#106 | The Most Important Chef in America
Don’t Veganize Me Dude
Hello!
Basho: A Departure
Summer is over and
we part like eyelids,
like clams opening.
–Robert Hass, from Field Guide
By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. If you’re new here, welcome to EAT.DRINK.THINK., a newsletter spotlighting seasonal recipes, the latest SF Bay Area food news, poetry, and more!
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from last week’s newsletter was the BBC’s World’s Most Nutritious Foods, where believe it or not, ocean perch clocked in at #3.
How’d you do on our anagram quiz last week? We thought #3 & #5 were probably the toughest? 📫 Let us know if you’d like another round.
Do you know someone who loves a good Mini Manhattan? Send them this newsletter!
🍆 It’s Still Prime Eggplant Season! Have you made Michelle McKenzie’s Whole Roasted Eggplant with Tahini, Crispy Chickpeas & Sumac yet? In this dish, whole eggplants cook until slightly charred on the outside and meltingly tender within. Tahini adds much-needed richness and creaminess, crispy chickpeas add texture (and protein), and lemon and sumac bring brightness. Download it here:
Cold-Seared Steak in a Non-Stick Skillet? 🤔
🍪 Single-Serving Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe: We bookmarked this thinking, “we’ll for sure be making this when we’re craving dessert.” Which is every night after dinner. “The amounts are so small here and the recipe is so forgiving that you don’t need to worry about weighing your ingredients.” The Washington Post
Don’t Veganize Me Dude: Paul Greenberg talks (practically pleads) with Marcella Hazan's husband, Victor, about veganizing her classic recipes, like the bolognese sauce, due to climate change concerns. Victor’s not having it at all. Eating Well
Harrumph! Why bother in the first place?
“Recipes teach a modern style of cooking that is focused solely on eating meals, to the exclusion of kitchen craft and home economics. Making a simple dish that’s over and done with in under an hour is all well and good, but it is also a very inefficient way to cook.” The Guardian
#ProTip: Only go to Chinese restaurants with 3.5 star Yelp ratings. So says this guy. TikTok
Why Nothing Gets Done In This Country: the White House conference on hunger, nutrition and health took place this week. It was business as usual. FoodFix
What the Health: The USDA approves a GMO purple tomato high in anthocyanin, an antioxidant-rich pigment found in blackberries and blueberries, meant to entice shoppers interested in its potential health benefits. Wired
The Most Important Chef in America: She serves fish dip on a slice of baguette, and you’ve never heard of her. The Financial Times
The Last Days of Anthony Bourdain: Controversial new book reveals texts and emails sent by Bourdain to his wife, Ms. Bousa-Bordain, and girlfriend, Asia Argento in the weeks before he took his own life. The author of the book went so far as to stay in the same room where Mr. Bourdain died in the village of Kaysersberg, France. NY Times
In Times of Great Turbulence and Terror: After 70 years the last Japanese American-founded farm on the Palos Verde peninsula ceased to exist on Aug. 16, 2022.
When my jichan’s (grandpa) lease expires, with it will go our community’s only tangible tie to the land we nurtured and made viable, land that provided Japanese Americans with livelihoods, camaraderie and an anchor in times of great turbulence and terror. KQED
🍷 Taking Wine Off A Pedestal: East Bay winery Broc Cellars produces handblown stemless glassware “that defies modern conventions” to make wine more approachable. They look really cool actually, but we’re long past the approachable stage 😉 and will stick with our hand-blown Zaltos. SF Chronicle
Two Buck Schmuck: NY York Times wine writer Eric Asimov argues that Fred Franzia, the head of Bronco Wine Company “liked to say that Two-Buck Chuck was the People’s Wine, but in his hand it was a crowbar, used to divide wine drinkers…His message not only promoted his own company’s products, it also destroyed the notion that any wine could be better.”
Sake Goes With: Why the sudden flood of sake on tasting menus in SF? Eater SF
We drink sake with everything, pizza, pasta, a nice juicy ribeye, Mapo Tofu, poke bowls, you name it. Take a sip of our sake primer: Part one | Part two.
The Ancient Roman Roots of Mac N Cheese: Back in 160 BCE, Marcus Porcius Cato, a senator of the then Roman Republic, served a pasta and fresh cheese dish known as “Placenta,” pronounced with a hard c, for ritual gatherings and holidays. Epicurious
And Now It’s Come To This:
On the Other Hand:
On repeat this week: 🙏 RIP Coolio. With over one BILLION (!) views on YouTube, Gangsta’s Paradise was the track we blasted out of our portable CD player during the mid-90s. The track’s signature intro interpolated Stevie Wonder's 1976 song, "Pastime Paradise," from the Songs in the Key of Life album.
That’s all for this week.
We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce
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"Despite its artistic intentions and its many accomplishments, humankind owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains." —Anonymous