Purple-Speckled Dragon-Tongue Romano Beans grown by Annabelle Lenderick at La Tercera Farm

Corn, tomatoes, beans, and peppers: the quartet of summer, born in the Americas. None of these need much fussing with, and all four go very well together, in any number of permutations. Steamed green beans with halved cherry tomatoes and silvered red onion, drizzled with olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Corn salsa with chopped tomatoes, lime, and cilantro, served with black beans on a corn tortilla. Roasted peppers mixed with grilled corn next to sliced flat-iron steak. Fresh shelling beans--cannellini, borlotti, cranberry--tossed with corn and herbs for a sweet summer succotash, far away from winter's bleak frozen-limas-and-canned-corn version. The seed-flecked juices of a fresh tomato salad soaking into an ear of plain boiled corn on the cob, with the insistent perfume of basil and perhaps a dab of garlicky mayonnaise somewhere close by.

My friend Jen McAllister used to write a charmingly delicious food blog, Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina, about her adventures, cooking and otherwise, in a bite-sized apartment in Astoria, Queens. By August, she and her husband, sunk in muggy late-summer torpor and farmers' market overload, were perfectly satisfied with eating what they'd dubbed The Cornbread Thing several nights running. It's a simple composition, but a winning one: a fresh corn relish/salsa, made of cooked corn, chopped tomato, a bit of sweet onion, lime juice, chili powder, salt, and olive oil, left to macerate overnight; a skillet-baked batch of cornbread; some Greek yogurt, plenty of cilantro. The cornbread is cut into wedges and split horizontally, then slathered with Greek yogurt, dolloped with corn relish, and ornamented with sprigs of cilantro. What more do you need?

Well, how about salmon? Local sockeye and king salmon is in its late-summery, coral-colored glory right now, and poaching a slab of fish is even easier than baking a pan of cornbread. I'm enamored of the "shallow poaching" method outlined in The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. No need for full submersion: fill a shallow saute pan with just enough liquid (half water, half white wine, or water with a splash of white-wine or champagne vinegar) to come half-way up your fish filets or steaks. Add a few sprigs of tarragon, parsley, thyme, whatever aromatic nice thing you have growing, plus a few thin slices of lemon or lime and a big pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, cut the heat to barely a simmer, and slip the fish into the liquid. Cook, without letting it boil, for about 3 to 4 minutes. Flip the fish over, and cook for another few minutes, until it's just cooked through, and remove. For a nearly instant sauce, reduce the poaching liquid by half, then whisk in some cubes of cold butter. Remove the lemon and herbs, and voila! Beurre blanc without tears.

Or you can skip the buttery action and simply lavish your poached salmon, warm or chilled, with a slightly tweaked version of Jen's corn relish, over a plateful of lightly steamed green beans or, even better, the wonderful purple-speckled dragon-tongue romano beans grown by Annabelle Lenderick at La Tercera Farm.

Recipe: Summer Corn Salsa

Summary: This easy salsa, adapted from a recipe on the blog Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina, makes a wonderful summer topping for poached or grilled fish.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 cups

Ingredients
6 ears fresh corn, husked
2 tbsp pure chile powder
a pinch of ground cumin, optional
1 tbsp water
1/2 of a large sweet onion
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 large tomato
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of 2 juicy limes
a handful of cilantro or basil leaves, stems removed

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in corn, bring back to a boil, then cover and turn off heat. Let stand for 4 minutes, then drain and let corn rest until cool enough to handle.

2. While corn is cooking, stir chile powder into lime juice, and let sit for a few minutes while you dice the tomato and onion. Cut corn off the cob and mix with chile, lime, tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, salt and olive oil. Taste for seasoning.

3. Salsa can be made several hours (or even a day) before serving. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Just before serving, add a small handful of roughly chopped cilantro or basil leaves.

Jaan J. tie, Stella McCartney belt, Cri de Coeur boots, Vaute Couture coat, and olsenHaus shoes

One of my earliest memories is of my dad showing me an ant on the ground and explaining to me that we do not step on them because, however small in size, the ant's life is just as valuable as ours. That sense of compassion has stuck with me always and my love for all animals became the foundation for becoming a vegan years later. It was such a perfect move that when I made the transition it felt like coming home.

It is that feeling of compassion for all creatures that leads ethical vegans (my guess: the majority of vegans), to extend a cruelty-free lifestyle beyond food. Our compassion for animals and the planet affects what we buy when it comes to everything from body products to furniture to cleaning products to bedding to car interiors. And of course, it affects the clothing we wear. It would be hypocritical for us to avoid meat and then buy a leather belt. Vegans don’t just avoid fur—we also avoid leather, silk, wool, cashmere, down, alpaca, angora, and, well, anything that comes from an animal—including, when possible, animal-derived glue used in shoe manufacturing.

