If the Slow Marketplace was the centerpiece of this weekend's Slow Food Nation event, then the Taste Pavilion was the main course. Ambling through For Mason for the evening session, fellow MenuPages blogger Alexis Wright, her "Sweetie," and third wheel yours truly, prepared to be overwhelmed.

Even before the massive, Fort Mason exhibition hall loomed into sight, we knew we were in for the kind of treat you have to work at. Lines ruled the day, and were overwhelming at first, but after suffering through a couple, it turned out most went pretty fast, and they all had a lovely payoff.

By now you've probably seen a good few photos of Saturday's Taste Pavilion, thanks to intrepid reporters at Eater SF, and the Slow Food Nation flickr pool. What's that? You just can't get enough? Great, here are some more photos and maybe an anecdote or two, after the jump.

I made a bee-line past the gigantic pizza line, the beer tent, and the Native American foods outside, determined to get the lay of the land. But before I could get 20 feet from the door, I ran into my old buddy Michelle Fuerst, of Homemade, who curated the pickle booth. Here she is doing her job, explaining pickles to a couple interested patrons:

And here is a plate of those wonderful, briney treats:

I wandered a little further, bouncing back and forth, clutching my "Slow Dough" and wondering where to spend it first (er, second, as I had just used it to dabble in picklology). Then I saw this guy:

That's Ed Ueber, a retired marine biologist and friend of the owners of Monterey Fish Market, in Berkeley. And that behind him is one hell of a bounty from the sea. The fish section turned out to be great, with a trio of little bites that included squid, a sardine on toast, and a pate:

Next, I wandered past the cocktail bar, where this dude was making a hell of a racket slapping, shaking, and generally molesting a collection of herbs that would eventually become some dynamite drinks. He's Carlos Yturria, and he manages the bar at Bacar:

The cocktail area turned out to be a riot, and a great value in terms of Slow Dough, basically the currency of the event. Admission included 20 "dollars" in the form of little circles that got scratched off at each tasting area. Some things took one, some two, and some three circles. Cocktails, surprisingly, only went for one circle for as many as you wanted.

Below is Lance Winters, distiller at Alameda's St. George Spirits, and the guy responsible for the United States' first domestic brand of absinthe in, like, forever. He's been making the stuff for his own use for about 11 years, he said, using organic wormwood from a supplier in Oregon and one in Davis.

He explained that absinthe turns cloudy in water because it secretes essential oils that are soluble in alcohol but not in water. "As we add water, they start to come out of solution in the form of little droplets. That's the cloudiness," he said. This guy loves his absinthe (can you tell?):

The cocktail section was pleasantly uncrowded, but that cannot be said about most of the event. Here's the line for the cheese plates:

This apparently wrapped around the outside of the building, at its height. By the time I took a stab at it, it was just poking out that side door. It was funny how quickly this room, like probably any long-ish assembly, developed its own culture. One overheard people talking about the cheese line in awed voices, and it soon became shorthand to refer to a member of your party who would be indisposed for a while.

It was worth it, though. That cheese was damned good. I ate mine before I even remembered to take a picture of it, but here's what it looked like in the case:

Another killer line formed at the pizza stand out front. Fortunately, Laverne Dicker and her comrades at the Bread Bakers Guild of America were there with bread sticks to stave off the hunger pangs:

There was so much bread at this place. They didn't just have it for eating, but also for making gigantic snail sculptures. Here's Alexis taking in the last rays of sun out in the Hall of Bread:

Finally, we had a great time sampling coffee under the tutelage of Edwin Martinez, a coffee farmer from Guatemala who was up for the event. His Finca Vista Hermosa, in Huehuetenango, provides beans for Barefoot Coffee Roasters, among others. He was loving pulling people out of the coffee line for special tastings:

And that was about it. For some reason, none of my charcuterie shots came out really well. Fortunately, though, Alexis and I double-teamed the coverage. Check back tomorrow for her more in-depth account of the evening, and still more photos, courtesy of "Sweetie."

A lot of cool stuff happened this morning as my old pal Kim Cuddy and I set out to take a tour of San Francisco's Alemany Farm. The only Slow Journey that was both free and didn't involve going anywhere (or anywhere you couldn't get to on BART), this was for me.

As we tromped through the bushes on the hillside above the farm, lost, but navigating by the landmark windmill, Kim stopped to eat blackberries that grow wild there. We were already late for the tour, so what the hell:

You couldn't get more in the spirit of Slow Food Nation than this place. A former San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners sight, the couple-acre patch just off Interstate Highway 280 and Alemany Boulevard was first plowed in 1995. Since then it's been known as St. Mary's Youth Farm, SLUG, an abandoned lot, and, since 2005, the independent Alemany Farm. It's a prime example of a piece of urban land transformed into the city's own salad bowl.

Once we made it through the gate, Kim and I took a partially guided tour of the farm's crops, corners, and crannies. Check it out, after the jump.

A lot of what Alemany Farm does is experimental. Antonio Roman-Alcala pointed out that people are less inclined to grow their own grains because grain crops are perceived as being space-inefficient. So the farm is growing a row of maiz corn right now, just to see how many tortillas they can get out of it:

Antonio showed us the rows of tomatoes and strawberries that are being dry-farmed. The leaves are limp from lack of water, but the fruits lay heavy and turgid on the ground.

He talked about the olive trees on the farm's east side that have borne a total of four fruits — that's going to take some experimentation to fix. There's an ongoing battle with gophers, who the farm refuses to poison.

"There's a few hawks that hang out here — some kestrals and some red-tails... There are feral cats, but they seem to coexist with the gophers," Antonio said.

As Antonio led the group through the farm's crops, Kim gave me a look. "I'm tired of being in this tour group. You think we can go explore?"

"Sure, why not?" I said. We tromped up a hill to the small cluster of fruit trees, where we found a bush/tree thing laden with apples.

