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 […]

Late last year I sat down with Walter Robb, co-president of Whole Foods Market, for an obscure business magazine.
I pitched the editor, for whom I’ve freelanced since 2000, on a Whole Foods Q&A by trotting out a few of the 27-year-old company’s impressive stats: $5.6 billion in fiscal 2006 sales, almost 200 locations, a stock […]

The inexorable march of global warming has stopped for a bathroom break or something, because it’s damn cold here. OK, so it’s nothing like the blizzards I endured on the East Coast or the ones Denver did over Christmas, but it’s pretty frickin’ nippy for California.
Last night was the second night of record low temperatures, […]

Ever since sampling my first piece (and second…and fifth) piece of bacon toffee in early December, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. The deep and satisfying saltiness tangoing with the piercing sweetness, the crunch of the candy exploding around the denser flesh of the bacon — it’s so wrong and […]

I just got word that the long-anticipated smackdown conversation between food detective Michael Pollan and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is finally on! I haven’t been this excited about an event since 10th grade, when I camped out overnight for tickets to see R.E.M. on the New Orleans stop of their Life’s Rich Pageant tour. […]

Damn. John Birdsall, the East Bay Express’s restaurant reviewer, totally busted me on EBX’s blog for prematurely panicking about the disappearance of Hoffman Game Birds from the Bay Area, now that the elderly owner is no longer selling at the Ferry Plaza farmers market. Doing the homework that I should have, Mr. B. called […]

The Times (UK): Britain is abuzz about this interview with David Miliband, the U.K.’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who said that eating organic food is just a “lifestyle choice” as there is no conclusive evidence that organic food is better than conventional.
Marin Independent Journal: With real-estate values skyrocketing along with […]

Which is harder to find, a pastured chicken or its eggs? In the Bay Area, there’s way too much demand for both.
The CUESA newsletter just alerted me to a sad, sad development: As of this week, Hoffman Game Birds will no longer be selling at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers market. Ruth Hoffman, who […]

‘Tis the season to make year-end lists. In honor of the last day of 2006, here are my ten favorite local delicacies. Amazingly, I had never tasted any of them before this year.
1. Marshall’s Farm Marin wildflower honey: I used to think honey came in plastic bears and tasted sweet and nothing else. This amazingly […]

New York Times: With trans fat bans going into effect, demand is surging for Monsanto’s low-linolenic acid soybeans. The article, by the usually reliable Andrew Martin, fails to make clear whether these soybeans have been genetically modified or just selectively bred to be “low lin.”
TheSpoof.com: Cloning around over the latest news from the FDA. Includes […]

BusinessWeek.com: Welcome to the dietgeist, BW — the top bizmag says a movement to celebrate local farmers is sweeping the country. While Whole Foods has led the way among corporations, other food chains are also playing up local produce, including Kroger, Publix, and Food Lion. Even Wal-Mart is running a “Salute to America’s Farmers” […]