Hello!
RIP: Robert Bly, towering American poet, dies at 94. The Washington Post
DRIVING NORTH FROM SAN FRANCISCO
We cross the sleeping water on the San Rafael Bridge.
Red rocks lie in it, like sleepers who will not awake.
The water is deep blue,
Washing quietly about the rocks, as if watching.
We drive north through brown hills in the California winter,
Hills with green trees, sloping quickly down to the road,
Or to a barn fence, with twenty skinny cows,
And two men spreading some straw in a field.
☑️ Don’t forget to check off your holiday shopping list by sending an Edible SF gift subscription to your favorite food-loving friends.
Do you own a local retail store, restaurant, or cafe? Or maybe you're planning an event and want to give your guests some SF flavor? Email us and we’ll get you a stack of the latest issue stat.
By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. Welcome to all the new subscribers this week! If you'd like to hop off anytime, simply unsubscribe. I appreciate you reading (and sharing) this newsletter.
Here we go.
It’s been a slow week, with everything related to Thanksgiving dominating the news, so we’ve added a list of select items (you might call it a gift guide) we think you’d enjoy giving or getting this holiday season. But first, a few items…
Farming Is Hard: “Muck the chicken coop. Prune the young plum. Harvest potatoes from the stiffening ground. Gather the last sunflower seeds before the goldfinches pick clean the tired stalks.” Christopher Solomon in It’s autumn on my farm: Learning to do chores in the dark and keeping up a sense of wonder for the LA Times
Hot Water Pastry Goes Against Everything You Think You Know About Crusts: “I find that their durable crust makes them a reliable accomplice for adventures in and out of the kitchen, ready to be carried like a wallet, a bottle of hand sanitizer, or a lucky amulet.” Ruby Tandoh in A Good-Natured Pastry for Bad-Tempered Cooks for The New Yorker
Brosé And Sexist Wine Tasting Notes: In Robert Parker’s 2002 Wine Buyer’s Guide, the terms are deployed no fewer than 75 times each, with “masculine” appearing most often in association with the words “powerful” and “muscular,” and “feminine” coinciding with “supple” or “sexy.” Leslie Pariseau in The End of Gendering Wine for Punch
🎧 Listen: Since November 2008, when she opened Omnivore Books on Food in Noe Valley, Celia Sack has gotten to know Alice Waters' tastes (books on victory gardens, not surprisingly), has enticed Ruth Reichl into buying a first edition of A.J. Liebling's Between Meals, and has seen her store become the destination for internationally known food writers touring their new books.
SPONSORED
Gemini Bottle Co. is a neighborhood shop in San Francisco's Mission district that focuses on natural wines & ciders, craft spirits, and small production beers with a curated selection of cheeses & snacks. Their team selects products from makers worldwide that show care & concern for the environment around them. They host free Friday night wine tastings and an ever-evolving list of food & beverage pop-ups. 2801 22nd St., | San Francisco, CA 94110 | (415) 795-4022 | Open 7 Days A Week: Mon-Thur 2-8, Fri-Sat 12-8, Sun 12-6 | geminibottlesf.com
SHOP LOCAL GIFT GUIDE: A LIST OF THINGS TO GIVE OR GET
We’re sharing some of our favorite things from a select few San Francisco retailers in hopes that your holiday shopping strategy includes spending dollars locally. This is not a sponsored list; these are items that we have purchased and used. As such, we do not receive an affiliate fee from any purchase you may make.
THE JAPANESE PANTRY
Shichimi Togarashi
A big pinch of this robustly aromatic spice mix, made with a combination of Japanese Takanotsume (“Hawk’s Claw”) peppers, sansho, and dried yuzu peel, brings an addictive and fiery citrus kick to every dish. You’ll soon be reaching for this spicy blend instead of the pepper grinder.
Other favorites from The Japanese Pantry:
Iio Jozo’s Sushi Vinegar
Our weekly dinner rotation usually includes a homemade poke bowl. Lately, we’ve been enjoying it with local bluefin tuna, which have made their way into Northern California waters (thanks climate change!). We’ve been perfecting our sushi rice technique, and this condiment, made from pure rice vinegar, brown sugar from Tanegashima, wildflower honey from Argentina, and Australian sea salt processed in Hyogo prefecture, is ideal for seasoning sushi rice.
RELATED: Taku Kondo of Outdoor Chef Life’s YouTube video on making sushi rice: Expert Level Sushi Rice, the most difficult rice to make.
