Andrew is from Louisville, Kentucky. He lives in San Francisco, plays music, works with kids, and writes for a variety of magazines and newspapers, including The Oakland Tribune, The Contra Costa County Times, Wine Enthusiast, The Onion, and Thrasher. Pro: hush puppies, green garlic, caramel ice cream, Japanese sweet potatoes, smelts, Larb Ped, beer, wine, cocktails, and assorted dumplings; con: milk, chips, and candy.
Valencia is a humming thoroughfare teeming with restaurants, bars, vintage stores, galleries, furniture vendors, shops hawking expensive curiosities, construction projects, pigeons, and one small, loud street performer with a bright blue guitar. I don’t know what the street was like in the 90s, but it’s changed remarkably since I arrived just seven years ago. The blocks have built up, becoming denser. Spaces have changed hands, but fewer proprietors without public relations teams still hold court over the bike lanes, shimmering cars, and busy pedestrian paths. Notably, many restaurants have closed, and many new ones have taken their place. The climate brims with potential, yet it’s simultaneously harsh: with so many eating options tangling in such close proximity, survivors must stake out unique corners of the market — or place a premium on a convenience they provide.
I first became really curious about Lao food nearly two years ago, after a tasty meal at Champa Garden, the somewhat venerable Lao restaurant on 8th Avenue east of Lake Merritt in San Antonio–one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Bay Area, home to close-knit populations of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians in almost equal proportions. I tried to draw distinctions between its dominant flavors and those most prevalent in the more familiar cuisines of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Like Thai, Lao thrives on interplay between sour and spicy, crunchy and soft, and both cooked and raw ingredients. The effect however is different.
Food is wholesome and sustaining, but my relationship with it at the time kept it framed in an unhealthy light. Food was something that had once made me very happy. I was tired of surrendering it to an unpleasant fantasy realm, where my brain waged war against my body, and limited what it could enjoy. That pissed me off as much as anything about my predicament, and I finally decided to do something about it — with some counseling, a gym membership, and plenty of tacos. I wanted to spend my life eating, and in time, maybe make a living doing so.
The jerky salesman was the real deal, I thought, a Kentucky classic, an intrepid street food hustler in a lean and largely cart-less land. I wanted to meet him again, to interview him perhaps, to most importantly get my hands on some more of his delicious wares.
Everything on television is deliberately orchestrated, of course, but many of the common signifiers of male chefness — the cursing, the drinking, the fighting, the screaming, the preoccupation with large pieces of meat — whether expressed on camera, in memoirs, or reputation via third-person anecdotes — endow a traditionally feminine role with coarse, conventionally masculine trappings. Producers want men to feel safe watching their shows.
Every Tuesday morning, the class visits the SF Ferry Building. We teachers gently prod our shifty little charges into the loose winding semblance of a line and lead them, meandering along the sidewalks, dashing through crosswalks.
Office workers are captive diners. Since people will pay more for convenient bad food in the middle of the day, lunch spots charged with feeding the downtown drones know their registers will ring regardless of how good their wares are. For every self-described foodie frantically mining for diamonds in the roughest of roughs, there are a dozen people who, at least for an hour or so, don’t care.
Let’s say you’re at a party, hovering over a gooey white puck of Mt. Tam, canape-concerned, ignoring the guests swirling around you, when a stranger sidles over and sizes you up. “Hey,” he says, a wide, knowing grin spreading across his face as he gestures at the cheese-covered knife you’re determinedly sliding across a good cracker. “You’re a real foodie, aren’t you?” “No, I’m just hungry,” you say, wincing — because you hate that word.
Brunch-positive people work hard and play hard. They see brunch as a soothing extension of the partying they did the night before, a necessary putting back together of things that were dislodged — a ritual well worth the inflated price of pancakes and a lengthy wait. Brunch-negative people think waiting for food they could make at home for a fraction of the cost is a waste of a day’s best hours. There are two sides, and San Francisco’s boutique-lined streets — Haight, Church, Valencia — are divided between them.
For five years now, Manivanh, a smallish place on 24th Street near Hampshire, has been one of my very favorite neighborhood restaurants in town. It’s a completely unremarkable-looking Thai joint unceremoniously dumped at the grimiest edge of the Mission District, out of step with the strip’s bevy of taquerias, hair salons, and, more recently, art galleries and hipster donut stands.
