Put yer Hoes Down!

Last weekend, I had the absolute pleasure of attending the 23rd annual Hoes Down Harvest Festival at Full Belly Farm in Yolo County, CA. There are so many amazing things to point out about this particular event. Established in 1985, Full Belly farm was one of the first (if not, THE first) organic farms in California. Today, they have 400 acres of mind blowing biodiversity. In addition to crops ranging from tomatoes and peaches to walnuts and wild flowers, the farm boasts an extensive livestock collection including pigs, chickens, bees, lamb, sheep, llamas, and goats!



Two of the four owners/ farmers of Full Belly were featured in book called Farmer Jane. It's definitely on my must read list, and I think it should be on yours, too!



Now on to the party...Every year, the farm hosts the now famous Hoes Down festival. Attended by thousands of yuppies and hippies alike, the primary goal of the celebration is to educate people about agricultural arts and sustainable rural living. There is an abundance of good food, music, dancing, arts, crafts, sustainable farming talks and demonstrations. There are also countless activities for the kiddies...petting zoo, bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving contests, making wildflower crowns, weaving wool, etc etc etc. With so much going on, it is no wonder that many families make the choice to camp out in the orchard over night.



In addition to promoting agricultural education, the fest is a fundraiser benefiting many community organizations like EcoFarm, Future Farmers of America, Yolo Land Trust, and their local 4H chapter.



So, whether you want to make pine nut bracelets, shop for handmade candles, gaze at the blacksmiths in wonder, play in the creek, or enjoy a hayride through the farm, there is a little bit of something for everybody.

Fortune Cookie Factory

If you google "free things to do in the Bay Area," chances are that a tour of a fortune cookie factory will pop up at the top of the list. Always game for free AND food-related activities, I hopped on the chance to find out just how they got those hidden messages tucked safely inside the folds of the wafer.

Paranoid as I am about arriving at a place after hours or on an off day, I called ahead to inquire about the day's schedule. The man on the phone was clearly not a native English speaker; he merely kept repeating, "We open till 7 pm. You come any time." "Ok," I thought to myself, "This is kind of bizarre, but what do I have to lose?"


Several BART stops later, I found myself wandering through the brightly colored, lanterned maze that is Chinatown in San Francisco. 9-5ers raced through the streets around me as I desperately tried to keep stride with the New Yorker that accompanied me on this adventure. Guided by her I-phone (god knows I don't have one), we turned down an alley that looked more like a zone for illegal abortions than fresh baked delights.


And then we saw it. On the right hand sign was a miniature sign indicating that we had indeed arrived at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. In an airy, open storefront the size of a postage stamp, we were immediately greeted by the three employees and entire operation!


The same man who answered the phone stood by the doorway offering the rejected cookies as a sample of their wares and ensuring that anyone with a camera paid the requisite 50 cents for a photo of his ladies. This included the Floridian man, armed with a video camera, who kept referring to the edibles as "egg rolls" while filming!


Behind him, two women worked the assembly lines, making sure the batter was loaded into the dispenser, discarding cookies that didn't meet their exacting standards (boy, there seemed to be a lot of them), and carefully plucking off the prime tuiles from the hot iron press, filling them with a message, and folding them to fully envelope the surprise. Together, these two women made thousands of fortune cookies everyday, and I am pretty sure that they were all the nuts and bolts of the operation.


Satisfied with our discovery, we paid for a bag of adult fortune cookies and went on our way. A word of advice: don't spring the extra 50 cents (or whatever it was) for the naughty notes - out of about 10 that I ate, 9 were the same nonsensical and non-naughty message!

Hog Island - Tomales Bay

We've loved Hog Island oysters and their seafood bar at the Ferry Building for a long time now, but when you want to avoid the crowds and enjoy a serene picnic on the water, Tomales Bay is where its at!


Not only can you enjoy a perfectly packed picnic, but you can check out the farm as well -- watching the sorter spin round and round as hundreds of tiny bivalves fall to one side or the other.


Whole wheat pasta salad with grilled sardines

Serves 4-6

½ pound whole wheat pasta
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 large tomato, chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1 tablespoon capers
½ cup chopped olives
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons African basil flowers (or chopped basil)
Salt and pepper, to taste
8 whole sardines, fileted
Olive oil, for rubbing

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, and cook for 7 minutes, or until al dente.
2. Drain pasta water, and set noodles aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients. Add warm pasta, and toss.
4. Let stand for 1 hour at room temperature. Set the oven to broil, or heat a grill to high heat.
5. De-bone sardines and portion into filets (you can also ask your fishmonger to do this for you). Season each side with salt and pepper. Rub each filet with olive oil.
6. Place the sardines on a metal baking sheet or sizzle plate. Broil or grill for 2-3 minutes, skin side down, or until cooked through.
7. Remove sardines from pan, and serve atop pasta salad.



A special thanks to Diana, the photographer for the day, since I forgot my memory card. And, thanks to Nick, whose name-dropping even saved us a few pennies!

