Fighting Scurvy, One Gimlet at a Time

By biteclub

Lavender Infused Gimlet with Fresh Lime JuiceI’m not a big drinker of cocktails in general, and I’m even less of a drinker of gin. That being said, cocktails clearly have their place: Less so with food, and more before – or after, or occasionally instead of; as an alternative to beer, when the weather or environs don’t seem conducive to wine; and certainly, as a welcome to guests who have just endured the Bay Area’s northbound assault on wine country on the first Saturday in August, a category which counted my wife’s brother and his family as victims a month or so ago. Gin, for its part, is still rarely my favorite, but I’m being slowly won over by two things: First, I’ve had some exceptional gin cocktails, most recently a crisp, refreshing, and generally excellent Cucumber Collins, with just the right balance of aromatic gin, citrus, sweetness and acidity, at the new SpoonBar here in town – in point of fact, the Cuke Collins was so good, I skipped the other 8 pages of the bar menu and ordered another straightaway; second, gin does exceptional things with lime juice and, as a rule, I can’t get enough limes in my cocktails. I cannot tell a lie, I do in fact have lime trees in the yard.
Thus, with guests on the road, the fog burning off, and a small vat of lavender simple syrup in the fridge, I tooled around with the idea of a lavender-infused Gimlet. If you like odd factoids from history, spend a few minutes reading about the history of the Gimlet at the Thinking of Drinking blog. For our purposes, the salient facts are that (a) the Gimlet, named eponymously for a British naval surgeon in the 1860s, Dr. Gimlette, was invented as a means to get sailors in the Royal Navy to ingest their ration of lime juice, and thereby to prevent scurvy; (b) the historical use of the Rose’s Lime Cordial dates to the same period, when Lauchlan Rose invented Rose’s Lime as a means of preserving the citrus juice for long journeys without the use of alcohol. (One can infer the history of the derogative “Limey” easily enough from there.) You have to love the British sense of irony: Mr. Rose patents a means of preserving lime juice for sailors without the use of alcohol, and a Royal Naval surgeon simultaneously invents a cocktail with which to get sailors to drink it.
Long and sundry is the list of arguments and citations to the effect that a Gimlet must contain Rose’s, but I can’t agree, and I think the argument stops here: The modern-day Rose’s is no longer the same stuff as it was in 1867 (it now includes natural flavors other than lime, artificial preservatives, and – in the US, where I would buy mine – high fructose corn syrup in lieu of sugar). The other thing about Rose’s is, well, it’s kind of disgusting, a bit like the liquid that squirts out of those ill-considered gums and candies my middle daughter is so inconceivably enamored of.
Since Rose’s is basically just sweetened lime juice with preservatives, and since I’m not subject to the uncertainties of 19th century refrigeration technology, I figured, how hard can it be to make a proper lime cordial from fresh lime juice? Equal parts lavender simple syrup and freshly squeezed lime juice (which I passed through a strainer for seeds and pulp), and voila, a fresh, homemade, lavender-infused lime cordial. Mix with an equal part of your favorite gin or vodka for a Gimlet, or add soda water and serve over ice for a quasi-Rickey, and garnish with sprigs of mint, fresh lavender, a lime peel, and a straw, if it’s watered down and over ice. Whichever way go, the perfume of the lavender really plays off of herbal aromatics of the gin, and the limes speak for themselves; you just can’t go wrong.
Lavender Gimlet

  1. Mix about a quarter-cup of equal parts fresh-squeezed limed juice and chilled lavender simple syrup with your favorite gin. I like Sapphire, as I find it less assertive than some gins, so if you like a more pronounced herbaciousness, try something like Junipero. (Gin, more than most liquors, varies greatly in style from brand to brand, so it really comes down to personal preference.)
  2. For a straight up Gimlet, shake over ice and strain into martini glass or tumbler.
  3. Or, add 1/2 to 1 cup of water – plain or sparkling (the latter making something like a Ricky) – and serve over ice in a high ball glass or, as I’ve done here, with the cut up limes in a mason jar. This version is highly recommended for a warm weekend afternoon, and would be well-suited to a by-the-pitcher version. I also made a version of the watered-down, over-ice and cut-limes version with Hanger 1 vodka – maybe not quite as interesting or complex as the gin version, but an outstanding cocktail in its own right.

