Yesterday on BAB we highlighted the year's food news in food safety, D.I.Y. food, food politics, school food, and street food.

The top ten for 2010 continues:

Phat Beets Produce is a food justice collective in Oakland - the Beet Crew. Photo by Zachary Matthews

Late in the year in a cover story on class Newsweek explored the growing gap between the haves and have nots on the food front. "The Dinner Divide" noted that we are a nation where Gourmet Ghettos and food deserts co-exist, often in close proximity in places like the Bay Area. The sad truth is that while many of us indulge our "passion" for local, organic chow, an increasingly larger group of Americans simply don't have access to enough healthy food to eat. Meanwhile, another European is attempting to help Americans in need feed themselves, namely Spanish native and James Beard Award-winning chef Jose Andres, who heads up the nonprofit DC Central Kitchen, which offers professional culinary training for formerly homeless, addicted, or imprisoned adults.

Local angle: Actor Dan Hoyle skewered, among other things, hipster San Franciscans obsession with pristine produce with a politically-correct pedigree in his solo show at The Marsh The Real Americans. Meanwhile, Phat Beets Produce, a volunteer-run collective, launched a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box, nicknamed the "Beet Box," in Oakland, to help under-supported small farmers and get produce to people who don't live near a farmers' market.

Eataly in NYC. Photo by Megan Gordon

Lest this list be accused of being too parochial, let's turn our attention to food news out of New York City this year. There was lots, much of it of a legislative nature. Depending on your perspective, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is either a crusader for the people's health or a publicly-funded no-fun-nik: The city took a stand on sodium, introduced letter grades to evaluate restaurant cleanliness, tried to prevent food stamps recipients from using benefits to sip soda, a controversial move (even among anti-hunger and public health advocates) and outlawed alcoholic energy drink Four Loko. Furthermore, a calorie count initiative in restaurants begun in the Big Apple went national on menus across the country this year.

There was fun stuff too: Hello Eataly, a high-end food emporium boasting all things Italian, launched late summer by the city's reigning food Mafia, covered in a photographic homage recently on Bay Area Bites by Megan Gordon.

Local angle: San Franciscans welcomed Manhattan transplant Anthony Mangieri and his much-lauded Una Pizza Napoletana to town.

Jonathan Safran Foer at KQED holding his book, Eating Animals. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Meat mattered this year. The culinary conversation among carnivores, omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans continued as people pondered whether they could morally eat sustainably, humanely-raised animals and wrestled with conflicted or confused feelings about carnal consumption. Now more than ever, how much and what kind of meat we eat reflects our ethics, environmental values, economic status, as well as class, culture, and convenience.

That said, butchers made a comeback, hosting cleaving parties from coast to coast. Meanwhile, the Meatless Monday campaign, which asks folks to forgo meat once a week for health and the environment, garnered the endorsement of celebrity chef Mario Batali, long-known for serving plates laden with animal protein.

And in books and online vegetarian gals chronicled their carnal adventures as they discovered the joys of the flesh.

Then, just as the year drew to a close, New York Magazine announced that vegetables are the new meat, despite significant evidence to the contrary. Make of that what you will.

Local angle: A queen of vegetarian cuisine, East Bay resident Mollie Katzen, came out with a cookbook that included meat dishes, a decision she found herself explaining in every interview about Get Cooking.

While across the bridge the butcher's shop in Bernal Heights Avedano's Holly Park Market, run by a gaggle of self-taught gals, typifies the new-style yet old-fashioned meat market, offering cleaving classes using traditional tools and selling only local, sustainable meats. And the Oakland Unified School District hopped on the Meatless Monday bandwagon.

Macarons - Photo by Stephanie Stiavetti

Now to dessert (with all due respect to the First Lady). Move over cupcakes macarons are the new trend treat.

The Wall Street Journal reported on French fretting that these formerly high-end confections (not to be confused with chewy coconut sweets with a similar spelling known as macaroons) are finding their way onto shelves at such mainstream American stores as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. The soft, sandwich-like cookie, which resembles a pastel-hued minature hamburger, has also been popping up in patisseries and restaurant menus around the country. Natch, the blogosphere weighed in, with negative reviews for the meringue-style pastries on offer at Starbucks, and an amusing update that cupcakes are the new macarons in Paris. Go figure. For you D.I.Y.ers: Pastry chef Hisako Ogita's I Love Macarons details how to make the crunchy and chewy morsels at home.

