Culinary Muse

Farewell to Mr. J and Gourmet

Among the many differences between my childhood home and my friend EJ’s home were the magazines.  My living room was scattered with copies of Sunset Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle.  Only one magazine entered EJ’s home. Gourmet. A copy always held pride of place on the side table next to her father’s dark green leather chair. I spent many afternoons sitting in that cool chair, sipping tea and carefully leafing through the latest Gourmet making sure not to bend the pages.  Here was my first glimpse into a world that was sophisticated and cosmopolitan. It was my primary source for learning about places like The Quilted Giraffe, Le Colonial and The Four Seasons. It opened a window for me. I might have been a 14 year-old sitting in a suburb in California but I could imagine myself truffle hunting in France or setting a table with Baccarat crystal and Limoges china - a far cry from my mother’s Franciscan Ware Apple pattern dishes.

I always wondered what Mr. J did with the past copies. I didn’t find out until the day I announced to them that I was planning my first trip to Europe. I could tell that the idea of a 22 year-old going to Europe alone was startling to Mr. J. But he also seemed to want to help.  ‘Come with me’, he said.  E and I followed him into the garage.  He began to open the cabinets that lined the left side of the dark, musty garage.   There they were.  30 years worth.  ‘Borrow whatever you like’ , he offered.  And I did.

Mr. J is gone now.  And so is Gourmet.  I mourn them both.

Transitional Cottons

Yesterday was the first full day of fall. It officially began Tuesday afternoon at 2:11 pm. The heat wave that was predicted for San Francisco never happened thanks to our fog.  But the East Bay, where I grew up, will be in the high 80’s today. Not so unusual. We always get a September heat wave.  Usually around the time kids go back to school and about the time that I have flipped my closet.  That’s when the linen pants and sleeve-less blouses and sandals go to the back of the closet and the wool pants and turtle necks and boots rotate forward. Except for the transitional cottons.  Never heard of ‘transitional cottons’? Neither had I until I was in my early 20’s and met my friend Bonnie.  Bonnie was raised in New York City.  Central Park West to be exact. Bonnie explained that in the 50’s one stopped wearing white and other light colored clothing after Labor Day. You know, summery clothing.  White shoes and matching handbags.  White linen pants and blouses.  Seersucker.  Madras. But what do you transition into if it is still 90 degrees outside?  Yes.  You got it.  TRANSITIONAL COTTONS.  Dark prints, plaids.  Still light in weight but heavy in color.  Cool to wear but still respectful of the change of season.

Does all of this sound just a little silly to you?  Who cares if someone wears white shoes after Labor Day?  Does it really matter in the bigger picture of world hunger and peace? No.  But I like the ritual aspect of this change over.  Summer is over.  Fall is here.  Seasons signal the passing of time. And it keeps me from getting bored with my wardrobe. Tim Gunn, of Project Runway fame, says it best in his book ‘A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style’: ‘Life goes by quickly. We often repeat the same thing day after day: Wake up, work, go to sleep. We humans need variety!... Because technology does a fine job of protecting us from the more extreme vagaries of your environment, you might ask, why not wear voile on Thanksgiving? Well, because then life is one long stretch of endless voile-wearing and, really, who wants that? What about the thrill of pulling out a gorgeous coat when the weather becomes crisp?  Or the lovely lightness of a cotton blouse after a long winter of sweaters? … It gives our world a little puff of that all-important variety and – this cannot be overstated – it means you get a break from some of your clothing, so you do not become desperately tired of everything you own.’  Exactly.

Fall is here...

Did you feel the shift?  The sun at 5:30 last night was low and the light yellow.  And when the alarm went off this morning, the first whiff of cool air through the bedroom window carried the scent of tomatoes cooking at a nearby cannery.  Fall has arrived.  When you are raised in the San Francisco Bay Area you learn to recognize the ever so subtle signs of the seasons changing.  We don’t expect bright orange and yellow leaves to appear. We know that when we hear the crunch of just slightly brown leaves under our feet as we walk to school or smell a certain tomato sweetness in the air that Fall has arrived.  

OUR BAY...

I try not to write about anything upsetting because, well, life is awfully short and if my readers get too depressed they probably won’t want to return to see what the Muse is up to. But I just can’t write about anything else this afternoon because of what I saw at Crissy Field this morning. The headline of the Chronicle read ‘HEARTBREAKING’. That just scratches the surface. And it really isn’t so much what I saw but rather what I did not see that has me in a spin. Gone were the sea lions that were flipping around in the water just last Wednesday morning. Gone are the dogs romping with their dog friends in the waves. And I held my breath as the pelicans flew by hoping that they would know better than to swoop down to catch their last fish. And, because of selfish reasons, gone is my ability to get close to our beautiful Golden Gate Bridge because the road to Fort Point is now police barricaded and the smell of petrol is nauseating. I am bereft. I cried with total strangers as we stood looking out at the bay shaking our heads. Just when we thought it might be safe to go in the water… Perhaps you would like to help? Go to BAYKEEPER to find out how.

San Francisco's Dog Days

5:00 a.m.: Warm and foggy. An eery yellow crescent moon hung in the eastern sky. My dog and I stood on Nob Hill gazing at this moon. I don’t know what he was thinking. Probably something like "I hope she doesn’t howl". I was thinking "hmmm, looks like an earthquake moon, feels like earthquake weather’. Don’t despair, reader. I am not a seer. Further research shows that this weirdness is due to a combination of things. Warm weather in the central valley sucking in the fog from the coast (as usual) and the third day of a fire in Morgan Hill in the south bay. Air quality is bad. If you can’t stay inside today, then move slowly. No rushing about allowed.

