Pumpkin pie ice cream, from beginning to end, at Three Twins Ice Cream

No one eats more ice cream than I do. I know, it's a bold statement--one that some may want to challenge. But I'm pretty confident that it's true. I generally hide the fact from friends until they really get to know me. My family all expects that pints disappear quickly--they hide them amongst the bags of frozen broccoli and peas in the freezer. And one of my favorite parts about going to school in Boston was that it could be 20 degrees and snowing and there'd be a big line for J.P. Licks wrapping around the corner on Newbury St. Those were my kinda' folks.

Thankfully, San Francisco doesn't disappoint either. When I first moved to the Bay Area, I really tried to fight my passion/addiction with a variety of sugar-busting cleanses and tonics. But I've given in. And lately in a few of my favorite scoop shops, I've noticed some seasonal flavors that I can't stop talking about. Fall has definitely arrived and there's no time like the present to get yourself a cone before the season--and these flavors--pass us all by.

Three Twins: How can you not love a local organic ice cream shop that was opened by young native, Neil Gottlieb after deciding to ditch business school and just get moving? Named after their living situation at the time (he lived with his twin brother and his wife), Neil set about to open a sustainable, green business. And it's sustaining me, that's for sure. While pumpkin is not an unusual flavor this time of year, their pumpkin pie ice cream is truly extraordinary. They use real pumpkin that they roast, skin, puree, and infuse directly into the ice cream along with a healthy dose of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. I've had many a pumpkin ice cream cone, but never one with ribbons of real, vibrant pumpkin throughout.

Check out the real pieces of pumpkin!

Three Twins Ice Cream
254 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
(415) 487-8946
Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 12pm-10pm
Fri.-Sat. 11am-11pm; Sun. 11am-10pm

Bi-Rite Creamery: Salted caramel fans, rejoice! You will fall in love with the brown sugar ice cream with ginger crumble swirl. It has that super soft, creamy consistency you're used to, but with flecks of ginger bits and rich, perfect caramel--it's quite something. I've been known to get a cone with a scoop of that and a scoop of their seasonal apple pie, a denser ice cream with streams of cinnamony crust and spiced chunks of apple.

Bi-Rite's brown sugar ice cream with ginger crumble swirl

Bi-Rite Creamery
3692 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 626-5600
Hours: Sun.-Thurs. 11am-10pm
Fri.-Sat. 11am-11pm

Ciao Bella Gelato: While I usually prefer hitting up some of the local shops, Ciao Bella has a luscious cinnamon gelato that you really should try. It is literally bursting with warm, autumnal flavors. The gals at the Marin shop told me that people either love or hate this ice cream largely because there is so much cinnamon in it. I fall into the love category--although a little goes a long way. I've heard rumors that they're doing a lovely fig balsamic gelato although the past few times I've gone to do some first-hand research, they've been sold out.

Ciao Bella's Cinnamon Gelato

Ciao Bella
One Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 834-9330
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 11am-6pm
Sat. 11am-6pm; Sun. 11am-5pm

Humphry Slocombe: Masters of innovative and seasonal flavors, these guys have created something magical in their Guinness Gingerbread ice cream. This one does sell out quickly--folks call, email, and tweet about its whereabouts--so you may want to check that they've got a bit before heading over. What I appreciate about this ice cream is its subtlety. Owner and ice cream magician, Jake Godby, doesn't hit you over the head with a strong ginger flavor nor does it have that occasional yeasty aftertaste that other Guinness ice creams have. Instead, it has that super creamy texture that folks have come to love at Humphry Slocombe and a quick hint of stout flavor along with bits of warmly spiced gingerbread. After a few licks, you'll remember that Jake used to be a pastry chef and a baker before he got into the ice cream world. It's obvious here.

Humphry Slocombe's Guinness Gingerbread

Humphry Slocombe
2790 Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 550-6971
Hours: Everyday 12pm-9pm

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. Ironically, every Indian restaurant on Valencia -- unless I'm forgetting one down by the 16th Street corridor I tend to avoid -- sits clustered around the street's intersection with 21st. When I first came to town and lived up on Mission, near 26th, a New Orleans-esque restaurant called Le Krewe was installed in the space Dosa currently inhabits. Once I walked by on a toasty September afternoon. The sweaty host was planted on the sidewalk, handing out piping-hot gumbo samples, visibly happy to be removed from the maelstrom of silly fake trees and dangling beads inside his restaurant. While I knew nothing of the space's history -- the fact that many significantly better restaurants had failed there in spite of the desirable location -- I nibbled a particularly tasteless morsel, paused to peer briefly at the menu pasted on the door, and realized immediately the place had no chance of success.

After Le Krewe, a wretched Italian joint called Spiazzino moved in, followed closely by Dosa, which seems to have handily broken whatever dark spell had caused the carousel of doomed ventures to spin for so long. I'm not merely invoking Halloween's sallow after-glow. The notion of a real curse was half-jokingly bandied about a Chowhound board seven years ago. If some great chef's ghost, vengeful in the wake of his ancient restaurant's untimely demise, meddled with the revolving residents of 995 Valencia, the curse was piddling compared to the dastardly pox enveloping the 1100 block of Valencia, further up, on the Noe Valley side, between 22nd and 23rd.

