Archival photo of Alice Waters at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Photo courtesy of CUESA

On May 18, CUESA will be celebrating the 20th Birthday Bash of the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market, with special events throughout the Saturday morning market.

For $20 a ticket ($10 for children 10 and under), market goers can create their own seasonal fruit shortcakes at stations “curated” with market ingredients prepared by four top local pastry chefs: William Werner of Craftsman & Wolves, Francis Ang of Fifth Floor, Jen Musty of Batter Bakery, and Luis Villavelazquez of Les Elements Patisserie. There will also be coffee, tea, and a juice and mimosa bar filled with fresh-squeezed juices, fresh fruit and vegetable purees (don’t miss the surprisingly refreshing fennel-frond puree), sparkling water and Champagne. The market’s founders will do a presentation at 11am.

Preview of the mimosa bar

The first regular weekly markets, held in front of the Ferry Building, happened in 1993. Do you remember 1993? I do. The scars of 1989′s 6.8 Loma Prieta quake still criss-crossed the city. A post-earthquake, post-financial crash, pre-tech boom recession meant jobs were scarce but rents were cheap. But change was coming, mostly notably along the waterfront. Since 1958, the Embaracadero Freeway had sliced across the northeastern edge of the city, throwing the piers from the Bay Bridge northwards into concrete-shadowed gloom. Ferries still left from the Ferry Building, but to get to them, you scuttled as fast as possible through the building’s dimly lit, grubby passages, no more inviting than a New York City subway tunnel. Then, in 1991, the earthquake-damaged freeway was finally removed, and the City realized it had a civic jewel–the greatly underutilized Ferry Building, suddenly revealed in all its Market Street-anchoring glory–on its hands. It would take another seven years before renovations would begin that would return the Ferry Building to a modernized, food-glorying version of its original 1898 self–but in the bare stretches of concrete out front (remember, those pretty, palm-dotted, skateboard-ready plazas are still at least a decade away), a culinary revolution was getting underway, one head of oak-leaf lettuce at a time.

Aerial view of an early Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market across from the Ferry Building. Photo: Courtesy of CUESA

In 1992, a small group of San Franciscans including Sibella Kraus, then a forager and produce-finder for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, writer, restaurant critic and Hayes Street Grill chef/owner Patricia Unterman, and local developer Tom Sargeant organized themselves into the San Francisco Public Market Collaborative, with the idea of reclaiming the waterfront for a public market that would connect farmers directly with chefs and home cooks–in fact, with any curious city eaters. After endless meetings with representatives from the City and the Port, they got grudging approval for a one-time-only open-air market in Ferry Plaza parking lot on Sept. 12, 1992. At the time, the Alemany Market, located near the freeways at the base of Bernal Heights, was the city’s only regular farmers’ market. If you were a chef, you relied on distributors and vendors from the wholesale produce market near Bayview. If you needed speciality items, you could swing through Chinatown, the Richmond, or the Mission, if you had time, but mostly, you talked to your delivery guys on the phone, and hoped they’d show up with something close to what you’d asked for.

The success of the one-day market took even the optimists of the collaborative by surprise. The group immediately began pressuring the city to give permission for a regular market, bringing farmers and urbanites together on a weekly basis. By 1993, there was already a few months of precedent: the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market had set up in Civic Center in early spring. Starting in May, the market slowly gained momentum, and word spread between interested cooks and farmers alike. Here was the place to come to get stuff fresh, straight from the ground. Farmers were learning, too, that these new customers were curious. They didn’t just want as many bunches for a dollar as they could get; they wanted to sniff and taste and know what it was they were seeing. By the time the summer was over, the farmers didn’t want to leave. They’d found a new outlet for their produce, one that required a lot of more hands-on time, but also could command a better price that wholesaling. And there were relationships forming, between up-at-3-am farmers from Watsonville and Guinda and city customers who were entranced at the idea of farm-fresh corn and just-picked melons showing up just down the hills from their Telegraph Hill doorsteps once a week. After yet more negotiating with the city, and the market became a year-round event.

Eatwell Farm stand in the early years–no crowds! Photo: Courtesy of Eatwell Farms

And from the beginning, the chefs came, too. In those first years, as I was learning my way around the city’s food scene as the weekly restaurant critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, every trip to the market was punctuated by running into a half-dozen other food writers, editors, cookbook authors, and chefs. It was a pretty small world, and for a few hours every Saturday morning, it really was a village. (Look, there’s Alice, sniffing the peaches!) The original core group of founders had reorganized into CUESA, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture–none of which were the food-world buzzwords that they are today. From the beginning, the market’s organizers had a larger vision: to educate minds as well as palates, and to change the way people, both home cooks and chefs, thought about the process of getting food to their tables. Meeting farmers every week, hearing how the weather or gas prices or labor issues were affecting their crops, seeing how their produce was shaped not season by season but week by week, was a living education for everyone shopping at the market. And farmers learned, too: about what they could sell, what flew off the table and what, like puntarelle, minaret-shaped romesco broccoli, padron peppers, or fuzzy-sheathed green almonds, needed a little more nudging to get piled into the chefs’ carts and make it onto menus across the city.

David Winsburg of Happy Quail Farms, who helped create the craze for padron peppers. Photo: Courtesy of CUESA

As the renovations of the waterfront and the Ferry Building got underway, the market moved to accommodate the construction, from various parking lots around the building, then north to another parking lot off Green Street near the Embarcadero. It remained for several years, then moved back, now to wrap around the Ferry Building, filling the back parking lot and wrapping around the building. I can still remember one blustery December 31, a vendor calling out, “Free rutabaga with every purchase!” and the delicious rutabaga-potato mash I made on New Year’s Day. Or the blissfully sunny February days, the market stalls glowing with sunshine-colored citrus, everyone outside eating oysters, when I’d come back to visit from self-imposed exile in gray, slushy, freezing New York City and wonder why I’d ever left. (Three years away from San Francisco was all I could stand.)

Autumn market sign. Photo: Courtesy of CUESA

There was a brief, unsuccessful attempt at a Sunday morning market; much more popular were the two lunchtime markets for downtown workers and weekday visitors on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Innovations at the market–from the Waste Wise initiative, which brought large-scale composting and recycling to the market, to the ban on plastic shopping bags, later adopted by the city as a whole, has made a small but significant change for the better in the way we shop and eat. Hundreds of schoolchildren come through the market every year, learning where their food comes from, and how it gets from dirt to plate.