Mitsuboshi Soy Sauce
If we’ve scored an exceptionally fresh piece of halibut, we like to slice it up sashimi style and serve it with a small dipping bowl of this soy sauce that Horikawaya has made the same way for over 300 hundred years. With sweet soy notes, the slightest hint of smoke, and a balanced umami finish, it’s the perfect seasoning for a slice of hirame (Japanese term for any flat, bottom-living fish, usually fluke, flounder, or halibut). A quick drizzle also adds a vibrant savory note to any salad or vinaigrette.
TAHONA MERCADO
Luneta Cuishe, Tobala, Tepeztate, and Espadin Mezcal from Tahona Mercado
We've slowly been building our mezcal collection. We line them up (six bottles so far) and take tiny sips from handmade copitas we made in a ceramics class to see if we can guess which is which. This bottle is a blend of Luneta Cuishe, Tobala, Tepeztate, and Espadin agaves made by one of the world's most renowned female mezcal producers, Berta Vasquez. We got a chance to sample the Luneta mezcal collection at the Mexico In A Bottle event and were smitten with this one–we even took a photo of the bottle with our phone, so we'd be sure to find it again. We happily spied it on the shelves when dropping off some copies of the latest issue at Tahona Mercado! It's remarkably smooth and sweet, with just the slightest hint of smoke at the end.
Tahona Mercado tasting notes Aroma: Grape, licorice, Tabacco. Palate: bacon, jasmine, thyme.
Other favorites from Tahona Mercado:
Xicaru Pechuga Mole
Steven Sadri, one of Tahona Mercado's co-founders, recommended this bottle for us. Pechuga is a style of mezcal that is distilled an additional time with a chicken breast hanging in the still (pechuga translates to breast in Spanish). It's said to impart a savory note, but it doesn't translate as chicken-flavored. This mezcal was also distilled with mole negro, the iconic Oaxacan sauce, imparting delicate chocolate and chili notes.
Tahona Mercado tasting notes Aroma: nuts, chocolate, and ground chiles. Palate: viscous, oily, bold.
RELATED: Read our story on Tahona Mercado in the latest issue.
TEKUNO
Monthly Tea Membership
These are not your grandmother’s teabags. Rare, one-of-a-kind Japanese teas brewed with just a kiss (usually 30 seconds) of hot water (160ºF) produce an ethereal cup unlike any other. Tasting notes from our first allotment, Shincha Kuchikiri: Our producer takes a small lot of the tea harvest in spring and stores it in 30ºC below freezing until October, allowing the tea’s sugars to develop and grassiness to subside. Whereas spring shincha is marked by youthful florality, you’ll find a deeper texture and roasted sweetness in Kuchikiri.”
THE MODERN LARDER: FROM ANCHOVIES TO YUZU, A GUIDE TO ARTFUL AND ATTAINABLE HOME COOKING by Michelle McKenzie
In her second cookbook, former SF resident and 18 Reasons culinary director Michelle McKenzie has seemingly cooked with every ingredient in our pantry, and in ways we never even considered. We have a few ingredients (ok, more than a few) that sit idle because we don’t quite know where to use them (you know how that goes, right?). Dulse flakes, for example, a dried red seaweed that reminds us of smoked mackerel, adds just the right salty/savory note when combined with chopped and toasted pepitas for garnishing Roasted Winter Squash with Pumpkin Seed and Dulce. And of course, we have caraway seeds, another spice that doesn’t see the light of day often enough, but they bring a distinct anise accent to the Kohlrabi Salad with Kefir and Caraway. We’ve always roasted eggplant whole, with the skin on, but no more, peeling and then roasting results in a perfectly cooked globe. We’ve made the Whole Roasted Eggplant with Tahini, Crispy Chickpeas and Sumac multiple times now, and if you have sumac languishing in your spice drawer, it’s time to break it out for this recipe.
Please consider buying or ordering this book at your local bookstore instead of acquiring it from the evil empire (aka Amazon).
Omnivore Books | Green Apple Books | City Lights | Bookshop West Portal
The Booksmith | Blackbird Books | Books Inc. | Browser Books | Christopher’s Books
That’s all for this week.
At the top of our playlist this week: Anaïs Mitchell’s new song “is about looking back on years of restless pursuit and making peace with the source of that longing: the Muse, the Great Unknown, the One That Got Away—those things that motivate us that we never can touch.”
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We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce
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"Humans — despite their artistic pretensions, their sophistication, and their many accomplishments — owe their existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” Anonymous