That strip has been gutted like a fish. More crowbars swing behind the block's entrances than whisks and knives. Until 2006, Saigon Saigon occupied the large space adjacent to Lucca's parking lot. The food -- decent Vietnamese -- perked up a part of town lacking in lemongrass, but until very recently, through haphazard strips of lumber across the front facade, a squatter's paradise was visible within. Currently, its "For Rent" sign matches the one on the door of the old Watergate space. In 2003, when I moved into a building on the block, my apartment -- a massive converted one bedroom with a slanted floor and dirty beige carpets -- was positioned directly above the kitchen of that good French-Asian fusion restaurant. Almost immediately, Watergate moved to Nob Hill, where it later expired. The very solid Watercress took over the space yet closed three years later. I'm not sure what came next -- the much-maligned Senses or the endearingly clueless Janitzi with its convoluted "cuisine of the Americas" -- but currently the space is for rent. With walls that felt no further apart than my outstretched arms, Caffe Ponte Vecchio was a doll-sized trattoria. The food, especially the S.F. Weekly-approved lasagne, was tasty enough, but the charming atmosphere (lots of candles, silent soccer on the television) kept the tables tight with customers -- until the Tuscan proprietor closed up shop and moved to Florida, purportedly to spend more time with his mother. Bistro Annex came next and collapsed after a few years.

Aside from Lucca, the esteemed Italian grocery on the corner, the Columbian restaurant El Majahual has been the block's only survivor -- though I've never seen more than a few people in there at a time.

I left my apartment on the 1100 block in 2004, due in some small part to an increasingly fragile neighborly relationship with the social worker who lived upstairs. He'd blast James Taylor at high volume yet charge down the stairs screaming and purple-faced if my roommate and I had a few friends over for dinner. Even watching television was risky. The landlord was a character but not any slimier than most I've met. Something would break -- the sink disposal, a faucet -- and he'd figure out a temporarily satisfactory method of repairing it swiftly and inexpensively. It would break again and the process would start over. I see parallels in the state of the block's restaurants. If restaurants unworthy of the prime location routinely open and sputter, diners expect less. Each weak new attempt feels like a band-aid on a deep wound.

Maybe that's why the owners of Zaytoon have taken two years to renovate the Cafe Ponte Vecchio space; they're waiting to open once people have had time to clear their heads of negative associations with the block's run of failures. According to its website, Zaytoon will sell falafel sandwiches and shawerma wraps. For now, the interior -- an expanse of shiny pea-green tile -- is visible, nearly ready for action. As much as I like falafel and shawerma, and feel that, with Ali Baba's teetering towards major mediocrity for the past five years, and Old Jerusalem being more conducive to dining in, room exists for a newcomer to the genre to make a mark on the neighborhood, I fear Zaytoon won't succeed -- if only because of its strange and sickly color scheme. I hope I'm proven wrong.

My knowledge of the 1100 block is, of course, quite limited. I've only lived in San Francisco for seven years. My brief history is but one possible narrative of a discrete period of time situated around a small stretch of sidewalk many others know better. My difficult upstairs neighbor had rented his apartment for eleven years by the time I showed up. He's probably still there, and has seen many more restaurants come and go.

The cycle of trumpeted launches, seasonal specials, and eventual shutters spur your memory. The people I saw a lot of back when the Ponte Vecchio space belonged to Pont Vecchio aren't, in large part, the same people I see now. I recall the only truly good dinner I had there, before I practically lived next door. My first San Francisco roommate, a college friend, and I were celebrating his birthday. He'd been through a break-up; we were new arrivals, without a lot of friends, eating ravioli and swilling Chianti. There was something funny and a little lonely about a platonic, dude-ly supper for two at Ponte Vecchio, a place with a serious romantic pretense. The moment crystallized the start of a new era. College was over; there were fewer people around to help us celebrate the landmarks in our lives; going out for dinner was a good time, and while we were earning enough money to do so comfortably, there was still a whiff of irony about it, like we were play-acting. While I went there once or twice during the year I lived next door, by the time it closed just three years after that inaugural meal, I'd almost forgotten it ever existed. I was comfortable in the City. My first roommate had moved to New York. I was a few years into a serious relationship. I was leaving my second post-college job and searching aimlessly for the third, and I'd lived at other apartments and houses scattered across various parts of the neighborhood -- on short blocks with their own long stories.

San Francisco is a brunch town through and through. And I'm always down for a nice eggs benedict or a stack of blueberry pancakes. But everyday can't be Sunday. Most of us have day jobs and can't lounge around cafes late into the afternoon hours. So here are a few of my favorite spots for quick, creative, inspiring breakfasts around the city. One is a bit gluttonous, the other earnestly healthy, and the last sloppy but satisfying. So while dining trends will always come and go, breakfast is staying put. Sometimes mom knew what she was talking about: it is the most important meal of the day.

The Good: Fraîche
I first stumbled across Fraîche while wandering around downtown Palo Alto. This was around the same time when frozen yogurt shops were opening on (seemingly) every street corner in San Francisco, and I’ll admit, I was one of the people in those long lines. But if you're like me, you're a little burned out on the tart treat and the neon décor. Fraîche is different. Trust me. The frozen yogurt has more of a creamy, subtly tart flavor than other competitors, they use organic Clover milk, and owner Patama Gur spent a long time perfecting her special blend of probiotic cultures--and it shows.

In addition to frozen yogurt, Fraîche also does a thick, housemade unfrozen 2% yogurt. When I first visited the shop on Fillmore recently, I ordered the frozen yogurt with pureed apricots and my friend opted for the unfrozen version with raspberries and peaches. I have to say, I had entrée envy. While mine was delicious, the unfrozen yogurt is unlike anything I've ever had. Think Greek yogurt on steroids. As we were leaving, I noticed the breakfast menu and their early morning hours, and vowed to come back for a quick and healthy breakfast before work.

