Just around the corner and down the street from where I live on a stretch of Sacramento Street that includes liquor stores and the dodgy characters who frequent such places, you’ll find Spiral Gardens, a slightly disheveled verdant oasis on a fenced in corner of a formerly empty city lot.

It’s a welcome addition to the neighborhood. For the past six years in this location, the community food security project has developed a four-pronged approach to reaching low-income residents, particularly people of color, on the southwest side of town. The nonprofit is home to a nursery chock full of edible starts and trees, culinary and medicinal herbs, and California native plants for folks who want to grow their own food. Nursery sales help fund other programs the group offers.

Across the street the urban garden center’s community farm is full of summer bounty, such as tomatoes, greens, and amaranth, in one large collective plot that everyone works on together. Around half the harvest is given free to people in need, such as the homeless and elderly, the remainder is distributed among the volunteers who help the garden grow. There’s a pen with chickens and ducks too.

The organization runs the cheapest produce stand in town; every Tuesday afternoon it offers organic greens, fruit, eggs (supplied by a local jewelry store owner who raises hens), and such from the usual farmers’ market suspects at cost. Note to readers: The stand serves all comers and appreciates those of means rounding up or kicking in a little extra to support the program.

And on Sundays the nursery-garden provides ongoing free farm classes, such as how to grow food in an urban setting, cooking produce from the garden, and beekeeping for beginners.

Daniel Miller has served as the executive director of this worthy edible experiment for 16 years. It is largely a labor of love. Miller is only paid a few months of the year, he supplements long days at Spiral Gardens with edible landscaping jobs and says he foregoes many standard accoutrements of modern life such as a home he can call his own, a car, and new clothes.

The 42-year-old father, whose Twitter handle describes him as “a gritty optimist dedicated to the compassionate reimagination of how we live,” resides in Oakland. We chatted at the nursery while Miller repotted plum trees.

1. Who are you trying to reach with this project?

We believe everyone has a right to fresh food that’s good for you. Studies show that in areas where people lack access to fresh produce, sometimes called food deserts, there’s a higher rate of negative health outcomes such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. On average, poor people of color live 10 years less than those who have access to such food. Our target audience is the poor and hungry.

2. What are some of the obstacles you run into trying to reach your target community?

There are many. We have to first let people in the community know we’re here. We find doing door knocks and leaving fliers an effective way to get the word out. We also educate people about why it’s important to eat farm fresh food. Some people automatically think that organic food is too white, chi-chi, and expensive.

3. Do you feel like you’re making a difference in the neighborhood?

I do.  The farm stand is a positive, wholesome  presence that attracts people. I’m convinced we’ve lengthened some people’s lives. I know we’ve put a lot of plants out there in this community that will provide food for years to come. And we fill a safe, social aspect in the area, we give people something positive to do. I’ve seen people who are homeless, drug abusers, mentally ill, or with other severe obstacles to overcome benefit from our produce and programs–even start growing their own food. That’s really rewarding.

Even in seemingly small ways we have an impact: Our heirloom tomato starts have become the impulse buy down the street at Biofuel Oasis.

With the downturn in the economy all kinds of people are showing up at Spiral Gardens. People are really struggling and there’s an increased interest in growing and making your own food.

4. What are the rewards of this kind of work?

I’m proud that we exist. And that every day we’re doing something to help people eat well and grow food that has a positive impact on their health and environment. I think any time you can get people to interface with soil, which we all need for our survival, that’s a good thing. We have a dozen or so hardcore volunteers who water the plants, weed the farm, feed the animals, and generally keep everything going, though on a farm project day 50-100 people may show up to help. We’ve cultivated a great sense of community.

5. Are there any local food activists you admire?

The people who live at Fort Awesome, which is located not far from here on King Street. It’s a collective house with solar panels, graywater recycling, an urban farm with fruit trees and chickens. It’s across the street from my son’s school (Malcolm X), sometimes when I drop him off I’ll see a wayward chicken crossing the street.

6.  What’s next for Spiral Gardens?

I’d like to see the nursery expand — it would be great if we could be a full-service, one-stop nursery, selling people their soil when they pick up their plants. I’d also like us to become completely self-sustaining. And it would be great to get paid for what we do. I want to offer more classes and serve more people in need. There’s always more we could do, it just takes resources.

Spiral Gardens, located at 2850 Sacramento St. is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday from 10 am until 5 pm. The Produce Stand is open Tues. from 3 pm until 7 pm. The farm (around the corner on Oregon St.) is open summer Sundays from 11 am until 5 pm. Volunteers welcome to drop in during opening hours.

