#123 | 🔥 Why We Put Chili Crisp on EVERYTHING

Science Says Ice Cream is Good For You!

Hello!

It’s radish season. Just do it.

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 Rosie Birkett’s recipe for Rhubarbmisu.

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Under the Etruscan Sun: “A little over a half-century ago, I bought a house in Italy.” On the Kitchen Porch

On Eating Disorders in Restaurants: “A problem that is all too real when it’s your job to feed everyone else; nobody ever suspects you’re starving.” The Cut

SF Restaurants Are Stuck in Reverse? Elazar Sontag, restaurant editor at Bon Appétit, former Oakland resident, and author of Flavors of Oakland notes “ that in 2023, the Bay Area received its fewest James Beard nominations ever. It wasn’t a snub: The region just isn’t conducive to innovation right now.” Bon Appetit

A 50/50 Margarita? A Session Manhattan? How low ABV can you go with your fav cocktails? Punch

Got Chai? “The secret to a perfect cup of Bay Area chai? A family farm in India.” SF Chronicle (gift article)

We’ll Drink to This: Bay Area natural winemakers mix fruit like Gravenstein apples, peaches, and prickly pears with grape juice to make a low ABV (10%+) blend that no one knows what to name. Natural wine juice, perhaps? SF Chronicle (gift article)

🥠 You Knew It Was Coming: “Fortune Cookie Writers May Be Losing Their Jobs to A.I.” Food & Wine

Just a Pinch Please:

What the Research Says: Tofu is good for you. Studies indicate that including soy foods in one's diet is safe and can promote cardiovascular and metabolic health. NY Times (gift article)

Here are a few of our favorite tofu recipes:

• Fried Tofu with Wasabi Guacamole. —Andrea Nguyen, Viet World Kitchen

• Fried Tofu with Poppyseed Slaw and Turmeric Cashews (although we make the turmeric cashews as a garnish for stir-fries more often than the salad). —Yotam Ottolenghi, Food52

• Mapo Tofu. The OG. The Woks of Life

• Silken Tofu with Soy Sauce and Chili Crisp: The easiest dinner ever. We always have silken tofu in the fridge for an effortless meal. Serious Eats

🔥 These are the Chili Crisp jars we always have in the fridge. We put them, by the spoonful, on EVERYTHING!

• Mama Teav’s: Handcrafted in the East Bay and loaded with crisp garlic, Mama Teav’s brings the heat with a hot and savory crunch, making it a standout topping for softer foods like eggs and tofu. But if you love garlic, you’ll try it on anything.

• Fly By Jing: Made in Chengdu, China, Fly By Jing features Sichuan peppercorns that add a distinctive mouth-numbing sensation to the chili flakes’ spiciness. Addictive.

How to Deploy Your Chili Crisp:

• We put chili crisp on scrambled and fried eggs and stir them into an omelet or frittata. I Tried TikTok's 2-Ingredient Chili-Oil Eggs, and It's My New Go-To For Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

• Out of hot sauce for tacos and burritos? Chili Crisp to the rescue! If you make your own tortillas from fresh masa, try spreading them while they’re still warm with a pat of butter, a spoonful of chili crisp, a squeeze of lime and a pinch of maldon salt. Eat over a plate; 100% messy but worth it.

• Bored with the same old tuna salad recipe? Try adding chili crisp for a spicier version. Yuzu Tuna Salad with Mango Salsa.

• Sandwiches: Stir chili crisp into the mayo before spreading it on bread. Think of the possibilities.

• Pizza, obviously. Elevate a Margherita to a whole other level of deliciousness.

• Rice, ditto. We do a bowl of rice with a fried egg doused with Fly By Jing for lunch when the fridge is mostly empty.

• Ice Cream? But of course! Goodbye chocolate syrup and sprinkles; hello peppery oil and fried garlic.

This recipe for Carrot Risotto With Chili Crisp sounds worthy too. New York Times (gift article)

Don’t Skip Dessert! The research also says ice cream is good for you. “Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it.” The Atlantic

And You Thought You Knew Carne Asada: “Think Of Any Dish You Love As a Verb. The “carne asada” is not only the grilled meat but the whole experience of conviviality.” Shifting the Food Narrative

🐝 Backyard Bee Hives Aren’t the Good Neighbors We Think They Are: “It’s a bit like gentrification: When new honeybees move in, life gets harder for the native pollinators who were there first.” Washington Post (gift article)

The Eggs Benedict Option: If Tucker Carlson tried to write The Omnivore's Dilemma. Mother Jones

What’s a 🦀 Fisherman to Do? Deep dive from Bay Nature Magazine on how warming ocean temperatures have affected humpback whales' migration routes, resulting in more entanglements with Dungeness crab fishing nets, which lead to delays in the crab season, costing fishermen millions of dollars in lost revenue.

It’s Slutty Saturday! Pinky Cole’s Atlanta-based burger chain, Slutty Vegan, is valued at a hundred million dollars. “Can racy branding take vegan food mainstream?” The New Yorker

Then Again: Slutty Vegan burger chain hit with a second federal lawsuit over unpaid wages in Brooklyn. Eater

The Great Culinary Divide: Why are France, Italy and Spain so famous for their cuisine but the UK, Germany and Switzerland not? Start by Chopping Your Onion

A Teenage Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? “Many Americans might assume 4-H represents an organic expression of rural civic pride, but its history is deeply interwoven with the leviathan of federal power, particularly the US Department of Agriculture’s efforts to cultivate capital-intensive, debt-financed agriculture across large swaths of rural America.” Vox

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On repeat this week:

Fred again… Tiny Desk Concert. Simply brilliant and inspiring.

That’s all for this week.

We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
—Bruce

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“There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.”
—Gary Snyder

Thanks for reading EAT. DRINK. THINK. from Edible San Francisco!