You can get breakfast to eat-in or take-out. The menu is simple and centered around the unfrozen yogurt, fresh fruits, housemade granola, and steel-cut oats. I tried the Toasted Nut and Berry Sundae: yogurt with fresh berries, housemade granola, toasted almonds, and local wildflower honey ($5.50). The nice guy constructing my lovely "sundae" mentioned that the SF Chronicle Special has been the most popular, with steel-cut oatmeal and a choice of fresh yogurt and fruit and nut toppings ($5.95). And these aren't your average toppings. From bright pureed fruits and local honeys to shaved Callebaut chocolate to-order, the toppings are as conscious as the yogurt itself.

So after finishing the Nike Marathon recently and being told by many friends that I’d have to try and taper my ravenous appetite to account for the decrease in physical activity, I've tried to opt for breakfasts that don't include numerous pieces of toast or stacks of pancakes. And for that, Fraîche is here for me. With a cup of Blue Bottle coffee (they start serving the premium coffee next week) and a seat at one of the sleek wooden tables, experience morning the way it should be experienced: simple and thoughtful.

Fraîche
1910 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 674-6876
Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 7am-11 pm; Fri. 7am-12am;
Sat. 8:30am-12am; Sun. 8:30am-11pm

The "Bad": Dynamo Donuts
Nestled amongst the Mexican grocery stores and panaderia's on 24th St., sits Sara Spearin’s sweet little donut shop. It’s "bad" in the best possible way. There are a few critics who scoff at charging $3 for one donut. But the truth is, I'd pay $3 over and over for what Spearin and crew are doing in the Dynamo kitchen. It’s something that San Francisco has yet to see--an artisan, organic, awesome donut.

Before getting to the donuts, a quick aside: I was a vegetarian for almost fifteen years. About a year ago now, I started eating meat again. Once I decided to go for the gusto, something strange happened: I couldn't get enough bacon. And this was certainly fine timing, as bacon has become rather trendy in the last year or so. From bacon potato chips to bacon chocolate confections, it seems like the much-loved pork product is everywhere these days. So while I understand many folks are over the bacon-in-everything trend, I'm still on a bacon high.

I had my first bacon maple donut at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Or. I thought they were pretty good: the donut was light and airy (albeit quite large), the maple glaze rocked, and they put strips of real bacon on top. The bacon itself was a little weird and greasy, but I figured all bacon donuts were that way. Then, a few weeks ago, I went to Dynamo for the first time. Now I know: all bacon maple donuts are not created equal.

While it looks like a simple donut window from the street, there is an entrance leading to a huge open kitchen and a quaint seating area where couples sit with steaming cups of Four Barrel coffee and a donut or two. The buzz from the open kitchen is infectious: five women with cute vintage aprons are busily pumping out donuts while laughing and telling stories. They seem genuinely psyched to be there--and it shows in the product. The donuts themselves are special. For the most part, they’re cakey and have a bit of heft (think old-fashioned donuts of your childhood). I tried the chocolate saffron, which has a very light hint of citrus and a subtle warmth from the saffron. Next I moved on to the caramel del sel, flavored with nutmeg and topped with a caramel glaze and fleur de sel. Then I picked up a few of the apple bacon maple donuts to bring in to work. Unlike the one at Voodoo, the bacon was in small bits sprinkled on top of the donut and wasn’t at all greasy. And the little bits of apple are actually sautéed in bacon fat, resulting in a fabulous salty and sweet flavor. It really is the perfect donut. So with a motto of "EVERYDAY is bacon donut day!" there's not a place I'd rather frequent more at the moment. And even if you’re not a recovering vegetarian with a constant hankering for salty meats, there are many other well-crafted donuts to choose from.

Dynamo Donut
Twitter: @dynamodonut
2760 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 920-1978
Hours: Tues.-Sat. 7am-5pm; Sun. 9am-4pm; closed Mon.

The Ugly: Hazel's Kitchen
Hazel's Kitchen is very Potrero Hill. For those of you familiar with the neighborhood, I know you feel me. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, they do a lot of things right, but one of them isn’t necessarily speedy or efficient customer service. It's laid back, it’s independent, and they scoff a little if you try to pay with a credit card. Much like Farley's Coffee next door, I often get blank stares or confused looks when I ask a simple question.

But Hazel's is much loved as a little neighborhood lunch counter with great sandwiches and soups. And that they are. While they’re generally booming at lunch, not as many folks know that they do a really great breakfast burrito. Now I know some of you may be ready to stop reading right about now. I know--I get it. I have a strained relationship with the breakfast burrito as well. Sometimes they're not hot all the way through; sometimes they're soggy. There's nothing like cold, watery eggs to get you going in the morning. But Hazel's burritos are none of those things.

What Hazel's burritos are--the thing that places them in the ugly category--is deliciously messy. It's not a good choice for eating while walking to work or chowing down in the car. You must sit down with a stack of napkins (and a fork would be preferable) to enjoy a Hazels' breakfast burrito. Messiness aside, the nice thing about Hazel’s is the simplicity. The breakfast burrito has eggs, cheese, avocado, salsa and a choice of chorizo, ham, bacon or tofu ($6.95). The ratio of ingredients is perfect: not too much cheese or salsa--where many breakfast burritos fail. And I'm not sure how they get the burrito so delightfully hot without losing the integrity of the avocado, but after seventeen years in business, they obviously know what they’re doing.

