Opening a restaurant in San Francisco is not easy, especially right now, but not for the reasons why it was so difficult in the 90's or five years ago. It can be said, opening a restaurant at all, in any city, is difficult. But because I have cooked professionally in other American cities, have seen a number of my colleagues open restaurants, and have recently begun working for a soon-to-open San Francisco restaurant, I can say that opening a restaurant here is a difficult proposition, even if you have a lot of factors on your side.

Labor: In SF Magazine last month, food editor Jan Newberry spoke to new local labor laws San Francisco is imposing, in an inciting article titled, Is San Francisco Killing Its Restaurants? Although the new labor laws sounds fantastic on paper, they have the capacity to hurt many restaurant employees, mainly back of house employees. For full transparency I will state here that I am, and have maintained, a pro-union status for most of my adult life. The issues are confusing, in part because restaurants are not a necessary establishment the way, let's say, hospitals are. And because I worked for minimum wage for much of my career, I do agree that it should be a living wage.

Culture: It could be said that although restaurants are a luxury business, they do play a major part in distinguishing the landscape of one city from another. As a person who loves to eat out, I can easily name five restaurants in each city I love and they make visiting there far more appealing.

A16 Restaurant. The Line.

Risks: The restaurant business, and the business of opening a restaurant is only for the crazy and the passionate. Who else would open an establishment considered to have the highest risk factor by banks? Who else would pour their life savings into a business that may or may not be liked by the public, or be sunk by one review in the local newspaper? Who else would open a business even if the glass ceiling on profits is less that 7% yearly? {The margins are extremely slim in the restaurant business.}

It can be said that a restaurant owner is a rebel with a cause; opening a business against all odds. Attempting the impossible, confident in the face of harsh realities. A dreamer, in short. Like many other gambles, a restaurant's statistics change city to city, and after New York City, San Francisco has the highest fail-rate in the shortest span of time, than any other city in the United States. What makes a restaurant stick is as much about the fickle public, concerned with hipness above all else, as it is about the actual food being served and by whom, or what neighborhood it's located in and what month of the year it swung open its doors.

Press: In July I spoke on a panel of food bloggers in Chicago as part of BlogHer 07. As the sole professional cook-blogger I had the difficult honor of answering a question from the audience concerning Mario Batali's latest vitrolic comments concerning food bloggers. The funny thing was that, as yet, I had not read his comments on our kind. As Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic has recently pointed out in her site Grub Report, food bloggers are made out to be the villians by my profession.

What, or who, Mario Batali is railing against, is those writing for the Internet with no concern for the business they are admiring or panning. Many food bloggers want to have their slice of the famous pie without taking responsibility for the power of their words-- or taking the first slice. And, something many web-savvy people know, their power to have their words found first is all to often used to threaten and destroy restaurants, chefs and owners. Google is an interesting animal indeed, and being a blogger means catching a ride on its gigantic sweeping monster tail, if even for 15 minutes of fame.

In Chicago I asked everyone to please know and remember that their words were far more powerful than many food and restaurant bloggers have been willing to take responsibility for until recently. I reminded the audience that there are few professions skewered by non-colleague critics publicly.

Chefs and chef-owners pour everything they have into new businesses. They know dozens, if not hundreds, of people's lives are being supported, or not, based on the thousands of decisions they make about opening a restaurant. So when a food blogger, whose credentials they know nothing of, representing an individually promoted news source, like a single-authored blog (as opposed to a newspaper or magazine), comes in on the very first night, or within the first few weeks (a time period we know that newspaper critics are going to, yes, visit, but not base their official review on that sole meal) and reports on the experience, good or awful, the restaurant owner is cornered. She/he knows that, (or maybe they don't because few restaurant people are Internet-smart), those blogger's words are going to be the ones their other prospective diners are going to find first.

Issues: Why is this relevant and/or important to why opening a restaurant in San Francisco is so difficult? Because blogging and the Internet's speed, as an opinion gatherer and reporter, has leveled and expanded a press playing-field, giving chefs and owners one more thing to reckon with in an already seemingly futile battle of pushing a boulder uphill.

I realize I straddle a fence now, and my perspective as a chef and also a blogger has been inexorably altered by having five toes in each grassy knoll. I have made, as I've dubbed it, my Sinead O'Connor mistakes concerning words and quotes and media, self made and not. I know that now I am an easier target for both good and awful press as a pastry chef, becuase I am a presence on the web.

I, like many people before me, am learning the hard way how to open a restaurant in San Francisco, and I am far from being the owner. This piece, as well as the series I'm doing on Eggbeater, is an attempt at reporting the process from the inside. The issues are multi-faceted, dichotomous and oftentimes confusing. While writing I am attempting to sort some of them out, and also speak from and to a perspective rarely found in major press sources.

And, as this is a blog, where comments are welcome and part of creating a place for discussion and public opinion, what are your thoughts on these matters?