Kampai. Drink copiously when possible, and always responsibly.

What’s Wrong With ‘Man v. Food’ (Redux)

By biteclub

I have a pretty strict rule of approving every comment but responding to none, no matter how profound and insightful or vacuous and petty they may be. It isn’t always pleasant, but it is fair, which might be the most one can hope for in the blogosphere.  It is also how I’ve managed, pending this post, the acrimonious chatter suffusing the comment box for my latest missive. Some bloggers thrive on lowbrow, anonymously angry debate, and I suppose that’s their prerogative – another de facto truism of blogland – but that’s not me. I’m not here to argue with you; I’m not here to insult you; I am simply here to share with you – with the benefit of a career spent reading and sifting through data, a few hot pans and some really sharp knives, and no small amount of reflection – whatever small thing that I think I may have learned about the world, through the lens of my kitchen. You may love it, hate it, or simply relegate it to the dustbin of uninteresting bookmarks, but all I ask is that it gets read.
Having said that, every so often the level of discourse gets so pervasively toxic, and with such little substance, that I feel compelled to drag it some small distance from the gutter. There are precious few actual arguments buried in the aforementioned slew of invective, and I see little point in responding to every childish and ignorant comment, but to those of you who actually tried to say something constructive, I wanted to say that I’m listening, that I take your points seriously, and here are my few cents’ worth of response:

  • If I insulted you vicariously because you love the show, it wasn’t intentional and I’m sorry for the slight, but I stand by my point: You’re worse off for having done so. Not a worse person, a person who is worse off. There is a difference.
  • Some of you took issue with my incomplete characterization of what the show is about, which is true enough, although irrelevant, because whatever additional content the show may offer, whatever entertainment value it may provide to you, is not the point. The show itself is not the point. The point is (or was meant to be) that I love to cook and I love to eat and it saddens me that so many of our attitudes toward food belie precisely what is most wonderful about it. The point is that certain aspects of shows like Man v. Food may entertain, but at the cost of propagating the very worst of these attitudes, and these costs are real and material, if nonpecuniary. The point is, you should love what you eat, and what you eat should love you back.
  • I readily concede that I could simply change the channel (just as you could navigate away from this thread), but I reject the implied criticism as specious and, when taken to its logical limit, dangerously irresponsible. Should we never speak out about that which we feel is wrong, so long as we can conveniently avoid seeing it? Really? (Isn’t this why you wrote the critique, and why it’s incumbent upon me to allow you to post it?)

As to the rest, if you consider wallpapering me with unoriginal and small-minded insults under the guise of a pseudonym to be a productive use of your time, then the most I can offer is to say that I’m really very sorry that your mother didn’t breastfeed you long enough.
So we’re clear: You are welcome, and indeed encouraged, to disagree with me. No matter how well or poorly formed your argument, no matter how kindly or rudely you express it, and always provided that you don’t violate my paper’s editorial guidelines, I will post it without qualification. That being said, I would respectfully request that you keep the dialogue intelligible, on-thread, and civil, in which case you’ll stand a far better chance of being taken seriously about whatever it is that got your knickers in a twist in the first place. Conventionally acceptable spelling and grammar are nice, too. You are, of course, perpetually free to ignore me, although I’d prefer to disagree than never to know one another. At least, in the main.

QOW: Guilty Pleasures

By biteclub

When no one’s looking, what do you eat?
We’re talking hide-the-wrapper, destroy-the-evidence, eat-a-breath mint kinds of foods that you don’t want anyone else to know you secretly crave. Guilty pleasures so to speak.
Perhaps its a unyielding addiction to Taco Bell’s Nachos Bell Grande or an unrequited love for the McRib. Or it could be a “bad day” run for a Double Double, or my personal weakness, Pho Vietnam’s #36. Maybe its a childhood comfort like strawberry Jell-O or just a craving for Martini Prawns at Gary Chu’s.
From fast-food and midnight grocery runs to favorite local restaurant dishes (one friend we know has a secret rendezvous each week at the Cheese Steak Shop), what are your guiltiest of pleasures. Just between friends, of course…
Someone naughty among you just might win a copy of Simple Comforts: 50 Heartwarming Recipes. It’s an easily-concealed-sized book filled with warm, comforting recipes for everything from 3-cheese polenta to chili, chocolate banana bread and tomato soup and grilled cheese. Yum. Just the stuff for guilty pleasure.
What’s your guilty pleasure?