I haven’t always been a vegan, but I have always felt deeply empathic and connected with non-human animals—especially because they cannot speak for themselves. This connection, combined with my inclination towards creative endeavors and my love of fashion, led me to focus on researching not only the best vegan foods, but the best vegan clothing as well. Out of this inquiry emerged the creation of my own vegan fashion curation blog, plantmade.

There is something exciting happening in the vegan world right now where young designers are creating incredibly innovative ways to produce shoes, handbags, belts, coats, ties—you name it—with materials that are animal and planet-friendly. And vegan fashion-conscious individuals are also hitting the blogging world, as evidence by sites like Animal Friendly.Me, The Ethical Man, and The Discerning Brute, covering everything from the their top ethical picks from this season's collections to the recent Farm Sanctuary 25th Anniversary Gala in New York. They are mending the disconnect mainstream society harbors with regard to what they consume—whether it be a hamburger or a silk blouse.

While what’s best for our planet it to stop consuming at the rate we are, we can’t avoid the fact that people still want to buy a new pair of shoes once in a while.The key is to invest in quality pieces that you truly love and plan to keep for a long time made from materials that cause the least amount of harm to animals and the environment. If you do some research (through places like Global Action Network, PETA, Veg for Life, Farm Sanctuary, or vegan designers like olsenHaus) it can make all the difference. It is through this research that you will learn that sheep go through a cruel practice called mulesing and later get sent to slaughter (if they haven’t died from infection or heat stroke by then). Cashmere goats get castrated, notched, and dehorned without anesthesia and killed by age two if their coats are not perfect (50-80%), then sold for slaughter after shearing. Silk worms are boiled alive. Down "production," where birds are plucked alive or scalded in boiling water while still conscious, supports the foie gras industry. And of course, the leather industry is directly linked to the meat industry, whether it be represented in that calf-skin (veal) handbag, shearling (lamb skin and fur) boots, or in those kidskin (baby goat) gloves. And this is all just scratching the surface. The lesson here is that everything is connected and vegans don't like to turn a blind eye to that fact.

Luckily, more and more attention is being paid to conscious fashion and more and more small companies are popping up everywhere and growing. Footwear companies like olsenHaus (now sold at Nordstrom!), Cri de Coeur, Neuaura, and Melissa focus on vegan footwear. Stella McCartney avoids leather in her designs, so all of her shoes, belts, and handbags are vegan (but she does use silk, wool, and cashmere in her clothing). Melie Bianco, Matt & Nat, and Gunas are vegan “leather” accessory companies. Vegan coats can be found at Vaute Couture. Jann J. makes great silk-free ties. And of course, many designers who are not vegan, happen to create “accidentally vegan” pieces (like Marc Jacobs’s fabric bags or Givenchy’s jelly sandal). In that case a vegan needs to make the decision of whether they want to support a company that produces non-vegan pieces despite the availability of vegan ones. If the preference is to stick with only eco-conscious labels, check out any of the designers featured at Vancouver’s Eco Fashion Week. Fashion is becoming such a focus in the vegan community that the first annual Vida Vegan Con international blogging conference in Portland this August features a vegan fashion workshop.

It can, however, be pretty challenging to find quality sweaters, scarves, and hats that are not cashmere or wool, and it can be even harder to find blouses and dresses (especially wedding dresses!) that are not silk. But they are out there. (Check out The Cotton Bride and Lindee Daniel.)

With yarn being made out of bamboo, soy, hemp, lyocell, and ramie, cotton and linen (made from flax) are no longer the only plant-based options for knits. Bamboo is incredibly soft, durable, and even antibacterial. Soy is smooth like silk and drapey, with a similar feel as cashmere. Hemp functions much like linen. Lyocell, made from cellulose fibers, is better known as Tencel or modal. Ramie, made from a flowering plant in the nettle family, adds luster to any fabric with which it's blended. Of course, it is advisable to look for organic when possible to avoid the chemicals used in the production of the textiles, both for environmental and health reasons. For more info, TreeWool is a great vegan blog that posts information on the world of vegan knitwear.

polylactic acid dress, DyeCat-dyed fibers, kombucha-bacteria-grown cellulose "leather" jacket

And then there are truly experimental materials out there that show how turning to plants that we normally associate with food can lead us to innovation in the apparel design world.

Suzanne Lee at Central Saint Martins in London is developing cellulose “leather.” Her “Bio-Couture” project uses bacterial cultures in kombucha tea to grow what resembles transluscent leather. Check out a video on her work on The Discerning Brute.