------------------------

Other pertinent links speaking to these political and personal issues on the subject of opening and operating restaurants in San Francisco:

Brett Emerson, local chef and food blogger, whose site is the much loved In Praise of Sardines, has been extremely candid in reporting the process of opening his own restaurant, Ollalie.

Michael Bauer, restaurant critic for the SF Chronicle, on his blog, Between Meals, reported on the cost of doing business in San Francisco called, Is San Francisco Killing Restaurants?
{And Brett's commentary on this important article.}

At the end of the year in, "Is The Public Ready For A Transparent Restaurant Industry?" here on Bay Area Bites, I asked difficult questions after a horrific accident took the life of a young waiter and put the sous chef of Bar Crudo in the hospital.

Last November SF Business Times reported on an enigmatic lawsuit the Golden Gate Restaurant Association filed against San Francisco about the newly imposed labor laws.

Last week Tutti Foodie, Scharffen Berger, and Marcia Gagliardi of Tablehopper joined forces and unveiled The Chocolate Adventure Recipe Contest with a number of events at local restaurants featuring pastry chefs and chocolate. On Monday August 13 I went to Campton Place to see what Boris Portnoy {pastry chef of Campton Place, the restaurant) might make and talk about. An innovative and forward thinking chef, Boris's desserts guarantee a challenge to the palate as well as mind.

Much to my delight there was more in store than the same old chocolate thang I, and other pastry chefs, often find ourselves at. The afternoon at Campton Place was spent in a small private room on the second floor with some of California's most dynamic food writers, bloggers, bakers and movers and shakers in the local chocolate scene.

Before we set about eating the arranged chocolate on our plates, John Scharffenberger gave a short but thorough history of cacao and chocolate. If you work for a school, or just love chocolate, give this semi-retired chocolate maker a call! His talk was engaging, funny, compassionate and delicious in every sense of the word. While leading us through the earth's best rain forests for cacao growing, harvesting and fermenting, he directed us to eat the disparate chocolate shapes on our plates, in the order his lesson informed.

Much to the surprise of many of our virgin mouths, we tasted a number of chocolate examples which were not chocolate in the truest sense of the word. We learned that when tasting chocolate in its pure form, tongues met with acidity and tannins most commonly found in wine and bitter edges associated with dark-roasted coffees.

After eating 8-9 versions of cacao and chocolate we listened to Boris talk excitedly about his love for cacao nibs; their texture, flavor and versatility tantalized his sweet imagination. And discovering how to make his own chocolate in a food processor appeared to have changed his life! Yes, he encouraged, go and try this at home. After a short demonstration he motioned with a regal flourish, and quiet waiters appeared with a three component cacao nib-themed plated dessert.

You'd think after three hours of smelling, tasting, eating, talking, inquiring, and listening to chocolate I would have left the hotel without a desire to ponder the chocolate contest... But the truth is that my friend and I discussed what we would do if we could enter the contest. {I cannot, but he can.}

I thought I would share a bit of our conversation. Think of these word formations the way you would poetry, a game, an interpretive dance or maybe like you were sitting near us on BART, overhearing our chocolate-meal fueled crazytalk.

Theme: Bacon & Chocolate

Render bacon fat brunoise or dice, caramelize crispy pork fat cubes and make chocolate with this in food processor with cacao nibs.
Pork cracklins (like the snack food found at gas stations) enrobed in bittersweet chocolate.
Bacon lardons half dipped in chocolate.
Fatback chocolate with quince paste.
Pork belly & rosemary infused chocolate pot de creme, quince paste (?) & sea salt garnish.

Don't worry, these ideas won't end up on a dessert of mine.....

The Chocolate Adventure Recipe Contest website. "You. Dark Chocolate. And A Special Ingredient."

The Rules are simple: pair a list of innovative/ aromatic spices and flavors with any of Scharffen Berger's exquisite dark chocolates. The prizes include both money and fame. If you don't want the Bacon & Chocolate dessert to win, enter soon.

And, as Jen Maiser said aptly, "What could be better than the opportunity to create an interesting recipe using chocolate?"

Related Links:
The Art of Tasting Chocolate
Jalapeno Girl
Ladle and Whisk

This past weekend many of my favorite activities came together under one roof for one night only in San Francisco. On Saturday August 12, from 7 - 9 PM Slideluckpotshow brought handmade food, art, artists, friendliness, beautiful thought-provoking images, eating new things, seeing old friends and making new ones, giddy excitement at the spontaneousness of it all, and deeply inspiring ideas about creating community together. It met me when I left the just cooling breeze of San Francisco's dusk and entered the vast white space that is Sandbox Studios on Minnesota Street. Slideluckpotshow met all my expectations and then far exceeded them in a few minutes, when, after arriving too early with my carpool, put me to "work" being a 20 minute volunteer.

The first time I read about Slideluckpotshow was in Time Out NY on a trip there. I kicked myself for not thinking of the brilliant idea myself. And then I wished I still lived in New York City. Well, for a minute, at any rate.

