#139 | MOST POPULAR RECIPES and STORIES in 2023

🌯 The Perfect Burrito

Hello!

There You Are

There you are 
this cold day 
boiling the water on the stove 
pouring the herbs into the pot 
hawthorn, rose; 
buying the tulips 
& looking at them, holding 
your heart in your hands at the table 
saying please, please, to nobody else 
here in the kitchen with you. 
How hard, how heavy this all is. 
How beautiful, these things you do, 
in case they help, these things you do 
which, although you haven't said it yet, 
say that you want to live.

—Victoria Adukwei Bulley, from her debut poetry collection, Quiet, which is a finalist for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Rathbones/Folio award.

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!

Wishing everyone a very happy New Year for 2024!

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🏆 MOST POPULAR RECIPES 2023

January: Ina Garten’s the mother of all pot roast recipes. Yep, it was delicious!

February: Judy Rodgers One-Pot Citrus Risotto.

March: Dan Souza on why you shouldn’t snap the ends off asparagus and why you should overcook it.

April: Rosie Birkett’s Rhubarbmisu, the rhubarb dessert you should all make in spring.

May: Andrea Nyugen’s Tofu Mushroom Curry from her new book, Ever-Green-Vietnamese: Super-Fresh Recipes, Starring Plants from Land and Sea.

June: Ottolenghi’s Smacked Cucumber Salad with Sumac Onions and Radishes. So good! We still make this on the regular.

July: Christian Reynoso’s Carajillo Granita.

August: Anna Voloshyna’s Kholodnyk (cold borshch).

September: Jennifer Latham’s Cornmeal Skillet Sourdough Pizza.

October: Clare de Boer’s Zucchini Lasagna with crisp edges and soft noodles.

November: Pescespada dell’amore: Swordfish of Love, from Viola Buitoni’s new book, Italy by Ingredient: Artisanal Foods/Modern Recipes.

December: We made Heidi Swanson’s Vegan Samosa Shepherd’s Pie for Xmas dinner.

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🏆 MOST POPULAR STORIES 2023

January: Fake Meat Was Supposed to Save the World. It Became Just Another Fad.

February: Black Sourdough Rises in San Francisco.

March: The Hottest Restaurants Should Be the Ones That Care About Their Workers.

April: The child workers who feed you - Why the nation’s food sector has the most child-labor violations.

May: Chasing the King - California king salmon season has been canceled entirely this year, and from the docks to the tables, we’ll be missing the king this spring.

June: An MSG Manifesto: Flavor Enhancers and Why I’m Pro-MSG.

July: Briana Loewinshon’s beautifully illustrated lament of long-gone Bay Area cafe hangouts, including our fav, The Med, in Berkeley.

August: The Real Gems of San Francisco and Why They Love Their Neighborhoods.

September: The Billion-dollar cultivated-meat startup Upside Foods wants you to think the breakthrough chicken fillets it sells are made in a futuristic factory. A WIRED investigation tells a different story.

October: The Restaurant Revolution Has Begun.

November: Why Are Restaurants So Expensive Right Now in San Francisco?

December: How to Feng Shui Your Fridge.

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LATEST NEWS

🥬 #Protip: Use your soda maker to expel CO2 into a bag of greens, and they’ll last longer. Or you could go the DIY route and “create a mini CO2 generator by freezing a little vinegar in a small container, sprinkling it with baking soda, and covering the container with paper towels.” Seal the container in a zipper-lock bag with greens and refrigerate.” ATK (paywall)

🐷 Bringing Home the Humanely Raised Bacon: Prop 12 enforcement begins in January 2024, requiring that fresh pork from farms anywhere in the country that is sold in California must be gestation-crate-free. According to Niman Ranch, the pastured pork pioneer, a 2021 Harris Poll “found that 75% of Americans say retailers and restaurants have a responsibility to ensure that suppliers do not use gestation crates, and 65% said they would pay more for pork if the company committed to going crate-free.” Then again, ground pork, precooked pork, and deli meat, which amount to about 42 percent of pork consumption in California, are not affected by Prop 12. It’s all in the fine print. Vox

🧾 Don’t Forget to Tip Your Server on the Way Out: Former SF Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho on what’s happening to the dining out scene in SF: “There was such an apex of restaurant culture in the past 10 years, and I think that’s over.” Civil Eats

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It’s projected that anywhere from 25% to half of all harvested seafood in the US winds up in dumpsters. The Hustle

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🌯 Facts: Pati Jinich says you can find the perfect burrito at the border of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and it ain’t got no rice or beans. NY Times

While You Were Snoring: Mario Batali is attempting a comeback; this time, it’s via online cooking classes {shudder}. Bon Appetit

Nobody Can Eat Just One: Everyone loves See’s Candies. SF Gate

Bye Bye Vertical Farms? Why are these startups failing at record levels and at such spectacular cost? Technically Food

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On Repeat This Week: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, technically not a holiday song, although it ends up on many Christmas-themed playlists anyway. The song is a 1983 instrumental by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, recorded for the film of the same name. The movie is based on the experiences of Sir Laurens van der Post as a prisoner of war in Japan during World War II (also starring David Bowie).

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.

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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