Compostable “Ingeo,” a plastic called polylactic acid (PLA) that’s similar to polyester is manufactured from plants such as corn, wheat, sugar beet, mollases, sugar cane, or rice. Not only does Ingeo not use oil or take centuries to degrade, it can also use up waste from our landfills. And, of course, it makes a fabulous wedding gown as well.

DyeCat is a company that created a way to “dye” polyester or PLA as the fibers are produced, eliminating the need for dyeing in water afterwards, a practice that has lead to dumping of chemicals into bodies of water, causing massive environmental damage and health hazards for workers.

If some of these options seem too expensive and/or out-of-reach, fear not and keep in mind that doing the best you can is better than doing nothing and you can always aspire to do more. The key is to buy products made from plants whenever possible (organic being ideal) and to stop adding to the consumerism cycle. Shop vintage. Buy kapok instead of down. Avoid PVC. If not made of plants, buy recyclable materials, then actually recycle them. Compost fabric. Donate clothing. Support small-scale designers. Educate yourself.

The whole point of being a vegan is to do as little harm as possible. And I’m sure that, no matter what we each ate for dinner last night, we can all agree that that’s not a bad idea.

It's 7am here in Novato, time to walk across the creek (summer dry now, except for a puddle or two under the rocks) and feed the goats and chickens. These last few weeks have been a country-living idyll, if you can call a mere 15-minute drive from an on-ramp to 101 the country.

But the neighbors have horses, the only sounds at night are peacocks moaning and dogs barking, and across the creek and the little meadow is a former donkey stable turned goat-and-henhouse, home to two young goats, Teddy and Lila, each about the size of a spaniel, and 9 plump hens--4 blonde and bosomy Buff Orpingtons, 3 glossy Rhode Island Reds, and 2 perky little bantam Brahmas.

The chickens tolerate the goats, since their presence involves the appearance of tasty sweet hay and goat chow twice a day. Teddy and Lila, meanwhile, accept life with a mess of clucking, pecking birds underfoot as perfectly normal. Right now, they spend a lot of time bending their little goat brains into figuring out how to get into the enclosure where the feed tubs are kept. It's wood-walled, locked and chicken-wired at every opening, but that hasn't stopped them from poking and butting at every opportunity.

So far, living near these chickens has opened my wannabe urban-farmer eyes-- and ears. Chickens are noisy, even when there's no rooster around. Hens will cackle, call, chirp and just downright yell their feathered little heads off when they feel like it, 6am and your sweet dreams be damned.

The look in a hen's eye when one approaches her in her nest could drill holes in a diamond. I know egg baskets lined with cheerful gingham dish towels do not exist in nature, but any hen worth her salt will know exactly what you're up to when you come sidling up to her, little basket slung casually over one wrist. One more step and I'll shoot, she seems to say, and so far I haven't be brave enough to put her glare to the test.

There's already 2 dozen eggs in the fridge as it is, half left by the owners and half this week's haul. Some are white and dainty, others big and brown, but all are delicious as only new-laid eggs from happy hens can be.

The yolks stand up and shout, bright yellow ringed by a thick, nearly aspic-like white. Hard-boiled, they're nearly impossible to peel--too fresh. But scrambled, poached, fried sunny-side up, they make getting crowed out of bed at first light seem worth it.

Naturally, with the eggs of 9 happy layers at my disposal, challah, quiches, and custards of all sorts are looking pretty good.

For something made with not much more than milk, cream, eggs, and corn, corn pudding has many variations, most of which hark back to the South. There are simple, silky puddings, trembling and delicate as a Japanese chawanmushi, baked in a water bath to cook the custard gently and evenly. There are brawny ones, made with cornmeal (or, more likely, Jiffy cornbread mix) like spoonbread, kissing cousin to a corn muffin. Some are spicy with jalapeno and pepper cheese, others sweet with sugar.

Growing up, my mother made it the way her mother did: custardy and simple, baked in a white souffle dish and dusted with paprika for color. Sometimes she separated the eggs, first sauteeing some onion and red pepper in the butter, stirring in the flour then adding the milk and cream, bubbling it into a creamy white sauce. The egg yolks were whisked and tempered with a little sauce, then stirred into the sauce and cooked until thickened. The egg whites were beaten to drooping peaks, then quickly folded in and popped into a hot oven. Puffed and golden, this was no mere corn pudding but a puffed and golden corn souffle. Either way, served with broiled lemon chicken and a salad of ripe tomatoes dabbed with mayonnaise and fresh basil, these were eggs that tasted of summer.

