Category Archives: Going Green and Sustainable

My Lunch At Google

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Cucumber-seaweed salad, assorted vegetable kimchee, and chrysanthemum greens with tofu.

If you’ve been wondering what happened to that wonderful San Francisco Chronicle food writer, Olivia Wu, she didn’t go far in miles, but she did do quite the about-face in her career.

Wu put down her pen and notepad to free her hands for some bonafide cooking. Since early this year, she’s been an executive chef at one of Google’s famed cafes in Mountain View. At her Oasis Cafe, she oversees a staff of 26, who turn out more than 600 meals a day for hungry Googlers.

A former caterer, private chef, newspaper reporter, music teacher, and yoga instructor, Wu says one reason she took the job was for the challenge to expand the palates and horizons of this young, techie crowd. As one of her wholesale distributors said of her in awe, “She’s cooking Chinese food. Real Chinese food!”

Forget visions of chow mein and egg rolls. Think steamed fresh fish, pork hash with pungent salted fish, homemade lemongrass tea, and fresh juice from young coconuts cracked to order. Or the menu the day she graciously invited me to come for lunch last week: cold salads of chrysanthemum greens and tofu, cucumber-seaweed, cranberry shelling beans flavored with shiso, assorted vegetable kimchee, and 5-spice beef cut from the succulent shin bone. The hot selections that day included: spicy ma po tofu, melt-in-your-mouth crystal pork (steamed pork shoulder drizzled with a soy-garlic-sugar sauce), and stir-fried broccoli. If that wasn’t enough, there was also house-made bubble tea with fresh, peeled lychees bobbing in it.

Ma po tofu, crystal pork, fried rice, and stir-fried broccoli.

Wu uses as many organic ingredients as possible (including the tofu), and only serves sustainable seafood. She’s even added a few traditional big round tables with lazy-susans to the seating area to encourage more synergy among Googlers as they dine.

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Tickets Now On Sale For Slow Food Nation

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Labor Day weekend (Aug. 29 to Sept. 1) in San Francisco is sure to bring out even more foodies than usual this year.

That’s when Slow Food Nation takes place. bringing together farmers, food artisans, political leaders, environmental advocates, health-care experts, and artists at a mega-event to celebrate the connection between plate and planet.

There will be a 50,000-square-foot food pavilion, a marketplace where farmers and producers will show off their wares, a music festival, workshops, films, dinners, and hikes.

The “Food for Thought Speaker Series” ($5 to $25 per ticket) will feature author Wendell Berry, author Marion Nestle, Slow Food organization founder Carlo Petrini, author Michael Pollan, author Eric Schlosser, author Vandana Shiva and Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse.

The huge Taste pavilion will showcase such artisan products as beer, bread, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, fish, honey & preserves, ice cream, native foods, olive oil, pickles & chutney, spirits, tea and wine. In the “green kitchen” there, chefs will demonstrate techniques for making simple, everyday dishes sustainable. Tickets to the Taste pavilion are $45 to $65.

For more information, click here.

To get into the spirit, sit back and take in a thought-provoking flick, 6:30 p.m. July 25 at the Delancey Street Theater, 600 Embarcadero in San Francisco.  That’s when “Strawberry Fields,” will show. The film depicts a day in the life of Palestinian farmers in Gaza.

Ticket are $15, and includes Fra’Mani salami, Harley Farms cheese, dessert, and beverages. For tickets, click here, or send checks made out to Slow Food San Francisco to Slow Food San Francisco, 210 Littlefield Ave., South San Francisco, CA 94080.

And if you notice the lawn in front of San Francisco City Hall looking a little different, that’s because it is being transformed into an edible garden.

July 12, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Slow Food Nation founder Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse restaurant, and more than 100 volunteers will begin planting seeds for herbs and produce.

The project, dubbed the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden, takes its name from 20th Century wartime efforts to tackle food shortages. Back in the early 1940s, San Francisco residents were encouraged to plant gardens on private and public lands to add to the supply of domestic food during wartime. Back then, San Francisco’s program was one of the top ones in the nation. Golden Gate Park alone boasted 250 garden plots.

A Visit to the Farm

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A field of lettuces at Earthbound Farm

When you’re in the Carmel area, make a pit stop at Earthbound Farm on Carmel Valley Road. You know the name because it was the pioneer in pre-washed salad greens (think “spring mix”).