Recently, via Marcia of Tablehopper and through an odd series of random emails, all mere days before the event, I heard that Slideluckpotshow was coming to my fine, fair city. I could barely contain myself long enough to think about what dish I might create to welcome Slideluckpotshow's founder Casey Kelbaugh and his crew. How could I convince them to come to SF again? How could I gather all the troops possibly interested in coming to an event displaying such an incredible amalgamation of ideas?

It's true, Slideluckpotshow had little advertising. Until I posted the information on eggbeater no one I knew had heard of it or realized they were coming SF at all. Which is really unfortunate, because it was right up our alley!

The requirements for attending for Slideluckpotshow were easy. Make food (I made enough for 30 people but most people made enough for about 12, depending on the portion size), or bring really good dishes from a reputable prepared-food vending source. Make or bring great beverages. If the first two are not possible, give a good donation at the door. {My friend DB gave $10.} Come hungry at least a few minutes, or up to 2 hours, before the slide-show. Be prepared to sit on the ground if you don't get there early enough to nab a seat in a chair or on a comfy couch. Wear the eye glasses you do for watching a movie, if needed. Enter a small body of images for the show and make the deadline. Or don't submit "slides" but be prepared for seeing/ experiencing a wide range of aesthetics and mediums projected on a 20 foot screen via an Apple computer. There were two sections of the slide show, each running at about an hour, with an intermission in the middle.

My favorite artists from Saturday night's SF showing are the following:

Jessica Rosen's powerful images of transsexual women in Brazil, high contrast, slightly ironic (fashion or not?) portraits by Olivier Laude, Jonathan Solo's graphite pencil work wherein he, "collages the drawings... to create meta-feminine/masculine figures from a fantastical assemblage of physical characteristics." There were two artists whose photographic documentation of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reached into my core, but Heidi Schumann's images and astute interplay between sound (all the slide-sets were accompanied by music of the artist's choice) rendered me speechless. Although it's difficult to pick a favorite set and artist, I will. Tim Gasperak contributed a series of photographs stark, detailed, evocative, lovely and textured from two series, Mystery of Iceland and Isolated Landscapes. Even his bio is well written.

What did I make for the pot-luck? A fruit salad composed of the juiciest, most absolute ripe beyond ripe farmers' market fruit. Something similar to Shuna & Athen's Famous Gazpacho. A quick photo of the finished bowl can be found by clicking on this link. From my assembled posse there was also a beautiful pecan-peach cake made by Marc, and a clean squid and broad bean salad made by none other than Brett.

Slideluckpotshow could not be a better event for me: a chef with over 10 years of fine art training and a BFA in photography. If you're a person who appreciates Open Studios or museums, Flickr or JPG, or just the occasional food porn photograph, this is an event I beg of you to attend if it comes to a wide open room near you.

Love is in the air: peaches are here, and all is right with the world. Yes, my sunglasses are rose- tinted, why do you ask?

I've been on the road, taking my show with me. First NYC, then Portland and most recently, Chicago. It's been fun, educational, hot, and delicious, but I've missed being home. Home is where the peaches are. Home is where I know the season's signage at my local farmers' market is. I wait and pine for strawberries, cherries soon follow, and after cherries, O Glorious stone fruit arrives, bang! a cornucopia drops out of the sky and lands on my head! It's fast. It's furious. And no one can keep up. Chefs and pastry chefs change menus daily, attempting to think of newfangled dishes to highlight summer's overwhelming, non-stop conveyor belt of tree fruit to farm, to market. It's all about pitting and prepping and ripening, and those of us who really care, trying to keep our fruit out of walk-ins.

We want our diners to get a taste of what we felt when scooping up the first apricots, felt their soft downy skin and licked our chins attempting to keep every last drop of apricot nectar, spilling out like the well which Micky and the sinister brooms let loose in the night.

This past weekend I had the extraordinary pleasure of working for my favorite peach farmer, Carl Rosato of Woodleaf Farm. On Saturday and Sunday I joined an exceptional crew to sell August's first Cassie peaches, pears, a few undercover Pink Pearl Apples (!!!), tiny sweet green grapes, red pears, mixed figs, white peaches, a dozen or so nectarines and Suncrest peaches.

Cassie peaches, in my humble opinion, are a reason for living.

While working at the markets this weekend I gave out a lot of peach advice. Peach advice for ripening, baking, storing, freezing, jamming, eating, and handling. I received a funny email, in fact, from my friend Guy today,
"That was cool running in to you yesterday, selling peaches. Can't imagine what the customers though when they asked, 'Do you have any good ideas what to do with them?' AHAHHAHAH."

A fruit-inspired pastry chef could not be happier having a job wherein he was surrounded by exquisite fruit all the day long. Fruit is an exciting field of study because not all fruit is created equal. One must know the inner workings of the family of fruit when one approaches a new branch.

Some fruit must always be picked unripe from the tree, the best example being pears. Certain fruits will continue to ripen off the tree, two examples are pineapples, and most stone fruit. There are cranky fruits who do not like to be picked with a machine, cherries, for example. And there are laid back fruits which can go either way, they're easy, like oranges or walnuts.

Peaches will ripen off the tree, on your counter, if you so wish. A good farmer will pick fruit right at the moment where she/he can get it to market looking alright and then allow the eater to ripen it a bit more to get it where it's desired. Many fruits will get softer but not sweeter if picked too early; mangoes are a great example of a fruit whose perfume is stolen when picked green or green-ish.

This weekend, in the midst of excitedly talking a mile-a-minute about peaches, I heard some great peach advice from customers. My favorite tidbit came from a fellow at the San Rafael market in Marin named Patrick. It made me stop dead in my tracks and so I wanted to share it with y'all.

What works for me, and so I share it with others is this: place peaches shoulder side down (aka "stem end"), on a flat surface, at room temperature, just until there's a bit of give under the skin, then refrigerate or eat.

But Patrick had a brilliant idea. Refrigerate peaches/stone fruit all at once and take out, placing on counter (or plate) as I've described, a few days before eating. Refrigerating fruit at home, (as opposed to the massive cold storage facilities in the "produce stream" wherein "refrigerators" are the size of private airplane hangers and temperatures are kept between 30-34F), means the fruit's ripening process is slowed down, but not stopped. With Patrick's method you don't have a lot of really ripe fruit in the fridge at once. And, also, you horde a some power over the ripening process, therefore giving yourself more time to relax, find recipes you love, and do with that fruit what you want without the pressure of doing that right now!

Patrick's method also allows you to buy a little more fruit than you might need or want to consume in one day or week. (Which of course makes the farmers happy.)

Every peach is a snowflake. Every varietal is different, every farm growing a particular varietal grows them differently. Every soil and location and method will produce a different peach. Every tree on in that orchard growing that peach will ripen and concentrate its sugars and acids differently. Depending on how much of one kind a farmer has, and which market they're selling them at, will determine or fetch a different price. And every mouth eating that peach like a snowflake will react to it differently.

We all know at what point exactly we like to eat a banana. Even within one family each member will like a slightly more or less green specimen.

My Peach Advice? Jot down the names and details of the peaches and the farmers with whom you interacted with this year so that next year you will leap at the chance to buy your favorites, have mouth notes from which to comparison shop/eat, and ripen gently and slowly the fruit you choose to buy.

And if you see me selling peaches, please stop by and say hello, I'd love to expound further, or just introduce you to my favorite fruit!

Disclaimer: this is not an "Official Restaurant Review," it is merely a mention of a place to eat I loved when I was in Portland last. Clyde Common is the name. Ace Hotel is its location. I ate there once for each lunch and dinner a few days apart. And I would go there tomorrow if it were not an eleven hour drive away.

I have a favorite restaurant in NYC. It doesn't seem possible to single one place out on a flat, tiny island teeming with enough restaurants to fit on a small continent. But I do. And I send anyone there who asks me for NYC eating recommendations. My favorite place to eat in my old home town is Prune, a slip of an eatery on first street crammed tight with tables and exceptionally happy waiters. Gabrielle Hamilton is one of the most down-to-earth chefs I have the pleasure of knowing. Her food is not exceptionally innovative. She doesn't wow with new spices or chemical induced textures. There's little on the menu you've never heard of or eaten before, albeit in some other form.

Cauliflower soup.

But Prune's food is brilliant. It's simultaneously inspired and soulful, flavorful and simple, honest and satisfying. There are traditional pairings, and seasonal ideas. But somehow, when Gabrielle puts these proteins and vegs together, something like earthy faerie dust gets thrown in, a dash of whimsy, a pinch of what-the-hell and voila, a Vogue-ing, lip syncing, twink of a beautiful creature is born. Always delicious, often exclamatorily so.

But why on earth am I waxing poetic about Prune when I began by talking about a new restaurant in Portland, Oregon?

Ace, A Friendly Hotel.

Because the food at Clyde Common is also inspired, whimsical, down-to-earth, laid back, seasonal, exceptionally delicious at times, and it could turn into my favorite restaurant in Portland if I'm not careful. I don't think the chef behind its menu is as brilliant as Gabrielle, but at least he's reaching, standing on the diving board' edge, toes dangling. Most of the cooks in the kitchen understand how to cook, and many know finesse and flourish are important parts of making a dish day after night after day still taste good. I'm as big a fan of consistency as the next diner, but eating in a plated-food factory is not my idea of a great meal.

When I go out to eat I want to be tempted, turned-on, pushed, inspired, and given too many options to choose from. I want to see items that sound intriguing but not too wacky, ones I never would have thought to do myself. Appetizers like, "asparagus with caul fat wrapped egg," "beef tongue, seared scallop, beets and tomato jam," "chicken-fried chicken liver, cucumber salad and citrus mayonaise," "fennel sausage, octopus, fried potatoes and ink."

Words. On a page looking torn from a child's 1950's blue-lined notebook. Typewriter written letters, in all their skewed arty loveliness.

For design is our first visual. Our first amuse bouche. The way she styles her hair, and the strands which refuse to be bound, falling lightly at her collarbone. The way he suavely matches green pinstripes with a shiny blue tie. The way the light in the room greets you, soft from a few dozen candles, and a menu with the restaurant's name in red rubber stamp ink and today's date in black, upper left hand column, in a hurried angle. You're going to get a special meal no one else will get. Unique. Just like you.

Chicken-Fried Chicken Livers.

But there's always the moment. The dish that makes the rest of the menu fall away, West Side Story style. You take a bite and you wish you didn't have to share.

chicken-fried chicken liver, cucumber salad and citrus mayonaise 9.

You moan audibly. You say, "[expletive deleted] yeah!" And then you consider ordering one for dessert. If Clyde Common pleases you in no other way but the way you feel when this exquisitely delicious combination of inspiration, technique, texture and flavor reach your mouth and then your taste buds, so be it. Leave happy.

Or go on to order the "fishboard" of the day, a generous side dish of "roast cauliflower," "seared chicken thighs/pork shank, refried peanuts, frisee salad and pork jus," or "risotto: fennel, finicchiona, walnuts and grano padano."

French Fried Potatoes with Harissa and Creme Fraiche.

Clyde Common is not for the vegetarian in you. It's for the adventurous, slightly silly, open- minded diner. People are pretty but casual. If you sit near the kitchen be prepared for a conversation with the person plating your salads and desserts. Cooks are white-jacketless, heavily tattooed and young enough to look like college drop-outs. Think Zuni Cafe meets Blue Plate.

Unfortunately the desserts are too sweet, boring and sloppily plated. Someone had a good idea but not the skill or follow-through to make it taste good enough to order again. Dessert as afterthought: not my favorite way to end a blush producing meal.

Believe me when I tell you to walk a few blocks into the Pearl District and go to Blue Hour for dessert. Or drive 15 minutes across one of Portland's beautiful bridges to SE for desserts at ClarkLewis. Or plan ahead and stop into Sahagun for sumptuous chocolates... Any of these three options will satisfy any sweet, seasonal craving you might have.

Clyde Common, Domestic & Foreign Cooking
SW 10th and Stark in the Ace Hotel
503.228.3333
Monday - Thursday open 5 until late
Friday - Saturday open 5 until later
Open Sundays starting June 17th
{More photographs here.}

In a few hours I will be attending the wedding of a friend who has Celiac Disease. Her wedding will be a gluten-free picnic and all the guests will bring something in this theme.

I know very little, almost nothing about what I call "alternative baking." Luckily for me crisp topping is not really considered baking. There are no eggs, no chemical leaveners, no attempt at expecting something to rise in the oven, no faerie-dust finesse needed in the mixer. I need to put a bunch of gluten free flours together with various sugars and spices and butter, and hopefully, voila! Crisp topping baked onto glorious Pacific Northwest berries galore.

"Alternative Baking" is tricky business. Little has been written about the properties of these new flours as they relate or translate to what we know of wheat flour. Although wheat has not always been a year-round crop, almost all American and European baked goods start with it.

Celiac Disease is not the only major food allergy gaining momentum today. With the prevalence of soy and corn and wheat in almost everything consume, whether we know it's there or not, we are developing allergies to ingredients we are eating far too much of. Baking, cooking and eating that is considered "alternative" today may well be considered normal/standard/conventional in a dozen years or less.

Books like Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking have helped me to understand new flours like Mesquite, Teff, Sorghum. In her beginning chapters, she gently and thoroughly explains the nutritional, taste and baking properties of many of these almost mysterious new things.

But, like all new ingredients, one must experiment until one gets what tastes good to them. Because crisp topping has no dangerous raw ingredients you can taste it, and adjust according to taste when it looks ready.

Follow instructions for the crisp topping I made last year near this time. It is exactly the same.

Here is what I put together for today's gluten free challenge. I used a scale so I could check proportions better. And I wrote it all down as I went along, tasting a tiny bit of each flour first to check texture and flavor. All these flours are ground to a different consistency, so measuring them in cups would have been dangerous. Some are heavier than others. (All Purpose unbleached (white) wheat flour generally weighs 5-6 oz. per cup)

2.5 oz Teff flour
4 oz. Sorghum flour
5 oz. Sushi rice flour
1.25 oz. Tapioca flour
1.75 ounces Mesquite flour
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamon seeds*
1.75 sugar
3 oz. raw sugar
8 oz. Dark brown sugar
1 pound unsalted butter
*optional

All of these flours can be found at Rainbow Grocery. If you have a friend who is gluten-free, I hope you get the chance to make this for them!

I've been in Portland, Oregon, now for about a week. Initially I was going to come here for a few days before heading up to a wedding in Seattle. I love Portland, and have since the first moment I saw this small city. But soon after I mentioned that, after two long years, I would be heading up to the Pacific Northwest, I received an inquiry asking whether I might be interested in teaching my baking classes in Portland. Yes, I immediately replied, I'd be honored to.

