What are you doing this coming Thursday? Nothing? In that case, make reservations for dinner out. In one fell swoop you can help both local restaurants and the hungry in our own community.

A maverick is someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action. True to the name, local Maverick restaurateur Scott Youkilis and wine director Michael Pierce created Dine Out Against Hunger, and organized some of the city's top venues to donate up to 10% of Thursday December 18th dinner sales to the San Francisco Food Bank, which supplies over 600 food programs throughout the city.

Maverick will also take 10% off the tab for any customers making an additional donation to the Food Bank. Perhaps you'd like to make the donation in the name of a friend or a family member? Cross another person off your holiday gift list!

What: Dine Out Against Hunger

When: Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Where: Dinners to take place at the following restaurants: Participating restaurants are: Maverick, A16, Americano, Caffe Sociale, Delfina, Foreign Cinema, Incanto, Kuleto's, Magnolia, Range, Serpentine, Slow Club, and SPQR.

How: Make reservations.

Why: If you're wondering whether hunger is a problem in our fair city, it's estimated that 150,000 San Franciscans are at risk of going hungry this holiday season. For every $1 raised during this effort, the Food Bank can distribute $9 worth of food into the community, thanks to its relationships with retailers, growers and distributors. San Francisco Food Bank’s goal is to distribute 66,000 holiday meals this season. Help make the holidays a little brighter for everyone.

If you haven't eaten at A16 in a while, the A16 cookbook should whet your appetite. Here is a scrumptious recipe from A16 Food + Wine. The recommended wine to pair with this seasonal salad is Asprinio di Aversa from Campania.

Roasted Beet Salad with Fennel, Black Olives, and Pecorino

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

2 bunches medium-sized red beets (about 8 total)
Kosher salt
1⁄3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for
roasting the beets
1 1⁄2 fennel bulbs
2⁄3 cup black olives, pitted
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice,
or as needed
Block of aged pecorino for shaving

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Trim off the greens and the “tail” from each beet. (You can reserve the greens if they are in good condition and use them in the braised greens recipes on pages 230 and 232.) Place the beets in a roasting pan in which they fit snugly, and season with about 1 tablespoon salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Cover the pan and roast for 1 hour, or until the beets are tender when pierced with a wooden skewer or the tip of a paring knife. Remove the beets from the oven, let them cool just until they can be handled, and then rub off the skins with your fingers or peel them with a paring knife. Slice the beets into 1⁄3-inch-wide wedges. Cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, if still intact, cut off the stalks and feathery tops (reserve for another use) from the fennel bulbs. Cut the bulbs in half lengthwise, then cut away the core. Cut the halves lengthwise into 1⁄4-inch-thick slices. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the fennel slices and blanch for about 2 minutes, or until they lose their raw bite. Drain, shock in ice water to halt the cooking, drain again, and set aside.

To make the vinaigrette, pulse the olives in a food processor until they form a chunky paste. Drizzle in the 1⁄4 cup olive oil and the vinegar and pulse briefly to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more vinegar if needed.

In a bowl, toss together the fennel and the 1⁄4 cup olive oil, coating the fennel evenly. Mix in the lemon juice and a pinch of salt, taste for seasoning, and adjust with more salt and⁄or lemon juice if needed. In a separate bowl, combine the beets and olive vinaigrette and toss until the beets are thoroughly coated with the vinaigrette.

To serve, place the beets in a salad bowl or on a platter and top with the fennel. Using a vegetable peeler, shave curls of pecorino over the salad. Serve immediately.

Recipe reprinted from A16 Food + Wine, copyright ©2008 by D.O.C. Restaurant Group, LLC, courtesy of Tenspeed Press.

I'm having a really hard time writing about food this week. Frankly, I've lost my appetite. All my favorite foods turn to ashes in my mouth, and anything that does pass my gullet curdles with each additional reporting on the Virginia Tech massacre. With over thirty dead, it's the deadliest shooting rampage in America, and I can't, I won't, ignore it.

Maybe I'm too emotional for my own good, but you know what? I'm a writer, I'm emotional, and while I can fake a lot of things -- a smile, a falsetto, a fava bean puree -- it's a losing battle this week.

Therefore, I'm going to use this space not to revel in San Francisco's bounty, which I can do every day of my life here, but to celebrate the great variety of victuals that come out of Virginia.

First, I want to quote Food History blogger, Gillian Polack:

Foodways and food history are about communities and individuals. They're the story of people and the food people eat.

We all know that, in theory. In pratice what changes the life of a community and rips out its soul is not something that often gets discussed in food histories. Sometimes it does. The extreme stuff. One day I'll talk about that, when I find courage.

One of our regular 451 bloggers lives in Blacksburg, VA. Today I think it's important to stop and remember the people of that particular community.

Instead of reading about food today, I'd be grateful if you took a moment to stop and think about him and his friends, about the son of SF writer Michael Bishop, about everyone who was killed in the shooting at Virginia Tech. Remember that history is about people, and when we lose those people we lose a part of ourselves.

Click over to the Virginia Is for Lovers tourism site and sneak a taste of Virginia.

Initially, I was surprised to learn of wines flowing out of Virginia -- specifically the Shenandoah Valley -- but then I was lucky enough to suck down a wonderful Meritage from Valhalla Vineyards in Roanoke, Virginia. Maverick, on 17th street between Mission and Valencia, has this wine as well as another offering from the Shenandoah Valley.

With that wine, you could enjoy thick slices of Virginia's famous Smithfield Ham and maybe even a handful of peanuts or some local cheeses. Both Meadow Creek Dairy and Everona Dairy are cranking out sumptuous artisanal cheeses that would do any cheese plate proud.

While the states of the Chesapeake Bay watershed are home to many sumptuous seafoods -- shad, oysters, and flounder (there's even a Flounder Capital of the World, claimed by the town of Wachapreague, Virginia) -- the seafood I most associate with the area is blue crab.

My husband, who grew up in Virginia, has fond memories of crab feasts where he worked hard with mallet and blunt knife to scrape out every last scrap of pure white meat from Old Bay-drenched shells. As he tells it, your hands and fingers sustain tiny cuts from hungrily slaving over the sharp shells, and the sting you get from the spicy seasoning working its way into your tender skin is a sweet and necessary pain, as much a part of the blue crab experience as the crab itself.

I've never been able to whack my own pile of blue crabs in either Maryland or Virginia, but I was able to enjoy these Beautiful Swimmers in another luxurious way.

Just after we got engaged, my soon-to-be mother and father-in-law sent Mark and me off to a celebratory dinner at L'Auberge Chez François, an adorable and lovely Alsatian restaurant (or, more correctly, auberge), nestled in the rolling green countryside of Great Falls, Virginia. It was there that I crunched through an appetizer of soft shell crab, whose fresh season is all too short.

I apologize if I haven't been able to cover all the foods and drinks that come out of Virginia, but I'm a novice where eating this state is concerned. I invite any transplanted or current Virginians to share any food memories, facts, anecdotes, or favorites they may have stored away in their heart cupboards.

In the meantime, take care of yourselves, each other and give the closest student, professor, teacher, or school administrator near you a hug.