The film doesn’t sufficiently sell Julie’s decision to blog about cooking her way through Child’s celebrated book. That on-screen moment is weak, her impetus glossed over like ripples in a cake’s frosting. Once Julie gets going, her resolve blossoms into a slightly creepy, worshipful obsession.
Then, I started slipping.
The process was slow but steady and natural. Animal by animal, each meaty notch on my fork, the fresh flavors and the associated stories, people, and places, has marked my memory. I’ve returned again and again to this timeline of tines, to reflect upon my gradual path — from devout vegetarian to comprehensive meat-eater.
We may be approaching gastronomic Thunderdome, a new quasi-post-apocalyptic condition of eating through recession, where restaurants, having struggled, gradually shutter and practically disappear altogether, surrendering the pitted scene to scrappy, subsistence-level free-agents — wagon-pushers and van vendors — with no regard for increasingly irrelevant health code regulations, much less entrepreneurial convention.
Pie Truck is one of the latest freelance foodie endeavors to garner city-wide attention and, as it turns out, it’s a lovely, deserving operation.
One day last week, the lady and I had plans to visit Schmidt’s for dinner. When we’re deciding what to eat, we tend to favor collaboration and compromise, at least I do. Sometimes, rarely, our tastes don’t intersect, and I always want to find dishes we both want, even if it means passing on something I’d really, really like to try. In the case of Schmidt’s, a sleek, two month-old German eatery in the Mission District, I knew what I wanted, and would accept no proxies: hasenpfeffer, a red wine-soaked saddle and leg of rabbit with braised lingonberry-sweetened cabbage.
Amid billowing black stove-staining clouds of digression, I suppose what I’m really coming to, here at the end of this roundabout stew-stirring, is another question, one stretching a bit beyond the scope of the original subject: if food, in the right hands, with the right software, can become music, can music, in a listener’s right frame of mind, feel, not literally, of course, but metaphorically, like food?
You might not have heard, but in Fall of 2008, Pizzeria opened its doors on a humming stretch of Valencia Street, not far from its intersection with 18th.
18 Reasons, the Bi Rite-affiliated gallery space on Guerrero near 18th Street, has made such conscious, well-examined consumption its mission, offering exhibitions, lectures, tastings, and classes to draw clear bright lines between food, people, and place, existing essentially as the embodiment of its intention, as a local meeting spot for people who love food and want to talk about it, share what they know, and learn from others. The gallery has received some local press love but this summer’s offerings deserve special mention.
Bay Area Bites (BAB), KQED's public media food blog, feeds you visually compelling food-related stories, news, recipes and reviews from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Enter your email address to receive updates each time we publish new posts.
Flax Seed: The Next Superfood For Cows And Beef?
After years of research, an animal scientist looking for ways to keep inflammation down in cattle came up with a novel approach: feed them flax. The flax in their food helps keep animals healthy and has an added benefit for those who later eat their meat: omega-3 enriched beef.
Congress: Where Food Reforms Go To Die?
As Congress gets to work on the farm bill, two common-sense, bipartisan reform measures seem to have gotten run over somewhere along the way. The first would set minimum standards for housing egg-laying chickens. The second sought to change how the U.S. provides food aid to people in foreign nations.
For Supreme Court, Monsanto’s Win Was More About Patents Than Seeds
The high court ruled unanimously that when farmers use patented seed for more than one planting in violation of their licensing agreements, they are liable for damages.
Try A Do-It-Yourself Mother’s Day
Rather than waiting for someone to give you a treat, why not make one of your favorites for yourself? Something you can snack on all week when no one’s around. Or, better yet, something you don’t have to share. Food writer T. Susan Chang recommends slow-roasted pecans, salty-sweet matzo candy and more.
A Fresh Pod Cast: Savoring Spring’s Green Peas
Emerald green and tender, yet with a gentle crunch, garden peas can be so delightful when fresh — and so disappointing when not. Try them now in their seasonal prime in these recipes for chilled soup, a citrusy spread and a traditional rice dish.
Spring has sprung! And it’s time to bask in the garden, celebrating the sweet greens of spring with Fava-Bean Crostini topped with mint and Pecorino Romano cheese.