Info Booth at Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Photo: Courtesy of CUESA

Every day, says executive director David Stockdale, he talks with people from all over the world who are interested in learning from the market. Many of the vendors with brick-and-mortar shops inside the Ferry Building–Michael Recchiuti, Frog Hollow Farm, Prather Ranch, and soon Rancho Gordo and Humphrey Slocombe–started out as vendors in one of the three weekly markets. It’s become not just a market but an educational tool, a visitors’ destination, a fun place to go for breakfast or lunch, and a showcase for some of Northern and Central California’s best produce, week in and week out. Happy birthday, CUESA, and thank you for all you’ve done.

Do you have memories of the early days of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market? Please share in the comments section, below.

SHED exterior facade

What would a locavore’s paradise in wine country look like? For a certain type of well-heeled agrarian, a whole lot like SHED, Healdsburg’s 21st-century grange, grocery, farm store, cafe, bar and event space.

Healdsburg SHED exterior

At first glance, it looks like the prettiest airplane hanger you’ve ever been in, with its huge, boxy shape and garage-style doors, all metal and glass. Grab the handle of that spade doubling as a door handle, step inside, and the enormous space resolves itself into a luxuriously uncrowded farm-to-table playground.

But first, grab a cappuccino from the coffee bar front and center, because everything looks rosier with a foam heart in hand. Admire the spotless white marble counters, the equally pristine bunches of frilly lettuce, the baskets of fresh-from-the-farm eggs, ecru to aqua.

Tall, pale wooden shelves display crayon-bright Japanese coffee pots and Spanish earthenware casseroles. On a wide slab of salvaged sycamore dubbed the “story table,” massive flower arrangements worthy of a Dutch still life spill their blossoms over an educational display of German-made alternative beehives.

Bee Table at SHED

Afternoon sunshine lights up the Dutch and English gardening tools hanging on the walls, glowing across the copper jam pots and hand-carved wooden tortilla presses. It all feels like a Kinfolk magazine spread come to life and tastefully available for purchase. That soft-as-ricotta, brown-as-molasses yarn? Spun from gentle black sheep. The house-fermented cider vinegar? Tap it from the barrel, if you’ve remembered to bring your own bottle. Nothing is made of plastic; nothing has a plug.

Vinegar barrels at SHED

This is not make-do, duct-tape DIY; everything here, from the beakers of fruit shrubs (sweet-tart, vinegar-based drinks, infused with fresh fruit and fizzed with soda water) and bright-magenta beet kvass at the fermentation bar to the galvanized buckets of peonies and the baskets loaded with chocolate-brown loaves of bread the size of watermelons has been curated with an eye for beauty, taste, and usefulness.

Take butter, for example, so necessary with those huge loaves from M.H. Bread and Butter. (Baker Nathan Yanko used to work with bread star Chad Robertson at Tartine in the Mission, so his loaves are as close as the wine country gets to Robertson’s cult-status levains.) Some half-dozen types of butter–cow, goat, sea salted and packed into ceramic crocks–reside in the dairy case. But is that too easy for you? Then pick up a bottle of organic cream, a hand-cranked German butter-making jar, and a couple of wooden butter paddles for shaping the result into decorative pats. What else could you have to do?

Duck into the cleaning nook nearby and you’ll find all the necessaries for fulfilling those downstairs Downton Abbey fantasies: plumy ostrich-feather dusters with 40-inch handles, perfect for polishing chandeliers; crooked hand-carved broomsticks, possibly too witchy to pass muster with Mrs. Hughes but absolutely Quidditch-ready; wooden scrub brushes of which even Mr. Carson would approve, with nary an electric toaster in sight.

SHED co-owner Cindy Daniel

SHED is the vision of owners Doug and Cindy Daniel, who created it as a celebration of Sonoma’s agricultural heritage, as a place where all kinds of crops are grown and products made, not just the wine that puts in on the map. The Daniels provide much of the vegetables, flowers, fruit, and eggs on display from their own 16 acres in the Dry Creek Valley, which they’ve dubbed HomeFarm, where 11 acres are under mixed organic and biodynamic cultivation, and the other 5 as native riparian habitat. They have Rhone-varietal grapes growing for wine, French olive trees for oil, chickens, sheep, bees, heirloom-variety orchards, including curiosities like medlars, jujubes, and pineapple guavas, plus a market garden for vegetables and cut flowers. “It’s a patchwork of things that are all related,” says Cindy, much like the store she and her husband have created.

Mill at SHED

She’s particularly proud of the milling room, where small batches of locally grown, mostly heirloom strains of wheat and other grains are ground into flour every few days. (Most of the flour is sold in the shop; a portion of it goes to M.H. Butter for use in their breads.) The shop is also a pick-up point for grainshare subscribers to the Mendocino Grain Project, a CSA for locally grown grains, including wheat, oats, rye, and barley. Inspired by Native Seeds’ week-long Seed School workshop, Cindy found herself ever more interested in promoting Sonoma’s foodshed and encouraging self-sufficiency in the face of evolving climate change and energy crises. “There used to be a grain mill in Healdsburg,” she notes, glad to be reviving one of the area’s agricultural traditions, even if just on a home cook’s scale.

Larder at SHED

Nearby, the cool larder is “a room that talks about process,” as Cindy says, where customers can peer through the glass wall at wooden shelves filled with pickles and krauts fermenting, and cheeses and cured meats aging.

Hearth at SHED

It could hardly be a true 21st-century kitchen without a live fire burning somewhere, and so, of course, flames flicker in the hearth behind the open kitchen where chef Niki Ford oversees a daily-changing menu of eclectic breakfast and lunch fare. The heavy lifting of the kitchen gets done upstairs, in an additional production space off the main event room. The designer of Boulette’s Larder in the Ferry Building consulted, and it shows: the spacious, pristine kitchen is lavished with All-Clad saucepans hanging from racks above the counters, while tall woven baskets bristle with whisks as long as shinbones and massive stock pots steam on the stove.