Corn Pudding
Getting the pan of hot water into the oven without splashing (and burning) yourself is the one hurdle to using a bain-marie. The easiest trick? Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Preheat your oven. Put your pudding dish inside a larger baking pan (there should be at least an inch of room all around the dish) and place it on the oven rack. Using the kettle, pour hot water into the baking pan so it comes about halfway up your pudding dish. Slide rack carefully back into the oven, taking care not to slosh yourself.

When pudding is done, remove dish to a cooling rack or trivet. Leave the water-filled baking pan in the oven until cool, then remove.

Serves: 4

Ingredients
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
4 ears corn, or enough to make approximately 2 cups corn kernels
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup half-and-half
4 eggs, preferably from happy hens
a few pinches of sugar (optional)
a few pinches of cayenne pepper or a few dashes of hot sauce, optional
Paprika

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Grate each ear of corn across the large holes of a box grater until all the kernels and milk are off the cob. Or, cut kernels off cob with a sharp knife and pulse a few times in a food processor to make a lumpy puree.

3. Whisk corn, flour, and salt together.

4. Whisk eggs well and add to corn mixture along with milk and cream. Whisk in pepper, hot pepper, and sugar if desired. Lightly grease a 6-cup ceramic souffle-type dish. Pour corn mixture into dish.

5. Place a baking pan large enough to accommodate the baking dish onto the oven rack. Put baking dish inside pan, and fill pan with hot water to come halfway up the dish.

6. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until top is golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

7. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Like most custard-based dishes, this tastes best when eating warm rather than hot.

The other week, when visiting some old friends at their home in Redwood City to dine on sous vide leg of lamb, I was somewhat surprised/amused that the lady of the house had chosen to serve a salad of quinoa as an accompaniment.

"Quinoa, eh?" I said to the man of the house. He shot me a little look that said, "Oh crap, you're not going to bring that up again, are you?"

Well, yes, I am. I'm even writing a little blog post about it.

So there.

When we were in college, this friend of mine and I were out at some sort of social gathering where eating occurred. There was a woman present from his World Arts and Cultures department whom he was trying to impress. I remember her as very attractive in a Berkeley/unwashed/sandal-wearing/patchouli-smelling sort of way. In other words, just up my friend's alley (at the time), so to speak.

He sat next to her on a long bench. He complimented her outfit, saying something to the tune of "I really like your skirt. It's so... Third World." When this failed to win her over, he stepped things up by making a comment about the food on her plate:

"Ahhh, keen-waaaah," he said with deliberate flair. "That's an ancient grain, you know."

Frankly, if any man said this to me, I would have been automatically intrigued. Was he kidding? Was his field of study ancient grains? Was he really that interested in my diet?

Whatever this girl was thinking, she was relatively unmoved by my friend's covert attempts at wooing, which means (in my book) that she couldn't have been very interesting (or smart) to begin with. No matter how many yards of Third World fabric she had on.

And I can't say that I'm sorry, since I'm rather fond of the woman he ended up marrying. I mean, she knows about the quinoa pitch and serves it up as a loving, quiet joke.

Like sous vide lamb and quinoa salad, my friend and his wife are an excellent, interesting pairing.

Quinoa Salad

I've chosen to go, if not Third World, then New World with this one. Quinoa, tomatoes, and corn* (or, as 1/8th of my ancestors call it, maize), just like my friends did.

Quinoa, if you didn't know by now, is an ancient grain-- it's been cultivated in the Andes for at least 5,000 years. Though the locals regarded it as sacred, I think it may be a stretch to call it, as some do, "The gold of the Inkas." I somehow doubt Pizarro would have been satisfied had the captured emperor Atahualpa offered him a roomful of quinoa as his ransom instead of actual gold.

Of course, Pizarro wasn't exactly satisfied with a roomful of real gold either, since he eventually had the poor emperor strangled.

A roomful of quinoa would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, if you ask me.

The addition of corn is an inspired touch, given the fact that the Spanish so scorned quinoa as "food for Indians" and detested its sacredness that they banned the cultivation of the grain, forcing the conquered people to grow corn in its place.

Apart from the added sweetness, corn adds a delicious touch of cultural tension.

Besides, it's fun to play with corn silk. Think: Farrah Fawcett hair.

Serves six.

Ingredients:

For the salad:

1 cup quinoa

2 cups cold water

2 ears of sweet yellow corn (about 2 cups)

A tablespoon of oil to coat the corn

1 cup diced (or simply cut in half) cherry tomatoes

1 cup diced squash (I chose a darling little green type the name of which I have forgotten. It adds a bit of color and is, of course, New World)

As much goat cheese as you like, which is entirely optional, since goats were introduced to the New World by the Spanish.