What’s wrong with ‘Man v. Food’? What isn’t?

By biteclub

Chili Dog Offense from Man v. Food
Truth in Advertising: "The Knucklehead Challenge"

Lying around in full couch tuber regalia, following the heartbreakingly tantalizing 49er game, I had the misfortune to channel-surf through the treacherous waters of Monday Night Television, only to find my mental Minnow festooned around the awful coral head of Adam Richman’s Man v. Food. As if driving past an overturned car in a highway ditch, or probing a sore inside a cheek, I sat there, glassy-eyed and I must suppose mildly brain-damaged, for perhaps 15 minutes (an amount of time that, at roughly 0.00003% of my expected life span, strikes me as too long by at least half), transfixed, seemingly incapable of averting attention from either Mr. Richman’s ham-handed narrative or the grotesque display of gustatory abuse which forms the dubious premise of the show.
This particular car-wreck happened to be an episode in Philadelphia, in which the host must face down a single, titanic cheese steak from Tony Luke’s, the sandwich in question (although to call it that is surely to insult the Earl’s good memory and proper sandwiches everywhere) weighing in at an appalling 5lbs in total, and constructed from 3lbs of meat, 1lb of American cheese, and a half-pound of fried onions, all stuffed into a 20″-long sub roll, which I suppose we’re meant to infer weighs another half-pound. This is not the foul pile of landfill masquerading as food and pictured above-right; that unfortunate distinction belongs to Parker’s Hot Dogs in Sacramento, home to yet another 5lbs of televised obscenity at the hands of said Mr Richman.  But even to debate the particulars is to offer the offer the show far more quarter than it deserves; the what he eats is irrelevant in comparison to the why.
I’ve been puzzling over what bothers me so much about the show for the last couple of days: Notwithstanding the puppy-dog eyes and smarmy winks, Mr Richman himself seems inoffensive enough, and arguably knows what he’s doing, both in front of the camera (he studied drama at Yale) and in the kitchen (he claims to be a trained sushi chef);  nor is it the quality of the food itself, as he generally chooses destinations of some culinary merit (I have nothing against his roadie-food strong suit of cheese steaks, chili dogs, and burgers), or at least so they seem prior to his blasphemous display of eating whatever it is that they make. No, I think the problem lies with the premise of the show itself, the very idea that eating – to me, an inherently pleasurable, and literally life-giving, enterprise – should be reduced to a contest between the eater and the stuff on the plate
The great writer and patron saint of food bloggers everywhere, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, once said that the “enjoyment of the art of living, as well as of eating… are, or can be, synonymous.” Man v. Food is predicated on nothing less than the complete moral inversion of Ms Fisher’s guiding principle – the title itself proclaims mouth and fork to be enemies – and I’m guessing that that is what chafes me like a dull razor. Food is (or at least should be) enormously enjoyable and, served in proportion to its purpose, satisfies one of the most basic conditions for life; the absence of food implies hunger and death (the millions so afflicted are a tragedy of global proportions and a blight on our collective social conscience), and food in excess implies death by means other than hunger, but death just the same (we are a nation of over-eaters, on this the data is incontrovertible). And yet here is a major television production that exists solely by virtue of our ability to transform good food into something dangerously unpleasant. Worse still, this transformation is effected by the application of quantity: What would otherwise be nourishing, or at least tasty (I’m not sure if even the finest chili dog could ever be called ‘nourishing’), becomes a threat, simply because of the sheer size of the serving.
I know, I get it, it’s all just entertainment, you don’t need to post a reply with a litany of even-worse sins; we can just stipulate that competitive eating likely fails to represent one of the clear and present dangers to civilization as we know it, and that there are any number of significantly more disturbing examples of televised programming (certainly, The Swan and anything even peripherally related to Toddlers and Tiaras would rank higher on both lists). But its relative innocuousness in relation to graver threats in no way obviates my argument with Mr Richman and his self-destructive quest for ad revenue: The fact remains that the Travel Channel, by aggrandizing gluttony for a nation of the epidemically obese, sells our collective good sense of what food can and should be right down the river.

