#113 | AI Wrote Us a Wine Poem

🎬 Ruth Reichl's New Film

Dec 17, 2022

Hello! We had a little fun with ChatGPT AI this week and asked it to write a poem about natural wine in the style of Shakespeare's Hamlet. This is what we got:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

To natural wine or not to natural wine, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mouth to suffer
The slings and arrows of a mass-produced vintage,
Or to take arms against a sea of additives
And by opposing, drink it.
To taste, No more; and by a taste to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That grapes are heir to.
'Tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished.
To taste, to savor; 
To savor, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub,
For in that taste of natural wine what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause – there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

Not exactly iambic pentameter, but "Whether 'tis nobler in the mouth to suffer the slings and arrows of a mass-produced vintage, Or to take arms against a sea of additives" shows that AI surprisingly understands the intricacies of natural winemaking and cleverly puts them in context.

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 our last newsletter was for our Limited Edition Linoleum Block Prints. We have some prints available for individual purchase, just in time for holiday gift-giving, and we can get them in the mail today so they’ll arrive by Christmas! Click here for details.

We don’t bake, but we put in our order for Christmas cookies this week: Eric Kim’s Gochujang Caramel Cookies. Maybe we’ll put a couple of sprinkles on top just to be festive.

Daniel Cloonan @DanielCloonan

Made @ericjoonho gochujang caramel cookies; absolutely worth the hype

Drinking Way Out West: One of our favorite afternoon pick-me-ups is a Snowy Plover from Andytown, featuring espresso, sparkling water, and a dash of brown-sugar syrup topped off with a healthy dollop of homemade whipped cream. But there’s some competition for that quintessential thirst-quenching jolt of caffeine and dessert all in one cup; Andytown’s new It’s It Affogato. The iconic ice cream sandwich is cut in half, with a shot of espresso slowly poured over the top, and it’s served to you in a cup. We’ll leave it to your imagination what this scrumptiousness concoction tastes like because we’ve yet to waver on our allegiance to the Snowy Plover. But we’re tempted. Oh yeah, it’s only available at the new Andytown in the old Wise Surfboards space on the Great Highway, right across the street from the old Playland-at-the-Beach location where the It’s It was created in 1928.

Best New Bay Area Restaurants of 2022: Fifteen places worth a visit from the SF Chronicle, including a popup (technically not a restaurant 🤔) run by Venezuelan pastry chef Victoria Lozano, a La Cocina graduate, whose arepas are only available at the North Beach Saturday farmers’ market.

New Hope for a Landmark Location: Farming Hope, a garden-to-table job training nonprofit that offers paid transitional employment in their gardens and kitchens for formerly incarcerated residents or those experiencing homelessness, is taking over the SF Cooking School space at 690 Van Ness Ave. Eater

Gus’s Expands: Congrats to our friend Dimitri Vardakastanis and family, as Gus’s Community Market takes over Canyon Market in Glen Park on December 21, making it the fifth location for the SF-based grocers. (Disclosure, Gus’s is a long-time loyal advertiser in Edible SF) Hoodline

🎬 Food and Country: In March 2020, Ruth Reichl began Zooming with farmers (that’s Will Harris of White Oak Pastures above), fishermen, ranchers, and chefs as they struggled during the pandemic to survive. Reichl notes: “After fifty years of writing about food I thought I knew why we eat what we eat: it turns out I was wrong. As I got to know these extraordinary people I learned so much. More importantly, I was overwhelmed with both respect and affection.” Reichl announced in her newsletter yesterday, that she’s been working with director Laura Gabbert (City of Gold, No Impact Man), to produce a film titled Food and Country, which “covers a rich cultural spectrum, from fine dining rooms to farmlands, discovering passionate, inspirational changemakers along the way.” The film will premiere at Sundance next month.

Aerial drawing of the eventual complex. Photos: Hubei Zhongxin Kaiwei Modern Animal Husbandry

High On The Hog: From Larissa Zimberoff’s excellent newsletter, Technically Food, comes news of a skyscraper being built in China to house and slaughter pigs. “The 26-floor “farm” has a capacity to kill 1.2 million hogs annually (or 100k a month); pigs are restricted to one floor for their whole lives; the animals are fed by 30,000 automatic feeding spots operated from a central control room.” More frightening details here. Technically Food

Be That Guy: No one wants to say ‘put down that burger,’ but we really should. NY Times

Yes To Polenta, No To Couscous: With anti-immigration sentiment rising and the climate changing, will Italians continue to embrace new ingredients and ideas from abroad? NOEMA

MSG and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome: With all the scientific evidence to the contrary, why doe the myth live on? CBS News

We’re Living In a Frozen Pizza Renaissance: True, we love the frozen pies from Pizza Place and Delfina. Sometime in the early 2010s, this notion of frozen pizza as a mediocre food product with mass-market appeal began to change. New technology removes air from the package, and the vacuum seal keeps moisture out and prevents ice crystals from forming on the pizza to retain that crucial crispy crust after the rebake. Taste