on with canned foods these days, I buy cartons of stock not cans. Of course, that's an even better excuse to make your own stock, which is Jacques' primary suggestion.

Onion Soup Lyonnaise-Style

Serves 6 to 8

15-20 slices baguette, 1/4 inch thick
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 medium onions, thinly sliced (about 4 cups)
8 cups homemade chicken stock or low-salt canned chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups grated Gruyère or Emmenthaler cheese
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sweet port

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until browned. Remove from the oven and set aside. (Leave the oven on.) Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and sauté for 15 minutes, or until dark brown.

Add the stock, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Push the soup through a food mill.

Arrange one third of the toasted bread in the bottom of an ovenproof soup tureen or large casserole. Sprinkle with some of the cheese, then add the remaining bread and more cheese, saving enough to sprinkle over the top of the soup. Fill the tureen with the hot soup, sprinkle the reserved cheese on top, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 35 minutes, or until a golden crust forms on top.

At serving time, bring the soup to the table. Combine the yolks with the port in a deep soup plate and whip with a fork. With a ladle, make a hole in the top of the gratinée, pour in the wine mixture, and fold into the soup with the ladle. Stir everything together and serve.

I also tried one of Jacques' pita pizzas -- the one with red onion, tomatoes, Herbes de Provence, chives, and Gruyère cheese -- and it's definitely something I'm going to try out on my toddler. In fact, my husband was so taken with the pizza that I had to make another one right after we scarfed down the first one. I was out of tomatoes, so my second rendition was done up with slices of red onion, Herbes de Provence, chives, Gruyère, and a handful olive oil-dressed watercress I tossed on the pizza after it came out of the oven.

If I recall from my work on More Fast Food My Way, Jacques' pita pizzas are part of his "fast food" oeuvre, and clearly the onion soup smacks of his classical French background, so I decided to round out my Essential Pépin sojourn with his roast chicken recipe, a classic American entry.

My experience with this recipe was somewhat rocky. While I loved Jacques' tip about not covering the finished chicken with foil (because the steaming that ensues makes the chicken taste reheated), I did struggle mightily to keep the stubborn bird on its side during part of the roasting process. I ended up lacerating one of the drumsticks during the balancing act, but since the drumsticks go to my toddler, it wasn't a huge loss.

As my husband and I stood over the warm chicken, tearing off crispy skin and strips of juicy breast meat with our fingers, he mumbled through a mouthful, "Best roast chicken you've ever made." I then whisked some Grey Poupon into the pan of unstrained juices, warmed it slightly, and poured it off into a bowl. We continued feasting, this time dipping our fingerfuls of chicken into the sauce. In this book, there's Jacques the Chef.

I leafed through the rest of the book, scanning other recipes, and suddenly realized I wasn't even reading the recipes because I completely enthralled by the illustrations. In this cookbook, there's no glossy photography showing rivulets of garnet juices running down a slice of steak, no crooked fingers of steam rising from hot-from-the-oven rolls, there's just a gratin pan here, a curly head of Boston lettuce there, an occasional plump chicken pecking in the dirt -- all lovingly rendered in watercolor by the chef himself. In this book, there's Jacques the Artist.

Early in the book is a 3-page "General Information About Eggs" section, which is seeded with smidges of new-to-me information. Here Jacques shares a great tip about freezing individual egg whites in ice cub trays and how raw unbroken egg yolks should be covered with cold water for optimal refrigerator storage. However, the egg tip I find most fascinating is the idea that it's not it's necessary to bring eggs to room temperature before whipping up their whites. The master chef's opposing opinion is that the texture of egg whites is "tighter, smoother, and better if the egg whites are cold, even though the volume after beating is slightly less." Tucked among the 700 recipes are other snippets of advice, like how to make your own proof box for baking and ways to improvise your own fish smoker out of an old pot or roaster and a screen.

The next recipe I'm most looking forward to trying is the Grilled Squid on Watercress. Grilled squid is a dish I always order (sometimes in multiples) if I see it on a restaurant menu, but I've never had sufficient courage to try at home. With Jacques by my side, guiding me through each step, I think I'll finally be able to attempt it. In this book, there's Jacques the Teacher.

Packaged with the book is a 3-hour DVD of Jacques' techniques, which really deserves its own review. The very first technique Jacques demonstrates is the proper way of tying your apron to insulate yourself against burns, and attaching your towel to your apron for attractiveness and ease of retrieval. Genius. There are other worthy techniques, of course, and some are difficult -- making butter roses and gilding them with paprika for color -- and some are easy, like peeling broccoli stems for cooking.

Also not to be missed is KQED's 26-episode TV show, Essential Pépin, which starts airing on October 15th. KQED's specially designed website will feature 2-4 printable recipes from each episode along with delectable photographs of the finished dishes. The website also enables you to watch full episodes online a week before they air on TV.