Local angle: These dainty nibbles can be found in Bay Area bakeries including Miette in the Ferry Building, Paulette in Hayes Valley, Pamplemousse in Redwood City, and Bouchon Bakery in Yountville.

Bay Area Bites blogger Stephanie Stiavetti sung the praises of these egg white, ground almonds, and sugar concoctions in a week's worth of recipe posts on her own blog.

10. Virtual Food

Social media and cyberspace continued to impact food consumption. As noted previously (see item #5 in Part One), Twitter + new wave food trucks = content consumers and cooks. Everyone seemed very app-y happy, with Mark Bittman, the Food Network, and even Gourmet (R.I.P.) embracing the new technology. Not all old-school media, though, marveled at the development. (Ruth Reichl, writing on Twitter, ironically, called the move a "pity.") Regardless, cooking, eating, and drinking apps found fans: There are apps for wine enthusiasts, environmentally-friendly eaters, and ethnic edible adventurers, among other food-focused iFinds. And, although some people doubted it would come to pass, cookbooks made the leap to ecookbooks in a big way in 2010.

Local angle: Budding Bay Area food businesses turned to social media to cash up their new edible enterprises. Examples include Awaken Cafe in Oakland, and an olive oil press and cheese-making venture that utilized Kickstarter to, well, kick start their companies in Berkeley. Early ecookbook adapters include Marin-based chef Eric Gower.

And over at 7x7 food editor Sara Deseran wondered out loud what a lot of local food writers have been thinking: With the explosion in new media -- think Yelpers, bloggers, and Tweeters -- is San Francisco suffering from a gluttony of information on all things edible?

What say you readers: Are there too many citizen scribes (not to mention a healthy helping of professional writers) weighing in on the minutia of every meal made in this city? Or does this town have an endless appetite for food news?

And that, folks, was the year in food.

Grace Cathedral is the eponymous "cathedral on a hill" in San Francisco. It's located on Nob Hill, and many of us have been there to see the beautiful Keith Haring altar at the AIDS Chapel, or to walk the labyrinth inside the church.

What I didn't know until recently is that Grace Cathedral hosts a Forum program each week before the Sunday service, and that the program is often focused on current news makers or people of interest.

The Forum, which is available in a podcast archive, often focuses on food issues and I have enjoyed the past season of speakers for that reason. It's a worthwhile podcast to subscribe to even if you pick and choose which speakers pertain to your interests.

In October, I went to Grace Cathedral to hear Dr. Jane Goodall speak. While Goodall is known foremost as a champion of animals and a teacher of the ways of primates, she is also an advocate for conscious eating and published a book called Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. At the Forum, Dr. Goodall spoke to the importance of food choices in the overall health of the planet, and I found her message challenging and inspiring at the same time. Dr. Goodall implored the audience to become vegetarian or at least eat free-range meat, saying "It's not widely known the extent to which the intensive farming of animals is damaging the environment. People don't want to know about the suffering and the cruelty that goes on within the intensive farms. "

A month or two later, Mollie Katzen visited the Forum. Katzen is the author of the Moosewood Cookbook and one of the founders of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York. She writes about vegetarian cooking and is credited with helping make vegetarianism a mainstream eating practice. Her interview was compelling due to her ties to the Bay Area, and the fact that she's a great speaker. Surprisingly, Katzen is not a strict vegetarian. She eats some meat, but her cooking is inspired by a fierce love for all things vegetable.

Last week, Michael Pollan visited The Forum. He is currently on book tour for his new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. This was an informative hour, and it serves as an excellent overview of his book and his outlook on eating.

As an aside, my friend and colleague Bonnie Powell of Ethicurean will be interviewing Michael Pollan in a Slow Food event in Vacaville on February 7. You can find more information on the Ethicurean site.

The Grace Cathedral Forum schedule can be found on the cathedral website. You can attend the forum sessions in person for free on Sundays or can download them from the Internet. You can also listen over the Internet in real-time and email your questions to the moderator.

The Forum with Jane Goodall
The Forum with Mollie Katzen
the Forum with Michael Pollan