#96 | A Royal Dessert
Save The Sunset Farmers Market!
Hello! Did you miss us last week? Apologies - we were buried in deadlines finishing our latest issue (see below).
We’re resharing this poem by Ada Limon, who grew up in Sonoma and was recently named the 24th U.S. poet laureate.
THORNS
Armed with our white plastic buckets
we set off in the safety of the noonday
heat to snag the full rubus of blackberries
at the bend of her family’s gravel road.
But before we even reached the end
of the driveway, a goose hung strangled
in the fence wire bloodless and limp. Her
long neck twisted, her hard beak open.
She was dead. Though we had been loosed
like loyal ranch dogs, we knew we should
go back, tell someone, offer help. Still,
sunburned and stubborn in the way only
long free days can make a body, we walked
to the thicket and picked. When we returned,
bloodied by prickles and spattered with stains,
we were scolded, not for secreting
the news of the dead goose, but for picking
too many berries. For picking all day
in the sun without worry for our own scratched
skin. I can still remember how satisfying
it was. How we picked in near silence, two
girls who were never silent. How we knew
to plunder so well, to take and take
with this new muscle, this new gristle,
what grew over us for good.
–Ada Limon, Pop-Up Magazine, 2021
By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. If you’re new here, welcome to EAT.DRINK.THINK., a newsletter spotlighting seasonal recipes, the latest SF Bay Area food news, poetry, and more!
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from our previous two newsletters was Tamar Haspel’s column in The Washington Post: Diet soda is fine, and 3 other food truths it’s time you believed.
Do you know someone who loves Super Crispy Tofu Katsu Fingers? Send them this newsletter!
A Royal Dessert: We could eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The Royal Party Cake from Nichole Accettola of Kantine, has two layers composed of a white vanilla batter topped with a lavish spread of meringue, and the resulting contrast between the soft vanilla cake and the crispy airiness of the meringue is what makes this summer dessert like no other. Try juicy wedges of nectarines or peaches in place of strawberries.
Save The Sunset Farmers Market! The Sunset Mercantile Farmers Market, which takes place every Sunday on 37th Avenue between Ortega and Quintara streets, is in danger of losing its permit as St. Ignatius College Preparatory claims it needs full-time access to 37th Avenue, even though the school is closed on most Sundays. S.F. street war: Elite private school and beloved farmers’ market battle over one city block:
According to (Angie) Petitt (founder of the market), the conversation turned cringe-worthy when Kenneth Stupi, the school’s vice president for finance and administration, said families paying $30,000 a year shouldn’t have to walk more than a few blocks to get to the school. She recounted that Stupi also said new families wouldn’t get a good first impression of the school if the market was outside. SF Chronicle
Kids These Days: 40% of users on Tiktok and Instagram use the apps when looking for a place to eat lunch or dinner. The kicker: they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. Tech Crunch
So You Want To Be A Recipe Developer? A career as an influencer is so last year.
The rise of recipe developer as a trendy, seemingly effortless, “love what you do” kind of job lends to the impression that people who create recipes are just having fun and would be doing this kind of cooking even if it weren’t their job, erasing the background work that goes into perfecting a recipe so that it becomes replicable in anyone’s kitchen. Alicia Kennedy for Gawker
Pardon Me, Do You Have Any Grey Poupon? Mustard shortage in France caused by climate change/heatwave in Canada, which grows much of the world’s supply of mustard seeds. NY Times
Alaska’s Remote Culinary Hotspot: A seven-hour drive from Anchorage puts you on a 60-mile gravel road, which lands you in the remote town of McCarthy, where the food is as unrivaled as the glacial views. Eater
Watch: Patty Unterman of Hayes Street Grill talks to Bon Appetit about how she built one of the first farm-to-table restaurants in SF.
Related: An Everlasting Dream: How Patty Unterman Keeps Her Vision Alive After 38 Years. Edible SF
Not Your Average Dog On A Stick: At Stix on Taraval, Korean corn dog options include a beef or mozzarella cheese dog, coated in rice flour, deep fried and then rolled in panko or french fries, Hot Cheetos or cornflakes, sugar (recommended) and more. Owners Michael and Emily Hui opened the take-out-only business in 2019 because they loved the Sunset and its assortment of mom-and-pop shops. KQED
Your Tax Dollars At Work? California becomes the first state to invest millions in lab-grown meat. SF Chronicle
Lab-Grown Meat Part Two: Vow Food is experimenting with cells from 22 species, including crocodile and alpaca. Emerging Tech Brew
Meanwhile: Eat real traditional meat alternatives like tofu, seitan, and tempeh! Foodprint
The Kids Are Alright: Teresa Goines’ founded Old Skool Café 20 years ago in the Bayview to give teenagers whose lives have been impacted by violence, the foster care system, and incarceration, a headstart in the restaurant industry while learning life skills along the way. Civil Eats
Related: Changing Course: Finding new direction at Old Skool Café. Edible SF
Wine’s Dirty Secret: Those impressive yet hefty glass wine bottles aren’t climate friendly:
The energy and heat of the molds, shipping the glass, the larger cardboard to carry the weight, the glue—already there are massive environmental issues,” says Devereux White (of Napa Valley’s Smith Devereux). “Then you fill it with wine, use more resources at your facility, ship it to customers, use more airplane fuel—and then the customer finishes it, and puts it in recycling, and it requires more energy to process, or there’s a good chance it’s not recycled and it takes up space in a landfill. Every milligram that glass gets heavier is exponentially worse for the planet. Seven Fifty Daily
Listen: On repeat this week is the catchy Grace Ives song Lullaby (I've listened to this song 10 times today. I can recite it. I press replay).
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