La Mar kitchen crew. Chef de Cuisine Dennis Arvizu is second from right. Photo courtesy of Dennis Arvizu

La Mar Cebichería Peruana, on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, will celebrate its third birthday on September 25. Live music from a Criolla band and complimentary shots of Pisco Sour will be served up for all dining guests for this shindig. Reservations are recommended if you plan on eating at a table; the lounge will be come as you are.

La Mar’s Chef de Cuisine Dennis Arvizu caught up with Bay Area Bites via email interview while in the midst of planning for the birthday. La Mar has a new menu with lower dish prices, and is meant for tapas style sharing. Signature Peruvian dishes as cebiches, anticuchos, causas and lomo saltado are part of this updated menu. Arvizu said of the updated plates that, “Aji Amarillo and Aji Panca bring the Peruvian essence to every bite.”

The East Bay resident is originally from San Diego and had food leanings at an early age. “I grew up going across the border to Baja California. I remember standing in long lines waiting for my morning tacos. Nothing beat a hand made tortilla, and fresh salsa. This was usually the routine before heading out to sea on fishing trips with my dad. We’d catch fish, clean them out and try the meat right on the boat. Every fish had its own flavor. These trips led to my curiosity of the culinary world.”

Arvizu has worked at Mariposa in Coral Gables, L’Ecole and Rosa Mexicano in Manhattan, and staged for two summers in Mexico. He attended UC Santa Cruz, where he met his girlfriend of over six years, Mariana, who is a Bay Area native. The two remained friendly when Arvizu decided to finish college in Southern California. “After graduating from the University of San Diego, I attended The French Culinary Institute in New York City. Next I ventured off to South Florida and got a feel for Caribbean cuisine and introduced to Peruvian cuisine. I moved to the Bay Area in July of 2008 to work for La Mar.” The chef plans to travel to Spain in the spring of next year.

Dennis Arvizu and Mariana Sanchez in Napa. Photo courtesy of Dennis Arvizu

Where do you source ingredients for the restaurant?
We work closely with Monterey Fish Market and Royal Hawaiian to maintain the highest level of quality. Our Peruvian ingredients are harder to source than most other foreign ingredients. We import all our bases from Peru. Due to the novelty of this cuisine in the states, Peruvian products are limited.

Tell us about the restaurant’s new Lonchera “on the go” menu from La Mar’s café:
Our goal with the café is to capture the essence of La Mar’s flavors in a to-go package for customers. “La Lonchera” (the lunch box) consists of a Peruvian sandwich, a choice of a side salad or house-made chips and salsa, and an Alfajor (cookie).

What are your favorite food & drink spots?
I’m a fan of tapas, in a more casual environment. In Oakland, there is Barlata, with an extensive menu. Their gambas al Ajillo are spectacular. In the city there is LaLoLa Bar de Tapas, with a smaller menu. I can never pass up their patatas bravas. On weekends, I go to the local Taqueria Los Gallos for home-style Menudo.

Guiltiest food pleasure?
Homemade tortilla chips and salsa made in a molcajete.

What is your favorite meal to have with friends and/or family?
Growing up, my father and I always cooked outdoors over a wood-fire grill. One of the favorites was “Pescado Zarandeado,” which is a whole fish butterflied, marinated in chiles and spices, grilled and served family style in the center of the table.

Kitchen at Headland Center for the Arts

Sometimes, being a single, freelancing, non-home-owner with an old car and no kids can have its benefits. Like the opportunity to move into a tent in Santa Cruz to be an apprentice farmer at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UCSC for six months; couldn't have done that with a mortgage to pay. Or now, my latest adventure, being a live-in cook-intern in the kitchen at the Headlands Center for the Arts, just across the bridge in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

For those of you who haven't made the fifteen-minute drive over the water lately, the Headlands Center for the Arts is an artists' residency program occupying a collection of former military buildings in the Marin Headlands. Built in 1907, the buildings were abandoned by the military in 1972. In the late 1970s, an intrepid group of local artists began to renovate them for use. By 1982, the Center had a board of directors, and by 1985, it was granting commissions for renovations of everything from the latrines to the Mess Hall to the storage depot. Now, nearly 30 years later, the place is a well-recognized part of the Bay Area art scene, attracting artists from all around the world for its residency program.

Mess Hall Dining Room

There are lots of good things about being an artist in residence here. Time, unfettered time, time to breathe and think, look and hear and create. A studio for work, an airy room for sleep, the folded, elephantine hills of the Headlands and the whole Pacific ocean laid out at your feet. The rattle of the eucalyptus leaves and the shriek of the wild turkeys at night, the deer browsing under the fog-dripping cypress branches in the early morning. Support and appreciation for your work and its whims, wherever it takes you.