How do we know these ugly things are apples? Because this hilarious thing happened: As we waded through the brown grass on the hillside, I began to get nervous. "You think we should be up here?" I said.

"I don't know. Hey, what are these weird fruits? You think they're apples or pears?" Kim said.

"Um, pears, maybe?"

"I'm going to eat one," Kim said. I got nervous, thinking how embarrassing it would be when Antonio came running over, red-faced with frustration at the weekend warriors destroying his crops. The guilt flowed.

"They're apples," Kim said, suddenly flush with knowledge. "Here, Adam, eat this apple."

I did, and with that bite, I lived up to my namesake.

We wandered further and found the beehives kept by the San Francisco Beekeepers' Association, which partners with Alemany Farm:

We found a cracked, paved path leading to a small, shaded grove. "I'll come here and read sometime," Kim announced. We saw this butterfly:

Kim, who has a stong affection for kale, based on a recipe for "kale slaw" that she loves, got really excited about this little volunteer. "It's rogue kale!" She exclaimed:

Finally, it was time to re-join the tour group and, shortly, the real world. The cars that zoom by within yards of the farm belie its tranquility. For me, I've seen that "SLUG" windmill everytime I've driven down 280, and never seen what's under it. If slow food is about making food into a respite from the crush of modernity, then Alemany Farm really does represent the essence of that movement. It's really too bad we had to leave before lunch, but hey, blogs don't update themselves. Here's what we missed:

Well, there's plenty to eat at the Tasting Pavilion, which is where I'm headed now. As always, check back for updates.

Friday was one packed day. In addition to a panel discussion full of zingers and insight, Slow Food Nation got started with the taste pavilions, a day's worth of slow tours and of course, the Slow Marketplace and Victory Garden. This is where I spent the morning, eating, chatting and generally hobnobbing with friend and impromptu guide, the Tablehopper, Marcia Gagliardi.

We met up in the Victory Garden, which splays out in front of City Hall for an entire block, full of circular planters like these:

Tons more photos after the jump...

Breakfast consisted of one of Scott Peacock's ham biscuits:

And a half a mufaletta sandwich from Salumi Artisan cured meats, of Seattle. Marcia, who spent her New Orleans vacation wandering around and tasting mufaletta, declared it excellent:

As we sat on our hay bale, chatting about this and that, the conversation turned to what you can and can't get to eat in New York. Our bale-mate swiveled his head and announced, "I was never able to get a really thick milkshake there. They turn the machine on and walk away for five minutes, and by the time they get back, it's chocolate milk." He's never been to the Shake Shack, he said, but then, he's from the Midwest, so he knows from milkshakes.

This turned out to be Barry Foy, author of the soon-to-be-released Devil's Food Dictionary, polishing off a plate of tlacoyos. I asked him what he was looking forward to eating this weekend. "I always make a bee-line for the cured meats," he said. I'll go to the end of the line and start over if I have to." Look out, Taste Pavilion — get that second salumi ready.

After picking up a New Orleans Iced Coffee from the Blue Bottle stand, we took a stroll through the marketplace:

We met all sorts of folks selling all sorts of food, like Pierre Bellevue, of Pan-O-Rama breads, whose gigantic loaf seems to have eclipsed his head-shot. Sorry Pierre, but what do you expect with bread like this?:

We did manage to get a shot of James Freeman, of Blue Bottle, as we thanked him for the pick-me-up. He was pushing Blue Bottle's Huehuetenango Highland coffee, from Guatemala:

Even though we were full of mufaletta and ham, Marcia and I couldn't help salivating at the rich, red tomatoes on display from Blue House Farm. They're dry-farmed, owner Ryan Casey told me, with a little help from the coastal fog and clay-rich soil:

Another mouth-watering dry-farmed product sat right next to the glowing pile of tomatoes. These apples come from Sebastapol, where husband and wife Paul and Kendra Kolling run the farm Nana Mae's Organics. Volunteer Keith Borglum presided over the pile:

Marcia and I enjoyed a sample of a surprisingly rich peach cobbler-type-thing made with Massa Organics rice:

For some reason I thought the J&P Organics sign was hilarious. Hey, dudes, you're way closer than a quarter-mile. Here's JP himself humoring a tired blogger:

Finally, we had a laugh with Dee Harley, a friend of Marcia's, who runs Harley Farms Goat Dairy in Pescadero. She showed off her new credit-card-swiping-thing, which she said was the smartest investment she had made in preparation for this market. But I don't know. That title could conceivably go to the goats who squirted out what would become this cheese. It's heavenly:

And then it was time for us to go our separate ways, I to the Food for Thought discussion, and Marcia to own this freaking town as the queen of food news and gossip. But not before posing for a couple of photos of ourselves. See if you can guess who's who:

By the way, yes, that is an upside down bus stacked on top of a right-side-up one to make one weird double-decker. It belongs to a group called the Whitehouse Organic Farming Project, or, awesomely, The Who Farm.

That's all for now. Check back for photos of Alemany Farm, the Taste Pavilion, and whatever pops up.

Today's Food For Thought panel discussion, "Re-Localizing Food," was interesting, yes, entertaining, for sure, but almost totally devoid of surprises. Did you know that Michael Pollan is in favor of using sustainable farming techniques and growing food closer to home? Why yes, actually. Did you also know that Winona LaDuke thinks people like those on her White Earth Indian Reservation deserve better access to fresh, local food? Yes, you probably did.

But underlying what might be characterized by the cynical as a one long choir-preach, we found a lovely surprise: These folks are funny. Sure, the humor is a little NPR-ish, but the zingers were not sparse among the four panelists as they rapped on their favorite issues, fielding questions and egging each other on.

LaDuke, an economist, Native American rights activist and former Green Party vice-presidential nominee, got a big laugh — and an appreciative round of murmurs — when she pointed out that the root of word colonization is "colon," meaning, to digest, as in, “how one dominant system digests other systems.” Zing! okay, maybe you had to be there.