Production Kitchen at SHED

In the morning, locals and visitors alike can perch at one of the blond-wood tables in the open cafe area, waiting for bowls of fiber-rich hot porridge slow-cooked overnight to reach a texture described by Ford as “between gruel and chewy grains,” lavished with butter, sea salt, and damson plum jam. Those that haven’t yet foresworn gluten can treat themselves to a “toast service” of thick slabs of Yanko’s bread, toasted with butter, jam by local “jamstress” Elissa Rubin-Mahon, and housemade chocolate-hazelnut spread, or dig into “Doug’s poached eggs” over toast with oregano, sea salt, and a drizzle of HomeFarm balsamic vinegar and olive oil. A Persian breakfast, inspired by the cooking of an Iranian friend of Ford’s, is a mix-and-match assortment of feta cheese, walnuts, sour cherry jam, herbs, and more of that great bread.

Fermentation Bar at SHED

Coming in at the civilized, city-brunch hour of 1pm, we’re sorry to have missed the 11am cutoff for Ford’s heirloom-grain waffles with quince jam and maple syrup. Instead, glasses of blueberry shrub in hand, we plunge straight into the savory side, with a briny bowl of clams bathed in cilantro and cream. A previous menu offered flatbread topped with nettles, cardoons, preserved lemon and local Highway 1 cheese, but today’s offering is as straightforward as any 5 year old could desire: a pizza with tomato sauce and cheese, on a pleasantly puffy-chewy crust. At the fermentation bar–which pours not only both wine and beer on tap but kefir, kombucha, kvass, and cider–we catch up with Ellen Cavalli and Scott Heath of Tilted Shed Ciderworks, who are lunching with their young son. The bar serves their ciders, and also ferments some of it into cider vinegar, using it as a base for the shrubs and offering it in bulk from a barrel on the other side of the store.

Ford, who shares a Chez Panisse pedigree (and friendship) with Suzanne Drexhange of Bartavelle, also shares a fondness for hand-carved boards laid out with savory deliciousness. Around us, many diners are nibbling the ploughman’s lunch, generous slabs of Fiscalini cheddar from Modesto, rye bread, apples, pickled onions, and chutney, or munching their way through the salads on the mezze plate, served with housemade crackers, feta, and olives. Nettle soup is greener than grass, bold as fresh money. “We want to make a lot of room for grains, legumes, vegetables, roots,” says Ford. “There’s a lot of sophistication in making vegetables.” It’s all part of an appreciation for “what we have in our hands, being thoughtful about the ingredients,” an attitude that Ford hopes the cooks will learn to share even during busy moments on the line, all deepened by the relationships they’re building with the farmers and gardeners supplying the kitchen.

The Daniels have plans for frequent events upstairs; already, they’ve hosted Deborah Madison in conversation with local food writer and author Michele Anna Jordan about Madison’s new book, Vegetable Literacy; sponsored a showing of Queen of the Sun, a documentary about the global bee crisis; and hosted a three-course, family-style Sunday Supper featuring the produce and farmers from Bernier Farms. On May 18, bring your knives and brush up on your Knife Skills with Rian Rinn. On May 26, there will be an all-American family-style Sunday Supper out on the patio with live music. And on June 8, butcher Rinn will be hosting Hog It Up, a hog butchery demo & pop-up dinner with chefs Ian Mullen and Jason Smith of Mullen & Smith.

Information:
Healdsburg SHED
Address: Map
25 North St
Healdsburg, CA 95448
Phone: (707) 431-7433
Hours: Mon-Sun 7am-7pm
Facebook: Healdsburg SHED
Twitter: @healdsburgshed

Chef David Lawrence in the 1300 on Fillmore kitchen. Photo courtesy of 1300 Fillmore

At events like SF Chefs, we’ve noticed again and again that chef David Lawrence has culinary offerings that stand out. His “Soulful American” bites with roots in England and Jamaica include such dishes as shrimp grits and white grits with pesto, and organic skillet fried chicken, with an upscale twist. Lawrence’s plates tend to demonstrate how the deep South can cozy up with fresh California produce, using classic French technique.

Since opening in 2007, Lawrence’s restaurant, 1300 on Fillmore, remains a draw for Sunday gospel brunch crowds, as well as those looking for a group dinner or bar snack–the fried chicken or skillet catfish; meaty ribeye; variety of grits and even warm chocolate beignets with coffee soda are almost begging to be shared. Lawrence, a London native, is 1300 on Fillmore’s executive chef and managing partner. He has cooked for royalty and was formally trained in the culinary arts at Westminster College. In 1982, Lawrence joined England’s most celebrated and honored culinarians, Albert and Michel Roux, who were definitely considered “celeb chefs” there and were the chef-proprietors of the world-renowned Le Gavroche and the Waterside Inn (at that time, both three-star Michelin restaurants). Lawrence cooked his way through five of their famous restaurants and became a sous chef, in four short years. In 1986, Lawrence became chef de cuisine at Interlude Restaurant in London, which gave him the sweet chance to make meals for none other than the Prince and Princess of Wales; Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon; and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

He left for the U.S. in 1988 in a kismet vacation moment that led to chef de cuisine work with a former Le Gavroche chef named Kurt Graising who was opening 231 Ellsworth Restaurant in San Mateo. Lawrence next landed at the (ornate and beautiful) Carnelian Room and Cityscape restaurants in San Francisco, respectively. While at Cityscape, he created the Chefs for Kids program, which raised thousands of dollars for the Tenderloin After School program. Lawrence is also generous with his time for various local charity events. We caught up in person recently to find out more about his culinary style and career. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Bay Area Bites: Can you tell us about your successes & goals?
Lawrence: The restaurant just celebrated five years of business last October. When we opened the restaurant, it was all fanfare and then the economy crashed. We survived but had to cut back and there was no sous chef, and no general manager. My wife Monetta White and I did all that. We we’re able to do so with the support of the city and the people who came in. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. Now I’m looking at expanding.

Our gospel brunch is on Sunday. For Easter, we decided to try something different, and keep our hours to the daytime and not open at night. I saw hordes of people walking back up to Pacific Heights as they left brunch. Then when I went to Safeway, I saw a line of people, and there were families and kids walking down here. I remember when we first came here and Monetta lived at Bush and Fillmore. Back then, no one went below Bush Street.