Can you find a cheaper breakfast burrito over in the Mission? Sure. Can you find a more authentic, Mexican breakfast burrito? Absolutely. But I can't guarantee that it won’t be soggy, hot all the way through, or busting with fresh ingredients. You just can't help but fall a little bit in love with Hazel's pastel, vintage kitsch and the messy morning madness of the breakfast burrito. Dig in.

Hazel's Kitchen
1319 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 647-7941
Hours: Mon.-Sat. 8 am-4 pm; Sun. 8:30 am-4 pm

Featured Recipe: Fraîche's Spiced Yogurt Muffin
Owner Patama Gur says they bake these muffins each morning as they really typify what Fraîche does: provide customers healthy, delicious that don't sacrifice on taste. These muffins were developed for Fraîche by Batter Bakery, and use Fraîche's low-fat unfrozen yogurt and applesauce instead of a lot of butter and oils to create an amazing treat that is less than 100 calories.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cloves
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ cups. yogurt, room temperature
4 Tbsp. melted butter
1/4 cups unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla
(For the topping: 2 Tbsp. sugar + ¼ tsp. nutmeg)

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Line 8 large or 14 to 16 standard muffin pans with paper muffin cups.
3. Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl until well combined.
4. In another small bowl, whisk eggs, yogurt, butter, applesauce, and vanilla. Add to flour mixture and mix together until just combined.
5. Scoop evenly into muffin cups and sprinkle with sugar nutmeg mixture.
6. Bake 18-20 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
Serve warm.

Makes: 8 large or 14 standard-sized muffins

Mediterranean Crepe (Feta Cheese, Olives, Avocado, Spinach, Green Onions)

For all its charms, San Francisco falls sadly short when it comes to late-night dining. Ten o'clock may be normal in New York City and a little on the early side in Barcelona, but here, you'll be lucky to find a burrito, much less a plate of pasta and an arugula salad.

OK, maybe we're exaggerating a little, but it's definitely true that noshing options drop dramatically after midnight, unless you're looking for a Mission Street bacon dog or fried eggs and French fries at Sparky's or the Bagdad Cafe. And if you're out clubbing, bar-hopping or catching a show South of Market, the chowing opportunities on those wide windswept streets are few and far between.

Nutella, Strawberries, Bananas with Whipped Cream Crepe

Enter Creperie Saint Germain. From this cute, custom-built wagon parked at the sidewalk edge of a private parking lot on Howard Street come sweet and savory crepes made to order. The daytime business is good, filling up the bellies of nearby office workers and loft dwellers with chicken-feta crepes at lunchtime or chocolate-banana ones later in the afternoon. But the real scene at Saint Germain comes late at night, when the brightly lit little stand beckons hungry clubbers from blocks away. Open from 7am-7pm Monday to Wednesday, the cart often serves until 3am on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

A little nightlife buzz is already building up around the place, since there's nothing like topping off a happy buzz with a warm crepe dripping with Nutella--or laying down some beer ballast with smoked salmon and cream cheese, ratatouille and spinach, or ham and pineapple all stuffed into a buckwheat wrapper. Along with the printed menu, there are usually a couple of daily specials, like a recent sweet crepe layering fig jam, almond butter, and sliced banana into deluxe spin on the PB&J.

Fresh Apple, Cinnamon, Brown Sugar with Vanilla Ice Cream Crepe

Why crepes? Although crepe stands are ubiquitous in Paris, San Francisco's burgeoning street-food scene was surprisingly bereft, given how many local chalkboard cafes treat them as a staple. Owners Ahmet Cagin and Zeynep Aynaci, friends from Istabul who jettisoned careers in finance to become micro-restauranteurs, felt that crepes would be easy to make on the spot, reasonably healthy and endlessly flexible.

Meet Lover's Maya Crepe

Unlike other Tweeting food carts, Creperie Saint Germain doesn't roam around. By parking in a parking lot, rather than on a street corner, the owners avoided the high sidewalk-permit fees charged by the city for legal food carts. Instead, they negotiate a monthly rent with the owners of the parking lot, pretty much as if their tidy blue-and-white wagon was a stretch Hummer in need of a double-wide space with a view. The only drawback right now is a complete lack of seating, making eating a crepe here strictly a stand-up affair. But isn't clutching a crepe in one hand and a napkin in the other a small price to pay for curbside Nutella at 3am?

Creperie Saint Germain
546 Howard St at 2nd Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Map
(415) 706-9733
Twitter: @creperieSG

If you're reading David Sax's recent book, Save the Deli, or follow his blog or moan, as many do, about the general state of the Jewish delicatessen, then you know that it's a pivotal time in this most hallowed bastion of comfort food.

For years, locavores and vegetarians, calorie-counting suburbanites and couscous-loving Sephardim and even heeb-hopping hipsters have been bringing their own favorite dishes to the Jewish table. You might not know this upon stepping into a deli, where piles of salty, fatty meat and schmaltz in the chopped liver and never-ending free pickles every day of the year define good eating. It's supposed to be a carefree zone where all the generations and sects can enjoy some chicken soup in relative peace.

Leave it to Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt in Berkeley to begin shaking up this world a bit. As the owners and hands-on managers of Saul's, these two widely read, passionately opinionated individuals are working hard to keep Jewish delis vibrant, relevant and delicious far into the 21st century. From adding Mediterranean mezzes to offering locally grown, locally made pickles, they're crafting a new sensibility for an old institution.