But then Gary Nabhan, founder of Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT), responded, “remember that Christopher Columbus, in Spanish, is called “Cristobal Colon... You might call his discovery of America 'The Great Colonoscopy.'” Whoa, where did that come from? These guys are on fire.

Later, as the discussion touched on environmental damage, Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma and, most recently, urged eaters to "vote with their forks," for local food, pointing out that, “the very idea that California exports water to New York City in the form of tomatoes is completely hilarious.” Yes, for some reason, in the context, it was.

As panelists mused on how to make fresh, local, organic produce available to people of limited means, Blue Hill restaurant and Stone Barn farm honcho Dan Barber played the straight man. "Did you have anything to add, Dan?" moderator and Saveur editor James Oseland asked, by way of drawing the farmer-cum-restaurateur out a little. "Being the guy who charges $40 for an entree?" Barber tossed back, "No."

Barber found more of a voice when the topic turned to the highly charged issue of Foie Gras, which Blue Hill has stopped serving, but which he loooooves. He talked about visiting a farm where the geese are treated so well that wild geese have been known to drop out of the sky to join them. A super-humane foie gras farm, you ask? No, really.

It turns out that geese naturally stuff themselves late in the fall to get ready for the winter. At some point during this gorging, they get about as rich and lethargic as those force-fed on industrial foie-gras farms. That's when they go to slaughter, and eventually to mini-toasts. Barber could barely restrain his enthusiasm (and saliva, maybe, but I was too far back to tell), as he described a flock of migrating birds settling in with the domestic flock, who are free to leave if they wish. "I’m listening to this guy, he’s like the goose whisperer," Barber said of the farmer.

“So you’re going to serve, now, certified volunteer foie gras?” quipped Pollan.

But, of course, the hilarity had to end sometime, even as LaDuke pondered the idea of eating 5 million pounds of wild rice. "I could try, but it might make more sense to trade with, say, the lemongrass people… I don’t know who the lemongrass people are…”

Okay, that last one was a bit insider-y, but fear not, dedicated slow-foodist. Video and audio of this and all the panels will be available through Slow Food Nation later this week, and of course, we'll link it all right here.

Food For Thought [Slow Food Nation]
Michael Pollan [Official Site]
Winona LaDuke [Wikipedia]
Gary Nabhan [Official Site]
Dan Barber [Blue Hills at Stone Barn]
James Oseland [Official Site]

We can sort of see where they're coming from — we're out of the office as of about four seconds after hitting "publish" on this post, and we'll be celebrating the long weekend in style (there is a brisket involved). We'll be back on Tuesday, rip-roaring to go on whatever delights a new week will bring. (Gebert vs. Levine, round 3? Tag team with Adam Kuban and the LTHers?! A girl can dream!)

In the meantime, MP:SF editor Adam Martin will be filing regular dispatches from Slow Food Nation. Read them slooooooowly. Alice Waters would want it that way.

[Photo via spastic_drama_nerd's Flickr]

So far in our slow food coverage we've brought you a telephone conversation with director Anya Fernald, a telephone conversation with Michael Pollan, and plenty of writing in italics. That's fine and everything, but this junk is actually starting! Let's get off the phone and into the field.

You can find updates throughout the day here. Meanwhile, you may be interested in some of the chatter going on elsewhere about the "largest celebration of American food."

• Eater SF has sneak-peak photos of the Taste Pavilions. These are the big free sample extravaganzas that also include the Green Kitchen demonstrations. Looks extravagant!

• Serious Eats posted an open letter from Ed Levine to Alice Waters and Slow Food Nation, in which he makes a good point about an important issue conspicuously absent from this weekend's hustle and bustle.

• Finally, the San Francisco Chronicle is all over this story, including a Slow Food-related cocktail roundup and a Michael Bauer blog account of last night's kickoff dinner.

Shoot, it's creeping up on lunchtime. I'm going to go eat.

OSBMS's Omnivorous column this week gives us a look at the life of Bob Schwartz, author of the forthcoming Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog (Chicago's Books Press, due out in September).

Schwartz is the “official schmoozer” for Vienna Beef, as well as the founder of their online hall of fame, and he really loves his job. Vienna is unlike the other mega-hot-dog companies in that they focus almost exclusively on independent-vendor contracts (hence their lack of presence at, say, a ball game, but their street-cart ubiquity), and Schwartz's appreciation for the independent vendor is clear:

“I find that not having been born in Chicago gives me a better sense of this,” he says. “It’s kind of like they say a blind person has better senses. It just has impressed me so much that when people go into a hot dog stand they feel that it is a part of their life. That they have ownership of that—something that doesn’t exist in your chains and your other restaurant concepts that are out there.”

The Local Wiener [Reader/Omnivorous]

[Photo via specialkrb's Flickr]

There's a fishtank in the bathroom at L.2O that's only for sea plants. But it recently spontaneously acquired a guppy.

Cutest. Mystery. Ever.

Under Water [L2O blog]
L2O [MenuPages]
L2O [Official Site]

[Photo via brentlovesblythe's Flickr]

• Remember the salad days of college, when all you could afford were burritos? [MP: Boston]

• It's a bittersweet week for our Chicago editor, as her little brother/party correspondent heads off to college. [MP: Chicago]

• Let it be known: The Wire is well-missed. [MP: Philadelphia]

• Aww. Mexico's president misses his momma's mole sauce. [MP: San Francisco]

• The entire MenuPages family misses instant messaging with our South Florida editor, who spent the week in Korea. Also, we are jealous. [MP: South Florida]

Who knew!? Each of the five locations of Sopraffina is committed to being green: they use 100% biodegradable cups and plasticware, among other things.

Too bad the city of Chicago's landfills can't acommodate them.

