Stephanie at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Berry Festival. Photos by Christina Vickory

Doing a cooking demonstration for strangers is part Food Network, part Comedy Central. The first time I tossed a salad in front of an audience, at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market back in 2001, I was very nervous. Would my knife skills be sneered at? Would I forget to add some crucial ingredient, or go blank in the middle of an explanation of whisking or macerating?

Former Bay Area pastry chef David Lebovitz set my mind at ease. "Make them laugh! They just want to be entertained; no one's going to be watching what you do," he said, just before going out in front of the crowd and doing just that. Yes, on that day, if you watched carefully, you could learn how David made his truly excellent brownies, plus a dried-fruit compote with which to dress them up. But mostly, David made the crowd laugh. They had a good time with him, and what could make a brownie taste better?

So that's what I try to do, make 'em laugh--in between pleading with them to buy fresh baking powder, use a microplane for grating orange rind, and stop storing the spices over the stove (where they dry out and turn to dust so tasteless than no one could pick the rubbed sage from the smoked paprika).

But man, sometimes you guys are a tough crowd, clutching your xeroxed recipe sheets, staring up at the counter with all the enthusiasm of an after-lunch trigonometry class on the last day before summer vacation. Are you simply in it for the samples? Or do all my attempts to squeeze a little Liz Lemon into the soup just fall flat?

Be that as it may, I was booked as the talent yesterday at CUESA's Berry Celebration, down at the Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. So, a joyful reason to cook with berries was in order.

Now, in my house, "cooking with berries" rarely happens. Why? Because the berries go fast from carton to mouth. Sometimes they make it into the cereal bowl or the pancake batter; once a summer there is blueberry pie. In my opinion, cream is the only embellishment a perfect raspberry needs, and the best blackberry is the winey, sun-warmed one you pick yourself from a dusty tangle at the side of the road.

However, topping a bowl of Grape-Nuts with blueberries, or mashing them down into a bowl of vanilla ice cream, is a little short on the show biz a cooking demo requires. No, what I needed here was a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants...or in this case, a sassy how-to for Double Berry Shortcake, with warm orange-scented biscuits layered with triple-berry jam, honey whipped cream, and fresh berries.

Now, the first thing to know about making biscuits is that they die young. A warm biscuit fresh from the oven is a heavenly thing. A few hours later, meh. Starch and butter, never a bad thing, but nothing for which to thank your mama and the good Lord for bringing you into the world and giving you a mouth. So, for best results, bake your biscuits not more than an hour or two before serving. If you can get them to the table still slightly warm, all the better. (Blazing-hot biscuits will melt the whipped cream, however, so do let them cool for at least 15 minutes or so before using.)

The second thing is that baking powder, too, has a shelf life, and if you bought it three boyfriends ago, you need to splash out and spend the buck and a half to get a new container. There's an expiration date on the bottom of the can. Heed it.

Finally, the box grater. Mostly these are useless, except to grate carrots for carrot cake or potatoes for latkes. But they have one more use, as I remembered just minutes before Saturday's little show-and-tell. Rub your cold, firm stick of butter through the big holes into your bowl of flour, and you'll get a near-instant, pastry-perfect mix. Keep your hands gentle and your touch light, and stamp out your biscuits with a wavy-edged biscuit cutter for the cutest final product.

As for the berry filling, you can make it with any mixture of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, ollalieberries, or marionberries. The secret? Quick-cooking tapioca. It thickens the berries up without any tell-tale lumps or bumps, giving it the texture of perfectly gelled pie filling. If you have any extra berry filling, spoon it into a clean jar, refrigerate and use within a couple of weeks. Because of the tapioca thickener, it should not be sealed in canning jars for room-temperature storage like regular homemade jam. If you've never used tapioca before, look for the little red box of Minute brand next to the boxes of Jell-O.

(And then save the rest to make Heidi Swanson's creamy tapioca pudding, on a night when nothing but sweet eggy custard will soothe your battered soul.)

As for the cream, you'd be surprised what goes into the average carton of supermarket cream, from mono- and di-glycerides to carrageenan. Instead, look for the Clover organic or Straus organic heavy cream, both made of fresh, dairy-sweet local cream and nothing but.

And finally, when it comes to the berries, be as generous as you can. Blueberries for Sal! Tayberries for You! Berries, berries everywhere! You cannot have too many.

Double Berry Shortcake with Honey Cream

Light, fluffy biscuits get layered with a jammy berry filling, drenched with honey-sweetened whipped cream, and topped with more fresh berries.

Serves 6 to 8, depending on size of biscuits

For Shortcake Biscuits:
2 cups all-purpose white flour, preferably unbleached
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
grated rind of 1 orange
8 TB (1 stick or 1/2 cup) butter, chilled
1 egg
1/2 cup milk plus 1 TB (you may need slightly more or less)

For Berry Filling:
2 TB water
1 TB quick-cooking tapioca, such as Minute brand
juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups mixed berries, such as blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries
2 tsp Chambord or cassis liqueur, optional

For Honey Cream:
1/2 pint heavy (whipping) cream
1 TB honey, or to taste
a few drops of orange extract or orange liqueur (such as Grand Marnier), or 1/4 tsp grated orange rind, optional

For Assembly:
2 to 3 cups mixed fresh berries

1. To make shortcake biscuits: Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a round cake pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

3. Using a box grater, grate chilled butter into flour mixture. (You can also pulse ingredients together in a food processor until just pebbly.) Toss buttter-flour mixture together lightly, until butter is covered with flour and evenly mixed throughout.

3. Measure 1/2 cup milk in a glass measuring cup, then break in egg and beat together. Drizzle over flour mixture and mix gently into a soft dough. If dough seems dry, add additional milk as needed.

4. Turn out onto a floured countertop or cutting board. Pat into an even 1-inch-thick round. Using a floured biscuit cutter or the rim of a small drinking glass, cut out 6 to 8 biscuits (number may vary depending on the size of your cutter). Fit biscuits into cake pan, sides touching.

5. Bake 15-20 minutes, until tops are pale gold. Remove from baking sheet and let cool on a rack.

6. To make quick berry filling: In a small, heavy-bottomed pot, mix water, tapioca, lemon juice, sugar, and berries together. Over medium-low heat, bring to a simmer. Simmer, stirring frequently, until berries have collapsed and mixture is deep purple and jammy, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Let cool (it will thicken as it cools) and refrigerate until needed. Stir in liqueur before serving, if desired.

7. To make honey cream: Pour cream into a chilled bowl and whip with a whisk or hand-held electric mixer until beater begins to leave traces on the surface of the cream. Add honey and extract or rind if desired. Continue beating until cream is thick enough to mound up on a spoon.

8. To assemble shortcakes: Using a small sharp knife, split biscuit. Put bottom half on biscuit in a shallow bowl. Spread with a generous spoonful of preserves. Top with some fresh berries and a spoonful of cream. Top with top half of biscuit, more cream and fresh berries. Repeat with remaining biscuits.

Last week I was lucky enough to go on a tour at the Peet's Coffee & Tea Roastery (their roasting and packaging facility in Alameda). As someone who drinks Peet's Italian Roast every morning, I was excited to see how this home-grown Bay Area company handled and roasted their coffee beans and so jumped at the chance to get a peek inside.

The outing was born out of a local school fundraising effort. Every year our school district has a party and auction to raise money for programs that the State of California's ever-depleted funds no longer cover. Unlike when I was a kid, our school budgets are now dependent on parent fundraising efforts to afford teacher's aide salaries, music and art supplies, library funds and so many other worthwhile programs. My neighbor and friend, Shawn Conway, who is the Chief Supply Chain Officer at Peet's Coffee & Tea, donated a private tour of the roasting plant for the silent auction. After some pretty heavy bidding for this item, my friend Betsy's brother Tom won out and I was then invited to attend. Lucky me!

Peets Coffee & Tea Roasting and Packaging Floor

So last Friday, six of us gathered at Peet's Coffee & Tea's Roastery in Alameda for our behind-the-scenes look at coffee roasting. Peet's main business offices remain in Emeryville, where they've been for years, but in 2007 they opened this new roasting and packaging plant specially designed for their small-batch, roast-to-order business model. Most of the building is taken up by enormous stacks of green coffee beans in burlap bags, packaging machinery and the roasting floor itself, although there is also a beautiful test barista kitchen and some offices. The warehouse, as you may imagine, is heavily perfumed with the glorious smell of roasting coffee beans. With a lovely view of the bay, it seemed like a pretty great place to spend your day.

Shawn and his colleague Maurice "Mo" Sardella gave us a genuinely informative and entertaining tour. I learned a great deal about coffee beans, from where they are grown and how they're bought, to what Peet's does to ready them for your morning cup of coffee.

Here are some fun facts that I discovered:

Peet's Roast-to-Order Business
I had no idea that Peet's has a roast-to-order business model. What does roast-to-order mean? Basically, the warehouse starts and ends each day with clean shelves. They never store roasted coffee in their warehouse. There are eight, highly-trained roasters who start their day at 2:30 a.m. Like bakers, they need to begin their shifts in the wee hours of the morning so they can roast enough pre-ordered beans to be trucked or shipped out later that same day. Each batch is shipped within two hours of roasting, allowing the company to provide freshly-roasted beans to customers. The decision to not store roasted beans -- and therefore not hold any actual inventory -- isn't the most efficient or cost-effective way to run a supply chain business, but Peet's feels it ensures the quality of their product.

I also learned that Peet's has a thriving Internet direct-sales business. Did you know you could order Peet's to be delivered to your house? I didn't. According to Shawn, Peet's air mails coffee and tea orders to people all over the world, including soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, on a daily basis. I wish I would have known about this when my twins were infants.

And then there's the tea. Although our tour was mostly focused on coffee, we also were able to see that the warehouse has a special section (far from the coffee roasters so the smells do not permeate the fragile tea leaves) dedicated to the handling, blending and packaging of tea. This section wasn't part of our main tour, but I did see that each tin is hand-packed and quality checked, and these are also shipped out daily.

The Roasting Process
Up close and personal, the roasting process is pretty amazing. The back of the warehouse is full of beans from all over the world -- sacks from Guatemala, Kona, Sumatra, Kenya, and every other coffee-growing location are piled high. I felt very small standing under these mountains of coffee and had the feeling it wouldn't be the best place to be standing in an earthquake.

Bags of Green Coffee Beans in the Warehouse

I asked if roasters specialize in working with a specific bean, but was told that after years of apprenticing and training, each roaster becomes an expert at handling various types of beans for all different blends and single-origin coffees. I also learned that like making chocolate or cheese, roasting coffee is an artisan craft. When we watched one roaster handling a batch of Guatemala, he continually pulled a sample from the heated drum. These guys (and yes, they are all "guys") use smell, sight and sound to discern if a batch is ready. They continually lean over their samples to smell the beans, listen for popping (apparently a certain number of pops means a great deal) and look to analyze the color and sheen of the beans. When we were watching one roaster, Shawn pointed out that the computer showed that his batches were all within 4 seconds of each other, but what was amazing was that the roaster was not actually looking at that computer at all. He was just naturally able to make consistent batches using his senses.

Here's a clip of the beans coming out of the roaster.

The Life of a Bean
Like cherries and peaches, coffee beans are a type of fruit, and so their freshness degrades over time. The deterioration process starts after roasting, which is why Peet's ships their beans the day they are roasted.

The stages of the life of a Peet's bean -- from sitting green in a burlap sack to getting poured into a coffee cup -- has some crucial steps:

• Peet's roasting facility has 1/2 million pounds of green coffee at any given time. These beans are cleaned, weighed and sent to one of 48 silos where they wait to be roasted.
• Beans are then roasted in small batches (the size of which is confidential). Each batch is attended to by a roaster before it gets sucked into a Willy Wonka-type tube (think Augustus Gloop) and is then poured into an enclosed cart.
• After roasting, each batch of beans is tasted and evaluated to ensure it meets quality standards. The roasters, who have each undergone a rigorous apprenticeship and training process that lasts years, actually do this themselves. In a special room they blind taste and critique each other's work, tossing out a batch if it doesn't taste right. The beans are then bagged and shipped out within 1-2 hours of roasting.
• For the first 2-3 days after the roasting process, the beans are volatile, expelling gasses as they settle. They must therefore be treated with care.

• Coffee beans that are shipped to Internet-order customers, offices and grocery stores are stored in bags that have little valves embedded in them. These are one-way valves that expel built-up gasses, but do not allow oxygen in (as oxygen initiates the decaying process and so is the enemy).

The valve in the bag is under the big P

• Whole beans shipped to stores are kept in air-tight bags to maintain freshness until ready for use.
• Most beans sold in Peet's stores have been roasted within 10 days of use.
• 5-10 days after roasting seems to be the sweet spot for coffee beans as the unstable gaseous stage is over and the flavors have more balance and nuance.

Worldwide Beans
Peet's purchases beans from all over the world and procures them through various means. Here are a few examples for how they do this:

Relationships with farms -- Peet's deals directly with many coffee farms and plantations. Their relationship with one farm in Guatemala was started over 40 years ago by Alfred Peet and is still going strong. In Nicaragua, they trained a group of local women to farm their own small plots of land and then helped organize them into a cooperative -- called Las Hermanas -- where they could sell their crops together for more money than they could individually.

TechnoServe -- Peet's also works directly with TechnoServe, an international non-profit development organization committed to building businesses in developing countries to benefit the rural poor. Through this organization, Peet's works to educate and train small farmers so they are able to grow high-quality coffee beans while also working together to help build stronger community infrastructures. This partnership formed the basis for initiatives in Tanzania and, more recently, Rwanda. Through TechnoServe, small farmers are able to earn more, share knowledge, and contribute a portion of profits to build schools and provide health care. Peet's seems very proud of their work with TechnoServe because it enables them to help drive rural economic development in traditionally impoverished areas.

Auctions -- Some countries have created a government-run auction system where higher quality coffee garners higher prices. Peet's Kenya Auction Lot is purchased through this type of auction system and the beans are then sold as a single-origin coffee.

Beans at Home

Learning how to keep beans fresh in the barista kitchen

How to keep your own beans fresh after purchase:

• Buy only as much as you will use in one week.
• Purchase whole beans and grind at home. Even if you have a cheap $20 grinder (like me), your coffee will taste fresher if you grind just before you use.
• Don't freeze or refrigerate your beans as they can soak up moisture and odors (and the last thing you want is coffee that smells like onions). Just set them in a cool and dry place (like your pantry).
• Keep your beans in the bag they came in and wrap the bag up tightly after each use so you expose the beans to as little air as possible.

I learned a lot about coffee last Friday and have a new respect for the coffee-growing and roasting processes. I am also less interested in sticking with my tried and true Italian roast. I will always love it, but after hearing about the world of coffee out there -- from how and where beans are grown to the care the roasters take preparing them -- I think I may just buy a new type next week.

Mother's Day this year was a bit atypical. My interest in urban farming had peaked with the possibility of raising goats in my Oakland backyard and I needed a dose of reality. So, instead of brunching with Mom I spent the morning learning about goat husbandry in an Urban Goats 101 class at the BioFuel Oasis.

The BioFuel Oasis is a worker-owned cooperative in Berkeley specializing in ASTM quality biodiesel made from recycled vegetable oil. In addition to supplying BioFuel, they offer urban farming classes in Beekeeping, Raising Chickens & Ducks, Basic Vegetable Fermenting, Raising Milking Goats and other DIY pursuits.

Novella Carpenter, an Oakland-based urban farmer (GhostTown Farm), owner/worker at BioFuel Oasis, and author of Farm City: The Education of An Urban Farmer teaches like she writes. Her casual yet methodical approach contains hints of dark humor sprinkled lightly with four letter words. Learning to raise goats in the ghetto had been an iterative process -- there was no definitive "urban goat manual" and the lessons learned from owning other city farm animals (chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, pigs) didn't necessarily translate. Throughout the class, Novella shared her methodology along with lists of essential information to raise milking goats in an urban environment. Clearly the need for guidance in urban farming provided inspiration for teaching this class and writing the much needed general manual, The Essential Urban Farmer, Novella's forthcoming book.

I love a good class handout and Novella's 8-page Goat 101 packet was extremely informative and well-organized. It opened with this sobering statement:

Warning: No one should enter into goat husbandry without full knowledge that goat ownership is an all-engrossing hobby that will suck up your time and money.

She covered legal issues; dispelled goat myths; described different types and breeds of goats; provided a list of essential housing and caretaking necessities; and shared how to buy, breed, and milk goats.

Here are some goaty reality factors that might stop you from responding to a Craigslist ad on a whim:
1. To keep milking goats lactating they need to be bred annually. So, that means you are also a goat breeder and need to deal with stud services, birthing and (goat) kids.
2. Male goats stink and it is illegal to own them in Berkeley. If your goat gives birth to a male kid you will need to have a plan how to deal with him. Selling, giving away or eating are your basic options.
3. Goats don't like to be alone so you need to have at least two females, ideally three. (Berkeley law allows only two female goats per household. Oakland law was only specific about goats not being raised on properties occupied by apartments, hotels or in a business district. San Francisco law was only specific about goats not being used for animal sacrifice but did cite a limitation of four small animals total.)
4. Dogs and goats are natural enemies (however, goats and chickens are compatible)
5. "Goats are not lawnmowers. Many a person has been disappointed when they brought their goats home and expected them to trim the grass, and instead the goats denuded the shrubs and trees first....But the main feed for your goat should always be hay."
6. Be prepared to spend $500-600 for a good quality milking doe.

After the didactic lecture plus Q&A we moved into the experiential goat-handling portion of the class. Blue-eyed Milky Way and bearded Orla May entered the space and brushing and hoof trimming was demonstrated and practiced. Novella went through the motions of demonstrating milking technique but her milker goat Bebe was off getting "freshened" so she was not available for an actual milking demo. That was my only disappointment. I was hoping to witness actual goat milking and possibly have a hands-on experience and tasting. However, taking photos and interacting with these unfamiliar and extremely cute creatures was quite a thrill.

The folks attending the class ranged from goat owners to goat-curious. The class was 3 hours long, cost $30 and was kept to a comfortable size so all participants wanting to handle the goats had easy access. Novella brought samples of her own GhostTown Farm goat cheese for tasting and briefly discussed goat milk products. A great class to follow this general introduction would be "How-To make Goat Milk Cheese, Yogurt and Kefir."

Novella will be teaching this class again on Sunday, June 20th from 9:30am to 12:30pm. It will be taught at a house with a backyard so there is more natural space for the goats to wander around. If you are even slightly goat-curious I recommend attending, but register ASAP because her classes sell out quickly.

What I've been up to lately

First I'll begin by saying I've never been one to eat out at restaurants alone. I know there are people out there who are unphased by that sort of thing, but I'm not one of them. Now coffee or lunch is one thing--but sitting at a restaurant for a solo dinner isn't my cup of tea. One summer when I was finishing up graduate school in Boston, I decided to treat myself to a week at a Bed and Breakfast on the Cape. It was going to be my solo, independent adventure--and during the day, it was. I lounged on the beach reading book after book, strolled the different little towns looking in antique stores and eating ice cream cones, and rented a cruiser bike to explore the marshy trails. And then the sun set and the anxiety kicked in: what to do for dinner? What to do that night? I couldn't possibly go out by myself.

A friend gave me a little perspective, telling me not to be so taken with myself: you really think people are even noticing you or the fact that you're by yourself. Everyone has to eat. No one cares if you're doing it alone. In fact, no one in the restaurant cares about you period. Ouch. But she had a point. I was thinking that people would stare or wonder or feel sorry for me when, in fact, they were just enjoying their fish and chips like everyone else. So that helped. But still--I enjoy sharing a meal with someone else. Period. This goes for eating out in restaurants, but I've recently discovered it also goes for preparing meals at home.

And this brings me to the present moment--the moment in which I tell you that my relationship of twelve years recently ended. I'm thirty-one, so that was essentially my entire adult life. Suffice it to say, I've never really lived by myself for any extended period of time and here I find myself in a new apartment in San Francisco alone. Not exactly what I'd planned, but I suppose that's how those things usually work. So once again I remain quite busy during the day, but then I arrive home and stare into the fridge. I've been getting creative with bagged salads, chicken sausages, soup, or pasta. Breakfast for dinner has been a winner lately as are quesadillas with heaps of homemade guacamole. And ice cream, of course. Oh, and peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread. I've discovered it's kind of magical if you make it into a warm panino.

So when I wrote about the difficulties of cooking for one on my own blog recently, many of my readers chimed in with menu ideas, book suggestions, and general encouragement. These are the moments I cherish the time I spend on the blog--it truly is a little community. After seriously considering each comment, I decided to take their advice, checked out some of the books from the library and even purchased one that I really came to love. For this week's post, I thought I'd share with you the ins and outs of some solo eating and cooking books so, in the case that you should find yourself alone in your painfully over-priced apartment, you won’t be staring at an empty fridge or relying solely on Trader Joe's taquitos. Those can get old after awhile.

"Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam" –Laurie Colwin, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant" from Home Cooking

Solo Suppers: Simple Delicious Meals to Cook for Yourself by Joyce Goldstein
This book was recommended to me by my blogging friend Janet Gardner of Pretty Green Girl, and it's downright likeable. Goldstein doesn't lament the fact that you're eating alone. In fact, the premise is simple: singles represent the fasted-growing segment of the U.S. population (7) yet there are few cookbooks geared towards actual gourmet recipes for one. We see many books geared towards young singles cooking on a budget, but Goldstein wanted to talk about sauces, and Sicilian swordfish, and risotto with mushrooms and peas. Leafing through the book, I found many dishes I wanted to try. And the ingredient list made perfect sense: the quantities were small; I didn't have to sit down with my calculator and cut the recipe down by 2/3 (and often recipes don't reduce all that precisely). Her section on Stocking the Pantry is useful and I loved her Sauce Chapter (Romesco, Peanut Sauce, Mango chutney…). She also mentions ways to recreate each meal into a "New Creation" using leftovers. This seemed a little too planned out and a bit depressing to me for some reason, but I get the idea. It's just, how many days a week can a girl eat pork loin used in different ways? I giggled while reading her suggestions on looking for smaller bottles of wine. Really? Isn't this a time when we should all be drinking more? Much more? While I'll admit that my spinach sometimes will go bad, my wine never does. But all in all, this is a useful and relatively timeless book to add to the collection.

Going Solo in the Kitchen by Jane Doerfer
This book was written in 1995 and lets be honest: in many ways, you can tell. While there aren't any photos and while there's a lot of "fluff" at the beginning of the book (Selecting a Market, Dealing with the Butcher), it is a good basic primer for someone who is looking for quite simple, approachable recipes. Doerfer was also ahead of her time in that the focus of the book is on seasonally available recipes using good fats. She's written an incredible Salad chapter with options ranging from Greek Salad to a Couscous and Sweet Potato Salad. And she also has nice entrée ideas that I have yet to see parceled out for just one--dishes like Turkey Pot Pie and Crab Cakes.

In her introduction, Jane notes, "We may begin solo cooking for different reasons, but we end up with the same reality: Nothing tastes quite as good as a meal you've thought about and taken the time to prepare and enjoy." Again, I like the fact that she doesn't judge or lament or become too emotionally invested in the fact that her readers are in a situation where they're eating alone. Instead, she cuts to the chase. She does do the whole leftover rigmarole, too on recycling meals over and over. Not only does this seem like a bummer but it's confusing: if you're using smaller proportions to cook for one, why would you have so much leftover in the first place?

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
This book was recommended to me by my blogging friend Denise over at Chez Danisse, and it differs from the previous two books I've discussed in that it's much more literary and much less a How-To Guide or Cookbook. Sure there are a few recipes scattered throughout, but what Ferrari-Adler's done here is invite and solicit writers and food personalities to contribute to a collection dealing with the theme of eating alone. The back-story? Ferrari-Adler found herself living alone for the first time at twenty-seven while in the MFA program at the University of Michigan. She started cultivating a life of eating odd meals. Alone. But as she so quickly points out, "alone and lonely are not synonymous" (14). So in putting together the book, she notes: "Maybe I could break the silence and help men and women everywhere be less alone together" (8).

And I have to say, it's worked. The essays are all quite different in subject and scope and there is a nice grouping of men and women of various ages. The collection starts with Laurie Colwin’s well-known essay, "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant," originally published in her book, Home Cooking. If you haven't read the essay, Colwin details life in her tiny NY apartment with a kitchen that consisted of a hot plate, a metal counter, and a kids-sized small fridge. Colwin began adjusting to cooking with two burners (soup, spaghetti, and eggplant were big hits). Ferrari-Adler also includes one of my favorite food writers, Amanda Hesser, and her piece entitled "Single Cuisine." In it, Hesser writes about her last night home alone as a married woman and gives her recipe for truffled egg toast. There are lovely pieces by Dan Chaon and Steve Almond and a great essay by Haruki Murakami on "The Year of Spaghetti." As an English nerd and a fan of many of these writers, this compilation was a treat. In a few short pieces, you get a glimpse into each writer's personality, domestic space, and approach to food. A rich opportunity.

What we eat when we eat alone by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin
I was most excited to check out this book. I'm a big Deborah Madison fan and I'd heard it was lovingly illustrated (by McFarlin) with quirky pictures instead of traditionally photographed. I dove right in and with each flip of the page, was more and more disappointed. They begin by explaining what Patrick in particular began to discover as he spoke to people about their solo eating habits: "a portrait of human behavior sprung free from conventions, a secret life of consumption born out of the temporary freedom--or burden, for some--of being alone" (10). Hmm. Why did this passage leave a bad taste in my mouth? A secret life of consumption? Why so secret? It turns out the entire book is colored by this tinge of minor shame or embarrassment regarding eating alone--the last thing I want to read right now. There are odd tangents on gender differences: linguistically, apparently men use more active/violent verbs to describe cooking than women and women are more self-deprecating when talking about eating alone. OK, so what's the point?

Patrick McFarlin's illustrations

The book seems to struggle for a unified personality of purpose. Along with the gender digressions, there is a really odd collection of recipes--many of which I found to be completely uninspired. Bachelor Tofu Sandwiches? How about Breakfast Burrito for Day and Night? Then as much as I wanted to like the illustrations, many of them were of men in their boxer shorts or slippers haphazardly preparing a meal or staring into the fridge. Again, kind of makes me want to throw in the towel and head out to get some take-out--not what Madison was shooting for, I'm guessing. There are even anecdotes on Eating in Bed and Negotiating Eating on the Couch with a Cat. Seriously? For a book with a presumed audience of many solo eaters, I can't say that Madison or McFarlin have enticed us with recipes, the illustrations, or sentiment.

The Pleasures of Cooking For One by Judith Jones
And then, Judith Jones brings home the bacon. This book is sweet and substantial. It's a keeper. She doesn’t judge (although she does use the word "live alones" which kind of makes me want to slit my wrists. Yikes. When did I become a live alone?). She doesn't demean with lame watered down recipes. And that's probably because the premise of the book comes from such a genuine place of experience. Jones' husband passed away in 1996 and after his death, she's struggled with cooking alone. Like Goldstein, she begins with numbers: 51% of New Yorkers live alone, yet stores packages everything large and restaurants don't cater to single eaters (vii). Thus, her book was born.

Judith Jones' perfect blend of apt recipes, general kitchen advice, and genuine sentiment

Like many of the other authors, she discusses stocking your cupboards (sugars, flour, broth, canned tomatoes), your freezer (pesto, cream sauce, pastry dough) and your refrigerator (butter, eggs, mustard, sausage, jams). While I mentioned above that I'm not drawn to discussions on ways to recreate leftovers, Jones does have a likeable segment on the Nine Lives of a Turkey, detailing ways to recreate leftovers (turkey tetrazzini, waldorf salad). But what I really loved about this book are the substantial, inspiring, and challenging recipes along with the lovely photographs and her encouraging and precise tone. You won't find breakfast burritos here although you will find Beef Bourguignon, Red Flannel Pork Hash or a Filet of Fish in Parchment Paper. Now that's the kind of cooking I'm talking about.

To close, I've taken the advice of my family, friends, and readers and decided not to be too hard on myself. Cereal for dinner? Fine. Now's not the time to put the pressure on myself to make elaborate meals unless it feels right. But I'm also making a huge effort not to get too caught up in that anxious feeling I first met on a night in July in Provincetown when the sun began to set and I realized I was alone and hadn't yet eaten dinner. Let's just say I'm getting used to that feeling. In the introduction to her book, Judith Jones notes, "If you like good food, why not honor yourself enough to make a pleasing meal and relish every mouthful? (ix)" I'll raise a glass to that.

Ramekins Cooking School and Inn in Sonoma

We pulled up to the quaint Ramekins Cooking School and Inn in Sonoma, and knew I'd like this place as soon as I laid eyes on the spork and spoon handles on the front door.

I was invited by Ramekins to check out one of their many cooking classes and stay at their 6-room bed and breakfast. Cooking classes include both demonstration and hands-on classes, and are geared toward food enthusiasts and home cooks. Well, I'm always saying how I really need to make it up to wine country more often than I do, and this sounded like the perfect excuse!

Joyce Goldstein

Plus, I saw that the esteemed Joyce Goldstein would be teaching a Regional Tour of Italy: The Veneto with this mouth-watering menu:

• Warm Scallop and Mushroom Salad
• Crab and Fennel Risotto with Meyer Lemon Gremolata
• Pork with Chestnuts served with Pumpkin Polenta
• Blood Orange Marmalade Tart

Yeah, let's recap.

1) Weekend getaway in Sonoma. (Check)
2) Adorable B&B. (Check)
3) Cooking class with a culinary legend. (Check)

Right. Sign me up.

Cooking class at Ramekins with Joyce Goldstein

Since this was a demonstration class, there was no actual hands-on cooking by us students, however, there was plenty of Q&A, discussion, and of course, tasting.

Warm Scallop and Mushroom Salad

Joyce was full of knowledge about Italian cuisine, tips and tricks when preparing the dishes on our own, and stories. As we nibbled on succulent seared scallops and gorgeous chanterelle mushrooms, she lectured us on proper and humane tomato care ("once you refrigerate a tomato, you commit murder"), gave us tips on how to select a good salad dressing-quality balsamic vinegar ("if the first ingredient is 'caramel' or 'vinegar', put it down; look for 'grape must' as a primary ingredient"), and warned us against overcooking the scallops ("they should be quivering in the middle").