And, of course, you get fed, an organic, made-from-scratch, sit-down dinner cooked for you, your fellow artists, and your guests four nights a week, plus a mid-day brunch on Sundays, cooked and served in the Mess Hall, itself designed into a particularly warm community space by artist Anne Hamilton. Nearly everything on the table is local: those frilly, multi-colored little lettuces picked yesterday at County Line Harvest in Petaluma, the whole-wheat sesame-sourdough bread baked in the kitchen twice a week by Eduardo Morell in the wood-burning brick oven designed by Alan Scott. When you get peckish, or bored, in need of coffee and conversation (or wifi), you can dawdle in the Mess Hall, foraging for last night's leftovers (mmm, salmon! Mexican wedding cookies!) and chatting up the kitchen staff: myself, fellow intern Damon Little, and head chef Keith Mercovich.

Wood-burning brick oven designed by Alan Scott

We'll probably be chopping huge piles of chard, skinning halibut, shucking oysters or hulling strawberries for tarts. We might be making things from scratch that you didn't know could be made from scratch, like macaroni, or hot dogs, or bacon. We might be laying out sides of salmon on a bed of fennel for gravlax, kneading dough for Tuesday's pizza night, slicing multicolored, palm-sized tomatoes, or stirring up caramel gelato. Whatever we're busy with, you'll be having it for dinner in just a few hours.

Stephanie Shares Pizza-Making Tips from the Headlands. Video: Laiko Bahrs

Of course, I feel a little guilty writing about this, since the artists' dinner at the Headlands isn't open to the public. Only artists, staff, and a limited number of their guests can attend a typical weeknight dinner, much to the chagrin of the hikers and hostel-stayers who wander in, draw by the smells and conviviality. But there are ways to get a seat at the table. You can become a member, which gets you invited to the quarterly members' dinners with the artists. You can come to one of the Headlands' public programs, which often include an optional dinner or brunch. You can do what I did, and volunteer during one of the public programs, which earns you a meal. (Naturally, I volunteered in the kitchen, but there are always varied volunteer slots open for any given event.) This Sunday, in fact, I'll be one of a group of artists leading a series of hikes, each with a different theme around the area, followed by brunch in the Mess Hall.

Such will be my Sunday: up early to make Jonagold apple coffee cake for 75, lead my hike for an hour, then return to the kitchen, put my apron back on, help finish cooking and serving, eat, then wash dishes and help clean the kitchen, getting it ready for dinner prep the following day. In between, deep breaths of the clear, ocean-scented air, particularly lovely now that our equinoctial summer has arrived, banishing (most of) the brooding fog at long last. It's part supper club, part dinner party, part co-op (dessert doesn't appear until after everyone has pitched in to help with the dishes), but it all comes together to make a community.

Stephanie Rosenbaum will be leading "Plants of Pleasure, Plants of Pain," a visual foraging hike about the area's edible and poisonous plants as part of the Desire Trails program on Sunday, Sept 25, at 1pm, followed by brunch at 3pm. The hike is free; brunch is $15 for Headlands members, $20 for the public.

The towers were there, shining. Growing up some 25 miles from New York City, I knew them as part of the landscape, two blocky, unimaginably tall sentries, two slabs flashing gold and bronze in the afternoon sun, ungainly anchors on the skyline. Every time we drove to the city, they were there, poised across the river.

And then, they were not there. I still remember that first reaction. They were so huge. How could they just be gone? In 2001, I'd been living in San Francisco for eleven years, getting back to New York once a year, if that, for business or family. On that day, I did what so many of us did: made panicked phone calls to everyone I knew back East, my mother who could have been in the city that morning, my brother-in-law who flew American every other week for work, my friends who lived downtown. I sat with my best friend, who lived in the same Valencia Street apartment building as I did, holding her young daughter on my lap. My friend held her 4-day-old son in her arms, and wondered what sort of a world she had brought him into. At Citysearch, where I'd just started as the restaurants editor a few days before, we sat numbly at our computers, wondering what we could possibly write about.

Windows on the World in the North Tower was gone. The longtime destination restaurant was famed for its views and its wine list, for being the place where, as former Gourmet editor and New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl wrote in New York magazine, New Yorkers who could handle the sky-high prices rode the elevator up to the 107th floor to order "like a Master of the Universe: oysters heaped with pearls of caviar, whole lobes of foie gras in Sauternes, burnished ducks and butter-braised lobsters." During the 80s, my father frequently went there for wine tastings with some of the city's best wine writers and sommeliers, coming home star-struck and high on Burgundy and Bordeaux.

When the tower went down, dozens of staff working the morning shift lost their lives, including Heather Ho, the restaurant's new, and talented, 32-year-old pastry chef, a native of Hawaii who had been named a Chronicle Rising Star chef in 1999.

During my four-year stint as the restaurant critic for San Francisco magazine, I'd eaten her charming, witty versions of all-American desserts, like lemon icebox cake, while she was making a name for herself at Boulevard. The magazine named her the city's best pastry chef in 2000. She'd left Boulevard at the end of May, 2001 to start her new job in New York. As Amy Machnak, who replaced Ho at Boulevard, told the LA Times a year later,

"My first day was her last day. She was testing recipes, playing around with a new dessert. I thought: 'How strange that she is leaving and going to New York for this really great job, and she's still testing recipes. But I look back at it now and I understand that she was just that creative. I don't think her mind ever stopped."

A month after the attacks, benefits at Boulevard and the now-closed Aqua (where Ho had also worked) raised over $40,000 for the newly created Heather Ho Memorial Scholarship at the Culinary Institute of America, where she had studied.

San Francisco's chefs and restaurants weren't right in the dust-choked disaster zone as their New York city counterparts were. They couldn't struggle through blocked-off streets towards Ground Zero with pots of chili and hotel pans full of chicken to feed the firefighters, rescue workers, and volunteers working there day after day. But the restaurant industry is a tight-knit community. How many San Francisco chefs and line cooks, dishwashers, hosts, sommeliers and servers, had worked in New York City at some point in their careers, had friends and colleagues who were suddenly gone? Too many to count.

The flashy, crazy money of the first, late-90s dot-com boom--and the entitlement and ridiculous luxury that it precipitated-- was already vanishing by the end of the summer of 2001. But things changed faster after that day in the September. Despite the excess that anyone who worked in a SoMa start-up at that time may remember (the Industry Standard's weekly rooftop party, the splashy launch bashes, the sushi spreads and $1200 bottles of Screaming Eagle), it's hard not to look back at those pre-9/11 years as having a certain innocence, a certain invincibility, however undeserved, that we shared with New York City during those boom years.

Now, when bad times hit, it's the restaurants and chefs in the Bay Area who step up. Benefits held in San Francisco and beyond for victims of Katrina, of the tsunami, of the recent earthquake and subsequent devastation in Japan, and more have raised high-profile millions over the years. Smaller, more low-key but just as crucial fund-raisers happen every day, with chefs, food writers, bloggers, farmers, and restaurant owners spending their time and money to help out their communities. It's easy to feel a little cynical about the sanctimonious patriotism and packaging of this 10-year anniversary of 9/11. But a few days ago, I went out to Crissy Field to celebrate the 10th birthday of that boy born just a few days before the towers came down. It's his future we're shaping now, his community we're building. So today, on this day of remembrance, I'm going to cook and bring my chosen family here to eat together. And I'm going to thank everyone I know in the food industry, the most generous people I've ever met.

Carlo Petrini, Slow Food founder/president and Corby Kummer, food writer/interpreter

Twenty years ago Carlo Petrini, founded Slow Food in an effort to resist McDonalds efforts to erect the Golden Arches in one of the most historical areas of Rome. Since then Petrini's work has spawned an international movement aimed at overhauling global food systems that he says are unhealthy and way out of balance. Petrini gave an impassioned lecture at U.C. Berkeley Tuesday night. While he spoke in vivid Italian, food writer Corby Kummer interpreted. Petrini seemed the perfect choice to inagurate the first class of Edible Education 101: The Rise and the Future of the Food Movement. The course is being co-taught by J-school professor, and author, Michael Pollan and Executive Director of People's Grocery in West Oakland, Nikki Henderson. The premise of the class is that food is political. Students and members of the public are given a chance to explore pressing issues such as food access, distribution and nutrition.

UC Berkeley students checking in for Edible Education

Student enrollment for the 13-week course filled up within minutes. The popular classes are also being offered to the public, free of charge and Bon Appétit Management Co. (BAMCO) is sponsoring the webcast on YouTube. In the audience Tuesday night were freshman Bridget Smith and Sarah Branoff. They said they are taking the course because, as undergrads, they don't usually get a chance to take a journalism class at Berkeley. They both like food and baking and have never even heard of Alice Waters. Waters' Chez Panisse Foundation is helping fund the class. David Park is a Venture Capitalist from Foster City. Park, who puts together health and wellness portfolios, says he is always on the lookout for who to hire and who to fund in the food and nutrition arena. Claudia Weisburd, another member of the public, is interested in how the course promises to integrate environmentalists, social justice activists and foodies.

I'm used to seeing these rock stars of the food movement on TV talk shows and not a scuffed up college stage in front of a white screen with no graphics but somehow Petrini kept everyone's attention. The International Slow Food founder talked about how there are two worlds, one where people get too much to eat and another that doesn't get enough to eat. He talked about gastronomy and how recipes are only one small part. Agriculture, anthropology and political economics are all part of gastronomy. What Petrini wants to do is fix the bad parts of the engine of gastronomy. He said right now, around the world, one billion people are suffering from hunger and in the U.S. we are throwing away twenty-two tons of food a day. For many of us with access to food, we have become locked into diets that are making us sick. Petrini says if you understand food politics you can help create change.

Here are some new paradigms he mentioned:

• Strengthen reciprocity -- Community supported agriculture is an example of this. You give money to a farmer and when he, or she, has it, they give you produce they have grown in return. Petrini's Slow Food movement is working to connect local food communities around the world.
• Share community tools. Why should every house have a shovel or a lawnmower?
• Give more value to the people who produce food. Petrini calls farmers the intellectuals of the earth.
• Give more value to food. Don't waste it.

The goal, says Petrini, is a world in which we stop consuming so much but also help those struggling so that they can have more. Petrini told the audience consuming less doesn't mean you will be less happy. "You will be more happy," he said.

Next week's class, which is already filled up, features film and theater director Peter Sellars. He will be discussing Food as Culture: the role of culture and the arts in deepening and strengthening the social and political roots of the food movement.

In the late summer, a baker’s fancy turns to thoughts of pie. Everywhere you look in the markets, you’re confronted with gorgeous fruit in season.

Naturally, this is the time of year to hold pie contests. The 5th Annual Mission Pie Contest pulled in 20 hopefuls on Sunday, and the people who showed up were as varied as the pies they brought to the competition.

Mission Pie co-owner Krystin Rubin preps the contenders. Can you tell which one will win Best in Show? Hint: it’s staring you right in the face!

After the judges got an eyeful of the complete pie (appearance was a key judging factor), Mission Pie co-owner Krystin Rubin cut them open. You’d think, as a professional, she’d cast a jaundiced eye over some of the sloppier entrants, but no. “Each one is just a delight to encounter. The amount of care that’s gone into each one of these... Really, it’s touching to me, how seriously all the contestants are taking this.”

While the judges tasted and took notes in the kitchen, the contenders and their supporters dove into the rest of the pies laid out in the front room.

Checking out the competition while the judges deliberate back in the kitchen.

Callie Arnold, a pre-school teacher currently from West Marin, made a chocolate cherry pie. She acknowledged preemptively that the recipe makes for a pie that’s “a little soupy,” but that’s exactly why she thinks it works. Arnold loves how the cherry juices run out and mix with the chocolate. Years of practice have made her confident of this pie’s charms, but she harbored doubts when I talked to her, right after she tasted the Shaker Lemon.

The Shaker Lemon.

Clothing designer Michelle Tannenbaum of San Francisco was also worried about the Shaker Lemon. She made a galette with plums, pluots, and Mission, Adriatic and Kadota figs. The filling came courtesy of Knoll Farms, the famous fig producer from Brentwood. OK, so I’m biased, because I did a story on them two years ago for NPR and I was blown away by their fruit. Tannenbaum was more than blown away. After years of arriving at the open of the Ferry Building Farmers' Market to get first crack at their fruit, she finally began selling for the Knolls at their stand. The habit is cheaper that way.

With 20 pies on the table, Judge Patricia Hewitt has got to take careful notes.

Back in the kitchen, the judging continued. Filmmaker Kyle Garrett recently started The 7 Squared Project, a documentary series highlighting non-profit and otherwise “purposeful” businesses in San Francisco. Mission Pie, with its mission driven approach to community building, is one of his subjects. Of course, I had to ask him about the Shaker Lemon. Garrett thought it “pretty spectacular,” even though he’s not a huge lemon fan. “It was kind of crisp and chewy at the same time. The flavor was not overpowering.“

Judge Kyle Garrett clears his palette with a sip of water.

While there were professional bakers on the judging panel, (Michelle Pusateri of Nana Joe's Granola and Mission Pie’s Sharon Litzky) Mission Pie’s co-owners Krystin Rubin and Karen Heisler like to make sure non-professionals are well represented, too. Each year, the previous year’s winner is invited to judge. Patricia Hewitt won the contest last year with a honey pie, made with honey from her own bee hive. “A honey mousse pie, really. With a very flaky crust.”

The Emperor Norton

Hewitt was immediately taken with the concept of the Emperor Norton, a chocolate nut concoction. “It’s incredibly sweet and nutty, and Emperor Norton probably was sweet and nutty, too. I’m really thrilled to see someone incorporating the history of San Francisco into a San Franciscan pie contest.”

There must be some way to find the metaphoric significance in the toughness of the crust as it relates to the character of the famous 19th century oddball, but I can’t think of it off-hand. Somebody had to hold the plate down, so Hewitt could make off with a bite of the Emperor Norton using her compostable fork. Still, she was smitten.

After 90 minutes, with the crowd in the front room buzzed with restless energy. They’d already fixed on their pick for People’s Choice. But the judges in the kitchen took their time, deliberating earnestly.

Everybody loved the flaky crust on the Shaker lemon, but only on top. The bottom was gummy, and in a pie contest, anything less than a dynamite crust will take you out of the running. The judges waxed lyrical about the crust on a lime blackberry Italian meringue that “revealed itself in layers.” Best Crust by a unanimous vote.

Emperor Norton walked away with Most Creative. But the crown for Best in Show went to something entirely different, an unassuming pie with none of the visual flash or dazzle of its competitors. It was, one judge said later, “a sleeper.”

When the group got to the Coffee Break Pie, they all murmured the word “love” in unison. Even though one judge worried the taste was so “classic,” there was a good chance this pie came straight from an old recipe book. As if that would be a problem. Executing a pie recipe properly is no small feat.

The judge needn’t have worried. Coffee Break Pie did not exist before Sunday.

Sarah Jones takes the crown to thunderous applause.

For the past two weeks, Sarah Jones of Dallas (and more recently Palo Alto) has been baking “non-stop.” She baked every night, and ate pie for breakfast, searching for the perfect recipe. Her colleagues in accounting at Apple have also been gamely gaining weight in support of her bid.

Jones found something close in Bon Appetit: a recipe for caramel coffee creme brulee. And then she found another, for a salty honey pie.

“So I basically took a salty honey recipe, substituted caramel that was infused with coffee for the honey and then did a Biscoff cream (creamed cookies, people!) and sea salt." She had been looking for Nutella in the market and came across the Biscoff instead...

“At the last minute, I decided to lighten it up with the Biscoff cream, and I think that helped cut the sweetness a little bit.”

“I was so afraid,” Jones said, “because everybody had fruit, and I was going to go fruit. And I just decided, you know, I’m going to go really rich.”

She must have been gauging the tenor of the room, because the People’s Choice was indeed fruity to the max: Ru Cymrot-Wu’s Olallieberry and Peach.

Ru Cymrot-Wu wins the People’s Choice award

Two awards for summer fruit. Two for rich and creamy. In all honesty, they were all of them poetry on a plate. In this kind of a contest, everybody wins.

The Edible Schoolyard kitchen classroom at Hunters Point. Photo courtesy of ESY HP.

Who hasn't heard of The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley? But many here may not know about another affiliated program in the Bay Area, The Edible Schoolyard at the San Francisco Boys and Girls Club in Hunters Point, which offers children in that food insecure community a chance to grow their own food, cook it, and eat it too.

The Hunters Point Willie Mays Clubhouse afterschool program is getting a little extra exposure and financial assistance in conjunction with the 40th birthday celebrations for Chez Panisse. Earlier this week, the Today Show aired a segment with Alice Waters and Edible Schoolyard supporter actor Jake Gyllenhaal that was filmed at the Hunters Point program.

Tomorrow, as part of the Eating for Education campaign to raise awareness about and money for school gardens, San Francisco restaurants Bar Agricole, Bar Jules, Contigo, Delfina, and Zuni -- along with coffee companies Blue Bottle and Four Barrel -- will donate a percentage of the day's profits to the Hunters Point school garden and cooking program serving some 250 mostly low-income children of color from elementary age through to high school. The Bayview-Hunters Point area of the city is known more for fast food than fresh food; only about five percent of food sold in the neighborhood is considered fresh.

Ace fundraiser and Chez alum Samin Nosrat is in charge of the Eating for Education effort, a nation-wide, one-day event (find a complete list of participants on the Eating for Education site.)

For many restauranteurs, participating was a no-brainer. "The Boys and Girls Club in Hunters Point is a model program and this is a cause that's important to us," said Brett Emerson of Contigo. "Showcasing for children in a fun and engaging way the fundamentals of nutrition, respect for those that grow our food and passion for eating is key."

Another Chez alum, Gilbert Pilgrim of Zuni, chimed in: "We believe that people will eat in a healthy manner if they start doing it while they are young. This is a worthy cause that deserves all our support."

For the Boys and Girls Club, the campaign is an opportunity to connect with chefs and reach others in the food movement who value edible education for youth, said Brittany Johnson, a spokesperson for the organization.

While Zuni is full for Saturday night, Contigo still has room for both reservations and walk-ins who want to eat well -- and support edible education at the same time.

Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Alice Waters clutches garlic and talks up edible education while Levi's President and Chez Panisse fan Robert Hanson looks on.

All photos: Wendy Goodfriend

Unless you've been living in a cave the last week or two you likely know that a certain iconic restaurant in Berkeley is celebrating its 40th birthday this weekend.

Iconic owner of iconic eatery has been here, there, and everywhere in the past week or two. SEO-friendly translation: Alice Waters of Chez Panisse has chatted with former Chez chefs on KQED's Forum, dished on supping solo on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and got dirty with Hollywood heartthrob and Edible Schoolyard supporter Jake Gyllenhaal on the Today Show, where she was interviewed by Jenna Bush Hager — yes, that Jenna Bush — at The Edible Schoolyard at the San Francisco Boys and Girls Club in Hunters Point, one of several affiliates to the original Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley.

She's also been the subject of not one but two lengthy retrospectives in the San Francisco Chronicle and graced the pages of many glossies this month, with more major print media to come this weekend when the Chez Panisse 40th birthday celebrations kick off.

Today, however, Waters took to the streets of San Francisco -- in Maiden Lane off Union Square no less -- to serve lunch, sell T-shirts, and sign books.

On the menu: School lunch, of course, or Waters' vision of what school lunch should be. The boxed lunches were a fundraiser for the newly named nonprofit Edible Schoolyard Project, a national organization designed to integrate garden and kitchen education into grade-school curriculum. Suggested donation: $5 a pop for a box and 400 lunches sold out within an hour or so. In the mix: Smoked pulled chicken baguette (featuring Soul Food Farm chicken, Dirty Girl Farm shallot and Early Girl tomato, and Little City Gardens herbs and baby, frilly mustard greens) with harissa and aioli. The sandwich was accompanied by La Tercera cucumber pickles and radish, along with Knoll Farms figs, Lagier Ranches Bronx grapes, and Happy Quail Farms peppers. For veggies: Pounded lemon thyme pistou with iacopi butter bean mash, Dirty Girl tomatoes, pickled vegetables, and aforementioned frilly mustard greens. And to wash all those organic veggies down, a refreshing drink of Full Belly Farm yellow doll watermelon with anise hyssop and lime juice.

Got all that? There will be a quiz after lunch. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Chez chefs were all too busy prepping for the weekend galas to whip up lunch today, which was outsourced to Nicole Lobue's Lobue Events, a high-end catering company, in close consultation with Waters, of course.

Waters also teamed up with another local-gone-global icon, Levi's, to launch a limited-edition t-shirt collection (100 % organic cotton, natch) designed by Alice Waters (who 'fessed up to help from chef Sylvan Brackett on her tee) and four well-known creative types: musician David Byrne, filmmaker Sofia Coppola, author Dave Eggers and illustrator Maira Kalman. Alas, none of the luminaries were on hand this afternoon to model the $30 shirts, proceeds from the sale also support the Edible Schoolyard Project. Beginning today, the shirts are available in select Levi’s stores and online at levi.com. At lunch some 40 or so Ts were snapped up, Kalman's pie print proving as popular as Waters' apple images.

Waters addressed the crowd and the media asking: "What could be more universal than blue jeans and edible education?" To which there were no snappy rejoinders, since this is Waters' moment in the sun. Levi's honcho Robert Hanson told a story about his then-very-pregnant girlfriend insisting the couple keep a date at Chez Panisse, some years ago. That night, she gave birth to a baby girl, who's been an organic vegetarian eater ever since. Cue awww now.

It was all very lovely: Wheelbarrows full of freshly harvested produce, including ground cherries, squash, and aromatic herbs from the ESY garden, along with cute little booths. The communal tables sported linen table cloths and posies of fresh flowers. Waters sang the praises of freshly picked garlic the way she has famously waxed about a perfect peach and stressed the importance of educating all the nation's children about good food and the pleasures of the table.

The crowd was a mixed bag of die-hard Chez Panisse fans, supporters of Waters' school lunch and slow food agenda, self-described foodies -- and nearby workers who stumbled onto a good thing. Some in line said that the boxed lunch was the closest they'd ever get to Chez Panisse food, since the high-end restaurant is out of reach for many. Some had never heard of the Edible Schoolyard, offering proof that Waters' mission is far from over.

The local food legend, who signed copies of her new book 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering, shook hands with lunch-goers waiting in line to eat and promised the mellow crowd of 500 or so that anyone who missed out on a meal was invited to come eat at Chez Panisse. No word on who would foot the bill.

When asked if her offer was good, press rep David Prior, who was fairly confident that everyone who wanted a box lunch was accommodated, said: "I wouldn't be surprised. There's nothing Alice likes less than running out of food. She's all about feeding people."

Related Posts:
Chez Panisse's birthday kicks off with party to remember (Berkeleyside)

SF Street Food Festival masses feasting at Cesar Chavez Elementary School.

The 3rd annual San Francisco Street Food Festival, hosted by La Cocina took place on Saturday August 20 in the Mission District.

La Cocina is a non-profit incubator kitchen that provides affordable commercial kitchen space and industry-specific technical assistance to low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs who are launching, growing and formalizing food businesses.

The proceeds from the festival help support La Cocina's efforts as well as generate revenue for the vendors.

Due to the continuing street food trend, an increase in local food truck vendors, and the lessons learned from previous years, this third season proved to be bigger and better than ever. And although it was quite crowded the increased space, additional vendors and added accommodations seemed to be able to handle the masses. Of course, people still had to wait in line but there seemed to be more strategic planning that went into creating dedicated eating areas once food was acquired. There was also an array of entertainment to consume as well: bands, dancers, DJs. And non-edible items to purchase: shawls, I Cart Street Food garb and Mexican wrestler masks. Kid-friendly spaces were taken into account along with chain-link fenced areas to contain the 21+ drinkers. SF Bicycle Coalition was on top of bike parking and La Cocina enlisted a massive crew of volunteers to help make the festival a success.

Here are some moments captured over the course of the day:

Related Stories and Photos:
• San Francisco Street Food Festival and Conference Day One
• At San Francisco Street Food Conference, Attendees Talk Food Trucks (KQED's News Fix)
• SF Street Food Fest 2011 (Slideshow by David A. Herron)

SF Street Food Festival Passport. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

Carnivores, omnivores, and pescatarians will find plenty of food truck fare this Saturday at the third annual San Francisco Street Food Festival, which boasts some 70 trucks, carts, and purveyors peddling hand-held grub.

But does the event cater to a vegetarian crowd? Are there enough veggie options to make waiting in line worthwhile? Can a veg head find some variety among the vendors turning out finger food?

In short: Yes, yes, and yes, though plant-based eaters may have to work a little harder than the meat-eating set to find food at the event sponsored by the nonprofit incubator kitchen La Cocina.

No worries, Bay Area Bites is here to help. Regardless of how you define your diet, a few tips to make the wildly popular food festival a successful edible experience: Come early. Tote water. Bring friends (to both have company in line -- the time will pass more quickly -- and to divide and conquer so you can divvy up food to share once you've all been served.) Carry small bills (cash only) or purchase a "passport" in advance (details below).

And, need we remind locals: Wear comfy footwear and don layers to deal with whatever weather the day may bring. As for the crowd phobic and the impatient: You've been warned.

Okay, now that we have the logistical details covered, read on to discover a dozen street food vendors dishing up meat-free eats on Saturday. Several brick-and-mortar joints including Out the Door, Flour + Water, Commonwealth, Osha, and Beretta will have veg-centric options in the mix too. Here's to a finger licking fest.

SAVORY PICKS:

1. Azalina's Malaysian: Azalina Eusope, a La Cocina participant, will have peanut sauce tacos for vegetarians, with signature spices from her homeland. Heads up: Devotees of the former fine dining pastry chef's popular banana chai fritters will have to get those on another day. @Azalinamalaysia

Curry Up Now Truck at Off the Grid. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

2. Curry Up Now: Indian street eats from Rana Saluja-Kapoor, Amir Hosseini and crew. Think paneer tikka masala burritos (Indian cheese and chickpeas) and samosas, the popular Indian pastries, filled with spiced potatoes and peas. @CurryUpNow

3. Kasa Indian Eatery: Two veg-centric choices from this truck run by former lawyer Anamika Khanna and self-described geek Tim Volkema. Gobi aloo rolls, house-made roti filled with braised cauliflower and potatoes, spiced with cumin and turmeric, and spread with cilantro and tomato chutneys. Spice fiends should be sure to ask for the truck's signature crazy hot sauce. Also samosas, see above. @KasaIndian

Gail Lillian in front of Liba Falafel truck. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

4. Liba Falafel: Gail Lillian and team's falafel are hearty and hit the spot. Load up on condiments like spiced carrot ribbons, orange-and-olive relish, and tomato, cucumber salad with mint. Don't forget the sweet potato fries with cilantro, garlic and lime. @LIBAfalafel Or maybe save that pita to serve with Love & Hummus Co.: Try the slow-roasted organic lemon and thyme hummus made by Donna Sky, who is in La Cocina's incubator line up. @LoveAndHummus

5. Maite Catering: Big hit at the media preview event: The Colombian aborrajado made by Constana Ortiz, also a participant in the La Cocina program. These fried plaintain are filled with guava paste and provolone cheese and hit the spot.