Bay Area Bites: What are your best selling menu items…and your favorites?
Lawrence: For the best seller, it’s always the fried chicken. When I walk around and go out, people say that fried chicken is the bestseller. It is so funny because I come from Europe and have worked with Michelin-starred chefs. I have no complaints but my claim to fame is chicken. I just turned 50 in February, and it’s, “Wow, I’m 50 and known for fried chicken.”

I am the most proud of dishes like shrimp and grits and fried chicken. The shrimp and grits dishes really got me to look at this cuisine and what we do. Monetta is from Mississippi and we’ve been together for 19 years. We have a similar thing in England where I am from that is cornmeal porridge: sugar, nutmeg, and spice to make it nice and creamy. I cooked the grits more or less the same way and decided to do it without the sugar. Slowly but surely, people became interested and back then, no one was doing this.

Bay Area Bites: As a chef and businessman, what would you like to be known for?
Lawrence: It’s a fine line doing both. I’ve seen many amazing chefs open restaurants and crash. I’ve seen many mediocre chefs succeed because of their business acumen. As a chef, you have to cook what your customers want instead of what your ego wants. It’s about getting that balance. With the restaurant’s earlier days, I had foie gras, lamb, and rabbit and it was great for me but I couldn’t sell it. I never wanted a hamburger but I put one on the menu because people want it. It’s about finding the fine line between your own ego and what makes sense and sells. That way, you can hopefully still enjoy what you do.

Bay Area Bites: Guilty pleasure?
Lawrence: My thing is chocolate HobNobs. You call them cookies, and I call them biscuits. I don’t buy them because I can’t eat just one.

Bay Area Bites: Where do you live?
Lawrence: We live right above the restaurant. The commute is awesome. I love it. If I get five minutes for myself, I can go upstairs. It gives me just enough time to recharge my batteries. I can pop down if someone is here and wants to say hello, which is the least I can do if they have come all this way to eat at my restaurant. 1300 is my love and will be my love for the rest of my life.

Related Information:

1300 on Fillmore
Address: Map
1300 Fillmore St.
San Francisco CA 94115
(415) 771-7100
Facebook: 1300 on Fillmore
Twitter: @1300onFillmore

1300 on Fillmore was featured on KQED’s Check, Please! Bay Area in 2012.
Watch the restaurant segment from the show:

The Third Annual Coffee Ride

It’s officially a yearly caffeinated tradition; my friend Pamela Palma and I led our 3rd Annual Coffee Ride through the streets of San Francisco yesterday. Close to 50 other coffee-loving cyclists met us at 10AM at Stanza Coffee Bar, our first stop in the Mission.

Everyone filled up their coffee mugs and fueled up with pastries to jumpstart their 30-mile jaunt around the city. By adding more miles and hill climbs, we had designed a more challenging route for this year’s group — including a scenic mid-ride stop on Twin Peaks.

I’d be visiting all of the spots on our schedule for the first time, so I was really excited about exploring these latest additions to the city’s ever-evolving coffee community. And several folks mentioned that they’d be biking in areas or checking out cafes they hadn’t heard of before; it’s always a pleasure to introduce our fellow cyclists to new destinations as well.

Co-organizer Pamela Palma

Stanza serves up an eclectic selection of coffees from around the world as well as some unique domestic offerings such as Blacksmith Espresso from Quills Coffee in Louisville, KY.

Along with their sidewalk seating and tables in the main cafe, they also have a lovely patio out back for their patrons.

At about 11AM, we headed east towards the Bayview / Hunters Point neighborhood. Tucked away on Yosemite Avenue off of 3rd, Trouble Coffee now has a second outpost in another remote locale. It radiates the same quaint charm and vintage decor as its Outer Sunset predecessor and most of its popular menu items: thick-sliced buttery toast topped with peanut butter, cinnamon or Nutella and and fresh baby coconuts. Giulietta Carrelli, Trouble’s irrepressible owner, was manning her cozy coffee nook solo. She greeted our large, thirsty crowd by solemnly announcing she’d be ‘making no lattes’ as she’d survived a rough mountain bike crash just the night before. “Just drip coffees for all of you — and tons of toast!” she said with a mischievous grin. But as her shop’s motto is, “We serve guts and honor,” she graciously prepared one of her delicious lattes upon request.

Energized with Trouble, it was now Twin Peaks time. We wound our way through the various neighborhoods of Crocker Amazon, Balboa Park, Monterey Heights and St. Francis Wood to reach the top.

After taking in the gorgeous views of San Francisco from the summit of Twin Peaks, we headed west towards the Pacific Ocean. Situated just above the Sutro Baths and the Cliff House, Lands End Lookout Cafe is nestled inside the relatively new visitor center that opened last spring. While the Peerless Coffee they brewed didn’t earn glowing reviews from our finicky group, the sandwiches, soups, salads and warm cookies consumed during our lunch stop received plenty of compliments.

Eager to leave the chilly seaside fog and return to some sunshine, we were luckily welcomed back into the warm weather in the Marina when we arrived at Dynamo Donuts’ cute little kiosk on the eastern edge of Crissy Field.

Unfortunately, by the time our group showed up, they were all out of donuts. So Pamela and I made an executive decision to skip the last two cafes in North Beach — Beacon and Reveille — and get our sugar fix at Stella’s Pastry and Cafe for tiramisu and other Italian delights.

Relaxing in North Beach with cappuccino and an assortment of desserts was a fine way to end our long day of caffeinated adventures. We’ll be back in the East Bay next spring for ride number four!

You can see additional photos from the ride in my Flickr set.

View 3rd Annual Coffee Ride! in a larger map

Why won’t bacon die? Because it tastes so good. Photo: Rachael Myrow

Yes, pundits keep declaring bacon is boring, and therefore, dead. Over. Done, already. But bacon’s greasy grip on the American consciousness lives on.

As food writer Jason Sheehan of the Seattle Weekly put it,

“Bacon has not merely jumped the shark. Bacon has taken all the sharks, stuffed them with cupcakes, ice cream, sausage, lipstick, alarm clocks and mayonnaise, wrapped them in bacon, deep-fried them, then jumped that. Using a ramp made of bacon.”

In a time when people are cultivating their own yoghurt and milling their own flour, it’s a wonder everybody isn’t making their own bacon, the way Pati Palmer does in Cupertino.