I think will wander over to TARTINE BAKERY for lunch and then to BOMBAY ICE CREAM for a scoop of saffron rose or coconut ice cream.

4:00 p.m. update:

Went to Tartine for lunch. Lovely open face Croque Monsieur with bechamel, yellow tomato slices and ham for Mr. Muse, I had the ham and cheese croissant.  Slice of chocolate layer cake and a lemon tart to finish off the meal.  Love the food.  Hated the music today.  Oh, well.

It is now cool and windy, very windy.  Too cool for ice cream. I feel like I might be going crazy with these weather changes happening so quickly.  Maybe a week in Las Vegas would convince me to stop complaining about our weather.  No, too drastic a measure....

San Francisco Summer Days

A summer day in San Francisco. Real fog pouring in through the Golden Gate. Now That’s Summer! Poor tourists wearing shorts and T-shirts. Even when they are told that it will be cold and foggy they just can’t grasp it. How could a summer day be cold? Isabel and Bob the Boxer sit in the window and watch the tourists as they slip down the steep hill, hanging on to each other for warmth and security. A baseball cap flies off of a young man, he runs after it and is smart enough not to put it back on until he gets off of our windy hill.

Vacation means more time in the kitchen for us to create chocolate treats. Yesterday it was chocolate pudding from scratch. Today it will be a new recipe that GHIRARDELLI's ad agency sent to me along with a star cookie cutter and lots of delicious dark chocolate. They are donating $100,000.00 to the MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION. Bravo, Ghirardelli! Our review later... In the meantime we cook, we sew, we stroll down to Polk Street for slices of pizza for lunch from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK PIZZA, I get my Blue Bottle Cappucino from CAFE LAMBRETTA, Isabel gets a chocolate chip cookie from Lotta's Bakery.  Summer is good.

Pollan and Mackey in Berkeley

A brand new discussion about what we eat and our willingness to understand everything about how that food gets to our table began Tuesday night in Berkeley. How appropriate. It is to the credit of John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of WHOLE FOODS, that he was willing to engage in a conversation with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (see Amazon listing at left), in front of a sold out audience of over 2,000 and talk about his vision for the future of food. A vision that demands that the failings of the industrial era be corrected.

I have to say that I was wondering what would happen as he began to speak to the Berkeley audience. This can be a tough crowd. It is no accident that the FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT started here. But it is an intelligent audience as well. I am sure that Mr. Mackey knew what he was up against. As soon as he began speaking it was clear that he was well prepared to take the discussion beyond the usual corporate double speak that we have come to expect from most American CEOs defending their company’s practices.

I think that most people were probably surprised to see that he was showing a five minute film about how farm animals (chickens, pigs, dairy cattle) are treated. It was graphic and disturbing. But, hey, if you are going to eat protein in this form you should be willing to see how it is treated. The government has no laws to prevent cruelty to farm animals. Mr. Mackey was willing to talk to an audience about probably the most disturbing part of our food chain and admitted that while Whole Foods still sells animal products that are processed in this manner they are doing what they can to fund humanely raised animals. This theme played out for the rest of the evening. While they can’t solve all the problems inherent in our food system they are willing to put money behind supporting solutions which include loans to farmers and grants to authentic food artisans - think SLOW FOOD.

Given the discussion on this site about why I didn't buy the $8.00 eggs I was most interested to hear what Mr. Mackey had to say about the issue of elitisim and the accusation that it is expensive to eat well. His response? "If you are willing to cook, food is not that expensive". How to spend less at Whole Foods? Shop their house brands, called the ‘365' line and buy seasonally which "requires intelligence and discipline". They also plan to match Trader Joe's prices on items that they both carry.  Bravo.  Now I can buy my King Arthur flour and Dundee marmalade at Whole Foods. Watch the webcast here.

VOTE TODAY

It is our right.  It is our privilege.  Please vote today. 

WE ARE NOT FRENCH

I know this may come as a complete shock to some of you, but it is true. We are not French. Nor do most of us want to be. We are Californians and more specifically we live in the Bay Area. We are different. We think differently, we eat differently. Our fellow Californians who live just 30 miles north, south and east of us don’t get us. The President of our country never dares to visit. So how can we expect the French to get us? And why, may we ask, do we need them to? Well, we don’t. I understand that a high rating in the Michelin Guide has meant the difference between success and failure for a restaurant. But I am having a hard time believing that it will make much difference to the restaurants we, the people, support night after night after night. My friends that go to Gary Danko’s and La Folie on a regular basis are not going to stop going. A few egos will be bruised for a while. And then one day the chefs will wake up and understand that they are in business because we love them. I am pleased that the Michelin Guide doesn’t quite know what to make of us and the restaurants we love.

HOW YOU CAN TELL IT IS FALL IN SAN FRANCISCO

Okay, so we don’t have forests full of trees turning all shades of amber and gold. But we do have the following:

Indian Summer: Just when you thought you could wear the new cashmere turtle neck under the plaid jumper, it turns 80 degrees. Enjoy it by having a mid week picnic in Golden Gate Park. Stop at Andronico’s on Irving Street for huge sandwiches and a couple beers in a plain brown bag to go. When? Now.