Crab and Fennel Risotto with Meyer Lemon Gremolata

As we tucked into the brightly flavored risotto made with sweet crab meat, fennel, and a gremolata of meyer lemon zest, parsley and garlic, we learned that the Venetians actually prefer their risotto on the soupy side.

Speaking of Venetians, I asked Joyce, why the Veneto? She replied that while this meal actually borrows from various regions of Italy, she originally wanted to highlight Venice because of its interesting culinary history born from its unique location. One of the first cities in the spice trade, the food of the Veneto was influenced by goods traded by merchants traveling in and out of the port (like Marco Polo, Venice's most famous traveler). The food and drink of the Veneto includes an abundance of seafood, game meat (an influence of Yugoslavia), artichokes, radicchio, rice (rather than pasta), lighter wines, and grappa.

Pork Stew with Chestnuts

All this edification got me hungry. Good thing the pork stew was ready.

Originally prepared with wild boar, Joyce first had this dish at a farro farm in Abruzzo. Farro was the earliest wheat that was cultivated in Europe. It tastes like barley, is sweet and hazelnutty, and puffs up when it is cooked.

With a few adaptations made, our stew featured pork shoulder rather than boar, and a delicious pumpkin polenta rather than farro. The pork stew was rich and hearty, slow simmered with red wine (Pinot Noir and Valpolicella), aromatics, sage, and warm spices (juniper berries, cloves, and cinnamon). It also contained chestnuts, which added a superb sweetness and richness to the stew. They were delicious, and I don't usually even like chestnuts!

We used vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts, but if you're shelling fresh ones, Joyce let us in on a little secret she discovered to save your hands, and time. Cut an "X" on the flat side of the chestnuts, cutting through to the brown skin, then microwave them for a bit. The hard outer shell and bitter inner skin should easily come off afterward.

Pork with Chestnuts served with Pumpkin Polenta

Oh, and let's not forget the polenta. The pumpkin polenta was heavenly. Granted, I may be biased, since as you may already know, I am a pumpkin/butternut squash/sweet potato freak.

But really, what is there not to love about this savory-sweet, rich combination of pumpkin, cornmeal, and parmesan cheese? Other than being utterly delicious, polenta is also pretty forgiving. Unlike risotto, which needs to hit the table as soon as it's ready, "Polenta, you can baby," as Joyce puts it. (Brands recommended for polenta: Giusto's and Gold Pheasant.)

Also, a great trick we learned to avoid lumps in it was to start with the polenta in cold water rather than streaming it into boiling water like most recipes call for. Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Joyce Goldstein, laying lattice

Now for my favorite part…the course that clinched it when I signed up for this class -- the Blood Orange Marmalade Tart, which needless to say, did not disappoint. It was fragrant, perfumed by the gorgeous blood oranges and Grand Marnier (two of my favorite ingredients of all time), and had a perfectly buttery, flaky crust.

As Joyce so aptly describes, a blood orange tastes different from other oranges, it is really floral, “like an orange mixed with a rose.”

This tart is adapted from a recipe served at the Vineria Cozzi in Bergamo Alta. It is called Crostata di Marmellata delle Suore Trappiste, a tart filled with jam made by the Trappist nuns. The recipe takes a homemade orange marmalade and binds it with eggs and cornstarch. Fitting. It tastes divine.

Blood Orange Marmalade Tart

A few tricks of the trade when making this:
• Use a sharp vegetable peeler to remove all the zest from the oranges. It is the quickest way I've ever seen zest removed. After you have all the peel, chop it finely.
• Remember to discard the bitter pith.
• Blood oranges are small so you don't need to really segment them, especially since it is all being cooked down anyway for the marmalade. Just chop them up into 1 inch pieces.

Other than this tart -- which I've been thinking about ever since -- what struck me was a comment that someone made towards the end of the class. She was a woman who was an old fan of Joyce's restaurant, Square One, before it closed in 1996. She was not alone, as it seemed that the class was filled with devout fans. The woman used to come in from Central Valley for a night out at Square One, and wrote in once after being particularly taken by a certain apple tart. Joyce wrote her back (she answered every letter that came in), and said they make it en masse, so the translation may not be perfect, but nonetheless, here was the recipe. It worked beautifully, and this was the first chance the woman had to thank Joyce personally. The room burst into applause.

Ramekins Inn, apple art

This story got me thinking about food and how our best memories of particular dishes or meals are inextricably tied to the people who made them special. It is not only about the food, but about the stories and the shared experience. Maybe that is why places like Ramekins make me so happy. Places that get it. They get the love of food (it's written on the apple-adorned walls and asparagus-lined railing), and they get that people are looking to share that experience.

Ramekins Inn, asparagus railing

Blood Orange Marmalade Tart (Crostata di marmellata all’arancia)

Recipe and notes courtesy of Joyce Goldstein, from Perfect Pairings.

"Jam filled lattice-topped tarts are popular all over Italy. In Rome they prefer cherry jam. Some tarts are prepared with apricot or berry preserves. At the Vineria Cozzi in Bergamo Alta they serve a crostata di marmellata delle Suore Trappiste, filled with jam made by the Trappist nuns. This recipe takes a home made orange marmalade and binds it with eggs and cornstarch. Blood oranges, now available at our markets, would add their special perfume and color, to the tart."

Serves: 8

INGREDIENTS:

Pasta Frolla for two crusts:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
pinch salt
4 to 6 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter
3 to 5 tablespoons ice water, as needed

Filling:
3 large navel oranges or 5 to 6 blood oranges
1 1/3 cups sugar
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur

PREPARATION:

For the Crust:
1. Put the flour and salt and sugar in the container of a food processor or mixing bowl. Cut in the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles cornmeal. Gradually beat in the ice water. Turn dough out onto work surface and form into 2 flattened discs, one slightly larger than the other. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least an hour.
2. Roll out the large disc between very lightly floured sheets of baker’s parchment until you have a circle that is 13 inches in diameter. Carefully ease it into a 9 inch pie plate or 10 inch tart tin with a removable bottom. Chill the crust.

For the Filling:
1. Wash and dry the oranges. With a sharp peeler carefully remove all of the zest from all 3 oranges and chop finely. Separate the oranges into segments and put them in a medium saucepan along with the chopped zest, 1/3 cup sugar, the lemon juice and the water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring form time to time. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. The filling can be made a day ahead of time and left at room temperature.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
3. Place remaining sugar in a mixing bowl with the cornstarch and mix with a fork. Add the butter and beat until smooth and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Fold in the cooled marmalade and the Grand Marnier.
4. Pour the filling into the pie crust. Roll out the remaining pastry between lightly floured sheets of baker's parchment into a rectangle about 9 by 12 inches. Remove the top piece of parchment and cut into strips with a pastry wheel. Moisten the edge of the crust with a bit of water and then arrange the strips like a lattice on top of the filling.
5. Bake 10 minutes then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue to bake the tart for 30 to 40 minutes or until filling is set and crust is slightly colored.
6. Cool and serve with whipped cream.

More Recipes Courtesy of Joyce Goldstein:
Warm Scallop and Mushroom Salad, from Antipasti: Fabulous Appetizers and Small Plates
Crab and Fennel Risotto with Meyer Lemon Gremolata, adapted from Back to Square One
Pork with Chestnuts served with Pumpkin Polenta, from Italian Slow and Savory

Upcoming classes at Ramekins that caught my eye:

03/25/10, An Evening of Food and Wine Pairing (Demo, $85) with Joyce and her son, Evan Goldstein, a James Beard Award-winning master sommelier and career wine educator. Way to keep it in the family.

04/03/10, Top Five Desserts (Hands-on, $85) with Joy Wilson, author of Joy the Baker. Small world, I ran into Joy as we were leaving Ramekins…thought I had smelled something good baking downstairs! She's returning to teach another class in April.

