A few of my pictures from Penny de los Santos' Food Photography workshop

Last week I had the opportunity to take Penny de los Santos' food photography workshop here in San Francisco. Penny started as a documentary photographer, but has recently moved into shooting more food. However, her photos aren't glistenny, perfectly placed studio shots (although she's done a few of those, too). Instead, Penny is a magician at lassoing a moment and a sense of place. She takes her background as a documentary photographer and uses it to capture the culture and the stories that take place around the table and in places that people gather.

I was smiling the entire day. But the first smile came when I received a confirmation e-mail from Penny that described what we needed to bring to "make pictures" on Sunday. Then that morning, Penny talked about the difference between taking and making pictures. I've never heard someone speak of photography this way. Essentially, anyone can take a picture, but it takes an understanding of your camera and a certain deliberateness to make a photo. And that's exactly what we worked on. We made photos at Contigo Restaurant in Noe Valley, run by chef Brett Emerson and his lovely wife, Elan.

Capturing a few quiet moments at Contigo Restaurant

Brett and Elan brought out a steady stream of beautiful food, from Spanish hot chocolate and churros to asparagus with a perfectly poached egg, ground almonds and hot paprika. We were blessed to have such a canvas. Then in the afternoon, Penny pushed us to get into the action and get up close and personal with people and situations: we made portraits and street shots in the Mission and then went back to 18 Reasons to critique them and debrief.

Why Food?
Penny mentioned how many of her colleagues scoff at her more recent foray into food photography, which is often thought to be "lighter" than other professional work. But Penny sees food photography in a different way than so many others I've ever come across. "My photos show the story behind the food. They show humanity, " she said in our workshop. And if you look at some of her work from Saveur lately (Did you see that Texas issue?!), this is no joke. Penny elaborates, noting that "Food photos are never just about food. They're equally about people, landscapes, capturing moments, and a sense of place." This is why you don't see a lot of glossy studio shots in Penny's portfolio. She's interested in stories. And she discovers those stories through people: "Food is what connects us. It's a wonderful way to discover humanity."

Penny pushed us to take portraits in the Mission. Here are a few I "made."

A Few Bits of Inspiration
So about halfway through the morning at Contigo, I started jotting down everything Penny said. She was obviously talking about photography, but I began resonating with her tips in a broader sense. I'll refrain from getting too Zen on you, but here are a few lovely quotes that I took away with me that, I think, have broader implications than just photography:

Take risks...a person's reach should be further than their grasp.

Follow your instincts. That's what makes good pictures.

Energy happens when you have energy.

I'm never ever saying no to myself because I want to explore it, uncover it.

Your instincts are the most important element in making a photograph.

Penny de los Santos doing her thing in San Francisco

Penny's Tips on Food Photography
Unlike most professional photographers I've met, Penny is low-key with a capital "L." She seems a little hesitant to talk about her equipment, she only brings one lens out in the field and actually discourages the use of a zoom lens because she thinks it encourages laziness. She's discreet. She doesn't use fancy flashes nor does she have an assistant. She keeps it inconspicuous so she doesn't stand out or draw attention to herself--something you definitely don't want when you're shooting markets in developing countries or a family gathering in a tiny diner in Texas. That being said, Penny has some great tips on capturing a good photo. In them, you won't find technical details on adjusting your white balance or achieving bokeh. The workshop wasn't that kind of gig. Instead, we focused more on the big picture: on loosening up, gathering the gumption to photograph people fearlessly, waiting and listening for the right moment, and constantly thinking about light. Moments, stories, and light. Isn't that what pictures are comprised of in the first place? Here are a few of Penny's tips from the workshop that you may find helpful:

• Light. We've all heard it before: it's all about the natural light. But Penny's adamant about this. She simply won't shoot if there isn't proper natural light. She talks about chasing light and capturing light on location, and describes getting up far before the crack of dawn to do so. No speedlights. No fancy flashes.
• Get in the action: "You have to get in front of people. You need to get all up in there." To do this, she says you must use a fixed lens and just go for it.
• Layers and details are important. Create layers with the foreground and background of a photo: don't just shoot a flat bowl of soup. Add dimension and layers with color, a few glasses in the background, interesting details.
• Telling a story about the food is critical. To do this, vary your angles, seek out the light, and photograph different stages of the meal: in preparation, plated, and in process (being eaten).
• Perspective: Challenge yourself. Try taking photos from above and from below. Shake up the way you usually do things.
• Camera angles and visual pacing: variety is key. You need to work with many camera angles to keep your shots fresh and interesting. Your go-to angles will be the overhead angle (good for food with lots of color), ¾ view, and side view.
• Patience. Wait. When photographing people or scenes, Penny makes people comfortable and then sits back and waits for them to begin acting naturally and forget that she's there.

Great Food Photography Links and Resources
So while Penny's workshop completely changed the way I think about shooting food, I realize ya'll weren't there and some of you may be seeking out specific suggestions on F-stops, flashes, indoor lighting set-ups, and photo editing. If that's you, here are some of my very favorite links on food photography. Most of them are from fellow food bloggers, many who have learned the hard way--by teaching themselves. Unanimous is the advice to shoot often. The only way to learn is through practice. Then, eventually, we'll all be making photos.

• White on Rice Couple has done a great photography series on their blog. Here's their first on Exposure.
• Lolo from Vegan Yum Yum blog details Food Photography for Bloggers.
• Heidi from 101 Cookbooks details her Food Photography Tips.
• Deb over at Smitten Kitchen writes about her Approach to Food Photos.
• Incredibly thorough Food Photography post by Matt over at Wrightfood blog.
• Jaden from Steamy Kitchen's post on Lowel EGO Lights for Food Photography.
• Ree Drummond from The Pioneer Woman writes 8 Helpful Tips for Taking Food Photos.
• Lara Ferroni, one of my favorite food photographers, writes a great post on using tripods.
• And if you're interested, Penny has a great blog called Appetite. Check it out.

"Ame has a new chef," my girlfriend just told me. "You should review it soon."
"Where did you hear that?" I asked.
"Tablehopper," she said.

The routine unfolds at least once a week. A day later, she dropped another morsel from Marcia Gagliardi's weekly e-column in an email with a link to Heart's enticing brunch menu. "Duck scrapple -- sounds good," she wrote. Whenever she has food-related news to share, nine times out of ten, Gagliardi's the source.

I suspect that she is nearly everyone's source, and I wonder why her column has been so successful. She supplies news, reviews, and gossip in one hefty dose every seven days, a slow stream of information by today's media standards; she can't begin to keep up with local food blogs able to post fresh content every few minutes. Likewise, the ubiquity and influence of her weekly missives can't be attributed to content. After all, most food blogs tell you the same stuff much of the time -- who is in, who is out, what is new, and what is hot around the region's food and drink scene. As tidbits of interest get recycled, posted to social networking sites, and otherwise tossed around, slightly varied versions of the same p.r.-planted stories end up peppering the Internet. While she writes entertaining reviews and amuses with her Page 6-like lines on where Hollywood stars and celebrity chefs end up grubbing when they breeze through town, Gagliardi's main strengths are her personality as conveyed through her writing and her organizational prowess. Her columns come to your email inbox, and you read them like you would scan through an email. They're written in an informal, conversational, fun, flirty, personal sort of way. She tells you where she's been -- perhaps a vacation, to Spain or India -- and how she's been -- happy, busy, or sick, maybe -- and lets you know what tasty treats she's uncovered in the past week. She arranges the information she provides clearly and effectively. As you scroll down, each regular section comes tagged with a cute little header. There's a consistent look, appealing feel, and pure readability to it, and that helps define her brand as much as the way she writes.