It all started a couple of years ago. Driving her two teenagers around one morning, Palmer heard a KQED Forum segment on Do-It-Yourself projects, and the guest Sean Timberlake from Punk Domestics piqued her curiosity. Not long after, she was poking around on the group’s web site. “And I just decided ‘I gotta do bacon.’”

Off she went to Dittmer’s Gourmet Meats & Wurst-Haus in Los Altos for five pounds of pork belly. The family ate what they could, and froze the rest. Although, really, that shouldn’t have been necessary. Palmer guffaws. “A 14 year-old son? Come on! Bacon doesn’t last.”

Tasty as it is, Palmer’s not looking to start a new career in bacon. In case you’re thinking about it, bacon is not one of the approved foods under the new California Homemade Food Act. But…we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The raw material, in this case, at Olivier’s Butchery in San Francisco. Photo: Rachael Myrow

First, you should try making bacon, and that involves buying pork belly. Bi-Rite butcher Zane Clark says some people do pause looking at a full pork belly. Especially if they don’t have ravenous teenagers living at home. Zane suggests sharing the love — and the saturated fat — with others. “You could have a bacon party with it,” he suggests.

Or…if you want to get all competitive about it, you could invite your DIY-inclined friends over for a piggy throw-down. “A bacon swap,” Clark says, “Which would be kind of cool.”

Clark says he’s seen no perceptible bump in pork belly sales specifically for bacon-making. Other Bay Area butchers report bacon stampedes, typically set off by a compelling food blog post, or TV show, or dare I suggest it, public radio segment. Once you’ve got the belly in your hot little hands, the next question is dry rub or brine.

Ian Marks is chef/owner of The Beast and The Hare in San Francisco’s Mission District. Photo: Rachael Myrow

Ian Marks of The Beast and the Hare in San Francisco brines. Downstairs in the restaurant’s basement, buckets of pork belly sit in brining solution for a week before he pulls them out, commenting:

“It’s basically a pickled piece of meat.”

Marks is coy about the actual recipe. Still, it’s fair to say his recipe works. He moves four slabs of bacon a week. The rest he sells to Drewes Brothers and Guerra’s Deli & Meats. In truth, much depends on your personal palate. The ingredients are about as basic as can be: “White sugar, brown sugar, molasses, honey, salt, and a little saltpeter.” That said, he must be doing something right to stand out in a crowded marketplace. San Francisco magazine last year declared his bacon the best in the Bay Area.

Out of the bucket and ready for the smoker. Photo: Rachael Myrow

From there, it’s on to the smoker, strewn liberally with apple wood chips. To meet the exigencies of the weekend brunch rush, he typically finishes cooking the bacon in the oven. After that, there’s yet another aesthetic decision to make – thin slices? Or thick? Marks slices super thick — just eight to ten slices a pound. “Otherwise, the molasses will start burning.”

Some folks are finicky about choosing locally-raised pork, but some of the best heritage breeds come from parts elsewhere. Marks gets his pork from Coleman Farms in Colorado: raised on pasture; no hormones or antibiotics.

“I definitely prefer a red pig, a Duroc pig, over a Berkshire pig,” Marks says. Why? He likes the nuttiness of the Duroc, and the sweetness of the meat. He makes his own charcuterie, too, and that’s also Duroc. That said, there’s something else. “I find Berkshire to be a little more barnyard-y smelling — and because I’ve noticed it, now I notice it every time.” There are a variety of heritage breeds to choose from, and heritage crossbreeds, too. Ask your favorite butcher where she’s sourcing her meat, but it’s worth noting she’ll also special order if you simply must try, for example, a Tamworth pig, instead of what she has in the case.

Where were we? Right, the stove. After Marks fries up a couple slices, we retire to one of the restaurant tables. Journalistic duty requires a taste test, you understand. Sure enough, as Marks promised, the bacon is salty, sweet and nutty. Some say brining makes the bacon taste more hammy, but there’s nothing hammy about this bacon. “Phenomenal,” I exclaim, and he grins with satisfaction.

Want to listen to the radio feature on bacon that aired on KQED? Here you go!

Off You Go To a Butcher Now:

• 4505 Meats, SF.
• Avedano’s, SF.
• Belcampo Meat Co., Larkspur.
• Bi-Rite Market, SF.
• Boccalone, SF.
• Dittmer’s Gourmet Meats & Wurst-Haus, Los Altos.
• Drewes Brothers, SF.
• Fatted Calf, Napa, SF and Berkeley.
• Guerra’s Deli & Meats, SF.
• The Local Butcher Shop, Berkeley.
• Marin Sun Farms, Point Reyes Station.
• Olivier’s Butchery, SF.
• Prime Smoked Meats, Oakland.
• Victorian Farmstead Meat Co., Sebastopol.

Previous Bay Area Bites bacon coverage: Makin’ Bacon in the Headlands

Caitlin Freeman. Photo: Charles Villyard

Andy Warhol as Jell-O, Jeff Koons as a gilded white hot chocolate, and Cindy Sherman as a pink ice cream float dusted with glitter are just a few of the edible art concepts cooked up by Caitlin Freeman, an artist who creates confections and fancy snacks based on special exhibitions at SFMOMA. Her new book, “Modern Art Desserts,” details recipes and stories from her self-made dream job: responding to art through food.

Freeman co-owned Miette pastry shops before opening the Blue Bottle Coffee bar at SFMOMA’s rooftop garden with her husband James. From Miette, she brought along artist and pastry chef Leah Rosenberg, and assistant Tess Wilson. The team’s desserts are innovative, creative and sometimes controversial. A cookie plate inspired by Richard Serra’s massive steel sculptures is likely the first dessert to have ever received a cease and desist letter.