Hunan Home’s Restaurant, Radius, Guerilla Café: Check, Please! Bay Area reviews
Restaurants reviewed: Hunan Home’s Restaurant (San Francisco), Radius Restaurant and Café (San Francisco) and Guerilla Café (Berkeley).
Chris Hadfield: Space Chef In Chief
The Canadian astronaut didn’t just tweet and sing his heart out during his five months as commander of the International Space Station. He also took time out to show the world what it’s like to eat up there.
Bocanova, Willi’s Wine Bar, The Rotunda of Neiman Marcus: Check, Please! Bay Area reviews
Check, Please! Bay Area reviews these restaurants: Bocanova (Oakland), Willi’s Wine Bar (Santa Rosa), The Rotunda of Neiman Marcus (San Francisco).
Celebrate the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market 20th Birthday Bash with CUESA
In honor of its 20th anniversary, Bay Area Bites looks back on how the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market has become a San Francisco institution for chefs, home cooks, and curious eaters from around the world.
Exploratorium Elevates Museum Eating Experience
Chef Loretta Keller, the force behind the Exploratorium’s new culinary options, talks bee jet lag, living foods, and seawater cocktails with BAB’s Sarah Henry.
Grits, Fried Chicken and Gospel Brunch – Chef David Lawrence Discusses Life at “1300 on Fillmore”
Mary Ladd interviews Chef David Lawrence about his restaurant “1300 on Fillmore” which is known for fabulous grits, fried chicken and a lively Sunday Gospel brunch.
Hunan Home’s Restaurant, Radius, Guerilla Café: Check, Please! Bay Area reviews
Restaurants reviewed: Hunan Home’s Restaurant (San Francisco), Radius Restaurant and Café (San Francisco) and Guerilla Café (Berkeley).
First Impression: Healdsburg SHED
What would a wine country locavore’s paradise look like? Stephanie Rosenbaum talks to Cindy Daniel, owner of Healdsburg’s new SHED, a 21st-century grange, store, and sustainable-living center.
Bocanova, Willi’s Wine Bar, The Rotunda of Neiman Marcus: Check, Please! Bay Area reviews
Check, Please! Bay Area reviews these restaurants: Bocanova (Oakland), Willi’s Wine Bar (Santa Rosa), The Rotunda of Neiman Marcus (San Francisco).
Pompei’s Grotto, Lillie Mae’s House of Soul Food, SPQR: Check, Please! Bay Area reviews
The fourth episode of Season 8 features these restaurants: Pompei’s Grotto (San Francisco), Lillie Mae’s House of Soul Food (Santa Clara) and SPQR (San Francisco). Leslie Sbrocco shares wine tips about Napa Valley wines.
Michael Pollan talks about his new book ‘Cooked’
As in his previous books, Michael Pollan argues in “Cooked” that relying on processed food disrupts our link to the natural world and weakens our interpersonal relationships. But this time he takes a more hands-on approach, doing apprenticeships with a variety of culinary masters who teach him the fine points of fermentation, the benefits of bacteria, and other secrets of honest cuisine. He joins KQED’s Forum in the studio.
KQED’s Forum: Mark Bittman on Part-Time Veganism
Mark Bittman talks about his new book, and how a full-time meat lover adapted to part-time veganism.
Art as Food as Art: Caitlin Freeman and her “Modern Art Desserts”
Cailtlin Freeman’s new book details the drama and recipes behind her self-made dream job: responding to SFMOMA’s art through food.
Are the benefits of genetically engineered foods worth the risks? Check out this half-hour special from QUEST Northern California that explores the pros and cons of genetically engineered crops and what the future holds for research and regulations.
Baby & Toddler On The Go: fresh, homemade foods for a busy life (VIDEO)
A precociously independent toddler packs a healthy homemade lunch and heads off to snack in Bernal Height’s Holly Park in San Francisco. This video is a promo for Kim Laidlaw’s new book: Baby & Toddler On The Go: fresh, homemade foods for a busy life.
Deaf Foodies Savor Gourmet Ghetto Tasting Tour in Sign Language
A dozen Deaf Foodies relish the tastes and history of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto in a 3 hour tasting tour presented completely in American Sign Language (ASL) by food writer (and ASL interpreter) Anna Mindess through Edible Excursions.
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