A multicultural, sustainable deli might seem like a quixotic pursuit, as many would argue that we should leave well enough alone. Any real and authentic Jewish deli doesn't need to concern itself with all this modern fancifying. But if you're a deli owner and you see your customers coming into your dining room less and less often -– how many pastrami sandwiches does one person eat these days? -- you realize that things need to change to keep going.

Of course, ideals do have a way of bumping up against reality. Let's take the last thing on the menu, that list of drinks at the end of the page. Such a minor thing, no?

Well, as it turns out, simple it most definitely is not.

For diners, drinks are usually just an afterthought. For green-minded business owners, though, the environmental costs of transporting flavored water, the impact of corn syrup and artificial sweeteners in our communities, and the waste of thousands upon thousands of empty cans and glass cannot be ignored. If you're somewhat concerned, you might just put out a recycling bin and offer a few cents off on coffee poured into insulated mugs. If you're a little more committed, you might try sourcing local sodas.

But if you're Karen and Peter, you have a much, much longer road to travel. You begin by studying the history of sodas and the science of bubbles. Along the way, you learn about the monopolistic technologies of multinational food corporations. You connect the dots between individual soda jerks, creative spirit and community values. You daydream down a short detour, one that takes you past designs for a working seltzer tap at each and every booth. You decide to compromise, backtracking to install a central seltzer dispenser. You call up a beer tap specialist to design a brand-new beverage system for you. You track down stronger fittings that can hold up to the pressure of C02. You convince colleagues that going back in time 60 years to revive obsolete tastes and technology will be a good thing for the business. You train special "seltzer baristas" to use the finicky machine with its nonstandard formulations. You develop recipe after recipe from scratch. (Cream Soda #8, you think, seems especially promising.) Then, years later, you launch your own house-made seltzers and, in a moment of unrestrained ambition, you decide to stop selling bottled, commercial sodas entirely. Even Dr. Brown's. Yes, even the Black Cherry and Cel-Ray.

And it's still not done. Now, you smile politely at your customers' dismay when they can no longer grab a can of soda with their take-out lunch and nod synpathetically at those most earnest of drinkers, the Diet Coke loyalists. You accept losing thousands of dollars in beverage sales. At the same time, you account for higher food costs because your drink bases, made from real fruit, are good for only four hours. You create and hope that your customers will enjoy the special syrups that taste slightly different day to day in flavors that come and go with the seasons.

You stand back and imagine a dining room full of people sipping sodas made by friends and neighbors from fresh fruit and whole spices.

You win some -- these sodas are phenomenal and you're proud and ecstatic, if a bit exhausted. They more than make up for past battles lost. There's still that ongoing campaign to source enough briskets from grass-fed cattle to feed your hungry customers. And let's not forget the recent Pickle Squirmish, when you tried charging for kosher dills -- in a deli! -- and took a fatal stab at explaining the seasonality of cucumbers.

Yes, one step at a time, one step at a time.

For now, you're happy to offer a taste of history: the sweet satisfaction and elusive effervescence of real seltzer flavored with homemade syrups.

Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen
By David Sax (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)
Sax's campaign to save the deli, as one mom-and-pop sandwich shop after another closes, brings him to the Bay Area this week. Stop by and meet him at Saul's this Saturday afternoon or at Book Passage on Monday at the Ferry Building. Listen to him read from his new book and then ask him for yourself: which city makes the best pastrami and why do we have to drink egg creams so fast and, yes, that most important question, what is the future of the Jewish delicatessen?

Saturday, October 24, 2009
4:00 pm
Saul's Restaurant and Deli
1475 Shattuck Ave Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 848-3354
Map

Monday, October 26, 2009
6:00 pm
Book Passage
1 Ferry Building, #42
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 835-1020
Map

A few years ago, I worked at a law firm in the Financial District. Sometimes, I'd bring my lunch from home -- typically a sandwich or some leftover pasta, invariably an uninviting shade of its dinner-time self. More often than not though, I'd pick up food from the one of the delis, steam table salad bars, or assorted take-out spots studding the blocks winding around the 30-story office building where I worked. Save for the occasional hike up the hill to Chinatown or Ferry Building sojourn, by and large, this micro-community of eats was it for me. There was a San Francisco Soup Company outpost next to the lobby. I frequently enjoyed the chicken tortilla soup, usually in a bread bowl. There was a sandwich shop clinging to the other side of the building. I liked how the owner sliced avocados for my turkey sandwich: he popped out the pit, made six swift incisions, and fanned the contents out like waves along the expanse of a split dutch crunch roll caked in mayo. Then, both above and below layers of tomato, red onion, lettuce, and halved banana peppers, he carefully folded sheets of watery turkey so no errant bits flapped over the sides. The cross-section was beautiful, like stained glass, quite Scanwich-worthy. The sandwich, of course, tasted like most you get downtown for $5.25. I tried many others, and while a few slightly farther-flung establishments stood out for their fresh-carved leg meat, decent tomatoes, free cups of coleslaw, and the like, I went there again and again -- because I appreciated how the man sliced avocados, because the price was right, and, most importantly, because I could leave my desk, zip down the elevator, get a football-sized sub, and slip back into the confines of my closet-like office before a YouTube clip finished buffering.

There were also the self-service salad bars: piles of faux-fancy greens and their common accoutrements -- bacon bits, squishy cherry tomatoes, pre-packaged croutons, and drippy canned beans -- alongside lamp-warmed tubs of sorry-looked ravioli bathed in thin sauce, dried-out roasts, and other lackluster entrees, bacteria-friendly, all conveniently sold by the ounce. Despite my reoccurring health concerns, these places terrorized my wallet more often than my digestive tract. I'd go, stack a few deceptively heavy items in a plastic container, add a tuft or two of lettuce, grab a roll, and head over to the weigh station, where the listless cashier would declare, to my shock and horror, that I now owed upwards of $10 to the awful enterprise's greedy proprietor, money I could have put towards three days' worth of decent bread and cheese -- plus a few cold cans of beer after work.

