The weather was unusually cooperative at Muir Beach on Saturday, a sun-dappled day to ring in the 40th Anniversary of the Green Gulch Farm. The farm, an outpost of San Francisco’s Zen Meditation Center, has long been a champion of sustainable food and agriculture. Saturday’s fundraiser event, “Feasting in the Fields,” paid tribute to that legacy with a menu designed by Annie Somerville of Greens and a powerhouse roster of speakers.

The day began at 11:30am as guests milled about and munched on grilled zucchini and fromage blanc on crostini; Pt. Reyes blue cheese mousse on fingerling potato rounds; lettuce wraps filled with peanuts, ginger and herbs; and an array of Bellwether Farms and Cowgirl Creamery cheeses. Lemon verbena lemonade, elderflower spritzer and other non-alcoholic beverages were prepared by Mark Ellenbogen, former wine director for Slanted Door and Aziza.

Green Gulch’s Abiding Abess, Eijun Linda Cutts, kicked off the official festivities by introducing founding gardener Wendy Johnson. Johnson discussed the inspiring history of the farm, including its longstanding altruistic works. Green Gulch has partnered with a variety of nonprofits over the decades, providing produce and educational services to groups like Project Open Hand and The Edible Schoolyard Project in Berkeley. From an early stage, Johnson said the farm’s main question was: “How do we get beautiful food to a hungry world?”

Abiding Abbess Eijun Linda Cutts

Sara Tashker, current head of Green Gulch Farm, and Dave Stockdale, head of CUESA in San Francisco, later spoke on the importance of farms and farmers’ markets in connecting the public with the food they consume. Both touched on themes of community and connection, and Stockdale, whose organization runs the regular Ferry Building farmers’ markets, closed by calling the market “a place of inspiration.”

Dave Stockdale and Sara Tashker

Eric Gower, cookbook author and founder of Breakaway Foods, took the microphone to discuss the stress-relieving aspects of preparing our own meals. He strongly advocated carving enough time out of your day to cook, suggesting we should all learn to expand our typically rote repertoires of five to eight go-to meals. Gower, whose company now traffics in the green tea powder matcha, served his product to attendees after the feast was through.

Eric Gower

The last speaker was Olivia Maki, event coordinator at 18 Reasons, who tied together the day’s themes of connecting with farmers, being aware of your food’s origins, building awareness among the consuming public, and, ultimately “making food you’re proud to have on the table.”

Olivia Maki

Speaking of food on the table, the multicourse feast designed by Somerville — and executed by Aaron Jonas Catering — was simple rustic fare, prepared with produce from Green Gulch and other local farms. This included a baby gems salad with organic figs and local feta; a Moroccan tagine with baby carrots, turnips, potatoes, leeks and fennel; green beans with toasted almonds; and cheesecake topped with raspberries and blueberries.

Little Gem salad with figs and feta

Moroccan tagine with green beans and quinoa

Cheesecake with seasonal fruit

The event also included periodic tours of the farm, a special daylong children’s program, and a raffle for prizes such as a tasting menu dinner at Greens. All proceeds from the fundraiser will go towards the renovation of Green Gulch’s Cloud Hall, the largest residential structure on the farm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jasper’s Corner Tap – a cocktail and appetizer TBD

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

May 19
Fish & Farm – Tenderloin Tommy cocktail and oysters

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

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

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

Jasper’s Corner Tap – a cocktail and appetizer TBD

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

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

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

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

Simone Shifnadel. Photo: Matthew Franco

In the midst of this dietary zeitgeist, enter caterer and former chef Simone Shifnadel, a gluten-free advocate with big dreams. She recently launched a $30,000 Kickstarter campaign to create Zenbelly Kitchen, a gluten-free shared kitchen, café, and community space.

Shifnadel runs Zenbelly Catering, a San Francisco-based company with a focus on organic produce, grass-fed meat, and wild-caught fish. Zenbelly also caters to people with special dietary needs, notably celiacs. Shifnadel suffers from a mild version of celiac disease, and she has tried to weed gluten out of her life as much as possible.

Zenbelly currently operates out of a shared kitchen space in Hunter’s Point called Eclectic Cookery. She calls it a great place to work, but aspires for something better. Rather than disconnected cooks and food artisans punching a clock on a neutral, generic kitchen area, she envisions a true community.

She has already fielded a lot of interest from local cooks, including the proprietor of the gluten-free bread bike delivery service Bread Srsly, an entrepreneur who’s in the process of creating a Paleo diet food truck called CleanEats, and a woman who bakes gluten-free naan and other international breads. Shifnadel loves the idea of sharing a kitchen with all these like-minded food artisans, collaborating and building morale.

Community aside, there is a practical reason for gluten-free craftsmen to share a kitchen. Shifnadel says “cross-contamination” is a significant concern when sharing a kitchen with cooks who use gluten. Though the consequences are less significant for a celiac than for say, someone allergic to peanuts, cross-contamination can lead to hives and lingering digestive issues. With prolonged gluten exposure, this can lead to severe malnourishment and weight loss.

Unlike many shared kitchens, often housed in workmanlike industrial spaces, Shifnadel’s kitchen would be part of a vibrant, 2,000-foot restaurant. She pictures the kitchen area taking up the majority of the floor space, with a small café area in front serving gluten-free cupcakes, donuts, and bagels, as well as coffee and specialty items du jour. This café could also serve as a hub for people in the gluten-free community to stage meetings and educational workshops.

For now, Shifnadel is primarily concerned with raising enough funds to get her project off the ground. The initial days of her Zenbelly Kitchen Kickstarter campaign have been slower than she anticipated, but she imagines it will gain momentum as word spreads. She is currently recruiting nutritionists, educators, and other influential members of the gluten-free community to help advocate for her shared kitchen concept.

“Considering how many people are exploring gluten-free diets now,” she said, “It’s only a matter a time before this takes off.”

Watch ZenBelly Kitchen’s Kickstarter video to find out more about the project: