A16 Revisited

We had another wonderful meal at A16 on Saturday night.

Last time we were there I was blown away by the pizza from the wood-burning oven, and I was equally as pleased this time. The service was outstanding and the food was very good. The best dishes were the pizza scarola, of course, and the semifreddo we tried for dessert. Actually, the semifreddo was amazing, and unlike anything I expected. It came out as a layer of shortbread cookie covered in a layer of semifreddo, with caramel drizzled on top and hazelnuts sprinkled on top of the caramel. Truly amazing.

We also drank a nice bottle of wine, Benanti, "Rossodiverzella," Etna Rosso 2004, a delicious blend of Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappucio (one of the wines recommended by Mick at Unti Vineyards).

Here's the list of all our courses (as usual, we split everything):
--Roasted local calamari with agretti, pickled chiles, green garlic and toasted pine nuts
--Pizza Scarola - braised escarole, pancetta, black olives, ricotta, chiles, garlic
--Tonnarelli with pork and tomato soffritto, corona beans, chiles and pecorino
--Local petrale sole in cartoccio with almonds, basil, green olives, celery and seville orange, served with cannellini beans with garlic and oregano
--Semifreddo with hazelnuts, caramel, and shortbread cookie



My only note of criticism about A16 has to do with the space. I must say that I find it completely lacking in style or charm. When we sat at the chef's counter last time, I was captivated by watching the cook make pizzas and I did not notice the overall decor. This time, however, because we were seated at a table at the back of the restaurant, I found the poor ambiance more noticeable. It's a good thing the food is so good because the look of the restaurant decor could use an overhaul.

Food and Pesticides: A Songbird Story

In today's New York Times, Bridget Stutchbury, a biology professor at Toronto's York University, writes about the devastating impact high levels of pesticides used in farming South American fruits and vegetables have on the North American songbird, the Bobolink. She cites a study that shows that the birds consume extremely high levels of deadly pesticides while wintering in South America. It's so bad that the Bobolink population has dropped by about 50% in the last 40 years.

Stutchbury makes clear that it is the North American and European appetite for fresh produce--tomatoes, bell peppers, strawberries and blueberries--that create the conditions for heavy pesticide use. South American farmers reply on pesticides and other chemical to mass produce crops in delicate monocultures, and as Michaal Pollan has written, these monocultures depend heavily on pesticides and chemicals to succeed.

So, as if it's not bad enough that we're unnecessarily killing animals to feed ourselves, she also writes about how we're exposing ourselves to pesticides by eating produce raised in South America. Stutchbury cites studies by the Food and Drug Administration that shows that fruits and vegetables from South America exceed Environmental Protection Agency standards for pesticide residues on foods grown inside the United States. She also writes that, "tests by the Center for Disease Control show that most Americans carry traces of pesticides in their blood." And, she goes on to say, "American consumers can discourage this poisoning [of ourselves and the Bobolinks] by avoiding foods that are bad for the environment, bad for farmers in Latin America, and, in the worst cases, bad for their own families."

Stutchburg suggests buying organic and fair-trade coffee and organic bananas as a way of protecting the birds and ourselves, and she suggests avoiding all other produce imported from Latin American because so few are raised organically.

UPDATE: Once again, The Ethicurean, has a great posting on Stutchbury's op-ed.

My First, and Last, Posting About Top Chef

After hearing several positive reviews from several friends - Amy in particular - Lou and and I succumbed to watching a few episodes of Top Chef last night.

The show has gotten a lot of news in San Francisco because four of the contestants are from here: Zoi Antonitsas (chef and restaurant consultant) and Jennifer Biesty (executive chef at Coco500) (they're a couple), Erik Hopfinger (executive chef at Circa), and Ryan Scott (the former chef of Myth Cafe).

Amy told us that she enjoys seeing what kinds of dishes the chefs create, and after watching last night, I can see her point. It was fun to see what the chefs could come up with for their dishes, especially given the limited parameters for the various challenges (usually time or strict ingredient or menu guidelines).

And yet, I found the reality television trappings of the show tiresome. I groaned every time the producers took a dramatic pause and cued the suspenseful music. The show should be called survivor chef, not top chef. It's really just a contest about who can best perform under the artificial conditions set by the producers. It is probably not the best medium for showcasing the talent and skill of most of the contestants. I'm also not sure that the show truly reflects how chefs really cook. How many chefs cook almost entirely by improvisation? Perhaps a few, but I suspect most of them take time to craft and refine the dishes they serve.

