People who enjoy sausage and respect the law should not watch either being made.
That curt assessment is usually attributed to 19th-century statesman Otto von Bismarck, and I can certainly agree with him about the second part. For example, it’s hard to see how all the maneuvering and wheeling-and-dealing and horse trading going on around the […]

Two of my favorite food reporters will be kicking off National Library Week tonight (7 p.m., April 12) at the Oakland Museum of California: Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and Carol Ness, the San Francisco Chronicle reporter who has been covering every aspect of SOLE food in the Bay Area since long before […]

The Meatpaper party was not hard to find. Retro posters of tripe and assorted unusual fleshy goods festooned the windows of Sugarlump coffee lounge in the Mission. A gauntlet of charcuterie, terrines, and patés began just inside the front door and stretched for 20 feet.
Hordes of hip carnivores pecked and shoved like vintage-clad vultures around […]

“Fueling Iowa’s Future”: An informative new series launched today in preparation of the 2008 Iowa caucuses. A number of articles and graphics highlight the state’s opportunities — and the serious challenges — as Iowa attempts to become an alternative energy leader for the nation. Des Moines Register
Quebec to label GM food?: A new study commissioned […]

Bill McKibben — the writer, thinker, activist, and all-around awesome guy — will talk about his new book, “Deep Economy,” with food-chain chronicler Michael Pollan on March 19 at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. Tickets are $10, available online or at local independent bookstores. Don’t live in Berkeley? Go see him at the many other readings […]

OK, so this is not perhaps as sexy sounding as the “sustainability smackdown” between Michael Pollan and John Mackey Tuesday, but it’s about 100 times more important. If you want to continue to be able to eat sustainable, organic, and local food — and help the rest of the country eat it, too — then […]

Nature abhors a vacuum, even one of ideology. When the counterculture becomes mainstream, a new counterculture must arise to take its place — and maybe throw stones and heckle the gangly new Goliath.
Last night 2,000 people filled Zellerbach Hall to hear Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and “Omnivore’s Dilemma” author Michael Pollan discuss the future […]

Last week the Potato Non Grata and I cooked a three-course dinner for six people. In less than three hours from prep to plate, we made our own hand-cut fettucine with shrimp, peppers, and leeks; braised short ribs with pommes anna; and chocolate hazelnut soufflé cake. Oh, and a little appetizer of […]

Today is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. It’s a “golden” pig year, considered the pinnacle of good luck and prosperity, which only comes around every six decades. I was born during 1971, a “metal” pig year, and while I don’t believe in astrology — neither the Chinese nor the […]

Large, chain supermarkets have no smell. Even in the produce aisle, where piping sprays water over cucumbers and lettuces in a vain attempt to make them look dew-kissed, the only scent you might catch is a faint chlorine tang — possibly from the floor, possible from the misters. The apples might as well be made […]

Saturday I joined about 25 Bay Area food bloggers to volunteer for an afternoon at the San Francisco Food Bank. It was organized by Sam and Amy, and it was a lot of fun. I got to meet writers whose dinnerware I can recognize but not their faces, while ever so slightly helping […]

I used to make fun of the Dairy Queen Mother for talking to strangers everywhere she went — in elevators, grocery stores, even movie-theater bathrooms. Actually, she still does it, and I still tease her about it, partly because she has no “psychodar” (sorry, Mom).
But when the subject is SOLE food, I’m finding it […]

It’s finally warming up here, so I went for a walk on my day off today. Some of the citrus trees in my Oakland neighborhood are covered in ripe fruit! So I stole foraged some Meyer lemons and some oranges. (Hey, if the tree grows next to a public sidewalk, and there’s fruit all over […]

California farmers have lost more than $1 billion in citrus, avocados, strawberries, spring vegetables, and artichokes, according to yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Once upon a time, I would have heard that news and not thought twice about it. There was always more citrus that could be flown in from around the world to keep me […]

There were Meyer lemons and regular lemons at the Berkeley farmers market today, picked early to avoid the frost. I was surprised at how cheap they were — $2 and $1.50 per pound, from Blue Heron and Kaki farms, respectively — given all the reports that at least half the state’s citrus crop has […]