Guests and host, Leslie Sbrocco taping episode 608 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 8 airs Thursday September 29 at 7:30pm on KQED TV 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 be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The eighth episode of the season features these restaurants: DOSA on Fillmore (San Francisco), Sapore Italiano Ristorante (Burlingame) and Gather (Berkeley).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- Alternative Packaging Trends

The autumn equinox has passed, and at sundown today, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins. (Happy 5773!) One of my favorite parts of this important but still joyous holiday is the mandate to start the year with sweetness. No radicchio, no vinegar, nothing bitter or sour. That will come in due time, as part of life. But right now, while the new year is still untouched and full of promise, it should hold nothing but sweetness. Honey is a traditional part of the new year's table, as are new fruits, those that have just ripened during this autumn season but haven't found their way into your kitchen yet. They can be served as is, baked into desserts, or slow-braised with chicken, duck, or brisket.

We have a rich variety of such fruits to choose from this season: dusty blue, oval-shaped French and Italian sugar plums, excellent for baking in cakes and tarts; luscious juice-dripping melons; grapes of all colors and sizes, from golden, winey Muscats to brilliant Autumn Flames; the first greeny-yellow Bartlett pears and rough-skinned amber Asian pears. And of course, figs, the crown of our fall harvest. There are Black Mission and Brown Turkey figs, green Kadotas and crazy Candystripes. They are frankly seductive, not juicy like a peach but lush and yielding when perfectly ripe.

Ripeness is all, though: an unripe fig is a hard, chalky thing with all the appeal of seedy spackle. So, first rule of thumb: make sure your figs are ripe. How to tell? A ripe fig should give a little. A drop of clear, sticky juice oozing from the tiny hole at the base is a good thing. You don't want moldy or wrinkly, but softer is better.

It also depends on what you're doing with them. Almost-mushy figs are the tastiest, but they're not going to slice neatly. A wonderful salad for firmer figs this time of year is arugula and mixed lettuces tossed with wheels of peeled orange and quartered figs, dressed with a shallot-sherry vinaigrette and showered, just before serving, with sliced, toasted almonds and nubbins of fresh goat cheese (chevre). Or you can make a divine hors-d'oeuvre by cutting a cross in the top of each fig, tucking in a nubbin of goat or blue cheese, drizzling them with pomegranate molasses and running them under the broiler until the fruit swells and the cheese just begins to melt. Truly, one of the best ways to treat a fig that I've ever discovered.

A warm fig is a sexy fig, and so I love baking with fresh figs this time of year. I can imagine this schiacciata d'uva made equally delicious with halved figs instead of grapes. The cake below started as your typical fall apple cake, loaded with diced apples, toasted walnuts, a sweet spice mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. But it grows up and becomes a little more elegant when the apples and walnuts are swapped out in favor of figs and almonds, and when the cinnamon is nudged out by the fragrant, camphor-y aroma of cardamom. The seeds of one or two pods of fresh green cardamom, freshly ground or crushed into a cup of sugar, will give more than enough perfume to this cake. You could also crush the dried blossoms of a few stalks of lavender into your sugar instead, to a different but equally lovely effect.

Recipe: Fig Cake with Almonds
Summary: Want to go wheat-free? You can replace the white and wheat flours in this easy autumn cake with a mixture of oat and barley flours.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 25-30 minutes
Total Time: 45-50 minutes
Yield: 1 cake

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose unbleached white flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 oz (10 tbsp) butter, softened
1 1/3 cup cardamom or lavender sugar
grated rind of 1 orange
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
8 ripe fresh figs, stems removed, quartered
2 tbsp honey
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 10” round baking pan or 9"x13" rectangular pan.

2. Sift flours, baking powder and soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.

3. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until each one is thoroughly incorporated into the batter before adding the next. Beat in orange rind and vanilla.

4. Beat in one third of the buttermilk. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the remaining buttermilk.

5. Spread batter in the prepared pan. Press figs lightly into the batter, cut side up, in a decorative pattern. Drizzle with honey and scatter with sliced almonds.

6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean and cake is pale golden-brown. Let cool on a rack before removing from pan.

7. Serve with a dollop of crème fraiche or Greek yogurt mixed with honey.

In under a month, newcomer Local Cafe is already charming Piedmont Avenue neighbors and luring Oaklanders for a morning coffee or a quick bite to eat. Owners Megan Burke and David Crombie joined up with Colin Etezadi, formerly of Boot and Shoe Service, Pizzaiolo and Camino, to craft a menu that is seasonal, well-crafted, and relies on many local ingredients and products.