Preservation Society: Can you can?

By biteclub

Grandma’s summer strawberry preserves aren’t the quaint anachronism they once were.
Once the bastion of sweet old ladies and hardcore health nuts, canning or “putting up” everything from jams and tomatoes to zucchini, green beans and potted meats is the hippest hobby around.
Part eco-warrior, part granny-chic, returning to the old ways of preserving summer’s bounty is a skill as sweet as fresh peach jam — and not surprising considering the number of new backyard food gardens threatening to overwhelm their enthusiastic owners, according to Merrilee Olson of PreserveSonoma.
“Canning is so huge right now. And I think that’s been a natural outgrowth toward sustainability,” Olson says. “People are going to the farmers market and seeing this beautiful produce and thinking, ‘How can I capture this?’ And they’re also much more concerned about where their food comes from and exactly what’s in it. Those two things have created a kind of perfect storm for people to learn how to preserve again.”
She now operates the fledgling PreserveSonoma out of a commercial kitchen in Sebastopol, offering canning and preserving classes several times a month. For groups of six or more people, she’ll come to your home and host a canning party. Canning is a simple process to learn, but to be safe requires attention to detail. It’s no myth that canning gone wrong can make you very sick. Take a class or read a book before you try it.
Where to learn: Find details at Olson’s website: preservesonoma.com.
Where to buy equipment: Friedman’s Home Supply has tons of canning equipment and jars, along with an in-house canning expert, Kimberely Rossi, available to help folks just starting out.  Olson also recommends Cultivate (186 North Main Street, Sebastopol, 707-824-1400) for fancier gift jars or large sauerkraut jars.
Where to get fruit: Don’t have enough of your own backyard bounty? Join with friends or neighbors and “glean” your neighborhood for unpicked fruits or veggies (always ask first, of course). Buy fruits and veggies in bulk from local farmers. Or, just troll the local farmstands for what’s at the peak of the season.

BiteClub Food Circus @ Handcar Regatta

By biteclub

It’s a bigtop food extravaganza — welcome to the BiteClub Food Circus at the Third Annual Handcar Regatta. (Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010)

I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the Regatta, darlings. Because if you’re not, well, spend some time here and get back to me once you’ve got your mind properly corseted.
This year, BiteClub is putting on a little show of our own. With some friends. Head to our booth for all-day fun and food demonstrations.
Here’s the Lineup:
– 11am : Exotic Cheese of the Orient. Our friends at The Beverage People (who should really be called the Everything Fermented People) will demonstrate how to make Indian paneer, a fresh cheese that makes dishes like Saag Paneer actually taste good.
– Noon: Dirty Pickling with the Veggie Queen. Jill Nussinow gets crafty with a demonstration of Watermelon Rind Kimchee in all its garlicky, fermented goodness. Kapow!
– 1pm: Everything but the squeal: Live Butchery! Chef Roger Praplan from La Gare will demonstrate the fascinating deconstruction of a 60 pound pig. Fear not, our porcine friend has already been dispatched and ALL the parts will be eaten and used. We’re no wasters. And we love pork belly.
– 2pm: Exotic Spices from Far Off Lands: The gals from Savory Spice will be tempting your noses and your palates with a spicey demonstration of curries and herbs from exotic lands. Follow your nose to this one.
– 3pm: Eve’s Apple: Merrilee Olson of PRESERVE Sonoma tames the forbidden fruit with apple press demonstrations (throughout the day) and LIVE vinegar making. Keep watching, because you never know what she might come up with!
– 4pm: Stuff This Sausage Making: Roger Praplan returns to demonstrate sausage-making (remember the pig?). There’s no waste and no want when it comes to porky deliciousness.
– 5pm: Dessert Time: Stick around for Bacon brittle and Straus vanilla bean ice cream from Chef Tiffany Friedman, who’s competing in the Sears Chef Challenge (and hoping to win some big $$ for Food For Thought, so vote for her!). What you say? Aw yeah, sweet porky goodness. So worth it.
What else is on tap?
Well, BiteClub’s super excited about another food area – the Friedman’s canning stage. Kimberley Rossi is a canning whiz and uber gardener who’s behind all that cool canning gear at Friedman’s home supply. If you’ve been over there recently (and I was while finalizing all my Regatta gear), you’ll automatically be inspired to start “putting up” for the winter.
“It’s become more and more popular over the last few years. We thought it was something that we thought only our grandparents did. But for me, it became a necessity — every inch of my garden has comething you can eat,” said Rossi. She’s been tapped by the stores to become their in-house canning expert and works with newbies (and experienced canners) to make sure things turn out well.
So during the bounty time of year (September, October), there are only a couple choices for all the extra veggies and fruits lying around: Give them away or can them. “It’s a labor of love. It can be quite hot in the kitchen canning all day, but after you’ve done it, you get to eat it all through the winter.” said Rossi.

