Hello!
Fingers crossed for finding asparagus at a farmers markets somewhere this weekend as we’re totally out of those thick blue rubber bands! Mid-March is the in-between point where the citrus season is coming to an end, there’s still a smattering of apples and pears available from last fall’s harvest, and there are strawberries in the on-deck circle. Apricots you ask? Still a month and a half away.
If you’ve yet to hit up the Outer Sunset Farmers Market & Mercantile on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., we highly recommend a trip to the avenues. The quality and variety of produce alone make it a worthwhile trip, and there are meat, poultry, and seafood vendors as well. We’re cruising by this Sunday in hopes there will be asparagus and snagging a slice of pie from Sunset Square Pizza.
This is the thirty-fourth edition of EAT.DRINK.THINK., a weekly survey of the most interesting food media on the web along with notes on what we’ve been eating and drinking.
By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. If you’re new, welcome! You're getting this email because you subscribed. If you'd like to hop off anytime, simply unsubscribe. I appreciate you reading this newsletter. Let’s eat!
EAT
We always look forward to the return of the king to stock up our freezer with a couple of months of vacuum-packed salmon filets. But this year, officials with the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) have announced that they plan to cut both commercial and sport ocean salmon fishing drastically to what amounts to be half of a normal season.
As for the reasoning behind that, Tara Duggan at the SF Chronicle reports: “This year, the number of adult salmon on the coast is projected to add up to 271,000 fish, compared with last year’s estimate of 473,200. That’s because the conditions when last year’s population made its way down the Sacramento River to the ocean were better than they were for this year’s generation.”
It’s worth noting that many salmon fishermen also drop pots for Dungeness Crab in the winter when the salmon season is closed. Not only did many of them lose their gear in the catastrophic fire on the wharf last year, but this recent commercial season of Dungeness fishing was also cut in half, with the lucrative Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays off-limit for fishing due to concerns over whales in the fishing grounds.
Sarah Bates who fishes from San Francisco and is a GSSA (Golden State Salmon Association) board member noted in a press release that: “Following a poor commercial crab season, the coming paltry salmon season has us worried about how we’re going to pay the bills and support our families. The local fleets that supply salmon to our markets and restaurants are in very real danger of permanent collapse.”
And we talked extensively about salmon and water issues with Sarah Bates in last year’s cover story: Sea Change: From Dungeness Crab and King Salmon to Abalone and Uni, Warmer Waters are Impacting Our Local Catch.
Our story The Future of Salmon: Can They Be Saved, goes into a great deal on the water rights issues that affect the salmon fishery with first-hand insight from Duncan MacLean, former president of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Association.
Sadly it looks as if very few of us will be enjoying local king salmon this spring and if we do, it will be at a premium price point. Your best bet at securing salmon is by supporting the local network of direct-to-consumer seafood suppliers. Here are four that deliver to San Francisco and surrounding communities:
DRINK
If you live outside of the San Francisco bubble, then the sophisticated wrappings and branding that greets you upon opening the Haus Sampler Kit are no doubt met with much enthusiasm. Everything from the menu card with tasting notes, to the bottles themselves, is thoughtfully conceived and beautifully executed. It reminds us of opening a new Apple Macbook Pro box. Everything is in perfect order and it’s definitely impressive. We’d recommend sending the sampler kit as a housewarming, birthday, anniversary, etc. gift to any of your friends who enjoy a unique drink experience because receiving such beautiful things always makes people happy.
On the other hand, from our admittedly jaded point of view, where access to artisan aperitifs is within a couple of blocks striking distance in most city neighborhoods, we just paid a whole lot for branding and packaging. Even the bottles, which are made of heavy glass, seem suited for a second life as an objet d’art on a shelf somewhere. We felt guilty tossing them into the recycling bin.
Speaking of branding:
As founder Helena Price Hambrecht recently noted in an interview with All Raise: “Our generation is looking for transparency, convenience, and authenticity. They care about their image and are very conscious of their health. At the time, new categories like the Aperol Spritz and White Claw were gaining popularity, and there was so much space to create something better. It just so happened that Woody (her husband) had been making aperitifs, a type of low-ABV liquor that checks all the boxes for what modern drinkers were looking for.”
