#78 | 🇺🇦 Budmo! (“cheers” in Ukrainian)

🤔 Freeze Your Tofu?

Hello!

MY SPECIES

even
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bittered
and darkening
waters
grows tender,
grows tender and sweet

patience, I think,
my species

keep testing the spiny leaves

the spiny heart

—Jane Hirshfield, from Poetry (January 2015)

Hint: the next print in our linocut series features a spiny-leaved vegetable. Our print shop (aka the garage) is scattered with proofs in various stages as we dial in the color scheme before carving a final block. Like February’s pomelo, the artichoke will be a limited edition, reduction print. To make this reduction print, we first carved away the outline of the subject and ran off the first round of prints in light yellow. Before adding the second color, we carved away sections of the block where we want the yellow to come through and then print the second round, in light green (the green will print on top of the yellow in places where we haven’t carved yet). We’ll carve away two more sections of the block, printing each in darker gradients of green until we’re satisfied with the result. Sign-up here to reserve your print!

Artichoke linocut print work in progress | Photo: Bruce Cole

By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. Forty new subscribers this week! Welcome and thanks for joining us! 

Miss last week’s newsletter? Read it here: 🔥 KFC (Chickpeas) | Why We Dumped Coffee For Matcha

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Crispy Glazed Tofu | Photo: Bettina Makalinta / Taste

Frozen Tofu? Our go-to tofu recipe is tossing it in corn starch and frying until crisp, finishing it off with a variation of Eric Kim’s gochujang glaze and a big handful of sweet and crunchy turmeric cashews from this Ottolenghi recipe. We’re ready to switch gears though and try this recipe from Bettina Makalinta, which Alicia Kennedy included in her latest email. It calls for freezing tofu first, a technique that we’ve never tried. According to Makalinta, “freezing tofu allows the moisture inside the tofu to expand and thawing it ensures that those spaces remain expanded. This results in a texture that’s more spongy and amenable to marinade than tofu that is just pressed. Freezing-then-thawing firm or extra firm tofu, coating it, and frying it results in a chewy, dense texture not unlike a chicken nugget.” Honestly have never had a chicken nugget, but this Crispy Glazed Tofu recipe is at the top of our to-do list—there’s tofu in the freezer now! Here’s Makalinta’s video of the recipe.

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Photo: Bruce Cole

What We’re Drinking: 2019 Julie Balagny En Remont Gamay. 100% Gamay from 90-year-old vines on the highest vineyards, surrounded by prairies and woodland in Fleurie, Beaujolais. Vineyards are organic and managed by hand due to the steepness of the terrain. Cellar: whole bunches, elevage in old barrels, unfined, unfiltered, sans soufre. Delicate layers of fruit, flowers, and sublime minerality. An exquisite wine. Current selection from our subscription to the Gemini Bottle Co. wine club. Disclosure: Gemini Bottle Co. is an advertiser in Edible SF magazine.

Like A Rock: Hard discs of dried yogurt, known as jameed, are used to add a deeply savory, and sour intensity to the national Jordanian dish, mansaf. But “comparing the finished product to yogurt is like comparing a pickle to a raw cucumber.” Taste

Want To Eat More Salmon? Sign this and tell Governor Newsom and his State Water Resources Control Board to protect this year’s water supply for salmon, the environment, and salmon fishing families. Golden Gate Salmon Association

• From The Archives: The Future of Salmon: Can They Be Saved? Edible SF

That Vegan Vibe: Raul Medina of Oakland’s Vegan Carnicería, Taqueria La Venganza wants his vegan meat to be the Latinx answer to meat alternatives: “I don’t want them to do ‘Beyond Asada’ or ‘Impossible Asada,’ and then suddenly we’re eating some other corporate shit.” KQED

Sayonara: Say so long to Chowhound, the hard-core foodie forum that pre-dated most food blogs. “In its heady early days it was a space to find recommendations for the best barbecue, arepas or Albanian bureks in New York, alongside passionate rants and relentless arguments over kimchi, lengua tacos and lahmacun.” The New York Times (paywall)

Pay No Attention To The Milk Behind The Curtain: “I don’t think the conversation about alternative meat and dairy should take the place of the important conversation about how dominant the meat and dairy industry is, how it needs to be regulated better. We’re not going to take on that corporate power by choosing a different [product] in the marketplace.” Anna Lappé in Civil Eats

Failure To Communicate: Universal free meals at schools are slated to end this summer, after a provision to extend temporary pandemic programs was not included in a major spending bill introduced on Capitol Hill. Schools whose nutrition programs feed millions of kids daily are in a tailspin after expecting an extension for another year. Politico

RIP Sally Schmitt, Founder of the French Laundry: “Former Chronicle critic Michael Bauer wrote that Schmitt was “a true pioneer,” serving a daily changing five-course menu at the French Laundry, automatically adding a 15% service charge and offering an all-California wine list. She invited diners into the kitchen after meals and started an herb garden on the property — traditions Keller continued when he bought the restaurant in 1994.” SF Chronicle (paywall)

Needs Salt: “That beautiful pile of salt was the next best thing to creating something out of thin air.  You take water out of the ocean, put it on your woodstove, and end up with something people put in froufrou little containers and sell at the same per-pound price as wild-caught salmon.” Tamar Haspel in her new book, To Boldly Grow. Food Politics

Anthony Bourdain and Queer Shame: “A conventional humanist take is Bourdain’s legacy, we eat the same, you and I—though one of us might also have to ingest a measure of shit with our shared portion.” Friend and former Edible SF contributor John Birdsall has launched a newsletter titled Shifting the Food Narrative on Substack. If it’s no holds barred, elegantly crafted, and wickedly delicious food writing you're after, then we highly recommend you subscribe. From the Edible SF archives by John Birdsall:

• Uncle Tony in the Bardo: John Birdsall Remembers Anthony Bourdain

• The Signal Things of San Francisco: Irish Coffee, Then and Now

• The Signal Things of San Francisco: The Green Salad

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Budmo! Anna Voloshyna, is a Ukrainian cook and recipe developer living in San Francisco with a devoted following on Instagram. Her first cookbook, Budmo! (“cheers” in Ukrainian), is now available for pre-order from Rizzoli, which will donate 10% of all proceeds to World Central Kitchen.

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We’ll Drink To That

Send In The Clowns

Family Meal @thisfamilymeal

The @IndpRestaurants coalition says the cavalry is not coming.

Independent Restaurant Coalition @IndpRestaurants

This is a catastrophic day for independent restaurants. Read our statement on reports that Congress will not add money to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund as part of the latest spending bill. #SaveRestaurants https://t.co/7m6DnZBZ4H https://t.co/rIjQm5ydsK

March 8th 2022

1 Like

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📻 The playlists we listen to while cooking dinner every night.

EAT. DRINK. THINK. January 2022 featuring Morgan Wade, Mexico Institute of Sound, Arlo Parks and more.
EAT. DRINK. THINK. February 2022 featuring Wolf Alice, Nilüfer Yanya, Toro y Moi and more.
EAT. DRINK. THINK. March 2022 featuring The Cannons, Cate le Bon, Def Sound and more.

That’s all for this week.

We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce

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"Despite its artistic intentions and its many accomplishments, humankind owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains." —Anonymous