It’s Cocktail Time in San Francisco

Boy, is it ever, with the 5th annual “San Francisco Cocktail Week,” now through Sept. 25.

Celebrate the city’s grand cocktail heritage with a range of seminars, dining events and after-parties.

Learn about everything from “The Science of Taste,” 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. ($25 in advance or $35 at the door); to “How to Throw a Brunch Cocktail Party,” noon to 2 p.m. Sept. 24 ($25 in advance or $35 at the door).

Participating restaurants also will be hosting special cocktail events, including a Grand Marnier fete at Absinthe restaurant ($138 per person), which includes a cocktail punch reception and a three-course dinner, with each course featuring a different cocktail.

Last but not least, there’s the St. George Spirits Bathtub Gin BBQ, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 25 at St. George Spirits in Alameda ($35 in advance or $45 at the door). Try three new St. George gins. Barbecue grub will be available, too, for an added charge. For $5 off this ticketed event, use the discount code: FRIENDSANDFAMGIN.

For a complete list of events, go here. For a $5 discount off any seminar, use the code: FRIENDSANDFAM. That code also will get you $10 off tickets to some of the other events, but not to any of the cocktail dinner events hosted by participating restaurants.

Sake to Me

“A Toast to Recovery” is the theme of the 6th annual “Sake Day,” 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 1 at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California in San Francisco’s Japantown.

Taste more than 100 sakes, sample Japanese food and bid on exciting items in a silent auction.

Proceeds will go to the Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.

Tickets are $65 if purchased by Sept. 25. After that, tickets will be $75 through Sept. 30 and $80 at the door.

St. Anthony Foundation Celebrates 60 Years with a Block Party

To mark its 60th anniversary of offering free food, clothing, and work skills training to those in need, the St. Anthony Foundation will host a free “Tenderloin Block Party” on Sept. 24.

More than 10,000 servings of barbecued chicken and potato salad, prepared by McCalls Catering, are expected to be doled out at the party, which will stretch from Hyde to Jones on Golden Gate Avenue.

The block party will be preceded by a “Rally for Hope” on the steps of San Francisco City Hall at 10 a.m.. City Supervisors Jane Kim and Scott Wiener, along with Sen. Mark Leno, will help unveil hundreds of personal messages of hope that embody what St. Anthony’s is all about.

Rally participants will then walk to the block party for the free barbecue, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

St. Anthony’s will be celebrating even more next summer when ground will be broken for a $22 million, LEED-certified dining room building that will allow the organization to feed even more hungry people.

A Conversation with SPQR Chef Matthew Accarrino

If you haven’t yet discovered Studio Gourmet, you should.

Brad Lev has created a fun foodie talk show format, in which a live audience gets to watch a celebrated chef cook, then be interviewed on stage. Afterward, there are noshes to enjoy — courtesy of the chef. The show is video-taped, too, and can be watched on the Web for those who can’t be there in person.

Sept. 27 at 5:30 p.m., Lev’s special guest will be Chef Matthew Accarrino of SPQR in San Francisco. Accarrino will demonstrate how to make a smoked trout dish with fingerling potatoes and horseradish. Then, he’ll sit down for an in-depth interview with Lev. Afterward, you’ll get to try the smoked trout dish, as well as others by SPQR, including squid ink arrancini and seaweed cocoa pasta with rabbit, black olive and goat cheese.

The event will be held at Circolo in San Francisco. Tickets are $25 each.

More on St. George Spirits: A Visit to Its Alameda Distillery