Dessert First: Sonoma County desserts

By biteclub

Meyer Lemon Meringue at P/30
Meyer Lemon Meringue at P/30

Smart diners leave room for dessert. Brilliant ones just eat it first.
And really, why shouldn’t we? Dessert is all to often an afterthought. Or worse, an unpleasant struggle of will after gorging ourselves through four courses (and a bread basket). So it’s no wonder that some restaurants simply farm out their confections rather than putting serious energy behind their sweets. Not to mention that most chefs get nervous when you start forcing them to use things like measuring cups and recipes — critical to good pastry.
But dessert decadence is again on the rise (could economic recovery be far behind?).  Kitchens are getting more creative with their last courses, retiring tired molten lava chocolate bombs and dry-as-dust cheesecake for a rainbow of cupcakes and childhood confections, fire and ice show stoppers, seasonal sensations and sweet-savory dishes that defy the category altogether.
Tummy rumbling? Here are some local favorites…

Of The Moment: With ripe apples threatening to bash our noggins at every turn, Starlight Cafe and Wine Bar take revenge on the crispy critters by serving up Gravenstein apple fritters with cinnamon ice cream and caramel. Take that. 6761 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol, 823-1943.
Childhood Confections:
– Triple Threat: Warm milk and cookies at Jackson’s Bar & Oven are exactly that, because who can improve perfection? Jackson’s Cupcake does Hostess one better with a dark chocolate mini cake filled with white chocolate cream and a signature swirl on top. And beignets are just a fancy word for doughnuts, right? “I have to say one of the best desserts I had recently was at Jackson’s Bar and Oven. Their beignets are to die for. Instead of the tradional fried balls of dough, they make them into long sticks of deliciousness that are fried perfectly and soft and warm on the inside. They are served with a raspberry coulis, creme anglaise, and hot fudge to dip them in. It’s worth the trip just to have this for dessert,” said Clara Black.135 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, (707) 545-6900.
– S’mores: Campfire-inspired, these melted chocolate, gooey marshmallow and homemade graham crackers for two have been on the menu since Restaurant P/30’s opening. And getting better every time. 9890 Bodega Hwy, Sebastopol, (707) 861-9030.
– Butterscotch pudding: “It’s just an old-fashioned recipe that proves classics are classics,” said Bryan Bousquet of Bistro M. Made with brown sugar, cream, eggs and other diet-smashing goodness, this nursery favorite has permanently taken up residence at the Bousquet’s casual Windsor eatery, Bistro M (610 McClelland Ave., Windsor, 838-3118).
– You’ll want to get your peanut butter in this chocolate: Homemade “Nutter Butters” (you remember the peanut butter cookies, right?) with dark chocolate fondue for dipping at Zazu Restaurant & Farm. (3535 Guerneville Rd., Santa Rosa, 523-4814)
Show-stoppers
Ice: Liquid nitrogen and vanilla custard make for a spectacular ice cream dessert made tableside. Part science experiment, part haute molecular gastronomy, it’s all good when warm chocolate and French cherries complete this avant sundae at Madrona Manor (1001 Westside Rd, Healdsburg, 433-4231. Baked Blackberry Alaska is “beyond delectable, the whole dessert is homemade from scratch…including the blackberry ice cream!” according to Stacy Chamberlain, a fan of Viola Pastry Boutique and Cafe, 709 Village Ct. Santa Rosa, 544-8830. Mixing up hot and cold is Stark’s Steakhouse’s Frozen Hot Chocolate with Whopper Foam and Chocolate Crackle Cookies (521 Adams St., Santa Rosa, 546-5100).