Constana Ortiz - Maite Catering at SF Street Food Fest Media Preview. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

6. Onigilly: Vegans may well make a bee line for Onigilly's rice balls known as hijiki onigilly, made with brown rice and hijiki (Japanese black seaweed) with shredded carrots cooked with house-made sweet soy sauce wrapped with seaweed by chefs Kan Hasegawa and Koji Kanematsu, also in the mix at La Cocina. @Onigilly

SWEET NOTES:

1. Creme Brulee Cart: Take your pick between Vanilla Bean or "The Yes Please" (Nutella creme brulee with balsamic strawberries inside). Or share them both. Or not. @cremebruleecart

The Creme Brulee Cart at Off the Grid. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

2. Delicioso Creperie: Gabriella Guerrero who hails from Mexico City turns out dulche de leche crepes for the sweet tooths among us. A La Cocina member.

3. Endless Summer Sweets: Funnel cake fans don't have to travel to the East Bay (where ESS regularly serves up her sweet treats at the Berkeley Flea Market) let alone the the East Coast to sample one of the summer fair standbys, handcrafted by Antoinette Sanchez, a La Cocina alum. Salty kettle corn too. @ESSweets

4. Kika's Treats: Chocolate-covered caramelized cookies, tropical shortbreads and honey cakes from Brazilian baker Cristina Besher, a graduate of La Cocina's program, whose goodies can be found at Whole Foods, Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market and other retail stores. @kikastreats

5. La Luna Cupcakes: Elvia Buendia runs La Luna Cupcakes, and is a member of La Cocina's incubator program. Last year, Buendia made 1,000 mini cupcakes and sold out within a couple of hours, she told the San Francisco Chronicle. This year, she plans to triple her stock of mini and full-size cupcakes, and introduce chocolate and red velvet "cake pops." @LunaCupcakes

6. Sabores Del Sur La Cocina participant and Chilean chef Guisell Osorio's alfajores—delicate round butter cookies filled with creamy dulce de leche caramel and dusted with powdered sugar have loyal fans at the Alemany Farmers' Market and Whole Foods stores. Find out what the fuss is about for yourself.

Do you have a favorite vegetarian street eat not listed above that's likely to be in the mix this weekend? Share your chowhound choices below.

FESTIVAL DETAILS:

San Francisco Street Food Festival
Saturday August 20, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Folsom Street between 22nd and 26th streets
Admission free; food costs $3-$8 cash only or buy $25-$150 "passports" in advance.
Twitter: @streetfoodsf
Facebook: San Francisco Street Food Festival

Alice Waters at KQED with her new book 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Original Broadcast on Forum: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 -- 10:00 AM

In 1971, Alice Waters and some friends opened a neighborhood bistro in Berkeley with the aim of serving meals with the food and atmosphere of a dinner party at home. Forty years later, the way the nation eats has been dramatically changed by Chez Panisse. As the restaurant marks its anniversary, Forum talks with local chefs and food writers about the impact Chez Panisse has had on the local and national food scene.

Host: Scott Shafer

Guests:
• Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse
• Charlie Hallowell, chef and owner of Pizzaiolo and Boot and Shoe Service in Oakland
• Michael Bauer, executive food and wine editor and restaurant critic for The San Francisco Chronicle and member of the James Beard Foundation Restaurant Awards Committee
• Russell Moore, chef and owner of Camino Restaurant in Oakland

Related Stories, Books, Audio:
• Alice Waters Serves Lunch, Launches Levi's T-Shirts for Edible Education -- BAB
• Edible Education 101: Rock Stars of Food Movement Teach UC Berkeley Class -- BAB
• Chez Panisse’s birthday kicks off with party to remember -- Sarah Henry at Berkeleyside
• Book: 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering by Alice Waters
• Chez Panisse Foundation
• Chez Panisse 40th Anniversary Events -- Chez Panisse Foundation
• Chez Panisse at Forty -- David Lebovitz
• The Real Triumph of Alice Waters -- John Birdsall at Gilt Taste
• Edible Education 101: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement -- Chez Panisse Foundation
• Jenna Bush, Alice Waters, Jake Gyllenhaal, and the Edible Schoolyard --Today Show
• Chez Panisse staff and fans celebrate 40 years of Alice’s restaurant -- The Washington Post
• The Edible Schoolyard (ESY) @edibleschoolyrd
• Alice Waters: Edible Education -- short film by Lisa Eisner + interview @NOWNESS