For breakfast, they serve drip coffee and espresso beverages from Graffeo along with fresh-squeezed juices, housemade granola, breakfast sandwiches, toast and INNA Jam, and pastries from Starter Bakery. I have yet to get over there in the morning, but I've heard rumors that the espresso drinks alone are worth the jaunt. I can attest that this is certainly the case with the salads and sandwiches.

Interior of Local Cafe

When you walk in for lunch, you're met with warm, modern decor (think Adesso with a cooler color palate), oversized lighting fixtures, chalkboard menus and a lovely community table. Walking up to the register, you'll see a cold case full of fun bottled beverages including lemonades, root beers, small bottles of Dr. Pepper and juices and teas. We were seated and given paper menus although I noticed a few couples ordering right at the counter, so it looks like it could go either way depending on how busy it is at the time.

Cheese Platter at Local Cafe

We began with a few housemade iced teas and the Cheese Platter which featured fresh pears and a few different kinds of soft cheeses. I have to say that I do like a firm salty cheese with my pears as well; this would be a nice addition. Other than that, the pears and cheeses are accompanied by thinly sliced, toasted bread and it makes for a nice nibble while you're waiting for your lunch to arrive.

Chef's Salad

My handsome dining partner and I split the Chef's Salad and the Egg Salad Sandwich served on an Acme roll. I always associate Chef's Salads with bad, corporate cafeterias but I hadn't tried one in so long and it was the most substantial salad on the menu so we went for it. The lettuce was nice and crisp and the salad itself was lightly dressed and seasoned. This is a good one to split with someone in conjunction with another dish--I think on its own it might be a little on the not-all-that-special side.

Egg Salad Sandwich

The Egg Salad Sandwich, on the other hand, veers to the other end of the spectrum: it is a very special sandwich. So often the problem with egg salad sandwiches is that the eggs can be over-boiled and turn into a crumbly mess only held together by gobs of mayonnaise. Not at Local Cafe. Here the eggs are soft boiled and mayonnaise is used only sparingly. There are capers and watercress and great crusty bread. While I did share this sandwich, I probably wouldn't again--it's one you're going to want to enjoy all on your own.

After lunch, there are a few cookies and simple desserts along with Tara's Ice cream. When we were finishing up lunch, we asked about the root beer they sold and how sweet it was compared to more commercial root beers. Co-owner David Crombie was working the register and checking in with his customers but he took the time to actually pour us a sample and chat about our favorite brands. It's apparent from the beginning when we walked in and were greeted quickly by the inviting interior and the friendly waitstaff that this was a promising spot on Piedmont Avenue. It became even more apparent as we were leaving and chatting with David about soda, sunshine, and Oakland in general. Isn't this how all good lunches should end?

Local Cafe
4395 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland CA
(510) 922-8249
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 7am-3pm

Eat Real Festival Crowd in Jack London Square, Oakland.
Photos: Wendy Goodfriend

The 3rd Annual Eat Real Festival kicked off their food extravaganza this past weekend, and the eager and hungry masses descended upon Jack London Square in full force once again.

I've attended the event since its inception and have always come away with a full, happy belly and lots of food porn. This dazzling array of culinary delights came about through a "social venture business" whose "mission is to help revitalize regional food systems, build public awareness of and respect for the craft of making good food and to encourage the growth of American food entrepreneurs," according to their website.

And Eat Real goes all out to foster this mission. This year they hosted 60 street food vendors, had 30 beers and wines on tap, an indoor marketplace with 30 craft food vendors, urban farmers leading Q & A sessions about homesteading, DIY workshops and demonstrations about baked goods, cheese and other foodstuffs, live music performances from local bands and DJs, butchery contests and more.

It's easy to get overloaded with this packed schedule -- even with 30 less food vendors than last year -- so I decided to seek out vendors that were new to the festival or that I hadn't checked out in previous years. I met up with BAB's editor and photographer extraordinaire, Wendy Goodfriend, in downtown Oakland on Saturday morning.

After checking in my bicycle at the East Bay Bike Coalition's free bike valet, we were ready to get our grub on. One of the first vendors that caught my eye was Fatface that hails from Davis. I've tried their popsicles before, so I was planning on strolling right on by until I saw the big sign that advertised a "bacon and egg" popsicle. (I think this sign made most people stop in their tracks.) Then I read the description: "Ginger-bacon caramel and vanilla egg custard featuring eggs from Vega Farm and bacon from Blesdoe pork also made with vanilla bean, heavy cream, milk, ginger, filtered water and cane sugar." After reading that list of ingredients and noticing that it was a "limited edition," I couldn't resist the call of the swine. I figured this would be a lovely breakfast (which I had skipped in anticipation of the afternoon of decadence) despite it being dessert. And it didn't disappoint. The frozen egg custard was rich and creamy, with a luscious caramel center of bacony goodness.