Fire: Cherries jubilee, the oldest of the old school desserts, flambeed tableside with a flair at La Gare (208 Wilson Street, Santa Rosa, 528-4355).
Out of the Ordinary
Leave it to a pastry chef to mix sweet and savory flavors in a single dessert. Roy Schvartzapel is the pastry chef at Cyrus (29 North St., Healdsburg, 433-3311). On his current menu: Passion fruit gelato with miso custard, white peach miso soup, olive oil and sesame sable. Love red velvet? Schvartzapel’s updated version is topped with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting, candied baby yellow beets, pickled chiyoga beets, a yogurt sphere, carbonated raspberry and red beet consomme and verjus sorbet. Whew.
Ice Cream & Cake
Cheesecake: Autumn Barber of Aioli Delicatessen (6536 Front St # 7, Forestville, 887-2476) is a big fan of Autumn Merkel’s small batch Sinful Delights cheesecakes available at Aoili and at Graziano’s in Petaluma . “They make amazing cheesecakes!! Caramel macchiato is my personal favorite,” she said.
Willi’s Wine Bar’s (4404 Old Redwood Highway, Santa Rosa, 526-3096) warm Scharffen Berger Flourless Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Caramel, Vanilla Bean Ice Cream & Sea Salt Peanuts is my favorite dessert in the county,” said Megan Feldman. But it’s panna cotta and pot de creme that get big thumbs up at Cucina Paradiso (114 Petaluma Blvd N. Petaluma, 782-1130), Rustic’s Chocolate Mousse al “Francis Francis” served with a dollop of cream in a teacup (300 Via Archimedes, Geyserville, 857-1400) and Creme brulee at Mosaic restaurant in Forestville (6675 Front St, Forestville, 887-7503)

Fresh: Beta

By biteclub

Lisa Hemenway’s much-anticipated eat-in/take-out marketplace is officially open — for a sneak peek.

“I’m not sure if there has ever been a more anticipated opening. People have been literally banging on the doors to get in. As of Saturday, the paper has come down. Bowing to public demand, Lisa wanted to allow the locals to get a sneak peek,” said Jenifer Levini, on behalf of Hemenway.
So if you’re jonesing to get a first look the coffee shop is percolating and the pizza ovens cooking 4 types of pizza: Margarita; Pancetta & Artichoke; Roasted Eggplant & Onion with Feta; Wild Mushroom & Smoked Mozzarella. The deli cases are being stocked as Hemenway trains the staff, and much of the fresh produce is in place. The wine and beer bar is open, and local poultry and duck breasts are ready to take home.
If you want the full Fresh experience, you may want to wait a few more weeks as staff finish pricing cheese, dairy and other stock while learning the ropes. Table service, the full deli and finishing touches are rolling out in stages, and Hemenway is clear that the marketplace isn’t totally ready for its close-up just yet. “Please bear with us as we approach the ‘real’ opening in a week or two,” says Lisa’s Facebook page.
So consider this your Beta of Fresh. With subsequent updates coming your way throughout the next few months.
Fresh, open 8am to 8pm daily, 5755 Mountain Hawk Way, Santa Rosa.