This week, her brand gets a little bigger and somewhat bolder with the release of her debut book, "The Tablehopper's Guide to Dining and Drinking in San Francisco: Find the Right Spot for Every Occasion." Because there are so many online forums for restaurants and bar recommendations -- like Yelp, Chowhound, and the aforementioned cabal of blogs -- the idea of physically publishing such a book (particularly one so focused in scope) feels like a retro endeavor. Furthermore, as Gagliardi herself lays out in the book, the restaurant business is highly changeable, especially in the midst of a wicked recession. Chefs get new gigs. Places shutter, and others spring up. Pop-up restaurants and mobile food carts are tenuous in the first place. Over the course of a year, the city's food-scape shifts a lot, which is where that weekly e-column comes in handy. The book is a stand-alone summer of 2009 snapshot of one person's favorite places to eat and booze in San Francisco. Will it be useful, even pertinent, in two or three years?

Most popular guidebooks are published by companies with recognizable names internationally trusted for reliability and the rigor with which they dissect a restaurant scene. The brands are expressions of tradition and experience, not personality. Fittingly, their books typically organize the included establishments by neighborhood and cuisine. Gagliardi's tome takes a different path to the glove-box, re-imagining the guidebook form as a funny little pocket concierge that speaks with an enthusiastic, almost antagonistic version of the lively cackle audible in her weekly e-columns. She comes off like a knowing, slightly loud friend reciting a manic monologue. She suggests restaurants based on occasion, not cuisine, effectively organizing her book around why people eat at restaurants -- to celebrate, to romance, to get away, to do business. In town for a convention? Try Waterbar, she advises, noting its "power booths facing the bay" and $20 Bloody Marys. Out on the town with a "Cool (or Bad or Gay) Uncle?" Take him to EPIC Roasthouse for "a variety of options for meaty indulgence, like marrow bones, a porterhouse pork chop, prime rib, and five styles of potatoes," she says, with the authority of someone who has almost certainly done so. She also lists foods folks commonly seek out -- burritos, falafel, dumplings, and chilaquiles -- and includes her favorites. The suggestions appear to spring from the life she has led, and, appropriately, she makes the book personal in every sense, advising readers of eateries catering to customers with special dietary needs, diners with small children, and industry professionals. She tells you where she drank (Dalva) after she lost her last full-time job. She curates business lunches, reconciliatory dinners, quiet nights alone, and tense summits with the in-laws. She wants you to take the information personally, and use it accordingly. In this sense, the book might suit locals more than tourists, new arrivals planning to stay for a while and carve out food-happy routines amongst the city's hills, valleys, parks, and palms. Likewise, framed as such -- a stomach-centric road map for future memories -- it might have a longer life span than your average Zagat.

In assessing this book, you have to talk about Gagliardi's distinctive voice, and style. While those are elements infrequently crucial to the function of conventional guidebooks, here they strike me as inseparable from the content. Gagliardi isn't just peddling her recommendations; she's selling herself, a larger-than-life swashbuckling socialite persona a reader is supposed to find charming, funny, intriguing, and insightful. She dares her audience to flip through the pages for amusement, not just for the practical purpose of finding a good place to eat.

If you take the bait, you might find that persona hard to swallow in hearty helpings. She affects different tones for different topics, channeling a high-fiving keg-tapping dude-yelping frat guy in "For the Fellas" and then a shoe-crazed Sex in the City-aping dame in "For the Ladies." In the world she presents -- surely, hopefully, somewhat facetiously -- dudes like tearing up red meat and chasing cougars ("rawr"), and women enjoy tittering about shoes they saw on sale at Bloomies. In her preamble to the sub-section "Ladies Who Lunch," Gagliardi gets painfully fabulous: "'Ooooh, love the bag.' 'Your hair looks great.' 'He did not say that! What a pig.' 'Another bottle, please.' All that and more. Girl, let's taaaaaalk!" She goes on to recommend Cafe Claude for hot "French-accented garcons," apparently "one of the most important components of a ladies' lunch." Her constant semi-creative enlistment of foreign lingo in entries for Spanish, Mexican, and Italian restaurants is another tedious shtick. She's "an amiga" of the al pastor pork at Taqueria Cancun. Valencia St. cocktails-and-'za spot Beretta has taken off like a "casa on fire." Velvet Cantina's bartenders are "caliente." She's a freewheeling Berlitz gone haywire. She also routinely swings for the fences with punch-lines flimsier than half-frozen phyllo. Of Terzo, Gagliardi writes: "[J]ust in case you're a bad girl, the crispy onions are delicious. . .the look is postmodern, rustic hip, just like your sexy boots." She ruminates on "the newest Hayes Valley (excuse me, 'Zen Valley') location" of Samovar Tea Lounge. I read that and wonder if I should OMG or just LOL. Assuming Gagliardi is a hip, hip lady (like Martha Washington) merely having a good time, the fat layer of formaggio must be an act, a role she is playing, a joke consistently and thoroughly embodied in the interest of toying with guidebook decorum.

Instead of getting a lift from such antics, this book truly succeeds in a strictly practical sense. As someone who loves to eat and earns a little scratch writing about food, I think I know a thing or two about the city's dining scene. Gagliardi knows a lot about the subject, certainly more than I do, and in poring over the pages, my excitement peaks, not when I absorb left-field suggestions I don't anticipate, but when I realize that Gagliardi and I agree about a lot of stuff. We like the same chilaquiles -- vastly different yet equally satisfying variations on the theme at Los Jarritos and Pastores. We both like our burritos toasted on the outside like they're done at Taqueria Castillito near the Safeway on Market and Church. She flips for the spread of dips and pita at Old Jerusalem, and so do I. She recommends La Ciccia's incomparable fregola pasta, and so do I. She likes to get drunk at the Lone Palm, and so do I. These morsels -- our independent shared experiences -- must reveal more about her character than the bad jokes and witticisms flatter than tap water. Regardless of how much fun she had writing it, her book -- clearly designed to be fun -- isn't something I want to curl up with. With tips like these, it doesn't have to be.

Last week, Bay Area Bites blogger Stephanie Im called attention to Secret San Francisco's popular Facebook presence. A few days before Im's post appeared, I myself joined the group with a few lazy clicks, galvanized into action by the droves of friends doing the same. At least, with its relentless updates regarding their statuses, Facebook made me feel like I was part of a movement. "Is it because we all love a juicy secret? Is it because we're bored?" wondered Im in her piece. "Perhaps we gravitate to these projects because they exude a sense of authenticity, of being 'in the know,' and part of something special and communal," she continued. "Or, it could simply be...some things are just too good to keep to ourselves."