Next on the list was the San Rafael-based food truck The Taco Guys. This was their second visit to Eat Real, and Jason Hoffman and Justin Close are two chefs with 20 years of culinary experience under their belts that decided to branch out on their own into the street food scene. My husband Shawn ordered their Maui Fish Taco (panko-battered and fried Pacific rock cod, savoy cabbage slaw, pico de gallo, Sriracha mayo and pickled onions), while I had to try the Burmese Lamb taco (Fallon Hills lamb, Thai cucumber salad, preserved Meyer lemon yogurt, sweet herbs). We bumped into the guys later on as we were wandering through the festival, and they asked us how we liked their food. I let them know that we agreed with their slogan that it was "ridiculously tasty."

Onto the next course; the WOW Truck of San Jose was conveniently parked right near by. Despite being Eat Real first-timers, their popularity preceded them and they had a long line of patient folks queueing up for their fusion Filipino fare. And no wonder; I was willing to wait 15 minutes for a "WOW Silog Taco" with Niman Ranch cage-free egg and beef tapa, garlic fried rice and heirloom tomato on a flour tortilla. And I also had to try the "Silog Sushi Bite" with a fried quail egg on top of garlic fried rice, seaweed, hand-harvested Philippine sea salt (!) and Niman Ranch beef. Shawn went right for the "Turon Turon," a fried saba banana fritter roll. The Sushi Bite was one of my favorites of the day. It had an incredible savory quality that was umami to the hilt. (I'll stop now before I throw in any more pretentious adjectives, so I'll end with the declaration that it was unbelievably delicious.)

We decided to give our stomachs a time-out before diving into the next course. After perusing the goods in the indoor craft food market, we headed over to the DIY Eat It & Oven area. Amy Remsen and Blake Joffe of Beauty's Bagel Shop were just finishing up their bagel making workshop. This was the first appearance at Eat Real for the Oakland-based duo, and they're currently looking for a space to set up a brick-and-mortar bagel shop. In the meantime, Amy and Blake have a wholesale business making Montreal-style bagels that are "hand-rolled, boiled in honey water and baked in a wood-fired oven" for local restaurants Saul's Restaurant & Delicatessen in Berkeley and San Francisco's pop-up deli Wise Sons Delicatessen. They also sell their bagels through a vendor at the Kensington Farmers' Market. I was lucky enough to score a sample of one their freshly baked bagels from a workshop participant, which was still warm from the handmade on-site clay oven.

Moving onwards, we stopped by the latest venture of Eat Real founder Anya Fernald, who is also the CEO of Belcampo Meat Company. They made their debut at the Los Angeles Eat Real Festival in July and were making their first appearance as both a sponsor and vendor in Oakland this year. Based near Mt. Shasta, they're a "multi-species organic start-up farm" that raises grass-fed and pastured animals -- everything from "cattle to quail," according to farmer Kylan Hoover. Kylan, who was helping to serve up their hot dogs with his co-worker Peter Sterling, used to run his own farm in Livermore. He now works with Belcampo in designing and managing the Siskiyou County farm, which has been in the research and development phase for the past 5 years. They plan to open up butcher shops throughout the state along with their own processing facility in Yreka in 2012. I decided to try a cone of their French fries, which were golden and crispy as a result of being fried in grass-fed beef tallow.

Photo: Jenny Oh

There were long, long lines for festival newbie Tikka Bytes, "savory Indian bites" from Milpitas, so alas, I had to pass them up. Lines were also snaking around the plaza for the seasoned festival darlings Chairman Bao Truck, Senor Sisig, and Tru Gourmet Dim Sum.

Wendy grabbed a bite to eat at Vesta Flatbread -- she had been showing great discipline up until now -- and ordered up their vegetarian dish with carrot hazelnut pate, labne, beet salad, and of course, their delicious flatbread made right in their truck.

We said hello to Steven Gdula of Gobba Gobba Hey, who had his new cookbook and cool Indian-inspired Ganesh t-shirt for sale along with his fantastic treats.

We also popped by to chat with Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats, who showed us his fresh-off-the-presses galley copy of his new cookbook that's due out in November. He was slapping cheese on his burgers in rapid fire -- "it's like dealing cards" -- while extolling the virtues of his immensely popular "bacon-studded hot dog on a stick." Ryan serves up these crowd-pleasers at festivals because, "Who doesn't love food on a stick?"

This was Iso Rabins' (ForageSF) third time at Eat Real, but this year he decided to "go for it" and cook this year. Preparing food for "over a thousand people was taking it to the next level" (thus he'd had only 2 hours of sleep the night before), but he was thrilled with selling food made on the spot as opposed to pre-made goods in the craft market. Iso was serving up deep-fried smelt (which he personally deep-fried himself) because he "loved bait fish such as mackerel, sardines and anchovies." A colleague told him that he was taking a risk with selling this unfamiliar fish, but he wanted to take a gamble and "introduce people to new food." Iso flirted with the idea of calling them, "fries with eyes," but thought it might be "off-putting" to the masses. (I think it would have worked like a charm, personally.)