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.

A Lee's Deli. Photo by Aimee Shapiro

I once found bugs of indeterminable type floating in a huge styrofoam cylinder of wonton soup from Lee's, that ubiquitous chain of dirty delis with the heinous red signs and peanut butter sandwiches for $2.75. After pouring the half-gallon of buggy broth down the drain and rinsing out my mouth with diet Dr. Pepper, I telephoned the more seasoned co-worker who'd recommended I try the joint in the first place. She screeched over the phone: "Dude, you're not supposed to get the soup!" She emailed a few minutes later to say the salad bar was off-limits too -- I could go only for sandwiches, and just specific ones at that: Nothing involving meat, fish, or eggs rendered into salad form; nothing served hot. Another time, I ordered two slices of mushroom pizza from a weird cafe around the corner offering nearly every sort of lunch-like dish an unimaginative person might ponder gobbling. The guy behind the counter -- definitely not a pizzaiolo -- slipped the skinny, grease-mottled triangles into a to-go box of flat-screen proportions adorned with the visage of a portly, mustachioed man in a floppy chef's hat. One of the partners stood next to me on the elevator back up, and I, a little embarrassed, sweating profusely from the heat emanating off the gigantic pizza box, could have sworn he was smirking. The head partner at this firm was a older man on the brink of retirement. On my second day of work, his secretary pulled me aside in the hallway and whispered that he hated the smell of other people's food -- if I wanted to eat anything with a remotely pervasive odor at my desk, I'd need to be careful and keep the door closed so as not to incite his wrath. The head partner and I never actually spoke, but once I turned the corner of our shared hallway too quickly and almost ran into him -- holding in two hands a plastic bag sticky with fish sauce oozing from a carton of Thai noodles wrapped inside. He must have been in a hurry because he merely grunted and shook his head briskly before clomping off.

The morning I planned to write this blog, I woke up with a sore throat and the sniffles. I took the day off work. While I no longer toil in the upper reaches of a downtown office building, it felt disingenuous to write about eating at work when I was actually in bed, re-watching "Miller's Crossing," scooping peach sorbet right out of the container. I started thinking about foods we eat when we're fighting a cold. Some people don't eat at all; others eat more than usual, seeking out remedies via sustenance in the form of garlic, citrus, dark mineral-rich greens, and bright red berries.

Like many, I crave soup when I'm ill, particularly those of a brutally spicy ilk. Until the restaurant churlishly (and curiously) tried to cut costs by halving the size of its soup containers, I was a big fan of Spicy Bite's Indo-Chinese hot-and-sour, a fusion-y concoction L. E. Leone once deemed "the spiciest, zaniest, most medicinal, and most maddeningly delicious bowl of soup ever." Most recently, I've sought out the Lao-style chicken soup from East Oakland's Green Papaya Deli. The stock for this magnificent soup may have been leeched from the house-sized chicken in "George's Marvelous Medicine" -- rich and wholly enveloping, as if a free-range fowl's most sparkling, soulful essence could be poured forth, pumped up through J. Mascis' wall of amps, and compressed down again to pool impatiently within the confines of an 8 oz. bowl. It arrives speckled with thin-sliced green onions and bony bits of bird floating throughout, shot through with enough lime to bring a sour yet warm catch to the back of the throat -- a wrecking ball for the curtains of mucus in your chest and the helmet of ache encircling your head. Of course, if you're well enough to take BART to Oakland in search of soup, you're probably well enough to go to work and get paid to sip a lesser tonic and nap under the desk.

The Sentinel. Photo by Aimee Shapiro

When we're home sick, we're comforted by routine -- making smoothies, taking baths, chugging whiskey, and getting soup delivered. When we make it to work, we're governed by habit too. Apart from the way we like our avocados sliced, how we spend our lunch hour says a lot about our priorities. I've gone out of my way for The Sentinel's delicious chickpea sandwich, but I'm too lazy and otherwise preoccupied to make a habit of it. Some people like to get together for lunch, to sit outside, eat something nice, and momentarily forget all about fuzzy computer screens and conference calls. Addicted to Facebook, others grab whatever's most convenient and haul it back to the office to spill over the computer keyboard. Some people run errands on their breaks because they know they won't have time after work. I used to religiously play basketball at the Y.M.C.A. during lunch. I'd leave at 11:45 a.m. and rush back by 1:20 p.m., still damp from the shower, wondering, almost on a daily basis, whether or not anyone important might have noticed my lengthy absence. Most days, I'd enter the lobby slowly, glancing around furtively, ready to fake a hobble should a supervising attorney approach and ask where I'd been for so long. Thankfully, I never had to stoop so low. I lived in a state of heightened anxiety, but at least the food was free. Yes, that's right -- the food was free. About halfway through my tour of duty at this office, I learned why no one ever seemed to actually eat lunch until after two. Every day, in at least two or three conference rooms spread out across three floors, groups of lawyers gathered for midday meetings. Lunch was inevitably served -- usually Chinese or catered deli sandwiches. When the meetings let out, the leftovers were supposed to be ferried to one of three main kitchens where they'd be divvied up by employees who happened to be passing through. In reality, however, receptionists with favored perspectives would send out curt email bulletins to a select group of staffers once the conference room doors had been flung open and the parade of suits had disappeared. In that short window of time -- after the lawyers had left, before an administrative assistant could arrive with a cart -- scavengers would descend. Once I learned this, I wheedled my way on to the list and made the next evolutionary leap -- from scrounging leftovers, to lazily buying takeout, to finally, gloriously, sustaining myself on food I did not pay for.