Im listed the Iso Rabins-curated Underground Farmers Markets, Mission Street Food's feasts at Lung Shan, and all manner of street carts as the sorts of secrets worth shouting around, but those examples might as well be echos -- almost old news to studious, Internet-savvy members of the eats-frenzied populous. At this point, despite their youth and D.I.Y. ethos, they are institutions, pillars of the city's mainstream, well-documented food culture. Still, regardless of your personal familiarity with Im's suggestions, Secret San Francisco makes its mission clear enough: "Share San Francisco's secrets! Post any lesser known great places to see in San Francisco. Please give details of how we can locate it and what makes it a hidden gem."

A certain variety of hard-charging food sleuth elitist loves dropping a rarified knowledge of the city's unheralded offerings. Another group of elitists takes no less pleasure in heaping abuse on the first for drawing attention to the sneaky little places they covet for themselves. Occasionally, they invade Secret San Francisco's Facebook page. The best naysayers employ deadpan sarcasm. One suggests Burger King for a great hamburger; another celebrates a little grocery store called Safeway. Some however directly criticize eager posters for sharing too much, operating under the not unreasonable logic that widespread publicity on behalf of something unknown tends to make that thing known pretty well very quickly. What if your favorite bowl of pho suddenly became half the city's favorite too? Would it suddenly start tasting a little bland and watery? Would you tell yourself that the cook was slipping? Would you maybe start believing that he'd gotten so drunk on the fame Facebook had brought his pho, that he'd -- with pungent irony -- neglected to keep preparing it with quality in mind? Or would you still love that pho but merely hate the swiftly forming crowds -- lines of pho-fanatics at the door, arriving earlier and earlier each morning, leaning against the cafe's glass windows, poking away at iPhones, waiting for the sign to flip. With their incessant chatter and their rows of white order tickets fluttering in the kitchen window, the people on the sidewalk swarming in -- presumably without jobs to attend, errands to run, or any otherwise consuming pursuits -- would scuttle your plans for timely lunch-break repasts. You'd stop going altogether. The cafe would start selling its pho at a stand outside the Ferry Building on Saturday mornings. The price would double. Amanda Gold would write about it. You'd find another favorite pho spot, which might or might not be an attention-seeking copy of the one you started out loving in the first place.

To shuffle in a music world hypothetical: If guttural blips, synthetic gurgles, and ambient drones suddenly enjoyed broad popularity, and noise bands displaced Jay-Z, The Killers, and Coldplay at the top of the charts, would the bands' old fans -- Aquarius Records employees, mostly -- take solace in the Black Eyed Peas, by now a fringe retro-pop act struggling to pack Bottom of the Hill on forays through the Bay Area? Probably not, but people stressing out over the decreased edginess of what they consume -- whether it be music or a bowl of pho -- tend to be overly concerned with how their consumption patterns reflect upon them as people -- at least, no less concerned than those who fire up the laptop every time they trip over a good sandwich.

In a comment to Im's post, Haggie (one name, like Madonna) accused Secret San Francisco of catering to "lazy suburb dweller[s]" trolling websites for cool food scenes to muck up. While it's pretty far-fetched to claim that "anyone...[living] in San Francisco knows about the secret spots" already, Haggie does have a point, albeit one couched in excessively feisty lingo. Since witnessing a half-block line curling along the pavement outside of Lung Shan on a Thursday evening at 5:35 p.m. nearly eight months ago, I have not even tried to go to Mission Street Food -- not because I think popularity has dulled the value or coolness of the operation's goals in the slightest, but because I don't like to wait. Waiting might not be a problem anymore. And I could always make a reservation, I guess, but just remembering the line makes me think of crowds, which I don't like -- and suddenly the idea of going starts feeling like an ordeal to weather.

One problem with Secret San Francisco's Facebook page is the fact that restaurant owners post on it about events happening at their own establishments. That is sort of lame, just on principle. I won't mention any of the names I recognized, but I have seen a few things written by a few people probably largely interested in generating business for themselves, not spreading the wealth of shared experience. Likewise, incidentally, some of the exuberant laudatory posts regarding bands I have never ever heard of come off as plants by members, friends of members, or girlfriends or boyfriends of members. The thing has been around for a few weeks and it's already nearly as tainted as Yelp, that dinosaur of a site plagued by posters grubbing for freebies by way of harsh critiques -- many of which seem far-fetched. On Yelp, after all, a reviewer might give a pupusa place two stars and claim a general deep-seated aversion to pupusas as sole cause for the expressed discontent.

The Internet insists on constantly providing us with new ways of searching out, organizing, and assessing the stuff we like to do in the city. Restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and street carts enjoy an absurd amount of attention on Twitter, Chowhound message-boards, assorted iPhone apps, Tablehopper (along with less ubiquitous electronic bulletins), and of course, now Secret San Francisco. The subjects are not necessarily new, but the channels of communication are configured differently with each innovation and trend. I don't want to blame them for all of the potential problems associated with the rampant sharing of the city's secrets. The real problem is that people have too much time on their hands, and they're choosing to spend it online, telling everyone they can about what they like and do not like. In addition to actually working at work, getting exercise, and playing with their kids, people should walk around and physically see the city for something other than a flickering stew of html, updates, messages, and links.

As a writer who masquerades as a blogger, I frequently fall prey to the tendency. On a daily basis, I must look for fresh topics to cover, and sometimes that leads me to rely too much on the Internet's ever-changing spectrum of social networking possibilities for inspiration. Someone reports something -- a secret, maybe -- and it ricochets off of other websites. It's linked, and re-linked, Tweeted, and re-Tweeted, posted, and re-posted. Writers here and there lackadaisically re-write the news as fresh content for a site, and the process starts again and again with slightly different slants each time. Within 24 hours, the secret is out like a light, nearly all bases are covered, and the story is as dead as a slab of fish on ice -- all thanks to the publicity pinball machine.

At times, I wonder how my very minor contributions to the maelstrom affect restaurants and businesses. I'll walk past a restaurant and think: Wow, I'm here, for the first time; I wrote about their egg salad special last week -- I wonder if they're selling more egg salad now. I'd just as soon turn off the computer and poke around the city and write about what I uncover. When content is required to circulate so rapidly, that vein of information-gathering is inefficient. Though I do my best, I wouldn't have time to do laundry if I relied upon it solely. At the same time, it's much more satisfying that way. When I moved here in 2002, San Francisco was a different city. That wasn't long ago, but the way I learned the city then -- specifically food to seek out -- was through people I met at parties, book club, work, and pick-up basketball games. I read the newspaper food sections and hit up Yelp from time to time, but I also just talked to people and visited the restaurants they recommended -- places like El Zocolo and the now-defunct Lorca. Doing so made me a more social person. It made me attack the city so as to eat what I heard was worth eating. The secrets I've amassed that way have stuck with me the longest, probably because I have faces, stories, and voices to go with them. They are ones I share with others -- in conversation, whenever possible.

Sshhh…don't tell!

When I started procrastinating about an hour ago, Facebook group Secret San Francisco was at 42,654 members. Now, it's at 43,736 members. A mere 10 days ago, it was just a glint in Jamie Quint's eye.

The 24-year-old entrepreneur started this group based on the model of Secret London, which went from zero to 180,000 members in under 20 days. The group is an open forum for people to spill San Francisco's best kept secrets, from restaurants and bars, to events, shows, and random cool things to do.

