Forage Oakland Anthology CFS

You don't have to live in the east bay to participate in this project! Forage Oakland is a neighborhood bartering food underground, allowing those with extra fruit trees to share with their neighbors. Those on the east coast might not understand that the streets of Berkeley and Oakland are LITTERED with free fruit for the taking...meyer lemon trees, orange trees, persimmons, figs, plums. Not to mention the rose geranium, lavender and rosemary that substitute for shrubbery.

You can find out more about the Forage Oakland project here, but if you write about the intersection of food and comunity, please consider submitting.

the joys of composting

In honor of the upcoming Fringe Enviro-themed issue, I'm discussing a simple luxury San Franciscans tend to take for granted. The little green bin...


The little green bin is one of my favorite things about SF, but it's so trashy. Literally. Citywide (bay area wide, more specifically) composting allows businesses and residents the chance to turn any food scraps, paper food packaging, and compostable to-go ware into...wine.

That's right.

Green bins are provided by the city, and set out on the curb along with trash pickup. Restaurants usually have an equal number of compost and trash bins. It's in the restaurant industry that you can really see the impact composting has on waste disposal. At the end of a busy shift, the compost bins are jammed full, while the trash...maybe halfway, and that usually just plastic wrap.

The yard trimmings and unwanted leftovers of San Franciscans get turned into compost, which is used in the vineyards of Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. While the thought brings a slight shift in meaning to the concept of terroir, the actual practice of composting couldn't be easier.


While composting isn't always perfect...and often kinda gross...it's one way to make a consistent contribution to living a green lifestyle and turning your own waste into something positive. If you're interested in composting but don't have a citywide program, check in with local community gardens. There are plenty of those in Boston, and most tend to have a compost pile that members contribute to. Or start your own compost pile in the backyard, and grow some food!

I will admit, we have a black composter in my yard, but 90% of the time I use the city's green bin (yes, because it's closer to the house). If you're interested in learning the hows of home composting, the New York City compost project has pretty comprehensive information on getting started.

blogwatch: Alinea at Home

Any faithful blog reader must surely by now have encountered the cook-through-the-book type of blog. The general idea is that some enterprising non-professional cook, dissatisfied or bored with the rigors of corporate life, decides that cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, say, is a far finer thing to do. In Carol Blymire's case it was The French Laundry cookbook. Was, because after the better part of two years, Blymire finished every recipe in the French Laundry cookbook, complete with photo documentation, fancy dinners at The French Laundry and Keller's Per Se, and a wide internet fan base.

It's not too late to be won over by Blymire's humor over successes and epic failures both. You see, she's decided to do it all over again using the new cookbook from Alinea, Grant Achatz's Chicago restaurant. Alinea, while winning numerous honors including Gourmet magazine's nod as Best Restaurant in America, is primarily known for the adventurous detail involved in every plate. Think foams, agar and other hydrocolloids, aromas, airs and other aspects of molecular gastronomy most of us experience, if at all, secondhand. A blog post, with visuals sums up the intriguing experience.

How can you cook such cuisine at home? Lord knows, I would probably break down in tears. For those interested in following along, Achatz and co. worked with Ten Speed Press to make shockingly affordable $30 cookbook, and Blymire's Alina at Home blog is set to commence any day.

The Importance of Being Ernest About Your Viands

I got caught up in my past again today thinking of a favorite commercial, because, during the day, I am a drudge, making my mind mine, you see. And for you who know me, you will not be stupefied to know that my thoughts turned to food.

Dairy, in fact.
All wares milky, in fact, but particularly the rinded.  
(For the next paragraph, imagine it is being spoken in  Superman 3's narrator's voice. For those of you who, for whatever reason, lost the brain cells that made up your memories of the eighties, I offer an example:)

My hobbyhorse is writing and food, my fetish. Separately developed, it seemed that the twain were never to meet, but one fateful day, far in the past, as  Saddam
Hussein hung his jacket on the second floor coat rack of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar for the six hundredth and sixty-fourth last time, as George W. choked on his pretzel Laura had slipped playfully into his mouth, the twain met and had cocktails. The liquor went straight to their heads and they copulated wildly on the bed of James Tate's poem, The Wild Cheese. My loves became one love and I became a creative monogamist.

Why am I telling you this?

Because this is the first posting of my new blog and I wanted to make a blogging covenant. I want to create a point of juncture between food and writing. I will bring in edible literary allusions and maybe some recipes, observations, a couple gripes, and the occasional food-based tongue twister. I hope you enjoy reading our blogs.



And remember that your Fringe is ran by our hlǣfdīgen and one or two men. Respect and show the love - visit the magazine, yo.

I Heart Pickles!

My master's project, City Picklers, is finally ready to meet the world. The site, produced with Lisa Biagiotti, tells the story of how homemade pickles are invigorating the local food movement.

Over the course of the project, I made more than five quarts of sauerkraut, plus pickled lemons, kimchi, cucumber pickles, fermented garlic, a failed attempt at pickled cauliflower (cruciferous veggies smell bad when fermented) and pickled fennel.

Our final week of work, which occurred during "spring break," was one of my most grueling as a student. A 120+ week that culminated in a 3-day labor spree where Lisa and I logged 65 hours. But it was totally worth it to see our pickles fly off the page and into the hearts (mouths?) of our viewers.

Here's our official synopsis:

CityPicklers.com is a website devoted to New York pickles--in all varieties, including vinegar, lacto-fermented, Jewish, Indian, Chinese, and so on. Every culture has its pickle, and we found that pickling still thrives in the historic pickle district on the Lower East Side, in ethnic enclaves of the outer boroughs, in farmer's markets and in pickling classes.

Through multimedia and text, CityPicklers.com tells the story of:

* new pickling businesses and the local food culture surrounding home and artisinal pickling, including interviews with Rick Field of Rick's Picks, and Al Kaufman of the Pickle Guys
* the benefits of pickling and ancient traditions of lacto-fermentation, including interviews with fermentation expert, Sandor Ellix Katz
* how-to make the crunchers, with instruction by hipster pickler Bob McClure of McClure's Pickles and Inside Park chef Matt Weingarten

The site is best viewed in the Firefox browser.

We'd like to thank the more than 70 chefs, cookbook authors, historians, purveyors and picklers we interviewed over the last six months.

Happy pickling!

Lisa Biagiotti and Lizzie Stark
CityPicklers@gmail.com
CityPicklers.com

Photo by Lisa Biagiotti.