I was also put off that the show focused so heavily on the personalities of the chefs and that, as a consequence, the food was practically overlooked. No shot of any one dish lasted for more than a few seconds, and the producers barely allowed the chefs more than a clipped sentence to explain their dishes. With a few exceptions, we heard almost nothing about the passions of any of the chefs for particular ingredients or foods. Perhaps we will hear more about the food itself as the number of contestants narrow, but I was disappointed that food got so little play in these first few episodes.

Food Film Festival?

I'm surprised no one has started a food-oriented film festival in San Francisco. It strikes me as something that would succeed here. Check this out: Food For Thought Film Festival.

Eat Your Breakfast!

The New York Times reports on a recently released study that shows some evidence that adolescents who eat breakfast have lower Body Mass Index (BMI). The research suggests that adolescents who eat breakfast consume more carbohydrates and fiber than fat and seem to exercise more, thereby helping them control their weight. The study also shows some interesting differences in the eating habits of adolescent boys and girls; girls were more likely to skip breakfast than boys, though boys ate more calories than girls.

Cooking Grass-Fed Meat (and Eggs)

Two Saturdays ago at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, Lou and I came across the stand for Marin Sun Farms, a family-run farming organization that raises 100% grass-fed beef, poultry, lamb, goat and pork in Marin and Sonoma Counties north of San Francisco.

We were delighted to find them and pleased to discover some meats and cuts that you don't always see in the grocery store. Specifically, we were intrigued by the cuts of goat and by the oxtail (yes, the meat and bone from the tail of a cow). We bought a small portion of each--a half rack of goat--roughly 3 lbs--for $19.99 and a smallish package of cut, frozen oxtail--about 2 lbs--for $10. We also bought a dozen pasture-raised chicken eggs for $7. To my previous posting, all of this meat was fairly expensive compared to the amount of conventional meat we could bought for the same amount of money. Judging from taste, however, I think it was worth it, and I was happy to pay extra to support farmers who use sustainable farming practices to raise their livestock.

We finally got around to cooking both cuts over the weekend, and they were spectacular. Lou used a simple recipe of olive oil, several garlic cloves, lemon juice and rosemary to marinate the goat. He scored the fat and grilled it over high heat for seven minutes per side, and it came out perfectly medium rare. We served the goat with roasted romanesco broccoli and a puree of celery root and potatoes. The meat was delicate and tender, and it tasted gamy like lamb, minus the strong grassy flavor.

On Sunday, Lou prepared the oxtails (he did the major cooking this weekend). He braised them using this recipe from Gourmet. The flavor of the sauce was outstanding; it was rich and, oddly enough, almost creamy. The oxtails themselves were not as soft or as tender as I expected they would be--they didn't fall off the bone--but the meat still tasted delicious and served with brussel sprouts and mashed potatoes, they made for an excellent Sunday dinner.


Finally, below is a picture of the frittata we made with some of the eggs from Marin Sun Farms and some green garlic we also bought that day at the farmer's market. What was striking about the eggs was the variety of shapes, sizes and colors of the shells. Equally as diverse in color were the yolks, ranging from deep yellow to bright orange, due in large part, I'm sure, to the diversity of food eaten by the chickens that produced the eggs. It was quite a tasty post-farmer's market breakfast.



UPDATE: Here is a great post from The Ethicurean about a farm tour at Marin Sun Farms.

Cheap Meat

For the first time, I came across two postings about food on a reasonably mainstream political blog. Ezra Klein, who occasionally writes about his own exploits in the kitchen, offers some thoughts, here and here, about the price of meat.

He argues, as have Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and others, that increasing the price of meat would likely lower meat consumption, which could result in alleviating some of the health and environmental problems associated with producing and eating meat. He also calls out farm subsidies for corn as a chief culprit for masking the real cost of meat and for fooling consumers into thinking meat is actually cheaper than vegetables.

This is one reason the Farm Bill matters, and it is the key rationale for removing farm subsidies from the bill.

Spring Asparagus at Nopa

Amy kindly gave us a 6:15 pm reservation for four at Nopa on Saturday night. We invited Joey and Brad to join us, and it was a great meal.

I've probably eaten at Nopa eight times since we first discovered the restaurant about two years ago (not long after they first opened), and I have never been disappointed. The cooking is superb, the food is always delicious, fresh and seasonal, and the service is casual, but very good.