Discussion boards contain threads on topics like Best Sandwich, Best Brunch (for foodies not alchies), and Best Outdoor Workout…to burn off all those carbs and eggs benedicts. There is even a brief diatribe that ensues when an out-of-towner catastrophically requests some good tips on where to go when she visits "Frisco" this summer. Eeek. Poor thing won't be uttering that jaunty little nickname for a long time.

There is a lot of noise on the Wall, but search and you are bound to happen upon a hidden gem or two, and get inspired to plan an excursion the next time you have a free weekend.

Now, I know we all love the Internet and everything, but still…it is remarkable how popular this group has become in such a short time. Is it because we all love a juicy secret? Is it because we're bored? Or because Yelp reviews are too hiply cryptic to understand sometimes?

In a time and place where Twitter-roving street food carts are the new speakeasies, slinging Kung Fu Tacos and Sexy Soup to the masses willing to seek them out, "underground" is the new black, and "secret" is the new twenty.

SF Underground Farmers Market, 01.28.10

Just ask any one of the hundreds of kombucha-thirsty flavor-ravers who turned out for the Underground Farmers Market last month.

Mission Street Food, 01.28.10

Or walk by Lung Shan on a Thursday or Saturday night, when an unassuming Chinese restaurant turns into the packed, twinkle-lit, pop-up restaurant, Mission Street Food.

Perhaps we gravitate to these projects because they exude a sense of authenticity, of being "in the know", and part of something special and communal. Or, it could simply be...some things are just too good to keep to ourselves.

Flavor-ravers, SF Underground Farmers Market

Secret San Francisco Facebook Group
If you're interested in receiving a weekly digest of the best posts on Secret SF in your email, you can sign up here.

Bay Area Bites bloggers, Michael Procopio and Stephanie Rosenbaum join Leslie Sbrocco, host of Check, Please! Bay Area in a new local food and wine segment on This Week in Northern California. This week, the conversation is about restaurants and the recession and underground food markets.

WATCH THE EPISODE:

Posts related to this segment:

• Underground Farmers' Market
• Cutting Corners: Tipping in a Down Economy

Related Twitter feeds:

• Leslie Sbrocco
• Michael Procopio
• Stephanie Rosenbaum
• Iso Rabins at ForageSF

2009 was a rough year for restaurants in San Francisco and (if January is any indicator) 2010 isn't going to be a bed of truffles and lollipops either. As a 20-year veteran of the restaurant industry, I cringe.

Have you taken a look at the list of restaurants that closed their doors in the past year? It isn't pretty. Browsing through SF Weekly's SFoodie blog and looking at all of the fallen eateries the other day, I felt like Scarlett O'Hara listening to a long roster of Civil War dead, hoping that none of the old soldiers I truly loved in this city were among the dead or wounded.

Some of the casualties were no big surprise. For example, my reaction to finding out that The Carnelian Room (sorry, Dad) atop the Bank of America tower had closed was like hearing that Abe Vigoda was really, really dead this time. My only surprise was that it had held on for so long.

I am, however, wearing my widow's weeds for some of the other, smaller restaurants that have left us, like Old Krakow, The Palace Steakhouse , and Clementine, just to name a few.

Many restaurants that have survived the 21st century economy thus far have resorted to luring guests into their dining rooms with 2-for-1 specials, happy hours, and (sigh) coupons. Even the once-mighty Aqua and The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton are offering 1,000 Open Table points if you would just pretty-please come for a visit. That's pretty much the online equivalent of begging.

In terms of restaurant workers, I'm one of the lucky ones. I work in a place that is still (author makes a hurried sigh of the cross) going strong. And there are fortunately several other venues in this city which are doing the same. That doesn't mean, however, that my fellow waiters and I are not feeling the pinch like everybody else. Like maybe you, for example.

These days, a lot of diners are cutting corners where they can. Some of those who do come into our places of business are either coming less often than they used to or are simply spending less. Often, I see couples either sharing one main course or foregoing them altogether and sticking to appetizers. If wine enters the picture, people are drinking more wines-by-the-glass than they are bottles. On the weekends, I see almost as many guests bring in their own wine as order from our wine list. And, of course, those wines aren't usually the ones listed on the reserve menu. As a result, our sales our down. Just like everyone else's, with the possible exception of pharmaceutical companies, undertakers, and bank executives.

Yesterday, for example, I overheard a very well-dressed business woman who works for a high-profile company mention to her lunch partners, "I don't go out much anymore. I've started brown-bagging it at work. I even stopped getting my Starbucks every morning, for God's sake, so today's a real treat!" It's a sensible, Depression Era mindset and I can't say that I blame her one bit.

What I do blame her for is leaving me a 12% tip. And I blame the business guy sitting ten feet away from her discussing how his children don't appreciate how expensive their ski weekend in Aspen really was who gave me even less. And, no, I wasn't having an off day. I was clean, neat, welcoming, informative, prompt, and all the dozen-or-so other good things I have to be to each and every table I take care of. I happen to see it as a trend-- and an ugly one at that.

Don't worry, you won't be hearing violins and I promise not to go all Sally Struthers on you today (though we do share the same birthday, Sally and I). But it is a bit of a rant.

I've said it before and I will say it again, if you leave a (expletive) tip to a server, there had better be a good reason for it. If she is rude or hostile, don't leave one at all. If he screws up your order and blames everyone else, then disappears for a cigarette when you need to pay the check so you can get to the airport like you said you needed to at the beginning of the meal... stiff him-- he deserves it.

But leaving $20 on a $500 bill to a waiter who has orchestrated your meal, told you when you are ordering too much, selected a wine for you that you absolutely rave about, and who makes you look good because your guests are all raving about their experience is an outrage. All the more so because that waiter can't say or do anything about it without losing his job. There is a special dining circle in hell reserved for just this kind of diner.

Not that I feel very strongly about it one way or the other, of course.

Nearly a year ago, I explained in detail exactly what happens in such an extreme case of (undeserved) bad tipping. I mention it again because I've just witnessed another co-worker be treated in the same manner on a similarly-sized check.

Granted, the above is an extreme case, but people are leaving $3 less here, $5 less there. It's alarming to those of us who earn our living depending upon the unreliable tipping habits of strangers. $3 might not sound like very much, but it is. If a server waits upon ten tables in a night and they all sought to save a little money by leaving $3 less, that's $30 out of a server's take home pay per shift. If a server works five shifts per week, that's $150 less. Per month? Around $600. Per year? I think you get the picture. I'm being conservative in my estimates. And remember, sales are typically down all over town, so a server's losses are frequently more when you consider that tips are based on sales.

If you do need to cut down your dining expenses, don't take it out on the good servers. Of course, if you come into my restaurant and want to spend a lot of money, make no mistake-- I'll help you spend it. You'll have a great time doing it, too. But if you come and don't want to blow your whole pay check, I will go out of my way make sure you don't. I'm not going to make you feel like a cheapskate and you'll have just as good a time as the Fat Cats sitting next to you (if not better because, hey, you're more relaxed since you haven't just spent your rent money trying to impress your date).