For the vinaigrette:

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (Virgins, though it has been argued, were not introduced by the Spaniards, so they're okay to use.)

1/4 cup white wine or champagne vinegar

A pinch of salt

As much freshly ground pepper as you like

Preparation:

1. Rinse quinoa in cold, running water. Drain. It is best to use a mesh strainer for this exercise, otherwise you likely wash most of the grain down the sink.

2. In a medium pot, place quinoa and two cups of cold water. Bring to a boil, then cover pot and lower heat to a simmer. This takes about 15 minutes. Remove cover and fluff quinoa with a fork. Let cool.

3. Rub corn with oil (you can use corn oil, for all it matters, but I used olive oil), put the ears in some sort of roasting vessel like a cast iron pan or what-have-you, and place vessel in a 400°F oven to roast, turning occasionally to brown. This takes about 15 minutes, so you might as well be doing this while your quinoa is cooking. You do read through a recipe before executing it, don't you? Good. I thought so. The corn is finished when the kernels are turgid with juice. Remove corn from oven, let cool enough to handle, then cut from cob. Set aside.

4. When quinoa and corn are cool, add them to a large bowl. To these two culturally conflicting grains add the diced tomato and squash. Toss gently with a large spoon.

5. To make the vinaigrette, place all vinaigrette ingredients into a mason jar, apply the lid tightly and shake it vigorously until the oil and vinegar have emulsified. Pour dressing over the quinoa salad and toss again gently.

6. Transfer your salad to the serving dish of your choosing-- hopefully some sort of Pre-Columbian pottery vessel-- and sprinkle with the purely-optional cheese. Serve with lamb to your only-slightly-annoyed husband.

* You might notice the presence of red onion in this photograph. It was merely an experiment in flavor. It added an unnecessary sharpness to the salad which I have since omitted.

Poor corn. It's been pimped out to animal feed and fructose companies, making it top the most-wanted list of dietary no-nos. But real corn -- and by "real" I mean those delightful yellow and white cobs that come in green husks and not the mass-produced grain in monoculture fields -- is a summer treat.

Corn is at its best roasted on the grill where that direct intense heat makes the kernels sweeter. After eating our fill of grilled corn a few weeks ago, however, I wanted to try something a little different. Soup. Yes, I know. Soup is not a summer standard. But we live in the Bay Area, where hot days are followed by cool, foggy ones, so soup is an every-season dish as far as I'm concerned.

Corn chowder is a favorite of mine. In the past, I have always just cooked the corn on the stove to make soup, but this time I wondered how everything would turn out if I roasted it first. I had to give it a try. Now keep in mind that this is a simple recipe. Unlike other corn chowders, which are usually made in the winter, this soup doesn't include root vegetables, like potatoes, or spices. Corn is now in season so I really wanted it to be the star and adding other ingredients meant it would have to share the stage. I therefore settled on just corn, bacon and onion along with stock and milk. The result was lovely: just-picked corn sweetness caramelized on the grill with a salty bacon accent. You could easily serve the soup just like this, but because I am growing parsley in my backyard, I decided to top everything off with an herb pistou to round out the flavors.

What, you may ask, is a pistou? It's just a fancy name for herbs blended with olive oil and seasonings. I often make a parsley pistou for my lentil soup, so whipped one up for the chowder. The result was more than I had hoped for. Like lime with jalapeno, or coffee with chocolate, the pistou heightened the corn's natural essence and elevated the flavor to a new level.

Roasted cream of corn chowder with parsley pistou has now become one of my favorite summer dishes, with or without a fog bank.

Roasted Cream of Corn Chowder with Parsley Pistou

Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 strips bacon
1/2 onion diced
3 large cobs of corn
1/2 cup half and half or whole milk
2 cups chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Heat grill to high.
2. Place husked corn on direct heat and turn down the grill. If using a charcoal grill, place on indirect heat.
3. Grill for about 5 minutes a side or until the kernels start to brown. You may even hear a popping sound.
4. When corn is thoroughly cooked, remove it from the grill. Set aside to cool.
5. Chop bacon into small pieces and cook in a medium pan. Add the diced onions when the bacon is 2/3 cooked through. Continue cooking until bacon is crispy and onions cooked through.
6. Trim kernels from the cobs. I place my knife at a slight angle, which makes it easier to remove the kernels.
7. Place bacon and onions in a blender along with the corn, chicken stock and milk. Puree until the mixture reaches the consistency you desire. I like it mostly smooth, but with some small chunks. You can also use a hand blender.
8. Place the soup into a medium-sized pot and heat through.
9. Ladle into bowls and top with parsley pistou.