The drinks? They’re made with all-natural ingredients, aka no additives or preservatives, and according to the Haus website: “Every bottle contains real fruits, herbs, and botanicals and is blended and bottled by our team in Sonoma.” For our sample box order, we selected the Spiced Cherry, Rose Rosé, Citrus Flower and Ginger Yuzu. All of them are distinctly sublime and perfectly thirst-quenching, especially on the rocks with tonic water. Each sample bottle was enough for a couple of aperitifs and it was convenient having a selection in the fridge to choose from. Though we were hoping to love the Spiced Cherry, it wasn’t cherry-enough, and it was ultimately the Ginger Yuzu that left a lasting impression. Would we purchase from Haus again? Maybe at retail, if they ever go that route. We don’t need all the beautiful branded packaging with every shipment—we’re just here for the drinks—so just a plain brown box with a bottle inside would suffice.
THINK
This oughta be good/maybe/terrible: Bon Appétit's unraveling is getting the scripted treatment. HBO Max is developing a new comedy series, Enjoy Your Meal, that satirically examines the toxic culture of the food media industry and will "draw inspiration from the multiple media scandals of summer 2020 and today, focusing on a cohort of young assistants of color who rise up to tear their cookie-cutter corporate culture apart." Hollywood Reporter
The Media: this newsletter is published on Substack, one of the new platforms that food writers and journalists, who’ve ditched their legacy publication gigs to go solo, have flocked to the paid subscription model. For example, we subscribe to Molly Baz’s Patreon newsletter for $5/month (she has a couple thousand monthly subscribers, so that’s maybe $120K/year in earnings). Baz built a substantial following on Bon Apetit’s YouTube Test Kitchen channel where her videos garnered millions of views before leaving after the aforementioned scandal ☝️. One of the burning questions for those of us in this rat race is can small-scale subscriptions change food media for the better? Vice
President Biden just signed the American Rescue Plan: which will give $4 billion in debt relief to Black farmers and other farmers of color. That’s a big deal. Here’s why: “the legislation would forgive loans held by producers who have been racially discriminated against by the federal government, a long-sought win for civil rights advocates.” The Counter
Bet you didn’t know: “that there exists a wild yeast that spends its winters hibernating on the backs of bumblebees? Or that yeast, sugar, and bacteria exist in flower nectar, so that all fruits are, from the moment of their inception, on a natural path to becoming vinegar?” Vogue
We have this joke in Queer Soup Night land that we’re not a potluck: now a queer stereotype, the lesbian potluck has radical roots. How Lesbian Potlucks Nourished the LGBTQ Movement. Atlas Obscura
Becky Duffett has an excellent review of Brandon Jew’s new cookbook: Mister Jiu's in Chinatown: Recipes and Stories from the Birthplace of Chinese American Food. “In person, Jew usually presents as a laid-back Bay Area native. But on paper, this book is a disciplined look into the ingredients, methods, traditions, and key details that he cares about. Along with thoughts on Lazy Susans and a master lesson on woks, you even get to ride Muni’s 1 California bus downtown to go shopping with his grandma, the true expert on the best veggies.” Eater SF
Then There’s The Other Angle: Writer Tienlon Ho talks about collaborating with chef Brandon Jew on their new cookbook, “Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown,” and the challenges of documenting this moment in time in Chinese-American food. Eater
Sadly: Cowgirl Creamery is closing its S.F. Ferry Building store after 18 years. SF Chronicle
SPOTTED 👀
We ordered this perfectly seasoned, salty, savory, and adobo spiced chicken dinner from Hermanita Popup and you should too.
Edible Pursuit will return next week!
Reminder: if you’re on Spotify, we’re sharing the EAT.DRINK.THINK. playlist we listen to while cooking dinner every night. This month’s list starts off with a snappy tune from emerging South East London rapper and singer Enof, slides into the middle with a little pleasure, joy, and happiness, and ends trailing off in fond farewell to Daft Punk with a side of Thelonius Monk.
That’s all for this week.
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We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce
"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end" –John Lennon