We shared a plate of little fried smelts, served with shaved fennel and lemon-dill aioli, and I ordered the asparagus soup with a touch of cream, olive oil and chervil (parsley) for a second starter (the picture below looks more like creme brulee than soup, but the color of the soup was actually bright green, not yellow). For the main course, Joey, Brad and I each ordered a pan-fried halibut dish, which was served with a meyer lemon olive tapanade, olive oil, asparagus and some arugula. Lou ordered braised duck leg and breast with creamy farro, carrots, spinach and mushrooms.

All three of my dishes were excellent. Lou and I almost always order the little fish at Nopa. We've eaten some wonderful sardines and anchovies before, and the smelts were equally good, though more heavily battered that some of other fish preparations we've tried. The soup was thick, rich and hearty, and the fish was heavenly. The olives and asparagus grounded the tender fish, and each bite was a lemony delight. We did not order dessert because we took off to catch a movie, but Joey and Brad stayed on and ate a pecan tart with salted caramel ice cream and a Mexican coffee ice cream sandwich. Not surprisingly, we missed out. They reported that both desserts were delicious.

For wine, I ordered a sparkling gamay--Gamay "FRV100" Beaujolais NV Rerres Dorees--a very fruity sparking red. For dinner we tried a bottle of 2006 Movia "Gredic" Tokai Friulano, Goriska Brda from Hungary. We were hoping it would be somewhat dry, but it turned out to be fairly fruity and sweet. It was not that different from the Tokai dessert wines, which I am more familiar with than the table wines. It was not the best pairing for the halibut.

Chef on the Edge? Momfuku's David Chang

I just finished reading Larissa MacFarquhar's profile of chef David Chang in the March 24th issue of The New Yorker. Unfortunately, the story is not posted on The New Yorker website (what do they post there anyway?), but it's worth the read if you can find a copy of the magazine.

Chang is the founder of Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam Bar, both in the East Village in Manhattan, and just this week, he opened a third restaurant, Ko, also in the East Village.

MacFarquhar's profile is far from flattering. Chang comes off as crazy. It's clear that he's a brilliant chef and that his obsession with innovation and flavor--along with his striving for perfection--have produced some amazing meals for his diners. Sadly, it's just as clear that he's tightly wound and seems barely able to hold it together. Reading about him, I imagined him as a sort of culinary van Gogh--intense, manic and capable of genius, but somehow doomed by his single-minded drive for perfection and beauty.

And yet, I found an admirable cross current in MacFarquhar's piece that's also worth mentioning: his humility and his concern for others. Chang repeatedly emphasizes that he's no great cook, and MacFarquhar writes about his concern for his staff--even though she also quotes him at length berating them. She quotes him talking about his commitment to provide health care and other benefits for them, and she writes about his commitment to using local food whenever possible. Perhaps most interestingly, he talks to her about the choices he faces in opening new restaurants and expanding his Momofuku empire to other cities.

Despite these positive qualities, Chang seems more like someone gripped by fear of failure. It is a fear so strong that he seems on the verge of losing all perspective on what he's accomplished and what he's achieved. Perhaps, I'm naive in thinking he could ever relax running a high-profile trio of New York restaurant, but I hope he'll try.

I should also mention that I ate at the Momofuku Ssam Bar last September when I was in New York. I met my cousin, Alan, and my friend, Dan, there, and we had an excellent meal. The dish that stood out was a tapioca pearl and sea urchin combination, with nori and crispy rice (I think). It was amazing. As sea urchin often does, it tasted like the sea, and the tapioca, the nori and rice gave the dish a surprisingly crunchy and chewy texture. It was brilliant. We also had one of the pork buns; it was also quite tasty.

Read the story. Try one of the restaurants.

Here are two videos I found that capture him talking about both Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam Bar. Note his humility.




UPDATE: Two interesting posts about Chang from other blogs, here and here.

Fat!

I've been thinking more about my reaction to Kim Severson's story in Dining In/Dining Out yesterday, and I want to expand on my comments to say more about why reading her account of the "Fat Pack" left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps my gut-reaction was too strong, but I cringed while reading a few lines from her story:

The journalists, bloggers, chefs and others who make up the Fat Pack combine an epicure’s appreciation for skillful cooking with a glutton’s bottomless-pit approach. Cramming more than three meals into a day, once the last resort of a food critic on deadline, has become a way of life. If the meals center on meat, so much the better.

and

“Most of us who are in this profession are here as an excuse to eat,” said Mimi Sheraton, the food writer and former New York Times restaurant critic who has chronicled her own battle with weight loss. Still, she said, “I’ve never seen such an outward, in-your-face celebration of eating fat.”

and in response to suggestions of moderation, she writes,

To which many members of the Fat Pack say: Shut up and pass the pork butt. Among a certain slice of the food-possessed, to suggest that indulgence might put one’s health in peril is to invite ridicule.

