Category Archives: Berkeley Bites
Michael Pollan: New food rules, but no need to be neurotic
Sometimes a spoonful of sugar does, indeed, make the medicine go down. Though you won’t find that catchphrase in the just-released hardcover edition of Food Rules, Michael Pollan‘s best-selling little eater’s manual.
Food Rules does sport the whimsical and witty illustrations of well-known artist Maira Kalman, however. And the new book also boasts 19 new rules — many gleaned from eaters around the country that Pollan wished he had thought of and included the first time around.
Take two is again full of commonsense kitchen wisdom such as If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re probably not hungry; and When you eat real food, you don’t need rules.
The takeaway message: food need not be complicated, and the act of eating is as much about pleasure and communion as it is about nutrition and health. In other words: lighten up a little and enjoy your dinner. … Continue reading »
Café Yesterday: Cocoa Puffs and Verve coffee for all
When Midwest transplant Ryan Brinson recently set up shop in Berkeley, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Well, that might not be how Brinson, an ordained minister, would characterize it. But the rock and roller with religious roots definitely felt like he had come home.
Brinson, a keyboard-playing long-time preacher in San Diego, decided to switch gears and locations to open Café Yesterday, a nonprofit java joint with a charitable and compassionate community approach — as one might expect from a man of the church. … Continue reading »
Chez Panisse birthday fundraising declared a success
Now that the hoopla is over, it’s time to take stock of how the Chez Panisse 40th anniversary celebrations fared as a fundraising effort.
Answer: pretty well. The Chez Panisse Foundation had a goal to raise $500,000 for all its 40th birthday activities combined, which it exceeded by a lot, said event producer Carolyn Federman, who didn’t specify exactly how much the private dinners, restaurant parties, and other activities raised.
The money will go to support the recently launched Edible Schoolyard Project (ESYP) website, which has an estimated annual operating cost of about $1.5 million, according to Federman. This new, national nonprofit, building on the work of the Edible Schoolyard locally, intends to serve as a “best practices” resource for kitchen and garden classes in schools across the country looking for ideas, tools, resources, curriculum and community to support their work. Interviews for candidates for the ESYP director position are currently under way. … Continue reading »
CANFIT wants to improve the health of all America’s youth
Arnell Hinkle, the founding executive director of CANFIT (which stands for Communities, Adolescents, Nutrition, and Fitness) may be based in downtown Berkeley, but her work to improve the lives of low-income youth of color takes her across the country and around the globe.
She has been involved in development projects in India, Ecuador and Scotland, and spent last year on a Fullbright public policy fellowship in Wellington, New Zealand working with Maori and Pacific Island groups.
A kind of community food coach for young folk, the registered dietician who holds a masters in public health has worked as a restaurant chef, organic farmer, and as a project coordinator of the Hunger and Chronic Disease Prevention Program at the Contra Costa County Health Services Department. … Continue reading »
Homegrown truths: Sunny Side Café chef Aaron French
Aaron French, a self-described eco-chef, has headed up the kitchen at The Sunny Side Café on Solano Avenue in Albany since it opened in 2004.
For the past two years he’s served up breakfast standards (think pancakes and eggs) and simple lunch fare (burgers, sandwiches, salads) at a satellite café of the same name in Berkeley.
French bounces between the two popular spots several times a day and jokes that the breakfast-brunch shift is the Rodney Dangerfield of cooking (it don’t get no respect).
Still, he’s proudest of his low carbon emissions menu options and his weekend food specials, a short, seasonal list that emphasizes local farms and calculates food miles.
French isn’t your typical chef. Before he cooked for a living he worked as a scientist. His interest in ecology led him to spend two years living among pygmies in Cameroon, where he studied seed dispersal by monkeys and birds.
An avid nature photographer, he’s also written about the relationship between ecology and food for the Bay Area News Group, where he penned the EcoChef column, as well as for Civil Eats and Fungi Magazine. … Continue reading »
The Bread Project: Cooking up a future for people in need
Pat Van Valkenburgh is the kind of person that The Bread Project hopes to help. A stay-at-home mom who home-schooled her two children until they attended Berkeley High School, Van Valkenburgh desperately needed a job when her construction worker husband became unemployed. Since she enjoyed cooking, she thought the nonprofit’s nine-week café training program, which focuses on basic kitchen, food service, and barista skills, was a good fit and would help her find a job in the restaurant industry.
Van Valkenburgh didn’t have to look far for work: she was snapped up by the organization to manage the café it runs out of the Berkeley Adult School, where the program for low-income job seekers, started by Susan Phillips and Lucie Buchbinder in 2000, has been housed since 2003.
The part-time gig has made all the difference during tough economic times; Van Valkenburgh’s family has held on to their home and health insurance. (Both her kids, who attended the Academic Choice School at BHS, currently study at local community colleges and intend to transfer to UC.) … Continue reading »
Farm-to-fork tours spotlight local green businesses
Three years ago, Marissa LaMagna started Bay Area Green Tours, a nonprofit, shoestring operation now headquartered in the David Brower Center (and largely staffed by eager, eco-conscious, unpaid interns) because she wanted to showcase the best sustainable farms and food, buildings and businesses, energy practices and employment opportunities in Berkeley and beyond.
The green tour business with a biodiesel bus takes people from near and far to see for themselves and hear the stories behind successful sustainable enterprises … Continue reading »
The humble grilled cheese sandwich takes center stage
Michael Davidson, 29, is a man with many skills: a scientist by day, he’s the guru of the grilled cheese sandwich by night — and on weekends too.
Davidson works in medical diagnostic development, he’s currently gathering data on women’s health for research studies for his employer, the pharmaceutical giant Roche. Away from his 9 to 5 job he morphs into the GrilledCheezGuy, cooking up his version of that classic American comfort food from a mobile cart, for which he’s … Continue reading »
Communal dinner club Frugal Foodies seeks new home
For five nights this fall Frugal Foodies is back by popular demand — with the hope that reviving the home-cooked dining experience might spark a new host to step up and take over the evenings.
Berkeleyside readers may recall that back in December, J Moses Ceaser, who had hosted Frugal Foodies in his west Berkeley home for five and a half years, decided to call it a night.
Ceaser had opened his home every Tuesday to old friends and … Continue reading »
Hungry for better food at Berkeley’s Echo Lake Camp
As we head into the final long weekend of the season, the proverbial last hurrah of summer, it’s time for reflection on summer vacation (mis)adventures before fall sets in and school gets going in earnest.
Which brings to mind bad camp food. Specifically, the truly awful eats served at the Berkeley-run Echo Lake Camp. It’s shocking, really, that a city known for fine food and charming cheap chow can’t seem to dish up anything vaguely edible not-so-far from home.