Local restaurant meets unforeseen challenge in going green [Medill Reports]
Sopraffina [MenuPages]
Sopraffina [Official Site]

Oh snap, indeed! Serious Eats responds to Gebert! Burgermeister Adam Kuban clarifies that the SE team realizes Ed's blind spot when it comes to Chicago pizza — that's why they have Daniel Zemans (of Chicago Pizza Club, among other things) doing their Chicago pizza reviews. Kuban goes on:

I don't think what Ed made clear is that, for upcoming Serious Eats City Guides, we've been working with local writers for their take. So future City Guides will be every bit as authoritative as Ed's was with New York.

I'd feel confident working my way through [Gebert's list], given his background.

Windy City Food Writer: 'Ed Levine Has a Blind Spot for Chicago Pizza' [Slice/Serious Eats]
DeathMatch: Mike Gebert vs. Ed Levine [previously]

[Photo via hans_s's Flickr]

Okay, first of all, the front page of the Tribune's website is all "Source: Sarah Palin is John McCain's pick for vice president" and we are all OH MY GOD WE NEED SOME CONFIRMATION OVER HERE. We're sure you already know this, but Palin was the first runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska competition. That picture to the left there? That's her.

But the food! Yesterday's TOC double-header knocked the Tribune's Thursday dining roundup to today. Forgive us? You do? Oh yay!

• This week's special feature comes to us courtesy of Joe Gray, and it's a roundup of brewpubs in the greater Chicagoland area (we love using that phrase, we feel so Your Local Lincoln-Mercury Dealership). He goes in a loop from Northwest Indiana up along the lake: new kid Crown Point and old hat Three Floyds, both in the Hoosier state; Flossmoor Station in the South suburbs (what is up, place we went to high school!); and city-proper favorite Moonshine. We realize it is breakfast time, but hot damn, the things we would do for a brat and a beer right now. [Tribune]

• Christopher Borrelli sits down with Steve Dubianca, a.k.a. The Waiter — the guy behind titillating website waiterrant, who's now written a book. It's standard "be nice to your waiter or he'll spit in your food" fare, but with the added immediacy of being written by a guy who's apparently done plenty of spitting (metaphorical, if not literal). Dubianca tells us to walk into a restaurant "smiling and laughing," so our waiter won't hate us. We are kind of bored by this, to be totally honest. [Tribune]

As for actual pass-judgment-on-food-service-emporia reviews!

• Trine Tsouderos (she has such an awesome name, doesn't she?) is in Forest Park this week, checking out new gelato joint Paciugo (7510 Madison St., Forest Park, 708 366 6080). A roundup of hypergourmet, avant-garde flavors (Black Pepper Olive Oil, Strawberry Celery Sorbet, Mediterranean Sea Salt Caramel) pull in the headlines (and manage to pull off their unexpected flavors with aplomb, no less), but it's the more classic fare that really earns the gelateria its stripes: Amarena Black Cherry Swirl is "aromatic, tart" and there's a "sticky-sweet" S'mores. [Tsouderos, Tribune]

• And finally! Phil Vettel is at — have you heard of this place? — Hub 51, which is owned by these sons of some dude, or something. Vettel quickly dissects the restaurant's clientele into two categories: (1) Friends of Rich Melman, who are supporting his son's venture the same way your dad's old golfing buddy offers you a summer internship with his accounting firm; and (2) young trendoids who follow the buzz, regardless of the quality of the food. Besides his judgment of the clientele, Vettel is markedly more generous to the lateste LEYE venture than have been those reviewers that came before. Maybe it's because R.J. and Jerrod have read what Shouse et al have had to say ("serve better food, please" seems to be the refrain) and have instructed the kitchen accordingly, or maybe it's because Vettel is more forgiving of "downright boring" pork, or is blinded by the glitter of clever dishes like "crackling peanuts," (ground peanuts mixed with Pop Rocks, which we are totally making at home), but he hands the place two stars, seemingly without too much justification. [Vettel, Tribune]

[Photo: Sarah Palin, First Runner-Up Miss Alaska, 1984, via BeldarBlog]

Not one to stand for such gastronomic sacrilege (seriously!), Gebert decided to take matters into his own hands, issuing a best-of-Chicago in the scant few hours between leaving his first comment on our post, and, um, leaving his second one.

Read it here. We can't say we agree with all his choices (really, is there ever unanimity when pizza is involved?), but we certainly applaud his gumption.

Serious Eats Rounds Up The Best [previously]
But Seriously… My Serious Eating Guide [Sky Full of Bacon]

[Photo: Gebert vs. Levine (but who is who?!) via hans_s's Flickr]

• Good news: it looks like the salmonella outbreak might finally be over! [Washington Post]

• Bad news: in the wake of last month's flooding in eastern India, villagers have resorted to eating uncooked rice mixed with polluted water. [Boston Globe]

• Good news! Items at a 99 cent store are still, generally, 99 cents or less. Way to run the least necessary sidebar of all time, guys. [LA Times]

• Bad news: mice can still really put a damper on your food wholesaling operation. [Chicago Tribune]

• Good news: Brazil seems to be handling rising food costs relatively well. Bad news: Argentina? Not so much. [New York Times]

We generally have a love-hate relationship with internet memes. But this one falls strictly on the "love" side:

From the terrific British foodblog Very Good Taste, (via Serious Eats) we proudly proffer our take on The Omnivore's Hundred, a list of 100 items any proud omnivore should eat in his or her lifetime:

Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The MP:Chicago Omnivore's Hundred

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush [I'm allergic to eggplant – HR]
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper [I made Jamaican beef patties using these once, and my hands burned. – HR])
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar [I don't smoke – HR]
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu [it'd be worth it if it turned out to be delicious, but Adam Platt's article on it, while a riveting read, didn't sell it as a flavor explosion. – HR]
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin [is this a food? google tells us it is a clay. – HR]
64. Currywurst [I had it last week! for the first time! – HR]
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu or shaojiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

There are some lies happening in this video (there is NO WAY that cherry turnovers are better than PB&J, or apple pie for that matter), but these qualms aside, it's nice to see a slightly underdog pastry get some chops. After all, although tasty, the turnover is no danish, muffin, or even scone in terms of breakfast food popularity.