And then I quit.

Wandering the unfamiliar, blandly mall-like environs of Jack London Square, a kind of mini-Emeryville, only with space, better taste, and a harbor view, you might have wondered where all the food-seeking hipsters were. It was Friday night, after all, the opening of Oakland's Eat Real Festival, yet there was no waft of organic pork carnitas, no compostable spoons littering the ground.

But wait, what's in the hand of that guy strolling by? Was it a Mason jar filled with watermelon wheat beer? And was that the Soviet-red logo for Ritual Roasters coffee, painted on the side of a bike trailer peddling (by pedaling) a load of high-octane iced coffee? Hay bales for seats, toddlers clutching ice-cream cones while Mom and Dad downed a brew: this was definitely the place.

Friday's unseasonally balmy night ("Earthquake weather," nodded numerous passerby sagely, but that didn't seem to stop them from promenading along the waterfront, lemon-shiso sorbet dripping down their chins) made a perfect soft opening for the festival, which began with an open-air beer tasting ($25 for your own festival-logo'd glass drinking jar plus 8 tickets for filling it up, or $7 for a single serve) and ice-cream social.

Some real food to go with the beer would have been nice, but that would have to wait until the real crowds arrived on Saturday and Sunday. In the interim, then, there was the rare chance to sample and buy ice cream and sorbet from a dozen local makers with barely a line to be seen. Scream, Ici, Bi-Rite Creamery, Straus Ice Cream, Fenton's, Ceci, and more were scooping flavors ranging from pomegranate (Fenton's) to beet-lemon (Scream, and surprisingly good--like frozen borscht, in the tastiest possible way).

There was an open-air game of Edible Pursuit (who knew the popsicle was invented in Oakland?), a highly competitive canning contest (dubbed, of course, Yes I Can), live jazz and a whole lot of happy cone-licking kids.

Saturday, of course, was a lot busier, but the vibe stayed mellow. There was all that beer, for starters, and plenty of port-a-potties, and a lot of space to sprawl, wander, and lie out on the grass and watch the sailboats breeze by. You could check out the greywater recycling system set up by the crew at Aquaponics, watch cooking demonstrations, stroll through the expansive indoor marketplace to chat up farmers and artisanal jam-makers, or just go get more beer.

Or, if you wanted to eat, you could stand in line. It's inevitable, at events like this that are all about the food, that the main activity ends up being waiting in line. The lines weren't too bad, actually, but they moved slowly.

Very slowly. Watching four guys put together one plate at Jim and Nick's--one massaging the shredded pork into a ball and put it on the bun, one scooping the pimento cheese, another putting on the pickles and saltines, and a fourth chatting up whichever cute girl was handing over her money, I did a little minutes-per-plate x people-in-line math, and gave up, even though I was longing to try a plate made by a bunch of Southern barbecue guys who had driven their rig all the way from Alabama to crash the event and show the West Coast how to bbq.

The trick, I realized, was to pick one long line--like the one for Seoul Food's Korean tacos-- and then send your friends out on recon missions to the shorter lines, so you'd have something to eat while you waited in line for something to eat.

Where the recent SF Street Food Festival skipped actual street food for slimmed-down restaurant eats, Eat Real did keep it real, with taco trucks, soul food ribs and the Sexy Soup Lady in a pink apron straddling her three-wheeled soup cart. And the prices were right, too, with nothing over $5.

Of course, this meant was nearly everything was some culturally-inspired variation on meat and dough, all squeezed down to the size of a slider, from pulled-chicken barbecue on a bun and Korean spicy-pork tacos to pupusas and bite-sized brisket sandwiches. Finding vegetables (beyond salsa and coleslaw) took a little searching, and it helped it if you liked falafel, didn't mind patronizing the fancy-tapas truck of festival co-sponsor Whole Foods, or got there before the veggie-pie folks had sold through their entire inventory. For dessert, there was more ice cream, of course. And cupcakes!

What it was, overall, was a fun local event, a late-summer festival that did feel very Oaklandish, mixing up $3 pupusas with $20 "Street Food" t-shirts.

Here is a photo slideshow from the San Francisco Street Food Festival 2009 that took place Saturday Aug 22, 2009 in the Mission District. The event was a benefit for the non-profit La Cocina.

photos by Wendy Goodfriend

Recap of the Event: SF Street Food Fanatics Unite
Lick My Spoon recaps the Street Food Scavenger Hunt
Listen to KQED's Forum program on Street Food and find out about pavement cuisine resources and events.

Food and Wine will be a big part of this year's Outside Lands, San Francisco's 3-day Music and Arts Festival to be held August 28-30, 2009 in Golden Gate Park.

Outside Lands, A Taste of the Bay Area

After last year's successful maiden voyage, this year's Outside Lands promises to be even bigger and better with over 30 restaurants and 25 local wineries offering tasty sustenance as festival goers enjoy music from the likes of Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Tenacious D, Incubus, Black Eyed Peas, M.I.A., Ween, Modest Mouse, and Jason Mraz, among others.