When the bill comes, be kind. Remember that I found you that beautiful bottle of wine from a region you've never tried before that was $20 less (and much better) than the one you were asking about. It made you look adventurous. Do keep in mind that I suggested our rib eye steak was big enough to feed the both of you. That made your dinner a little more intimate, didn't it? And when I served it all out table side? Ah, that was a nice touch, wasn't it? And when I sent you that dessert for no other reason than "just because," well... perhaps you might bear in mind that I just cut about $50 off of your tab when you are leaving me a tip. Great waiters are worth their weight in gold.

My assumption here is that most of you reading this are savvy enough diners to not make your servers take one in the shorts. You are more than likely sophisticated enough to know good service when you experience it. Why do I know this? Because you're reading a food blog, that's why. I'm not saying it's you. Really. Except those of you who are invariably going to comment that I am being whiney or that I should "get a real job" (I've heard that one before). I'm saying it might just be your mother, or your husband, or your best friend, in which case I hope that you might pass this post along to them after you've given them a nice big hug and told them you love them, even though they are embarrassingly cheap.

The next time you go out to dinner and you've had a great meal and and even greater server, make sure he or she is taken care of. In the words of the mortal Canadian (and you know how Americans make fun of their tipping habits) pundit Nicholas Demeda, "If you can afford to dine out, you can afford to tip well."

Tipping for good service is the one place you should never cut corners.

Watch This Week in Northern California tonight, Friday January 29 at 8pm to see Leslie Sbrocco, host of Check, Please! Bay Area in a new segment on local food and wine trends. This week, a conversation about restaurants and the recession and underground food markets with Bay Area Bites bloggers, Michael Procopio and Stephanie Rosenbaum.

Honorable mention, only because the author of Tea & Cookies splits her time between Seattle and the Bay Area.

Well, after my post on food websites last week I received a surprising response from readers asking why I didn't include more information about blogs, questioning my rationale between blogs and websites, and asking for blog recommendations--specifically local ones. So in a way, this is a continuation of last week's post, a Part 2, blogger-style. And it was surprisingly difficult to put together. I needed to choose some way to narrow down the food blogs I read or the list would get out of control. So after many sleepless nights (I jest), here's the criteria I came up with:

• Must be a Bay Area food blogger
• Must be on my Google Reader (hey, it’s my post after all, right?)
• Must write interesting, creative content that's somehow innovative/unique.
• Cannot be one of the contributors to Bay Area Bites (although some of us have awesome blogs...but I want you to discover someone new this week).
• Must keep current and produces consistent posts.

So here goes. I realize I'm probably leaving out your roller derby buddy or your girlfriend's sister, but hopefully you'll stumble across something new here that's worth a look. Happy reading.

local lemons

Originally from Brooklyn, Alison Arevalo moved to Berkeley for a change of pace. Her blog, local lemons, focuses on original, all-natural recipes. Of the recipes and ingredients she chooses, Alison says:

"I take advantage of as much local produce as I can in my recipes. I shop at farmers’ markets in Berkeley and Oakland, while making stops at Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market. Using organic, unprocessed ingredients is as important to me as shopping locally. When I was living in Brooklyn, Whole Foods or Fairway was my supermarket of choice. Now, even though I live a few blocks from one, Whole Foods is only an afterthought."

There are a few things that make her blog an absolute pleasure to read. First, those photos. Good lord. Alison has a brilliant eye for composition, color, and light and you can’t help but become enthralled with each recipe after taking a quick glimpse at each post. Second, her recipes are creative and varied. I was blown away by the 'Fast Food Makeover' series she did recently, where she took typical bad-for-us food that so many of us love and revamped them using organic and local ingredients. Who doesn't love a chicken nugget? Or how about a filet of fish sandwich? Yeah, that's what I thought. I remember when I first started blogging and I posted about how I was trying to find the identity/voice of my blog, struggling with how much personal information to include and where to draw the line. Alison wrote in, encouraging me to do what felt right—whatever I wanted. You can tell she follows her own advice. local lemons is the real deal: a genuine, likeable voice in an increasingly glutted food blogging world.
Twitter:@LocalLemons

eating/sf

I'm not totally sure how, but Kasey's blog was one of the first local food blogs I discovered. We have similar taste in recipes and cookbooks and I often notice strange coincidences between what she covers on her blog and what I cover on my own--like how we both made Brussels sprouts the same week or fell in love with the Ad Hoc Cookbook around the same time. But, besides the no-fail recipes and clean site-layout, the concept of Kasey's blog makes this a must-read. She's paired up with her husband, Matt, who does the "Musical Pairings" portion of the site. I love thinking about food as a sensual experience--and obviously music is much the same way. So it makes perfect sense: when you think about the components of a meal, there's the food but there's also the lighting, the music, and the company you're with. So I've always loved the concept over at eating/sf, and I've discovered some great new artists by reading the blog.
Twitter: @kfleisher

No salad as a meal

Last week, my friend Anthony contacted me to ask if I'd heard about this blog, No salad as a meal. Anthony's flirting with the idea of moving to San Francisco, so he's been checking out our food scene, and apparently this was one of the first hits that came up on his Google search. Of course, I replied with a resounding yes. How could you not appreciate a blogger that doesn't fear lugging the ol' DSLR camera into dark restaurants and getting busy? There's even a post about shooting food in dark restaurants if you're interested in learning the ins and outs of setting up shop at COI. So essentially, No salad as a meal focuses mainly on detailed restaurant reviews featuring exceptional photos. The author also includes a supplementary section entitled "Entremets:" short stories in between meals. Recently one on airplane food caught my eye. This is a great site to explore when your mom's flying into town and you're drawing a blank for dinner ideas. There's a brief "NO SALAD RECOMMENDS" list with such favorites as churros at Contigo and couscous at Aziza. So all in all, it's a fun, visual feast that'll inspire you to try someplace new. The restaurant selection is tastefully culled and the posts are smartly written. What more could you ask for?
Twitter: @nosalad

101 Cookbooks

I can't say enough about 101 Cookbooks, the local food blog where Heidi Swanson writes about "the recipes that intersect my life, travels, and everyday interests." The inspiration behind the site goes a little something like this: Heidi turned around one day and realized she had over 100 cookbooks--it was time to get cooking. Most of the recipes are vegetarian and focus on natural and whole-foods ingredients. From baked doughnuts to pan-fried chickpea salad, I've whipped up some amazing meals from Heidi's site. And in addition to her growing recipe collection, 101 Cookbooks was my original inspiration to learn more about food photography. If you take a look at Heidi's blog posts or her book, Super Natural Cooking (of which she did all of the photos), you'll see why. They photos are actually quite spare without the use of a lot of fancy props, but they're absolutely stunning. She has a way of capturing the essence of each dish with the simplicity of a special bowl, the right light, and the perfect angle. When I'm struggling to think of how to photograph a certain dish for my blog, I often step back and think, what would Heidi do?
Twitter: @101Cookbooks

chez us

Denise Woodward and Laudalino Ferreira created chez us from a 20 square-foot apartment kitchen in the city (which has since changed to 40 square feet). They say: "We wanted to share with everyone how we live small but still eat big." chez us stands out for a few reasons: their rotating thematic organization and great videos. For example, instead of just listing the recipes under categories like "Breakfast" and "Main Entrée," Denise and Laudalino create searchable categories such as "Easy Eating," "French," and "Portuguese." Then there are the videos, where the couple walk their readers through things like making homemade yogurt (I want that yogurt machine!) or hearing Peter Reinhart talking about bread. The blog's easy to navigate, informative, and has great original content. Anyone whose trying to make a small kitchen work in the city will appreciate what Denise and Laudalino pump out (you can see their video on creating a pantry for storage inspiration ideas).
Twitter: @chezus

On one of the morning talk shows last week, a woman was discussing a New Years resolution to streamline her online life. She lamented how it’d taken over her "real life," and had calculated how many hours she wastes on twitter and facebook alone. I'm sure we've all felt similarly at one time or another, although maybe you're still guilty of whiling away an hour online on the office clock and spending more time catching up with your Google Reader than your significant other. So this week I thought I'd put together a post for you highlighting a few food MVP's--online sites (many of which are local) where each moment you spend drooling, ogling, and researching will be time well spent. I promise.