We've long been curious about how these national food holidays came to be, especially since there seems to be one for every day (for example, National Banana Lover's Day and National Whiskey Sour Day bookend National Cherry Turnover Day). Also, how is each specific date chosen to celebrate National [insert food in question] Day: what is it about August 28th that makes it oh-so-very-cherry-turnover, as opposed to August 29th?

After some digging, it turns out that each day is designated by Presidential decree. A food gets picked for a national day after lobbyists, trade associations, and a whole other host of special interests petition the President to sign off on a national food holiday. Surprise, surprise, this whole phenomenon seems to be a peculiarly American happening.

So, while you bite into your celebratory cherry turnover today (or not), you can once again thank your lucky stars for capitalism, without which we would never have national food holidays. Oh, and ps: today is also Dream Day, to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream," which seems timely for this week.

"Obscure Commercial Holidays" [Stay Free Magazine]

With the Fall Preview out of the way, we can move on to TOC's actual reviews.

But first, some truly excellent (we mean this. We really really mean this.) service journalism from Heather Shouse: A province-by-province breakdown of the various subgenres of Chinese food, plus listings of where in the city to get a sampling of each. Regional styles like Cantonese and Sichuan are familiar to most Chinatown-goers, but Shouse illuminates the flavor profiles of less ubiquitous cuisines, like Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Hakka, and Buddhist (not so much a region as a culinary philosophy). [TOC]

As for actually passing make-or-break judgment on restaurants!

• It's been almost a month since the opening of Duchamp, and David Tamarkin has an experience there that reads like an eerie retread of last week's TOC review: inexplicably inconsistent food quality, overwhelmingly wonderful atmosphere. The lows on the menu strike Tamarkin as novice mistakes — all the more confusing, considering that chef Michael Taus is no new kid on the chopping block. And yet that patio lures you back in! Here's our request for the TOC team: Revisit Duchamp and Piccolo Sogno in, say, January, when you'll be less susceptible to the seductive charms of their apparently drug-laced patios. [Tamarkin, TOC]

• Speaking of Heather Shouse (again!) she's at Marc Burger (Macy’s, 111 N State St, 7th floor, 312 781 1000), where chef Marcus Samuelsson (ostensibly of C-House, more accurately of various New York City eateries) has set up shop alongside other luminaries in this "gourmet food court" to peddle burgers and other bun-borne delights. The burgers are good, but for $13 they edge in on the pricey side for what is, essentially, food court grub. Try the mahi-mahi — Shouse thinks it's better than the fish at C-House, and it's like a quarter of the price. [Shouse, TOC]

[As long as we are repeating photos, let's revisit Prof. Dr. Marc Burger, Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik, Zürich, Switzerland, via his faculty page]

Wondering what went down last night at Rick Bayless's induction into the Chicago Chefs Hall of Fame? Centerstage Chicago was there, and reports back. Among other things: they gave him a trophy!

Hall Call [Centerstage Chicago]

Well okay, maybe they can see just about as far into the future as anyone else with access to the internet, a telephone, and a list of Chicago restaurant publicists. But it's by their fine pens that we get the Restaurants & Bars section of TOC's Fall Preview issue. So much to talk about! So much to look forward to!

• Everyone we know — including us! — is so excited about The Publican that it is all we can do to keep our shoes on the right feet and our pants on right-side-out. David Tamarkin feeds the flames (and stokes the hunger) with a profile of the trials and tribulations of the beer-and-pork emporium that runs to four internet-pages (lord knows how many in the print edition). The article paints a portrait that reads almost like a movie script. Call it a culinary Ocean's Eleven: The trials and tribulations are seemingly infinite, and everyone involved in the scrappy-yet-slick crew — from be-everywhere-do-everything restaurateur Donnie Madia, to sous chef/sausage perfectionist Erling Wu-Bauer — is pouring in blood and sweat and time. Of course the story has a happy ending in sight: the restaurant looks on course for a mid-September opening, and every single one of the joint's 150 seats will probably be wildly in demand for, oh, the next century or so. [TOC]

Once The Publican actually does open, will we have anything to live for? Oh yes! There's so much else! The TOC team highlights four second acts from previously successful Chicago restaurant-makers.

• Pilsen Lula, from the team behind Lula Cafe, but located in — did you see this coming? — Pilsen. Actually it's not really called "Pilsen Lula," but there's no real name yet, and this is as good a stand-in as any. A "completely open" kitchen, a steel-framed garden swathed in climbing plants. Oh, and the hyper-local food sounds good too. [Shouse, TOC]

• Randy Zweiban basically is Nacional 27, but apparently he's been having an existential crisis. Enter Province, his upcoming completely-green restaurant in the West Loop, which will be Spanish- and Latin-tinged classic American food. Opening October. [Tamarkin, TOC]

• Do you ever get the feeling that there aren't enough restaurants in River North? Yeah, us too. But maybe an exception can be made for Jackson Park, from Jason Paskewitz, which has been in the works for years, and is finally scheduled to open this fall. Expect big plates (“I’m a big fan of not doing little plates of food,” Paskewitz says. “I hate the small-plate thing, man.”) of manly American fare like steaks. [Tamarkin, TOC]

• Up there with The Publican in terms of pre-launch buzz is Bucktown's The Bristol, from Chris Pandel. The menu is intentionally "amorphous," expect lots of charcuterie and an intense selection of libations — biodynamic wines, obscure brews, the usual. [Shouse, TOC]

• And of course, some more places that get a paragraph: Cafe Con Leche, OLO, The Whistler (all September); Tiny Lounge (October); Town & Country (November); An unnamed project from the folks behind Terragusto (God Knows When). [TOC]

[We're reusing this illustration from Achewood because we are so obsessed with this comic. You should really read it from the beginning.]

