Entries Tagged 'Omnivorous' ↓

In the literal, if not geographical, center of the city, Beaux Arts facades and dour gray buildings project a great vanity upon the Civic Center Plaza, which is oddly homely. I walked through the plaza back in February and was struck by the lifelessness in the landscape.

Pollarded trees, like tumorous scarecrows, stood guard over the dismal grass and concrete expanse. Even when these ridiculous trees finally grow leaves, as they have by now, there’s still a vast space with little to invite people to stay.

At a time when the City is cutting funding across all departments, not least Parks and Recreation, is there any way to turn this space into a vibrant landscape that engages the community? One potential answer - let the people grow food.

The paradigm is already at work elsewhere in the city through established neighborhood Victory Gardens and other local efforts. Alemany Farm grows organic food for residents of the nearby Alemany Community public housing. Even a median strip in Bayview was transformed into a garden whose offerings are freely available to the residents.

So I was excited to learn that a Civic Center Victory Garden will establish roots in just a matter of days. I can’t wait to take part and watch it grow. Not to get biblical on you, but the garden is where it all begins. As Michael Pollan said in his New York Times Magazine article “Why Bother?,” in the garden

you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen.

The Civic Center garden will transform a mundane space into an active, engaging, truly alive environment. On a fundamental level, it has the potential to instruct as well as nourish, bringing local, seasonal food to an under-served area. Perhaps most important is the example it sets for ecological sustainability. This is just one garden, but in ripping up a boring section of grass and building it in the City’s most stately plaza, hopefully locals will be inspired to do the same in their own backyards and communal spaces. The bees will be happy. More people will have access to fresh food. We just might reverse the effect of greenhouse gases one urban garden at a time.

Check out:

SF Civic Center Victory Garden Planting - July 11

Only a couple years ago, Jessie St was a derelict side street with worn buildings literally disintegrating into the landscape. Over the past year that same street has transformed into Mint Plaza, a simple but urbane stent of sorts that aims to heal the disharmony between the druggy sclerosis of 6th and Mission and the glitzy consumerism of nearby Bloomingdale’s and Metreon. Sure, there will be trendy restaurants and luxury lofts (including the former drug dens above - hip!) but anchoring the whole project, at least in my mind, is Blue Bottle Coffee’s new cafe.

If you’ve ever had the superb coffee from those funny carts tucked into garages and farmer’s markets on both sides of the bay, there is now a fully-fledged structure beckoning converts and philistines alike. The austere interior is befitting a modern chapel for the coffee faithful. Its future-primitive array of chemistry lab-like curios stands ready to proselytize with the particular method of extraction/intoxication you desire. Espresso drinks, single-origin espresso, siphon coffee and what I assume is a contraption for decanting coffee concentrate.

I’m glad that Blue Bottle decided to go with a coffee brewer other than a Clover. They’re cool machines, to be sure, but I’ve never been too impressed with the coffee they produce. I’ll have to try more of this siphon coffee before I’m totally taken with it; at the very least it’s a more interesting process to watch. Still, as a part of both our urban and coffee landscapes, Blue Bottle’s cafe is a welcome beacon of renewal.

Update:
m’ladyfriend and I have made a weekly habit of breakfast and coffee at Blue Bottle. We also seem to have a knack for choosing venues that are the subjects of media coverage. Dig the video featuring P as she sits in the window in this gripping ABC7News story

keep your eye out for a possible cameo in an upcoming story on Pizzeria Delfina…
Update 2:
Oh, brother.  She might as well get her SAG card.  Now appearing on SFGate’s Pizza Friday

A couple weeks ago I picked up a bottle of Claravale Farms raw milk. Though it’s rare that I drink milk in anything but the occasional cappuccino, I swallowed this stuff straight like ambrosia. It had a distinct appeal that was to my mind, the taste of the very grass the cows ate. Yes, I tell you, it was the nectar of the gods. Only days later, I read with complete shock that my new life-giving vigor elixir (step aside, wheatgrass, espresso, honey, and bourbon) was soon to be all but banned from the store shelves.

The bill, AB 1735, passed unanimously, with no public input and no advance notice to the two California dairies who sell raw milk (Organic Pastures near Fresno, is the other raw milk dairy). All for the sake of the public good, right? Isn’t that what our FDA and Food and Agriculture departments are charged with?

The new law sets a limit to the number of coliform bacteria present in raw milk. A limit, that by the state’s own tests, the two California raw milk dairies met only 6 out of 8 times last year. Was the “high-bacteria” milk dangerous? No. One of the great rewards in drinking raw milk is the abundant beneficial bacteria, just like in your yogurt (if the cultures are added after the milk has been pasteurized). The principal concern here is seemingly about pathogenic bacteria like E. Coli, which they didn’t find.

But I find the motive behind this legislation suspicious. If the public health is really of primary concern, why aren’t our legislators going after the much larger beef, spinach or processed food manufacturers? Because both the potential for harm and the necessity for oversight seems to demand much more attention than two raw milk dairies who already test their milk for pathogens. With the way health officials have actively gone after small farmers like they were cocaine smugglers, I have to wonder if there’s pressure from the industry that’s pushing the issue. Maybe they’re afraid of consumers switching tastes to a less profit-rich product. I’ve had some fine conventional organic milk, but nothing compares to that one bottle of raw milk.

Alternatively, perhaps this is just another step in the government’s path to drastically irradiate, pasteurize, and otherwise de-flavor our food supply to the point where it’s perfectly compartmentalized into industrial units and no longer something you can recognize from a tree or a field. If raw milk doesn’t appeal to you, consider the larger battle. Take a look in your kitchen and imagine your olive oil, wine or farm fresh eggs falling under the government’s scrutiny. They just might become the next target.

• Check out the FAQ and help out the cause through Organic Pastures
• Some good insight into this debate

The first farmers market in SF appeared in 1943 at Market and Duboce. In a story that reminds me of a particular film noir, it began as a way for farmers to subvert the predatory distributors, sell directly to the customer and reap a fairer reward for their labors. While the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is no doubt a decidedly lavish version of that first market, it still represents a vital marketplace for the farmers and a boon to consumers.

Many of the producers grow on vestigial pieces of land in Sonoma and Marin counties, where continuing suburban sprawl and centralized food processing threatens not only the agricultural heritage of this land but its rich and dynamic ecology.

I had the opportunity this past weekend to visit Marin Sun Farms which tends an amazing piece of land inside Point Reyes National Seashore. The farmer/rancher, David Evans, led us from chicken hatchlings to turkeys to hens to goats (with cattle roaming the hills in every direction) all the while connecting his family’s long history in West Marin, the realities of ’sustainable’ and ‘organic’ labels, small family farms, feedlots and more, to the way he and his family currently manage Marin Sun. For me, the tour really confirmed an interdependence of farmer and consumer, ecosystem and food. The more informed and connected we are to our food sources the more sustainable and healthy our food sources can be.

Getting my produce fresh-pulled from the ground and talking to the farmers at the market establishes a valuable connection with what I eat. Reading about the relationship of sun and grass, grazing and fertilizing in say, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, can further elucidate the link. Actually witnessing this relationship on a farm, and in a small way, participating in it makes me want to consider each time I eat, Where did this food come from? Who grew it? How did they raise it? I’d show you the chicken I bought at Marin Sun but I’m not sure everyone is as ready for head and feet on their food as I am. Might I suggest a farm tour to get you better acquainted?