And so here I am, for two luxurious, long weeks. I could not be happier. Fourteen days to explore, eat, nibble, adventure, photograph, visit, suntan, bake, go to farmers' markets, stain my fingers with berry juices, talk to farmers,berry picking, make new friends, re-acquaint, stroll, drive, and just take it all in.

Some highlights of my trip so far:

A perfectly executed, seasonal, eclectic dinner at 23 Hoyt, in Northwest.
Late night tapas at Toro Bravo. Find yourself there? Get the grilled onions.
Pecan pie made with real leaf lard at Podnah's. (I'll be going back for the ribs, mark my word.)
An inspired fennel and golden raisin scone at Bakery Bar.
Perhaps some of the most amazing nectarines of my entire life at the Saturday Portland Farmers' market.
Marionberries.
Blueberries from Sauvie Island, picked by me.
Refreshing, smooth & sweet cold-steeped iced coffee at Random Order Coffee House. Their baked goods are also amazing. I have now eaten the bacon-green onion muffin twice.
Stumptown coffee.
Three spot-on, seasonal fresh fruit desserts at Blue Hour. (Jenny Raines, who was a pastry person at Chez Panisse for many years, is the pastry chef there now.)
The best French bread outside of France at Fleur de Lis Bakery in Northeast.
Succulent tacos (my favorite is their carnitas), bright agua frescas and fresh chips at Por Que No? on the hip and hopping N. Mississippi street.

With two classes and one week left I am hoping to get jumped up on some of the best tasting caffeine in North America, eat and explore what may be my future home. I love the nooks and crannies of Portland: the self-supporting neighborhoods, the community driven mentality of businesses, the effusive Portlanders who want to make sure I taste and see and go to their favorite spots. I love the trees that make wide arcs of shade, the various bridges connecting west to east, and the feeling you get when you're here. Like opening a business and buying a house are not just possibilities, but realities for someone like me.

I love living in Northern California, don't get me wrong. But Portland might well be in my future. So it's important that I sniff my way around, pay attention to the details, and have fun while I'm snooping.

By the time you read this, I will be in Portland, Oregon, readying to teach four baking classes, back to back, over the course of two weeks. Although it might not sound like much, I have only been teaching 2 classes a month in the Bay Area for the last year or so. But I'm not complaining, I love to teach, and all the better to teach the students hungry to learn, no matter where they are. Portland, Oregon might be one of my favorite places that ever there was, especially in summer.

I'm excited to take the long drive north, and pass on the secrets of flaky pie dough, light cakes, easy biscuits for cobbler and anything else that strikes my fancy after I visit a few of the countless Portland farmers' markets the proud, diminutive city has to offer.

For a complete schedule of my Portland Baking classes and their locations, click here.

After two long, delicious, educational weeks in Portland, I drive to Seattle for what may be one of the most delectable weddings I've been privy to an invitation to. Seattle is also home to, as I barely need to explain to you all, a concentration of possibly the best coffee houses in the country, (I like Vivace best), and some of my all-time favorite desserts can be found at Capitol Hill's B & O Espresso. I have been known to beg those coming to the Bay Area from Seattle to bring me a piece of their lemon pie on the airplane!

I'll be staying with the ever elusive Tea, meeting the beautiful and prolific Molly, and generally enjoying a summer that's a little behind Northern California's, but among those Pacific Northwesters as proud of their region as we are.

I come back for a minute, and then jump on a plane to get to Chicago, a city I have never visited, to attend and speak at BlogHer 07. I'm looking forward to eating BBQ, riding the L, going on an architectural tour, eating innovative raw desserts at Charlie Trotter, and touching base with Gale Gand again. Think there's something I must absolutely do or eat? Feel free to leave suggestions!

By the time I land once and for all in Northern California, it will be August and summer will be in full, opulent swing. Stone fruits will sweeten, tomatoes will overwhelm our kitchens, salads will be the dinner of choice, melons will arrive in a profusion of their sexy, musky, refreshing, honey-sweet selves, restaurants will have basil in everything and I'll be happy to go to the Ferry Building and pick up some Pimienton de Padron from Happy Quail and the love of my late summer life, okra from Short Night. It will be time to make sweet corn ice cream.

Strawberry varietals will get more tender, verbena will perfume the air, and figs in all their guises will be born out of their coconut leaf-scented trees second pregnancy. Eating and cooking will become easier and faster. When there are so many choices, summer's cup spilleth over and we are drunk with its heady voluptuous bounty.

It is in this sumptuous, sensual spirit I am announcing my August classes. I'm taking a gamble and offering 3, as opposed to my normal 2 per month. If you want to skip the descriptions below, follow this link to the current calendar of my upcoming Bay Area classes.

On Sunday August 12 I will teach a Knife Skills Class. Find a review of my last Bay Area Knife Skills Class at Albion Cooks by clicking on this link. The class is 1/3rd lecture, 1/3rd demonstration and 1/3rd hands-on. If you're not too shy you'll learn a lot. I bring all my various knives and explain the whys and hows of different metals, blades, brands etc. The class is vegetarian: we do not butcher meat or fish, and hopefully no one will butcher himself or herself after taking the class!

