#138 | 🔪 Everyone Needs a Sharp Knife
🐟 Aquatic Charcuterie? Shop Local This Holiday Season!
Hello!
Welcome to the 75+ new subscribers this past week!
STRANGE BODIES The fact of the matter is your body operates in total darkness. What is permitted by nature, or evolutionary biology, or perhaps by God, are two slight openings with which to see everything. Meanwhile one hundred trillion cells and twenty thousand breaths circulate inside you every day. Even when you sleep, even when you dream you are climbing an ancient tree in your neighbor’s yard to reach for the magnolia blossom, and your monkey feet wrap around the trunk, even as you fall with a flower in your hand and your husband calls from the kitchen and the smell of toast and coffee is what you least expect in the cloud forest you fall from, eighty-six billion nerve cells, and one hundred trillion connections —more than there are stars in the Milky Way— scramble at two hundred miles per hour over a distance of sixty-thousand miles, twice the circumference of the planet earth inside you, to deliver this message in the dark: wake up.
—Deni Naffziger, from Strange Bodies (Shadelandhouse Modern Press. 2023)
Hey there - 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!
And if you skipped over this week’s poem ☝️ like we know some of you do, scroll back up and give it a whirl. Our dear friend Deni Naffziger’s new book, Strange Bodies, “takes us on a journey using story, science, metaphor, and myth that brings us full circle to the essence of who we are and how closely we are connected to each other and the natural world.” Gift a copy to your friends and family: Strange Bodies.
👉 ICYMI The most clicked link from our last newsletter was Becky Duffett’s look at Why are restaurants so expensive right now in San Francisco?
🎁 Special offer to Eat.Drink.Think. readers! Subscribe to Edible SF magazine now or send a gift subscription to a local food lover, and we’ll mail the current issue to arrive before the holidays. We’ll then start the regular 4-issue subscription in January 2024. That’s five issues for the price of four!
Mebachi To Honmaguro No Sashimi: There’s a steady supply of Northern and Southern California Bluefin tuna at fish markets these days, thanks to rising ocean temperatures (🥲), so now is an excellent time to enjoy that ruby red flesh at home. Sylvan Brackett of Rintaro details how to slice up a block of tuna for sashimi in his new book, Rintaro: Japanese Food from an Izakaya in California. We’ve excerpted the recipe in our latest issue here.
SPONSORED
The journey through the silk road began with the founder, Michel Lu, a serial entrepreneur and restaurateur, atop the mystical and magical Shangri-La (3,300m above sea-level) on the Tibetan plateau. Born was The Orientalist Spirits, the world's first ultra-premium pan-Asian craft spirits company with a multi-award-winning collection of artisanal spirits crafted from only the best ingredients sourced directly and ethically from the Orient.
SHOP LOCAL THIS HOLIDAY SEASON
Please support and help our local food community grow and flourish this holiday season!
BERNAL CUTLERY: Every time we walk into this store, we’re in awe of the vast assortment of kitchen knives lining the walls. Not only does Bernal Cutlery have the finest collection of Japanese and Western knives in the city (including their new American-made branded line Greenfield Gyuto), but the store also stocks an eclectic assortment of kitchen tools, cookware (including Kagetsu Donabis), and a huge array of pantry items. But let’s start with knives; if you have family or friends who love to cook, chances are their knives are, shall we say, less than sharp. While purchasing a new knife every time one goes dull is an expensive strategy, Bernal Cutlery also offers knife sharpening services (gift card!) that will transform those ragged edges back to their previous glory. But there’s nothing like a brand-new razor-razor-sharp knife to make your mise en place go that much faster (disclosure: Bernal Cutlery is an Edible SF advertiser). Bernal Cutlery, 766 Valencia at 19th.
ALIMENTARI AURORA
Dario Barbone’s gem of an Italian deli in Potrero Hill boasts five shelves of exquisitely curated canned sardines, anchovies, tuna, octopus, and other aquatic charcuterie. And yeah, it’s tough to choose just one, so why not give the gift of a monthly tinned fish subscription? Alimentari Aurora also stocks deliciously desirable products for the food lover; we’re talking bronze extruded Italian pasta brands you can’t find anywhere else, artisan cheeses, olive oils, and more. #Protip: time your visit in time for lunch and order one of Barbone’s expertly crafted paninis. Yesterday’s panino with no meat: Black futsu squash, Jimmy Nardello peppers, Chinese eggplant, red onion, garlic mayo, chili crisp, arugula, sheep and goat feta. Come on now, where else will you get a sandwich like that?!? Alimentari Aurora, 1415 18th St. at Missouri.
18 REASONS
Did you know that $18 supplies a family in the 18 Reasons Cooking Matters program with a full bag of healthy groceries? For many in our community, this is a lifeline.
A one-time $18 donation will provide a holiday meal this winter. A monthly recurring $18 donation ($216 yearly) will help feed a family for a year. 18 Reasons is a nonprofit community cooking school on a mission to empower our community with the confidence and creativity needed to buy, cook, and eat good food every day. Edible SF contributes a monthly donation to the 18 Reasons Table Setters program, and we hope you’ll consider doing so this holiday season, too.
How to Feng Shui Your Fridge: By putting vegetables front and center and even on the inside doors, you’ll be more likely to cook them before they go bad. “Whenever I open the fridge, I see the fruits, vegetables, and perishables, and I catch them before they go bad,” said Jiaying Zhao, a behavioral scientist at the University of British Columbia. “It’s a good visual reminder: Oh, hey, you’ve got to eat those carrots, or you’ve got to eat that lettuce.” Washington Post
🎬 Substack, the platform this newsletter is based on, has a new video newsletter feature. Ruth Reichl, Nancy Silverton and Laurie Ochoa take it for a test drive in Three Ingredients, Episode One.
SPONSORED
Celebrate local Black-owned businesses and check off holiday shopping at the Foodwise Black Holiday Market on December 9, 9 am-2 pm! 🎁🛍️ Bring friends and family to Foodwise & the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market for a festive day of delicious food, crafts, and community. The south arcade of the Ferry Building will be transformed for a special holiday market featuring 15+ Bay Area food makers and designers in partnership with the Fillmore-based Black-led marketplace In the Black. Buy Black with thoughtful gifts for everyone on your list, like artisan preserves, baked goods, skincare, apparel, and more. Entry is free and open to the public, with products available for purchase.
On repeat this week. The deep grooves of Kassa Overall and his jazzy take on a Snoop Dogg classic.
That’s all for this week.
We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
—Bruce
Thanks for reading EAT. DRINK. THINK. from Edible San Francisco! Subscribe for free to receive the next edition.
“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
Three cheers for this week’s poem!