Parsley Pistou

Makes: 1 cup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Place parsley and olive oil in a blender and puree until the herb is fully integrated into the oil.
2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Slim as a finger or big as a fist, wrapped in papery corn husks or supple banana leaves, sweet as spring or spicy as summer -- the humble tamal in all its forms and flavors has become the star of an annual fundraising event in San Francisco. Taste of Tamales By the Bay will be coming again to the Fort Mason Center on Sunday, April 26, 2009.

During the rest of the year, the organizers of the event, the Benchmark Institute, helps develop better quality legal services to low-income communities. With an office in San Francisco's Mission District and with a potent blend of inspiration and hard work, their staff have proved tamales to be as unifying as they are fortifying.

I can still remember the first time I succumbed, one sunny day on a San Francisco sidewalk, to the low and furtive murmur of "hot tamales, hot tamales." Without a word, I followed a man to a minivan parked at the curb. Inside, his wife and teenaged daughter dug into their secret stash, kept warmly bundled inside 5-gallon buckets covered with thick towels. One pork, one chicken. I found a fire hydrant to lean on and ate both tamales straight out of the plastic. That red minivan still appears in my dreams.

So with much excitement, I’m heading to the Taste of Tamales festival. A wide variety of vendors will offer tamales and other tamale-friendly treats, such as hand-fried plantain chips by Estrellita’s Snacks, heritage beans both cooked and uncooked from Rancho Gordo, and coffee by Mama Art Cafe. In between all the tasting, you can browse gifts like colorful tile paintings from Suha Suha Studio or books new and old on Mexican and Southwestern cooking from Omnivore Books.

The margarita competition should be as fun to watch as taste. Family-friendly events include storytelling sessions and a tamale-making demonstration.

Those fascinated by how cuisines crossed the oceans can stop by the stage for my presentation, South By Southeast Asia: Tamales in the Philippines and Guam. Filipinos sailors manned the first Spanish ships that landed on our coast, while the Manila-Acapulco galleons directly connected Mexico to Asia long before California even appeared on maps. I'll be showing how corn deliciousness wrapped inside a leaf moved and morphed across 7,000 islands in Southeast Asia to mash up in Manila with its Chinese counterpart. Along with cheese and pork, peanuts and coconut milk made their way into the post-colonial tamal. For the first couple of hundred who arrive at the talk, there'll be tastings of these unique versions of tamales still enjoyed in the far-reaching Pacific archipelago.

A detailed schedule will be posted soon. In the meantime, mark your calendars for the last Sunday in April. You might want to skip breakfast that day.

Taste of Tamales By the Bay
Sunday, April 26, 2009
12:00 noon – 4:30 PM
Fort Mason Center
Buchanan St. at Marina Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94123
Map
Conference Center, Landmark Building A

I've had chowder on the brain ever since I attended a rally a couple of weeks ago at which I mistook the crowd's chant of "Louder! Louder!" as-- thanks to people blowing horns into my ears-- "Chowder! Chowder!" I was teased about it by a friend of mine (the proud owner of two hearing aids, no less) who leaned over to me afterward to say, "All this heat and talk of marriage is making me crave a hot, milk-based soup."

Sometimes, we hear what we want to hear.

I've been craving it ever since. Chowder, not marriage, I mean. Popping around the corner to Swan's Oyster Depot is easier said than done, thanks to the usual line several eaters-deep on any given day. And I don't want it from a can-- that's just too single-man-living-alone pathetic. And I'd hate to have anyone find the can in my garbage, because I have a reputation to protect. Since no one has offered me a steaming bowl of the stuff lately, nor is anyone on the horizon likely to, I knew I would have to make it myself.

But what kind?

There are any number of chowders to choose from. New England, Manhattan or Shrimp Chowder from the Gulf Coast? There are chowders made with oysters, with clams, lobster, crab, fish, and even corn. Thin and milky, or thick and creamy? There are as many types of chowder as there are people who make it. No two chowders are the same. There is not one particular recipe that defines the word, no matter what you might hear to the contrary. I have the feeling one could put Rice Krispies in a bowl with some potato, salt pork, and milk, heat it up and still get away with calling it a chowder, however the people of the North Atlantic Coast of this continent might complain.

The word "chowder" is most likely derived from the chaudière, the three-legged pot or cauldron in which it was cooked, in various forms, all along the Atlantic Coast of France in the centuries prior to European colonization of America.. Others might claim that the word is the bastard child of the Old English jowter, or fishmonger. I vote for chaudière, because I am, at heart, a francophile.

Coincidentally, Atlantic Seaboard-residing, pre-Columbian Native Americans made their own form of chowder which the early English colonists were initially hesitant to latch onto, since they seemed as mistrustful of shellfish as they were of just about everything else. Preferring bivalves to starvation, early settlers added their old standbys of ship biscuit and salt pork to the pot. The rest is, I believe, history.