Eat

Food by mail. Certainly something people are warming up to, but there's still some hesitation. With thoughts of honey-baked ham and bad coffeecakes, not everyone's jumping on the wagon. But there are some great sites out there, hand-selecting unique, small-batch products that you can't find at your corner grocery store. From small sites stocking heirloom beans (love them), to big-box stores with overnight shipping--you can get pretty much whatever your recipe calls for online these days. But local rock-star site, Foodzie and innovative Marx stand out for their diverse products and way in which they foster community by supporting small artisan vendors, blogging about their experiences, and hosting contests and giveaways.

I can't say enough about Foodzie. First, they're based right here in San Francisco, they're supporting small businesses from all over the country, and every time I sign on I find something cool I'd never heard about. If you're not familiar with the concept, essentially they're an online space, allowing small-time (or bigger-time) vendors to set up a shop. Then buyers purchase directly from these passionate food producers and growers. I've found a few favorite new products like handmade peanut butter cups from the small baking company, a little bit of sweet, and Sunchowder's Emporia unique hand-crafted jams (wrapped in beautiful papers). Their blog has dining recommendations, interviews and recipes, and there's a great "Discover" map that highlights artisan foods made in and around the Bay Area.

Twitter: @foodzie

Before 2007, only high-end restaurateurs knew about Marx Foods as they were essentially a supplier of wholesale, boutique, high-end products. Today, their product line has expanded and is now available to home chefs who can search by categories or ingredients, season, organic/free range etc. Their mission is to find the finest and freshest products, stay on top of food trends, and connect the customer to the food source (by taking out the warehouse/middleman element). Their "Foodie FAQ" delves into such topics as the spiciness of ghost peppers and freezing live mussels. And they also have a blog where they feature contests and post relevant pieces like "How to Store Fresh Truffles" or great recipes (like this one for chile-coconut crusted shrimp).

Twitter: @marxfoods and check out their flickr stream

Read

I won't even touch on blogs or online food communities because we all have our favorites and really, that'd be an entirely different post. If you want to know what blogs I read and admire, here's my current link list. Moving away from blogs, there are a few sites that stand out in my mind for fresh local content and literary voice.

Life is good for Marcia Gagliardi these days. She's currently hitting up the food scene in India and has a book coming out this spring. While I rarely give out my email and subscribe to newsletters and the like, I look forward to every Tuesday afternoon when the "hopper" arrives in my in-box (online version available on her website). Marcia's voice is light-hearted and humorous. She's sometimes self-deprecating and never takes food too, too seriously. But she's definitely got the inside scoop on the San Francisco dining scene: restaurant closures, changes in ownership, great reviews, and upcoming events. Her rotating "Ten Places to Eat at Now" list contains a few of my very favorite spots, and she provides a great free service called "tip please" that allows you to enter a bit of information and receive a personalized restaurant recommendation (service temporarily on hold while Marcia travels). She's not paid by restaurants to write a review, she doesn't accept ads, and she doesn't believe in writing negative reviews. She's a genuine voice coming out of the San Francisco food scene.

Twitter: @tablehopper

With a tagline like: Read. Chew. Discuss, eGullet has got to be good. There are a few parts to the website. First, they have a popular forum, where folks post questions in topics ranging from the best canned tomato soups to where to get dinner in Morristown, New Jersey. But the reason I come to egullet is for The Daily Gullet, the literary journal of the eGullet Society. Here, food writers and editors post longer, more literary pieces such as "Why Jews Like Chinese Food" and "The Frying of Latke 49." They're not always recipe-driven like many food blog entries tend to be these days, and are always smartly written. In the online world of short snippets and photos, sometimes it's nice to curl up with the laptop and read an actual essay on food. You get that here.

Look

If you’re a food blogger or a fan of "food porn," you already know Tastespotting and Food Gawker well. If these sites are new to you, the idea is simple: anyone can submit a photo and, if you meet the fairly rigid criteria (focus, composition, exposure and lighting), your picture could be chosen and posted for all to see. For bloggers, it's a great way to drive site traffic because viewers can click on your photo and be routed over to your blog or website for the recipe. For everyone, it’s a fun way to spend a few minutes, seeing what people are cooking and posting, and getting visual inspiration for future forays into the kitchen. If you're looking for a particular recipe or dish, you can search by category, popularity, and date to weed through the tempting photos and find what you're after.

Twitter: @tastespotting, @foodgawker

I

I'll admit it. Some of the food blogs I admire and read the most are ones with exceptional photos--sure, people like to read about food, but people really like to look at food. And that, my friends, is where the genius of Foodspotting enters. Instead of reading restaurant reviews to determine where to find a spicy mole or an authentic macaron, you check out the pictures on your own and judge for yourself.

Foodspotting is a new site that's been getting quite a bit of buzz lately for it's relatively genius concept, user-generated content, and clean and use-to-use interface. It's a self-proclaimed "foodie-powered field guide." Essentially, the idea is that when it comes down to it, you don't always care what Michael Bauer said about your favorite restaurant and researching new spots can make eating a bit more scholarly than it needs to be. So not only do users post photos of their favorite dishes, but Foodspotting has built in an important social element to keep the site fresh, interesting--and even competitive. Here's the nitty gritty (in brief) on how it works. Check out their site if you'd like more detailed information.

• You see a picture and like it, you "Want" it. "Wants" are sightings you'd like to try.
• "Noms" are for foods you've tried and loved the best.
• Champions: people who have spotted food at more places than anyone else.
• Follow: a little like twitter, you can opt to follow places, dishes, and other Foodspotters you trust to stay in the know on the latest sightings.

I'm particularly excited about this site. It's social functionality makes sense--it's all geared towards helping you find dishes you want to try from all over, getting to know your local scene better, network with others who have similar food interests, and perhaps freshen up those camera skills. In terms of travel and restaurant recommendations, it's a new and entirely visual way to check out a city you're traveling to and discover what looks good there.

Twitter: @foodspotting

This past Friday, January 15th at 8 p.m., 7 x 7 magazine hosted what they're calling the Friday Flash Mob. They encouraged diners, chefs, wait staff, or anyone involved in a restaurant that evening to take a shot of what was going on. From the guys manning the line at Tacoliscious to Chris Cosentino enjoying a quiet moment, it's a look at the kitchens, chefs, and dishes that were happening at the same moment all over the city. I'm a sucker for this stuff. While it's obviously too late to submit a photo (unless you have one from Friday at 8 p.m.), the Flickr photo stream will be used to help build the magazine's popular February food issue.

