Deglazed

Each year, Saveur Magazine puts out the top 100 list of food items around the world. It’s hard for me to understand how not all 100 items are from the Bay Area, but here are the one’s that caught their attention this year. Congrats to our local celebrities.

1. Rancho Gordo, of the Napa Valley, has wowed many local restaurants with 30 varieties of heirloom beans, all indigenous to the Americas. Just like heirloom tomatoes, potatoes and meats, heirloom beans pack exceptional freshness and flavor. But Rancho Gordo is not just beans. They also offer corn tortillas, masa, pozole, wild rice, herbs, greens, and (drum-roll please) Chile peppers!! Their quote, “Never trust a man who doesn’t eat Chiles.” should give you an idea about their enthusiasm for chiles. Find them at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Saturdays.

2. Avendanos market was written up as a butcher shop in Bernal Heights, but I see they are quite a bit more. Three visionary ladies (go ladies!) took over the closed space that was once Cicero’s family butcher shop. With Cicero as a consultant, they preserved the family butcher shop charm, and added prepared foods made from the finest ingredients. Brava!

3. My resolution for February 2008: Eat charcuterie at home, when it’s not a special occasion. Saveur has convinced me to scare-up Napa’s Fatted Calf, artisinal charcuterie. Fortunately, I don’t have to wait until my next trek to Napa. They are at the Berkeley Farmers Market and Ferry Plaza on Saturdays.

sidenote: Savuer was honoring the dying breed of traditional butcher shops. My favorite is at Piedmont Grocery in Oakland.

4. Peter Reinhart, the founder of Brother Juniper’s Bakery in Sonoma, got accolades for his life’s work as a baker, author and teacher of artisinal bread making. So what if he now lives in North Carolina. Surly it’s only temporary.

I have tried several CSA’s over the past few years, and am more satisfied with Terra Firma Farms than I ever imagined I could be with a CSA. Here’s why:

• The amount of produce you get is reasonably priced.
• The quality of produce has been impeccable and variety impressive, even in winter.
• Even though I do not get to choose my items, I am motivated to eat vegetables that would have ordinarily been out of my repertoire.
• All of the produce is organic, seasonal, local and picked the day before, so I get a gold star from the green police.
• Even though I have to pick up my box, it’s close to my home and it only takes a minute.
• They give me a recipe every week, also archived at their site, so I can be sure to use all of those leeks and potatoes.

Finally, we eat more fruits and vegetables now, knowing we need to make room for the box coming each week. Some of us just need that type of motivation.

I had the pleasure of taking a marmalade class with June Taylor last weekend. If you don’t know of her fruit preserves, please acquaint yourself as soon as possible. A warning: you may not be able to buy conventional preserves ever again, and this will certainly dip into your daily latte budget. Another option, take one of her classes and start experimenting with your own favorite fruits. Another warning: you’ll need to cook up some patience, because, as June says, “it’s a labor of love.” The question is, do you have more time or money?

I felt rather poetic after the class, and cooked up this little limerick.

June Taylor can teach you to cook
Preserved fruit without consulting a book
She’ll say, “it’s with no rhyme or reason,
And live by the season,
And never add gobbledygook.”

Find her labors-of-love at the Ferry Plaza farmers market or at her own retail outlet, The Still Room.

The first annual Petaluma Artisan Cheese Festival was earlier this month. A full weekend of classes, workshops and field trips enlightened amateur and professional cheese enthusiasts alike. The final day, open to the public, was a final display of the many local artisan cheeses and chefs who love to play with them.

Best in Show (according to me): Bellweather Farms Crescenza
I want to introduce this cheese to anyone who has never tried it, but they might hate me for it later. It’s a little scary how good this soft spreadable cheese is. It’s like the oozy part of brie with a smoother, richer flavor.

Spread the Crescenza on the recently unveiled flatbread crackers from Della Fattoria. They make my favorite loaf of bread in the US, the Meyer Lemon Rosemary loaf, which I cannot get in the East Bay, so I assume I won’t develop an addiction to the crackers either.

If you also can’t easily get the crackers, or it you are steering clear of the carbs, grab a couple of little heads of endive. Even though the individual leaves are the caterers solution to easy canapés, they should be enjoyed outside of the passed hors d’oeuvres scene.

The author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan, and Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, inspired and entertained audiences at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall last night with a casual debate that has been brewing for months since Pollan’s book was published. In it, he attacked some practices of the upscale grocery chain, which Mackey subsequently found to be exaggerated. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of their discourse is how the corporate grocer humbly admitted that the critic was right about some of his accusations and plans to instigate some changes in quality assurance and animal welfare.

Since Pollan has had months of media attention to illustrate his investigations, Mackey’s presentation got the bulk of the time with a 45 minute lecture on the sorted history of agriculture, focusing on the up and coming ecological era that Whole Foods is arguably a major leader in influencing.

Even though Whole Foods may not be the grass fed, local, family farm Mecca that critics aspire it to be, Pollan challenged the audience not to see this as a fight between “the good guys and the bad guys.” Mackey’s five-minute video of industrial animal cruelty was a good reminder that everyone’s ultimate goal at this lecture is to move away from the previous generation’s animal husbandry. Pollan conceded that there is not only one true way to sustainably produce and eat, and if consumers think through the impact of their food choices, they are supporting a sustainable future.

Whole Foods has taken some hard hits since The Omnivore’s Dilemma came out. Mackey teased Pollan by suggesting, amongst other factors; Pollan is to blame for Whole Foods lower stock prices and loss of revenue. It wasn’t clear if there was truth behind the jab. Mackey did claim that after the book hit shelves, customers demanded products that Whole Foods could not provide quickly enough, such as grass fed beef.

Mackey encouraged the audience to let go of the “Whole Paycheck” cliché and see Whole Foods as a more dynamic corporation. For example, those higher prices go to programs that benefit small family farms world wide, fair trade practices and purchasing from poverty-stricken areas.

Whole Foods plans on creating a new set of organic rating standards that will be implemented by a third party for all food retailers. The 5 star system will focus on positive animal welfare conditions, sustainability for the environment, soil fertility, worker conditions and fair trade,

When asked about the dilemma in getting these expensive, nutrient rich foods to people with less money, Mackey didn’t think his answer through quickly enough and suggested people are getting wealthier and more should be able to afford organics. This led to boos and hisses from the passionate Berkeley audience. Quickly he changed directions and addressed the question quite well by saying, “If you are willing to cook, food is not that expensive, especially if you buy seasonally.” Approving applause followed.

Mackey summed up with “Whole Foods has many internal contradictions,” and reminded the audience that there is no blueprint to follow when running a corporation like Whole Foods, but “critics help us to grow.”

Pollan left the audience with an answer to the question he gets asked the most: What should I eat? “Let your food choices reflect your values.”