One week later, on Sunday August 19 I will teach another Ice Cream Class. In the last one students learned how to make Real Butterscotch from scratch, saw and felt how to bring creme anglaise to nappe by look and feel, heard the scientific reasons behind the secret to melt-in-your-mouth chocolate "chips" in creamy, frozen desserts, debated the pros and cons of various home ice cream makers and ate more than their fair share of the spoils. The frozen treat most people were surprised by liking so much? Redwood hill Goat Yogurt Granita. What was the easiest? Lemon Sherbet. Kat, of Kung Foodie took a lot of photos from the first and last Ice Cream Class, get there by following this link. Dolores of Culinary Curiosity wrote a very funny review of the class. If I know nothing else as a pastry chef, I know ice cream and sorbet. I've been making both for over 15 years.

And lastly, Sunday August 26 will usher in my third and very popular Seasonal Fruit Dessert Class. As a fruit-inspired pastry chef, the plated dessert possibilities are endless! In the first class rhubarb and strawberries were most of what was in season. We still managed to make and eat 8 separate items! In the second class we conquered 5, as cherries and stone fruit began their early march. Anita, one half of Married With Dinner reviewed my first Seasonal Fruit Dessert Class. Initially it had been Anita's idea for me to teach the class. So, see, I really do take requests!

All classes take place in North Berkeley, minutes from Downtown Berkeley BART on the Richmond line and close to plenty of parking.

I hope you'll consider taking one or more of these classes. I thoroughly teach the hows as well as the whys, both being major avenues which will lead to understanding the basics of baking and cooking so you can feel more comfortable with a myriad of cookbook recipes, innovative and modern or traditional cooking styles.

In the baking classes I make room for 2 students at $55, if cost is what's keeping them from attending. Email me directly if you feel you qualify. The Knife Skills Class is $68 and the baking classes are $100. Payments can be made by using the Paypal link on Eggbeater or you may email me for a snail mail address if a check feels more comfortable. {I also have a private mailing list if you want to get the information without trekking over to Eggbeater for it. To be placed on it, email me directly. I share it with no one; it's for the purpose of announcing future SF/Bay Area classes only.}

San Francisco Magazine recently covered my classes as well as many other individual and small cooking school classes, see the whole spread by clicking on this link.

See you soon?

Come One, Come All. Come Hungry To Learn!

As I've said before, to have me in your friend circle means I am your go-to for all edible recommendations. Most of the time this means that, after contacting me, people walk away with new eating and adventuring possibilities. But sometimes I tell people where to go for selfish reasons.

At weddings, for example. The food and cake can be notoriously awful at large functions. (In a recent talk at The Commonwealth Club, Charles Phan, chef/owner of The Slanted Door, reminded us that if we wanted to see restaurants buying, for example, sustainable seafood, we should think about speaking up at the next banquet dinner or luncheon we eat at or have at a hotel. "Because you can eat more Chilean Sea Bass in one day in a hotel than I could buy/sell at my restaurant in a year.")

When people come to me asking for wedding cake making expertise or the option to cater their wedding, I send them to people and companies who do a much better job than I ever could. People who make a living in said fields. I give them the cards of those who have never let me and my recommendation down. I give out the names of companies who have fed me well at the very same parties I could have catered myself, but thankfully chose not to.

Take it from me when I say not all catering companies are created equally. I've worked for many who make food I myself am scared to eat at the very functions I'm preparing or plating the food for! When I've worked for these places, I eat big meals beforehand and carry snacks for the moment I'm caught hungrily off guard.

And then there are the places where I show up to work hungry. Hungry to learn and to eat. Paula Le Duc, for example. PLD is the exclusive caterer for The Ferry Building Events. They are incredibly organized, smart, efficient, and serve some of the best food in the Bay Area, no matter if the party is for 5000 or 50. They are professional and friendly and emply hundreds of people, many of them loyal for years on end. I loved working for them and have sent a number of cooks their way. It's always a good sign when a catering company hires aggressively and competitively from within the restaurant industry.

Which brings me to Living Room Events, a company made up of almost exclusively restaurant people. They are a catering company dedicated to cooking food on par with signature Cal-Med restaurants such as Zuni, Chez Panisse and Oliveto. Their chefs shop at the same farmers' markets and produce companies that the famously local-seasonal restaurants do. So when my friends Victoria and Phil came to me for caterer advice, selfishly knowing I would be a guest at their gorgeous wedding, I strongly suggested LRE. As with all food businesses you can often be served something extraordinarily delicious in the "tasting," but then at the actual event, the food is sub-par. I only recommend companies where their follow through is as good, if not better, than how they sell it.

This past Sunday was the third time where I have been a happy guest of their services. The food and service were so good, people at the party were telling the waiters they wished the catering company would turn into a restaurant! And rumor has it that Living Room Events is, in fact, going to open a restaurant. I would have eaten three plates of savoury food had I not known how good the cake was going to be.