We took another food break and listened to part of the Q & A session with Heidi Kooy of The Itty Bitty Farm in the City. Heidi and her husband have a contracting business, but they're also urban homesteaders in San Francisco who raise chickens, bees and goats -- one of which she was milking onstage as she answered questions from the audience. The other one was gamely allowing adoring fans to pet her.

After all of this gorging, did I have room to eat any more food? Apparently so. I'm a sucker for a good grilled cheese sandwich, so GBD (which stands for Golden Brown Delicious) was my last food order for the day. The Point Reyes Farmers' Market was on the lookout for some prepared food vendors to augment their produce stands, and Osteria Stellina's chef-owner Christian Caiazzo thought grilled cheese sandwiches would be the perfect item. He knew there were plenty of great cheesemakers in Marin to source the main ingredient, such as Pt. Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company and Cowgirl Creamery. The Eat Real edition of GBD grilled cheese sandwiches were made with Estera Gold cheese from Valley Ford Cheese Company and generously brushed with butter from Strauss Family Creamery. Metropolis Bakery of Berkeley provided the delicious sourdough bread (normally Christian bakes his own bread, but he couldn't handle the volume required for the festival). I ordered the "The Bill From Bo," the grilled cheese made with brisket prepared with beef from BN Ranch, Bill Niman's illustrious new company.

Wendy and I were ready to call it a day after over 5 hours of snacking and sampling (Shawn had already reached his crowd saturation point several hours earlier). On my way back to the bike valet, I realized I was a) terribly thirsty and b) passing by the opulent and vaudeville-esque booth belonging to Taylor's Tonics of San Francisco and Santa Cruz. We stopped to talk with the nattily dressed Aaron Dolson, one of the co-founders, while his equally dapper partner Taylor Peck handed out samples and sold bottles of their Chai Cola. This was their first visit to Eat Real -- and it had been quite successful, as they had sold out of everything but their cola. Aaron's background included working with a raw juice co-op based in Eugene, Oregon, while Taylor was an experienced chai barista (read more about his eclectic background here) before they launched their successful enterprise. Aaron's a firm believer in the health benefits of tea and they use only natural ingredients in their drinks. They keep the sugar content low (and no high-fructose corn syrup), add medicinal herbs such as nettle and ginger, and use pasteurization and citric acid to preserve the drinks.

The spicy, sparkling Chai Cola was a refreshing way to end the day, and I was ready to roll home -- literally and figuratively. Tired and sated, we bid farewell to the event until next year, when we'll be ready for another round of the East Bay Eat Real Festival.

Check out BAB's Eat Real Fest slideshow to view more of the festivities.

I've always had a soft spot for corner stores. As a child in suburban Sydney I used to walk to the one in my neighborhood run by Greek immigrants to pick up the afternoon paper and ciggies for my mum. Then I'd skim five or ten cents of the change for a little white paper bag of mixed lollies (candy that cost a penny a piece) like bananas, milk bottles, freckles, musk sticks, raspberries and other forbidden sweet treats I'd happily devour on the short stroll home.

When I moved to the inner city as a university student the corner store, run by immigrants of origin that escapes me now, was the place to go for hangover breakfast supplies: milk, tea bags, cereal, yogurt, juice, eggs. (Booze was easily bought at 18 at the drive-through "bottle-o" aka bottle shop.)

I've lived in the Bay Area most of my adult life. But when I go back home, as I do frequently, I love ducking into corner stores in different parts of Sydney. In the inner-city suburb known as Rozelle, one of my first stops to see dear friends, after the obligatory hugs, laughs, and ubiquitous cups of tea, comes a pit stop to the corner store. We pick up Turkish bread, home-made tabouli and hummus, along with Portuguese custard tarts and raspberry friands, a popular little oval-shaped teacake.

It doesn't matter how long I've been away, the Lebanese family who have run the store for years are always there. A door behind the counter is open, and many family members are often sitting in their living room, doing what families do in their living rooms: talking, reading, watching TV, playing, and drinking cups of tea.

Our exchange is always the same: How are you? How are the kids? Look how they've grown! A quick word about the weather or a compliment about the food and my son and I are on our way -- but not before he's chosen his own little bag of lollies he picks up when we travel back to Australia.

As an immigrant myself, I've always been drawn to the stories of people who inhabit two worlds, who call two places home, their homeland of birth and their adopted homelands.

In the three cities I've called home: Sydney, San Francisco, and Berkeley, as all over the world, corner stores are primarily immigrant-owned businesses. And these people have their own stories to tell about where they're from and how they landed here. If only people took the time to ask.