"Never touch a customer (#32)." "Do not curse (#45)." "Never refuse to substitute one vegetable for another (#20)." "Do not play brass bands (#93)."

In late October, as part of his start-up chronicle for the New York Times's You're The Boss blog, Bruce Buschel posted what he called "a modest list of dos and don'ts" for servers at the Bridgehampton, N.Y. seafood restaurant he's opening on April Fool's Day. He included the above nuggets, along with 96 others. Far from "modest," the list, laid out in two parts, touched off frantic comment-slinging in New York Times-land. Interest grew as links to the article and rejoinders from far corners of the food and business blogospheres ping-ponged through Twitter and Facebook. I first saw Buschel's piece on Facebook. The morning of the second part's publication (a week after the first), a friend posted it to his profile and dissed it hard ("what an asshole"). A former bus boy at Per Se and the original Momofuku as well as a third year law school student, my friend is familiar with both the industry in question and argument as a general preoccupation. He brought both strands of experience to bear on his brief take. Combing the comments to Buschel's posts, I found that reactions were typically extreme and severe, running the gamut from similarly negative ("Who died and made this guy the bossy know-it-all?", for example) to laudatory ("This should be a must for every server and restaurant employee to memorize."). Comment-writers are a special breed. A certain kind of person has the time to read widely, strong opinions on most subjects, and a compulsion to dive into whatever fray they sense forming. Comment-writers rarely stand in for the larger population, just a subset of opinionated comment-writers who happen to have read the same thing. This is especially true when the piece provoking debate appears in the New York Times, a journal of record frequently accused of catering to an elitist readership.

In this case, some of the entries -- a hearty portion, actually -- concern a wee wafer of the food and hospitality universe -- nice restaurants for dates, expense accounts, vacations, and special occasions -- specifically, the sorts of places I imagine the writer frequents with more regularity than me. After all, the proprietor of a barbecue restaurant in rural South Carolina would not be compelled to offer olive oil as well as butter with bread (#19), and if some asshole from New York skated through and dumbly asked for it, he'd have to send him on his way -- maybe to Olive Garden, where bread and oil are endless. Buschel anticipates that critique: "I realize that every deli needs a wisecracking waiter, most pizza joints can handle heavy metal, and burgers always taste better when delivered by a server with tattoos and tongue piercing(s)." Aside from his frail and stunted knowledge of delis, pizzerias, and burger places, Buschel's advice ostensibly only concerns plans for his own restaurant, an organic vegetable and fish dispensary with nary a hoof nor a feather on the menu; yet the act of publishing his list suggests he thinks it has universal value.

Of course, Bruce Buschel doesn't even know what he's doing. He's a novice, you see, a dilettante, something he made sure to lay out in his very first post, a question-and-answer session with a hypothetical naysayer. He's never taken an order. He's never been tipped worse than a washroom attendant. His experience with restaurants is limited to dining in them. He's unfettered by an intimate knowledge of the industry. How refreshing! His do's and dont's reflect his own preferences, and perhaps those of his friends; when they're pressed into service at his own establishment, he's assuming diners will feel the same way. I'm not hating on #5. "Tables should be level without anyone asking." Oh god, yes -- shaky tables are the pits. No one wants to spend the first five minutes of any meal anywhere trying to fold a paper towel under a wobbly leg. Others are absurd. For example, if a guest "goes gaga" over dish, no server should have to ask the chef for the recipe on the excessively complimentary guest's behalf (#97). The guest should be told to chill out and come back soon.

I eat out a lot, both recreationally and professionally, and I have my own preferences too, though I would hesitate to open a restaurant and impose them on guests and employees. I'm a wreck, basically. I send mixed signals. I like to be left alone, for starters, but I hate having an empty glass. Fill it frequently enough and I'll fall asleep before dinner is over. I dread the sight of a beaming server approaching to check in with me. I am sensitive, and I anticipate condescension well before it happens, and I know it happens all the time. Excessively nice servers make me feel bad, like I should go get my food myself and share it with them, maybe feed it to them, bite by bite. I don't like anyone acting like they're catering to my needs, but I don't mind them being catered to just a little bit. I don't care how fine a dining experience is supposed to be; I like to hang my own jacket on the back of my chair and put my napkin in my own lap. And I don't like to have anything to complain about because I can't stand the possibility of conflict -- at least with strangers. I have seen people pitch fits in restaurants over service. Interestingly, my friend who hated Buschel's column is himself a very demanding consumer. In college, hung-over, at a breakfast place, he once sent back a ham-and-Swiss omelette because it came topped with inauthentic white American cheese instead of Emmentaler. A year or two later, he cleared a booth at a Manhattan diner to exchange screams with a waitress after he refused to pay for fries he received and ate but didn't order. He had points to make in both instances, but neither situation would have riled me. A white American omelette is authentic in northern Ohio, and fries are always nice to have. He should have ordered them in the first place and saved the waitress the trouble of guessing he'd probably like eating them.

Food and service are two very different things intertwined in the dining experience. I'm food-focused, and apart from my admitted quirks, rarely find that service rubs me the wrong way unless the food also sucks. Four years or so ago, I had a strange, sneering server at Perbacco, but I turned the other cheek. It was full of coppa. On several occasions, my girlfriend and I shifted nervously through meals at the lovable and lamentably late Vogalonga Trattoria. Our regular waiter was capable and friendly to me, but strangely, when he took her order, he refused to look at her. He would stare into my eyes awkwardly and ask her what she wanted. How weird, I thought every time it happened, but we still went back. Another time, we waited for a table at The Front Porch for over 45 minutes, and then, upon finally sitting down and ordering, waited once again for an hour before the first scrap of food arrived. I didn't give a shit about the fried chicken by the time it came; I just wanted to bail, which was why it was annoying that the server kept trying to make us eat dessert.

Restaurants love to offer free dessert when something goes wrong with your meal. The idea is to soothe you, and send you off with a sweet taste in your mouth, instead of fuming over the under-cooked chicken you sent back. I don't get it. If I want dessert -- which I usually don't -- I order it. If I don't order it, I'm full. Buschel should add a #101 on the subject: when someone screws up something, comp cocktails instead of dessert. Then again, my lady and I dined at Delfina the night before Christmas Eve, and at the conclusion of our meal, received a free dessert -- a lemon panna cotta, I believe. The food that night was great, if a little less stunning than it's been in the past, but this made it better -- even though we'd already had plenty to eat. We had no idea why we'd been selected for such a treat. We saw no quivery cylinders squishing across other plates in the vicinity. They must have known my status, I joked on the way home. Was our server's generosity a random display of holiday spirit? Had we failed to notice something terribly amiss with our meal? We could thing of nothing. Buschel, take note: comp something even when no one screws up -- even if its dessert (#102).