Corn and Clam Chowder with Bacon

Since just about anything is fair game, in terms of chowder-making, I decided to combine two of my favorites, just to see how things went. A lobster chowder sounded wonderful, but too expensive. Crab, which was local, was at about $30.00 per pound. No thank you. I found some lovely Manila clams, which were not exactly local, but neither were they from Manila. The price was good, so I took them home in a little net bag with the thought of steaming them to death in the near future.

I love corn chowders, too, and anything with bacon it. I thought I'd throw all of these things in my own, legless chaudière and see what happened. The results were excellent. Nothing earth- shattering but, then again, I have no plans to change the world by virtue of my chowder-making. Still, I am pleased.

The various amounts of ingredients are approximate, since I was just letting both the creative and clam juices flow. I neglected to write everything down.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 lbs. Manila clams, rinsed clean

1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped

1 medium-sized carrot, likewise chopped

1 yellow onion, peeled and diced.

1 bay leaf

3 stalks of thyme

several black peppercorns

1/4 lb salt pork, diced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

3/4 pound ( five or six) red or other waxy potatoes, cut into 1/2" cubes

2 cups fresh or canned yellow corn kernels, depending upon the season.

1 cup half and half

pinch of pimenton, or cayenne pepper

4 thick slabs of bacon, diced

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan large enough to accommodate them, lay the clams in with enough water to cover the bottom of the pan about 1 inch. Steam them until they are dead and have released their juice. Remove any unopened clams and give them a proper burial. Remove clam meat from shells. You may either discard the shells at this point or save them for a future crafts project. Set meat aside.
2. Add four cups cold water to the clam liquid, along with carrots, celery, peppercorns, thyme, and bayleaf. To make even clammier, you may add bottled clam juice to this mix. I did not. Cover and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes to one hour. Strain stock through a fine mesh sieve. Return to the same pot and reduce by half.
3. To the chaudière of your choosing, add bacon and fry slowly, rendering as much of the fat as possible. Do so until pieces are crisp. Remove and drain. To the hot bacon fat, add diced salt pork, and sauté over medium-low heat until likewise crisp. Drain and remove.
4. Add onions and garlic to the hot, double pig fat. Cook over low heat until soft, about 20 minutes.
5. Add onion mixture to the clam stock, along with the potatoes, salt pork, and corn. Simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Stir in clams, a pinch of pimenton or cayenne pepper, and half and half. Do not boil, or you will regret it, deeply. Simmer for another 3 to 5 mintues.
6. Ladle into warm bowls and garnish with thyme and crispy bacon which you have not let anyone eat prior to serving. Eat with beer and oyster crackers, unless you have found clam crackers, which I have never in my life heard of. If you have, please send me some.

After successful runs last year at the DeYoung Museum and Galleria de la Raza, The Great Tortilla Conspiracy returns for another fantastic show at SomArts Cultural Center. Self-described as "the world's most dangerous tortilla art collective," the father and son team of Rene and Rio Yañez explores a wide swath of themes in their unique medium. Along the way, they recruit other artists as well as creatively minded gallery visitors to join the fun. Immigration and genetic modification, apparitions of religious icons and pop-culture celebrities, free trade and lucha libre -- it's all game in tortilla art.

Artist: Jos Sances

Artist: Rene Yañez

Artist: Anonymous pork lover

The exhibit opens with a reception on WednesdaySaturday, April 5th, 6:00 to 9:30 pm. Throughout the month, SomArts will host a series of interactive tortilla events, including a tortilla fashion show and a panel discussion on the globalization of tortillas and corn. Those who don't want to think about the rising price of Mexico's staple can skip straight to the hands-on art workshop, where you'll create a masterpiece of your very own to contribute to the growing body of tortilla art.

Artist: Nicole Schach. Oh Blessed Virgin Mary, grant me patience for the 14 Mission, the 30 Stockton, the 38 Geary....

Artist: Rene Yañez

THE GREAT TORTILLA CONSPIRACY
April 3rd to 23rd, 2008
SomArts Cultural Center
934 Brannan Strreet
San Francisco, CA, 94103
(415) 863-1414
Google Map

Event Schedule
April 5, 6 – 9:30 pm - Opening Reception
April 11, 5 pm – Tortilla Drawing Rally
April 12, 6 pm – Artist Panel Validating Tortilla Art
April 18, 7 pm – Tortilla Fashion Show
April 19, 5 pm – Special Panel on the globalization of Tortillas
and Transgenic Corn

The divine Morrissey graces a tortilla.

