#22 | You Light Up My Life
💚 Bitter is Better 💜
Hello!
Back when we first started publishing Edible SF in 2005, we included this anonymous quote in fine print (we’d need our Walgreens magnifiers to read it now) at the bottom of the last page of each issue: “Despite all our accomplishments we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” But now that it hasn’t rained since forever (not counting that sprinkle-fest last week), and there’s no rain in the foreseeable forecast, wondering if we sacrificed some of those old issues to the fireplace gods, perhaps the smoke signals would generate some precipitation? Anyone got a better idea?
Btw, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. You're getting this email because you subscribed. If you'd like to hop off at anytime, simply unsubscribe. I appreciate you reading this newsletter.
EAT
Bitter is Better: An Eater’s Guide for the Chicory Connoisseur
Time to give bitter greens, reds and purples their due.
Chicory has been around as long as civilization itself. The University of California documents archaeological evidence of chicory dating back to the Bronze Age. Chicory even has a history with the Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson was one of the country’s first chicory farmers, cultivating seeds given to him by George Washington. Overall, chicories are powerfully nutrient rich, packed with vitamins A, B, C, and K, as well as calcium, copper, iron, potassium, manganese, zinc, and dietary fiber. —Jenn Louis in The Book of Greens: A Cook’s Compendium
Two of our favorite bitter salads to make now that the chicory season is in full swing:
Radicchio Salad With Creamy Castelvetrano Olive Dressing
Escarole Salad with Concord Grapes
Sponsored
Think of the crew at Bi-Rite Market as your personal butchers. We’ll give you cooking tips, dry rub your meat, prep your sous vide bag, clean your crab, source specialty items (yes, even things like sea urchin for a photo shoot), and just do whatever we can to help you have more delicious moments in the days ahead.
DRINK
Ceritas, Marena Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast, California, 2014
Back in the mid-90’s when we subscribed to The Wine Spectator, their annual Top 100 Wines issue landed in our mailbox one day and on the cover this particular year was a Northern California chardonnay (not naming names) that was ranked #1. As good luck would have it, a few days later we found a couple bottles on the shelf at CalMart and we dashed home to open it, expecting to be blown away. In reality it was dreadful: oaky, buttery and hot. It was, as SF Chronicle wine columnist Esther Mobley recently described, a buttery chardonnay with “the vinous equivalent of a perm and glittery shoulder pads.”
But this Ceritas chardonnay is not that wine. It’s the polar opposite, a straight razor shave and vintage denim jacket. We roll out the word exquisite and throw elegant for good measure when describing this wine, but Carson Demmond said it best in Decanter:
John Raytek’s are simply some of the purest, most penetrating, and deeply mineral examples of Chardonnay, anywhere.
Co-sign. And yes, if you love buttery chardonnay, more power to you.
We first tasted this chardonnay upon release in 2016 and it was one of those, OMG! transcendent bottles that you remember forever and chisel it into your taste memory. Luckily we had ordered a few more bottles too, and we’ve been sitting on them ever since, waiting for a “special occasion.” A pandemic Thanksgiving certainly qualifies, so here we are.
We ordered this wine directly from Ceritas Wines.
Sponsored
Filled with unforgettable food-themed stories told in unexpected ways, Pop-Up Magazine's Issue in a Box features interactive objects and delicious treats from some of our favorite creative and culinary collaborators, including: chef Samin Nosrat (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat), award-winning novelist Karen Russell (Swamplandia!), musician and podcast host turned Netflix star Hrishikesh Hirway (Song Exploder), artist and author Leanne Shapton (Swimming Studies), acclaimed poet Ada Limón, artist and graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton, designer Erin Jang, artists and creative collaborators Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin, chefs Cheryl Day and Cal Peternell, and more.
Pop-Up Magazine's Issue in a Box will be available to purchase for $70, in a limited edition run beginning Monday, November 30th at 10am PT / 1pm ET. Eat. Drink. Think. subscribers (that’s you!) get early access today (11/28), plus a $5 discount and free domestic ground shipping with the code EDIBLE5.
