#67 | Top 10 Recipes 2021
Hello!
SONNET WITH TAQUERIA AND FISHTAIL
What one person can offer another
(what I can offer you) is so silly:
I make a mean burrito, but nothing
like what’s in two dozen taquerias
in the Mission. What did Bob Dylan call
Jerry Garcia? A muddy river
that screams into the spheres: that burrito.
I can’t get close, not to mention the grace
of the jaguar or the slow explosion
of hydrangeas, and that ramshackle tramp
in the bar’s backwaters who jury-rigs
his bones into a man, asks you to dance,
spins you in turns so flawless and snazzy—
fishtail, sugarpush, whip—Lord, what am I?
—Robert Thomas
From Dragging the Lake.
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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.
TOP TEN RECIPES 2021
These Were the Most-Searched Recipes of the Year, According to Google:
1) TikTok pasta
2) Bacon jam
3) Birria tacos
4) Crockpot chicken
5) Hamantaschen
6) Squid Game cookie
7) Baked oats
8) Cicada
9) Gigi Hadid pasta
10) Smashed potatoes
We made smashed potatoes once or twice. Thought about the TikTok Pasta dish but then again, we don’t eat pasta anymore. Didn’t watch Squid Game. Alas, no cicadas in SF. Who’s Gigi Hadid?
Edible San Francisco’s Most-Searched Recipes of 2021:
1) Cinnamon Knot
2) Dungeness Crab Cakes
3) Jacques Pepin’s Bartlett Pears in Puff Pastry
4) Roasted Green Beans
5) Halibut Crudo with Avocado Crema and Yuzo Kosho
6) Superfood Lentils
7) Toasted Sesame Chocolate Chip Cookies
8) Miso-Marinated Black Cod
9) Fried Quinoa Salad
10) Samin Nosrat: Little Gem Salad with Fresh Herbs
🌽🌽🌽🌽: Be sure to watch our favorite farmers, Lee and Wayne James of Tierra Vegetables, as they make a quick cameo in this video with Chef Val Cantu of Californios. Lee shares their infamous black masa with the kitchen, where it is transformed into a dish of puffed black masa topped with sea urchin in Eater’s How a Master Chef Runs the Only Two Michelin-Starred Mexican Restaurant in America.
🧜♀️ Eating Abalone with a Mermaid: An interview with Stephanie Mutz of Santa Barbara in Georgia Freedman’s The California Table newsletter. “With spiny lobster, I just like to barbecue them. But you can even just microwave them for four minutes, and it’s delicious. I get made fun of all the time—people are like, “You’re not really going to do that, are you?” And I’m like, “Just try it! It’s easy!” Stephanie makes frequent trips to the Bay Area to sell freshly harvested spiny lobsters, urchin, abalone, and more. Get on her email list here: Stephanie Seafish.
🔥 ICYMI: They’re coming for your gas stove. NPR
LOL: Penetrating The Metaverse With Chef Tom Colicchio, Head Judge On The Bravo Reality TV Show Top Chef
Lip-Smacking Review Of One-Star Michelin Restaurant Goes Viral: “Citrus foam was served in a plaster cast of the chef’s mouth. Absent utensils, we were told to lick it out of the chef’s mouth in a scene that I’m pretty sure was stolen from an eastern European horror film,” (you have to see it to believe it). From Geraldine DeRuiter’s review of the Italian restaurant, Bro’s in The Everywhereist
Stranger Still: Check out the response in the form of a three-page “Declaration” by Chef Floriano Pellegrino, the chef at Bro's. “Being able to draw a man on a horse does not make you an artist. The result of your talent might be beautiful to look at, but it is not art. Drawing a man on a horse is the same as making food…” Today
Peculiarly Powerful Plant Alchemy: “Could tinkering with photosynthesis prevent a global food crisis?” The New Yorker
Riddle Me This? “What’s all around you, but can’t be seen, smelled, or tasted? Hint: It’s in your Oreos, Nutella, instant noodles, dish soap, shampoo, lipstick, potato chips, pizza dough, packaged bread, chocolate bars, ice cream, and biodiesel.” Gastropod
SHOP LOCAL GIFT GUIDE PART 2
These gifts and selections are from the advertisers in our magazine. The financial support of businesses like these helps grow and sustain Edible San Francisco, so please join us in shopping local this holiday season.
Omnivore Book’s Signed Cookbook Club: The perfect gift for your favorite cookbook hoarder. Receive a new signed cookbook four times a year. In the past, signed selections have included culinary luminaries such as Diana Kennedy, Thomas Keller, Harold McGee, Madhur Jaffrey, and Amanda Hesser, among others.
Gus’s Market Gift Card: Gus’s Market is by locals for locals. They’ve been serving the best our area has to offer to the best people in the area for almost four decades. They know what folks like, and it’s pretty simple – fresh groceries, great selection, and neighborly service. Gift Cards from $25-$250
Club Millay: If you have an adventurous wine palate, subscribing to a club is a great way to discover bottles you might never consider purchasing. Millay has four options: Bespoke Club, Wine Club, Wild Child, and Sake Club. We’re subscribers to the sake club because let’s face it, we can’t read Japanese labels, so we rely on proprietor Angel Davis to choose bottles for us. This Akabu Jumain Ginjo has been one of our favorites so far, its silky and light with balanced sweetness and acidity.
Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company: If you haven’t had their Original Blue cheese yet, now’s your chance. It’s a classic style bold-flavored blue cheese with hints of sweet milk and a peppery finish. Original Blue comes in most of the gift packs which feature multiple kinds of cheese and include a custom cheese knife.
Hook Fish Co. While the Irving location is reopening in 2022, you can still enjoy that down-low vibe and delicious seafood sourced from Bay Area anglers at the Mill Valley location. Better yet, purchase a gift card now for your friends to cash in next year when they get a craving for those infamous fish tacos!
We’re looking forward to seeing X at the Independent this week. Live music, what a concept! Here’s one of our all-time favorite tracks from More Fun In The New World:
That’s all for this week.
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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