Over at Serious Eats, Ed Levine and crew are launching what they're calling The Serious Eats City Guides — a roundup of the essential eating experiences in food cities nationwide:

In every decent-sized city there are essential eating experiences, bites every serious eater should avail themselves of should he or she find themselves there. Here at Serious Eats we thought it would be fun to post guides to essential eating experiences in cities all over the world.

Now this is a best-of list we are absolutely dying to see.

Serious Eats City Guide Premiere: New York (How to Leave Here Pleasantly Full) [Serious Eats]

Frequent MenuPages special correspondent Joe Rosner is moving to Rhode Island tomorrow in order to start college (we feel very very old).

Helen: so on the eve of your departure, want to write a post for me about what you'll miss in Chicago?
Joe: the only thing i'll really miss is the ease of biking up the lakeshore trail to anywhere in greater chicago
Helen: yeah that is not a food
Joe: i know
Joe: i guess i'll miss the southern comfort food of hyde park
Joe: like the dixie kitchen, valois, and ribs 'n' bibs
Joe: doubt they'll have much of that in RI
Helen: you should start a valois in providence
Helen: how do you say "see your food" in a rhode island accent?
Joe: seah ya fud?
Joe: fud with a little umlaut above it
Helen: and then it's a big pile of clams behind glass
Joe: oh oh oh
Joe: only if its SEA your food
Joe: ouch.
Helen: zing!

Dixie Kitchen & Bait Shop [MenuPages]
Dixie Kitchen & Bait Shop [Official Site]
Ribs 'n' Bibs [MenuPages]

[Photo: breakfast at Valois "see your food" Cafeteria (1518 E 53rd St, 773 667 0647) via jasmined's Flickr]

MP: San Francisco Editor Adam Martin is covering this weekend's Slow Food Nation conference in the city by the bay. Here's the latest!

With Slow Food Nation all around, a Civic Center marketplace of local, sustainable foods, and every retailer in the city jumping on the bandwagon, it could be easy to make all kinds of grand lifestyle decisions this weekend—“Who says it’s hard to be a locavore? Look at all this stuff”—but what about in January, long after the fruit stands are packed up, when school or work or whatever it is you do is in full swing, where will your new-found values get you then, in the face of Egg McMuffins and Pop Tarts?

I chatted on the phone with food politics whiz and general cage-rattler Michael Pollan yesterday about how to incorporate some slow-food values into one’s day-to-day life. How does one stay a responsible eater when one is busy as all hell? Can you still go to restaurants without ruining the planet? And what’s this all about, anyway?

“There’s been a lot of effort to complicate [the issues],” Pollan said, but in fact, the global effect of your food is simple. “In general, the closer your food is grown to where you eat it, and the less it is processed, the lighter its carbon footprint.”

“Sometimes the drive to complicate things is done in the interest to frustrate people’s desires to do the right thing,” Pollan told me.

Wait, that sounds awfully nefarious. Who would complicate important issues like this on purpose?

“The food industry is always trying to confuse the issue… If you have a sugary cereal and you slap a health claim on it, what are you doing but confusing the issue?”

Pollan pointed out that the highest-impact foods at the store, from an environmental and health point of view, are the highly processed ones, as well as meat, eggs, and dairy. In his most recent book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, he advocates shopping around the edge of the grocery store, where you find dairy, meat, produce, and bread, and avoiding the middle, where you find Hot Pockets, Pop Tarts, and Fruit Roll-Ups.

Pollan laid out three simple metrics by which to determine how damaging your food is to the planet, and yourself:

• Find out the animal’s feed. Grass-fed beef makes less of an impact than grain-fed. Most grass-fed or otherwise sustainably produced meats are labeled as such in gigantic letters.

• How processed is your food? The more that happens to it between the field and the table, the more resources it absorbs and the more nutrients are sapped. “In general, processed food like that [Pop Tart] takes 10 calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food energy," Pollan said.

• How far does it travel? The closer to you that your food is produced, the better.

Okay, that’s great and all, and most city-dwellers have access to some Berkeley Bowl equivalent, but dude, who shops for groceries? Many of us eat at restaurants almost all the time. And traveling? Hell, how are you supposed to stay responsible in an airport?

“When I’m on the road I tend to avoid meat unless I’m a place where I know where they get their meat,” Pollan said. “There’s one restaurant in every city these days that’s conceived in the spirit of Slow Foods and Chez Panisse, so I try to find out where that is, and, you know, just keep it simple.” God, he’s unflappable.

“If a restaurant offers grass-fed meat, I’ll order that. I want to support that industry and I really like it,” Pollan said. “I don’t order conventional meat that hasn’t been grown sustainably. I’d be much more likely to order fish, avoiding big, predator fish… those are the ones that are in most danger. Things like tuna and swordfish.”

But Pollan pointed out that there are sustainable fisheries, such as salmon in Alaska. “If it’s wild salmon from Alaska, they’ll usually tell you… More and more, restaurants will tell you where their food comes from and how they source it because it’s a selling point… that’s a very positive development.” You can print out a guide of sustainable seafood from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Neat. So where do you eat out, Michael Pollan?

“I really like restaurants where the chefs are serious about sourcing their food and elevate quality of ingredients over technique. To me, that’s what I really like. And I like pretty simple food. I don’t like fussy food.”

Pollan mentioned Chez Pannisse Café right off the bat, of course. “I love Picante, Oliveto. In the city I like Zuni Cafe, Quince.” He also mentioned Kirala, Cesar, and Saul’s deli, in Berkeley, and the new Camino, Pizzaiolo, in Oakland.

Pollan naturally wouldn’t single out an event this weekend as the most important, but he made an interesting point about the planning: “The architects they recruited for this—people in the restaurant business should pay attention to the design.” So there you go, restaurateurs. Get those business cards.