Lucky for us, film maker Katherine Bruens did. No surprise, then, given the subject, that I was predisposed to want to see her documentary "Corner Store," a small film with a big heart airing Sunday at 6 p.m. as part of KQED's "Truly CA" documentary series.

Yousef Elhaj, corner store owner, in his San Francisco shop. Images: Katherine Bruens

Yousef Elhaj is a Palestinian immigrant who has owned a corner store on Church Street in the Castro for more than 10 years. A corner store owner in his homeland too, he left Bethlehem after the second intifada when his business went bust and he was desperate to find work to support his family of five, including two sons and a daughter. There was, he says on camera, no money for milk or medicine. His goal: Put his head down, work hard, and save enough money to send for his wife and kids for a better life in the U.S. Who knew it would be ten years before he saw them all again?

Elhaj, who entered lawfully via a brother already in the States, takes immense pride in his store and works long hours; he opens at 7:30 and closes at midnight. He lives upstairs in a tiny apartment with a neatly made single bed. Every day he speaks with his family, sometimes his children ask him for big ticket items like iPods and cameras. He protests about the expense but then buys them anyway, as parents sometimes do.

Even before she knew his back story, Bruens, a regular customer as well as the film's director, was struck by Elhaj's commitment to his store and customers, she says on a recent Forum episode.

He's a good listener with an empathic ear, says Bruens. She should know, she spent time talking with him when she lost her job and he helped to keep her spirits up. Over time, she learned about Elhaj's own challenges, which she says made her own pale in comparison. As a filmmaker, how could she not document his struggle to reunite with his family?

After a long, lonely, hard decade, Elhaj gets good news: His family can join him in America. We watch as he makes the long journey home and his obvious joy in seeing his children. His oldest, now 18, is a man, with a job and a girlfriend. His daughter is a giggly 16-year-old with a solid grasp of English, his younger son doesn't recognize him. He was two when his dad left home.

A Palestinian farmers' market vendor shown in "Corner Store."

We also witness the conflict he feels as he fits back into the familiar rhythms of life in Palestinian Bethlehem and the pleasure he and his wife show in such simple acts as shopping at local farmers' markets. But there's an undercurrent of greater conflict too: Half the market is walled off and only open to Israeli military officers. It takes hours to get around because of checkpoints and one day the family home's water is simply cut off. Elhaj gives viewers a tour of the modest house where he grew up and the one he built, where the family now lives, with evident pride. The camera reveals the surrounding devastation that only years of turmoil can bring. Despite the challenges and tragedy, it's still home.

But this isn't a polemic on the evils of war, nor is it a social commentary on the goods stocked at most corner stores, including Elhaj's, namely liquor, processed grocery items, and Lotto tickets.

It is the story of how one man created a sense of community in a corner of San Francisco, where most people simply stop by to pick up milk, and the sadness and sacrifice this shopkeeper quietly endures to secure a better life for his family.

Corner Store: Offical Trailer - 2010 from CornerStoreDoc.

La Mar kitchen crew. Chef de Cuisine Dennis Arvizu is second from right. Photo courtesy of Dennis Arvizu

La Mar Cebichería Peruana, on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, will celebrate its third birthday on September 25. Live music from a Criolla band and complimentary shots of Pisco Sour will be served up for all dining guests for this shindig. Reservations are recommended if you plan on eating at a table; the lounge will be come as you are.

La Mar’s Chef de Cuisine Dennis Arvizu caught up with Bay Area Bites via email interview while in the midst of planning for the birthday. La Mar has a new menu with lower dish prices, and is meant for tapas style sharing. Signature Peruvian dishes as cebiches, anticuchos, causas and lomo saltado are part of this updated menu. Arvizu said of the updated plates that, “Aji Amarillo and Aji Panca bring the Peruvian essence to every bite.”

The East Bay resident is originally from San Diego and had food leanings at an early age. “I grew up going across the border to Baja California. I remember standing in long lines waiting for my morning tacos. Nothing beat a hand made tortilla, and fresh salsa. This was usually the routine before heading out to sea on fishing trips with my dad. We’d catch fish, clean them out and try the meat right on the boat. Every fish had its own flavor. These trips led to my curiosity of the culinary world.”

Arvizu has worked at Mariposa in Coral Gables, L’Ecole and Rosa Mexicano in Manhattan, and staged for two summers in Mexico. He attended UC Santa Cruz, where he met his girlfriend of over six years, Mariana, who is a Bay Area native. The two remained friendly when Arvizu decided to finish college in Southern California. “After graduating from the University of San Diego, I attended The French Culinary Institute in New York City. Next I ventured off to South Florida and got a feel for Caribbean cuisine and introduced to Peruvian cuisine. I moved to the Bay Area in July of 2008 to work for La Mar.” The chef plans to travel to Spain in the spring of next year.