Click on any photo to view full-sized images and activate the slideshow

Freeman credits painter Wayne Thiebaud with inspiring her to become a baker, and says the book is a love letter to him. Her favorite cakes to bake are buttercream party cakes, and that’s exactly what Thiebaud is known for painting. The two cake-loving artists haven’t met yet, but Freeman throws a birthday party for him every year at the cafe. Besides her most popular cakes modeled after works by Thiebaud and Piet Mondrian, 70 modern art desserts have been created over the past four years. Textile artist Ruth Laskey’s two-color weavings became conceptual sodas where flavors were assigned to each color, creating combinations like lemon soda with bay ice cubes, and bubblegum soda (made from Dubble Bubble gum concentrate) with violet ice cubes. Freeman was interested in the overlap between colors and flavors, a concept that went through some trial and error when she focused on Andy Warhol’s self portrait in green, blue, red, and yellow. She tried to make a Bloody Mary gelée and explains, “I didn’t want to use food coloring but I figured we could use blue curacao. We made Campbell’s tomato soup Jell-O, celery, horseradish and Worcester Jell-O, and it was revolting. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but that was the one recipe that didn’t really work out.” Her aversion to food coloring had to be overcome for her Mondrian cake, a chocolate ganache grid with primary-colored cake blocks, but she’s not the only one who is wary of unnatural-looking cake dye. She says, “People easily gobble up the yellow and red, but often they’ll leave the blue square on the plate.”

Dessert is based on Garry Winogrand’s “Kerrville, Texas” (1977). Photo: Willa Koerner.

Freeman’s latest concoction, inspired by a Gary Winogrand photograph, is an ambitious multimedia project. As she describes it, “The piece we chose is these two people dancing on a platform that looks just like an ice cream cake. So we’re making this ridiculous multimedia cake that involves Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” playing from an MP3 player inside the plate, which happened to be the number seventeen song the year the photo was taken, and looks exactly like the song they would’ve been dancing to. We’ll have two images laser-cut as cake toppers that will be dancing on the cake.” The desserts are often conceptual, and sometimes literal, like the Jasper Johns-inspired grilled cheese that looks like his piece, Bread. As Freeman describes the project, “The piece is a lead panel with a piece of bread on it, so we made a grilled cheese and served it on a to-scale board painted to look like lead. It was a giant, oversized board people would have to carry back to their table.” She likes that her creations can help make the art more accessible, and says that when she walks into a gallery of California painters, “especially Diebenkorn and Thiebaud,” she often wants to take the paintings home, and says:

“Making desserts is my way of owning something, of really pretending that I’m stealing it, and making it my own.”

“Modern Art Desserts” was released this month by Ten Speed Press. Freeman’s Mondrian cakes will soon be available for purchase online (available for delivery, packed in dry ice). Keep up with her projects at modernartdesserts.com.

Photos of desserts reprinted with permission from Modern Art Desserts: Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Confections, and Frozen Treats Based on Iconic Works of Art, by Caitlin Freeman, copyright (c) 2013. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc. Photo credit: Clay McLachlan (c) 2013

Guests and host Leslie Sbrocco tape the second episode of Season 8 of Check, Please! Bay Area at KQED. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Check, Please! Bay Area’s second episode of Season 8 airs on Thursday April 18 at 7:30pm on KQED 9. View other airtimes and channels.

You can watch individual restaurant segments as well as view the entire episode online. The website provides restaurant information not specified on the show and you are free to share your opinions on the restaurants featured. This season, Leslie Sbrocco will continue to share wine (and spirits) tips with each episode.

The second episode of Season 8 features these restaurants: Zaré at Fly Trap (San Francisco), Barrio Fiesta Restaurant (Milpitas) and Flora (Oakland).

Watch Leslie Sbrocco share her Wine & Spirits Tips about Whiskey:

View more Wine Tips at Check, Please! Bay Area.

The Smitten Ice Cream shop in the Hayes Valley of San Francisco serves fresh ice cream with one novel ingredient: liquid nitrogen. The shop is located inside of a repurposed shipping container. Photo: Alan Greenblatt/NPR

Post by Alan Greenblatt, The Salt at NPR Food (4/17/13)

Robyn Sue Fisher’s ice cream shop, Smitten, in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, may at moments resemble a high school chemistry lab, but that’s because Fisher uses liquid nitrogen to freeze her product.

Nitrogen is “a natural element,” she notes. “It’s all around us.”

What makes it essential to Smitten is the ability to make ice cream fresh to order. You walk up and ask for a chocolate, or a blood orange with pistachio. The liquid nitrogen freezes the ingredients together, and your cup or cone is ready about a minute later.

Each serving is made from only a few ingredients — including none of the gums, egg yolks or other emulsifiers normally needed to keep ice cream frozen on its months-long journey from manufacturer to distributor to store to your home freezer.

The mint chip, for example, contains just organic cream and milk, mint and a dash of salt. The first lick is like biting into a mint leaf.

“This is the best ice cream I ever had,” says my son, who is only 7 but already an experienced ice cream taster, as he spoons his way through an order of chocolate.

The store uses a patented machine to keep ingredients churning and mix in the liquid nitrogen in a safe, controlled manner.
Photo: Alan Greenblatt/NPR

Smitten charges a buck an ounce, but a small amount of the ice cream is rich enough to satisfy.

“Knowing there are only a few ingredients makes me feel like I can indulge,” says customer Claire Kensington, the founder of a food, fashion and sex website, who’d returned two days after her last serving for some more mint chip.

Of course, there’s nothing new about making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. In fact, cooking with the stuff has become so trendy lately that Wired felt inspired to put together this how-to guide. (As we reported last year, sometimes these culinary experiments can go dangerously wrong.)

At New York’s Eleven Madison Park, guests brought back to the kitchen after dinner are treated to an apple-and-brandy cocktail topped with a frozen dome of foam fashioned with liquid nitrogen.

“It gives us the opportunity to do a little performance before the guests that’s really easy and quick, and at the same time entertaining,” says Angela Pinkerton, the restaurant’s head pastry chef. “Liquid nitrogen is fun to watch, and everyone’s curious about it. It looks cool.”

It does look (and feel) cool when clouds of vapors come pouring out of the metal containers where the ice cream’s stirring at Smitten. Fisher started serving ice cream out of a kid’s red wagon back in 2009. She spent years developing a patented machine that keeps her ingredients churning in a safe, controlled environment. She goes into the techie details in this video:

The stirring, along with the minus 321 F temperature of the liquid nitrogen, keeps ice crystals from forming and is responsible for Smitten’s smooth texture, which my son likens to a cross between standard-issue ice cream and whipped cream.

“Because it is a different texture than any other ice cream,” says Kensington, “it feels like a new experience, like a new treat.”

Copyright 2013 NPR.

honey bee

Do you dream of harvesting your own super-local honey to drizzle on your breakfast bread? Wonder how hard it is to keep bees and how to start? Bay Area Bites interviewed some East Bay beekeepers and collected a swarm of resources listed at the end of this post. Considering the seasonal cycle of bees, spring is the perfect time to take off on this new adventure.