"King Corn" is a new film that premiered in the Bay Area this past weekend. In it, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis --best friends from college -- plant an acre of corn in Iowa and attempt to track its path into the food chain. I caught up with director Aaron Woolf, whom I knew of from our undergraduate years at a small college in Vermont.

Meghan Laslocky: Can you give us a "before starting the film/after starting the film" picture of your dietary habits?

Aaron Woolf: Before I started working on "King Corn", I don't think I really understood that there was a connection between the way we grow things and the fact that we aren't eating well in this country, which seems pretty obvious now. I came from a family that always ate well, but the way people eat now, like Curt, my cousin [producer and on-screen talent in "King Corn"] who is a generation younger, versus how people ate when I was a kid, is so different. When I was a kid, we went to the wholesale seafood market, mussels were 17 cents a pound because Americans didn't eat them, and we got our meat at a butcher, Mr. Olishefsky, who wore a white gown covered in blood. Behind him in the walk-in cooler were sides of beef. It wasn't a mystery to me as a child where meat came from -- I knew it was a cut-up animal. But I think if you grew up in Curt's generation, the disconnect is pretty major. I think that's one of the lessons of the film: that Curt and Ian are of the cornfed generation, and I am less so, and it took so little time -- the sixteen years that separate us in age -- for that major shift to happen.

Initially, when I started this film, when people asked me about how making the film has changed my eating habits, I'd say, "It's changed the way I wish I ate." But now that the film is done, it's definitely changed the way I eat, and I don't eat fast food. It's instinctive now. What we choose to eat is such a combination of knowledge and religion and training. It's hard to change your diet simply because it's better to do x rather than y, but after seeing feedlots with 100,000 head of cattle -- that's something that's hard to get out of your mind when you look at a hamburger.

Now I try to eat food that lived a life. I'm not a vegetarian, and I don't make much of a distinction between an animal and a vegetable. We derive our life force from eating living things. It's more the way that they lived. For example, I think that eating something that lived in an undignified setting, like pork in confinement that never saw the light of day, is spiritually unhealthy. But the same is true for an asparagus spear that was raised industrially. I wish I could just eat things that were raised in a dignified way that that we would want to incorporate into our own bodies.

ML: Knowing what you know now, what's your take on the rising consciousness of where our food comes from?

AW: I see the benefits of having convenient things to eat, and I still think that's true on some level. And there's a lot of snobbery in the upscale movements, people make a lot of assumptions about other people's ability to choose good and fresh food, even about if they have access to it.

ML: What came as a surprise to you as you did research for the film?

AW: It was a surprise to me how much we have almost consciously created a fast food society, in terms of the Farm Bill and the shift in policy in the 70s. I don't think there is much true evil in the world. I don't blame Earl [Earl Butz, President Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture, whose policies supported large-scale agribusiness and who is interviewed in the film]. I don't blame corporations, but we have gotten to a place where the idea of having more isn't always the best thing.

ML: In the film, you use these great vintage Fisher Price farm toys and kernels of corn to illustrate how the Farm Bill works. What's the back story there?

AW: We were looking for a way to describe obtuse concepts like agricultural subsidies. People are paying to see this film, so we had to come up with something that was at least palatable. We bought one of the Fisher Price barns at Chuck's farm during the auction [see the film for a touching farm auction scene], and the other barn is one that Curtis played with as a child, and probably me as well. Part of the point was that children still play with those toys, but now they're part of a perpetuation of a myth about farming that just doesn't exist. Plus the Fisher Price toys look like food labels on processed foods -- the idealized barn, the livestock -- for a product that contains hog meat from an industrial farm. There was something poignant about that, toys perpetuating a notion about the American heartland that is less and less real.

ML: Has making this film changed your life?

AW: I've made a lot of films, but never before has a film that changed the course of my life as this one has. I'm opening a grocery store in, called Urban Rustic, that incorporates documentary into it, so buyers know where their food comes from. I'm doing this with my partners, Dan Cipriani and Luis Illadeas. On the shelves, there's an LCD or a viewmaster, and you can see where everything comes from. Much in the same way in "King Corn" we've explored where our food comes from, in Urban Rustic, we want people to know where the food comes from. In the store, people even know where the wood flooring comes from -- it's from trees we cut down ourselves on my family's land in the Adirondacks. It's an attempt to take back what the industrial food system has obscured from us.

"King Corn" is currently playing at the Shattuck in Berkeley and at the Red Vic, and it will air on PBS's Independent Lens in the Spring. It was produced with support from San Francisco-based Independent Television Service [ITVS].

Read a review of King Corn in KQED Arts & Culture