The festival honors Bay Area culture, and as a city that loves our food, you can be sure that offerings will not be confined to your average festival fare. For those who attended last year, you'll recognize some returning vendors such as: El Huarache Loco, bringing the flavors of the D.F. (Distrito Federal a.k.a. Mexico City) to the SF, Hog Island Oyster Company, shucking and grilling away, Maverick, serving their famous pulled pork sandwich, and Pacific Catch, getting fresh with their Hawaiian poke.

With over 50% more local restaurants participating in Outside Land's Taste of the Bay Area tent this year, you can look forward a plethora of newcomers as well. Local favorites like: DOSA's tantalizing Southern India cuisine, Little Skillet's farm-fresh soul food, Q Restaurant's funky American comfort food (word on the street is tater tots!), Taylor's Automatic Refresher's pulled pork sandwiches and chicken Caesar salad (what, no burgers?), Ti Couz's savory and sweet crepes, and Yats' ridiculous poboys.

For purists, don’t worry, you can still get your burgers and dogs, but Burgermeister and Let's be Frank will be serving them SF-style (organic grass-fed beef, topped with locally grown lettuce and tomato, nitrites/nitrates/hormones/antibiotics/filler free).

A Taste of the Bay Area participating restaurants

This year's Winehaven tent will feature 75 different wines, each available in half or full glasses. Tasting seminars will also be offered:

• Taste with the Trailblazers: Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon, Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat, Bob Lindquist of Qupe, Steve Edmunds of Edmunds St John
• The Sustainable Sipsters: Robert Sinskey, Long Meadow Ranch, and Preston of Dry Creek
• The Next Generation: Morgan Peterson of Bedrock Wine Company, Charles Bieler and Joel Gott of Three Thieves, and Ethan Lindquist
• Coastal Cowboys: Pax Mahle of Wind Gap, Bradley Brown of Big Basin, Steve Clifton of Palmina.

I was blown away by the transformation of Golden Gate Park during last year's Outside Lands. It was the perfect storm of great music, community building, and no shortage of good things to eat and drink, all encompassed within the beauty of the city's iconic park. The bar has been set high, but with a solid lineup on the horizon, things are looking good for a strong showing once again this year.

Stay tuned, yours truly will be covering this event...highlight recap to come.

Outside Lands
August 28-30, 2009
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Tickets: Advance Single Day General Admission tickets ($89.50), Advance 3-Day Tickets ($225.50)
Tip: It looks like there are a few contests going on to win free tickets, and volunteer opportunities as well.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Berkeley Bowl for years. I love it because it's usually the only place I can find escarole, the produce department has 20 different types of onions and more varieties of pears than I knew existed, and I've never seen more tomatoes loaded up in huge gorgeous piles of red, yellow, purple and green anywhere. It also has one of the best fish markets in the area, a plentiful butcher counter with diverse cuts of meat, and more bin-food items than you could ever hope to scoop.

Unfortunately, the negatives are so overwhelming that I rarely step foot in the place. The parking lot alone is reason enough to run for the hills. It's like demolition derby with aged Volvos trying to out-maneuver newer hybrids to stake their claims on the all too elusive parking spots. By the time I make it inside the actual store I need a valium, but am instead met with a melee of other crabby shoppers who are also irritated from their own parking lot experiences, sticky floors, and long lines. The whole place gives me a headache.

But after seven long years of planning, negotiating, and building, Berkeley Bowl has opened a new warehouse-style market just off Ashby in Berkeley near I-80. This is great news for anyone who loves what Berkeley Bowl has to offer but detests actually shopping there. With two large parking lots, a new and clean interior with pretty much everything the old store offers, plus a large café with ample seating, it’s the new go-to East Bay market.

Like the old store, Berkeley Bowl West has a vast produce section with plenty of beautifully ripe fruits and vegetables of all kinds abundantly laid out. The organic section, however, is a little different in that it is now set apart from the main fruits and vegetables area and shares a space with the bulk food aisles. This is somewhat convenient as it means you no longer have to discern which fruits and vegetables are organic while shopping. I must admit, however, that it’s sort of a pain to have to get your cucumbers weighed and the bag stickered with the price before you can leave the zone. Cemone, the woman who weighed my fruit, said they set up the organic section this way because the checkers had too many SKU numbers to memorize and this made the checkout area run more smoothly. She seemed very earnest and nice when telling me about their system, but I must say I'm skeptical about the merits of separately weighing and pricing everything only to have to get in line again later to check out. I will reserve judgment, however, until I'm there on a busy day.

As with the original Berkeley Bowl, the prices are great. When I was there last week, heirloom tomatoes were available for about $2.50 a pound and organic Rainer cherries for under $1.50 a pound. The fresh local halibut was just under $10 a pound, a dozen organic eggs were $2.99, and I bought the most delicious locally-made ricotta for under $4. Nothing makes me happier than buying beautiful fresh foods at low prices.

The new market also has an abundant beer and wine section full of interesting choices, including two large shelves of sake, which I thought was pretty impressive. And like the old store, they have an extensive cheese selection. The food counter and deli will be a highlight for anyone wishing to purchase take-away food and has a notable array of items: fresh sushi, sandwiches, soups, salads, cooked dinner items, and anything else you could want, including an enormous collection of olives.

Overall, my shopping expedition to Berkeley Bowl West was enjoyable. We parked right away, our cart didn't have a stuck wheel, and the store was clean. Best of all it wasn't crowded and people were actually pleasant. Finally I could enjoy that amazing selection of food without wanting to rip my hair out.

Berkeley Bowl West
920 Heinz Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94710
MAP
(510) 898-9555
Store Hours: Mon-Sat 9am-8pm, Sun 10am-6pm