Nina, Mark and Langstroth hive

Before they got their bees, Nina Carter’s and Mark Hogenson’s apple tree produced a measly five apples, the next year, after they set up a Langstroth hive in their Oakland garden, their tree showered them with hundreds of apples. (And their neighbor’s plum tree had so many plums they had to help her pick them and make jam).
(This brings up a good point in beekeeping etiquette: ask–or at least alert–your neighbors about the new brood that will be moving in.)

BAB: Did you have a learning curve?

Nina: Actually, our first hive failed because we weren’t controlling for Varroa mites. We were following a holistic approach and thought the bees would adapt. They were thriving for six months and then became sickly and after two weeks just disappeared. Bees have this altruistic behavior, when they get infected they fly away to protect the hive.

Mark: It was disappointing, but we got advice from experienced beekeepers on several options to deal with mites. One way is to cover the bees with powdered sugar. Since they are very hygienic, that makes them completely clean themselves and they get rid of the tiny mites they might not have realized were eating a hole in their sides.

“There’s a saying in the bee community,” Mark adds with a rueful smile, “If you want to know anything about beekeeping, ask a second year beekeeper.”

So where did you get your next round of bees?

Mark: We got one swarm and one “cut–out,” which means that the bees had invaded an interior wall belonging to–we were told–Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Actually, those bees weren’t too productive, perhaps due to the change in the environment between Marin and Oakland.

What is it like to keep bees?

Nina: Fascinating and therapeutic. We’re in love with them. It’s kind of like having a new baby. We work at home as computer consultants and can just watch the bees and appreciate the scents of honey and beeswax.

Langstroth frame

How much honey do you get?

Mark: Last year, we got 150 pounds of honey from one hive and now we’re thinking about selling some. (We’re talking with local storeowners about carrying this super local product. We call it Rockridge Honey. We also make a salve and lip balm from the beeswax.)

Any advice for beginning beekeepers?

Nina: When you’re just starting, you hear a lot of rumors and contradictory stories about what you should do and it’s hard to know who to believe. We did research for a year before we got our hives and read a lot.

Mark: I would start with two hives so if any problems arise, you can compare them. The Alameda County Beekeepers Association has a lot of resources and taking a hands-on class helped; in it we also learned about the lifecycle and timing of beehive management. Every few weeks, you have to check and see if the bees have enough room, if not you need to get more boxes (called supers). You use a smoker so you can calm the bees before you approach. You want to get them out of the way before you lift a frame so that you don’t crush any of them.

Nina: If we can, we are always going to have hives. They help us to be more in harmony with the environment.

Ruby Blume designed and made these stairs

Ruby Blume has kept bees since 1997. It wasn’t a conscious decision on her part; someone dropped off a Top Bar style beehive in her garden, showed her how to manage it and then just disappeared. Now Blume, whose license plate reads BEE GRRL, teaches beginning and advanced beekeeping classes at The Institute of Urban Homesteading. The classes focus on “how to keep bees naturally” without the use of chemicals or sugar-water and promote the Top Bar system (an alternative to the Langstroth hive) for the small-scale backyard beekeeper. Even Blume’s allergy to bee stings has not prevented her from keeping bees.

Ruby Blume and Top bar hive

Why do you raise bees?

I love bees. I get an incredible sense of joy hanging out with them and feeling their exuberant energy. It’s a privilege to learn from them and through them I am more connected to nature’s cycles and seasons. Bees have such an elegant way of working together and being in concert with nature. They are amazing, highly evolved and, next to humans, the most studied species on earth. It’s easy to get started in beekeeping, yet after 16 years I am still learning!

How did you decide to use the Top Bar system?

Partly because it is what I learned on and what I am comfortable with. But also because it allows the bees to build their comb naturally, instead of on pre-imprinted frames, which manipulates the way they build. I trust that bees know what they are doing—after all they have been doing it for millions of years perfectly well without us.

What are some advantages of the Top Bar System?

If you let bees build natural combs, with smaller cells, it inhibits mites and then there is no need to treat them with pharmaceuticals. I also find the system to be much easier on my body as a beekeeper [full Langstroth boxes often weigh 50 pounds] and to require much less maintenance. Plus you can build a top bar hive yourself at a fraction of the cost of pre-fabricated boxes.

top bar comb

What else do you do to keep bees naturally?

I don’t feed my bees sugar water in the winter. Instead I leave them enough of their own honey to survive. Honey is a much healthier food for the bees. It takes one bee her whole life to make 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. Bees need one pound a day of honey to maintain themselves in the summer, plus in the Bay Area they need to put away about 30 pounds to last them through the winter.

A bee colony basically acts as a single organism. The inside of the hive is like a womb with its own flora and fauna—sugar, and chemical treatments like antibiotics upset this harmony. I know this might not be a popular perspective, but I believe that animals need to die off sometimes in order to build resistance in the entire colony. So if you treat for mites with pharmaceuticals, then the mites will become more resistant to them. You need to let those bees with weaker genetics cull themselves. Last winter was especially hard and I lost several colonies but with spring, there was a big boom in population. It was an uplifting spiritual feeling to see their resistance and the upwelling of life.

There has been a lot in the news about colony collapse disorder. Do beekeepers know what is causing that?

Colony collapse has been shown to be caused by specific pesticides that interrupt the bees’ ability to navigate. Bees use the sun and landmarks to navigate and then do a “bee dance” to tell other bees where flowers are. When exposed to these pesticides, they can’t find their way home. Of course there are many other factors within industrial apiculture that are impacting the health of our honeybees.

Are there any myths about bees that you would like to clear up?

Yes, a swarm of bees is never an “angry” swarm; it’s a reproductive behavior that happens in the spring when the bees sense it will be a good year with plenty of food. The queen leaves the hive with some of the bees to find a new home. The old colony stays and raises a new queen—in this way the bees “reproduce” and make more of themselves. And the male bees neither sting nor collect pollen, only females. Male bees’ main job is to mate with a virgin queen, a task he gives his life to, as he dies in the process of mating.

Anything else you’d like to share?