Dennis Arvizu and Mariana Sanchez in Napa. Photo courtesy of Dennis Arvizu

Where do you source ingredients for the restaurant?
We work closely with Monterey Fish Market and Royal Hawaiian to maintain the highest level of quality. Our Peruvian ingredients are harder to source than most other foreign ingredients. We import all our bases from Peru. Due to the novelty of this cuisine in the states, Peruvian products are limited.

Tell us about the restaurant’s new Lonchera “on the go” menu from La Mar’s café:
Our goal with the café is to capture the essence of La Mar’s flavors in a to-go package for customers. “La Lonchera” (the lunch box) consists of a Peruvian sandwich, a choice of a side salad or house-made chips and salsa, and an Alfajor (cookie).

What are your favorite food & drink spots?
I’m a fan of tapas, in a more casual environment. In Oakland, there is Barlata, with an extensive menu. Their gambas al Ajillo are spectacular. In the city there is LaLoLa Bar de Tapas, with a smaller menu. I can never pass up their patatas bravas. On weekends, I go to the local Taqueria Los Gallos for home-style Menudo.

Guiltiest food pleasure?
Homemade tortilla chips and salsa made in a molcajete.

What is your favorite meal to have with friends and/or family?
Growing up, my father and I always cooked outdoors over a wood-fire grill. One of the favorites was “Pescado Zarandeado,” which is a whole fish butterflied, marinated in chiles and spices, grilled and served family style in the center of the table.

Kitchen at Headland Center for the Arts

Sometimes, being a single, freelancing, non-home-owner with an old car and no kids can have its benefits. Like the opportunity to move into a tent in Santa Cruz to be an apprentice farmer at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UCSC for six months; couldn't have done that with a mortgage to pay. Or now, my latest adventure, being a live-in cook-intern in the kitchen at the Headlands Center for the Arts, just across the bridge in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

For those of you who haven't made the fifteen-minute drive over the water lately, the Headlands Center for the Arts is an artists' residency program occupying a collection of former military buildings in the Marin Headlands. Built in 1907, the buildings were abandoned by the military in 1972. In the late 1970s, an intrepid group of local artists began to renovate them for use. By 1982, the Center had a board of directors, and by 1985, it was granting commissions for renovations of everything from the latrines to the Mess Hall to the storage depot. Now, nearly 30 years later, the place is a well-recognized part of the Bay Area art scene, attracting artists from all around the world for its residency program.

Mess Hall Dining Room

There are lots of good things about being an artist in residence here. Time, unfettered time, time to breathe and think, look and hear and create. A studio for work, an airy room for sleep, the folded, elephantine hills of the Headlands and the whole Pacific ocean laid out at your feet. The rattle of the eucalyptus leaves and the shriek of the wild turkeys at night, the deer browsing under the fog-dripping cypress branches in the early morning. Support and appreciation for your work and its whims, wherever it takes you.

And, of course, you get fed, an organic, made-from-scratch, sit-down dinner cooked for you, your fellow artists, and your guests four nights a week, plus a mid-day brunch on Sundays, cooked and served in the Mess Hall, itself designed into a particularly warm community space by artist Anne Hamilton. Nearly everything on the table is local: those frilly, multi-colored little lettuces picked yesterday at County Line Harvest in Petaluma, the whole-wheat sesame-sourdough bread baked in the kitchen twice a week by Eduardo Morell in the wood-burning brick oven designed by Alan Scott. When you get peckish, or bored, in need of coffee and conversation (or wifi), you can dawdle in the Mess Hall, foraging for last night's leftovers (mmm, salmon! Mexican wedding cookies!) and chatting up the kitchen staff: myself, fellow intern Damon Little, and head chef Keith Mercovich.

Wood-burning brick oven designed by Alan Scott

We'll probably be chopping huge piles of chard, skinning halibut, shucking oysters or hulling strawberries for tarts. We might be making things from scratch that you didn't know could be made from scratch, like macaroni, or hot dogs, or bacon. We might be laying out sides of salmon on a bed of fennel for gravlax, kneading dough for Tuesday's pizza night, slicing multicolored, palm-sized tomatoes, or stirring up caramel gelato. Whatever we're busy with, you'll be having it for dinner in just a few hours.