04/29/10, Perbacco Restaurant (Demo, $75) with Staffan Terje, chef/owner of Perbacco. Chef Terje will be showcasing fresh seasonal ingredients and cooking techniques that are the basis of haute cuisine. Which means, you can expect a haute Italian dinner from one of SF’s finest.

Ramekins
450 West Spain Street
Sonoma, CA 95476
Map
(707) 933-0452

Disclosure: Cooking class and accommodations provided by Ramekins.

For more Joyce, check out Check, Please! Bay Area: Season 3: Joyce Goldstein Special, where she profiles three Bay Area restaurants: Medjool, B44, and Da Flora.

The olive tree has provided food, shelter, light, and lubrication to half of my ancestors for the past few thousand years. Those swarthy Mediterraneans who kindly passed along their sun-loving, cancer-resistant genes spent generation upon generation cultivating the fruit of this tree. In fact, some of them so closely associated themselves with it that they began to be called Olivieri, or "the olive growers."

I can only imagine the horror they might feel if they knew that all those centuries of close association with and loving care for olives came to a sad genetic end with three children whose only experience with the fruit was sticking tinny-tasting canned black Mission olives on their finger tips like bulbous Goth press-on nails and sucking them off one by one.

Fortunately, I now have the utmost respect for olives.

As my tastes matured and (hopefully) refined, I came to experiment with higher quality olives-- nothing canned was allowed. First came the Greeks, like Kalamatas, and beautiful green Amfissas, which seem to have ended up in my martinis. Then came the French types, like the Niçoise and picholine, which ended up in my tapenades.

Tapenade. I've been an enormous fan of it for years, since I discovered that it satisfies not only my near-constant hunger for salt, but allows me to honor my ancestors without having to try too hard. It's a flavorful homage with a sharp, French twist, which suits me just fine. It is earthy and basic. Any sort of tarting up should be avoided.

For example (there is always an example, you know), when I was young and foolish enough to attend culinary school, I found myself in a senior term garde manger class. For those of you who don't know, garde manger is the department of a kitchen responsible for creating salads, hors d'oeuvres, aspics, and charcuterie. In more elaborate set-ups, the garde manger also creates fabulous ice sculptures and salt dough fantasies. Think: cruise ship.

In our class, however, ice sculpting was out of the question, so we were invited/forced to create what are called "mirrors." Now for those of you unclear on the idea, "mirrors" are platters of cold food, like sliced aspics and terrines, that are arranged upon, unsurprisingly, mirrors. In cooking school, each morsel is handled about twenty-seven thousand times by students eager to get things "just right" and then offered up to unsuspecting diners at discount prices.

I had been in charge of creating one such mirror to be presented to the public at one of our Friday luncheon buffets, just like a real restaurants might have. Unlike real restaurants, however, we had an entire week to create a single platter of food. There were two other students under me in whom I had no confidence whatsoever.

I decided that the three of use were going to stay true to the spirit of garde manger, which was to create dishes using the leftovers of other departments. That was the way, after all, that restaurants increased their profit margins, wasn't it? All the other teams seemed to be ordering fresh, exotic ingredients: black truffles for a terrine (request denied), blue corn tortilla chips for an edible version of the Brazilian flag (approved). I was horribly smug. I was feeling superior.

And then, I was feeling sick. I was out of school for three days with the flu.

When I returned the day of the buffet, I discovered that I had been (understandably) replaced as mirror team leader. To my great joy, the woman in charge had taken the spirit of garde manger to heart as well and refused to purchase any new ingredients. "Maybe this won't be so bad, after all," I thought. I could offer advice here and there, but I could not insist upon anything. When I wandered over the the Brazilian team to compliment them on their design, but let them know as gently as possible that, though we may spell Brazil with a "z," the folks of that country spelled it with an "s" on their flag, I was met with an unprintable expletive. After that, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't say one more (expletive) word about anything for the rest of the day.

Which was a pity, since I returned to find my teammates placing precious little quenelles of tapenade upon little toasts that looked like the real thing, only shrunk to doll size. I had thought to caution them against quenelles, because quenelles of anything brownish in color are never a good idea because they would only remind people of what happens to their food after the important bits have been digested by the body.

Our mirror was going to look like a four-letter word beginning with "s." Literally.

"That tapenade needs some color, don't you think?" asked the new team leader.

"Well, what do you think? You're the boss." is all I said. I was tired, getting over the flu, and I no longer cared.

"I think it needs a garnish," she said.

She went off to the walk-in refrigerator to see what she could find. A few minutes later, she returned with a box of cherry tomatoes and some chives. With her sharp, 10" chef's knife, she quartered the tiny cherry tomatoes and placed one on top of each quenelle. As a final flourish, she added two sprigs of chive.

It was brilliant. Out of scraps and nothing, she had created what looked like a small army of ladybugs-- each freshly-landed on its own, private pile of dung-- floating on rafts of toast. And the best part of it all was that she hadn't the faintest idea what little bit of genius she had created.

I can no longer recall what else was on that mirror alongside those ladybugs. Nor can I remember the third person on our team or what kind of grade we got for that wonderfully awful presentation. I do, however, remember that none of the guests lunching with us ate anything off our display. They did, however, come back to look. And point.

I hope my ancestors aren't rolling in their crumbling sun-bleached graves and family vaults over this sort of blasphemy. After all, I had nothing to do with it except let it happen. I would never let decent olives be treated in such a way again. Except, of course, to photograph it and share with you, dear reader.

We Mediterraneans, we are generous souls.

Olive Tapenade

This mindlessly simply dish hails from Marseilles-- a seaport town famous for many things one might expect seaport towns to be famous for: seafood dishes, like bouillabaisse; sailors, like Popeye (on his mother's side); and, of course, women whose income is derived from sailors, like Mme. Popeye.

Serve tapenade with whatever you like. It's excellent on toasted bread, slathered on chicken before or after baking, or alongside roasted fish. It plays well with tomatoes, too-- I just ask you to please not serve them as seen above, unless you are deliberately trying to make an unpleasant statement of some kind.

Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients:

2 cups of pitted Kalamata olives (Use whatever olives suit your taste: Niçoise, Gaeta, Nyons, etc.)

2 tablespoons capers

3 to 4 anchovies (use less or omit if you are not into them as much as I am)

1 clove crushed garlic

1 to 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (add according to taste, naturally)

About 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.

Preparation:

Toss olives, capers, anchovies, and garlic into a food processor. Pulse until roughly chopped. With one hand on the "pulse" button, drizzle in olive oil with your other hand and pulse until desired texture results (It is at its most charmingly rustic when left chunk-style. The photo shows one that has been made to smooth for the purposes of story). Add lemon juice to taste. Serve.

SF Chefs. Food. Wine. Ribbon Cutting: Linda Lim, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Kevin Westlye, Tyler Florence

To quote Mayor Gavin Newsom, "Aspen, eat your heart out."

An epic event 2 ½ years in the making, SF Chefs. Food. Wine. was like a food-lover's Disneyland with over 200 of the Bay Area's finest chefs, 450 wineries, and mixologists aplenty strutting their stuff.

Over the past four days, Union Square was transformed into a playground of tastings, seminars, and demonstrations from a who's who list of culinary legends, rising stars, artisans, and experts.

View from the top: Charles Phan, Thomas Keller, Douglas Keane

Sara Moulton and Cindy Pawlcyn

Martin Yan, Yan Can Cook

Top Cheftestants Jennifer Biesty and Ryan Scott

It sometimes feel like a blessing and a curse to live in a city with so many amazing restaurants to try because let's face it, who can afford to try them all? One can read about them, drool over descriptions and photos of them, and then place them on an ever-growing bucket list of places to try. The Grand Tasting Tent at SF Chefs provided the rare opportunity to hone that list, allowing participants to really taste, touch, see, and feel for themselves, a sliver of what some of these heralded restaurants are all about. The air was electric and the excitement palpable, as the wine flowed and the bites were dished out.