Admittedly, she ends the story with quotations from one former "Fat Pack" member who is learning to love vegetables, but I found the individuals she quoted to be mostly unsympathetic figures.

Why?

I'll confess something: I used to struggle with my weight. Ten years ago, I weighed about 40 pounds more than what I weigh now. Almost no one I know now can believe it, but it's true. The main culprits for my extra pounds, I think, were eating too much junk food, settling too often for a quick fast-food meal and failing to control the size my portions. It was not a result of eating too many haute cuisine meals (I did, of course, enjoy a fancy meal or two every now and then).

When I moved to California in 2001, I started exercising more regularly, first taking up running and then settling into a regular routine of swimming (I've been a life-long swimmer). I started to pay more attention to what kinds of food I ate, focusing on eating whole foods and leaving behind fast-food and junk food. I cut out soft drinks. By no means did I give up on eating nice meals, but I shifted the balance of my calorie intake and calorie usage, burning more calories than I took in. I became a conscious eater and a regular exerciser, and I've held my weigh more or less steady for the last seven years.

So, having found a good balance between healthy and mindful eating and exercise, I have little patience for the people Severson quoted throughout her story. I know that it is possible to balance eating flavorful and healthy foods, occasionally indulging in rich meals and working out. Throw in being mindful of the origins of the food I eat, and that's a decent recipe--dare I say--for a balanced lifestyle that guarantees nourishment, health and pleasure.

No doubt there are thousands of other stories like mine, and I would have preferred to read about at least one of them in Severson's piece yesterday.

As a parting gift, here's a memorable scene from "The Producers" with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane:

I'm Back

It's been a long time since I lasted posted on Foodphiles. There's no good reason why I took a break. I spent some time in January volunteering for the Obama campaign as a precinct captain in San Francisco, and I spent much of February closely following the campaign. I've played a lot of bridge and studied some Italian in preparation for a trip to Italy in May. I read Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food."

I feel the urge to write again, so here goes.

I certainly did not give up on cooking or eating while I was away from this blog. Lou and I ate a wonderful meal in January at Mistral in Seattle. We also cooked up a few fantastic meals--a wonderful chicken with shallots, prunes and brandy recipe from Bon Appetit, a rich and flavorful "Japanese" styled pot roast from Food and Wine, and a Bolognese ragu from the NYT Magazine. We made a meal mostly from The French Laundry cookbook for two friends. And, just the other night, Lou made a fantastic pizza using baby artichokes as the topping.

In addition to posting some stories and photos from those meals, I will give an update on the Farm Bill, which continues to languish in Congress.

I do have one posting in the making now: what to do with a piece of goat meat that is resting in our refrigerator. We bought the meat at the Farmer's Market on Saturday from a small producer in Marin County, and it is turning into a major cooking challenge. I've only found one recipe for cooking goat, and that was in "The Joy of Cooking." Every other place I've searched online turns up only recipes involving goat cheese. Lou wants to braise the meat with rosemary, which I think would be fine, but I want to find some really good traditional preparation. I fear, however, a traditional preparation will call for roasting the meat over an open fire. That won't be an option for us, unfortunately. I'll keep you posted.

Finally, I want to comment briefly on Kim Severson's story in the NYT Dining In/Dining Out section today about overeating foodies, food bloggers, food critics and chefs. She calls them the "Fat Pack," and writes about how many of them have been forced to come to terms with the onset of heart disease, diabetes and other disorders as a consequence of their occupational unhealthy eating. Frankly, the story struck me as ridiculous. Even though she writes about how some of these folks have attempted to strike a balance between eating fatty foods and eating in moderation, it's hard to feel much sympathy for any of the gluttons she quotes. I felt somewhat better reading Frank Bruni's take on her story, but I was generally put off by the self-indulgent bent of her story. While I suspect that many New York Times readers can afford to gorge themselves repeatedly on high-priced, high-fat meals, I think the food and diet related problems facing most Americans result not from eating too many of those kinds of meals but too many of the kinds of meals Michael Pollan writes about in "Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food."