For urban beekeepers, two colonies are plenty for one yard; more than that and the bees will be competing for the limited supply of pollen and nectar. If we are to increase the number of urban beekeepers, we need more forage for the bees. If you want to be a friend to bees you don’t have to be a beekeeper, just plant more flowers! They especially like purple, white and yellow flowers; like lavender, poppies and sunflowers.
Here’s a list of bee friendly flowers.

Ruby’s advice for Becoming a Beginning Beekeeper
1. Educate yourself by reading and taking classes and talking with other beekeepers.
2. Pick a system (Langstroth or Top Bar)
3. Procure bees (Pick one of the two options)
• Buy a package with a one queen and few thousand worker bees (may be hard to find right now as most packaged bees are bought up in January)
• Catch a swarm or take a split from an established beekeeper.
4. Get some protective gear so you feel comfortable and not afraid of getting stung: hat with veil, suit and gloves.
5. You’ll need a little equipment: a hive tool, a bee brush and a smoker.
   Then plunge in!

Resources:
• City Bees
• San Francisco Beekeepers Association
• San Francisco Bee-Cause
• Alameda County Beekeepers Association
• The Institute of Urban Homesteading (Oakland)
• BioFuel Oasis (Berkeley)
• Bee Kind (Sebastopol and San Francisco)
• Ruby Blume’s website with many more resources

Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert.
Photo courtesy of Good vs. Evil

The two rather famous best friends wore similar dark suits and their set looked like the boxing matches from the 1940s and 1950s, with one ominous lamp shining over an uncomfortable chair against a dark backdrop. It was a night that was billed as Good vs. Evil, and started out with Bourdain interrogating Ripert. One of the nicest surprises was how well Ripert was able to dish back to his pal Tony with that rather sexy French accent of his.

Orpheum Theatre. Photo: Mary Ladd

Bourdain and Ripert were in town for a short amount of time before heading to San Jose for a Saturday night show. Later tweets showed that Tony planned on hitting up a 7-11 store to find food to feed Ripert in San Jose. As for where to eat in the City, Bourdain said that he loves having a “crab with the crab fat“ at Swan Oyster Depot and Ripert responded that he wanted to go there with Tony for breakfast [which they apparently did do]. Bourdain also pointed out that the Bay Area has produce that is the envy of the East Coast.

When the talk turned to Alice Waters, Bourdain showed restraint, a gentlemanly move given the recent fire at Chez Panisse. Audience, he’s sure they would get along swimmingly if they met at a party… but do remember, he warned, that Waters chose shark fin soup as her last meal on a panel he did with her and Duff Goldman–a fact that had the audience guffawing. He appeared to have publicly forgiven Waters, as well as other famous food celebs ranging from Rachael Ray to Emeril. Ray sent him a fruit basket, and “how can I not love” someone who made a joke that Mario Batali will loan you a scrunchie if you give him a blow job—-a jab Ray made at a roast for the ponytailed chef.

Ripert got flack from Tony for letting Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, The Situation, and Snooki take their respective spots at the table at his award winning Le Bernardin restaurant. “You gave The Situation and Snooki a kitchen tour, too?” he asked, and Ripert said, “Yes.”

When pushed, Ripert said that tennis star John McEnroe is the one star he would not let dine at his restaurant. “He hurt your feelings!” Bourdain said, as Ripert sheepishly nodded under the bright interrogation lamp. Ripert later said that hipsters are allowed at his restaurant and that guests can take photos of the food at Le Bernardin as long as they don’t use a flash. Bourdain posited that hipsters are “people who are younger than us” and that Ripert felt that the founders of Le Bernardin, Gilbert and Maguy le Coze were hipsters of an earlier era.

Ripert said that he is anti-corkage fee yet also anti-bring-your own wine. He pointed out that Le Bernardin is after all a business (a fair point for any restaurant), and Bourdain said that he thought Le Bernardin had the best sommelier. Ripert waffled a bit on the bring-your-own-wine bit when he conceded that he would be open to guests bringing a great bottle of wine in, but only if they please share a glass with him.

Paula Deen is the one culinary star Bourdain will not forgive, because he is “genuinely appalled by her acts on the planet” which include hyping Southern cooking “into something it’s not.”

Bourdain gave major props to Mission Chinese Food and said that it is rare to see a San Francisco restaurant find such big and immediate success in New York. “I am sure they will take over the world,” he said. Bourdain was aware that Mission Chinese Food plans to next open in Paris, and giggled over the fact that Ripert had to run to the bathroom during his first visit to Mission Chinese, because “he couldn’t handle” how spicy the food was. Clearly Bourdain, given his far flung travels and history of eating dishes like calves brain and pig anus on air makes him the more adventurous eater. Yet Ripert aptly pointed out that Bourdain has not been a kitchen chef in fifteen years. Touché, Monsieur.

One exclusive that Bourdain and Ripert shared with us at the La Cocina meet and greet: they filmed in the mountains of Peru together for Bourdain’s Parts Unknown show on CNN. The series debuted Sunday and viewers can see the friendly pair doing a variety of activities that sound potentially interesting. “We were looking for cacao beans and cooked chicken together, which is a departure for the show,” said Bourdain. “Eric kept telling me, ‘one more mountain’ while I was stumbling around” on their way to find cacao. Bourdain rolled his eyes and laughed as he continued with, “He’s from the Pyrenees, where there’s yodeling and he’s pretty used to all those hills.” Ripert laughed and nodded at this.

They showed a comfort and ease with each other that continued through the meet and greet, where they signed everything from books to body parts while digging into a big plate of La Cocina treats. La Cocina Executive Director Caleb Zigas said that the after party event came about when Bourdain’s production company, Zero Point Zero contacted him. Proceeds from the meet and greet went to La Cocina and Zigas said the party provided an avenue for the La Cocina businesses who have brick and mortar locations. The two hundred or so guests in the green room gawked and took photos of Bourdain and Ripert, and a line snaked around the room for the chance to get autographs.

Inticing Creations baker Kelly Zubal crafted a stunning cake in the shape of a duck press for Bourdain and Ripert. She said that it took her three hours to make and she even brought an edible pen with the hopes of getting a signature on her sweet treat. Zubal confirmed with Bay Area Bites over email that, “Bourdain couldn’t believe I made a duck press and wrote ‘best cake ever’ on it. It now has a place on my cake display area at my cake studio.” Sounds like Bourdain was acting more good than evil to us.