Monterey Squid, Chef Justin Simoneaux, Moss Room

Thai Wrap, Chef Toi Sawatdee, Lemongrass Thai Cuisine

It was interesting to see the chefs do riffs on many of the same ingredients that are in peak season right now: corn, heirloom tomatoes, melons, figs, and refreshing preparations like gazpachos and ceviches.

Bruleed Fig with Kaffir Lime Oil and Vanilla Salt, Chef Jenn Puccio, Cortez

And, there was no shortage of parties…all benefiting good causes of course: the Golden Gate Restaurant Association Scholarship Foundation, Meals on Wheels, Project Open Hand, and the San Francisco Food Bank (a member of Feeding America).

Thursday night reunited Rising Star Chefs and Bar Stars named by the San Francisco Chronicle, and a special dinner prepared by Arnold Eric Wong (E&O Trading Co.), Charles Phan (The Slanted Door/Heaven's Dog), and Martin Yan (Yan Can Cook).

Friday night honored America's Culinary Pioneers, Emily Luchetti (Farallon/Waterbar), Judy Rodgers (Zuni Café), Patricia Unterman (Hayes Street Grill), Joyce Goldstein (author and restaurateur), and Chuck Williams (Williams-Sonoma). There was also Out in the Fog, a celebration of the diverse LGBT community, at Elizabeth Falkner's Orson. It was chic, it was sexy, and it had a giant projection of Julia baking a cake on the wall.

Party time went strong through Saturday night, and the tasting tent was bumping with DJ Chef Hubert Keller laying down some beats at the Urban BBQ. Rock Star.

DJ Chef Hubert Keller

God forbid that dancing put anyone in a negative calorie count. The night continued at a Chocolate Enchantment after-party, complete with a floor to ceiling spinning display of chocolate decadence.

SF Chefs chocolate enchantment

This weekend's festivities were a true celebration of the unique culinary spirit of San Francisco, bringing together a community of both industry and non-industry people through a common love of food. It was a treat to have executive chefs live and in person, serving their dishes and chatting about their food, or seeing them interact with one another and catching a glimpse of that intriguing "chef's world" that has captured our imagination. We are a city that loves our food, and by direct association, honors the craftsmen and -women who bring joy through food.

SF Chefs. Food. Wine. hit on a winning combination of accessibility to hometown celeb-status chefs, utterly delicious food, fine wine, education, and awareness of important issues in food politics. It was fun, multi-faceted, and full of passion. It was, in a nutshell, San Francisco.

Ding-ding

10:30 a.m. on a weekday morning is not my usual cocktail hour. But with a cheerful SF Chefs. Food. Wine volunteer saying "Breakfast is served!" as he placed a cute pink drink in front of me, well, what could I do?

It was, after all, educational. The drink was a raspberry rum daisy, made with white rum, lemon, and raspberries, an olden-days cocktail made artisanally up-to-date through the use of small-batch Caribbean-style Baptiste rum and a locally made fruit syrup sweetened with raw cane sugar and thickened with gum arabic, that secret weapon of molecular gastronomy. And the occasion was Cocktails Get Into the Mix , an exploration of the past and present state of West Coast cocktail culture, moderated by Alcademics editor Camper English. In conversation with English was Duggan McDonnell of Cantina and Thad Vogler of the upcoming Bar Agricole.

Drawing a contrast between the technique-obsessed, traditionalist, authenticity-driven New York style of places like Milk and Honey, Death & Co. and the more free-wheeling, flavor-inspired California vibe, Duggan laughed, admitting, "We're more of a hot mess behind the bar." But both Vogler and McDonnell gave New York City its props, saying they'd both learned a tremendous amount about how even the simplest decisions--what sort of ice to use, whether to double-strain (using a cocktail strainer first, a fine tea strainer second)--can make a dramatic difference in the final result.

But, much like our restaurants, the current West Coast cocktail scene is driven by the extensive, year-round availability of amazing produce. "We eat and drink incredibly well here, we're tasting things constantly," noted McDonnell, who connects this vibrant, terrior-driven food culture with the rise in inventive, market-driven cocktail menus.

These drinks may look simple, but much of the work happens after hours, with bartenders simmering their own herb- or spice-infused syrups, amassing collections of quirky amari (the bitter digestive liqueurs beloved by true cocktail geeks), even growing (or bartering for) herbs, fruits, or seasonings. For bartenders less interested in getting in touch with their inner chef, there's Small Hand Foods run by Jennifer Colliau, a bartender at the Slanted Door, whose Berkeley-based company creates "classic ingredients for pre-prohibition cocktails," including grenadine, gum syrup, orgeat, and pineapple and raspberry syrups. All are made in small batches using raw cane sugar (no corn syrup) and no artificial ingredients.

As the group of us sipped our rosy daisies (flavored with Colliau's raspberry gum syrup), Vogler pointed out the difficulty of sourcing spirits that haven't come though the big industrial distillers. Even small-batch labels often buy their base spirit--neutral alcohols usually derived from grain--from big producers, then redistill, infuse and flavor it to their own specifications. This, he noted, was behind the simple but surprisingly inflammatory decision of Oakland's Camino restaurant to yank vodka from their bar menu, instead carrying only a small selection of spirits and seasonal ingredients. (They've since found a small distillery that meets their standards.) When California-grown limes weren't available, the bar used lemons. This caused quite a stir in the press and blogosphere around town, as diners happy to dig into free-range rabbit and sustainable sardines were incensed at not being able to order their usual vodka tonic.

"You have to throw out a lot of stuff if you decide not use anything with artificial flavors or colors, or high-fructose corn syrup," said Vogler, who worked on Camino's cocktail program. That meant no Campari, no maraschino cherries, almost none of the usual fizzy mixers. It's annoying sometimes, admits Vogler, but also fun, more like being a pastry chef with 5 or 6 creations a day than a typical bartender.

Another difference in the East Coast/West Coast throwdown: the pervasive Latin and Asian influences here, and the predominance of tequila, sake, soju and other similar liquors here in lieu of the whiskeys, bourbons, port and sherries more popular in New York. At Cantina, McDonnell noted, the two most popular cocktails are Asian-Latin mashups: the 5-Spice Margarita, and the Latin Buddha, which blends Buddha's Hand citrus vodka with serrano chiles and ginger beer.

A lengthy cocktail competition during the midday food-and-wine tasting seemed to prove nearly all these points. In an Iron-Chef-styled move, the 3 bartenders had to whip up, on the spot, an original cocktail featuring a secret ingredient. The ingredient? Fresh herbs, from dill and rosemary to purple basil and fennel flowers and sage. The winner, Nick Varacalli's "Pass me the lemon, honey" matched lemon thyme with honey-sweetened bourbon, a bit of Canton ginger liqueur, fresh lemon, sweet vermouth, and bitters. A little fresh, a little sweet, a little bitter, and some herb to top it off: what could be more Californian?

Today's food-scape is a rich tapestry woven from a multitude of little ideas and small stories: tradition, history, science, art, and human ingenuity colliding on plates at the intersection of major political and social issues. The individual strands of this loom-y metaphor are people. They aren't always clearly visible until you look closely. People need food to survive, and in ancient times, communities were endlessly preoccupied with finding things to eat and figuring out how to cook them. Civilizations would form and thrive around the domestication of a single species of animal. Proud eating traditions have sprung from time-honed preparation techniques born of necessity. Great celebrations still honor the harvest and hunt. For evidence, look no further than Thanksgiving and the Gilroy Garlic Festival. There's a gulf between pounding poi in Polynesia and nudging a grocery cart through Whole Foods, but the parallels persist even amid changing times and circumstance: we have always been defined by how we eat -- as individuals, families, neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries. Food used to be seen as fuel; now, it's a mirror, and everything we stuff down our face-holes shows us more about ourselves and the way we live.