Stephanie Shares Pizza-Making Tips from the Headlands. Video: Laiko Bahrs

Of course, I feel a little guilty writing about this, since the artists' dinner at the Headlands isn't open to the public. Only artists, staff, and a limited number of their guests can attend a typical weeknight dinner, much to the chagrin of the hikers and hostel-stayers who wander in, draw by the smells and conviviality. But there are ways to get a seat at the table. You can become a member, which gets you invited to the quarterly members' dinners with the artists. You can come to one of the Headlands' public programs, which often include an optional dinner or brunch. You can do what I did, and volunteer during one of the public programs, which earns you a meal. (Naturally, I volunteered in the kitchen, but there are always varied volunteer slots open for any given event.) This Sunday, in fact, I'll be one of a group of artists leading a series of hikes, each with a different theme around the area, followed by brunch in the Mess Hall.

Such will be my Sunday: up early to make Jonagold apple coffee cake for 75, lead my hike for an hour, then return to the kitchen, put my apron back on, help finish cooking and serving, eat, then wash dishes and help clean the kitchen, getting it ready for dinner prep the following day. In between, deep breaths of the clear, ocean-scented air, particularly lovely now that our equinoctial summer has arrived, banishing (most of) the brooding fog at long last. It's part supper club, part dinner party, part co-op (dessert doesn't appear until after everyone has pitched in to help with the dishes), but it all comes together to make a community.

Stephanie Rosenbaum will be leading "Plants of Pleasure, Plants of Pain," a visual foraging hike about the area's edible and poisonous plants as part of the Desire Trails program on Sunday, Sept 25, at 1pm, followed by brunch at 3pm. The hike is free; brunch is $15 for Headlands members, $20 for the public.

Guests and host, Leslie Sbrocco taping episode 607 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area Season 6: episode 7 airs Thursday September 22 at 7:30pm on KQED TV 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 be sharing wine tips with each episode.

The seventh episode of the season features these restaurants: The Peasant & The Pear (Danville), Spork (San Francisco) and Ristorante Ideale (San Francisco).

Leslie Sbrocco: Wine Tips -- Wine Gadgets

Liquor going down a sewer in NYC. Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Right on the heels of California Wine Month and the beginning of grape harvest, comes Ken Burns' latest documentary, Prohibition. The six hour series, which airs on PBS stations October 2nd, takes us back to an infamous thirteen year time period in our nation’s history when the commercial production and sale of alcohol was banned. For those not glued to the prohibition era TV series Board Walk Empire, the 18th Amendment was passed in 1920 at the urging of the temperance movement.

Prohibition agents. Photo: Library of Congress

California’s wine industry, which had recently rebounded from a major pest infestation and was poised for great things, was devastated by Prohibition. Vineyards were ripped up and a majority of the more than six hundred wineries in the state were shuttered. The few that remained in business did so by producing wine for religious purposes. Beaulieu Vineyard was one of them. Founder Georges de Latour, a Catholic, was a friend of the archbishop of San Francisco. Latour cut a deal to sell wine to all the priests in the diocese.

Prohibition was supposed to curb alcohol consumption, but instead the party went underground, giving rise to a thriving criminal economy run by bootleggers and gangsters. Port cities, like San Francisco, managed to stay pretty wet during those dry years, thanks to illegal liquor brought ashore in the dead of night, carried on ships from Canada. The roaring twenties saw the rise of a new breed of young women, known as "flappers," and while beer, wine and spirits—some bootlegged, some made in basement stills flowed in hundreds of backroom speakeasies.

Flappers in the prohibition era. Photo: ©Scherl / Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / The Image Works

After years of lawlessness, the 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933. You can still visit remnants of the Prohibition era throughout the Bay Area. Some former San Francisco speakeasies remain and dozens of wineries survived Prohibition.

Called “Ghost Wineries” some have become homes, others used as barns or shopping complexes in Yountville and St. Helena. A handful of wineries have been restored and now have a second life including Freemark Abbey, Far Niente, Hall Wines and Storybook Mountain Vineyards in Calistoga.

Freemark Abbey 1898. Photo courtesy of Freemark Abbey

We’ve come along way since the dry days of Prohibition. In seventy-five years, the state’s award winning wine industry has built itself up to be a world leader, with more than 3,300 bonded wineries. But a new threat looms -- this one from Mother Nature. Research shows that California's prime wine-producing areas could shrink dramatically over the next three decades, due to climate change.

Find out much more about the past and future of California wines at the California Academy of Sciences Prohibition NightLife this Thursday evening. You can purchase tickets online for the event or buy them at the door. KQED's science and environment series, QUEST, will be screening the segment on wine and climate change featured below and serving up wines for warmer temps. Cal Academy will be leading mixology classes and screening a sneak peak of Ken Burns' and Lynn Novick’s new documentary on Prohibition. Can you think of a better way to commemorate the end of the 18th Amendment than with a cocktail party and wine tasting?

QUEST: Napa Wineries Face Global Warming

California Academy of Sciences
Address: Map
55 Music Concourse Drive
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 379-8000
Twitter: @calacademy
Facebook: California Academy of Sciences