Dude, Get Your Car Off My Farm

By biteclub

Hayes Valley Freeway Farmers
Freeway Farmers Jay & Zoey

Walking by a cracked and decrepit freeway on-ramp – reclaimed from the morning commute and relegated to the urban wasteland by the Loma Prieta earthquake – two San Franciscans, thinking more like old-school farmers than new-age city dwellers, look at the cracked blacktop bleeding with weeds and saw, incredibly, an orchard. And the topsoil, so manifestly absent on the windswept concrete col, in which these imagined trees would sink their roots? Heaps of rotting compost, strap-compressed cardboard, leftovers from nearby markets, and landscaper clippings – organic detritus, otherwise sentenced to serve out a capital term as landfill, from across the City.
The best bit of the slide show, the whole point really, is the lens through which the farmers see this hard, raw wasteland: Where you and I see trash and blight, they see “piles of possibility”. Making soil out garbage. Growing fruit trees on a freeway. Why? Because these farmers believe that everyone – even those of us that, by choice or happenstance, live in high-density, high-land-cost forests of concrete, glass, and steel – should be able to grow at least some of the food that they eat, and that vacant space, by the miraculous fact of its mere presence, offers an invitation (an obligation?) to do so.
The punchline, or at least rwhat resonates most deeply about the project for me, is its preordained impermanence: This orchard can only ever be transitory, because, as we all know, the Bay Area’s great armies of cars march through their morning commute with all the inevitability of a glacial ice floe. The trees will be uprooted; the soil scraped away; the pavement once again returned to its urban birthright as. This is not speculation: The City will take the land back – there is no question about this – and yet (or perhaps because) the farmers persist, and until such time as the rubber of our tires replace the soles of their work boots, people will, of all things, eat off that land. I don’t know about you, but I think that is just uber cool.
The slide show will eat up about 5 minutes out of your life – which, truth be told, is about 4 minutes, 30 seconds longer than I typically allot to any given byte of digital cellulose. But it will repay your investment every time you pass a dusty vacant lot, or wonder what to do with your terrace, your windowsill, or that weedy scrap of long-forgotten dirt in the far left corner of your yard.

Worth Our Weight | Santa Rosa

By biteclub

You know you’re old when you start applauding teens working a long Sunday kitchen shift at Worth Our Weight. And even older when you force your own teenager to observe this kind of unnatural behavior. “See,” you say, “this is an example of hard work. You may want to try it out sometime.”
Sigh. Eye roll. Sigh. But the message sinks in between bites of lox and bagels; huevos rancheros with pulled pork and buttermilk waffles: These kids aren’t just working hard. They can actually cook.

Worth Our Weight has slowly but surely become a Santa Rosa institution under Chef Evelyn Cheatham’s steady guidance. An on-the-job culinary apprentice program for 15-24-year-olds, WOW has settled into a solid weekend brunch routine in the last two years at their 1021 Hahman Drive location. And by solid, I mean really good.
Operating as a community table on Saturday and Sunday, brunchers pay what they can for the three-course brunch (pastries and fruit, entrees like bagels and lox, waffles, eggs and a chocolate pot de creme for dessert). “We take cash, check or IOU’s,” said one of the culinary students. There’s no suggested amount for donation, so it’s up to diners to determine what the meal was worth. (I left $10 per person plus a $5 tip).
Because of the community aspect, the brunch draws a broad cross-section of folks. Recently its become a destination for the local scooterati as well as chefs, foodies and neighborhood supporters. (And speaking of scooters, there’s a Vespa raffle going on through the beginning of October to help support the program).
Students who are accepted to the program (most have faced significant challenges in their lives) learn not only how to cook, but also how to work the dining room — meaning handling customers, taking orders and serving the food. The  students are clearly well-trained and try hard to make the experience professional, but this is clearly, a learning environment, so there are inevitable snafus and gaffes that make the dining event even more charming.
Worth their weight, and then some.
Worth Our Weight: 1021 Hahman Drive, Santa Rosa, (707) 544-1200
In addition to brunch (Saturday 9am-2p, Sunday 9am to 1pm), WOW serves an Apprentice Dinner at 6pm the third Friday of each month and a take-out ribs, chicken and tri-tip dinner for pick-up on the second Friday of the month.