The view of Guerrero from inside 18 Reasons

18 Reasons, the Bi Rite-affiliated gallery space on Guerrero near 18th Street, has made such conscious, well-examined consumption its mission, offering exhibitions, lectures, tastings, and classes to draw clear bright lines between food, people, and place, existing essentially as the embodiment of its intention, as a local meeting spot for people who love food and want to talk about it, share what they know, and learn from others. The gallery has received some local press love but this summer's offerings deserve special mention.

Morgan Maki starting on the lamb

Last week, I attended the second part of a Lamb Butchery and Sausage Making class taught by Bi Rite butcher Morgan Maki, the same guy who schooled folks in Stock Theory and Knife Skills a few months ago. The first session saw a 5-foot-long 45 pound lamb broken down and whittled into chops, roasts, and other cuts for cookery. I missed that one due to illness but the pictures tell enough of the story for you to get the basic idea. It came in whole and left in chunks. Maki dropped some anatomy knowledge. Everyone ate cheese and drank wine. When I arrived at the second session, the students were chopping the trimmings from that depleted carcass, sleeves rolled up, ties tucked, and jewelry removed. It was a Tuesday night, and most had clearly come straight from work and were dutifully taxing the bottles of merlot making the rounds. The gallery's clean white walls were bare, awaiting the summer show (Julie Duffoo's semi-gristly Meatpaper photographs of local butchers). The only exhibit on display was the whirl of activity, something like a party happening around the sturdy wooden table in the center of the room: sausage as social sculpture.

Gathering around the grinder

As Maki spoke, some of the attendees frantically scribbled on yellow legal pads. A few people hung back against the walls, silent, literally watching others watch and talk. Most crowded around the table for a shot at slicing, or volunteered to help grind once the ingredients were assembled. "This is probably used in extreme interrogation techniques," quipped one dude as he eyed the sausage stuffing apparatus.

The sausage, ground

People capable of paying 60 dollars to learn how Bi Rite butchers make sausages using $2000 grinders can afford to buy sausage at Bi Rite any time they want. They don't need to learn how to make sausage at home in order to save money or make their lives easier. Prussian statesman Otto Von Bismarck (an abundantly mustached practitioner of Realpolitik who probably put away many many sausages in his day) famously compared the crafting of laws to the processing of sausages. There was once the idea that people wouldn't want to eat sausage if they saw how it was made. Now, people want to know where they can find fresh pork blood and a good deal on a professional grinder.

Those who show up at 18 Reasons for something like this aren't just amassing knowledge for themselves. They're making a personal investment in an enduring artisanal tradition and, by extension, a community. "The more people that use this space the healthier it will be," said Maki when I asked him what he wanted out of the gallery. The neighborhood has definitely taken notice. Every person walking past with laundry and grocery bags stops to peer in. Maybe they all won't shell out the ducats for a class but they'll maybe come to a free event, or at least read up on something they saw posted on the board outside.

If you want to get involved, now is a good time. Classes on the horizon promise to please. On Tuesday, July 7, Maki will teach the first section of a two-part course on Pig Butchery and Curing, in which participants will learn the basics of swine disassembly as well as several principles and techniques of curing in preparation for smoking or curing. The cost is $60 for non-members. Buy your tickets here.

Photos by Michael V. Chopko

Mostaccioli with pork shoulder ragu

I've been making meat sauces for years, but only now -- after two months as an apprentice at Oliveto -- have I learned some of the secrets behind a superlative ragu.

A ragu is a basic meat sauce for pasta. The first authentic version I tried was years ago, in Emilia-Romagna, the region of Italy that invented the classic Bolognese sauce.

That first ragu was bold and brooding -- much like a Pavarotti opera. The sauce was entangled in a nest of perfectly cooked tagliatelle, with the flavor infused into the noodle.

Numerous cookbooks offer suggestions on making a Bolognese sauce and other forms of ragu. Yet nearly all of these recipes, in my opinion, are flawed. Most suggest cooking a mixture of diced onion, carrots and celery before adding your meat to brown it. The sauce that results tends to be lifeless or, even worse, infused with chunks of burnt vegetables.

Vegetables sweating on top of meat as the meat brown

At Oliveto, the chefs have reversed the sequence. First they brown the meat and then allow the vegetables to steam, or "sweat," on top of the meat. This process produces a dark layer of caramelized meat solids at the bottom of the pan -- a foundation of flavor. This foundation, or "fond" as the chefs call it, is then deglazed by the natural juices of the vegetables when added on top. This is allowed to cook down so the fond is rebuilt and deglazed two or three times.

Paul Bertolli, the former head chef at Oliveto, describes the technique in his 2003 book, "Cooking By Hand." Bertolli's successor, Paul Canales, who had a role in developing this technique, has continued to refine and perfect it since becoming executive chef.

Cooking a ragu in this manner is not difficult, but it cannot be whipped out in an hour or two. A ragu is truly slow food -- time-tested and refined by Italian grandmothers over many centuries.

Ragu ready for a long simmer, after broth and tomato paste have been added

Ragu for pasta

Makes: 8-10 servings of sauce

Ingredients:
2 pounds ground meat (Beef, pork or equal amounts of both. For beef, try ground chuck or get adventurous with ground hanger steak, beef cheeks, etc. For the pig, try ground pork shoulder.)
4 medium yellow onions
5 stalks celery
5 carrots
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh oregano
6 cups dark chicken or veal stock
½ cup white wine
½ cup high-quality tomato paste
1 cup cream (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Dice the onions, celery and carrots into a mirepoix -- cubes smaller than 1/4 inch in size. As you are dicing the vegetables and mincing the fresh herbs, start cooking your meat. Use a heavy bottomed Dutch oven or stew pot. This is essential. The bottom of the pan has to be thick and heavy enough to brown the meat, without scorching it.

2. Use high heat to start your browning process. But keep an eye on it, and adjust the flame accordingly. It’s okay for the meat to stick and brown, but you don't want it to blacken or burn.

3. After you have built an even layer of fond on the bottom, toss your vegetables on top of the meat. Leave them there for at least 15 minutes, allowing them to release their juices to the bottom of the pan.

4. Give your meat and vegetable a rigorous stir with a wooden spoon, and scrape up the fond layer that has now been deglazed by the vegetables.

5. Turn up heat slightly, and allow this to cook down and brown again, then add a shot of wine -- no more than a cup. Stir and scrape.

6. Allow this to cook down again. When browned, add a cup of stock. Repeat the process and add your tomato paste, diluted with a half cup of stock.

7. Watch your ragu carefully at this point. The addition of tomato paste could lead to scorching. Keep the heat up, but stir it regularly as the fond starts to reform. When it is nice and brown, but not scorched, add two or three cups of stock -- enough to make it slightly more soupy than you'd want for a sauce.

8. At this point, your ragu should have a lovely, brownish-red color. Bring it to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Allow it to simmer for two to four hours, stirring occasionally and adding more stock, if necessary.

9. Before serving, you have the option of adding cream -- as much or as little as you want. Too much cream will dilute the intensity of the sauce, so be judicious at first.

10. You can take this basic sauce in many different directions. Add minced porcini mushrooms early in the cooking for an earthier flavor, or cinnamon or nutmeg to give it a spicy edge. Use different combinations of fresh herbs.

11. The final step, of course, is marrying the ragu with the pasta. Don't just ladle it on top. Cook your pasta just short of al dente, then mix it thoroughly in a skillet with an appropriate amount of sauce and then serve it immediately. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top, and you will be ready to sing.

This is what ragu should look like when finished