Spears of purple asparagus

You’ll find a charming farmstand store on the company’s 30-acre research and development farm. It’s the perfect spot to take a breather and grab a bite to eat. Enjoy all organic-fare, including carrot cake, smoothies, tahini chicken with soba noodles, a salad bar, and grilled veggie lasagna with pesto, as well as fresh produce to take home.

Earthbound Farm started 24 years ago. It is now the largest organic farm in the world. It comprises 40,000 acres with primary operations in California, Arizona and Mexico.

Register in advance to enjoy farm walks and workshops by calling (831) 625-6219 or emailing farmstand@ebfarm.com

Artichoke, anyone?

Miracles Do Happen

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My home-grown tomato

My husband calls me “Black Thumb Jung.”

OK, so maybe I’m not the world’s greatest gardener. I should get an “A” for effort, though. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved planting things, nurturing things, and watching things grow. Only, I’m not always the best at it. Try as I might, I have been known to kill things that are supposed to be indestructible. That includes cactus and ivy. Go figure.

That’s why the beautiful red tomato you see above is a true miracle. You see, this tomato plant isn’t still supposed to be alive. But somehow it is. I planted this Carmello tomato plant in the spring of 2007, along with two other different tomato seedlings. And they all grew. And they all gave me luscious and delicious tomatoes all summer long.

When fall hit, they stopped producing, as normal. When winter hit, they started to shrivel and droop. And when the rains came, I began to totally ignore them, figuring come next spring, I’d just dig them up and replant new seedlings like I always do.

It wasn’t until mid-January that I noticed it. While the other two tomato plants were goners, this one plant was still green. Not only that, there were actually about half a dozen tiny tomatoes growing out of the blossoms. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Plants I carefully tend and worry over pay me back by dying on me. But this Carmello, which I had not watered, had not fertilized, and had not given the time of day to for months, was thriving.

This tomato is just about ready for picking. I intend to enjoy it simply: Just sliced with a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil, and a tiny sprinkle of sea salt.

And when I’m done savoring it, I’ll raise a thumb in triumph — one that’s, thankfully, not exactly ebony anymore.

Take Five With Parcel 104’s Robert Sapirman

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Robert Sapirman, executive chef of Parcel 104

Imagine cooking without such staples as sugar, chocolate, vanilla beans, cinnamon, coffee, and even pepper. That’s the challenge that Executive Chef Robert Sapirman and his crew at Parcel 104 restaurant in Santa Clara are taking on with the second annual “104-Mile Dinner” on June 7.

 That night, every ingredient used must come from no more than 104 miles from the restaurant (measured from point to point in a straight line). Climate Clean of Portland, Ore. will be working with the restaurant to mitigate and offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated from this $125-per-person dinner.

The seven-course dinner includes Point Reyes oysters, local petrale sole, and pork belly from pigs raised in the Yosemite area. Also on the menu are Cornish game hens that were slaughtered, then air-chilled, as opposed to the conventional method of water chilling. Proponents of this method favor it because they consider it more sanitary (studies so far, though, are inconclusive). In air-chilling, the poultry also absorbs less water, making for a crisper skin when cooked and more intense flavor.

Watercress and beignet dessert by Pastry Chef Carlos Sanchez

Parcel 104’s pastry chef, Carlos Sanchez, will be ending the night with a refreshing dessert of Sausalito Springs watercress topped with strawberry sorbet made with honey, fresh strawberries the staff will pick the day before in Sonoma, and tiny beignets of Bellwether Farms Carmody cheese.

The menu is subject to change, of course, since it’s all based on what’s available locally at the time.

I sat down with Sapirman to find out the most difficult aspects of creating such a dinner.

Q: You came on board as chef last year just as the restaurant was about to do the 104-mile dinner for the first time. I think I detected just a tiny glint of fear and panic in your eyes then. How is it different this time around?

A: Last year, it was all about what could we get our hands on. It was a real race to find things. This year, we have more time, and we’re able to reach out to see that’s really out there.  Last year at the last minute, we were able to find wheat flour in Sonoma, so we were able to make crackers for the beet salad. This year, we’ve already discovered that Full Belly Farm (an hour northwest of Sacramento) — which is right on the edge of our 104-mile limit, and believe me, I measured it — produces flour and wheat berries.

Q: Last year, you guys were in a tizzy because you thought you wouldn’t be able to use salt. But at the last second, you found a source?

A: Yes, we get salt from underneath the Dumbarton Bridge. There are salt flats there. And a producer makes this very coarse pretzel salt from there that we have to grind ourselves until it’s finer.

Q: So there will be salt, but no peppercorns?

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