Wedding cakes are made first to dazzle us with our eyes. What's hiding under the 5 inches of buttercream, fondant or marzipan could be a cake made 6 months ago and stored in a deep freezer. You can get a raspberry cake in January, and much of the decorations could be edible ingredients whose digestibility is questionable, but that wedding cake could cost you tens of thousands of dollars and no one would wonder why a frosted dessert can sit in the heat of July's busy wedding month for the 6 or 7 hours it takes for the ceremony to start.

Having worked with Rachel Leising at Citizen Cake, owner of wedding cake business and now retail bakery Petite Patisserie in Potrero Hill, I can say that this woman's cakes taste as good as they look. Rachel is dedicated to seasonal, local, sustainable and Organic ingredients because they taste better. I have been at many a wedding and birthday party where I saved room for dessert and my only disappointment was there weren't more than two slices to eat!

I don't get paid to make these recommendations. I no longer work for any of these companies or people. But believe me when I say that it is better to pay the same or a little more for food and the work of food artisans whose product is far and above the quality of most of their competitors.

I know there are many more outstanding companies out there. Who do you love? Who do you recommend?

When you work in the restaurant business everyone you know, everyone you know's friends, in-laws and children, and everyone you've not met yet, comes to you for restaurant recommendations.

Needless to say I am extremely grateful that Chowhound also exists. For it gets quite tiresome to be absolutely everyone's go to for breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner suggestions. Especially when you consider I grew up in New York City, have lived in London and Napa Valley and the Bay Area is my permanent home.

All this being said, when I plan a trip to my old home, I very much look forward to what I will eat when I'm there. Will I visit the places where I know the chefs and pastry chefs? Will I haunt my old workplaces? Will I eat all my favorite foods? Will I shop and cook in my host's kitchen? Will I eat at brand name places so that I have something to talk about when I get back or will I just eat in the places no one but real New Yorkers go? Will I eat solely for memory or will I want to try all the new things I've read about since I was there last?

The truth is that I eat foods in my old home that I can't find in my new one. I'm fiercely loyal to old haunts, places whose menus I can trust no matter what the current trend and flash-in-the-pan hip happening thang is. I bring my money to the people I love and have the most respect for. Chefs and pastry chefs whose work is something that inspires me, fills me with hope that one day my California home town will embrace these innovations.

My upcoming trip to New York will look different from ones I've taken in more recent years. Because I met and be-friended some spectacularly talented people at the Pastry Chef Conference in May, I will spend some time eating and working with some of these folks. I'll go to Daniel just for dessert and then with their pastry chef, Dominique Ansel, we will eat at Devi, pastry chef Surbhi Sahnhi's post.

In the sweet theme, I'll make it into Chikalicious at least once. And if I have time, Pichet Ong's new place, P'ong. And then there's always a detour to Il Laboratorio del Gelato on Orchard Street in the heart of the real Lower East Side. Maybe I'll get a kasha K'nish at Yonah Schimmels beforehand so I can convince myself I've eaten dinner.

It's not a trip to New York without one surprising dinner at the diminutive Prune on First Street. Whether chef/owner Gabrielle Hamilton is there or not, I like to bring her a California gift. This week I'll be stocking up on jars of jam from newcomer Rachel Saunders so that I can present unique gifts to the people I love. Prune is my favorite restaurant in NYC.

But for the food I grew up with, there will be frequent visits to Veselka for pierogi, cabbage soup and a chat with my father and stepmother over blintzes. I always have to have one steamed lobster dinner at Pearl Oyster Bar on the tiny slanted street of Cornelia. When you grow up with steamers dipped in drawn butter and tasting of the chewy clammy sea, no nouveau California preparation of clams will satisfy.

It will be important for me to get sticky with coco helado on a street corner if it's hot, and of course I'll be noshing on my old stand by in Coney Island, ridged french fries at Nathan's and a cone of pastel green pistachio soft serve with colored sprinkles on Neptune Avenue!

For a post Coney Island Mermaid Day Parade de-tox I might head over to my favorite macrobiotic restaurant Angelica's. I have to get my fix of their kooky "cornbread," carrot spread and one small Dragon Bowl. And if I make it to Harlem I'll be going directly to M&G's for fried chicken. And if I want to roll out of my bed the next day to stand in line, I might head to Danal for brunch.

Saving the best for last, I am over-the-top excited that this will be the first time I'm going to Gerry Hayden and Claudia Fleming's restaurant The North Fork Table & Inn on Long Island. I used to work for Claudia Fleming at Gramercy Tavern in the Flatiron District. This will be my first time seeing her since I threw a party at Citizen Cake for her incredible book The Last Course, a must have for anyone who loves to bake seasonal desserts. The day I made the reservation to eat and stay at the Inn I could not sleep.

So, you can see, I will be eating well in my old hometown. Like most people, I tend to eat the familiar when I'm home. I have plans with friends and family, old lovers and new, bloggers, chefs and pastry chefs. I have adventures planned and I will be taking my feet to places they'll go without direction.

If you're looking for NYC restaurant recommendations, I still give them. But only if you're willing to try what a real New Yorker eats...