Alemany Farmer's Market

It's hard to believe that I live only about 1 mile from one of the best and most affordable farmer's markets in the city, and I had not visited! Alemany hosts a farmer's market as well as a flea market; that's next on my list! But, that all changed at 6:30 this morning. The girls at Mission Pie have developed a weekly habit of arriving early on Saturday to ensure a good parking spot. While there, it's easy to cart away several cases of peaches from Regier Family Farm in Dinuba. A quick stroll around also guarantees ingredients for savory pot pies and treasures for the home kitchen.


Ben was, of course, still sleeping when I returned. I decided to surprise him with a country-style breakfast made from market goodies. Wookie, our new cat, made himself comfortable at the table. Sorry, buddy, blueberries aren't for wookies.


Morning can't start without coffee. So,I put together something that felt a little bit more luxurious than our normal routine: french press brewed from Taylor Maid's goat rock.


While the produce was amazing, I have to admit that I was most impressed with the poached duck eggs. All the rumors that you have heard about fresh eggs - be they duck or chicken - are 100 percent true. It was like nothing I've ever had before but something I plan to have again.

A Lazy Wednesday

This morning brought a little bit of a much needed adventure. The last few months have been full of the humdrum of everyday life. So, when the San Francisco Professional Food Society posted a meeting and tour of the Hodo Soy Beanery in Oakland, I jumped at the chance. It was even on a Wednesday! That never happens!


Making tofu, as it turns out, is very similar to cheese. The first step is to re-hydrate dried soybeans (Hodo uses only organic, non-GMO beans), mash them up, and "cook" them in very hot water. The result is soy milk.


Once the soy milk is drained off, the pulp must be emptied out. Hodo sells this to hog farmers in the area since there is still a great deal of nutrition left in the shells, etc.


The now warm milk is transferred to large bowls where a coagulant is added. After curds form, they are broken in a process not unsimilar to a paddle turning in an electric mixer. The broken curds are poured out into trays lined with cheesecloth. A tofu master is responsible for distributing the curds evenly and wrapping them in the cloth. The large block is then transferred to the pressing area. Large hydraulic presses are used to press the tofu to the desired thickness, releasing a significant amount of "whey". Once the blocks are set, they are cut (again by hand) and transferred to a cold water bath to cool.


Yuba is another popular product made from soy milk. As soy milk is heated, the proteins and fats coagulate, forming a thin sheet on the surface of the liquid. Once set, a tofu master first cuts the sheet loose.


The sheets are then hung to dry briefly. They are later folded and packaged. Hodo delivers to restaurants and farmers markets. Their products are sold within one day of production and are therefore the freshest tofu products available in the Bay area.


Fortunately, there were samples of some of the very delicious ways that tofu and yuba can be prepared!


When we returned to SF, I dropped Ben off at work and headed over to the Ferry Building to slurp down some Hog Island oysters for lunch. Paired with Acme bread and a glass of Domaine Carneros pink bubbly, they made the perfect snack.


Feeling somewhat gluttonous, I strolled down to Blue Bottle, where they misheard my request for an affogato (Humphry Slocombe ice cream topped with a shot of espresso) for a macchiato (a shot of espresso with a dollop of steamed milk). So, instead, I just had both! All in all, it was a lovely afternoon.

Project Foodie

My mother's house - much like my own postage stamp in the Mission - was filled with stacks and binders of decades worth of food magazines and newspaper clippings. Hers were namely Gourment; my secret hoarding fetish includes mostly Saveur. I remember the sadness in her eyes when the basement flooded and she was forced to throw away the moldy back issues that had brought her so many gastronomic pleasures. Eventually, I would grow overwhelmed by their presence -- so many layers of precious information, but without the Dewey Decimal system or a computer driven search engine, how the hell does one find something even remotely specific?

Enter Foodie Pam of Project Foodie, a delightful personality that I had the pleasure of dining with at Cav Wine Bar and Kitchen this evening. Pam is the founder of this ingenius site that searches only reputable food publications and provides the user with links to recipes that will surely not result in disaster. No longer is it necessary to while away the hours in fruitless search of an elusive dish (although, I admit that there is nothing that I would like more). Nor are you forced to place your evening meal in the untrustworthy hands of less-than-average-blogger-Joe. Registration ensures that you can return to your favorite recipes again and again -- carefully bookmarked in your very own e-recipe box, ensuring that your prized instructions won't be set aflame on a misdirected burner or covered in Bordelaise sauce.

Great Minds...

You know the saying. While spending my "Friday" night sprawled alone on the futon, Olympics droning on in the background, laptop propped fittingly on my lap, and vat of wine in my hand not working the mouse, I came across a blurb on www.sanfranmag.com. Jan Newberry writes of Absinthe's bar menu, "Taking the Bay Area’s DIY ethos to heart, executive chef Jamie Lauren not only makes the sausages—a blend of Kobe beef, pork shoulder, and her own bacon—but she also bakes the buns (and slathers them with bacon fat), ferments the sauerkraut, blends the ketchup and mustard, and fries the so-good-you-can’t-stop-eating-them yogurt-dill potato chips." Perhaps this is the hot dog that my husband has been craving and denying himself of in 2010. It could be the ideal "unprocessed" cheater meal...almost not even cheating.