As for the rest of you, hey, good luck getting in to hear Pollan speak this weekend. Most of his events are sold out. But you can check through the Slow Food Nation schedule just in case, and also keep up with the man via his own website. He speaks publicly all the time. Come next busy January, catching a lecture might help you stay off the Pop Tarts a little longer.

Slow Food Nation [Official Site]
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto [Amazon]
Chez Panisse [Official Site]
Seafood Watch [Monterey Bay Aquarium]
Michael Pollan [Official Site]

[Photo: via ">Ken Light/Michaelpollan.com]

"Nothing screams sex like a full rack of ribs."

– Mike, 26, from Nerve's Dating Advice from Grillmasters

A 15,000-square-foot French Market featuring both farmers and resellers selling gourmet and organic foods, such as fresh produce, meat, fish, cheese and baked goods will anchor the development. The market will be developed and managed by Bensidoun USA. The Bensidoun family, one of the largest operators of food markets in France, is responsible for more than 80 similar concepts in and around Paris, 12 outdoor markets in the Chicagoland area as well as other markets across North America.

"Chicagoans are savvy connoisseurs of fresh and delectable produce and cuisine," said Sebastien Bensidoun, executive vice president of Bensidoun USA.

Also in the new MetraMart:

A newer concept modeled after authentic Italian coffee bars, Caffe RoM will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner menus including specialty coffee drinks, gourmet sandwiches and imported gelato as well as fine wine and beer in the evening. Caffe RoM will occupy 2,900 square feet with access from both Canal Street and Metra's commuter concourse.

Of course, construction hasn't even started, so check back with us in ... a year? Five years? We're not holding our breath.

U.S. Equities Secures Financing for MetraMarket [MarketWatch]
MetraMarket [Official Site]

[Rendering of MetraMarket storefronts via the official site]

• A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge rules taco trucks can stay and vend, instead of being forced to move every hour. [LA Times]

• A look at how two South American nations are dealing with the rise in food pricesw. [New York Times]

• The disease outbreak near Tulsa is, in fact, E. coli, from a local restaurant that is (finally) named. [Tulsa World]

• Here's a guide to Slow Food Nation. The San Francisco event kicks off tomorrow. [SF Chronicle]

• Croatia was ravaged by war! But now they make wine! The story is both heartwarming and unbearably wine-snobby! [Trib]

• White bread, potatoes, red meat, and cheese are all not nearly as bad for us as we'd thought! They actually have nutritional value! Turns out (omg!) the key is moderation! Also wtf is up with the alliterative headline?! [Trib]

• A revamp of a classic Nicoise salad recipe illustrates the paradox of the heap! If you replace every single freaking ingredient in a Nicoise salad with things that are not in fact found in Nice, is it still a Nicoise salad?! (Hint: Hells no!) [Trib]

• The StoryBus at the Kohl Children's Museum is actually really awesome! So is this idea for a benefit to support it: Highbrow takes on kids' food! Also the event has a neat name: Night of 1000 Clean Plates! We are having a hard time snarking on this one! [Trib]

[Photo: A Nicoise salad (we've swapped the green beans out for shredded wheat, and replaced the tuna and potatoes with some milk), via buriednextoyou's Flickr]

Welcome to the first day of coverage of this weekend's Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco. I'll be at the event, snapping photos, talking to participants and stuffing my face, and you can attend vicariously through me by reading the coverage right here. It's going to be a tough job wandering around collecting edible samples, but with your support, I'll get through it. To find out just what this weekend is all about, I got on the phone with Anya Fernald, Slow Food Nation's executive director.

Hanging around, staring at that victory garden outside City Hall, waiting for Slow Food Nation to start, is like nibbling bread while you wait for your entrée.

In this case, that entrée is a local, grass-fed steak with a side of tomatoes from the garden. The bread is homemade from organic flour, and the butter was just churned yesterday at a farm in Marin County.

“Middle America, 30 years ago, this was the norm,” Anya Fernald, executive director of Slow Food Nation, told me, as we chatted about the upcoming Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco this weekend. Part festival, part conference, part exhibition, the four-day American food celebration will draw an expected 50,000 attendees overall, Fernald said.

The weekend includes tasting expos, a marketplace, workshops, panel discussions, special dinners, as well as things like hikes and farm tours, all to encourage attendees to take a second look at the way they—and we, as a society—eat.

The idea is to wean Americans off our current dependence on processed and fast foods, and to “build momentum and demand for an American food system that is safer, healthier and more socially just," according to Fernald’s press statement.

“We want 10 percent of the attendees of this event to make one change ever day, every week. We It might be a small step like I’m going to cook dinner for my family this week or plant a garden, it might be I’m going to learn about food politics or pack a bag lunch… We’re not talking about radical life changes. This is about realistic, doable every day changes that everybody can make,” Fernald told me.

Fernald was quick to address and dispel any charge of elitism. “When did making your own jam become a privilege of the elite? Up until 1950, really a sign of poverty was making your own jam, growing your own garden, and people strove to become part of the middle class by rejecting that,” she said. The slow food movement aims to return to those values.

“Looking at that presumption that this is an elitist movement, I think America has been bamboozled into thinking that fasts food is the food of the masses,” Fernald said. “We need to push back against that notion that fast food is American food.”

But how can a bunch of activists making a big noise about sustainable food in a city as “blue”—downright aquamarine—as San Francisco?

“We’re drinking American wine, beer, we’re making pickles, we’re having dinner with friends, we’re planting gardens,” Fernald said. “It’s really “red state”’ values we’re talking about but they happen to be about food and they’re somehow associated with the left.”

The weekend is packed with things to do, and participants will have the opportunity spend as much time and money as they want. Free activities and exhibitions such as the slow marketplace and slow hikes, compete with ticketed events including panel discussions, dinners, a concert, field trips, and tasting exhibitions, running from $10 to more than $100.

