Food is Food

I went to the American Craft Council San Francisco Show to check out the craft food and beer, but I was blown away by the quality of the exhibition this year. There are very inspiring and beautiful things for your kitchen or dining room. This is a great place to look for a gift, a centerpiece, kitchen design element or functional kitchen tool. It runs all weekend, August 9 and 10, 2014 at Fort Mason, San Francisco. 

Here are some highlights:

I have two terrific  pepper grinders but I would trade them both for one of these stunning ones from Kermode Woodturnings. Jerry Kermode also makes a companion salt grinder, wood topped cork bottle stoppers and rolling pins.  His bowls of all sizes are also drop dead gorgeous. 

I’ve long admired these almost art nouveau or American craft porcelain pieces from Lynne Meade Porcelain. They are wheel thrown and then hand carved, and are inspired by shapes found in the natural world, often sea forms or plants. 

Many woodworkers make cutting boards, but the puzzle trivet boards from David Levy of Hardwood Creations are quite unusual and wonderful in that you can arrange them in a myriad of shapes. 

I was drawn to the handcrafted cherry wood spoons from Jonathan’s Spoons, but also spatulas, pie servers and the particularly lovely tea strainers.  

Robert Woldow of ArtsCraft Seattle fuses glass to make bold and eye-catching dishes, platters and bowls. Everyone who walking into this booth was drawn to a different piece with a different shape or set of colors.


Jewel like Italian inspired glass pieces from Peter Vizzusi or Magic Sands Glass are radiant and sparkly. I particularly like the ones with metallic swirls and ribbons.  

I was impressed by the lovely earthy color palette and natural designs to these luminous pieces from Natura Designs long before I even spoke to the artist, who is coincidentally a beekeeper. He makes them from an organic resin of  beeswax and embeds natural specimens like twigs or seed pods to create unique designs. 

This year the American Craft Council San Francisco Show is featuring a marketplace and taproom where you can find members of the Good Food Merchants Guild and San Francisco Brewers Guild offering speciality food and craft beer.  Participating Good Food Merchants Guild members include Vivid Foods, Sweet Dragon Baking Company, Rancho Llano Seco, Mead & Mead’s Maple Syrup, and Two Valleys Olive Oil. Over the weekend participating San Francisco Brewers Guild members include local microbreweries Anchor Brewing Co., Headlands Brewing Co., Magnolia Brewing Co. and Speakeasy Ales & Lagers. Be sure to head to the back of the hall and up the stairs to check it out. 

Next time you're roasting potatoes, try adding some tomatoes, olives and feta cheese for the last fifteen minutes. It makes for a more complete side dish and it's delicious. 

2 garlic cloves

1 egg

Handful of breadcrumbs

2 tbsp chopped coriander 

zest from 1 lemon

Salt

Olive oil for frying

Crack the egg in a bowl. Grate the garlic cloves and the lemon zest into the bowl. Add a large handful of breadcrumbs (I used panko, a Japanese variety.)  Add the lamb and coriander and salt. Mix everything together.

Shape loose meatballs, no need for exact roundness. I got about 16 from this batch.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan, over medium-high heat. Add about 6 meatballs at a time, and fry for a minute without touching them - you want to develop a slight crust. Turn them over, so that the crust is up, and smash down with a spatula. Fry the now-flat patties for a minute or two on each side. 

Eat Drink SF is a showcase for local chefs of San Francisco with events throughout the weekend of August 1-3, 2014. One chef giving a demo this Sunday is Suvir Saran, who is moving downtown and opening a restaurant in all likelihood before the end of the year. Experiencing Saran’s passion and enthusiasm for food, cooking, and life in San Francisco is reason enough to attend. 

I will be doing a demo, corn and shrimp curry, not a tasting but a sneak preview of what will be on the menu. It’s so easy, clean, delicious and seasonal; it’s everything good food should be. Come ready to be teased! Life is food and food is life. I’ll talk about my journey. 

I’m a little selective, I used to go a lot to the bigger events, but it’s chefs doing everything they shouldn’t do. It’s my mission to get people to enjoy food and open their palates to the food of the world. When an opportunity to teach presents itself, I’m happy to do it. That’s what’s dear to my heart. It’s about honest interactions. I want to really connect with people.

It’s coming along. It will probably open early Winter. It’s a very ambitious project. I’m hoping it’s my new anchor in life. It’s a bold move. I wanted to do something connected to a farm, but I’ve realized NY is not the place that gives you 12 months of magic. SF was a logical choice. I love the produce, it’s honest.

My grandparents lived in the Marina and we went to the farmer’s market back in the 80’s. I loved the peaches, and they had a Meyer lemon tree. I felt comfortable in SF and never had to hide who I was. I gave NYC 20 years and in San Francisco I hope to spend the next 20 years.

We take possession of the apartment on August 1st and I will have many months to experiment. I’ll have to create new partnerships, work with farmers, new relationships. We may have farms growing things just for us. 

I don’t follow trends and I don’t have chef friends. They all talk together and there is too little variation. I talk differently and dress differently and I cook differently. We will have a wood fired oven but no traditional pizza with mozzarella. I come with the baggage of India where we are greedy for flavor. 

The other day I was pickling, making Hindu pickles. 90% of my friends are Jewish and I love pickles. 

In India we make onion and tomato masala and add spices coriander, cumin, turmeric and garlic and then cook until jammy. The peas are cooked in that. You eat them whole like edamame. That takes me back to my childhood. There’s an art form to making it and eating it. 

Before that dal, served with green beans, rice and potatoes. Cooking for dummies is what I do best. We eat a lot of pasta, depending on what vegetables are coming out of the garden we add those to a marinara sauce with lots of herbs, it’s a recipe from my most recent book, Masala Farm.