THINK
Impossibly Fishy
One of our favorite writers on food and the environment, Rowan Jacobsen, has penned a must-read feature on plant-based fishless foods. Sure, the products made to taste like tuna and crab are made primarily of pea proteins, the same ingredients that are the foundation of plant-based burgers, but the story behind them is riveting. It all boils down to this:
Is it possible to fish sustainably, legally, and using workers with contracts, making a livable wage, and still deliver a five-ounce can of skipjack tuna for $2.50 that ends up on the grocery shelf only days after the fish was pulled from the water thousands of miles away? Spoiler alert: it’s not. The average can of tuna drags behind it a tangled net of wrecked ecosystems, definned sharks, debt bondage, child labor, human trafficking, physical abuse, and murder. —Rowan Jacobsen in The New Wave of Fishless Fish is Here for Outside Online
•
When I lived alone in the woods as a teenager 🌲
My mother first kicked me out when I was 14, after my little brother announced that I was gay. The following night, I sneaked into my mom’s house through a window and packed my camping gear. I set up my new home in a cave above the Elwha River. … I coat the rolling pin in extra flour and think about how, as a homeless teenager 20 years ago, I cooked using only a backpacking stove. Surviving teen homelessness prepared me for a pandemic in ways I never could have imagined. —Sabra Boyd shares her recipe for Douglas Fir Fettuccine Alfredo in As a homeless teen, I foraged for wild food to survive. The lessons still shape my cooking. for The Washington Post
•
“It’s not the cow, it’s the how.”
She’s got a “big butt,” Judy says, meaning wide hips that will help her South Poll heifer calf easily bear calves when grown. She sports a shiny, slick red hide that flies avoid landing on; cows stressed from fly bites. She has a large “barrel” or gut, meaning enough stomach capacity to store large amounts of grass, which she will convert to energy and will keep her in good health, even during the winter with no extra feed. “This is the kind of heifer you want,” Judy says. “You can build a herd out of those.” —Georgie Smith in Meet the South Poll cow: the healthier, naturally raised cattle of the future? for The Guardian
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You Light Up My Life
Carvey Maigue of Mapua University has been shortlisted for the James Dyson Award 2020 for his system called AuREUS, a device that transforms rotten fruit and vegetables into clean, renewable electricity. Maigue's AuREUS system makes use of crop waste to absorb stray UV light from the sun and converts it to electricity. —Paolo Chua in This Filipino Student Invented Solar Windows Made from Rotten Vegetables for Esquire
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Are You a Mason Jar Hoarder?
Guilty. We have a fews shelves full in the garage, and in fact, our pantry is overflowing with dry goods stuffed into jars.
How the must-have hipster vessel of DIY authenticity also became a foreboding signal of the economy. It’s a very 2020 drama, with get-off-my-jar conflicts between old salt-of-the-earth canners and Pinterest-y urbanites, along with alleged scammers, possible lawsuits, and the hyper-proliferation of internet disinformation.—Jen Doll in Why Everyone’s Suddenly Hoarding Mason Jars for Marker
•
“Some people think I’m Superman. I’m not Superman.”
It’s tempting to see (Jose) Andrés and his mission as the feel-good antidote to the selfishness of Trumpism and the indifference of billionaires who’s wealth has swelled grotesquely as the number of hungry Americans could soar to a record 54 million. That a sizable number of Americans now depend on a celebrity-chef-turned-gonzo-humanitarian for food or even their livelihood is, when you think about it, both inspiring and more than a little insane. Jane Black in Chef José Andres Embraces the Chaos for HuffPost
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Every cuisine needs some time in the spotlight, and for regional food, that time is now
American food media's focus on national cuisines turns cultures into monoliths as it ignores regional differences in cooking and eating. Anise to Za'atar blogger Eric Ritskes pointed to the problems in this premise this summer in a review of Padma Lakshmi's Taste the Nation. "Why is the nation a given?" he wrote. "Why must food be bound by the nation at all? What does the project of a 'national food' culture accomplish?" —Bettina Makalintal in A Case for a More Regional Understanding of Food for Vice
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Can processed food be as addictive as cigarettes, alcohol and drugs?
And it is, the newest science shows. A sneak peek at the new Michael Moss presentation for schools, companies and organizations based on his upcoming book Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions, Random House (March 2021).
ONE MORE THING
It’s Small Business Saturday and we’re hoping you're shopping local today. If books are on your holiday gift list, here’s Smithsonian Magazine’s list for The Ten Best Books About Food of 2020. We’ve linked the titles to Omnivore Books and Green Apple Books so you can help support two of our cherished local bookstores.
The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard by John Birdsall
Falastin: A Cookbook by Sami Tamimi
How to Be a Conscious Eater: Making Food Choices That Are Good for You, Others, and the Planet by Sophie Egan
The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained in More Than 100 Essential Recipes by Nik Sharma
In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen
The Best American Food Writing 2020 edited by J. Kenji López-Alt and Silvia Killingsworth
Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World's Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein, with 125 Recipes by Joe Yonan
Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York's Favorite Noodle Shop by Jason Wang
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr
The Mexican Home Kitchen: Traditional Home-Style Recipes That Capture the Flavors and Memories of Mexico by Mely Martinez
That’s all for this week.
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We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce
p.s.
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"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end" –John Lennon