Of all the 115 or so events that comprise the weekend, Fernald pointed to the slow marketplace as a cornerstone. That’s where attendees can buy the produce, grain, and small-scale products central to the movement. It’s also adjacent to the victory garden at City Hall.

Planted in July, the garden’s crops will be harvested and distributed by the San Francisco Food Bank over the weekend. The name comes from the World War II era, when individual families grew food on their own small plots.

Small-scale farming, small-scale food preparation, small, slow dinners with friends—these are the focuses of one massive event. It’s going to be a delicious weekend.

Slow Food Nation [Official Site]

[Photo: The City Hall victory garden, via Slow Food Nation Blog]

• Sick of plain old cow burgers? Bison is the hip, healthy new meat! (This was news in, like, 1994. It went hand-in-hand with the introduction of 'za as a [failed] shortening of "pizza.") [S-T]

• Oh hey, Rick Bayless is getting some kind of award. Choice quote: "His life is so varied ... he dances, does yoga..." (Mental image! Mental image!) [S-T]

• Starbucks is planning to roll out a new, lower-calorie breakfast menu starting September 3. The impetus is twofold: one, the are having a horrible year and hope this will affect the bottom line. Two, CEO Howard Schultz got a talking-to from his doctor. (This is like when your mom feels fat and so she puts the whole family on a diet. Thanks, Howie!) [S-T]

• Chilled soup: it's a summer-appropriate food! So says chef Christophe David of NoMI, who wrote this piece. (Remember when Christopher Borrelli wrote about this exact topic for the Trib a few weeks ago?) [S-T]

[Photo: Delicious, delicous bison, via that_owl's Flickr]

As you have probably already heard, tonight Rick Bayless, pioneering chef behind Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, among many other things, is being inducted into the Chicago Chef's Hall of Fame. We don't think we are alone in never having really noticed before this event started blitzing the publicity circuit that Chicago actually had a Chef's Hall of Fame. (also, we just realized how incredibly absurd the literal notion of a "hall of fame" is. Think about that for a while and then try to take Rock & Roll or Major League Baseball or, okay, Chicago Chefs seriously ever again).

That particular absurdity aside, this event strikes us as selling itself a little strangely for something garnering this much press attention and with so many boldface names attached (Frontera Grill won Outstanding National Restaurant at the '07 Beard Awards, and that's nothing to sneeze at). But, um. The invitation (up and to the left, there) is utterly ludicrous. If you find yourself with $150 burning a hole in your pocket, and nothing to do tonight at 5:30, we might advise heading over to this "networking event." It could be hilarious entertaining.

Hall of Fame [Chicago Culinary Museum]
Frontera Grill [MenuPages]
Frontera Grill [Official Site]
Topolobampo [MenuPages]
Topolobampo [Official Site]

Check out a larger version of the (absurd) invitation, after the jump.

Umami -- that savory taste of meat -- gets all the press. Small wonder then that the two of the four other tastes (sweet, salty, sour and bitter) are so aptly named. Perhaps now's the chance for this flavor darling to get squeezed out of the limelight... at least for a little bit.

Fox News reports that scientists may have discovered a sixth taste. Celebrating this new discovery would be a bit premature, however, as (ta-da!) this is the taste of calcium. Yes, calcium: of broccoli, spinach, and collard greens.

You're probably not alone if you try to avoid these leafy veggies — but that may be precisely the fault of these new-found taste receptors: calcium in large quantities tends to have an unpleasantly bitter taste.

There may be reason to rejoice about this discovery, after all, according to Michael Tordoff, a behavioral geneticist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

People don't consume as much calcium as nutritionists would like, and one reason for this is that foods high in calcium don't taste good to many people. Tweaking the taste could encourage a calcium-deficient population to consume more of this key nutrient.

That's um, great and everything, but in the meantime – pass the pork, would you?

Yes, MSG, the Secret Behind the Savor [NY Times]
Sixth (and Fifth) 'Taste' Possibly Discovered [Fox]

[Photo: via aquatone282/flickr]

The partners — Mr. Sorkin; two former co-workers at a technology firm; his uncle, who works in the building materials business; and a lawyer — were all barbecue fanatics who frequently met to grill in each others’ backyards. They spent more than a year analyzing the business.

Mr. Sorkin quit his job in 2005, and visited restaurants all over the country, including North Carolina and Memphis. (His wife supported the family while he traveled, before the restaurant opened and he started taking a modest salary.)

After tasting samples, the partners settled on Texas barbecue, known as “low and slow” because it is cooked at a lower temperature for a longer period than other styles. It was a variation they felt had been overlooked by Chicago’s numerous rib spots.

Mr. Sorkin, who has a degree in journalism, wrote a detailed business plan that ran for more than 40 pages, comparing his concept to the menus of his potential competitors. It featured a heartfelt essay, “Our View on ’Q,” that set out the group’s philosophy on barbecue ... Along with a simple menu of ribs, brisket, chicken and side dishes like macaroni and cheese and twice-cooked fries, the plan also included an extensive analysis of the expenses the restaurant expected in its first three years.

Determining that the North Side of Chicago lacked sufficient rib outlets, the group zeroed in on a storefront on North Pulaski Road, about 15 minutes north of the Loop and 10 minutes from Mr. Sorkin’s house.

Two members of the group pledged their homes to secure a $440,000 Small Business Administration loan to get the restaurant off the ground.

In the months just before and after Smoque opened, Mr. Sorkin and one of the partners spent 120 to 130 hours a week tying up loose ends. “I seriously thought we were going to die of exhaustion,” he said.

Since Smoque opened, Mr. Sorkin has scaled back to a relatively relaxed 90 hours a week. Now, he is at work by 7 a.m., for a day that starts with stocking wood in a smoker, accepting an order from a meat deliveryman, checking the previous night’s receipts and supervising as kitchen assistants chop peppers and prepare peach cobbler. He is on his feet all day, and rarely gets home to see his two toddlers before their bedtime. He can only occasionally catch a bee