#81 | 🍓 Albion 🍓 Chandler 🍓 Seascape!
Strawberry Tips & Recipes
Hello!
The Baboon Is Eating Strawberries
The baboon is eating strawberries
expired on the shelf
of the Ft. Bragg Safeway.
A coastal landscape
with waves
like inexpertly torn tinfoil hangs
above his left shoulder
at the check-in desk
of an abandoned motel.
The ocean itself
is only a sound
through a torn window screen
where some hardscrabble bush
about to flower
is just a smell.
Will something appropriately
random please
happen to convince me
reality is still playing
with a full deck?
—Julien Poirer, “Shimmering Lucifers" from Out of Print
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By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. Welcome new subscribers and thanks for joining us!
Albion, Chandler, Seascape: “Yes, there’s more than one kind of strawberry! Chandler has a heartachingly short season, the plants don’t yield half as many berries as their peers, and the fruit is susceptible to bruising. Created by a professor at the University of California Davis in 1983, they rose to fame thanks to Swanton Berry Farm, the first organic strawberry farm in California, certified in 1987. Now, Swanton is joined by other farms who are willing to sweat it out for the ultimate strawberry.” Becky Duffet in Fresas for The People. Edible SF
#Protip: Best Way To Keep Strawberries From Molding: With strawberry season in full swing, you’re probably eating them as fast as you can, but sadly, those that spend an extended amount of time on your kitchen counter start to go bad. It’s not your fault! Strawberries are non-climacteric fruits, and once picked, they will not continue to ripen (and thus, sadly, begin to rot). Protect your precious cargo from rot and mold; get our strawberry storing tips here (and download our free spring recipe ebook while you’re at it).
Countless readers tell us that this Three-Grain Porridge with Dried Rhubarb, Strawberries and Tarragon Sugar from Kantine is their go-to porridge recipe. It’s easy to put together and adaptable in many ways. Kantine’s Nichole Accettola says, “the Scandi methodology behind a good bowl of porridge is pretty simple and is based on a medley of two or more grains, one whole, and the other a flake, like oatmeal. The whole grains give the porridge its bulk, and the flakes add creaminess.” Make it your go-to porridge too!
Can’t Wait To Cook From This Book! “The more we can do to distance ourselves from this impulse to define entire cuisines, cultures, and experiences as monoliths, the more empathetic we’ll become as cooks, and the easier it will be to finally dispel the myth of ‘authenticity’ in food. This requires first and foremost a respect for other people’s realities and lived experiences, which are multiple. In this vast, expansive world, this is just one story in the pantheon of Korean American cooking.” Eric Kim in Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home.
Get a signed copy at Omnivore Books.
Sheet Pan Korean: Kim writes a regular column for The New York Times food section with accompanying videos on YouTube. This sheet pan Bibimbap recipe is proof that everything, even Korean classics, can be sheet-panned.
Multicultural: “Asian America” might not be a thing, but its food certainly is—and it’s as important as ever. “So if there's American culture and Korean culture, Korean American is this third thing, and that's what I was trying to get across.” Eric Kim in Food52
One More Time: Korean Fried Chicken, But Make It Crispy Chickpeas. Food52
Watch Eric Kim and Drew Barrymore make Korean short ribs with gamja salad.
We’ll Drink To That: “The words we use to talk about wine often say more about us than the wine itself—how we want to be seen, which club we want to be a part of. Are you deductive or intuitive? A numbers gal or a feelings gal? Nerd or jock? Country or rock ’n’ roll?” Punch
SPONSORED
San Francisco is all about local and coastal like Rías Baixas, and it’s no surprise that our many talented somms get creative pairing Albariño. Head over to A16 this month to try a line-up of Albariño from Rías Baixas with your favorite coal-fired pizzas, antipasti and more. Click here to learn more.
Ask Any Mermaid You Happen To See: “Slippery cubes feel like raw tuna, with a similar briny, oceanic flavor. But they actually consist of bamboo, pea protein and algae.” SF Chronicle (paywall)
Time For Changing Of The Guard: I am as beholden to her as anyone who grew up on her instructives, but it has become clear to me that it is long past time to tell new stories about food in this country — what it is, who cooks it, and who gets to define it — and escape from under Child’s shadow. Alicia Kennedy on Julia Child in Gawker
🎥 Action! Gotham Group options John Birdsall’s James Beard Biography, The Man Who Ate Too Much. Variety
The Floured Moons Of Mexican Cuisine: ‘Chewy, translucent, buttery, and soft, the tortilla de harina rises on the comal like a sand-colored moon with charcoal etched craters. And with it, rise 500 years of history and culture that ride along the edges of northern Mexico and its borderlands.” Andrea Aliseda
Wheat Has Corrupted Humanity: The grain gave birth to the tyrannical state. With Russia’s invasion of “the breadbasket of Europe”, it is wheat, the most widely-grown crop in the world, that has been sucked into existential questions. But if meat tandems with liberty, then wheat, historically, comes chained to tyranny. Unherd (h/t Technically Food)
Your Warning Lights Are On: If the conflict does not end, the world risks famine, destabilization of countries and mass migrations. The New York Times (paywall)
Smells Like: No human activity is more multi-sensory than eating, but to eat in the modern world is often to eat in a state of profound sensory disconnect. The Guardian
You’re Grounded: I would not eat, and my mother forbade me from leaving the table until I did. Battle lines were drawn. As the food dried into clumps it acquired a sickly sheen. Time took on a jellied stillness, and darkness began shading over the garden I’d been staring out at.” Marina Benjamin for Granta
LISTEN: EAT.DRINK.THINK. APRIL 2022 The Tidal playlist we listen to while cooking dinner every night. This month leads off with “Chaise Longue,” the hypnotic debut single by English rock duo Wet Leg and Lolo Zouai's snappy, sassy, “Scooter.” Plus Robert Glasper's cover of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and the “Subterranean Shut-In Blues” by Mattiel.
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." —Anonym