People cop to having spirit animals. No one carves totem poles anymore but I do know a guy who was once so obsessed with lions that he sewed a frilly yellow felt mane along the hood of his favorite sweat-jacket. During that phase, at parties, he'd roar frequently, with the hood up and curled around his head. As for me, I'm not sure. A girlfriend once told me I reminded her of a "big, goofy bird." A year later, another described me as cat-like. Cats give me violent sneezing fits, and I'm indifferent to any fowl that hasn't been plucked and braised. In truth, I've never been particularly keen on spirit animals. Some folks realize theirs in meditative visions, and others take a Facebook quiz, but either way, the selection process is deeply flawed. I doubt any shamanistic traveler has journeyed through mystic pathways in search of animal power and encountered a yapping Pomeranian at the end of the line. The problem is obvious: we find human traits in animals both wild and domesticated so easily that seeing ourselves in their skins is no great stretch, and the tendency to telegraph our self-associations is in the end too powerful.

What about vegetables? Might we possess vegetable spirits as well as those of animals? Biologically we certainly have much less in common with them. The edible buds, bulbs, seeds, stems, roots, and leaves of plants, vegetables are inanimate and mute. They don't procreate or eat like us, show emotion, or play. Identifying with them in such a personal sense requires a significant suspension of disbelief. When I interviewed Eggplant Kohlrabi and Kale Daikon of the scintillating blog Weird Vegetables back in June, our conversation touched on the issue. We were discussing the polarizing black radish, a vegetable the two had described on their blog as being very "radish-y," meaning of course, that it epitomized, in their eyes, the pungent and peppery traits commonly associated with the radish diaspora. Spurred, I think, by the blog's frequent clever forays into anthropomorphism, I felt suddenly compelled to ask them if people could be "radish-y" too. The resulting dialogue chewed up the rest of the interview.

In an exchange I edited out of the final transcript, I shared with them the story of a friend from college. In college, I knew this guy -- a great guy, incidentally -- who did a self-help radio show on the student-run station. Ingeniously, the show wasn't about helping those calling in; it was about helping himself. Slighted friends and spurned lovers would get on the air and give him shit, and he, flustered and mortified, would beseech listeners for advice. Anyway, as I told Daikon and Kohlrabi, this fellow once told a pal of mine in a moment of ill-advised candor that she reminded him of an olive -- probably because she's dark-haired, dark-eyed, and a little bitter-seeming until you get to know her. At the time, my friend hated the taste of olives, and recoiled at the fairly terrifying prospect of resembling and evoking something she despised.

Some vegetables, like potatoes, for example, with their nubs and pits, can sometimes look like people, especially faces. Superficially, people may also take on vaguely vegetal characteristics. With a little imagination and some squinting, the morning commute reveals a lush farm stand of walking, talking veggies: dour wrinkled turnips lugging briefcases, posh little shallots dabbing away with eyeliner, and lanky carrots bopping along to iPods, their plumes of hair flopping delicately back and forth. The possibilities multiply as you dig deeper, drawing arbitrary parallels between human personality traits and properties of vegetables. There is no universal methodology for this kind of cross-kingdom organization, which is naturally part of the fun. When you look at yourself, and then into yourself, and then out again, across the mist-mottled expanse of reds, greens, purples, and browns in a grocery store produce section, or perhaps the big rough bins of a friendly farmer's market purveyor, what suits you best?

Two weeks ago, curious to this end, I sent an email out to some area food folks, hope to ensnare a full sack of reactions. The email posed the question ("If you were a vegetable, which one would you be?") and left the criteria open-ended. I gathered responses and took stock of the respondents' rationales where they were given.

Eric Smillie, proprietor of the excellently briny Oakland-based blog Awesome Pickle, would be a green cabbage, because "they're versatile, they're good for you, and they don't mess around."

Nancy Gammons of Four Sisters Farms near Monterey would be purslane. "It grows anywhere," she said: "[It's] tenacious...very nutritious, and remains humble."

Farmer Joe Shirmer, owner of Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz, would be red Russian kale. His clod-solid reasoning: "I would fly under the radar as many would think of me as common or mundane or even boring...but in fact I would be the biggest boldest most bountiful four season bad ass around. Nothing would bring me down. Heat, frost, wind, and drought would all pass me buy and I'd thrive. Tomatoes and beans, pomegranates and mandarin oranges, kiwis and peppers would come and go; I'd just kick back and grow -- the healthiest dude around."

Wild foods advocate Iso Rabins of forageSF got appropriately fungal with his pick-- a matsutake mushroom.

Having filled many bowls at his bean-in happy hours, Mark Andrew Gravel, the food activist/artist in charge of Agrarian Art Lab, fittingly leaned legume. "They are thrifty," he mused. "And very satisfying when made well. They seem like a fairly wise vegetable too. Plus they have two sisters that I'm into," he added, presumably making a keen historical reference to corn and squash, the crops North American Indian tribes frequently planted in patches as companions to beans.

Jamie Law, Manager of Media Relations and Special Events for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, would be corn because it's "versatile (corn meal, raw, cooked a billion different ways), tough, and great in sweet and savory dishes."

Nearly half a dozen Cafe Gratitude employees weighed in, including one who just had to drop a little "you are healthy" at the end of his answer. To share one response, the company's district manager Chandra Gilbert identified with humble Brussels sprouts: "Not everyone loves them although those who do love the heck out of them...and you really need to know how to treat them."

Finally, Gayle Pirie and John Clark of Foreign Cinema came through with chef-ly perspectives. Pirie would be "the artichoke, for the mild nutty flavor, many green leaves, and a deeply sweet edible heart at the center." Clark would be "celery for its intense rib cage, strength, magnificent versatility, and tender heart with edible leaves, delicious cooked or raw."

I have included only a sampling, but even from this, enough is clear: nearly all of the respondents associate themselves with vegetables they prize for eating and cooking. Some, like Smillie and Gilbert, also allude to looking for themselves in the vegetables they adore, perhaps coveting those vegetables' traits as their own, viewing them as vessels for whatever meanings they might infer. Brussels sprouts, for example, are divisive. They are, as Gilbert suggested, a little hard to love; they're so often taken in the wrong context, misinterpreted, and abused. We all have stories about them. They are like difficult people who do good work -- say, a crotchety old civil rights attorney prone to shouting down his secretary and making bad jokes at the wrong times. You can accept them, respect them, and like them immensely, but you can't take them wholly as they are. They have to be prepared well -- shredded for a salad maybe, or roasted whole. They need to be matched with suitable companions to smooth out their harsher aspects -- like bacon, or thyme and mustard. They should be served in the right setting, under the proper circumstances. A lot of vegetables -- along with people -- take some warming up. Until I was 22 or so, I was weird about parsnips. They always struck me as peculiar ghostly characters, like carrots ravaged by Bunnicula. With their tough skin and fibrous core, parsnips take a little finessing, but they are delightful once melting into a stew or sweetening a tuber puree.

"I think about things I want to eat and they aren't usually [things] I'd want to be," Kohlrabi had said towards the end of our interview, petting a cat as it sidled past along the carpet. At the time, stifling a wicked sneeze, I'd suggested being something no one would eat, but now, the more I think about it, my mind has changed. Me, I would like to be eaten, to give sustenance to others. Since we're speaking metaphorically, consumption would not cut my life short, simply enrich it. In the course of my life, I'd like to help nourish the people I encounter -- whether through art, education, or friendship -- providing of course they're willing to try me. After all, life's too short to be a rhubarb leaf.