Each Friday in this space food writer Sarah Henry asks a well-known, up-and-coming, or under-the-radar food aficionado about their favorite tastes in town, preferred food purveyors and other local culinary gems worth sharing.

Henry muses about food matters on her blog Lettuce Eat Kale. Follow her on Twitter and become a fan of Lettuce Eat Kale on Facebook.

If you have an idea for a Berkeley Bites interview, send your suggestion to sarahhenry0509@gmail.com or leave a comment here. To read previous Berkeley Bites profiles click here.

Safeway as seen from Shattuck

Safeway’s new designs for a remodeled store on Shattuck Avenue will make the grocery store an integral part of the lively Gourmet Ghetto.

The new plans, which were unveiled July 26, call for outdoor benches and café seating along Shattuck Avenue, as well as the installation of large windows that will allow pedestrians to see inside the store.

“Today’s design is a vast improvement over the current store — both inside and out,” Elisabeth Jewell, Safeway’s community and government affairs consultant wrote in a letter to neighbors. “Great care was taken to bring the store out to Shattuck, enliven the corner with chairs and tables and attractive benches, provide vistas into the store by adding lots of glass, and modernize the exterior using concrete, composite wood, quartzite tile and glazed aluminum.  We responded to many concerns brought to us by neighbors including retaining more trees, increasing bicycle and pedestrian safety, enclosing the loading dock, relocating mechanical equipment, and eliminating outside dumpsters and recycling.

The new design features a revamped parking lot with designated pedestrian paths shaded by a new canopy of trees.  A ramp from the surface lot leads to underground parking which will be light and bright and have easy access to the store.   The landscaping plan calls for saving most of the healthy mature trees, while adding thirty new trees, along with drought tolerant shrubs, bay friendly groundcovers, and climbing vines that cover walls facing Henry Street and deter graffiti.  Native grasses and plants on the Henry Street side serve as a bioswale, filtering groundwater run-off before it empties into stormwater drains.  The remodeled building will be far more energy efficient and is expected to be LEED compliant.”

Cafe seating along Shattuck Avenue

The changes came after Safeway showed its plans at a community meeting in December at the Jewish Community Center. Participants at that meeting, including Councilman Laurie Capitelli and members of the North Shattuck Merchants’ Association, advocated for a more urban, pedestrian-oriented plan. They were concerned that the store would present a blank wall on Shattuck, which would cut off the community.

Since then, Safeway has held four meetings with Berkeley’s Design Review Commission, and has incorporated their suggestions.

The Zoning Adjustment Board will hold a hearing on the revamped plan on Aug. 12.

aerial view of Safeway

Harpsichord maker John Phillips in his West Berkeley workshop. Photo: Janet Delaney.

The front room of John Phillips’ West Berkeley workshop on Grayson Street is crowded with an Italian-style harpsichord in for repairs from Virginia and a French-style instrument, waiting to be delivered to its new owner in El Cerrito. In the next room, his assistant, Janine Johnson, is working on another French harpsichord which was commissioned by a client in Rome.

Phillips has built an international reputation as a harpsichord maker and restorer, but he stumbled into what became his lifelong pursuit. One class away from his degree in German at UC Santa Cruz, John Phillips was drafted into the army. During his six months of service, he came to a conclusion: what he really wanted to do was study music. A music lover all his life, Phillips had taken a class which deepened his understanding of Bach and sparked an interest in the harpsichord.

“Where else would a cop,coming to the door to ask about a stolen car, look at a harpsichord and actually know a brand?”

He built his first harpsichord from a kit. But it wasn’t enough for him. “In a kit you’re handed a box of parts and a drawing and it’s a little bit like a model airplane, that you put together. You don’t really need to understand why you put it together.” With a Masters degree in musicology and his first order in hand, he moved to Berkeley in 1973 and began building harpsichords from scratch.

“I had been living in the Santa Cruz Mountains and never lived in a big city before, so this was a wide eyed culture shock,” recalls Phillips. “I found a room in a house on La Loma, just above campus. And I answered the door one night and found myself looking at the belt buckle of a Berkeley cop. He asked about a car that was parked across the street that had been stolen and did I know anything about it. I didn’t. He asked to come in, of course. And then he saw the harpsichord. And he goes, ‘Oh, is that a Neupert?’ So where else would a cop, coming to the door to ask about a stolen car, look at a harpsichord and actually know a brand?”

Phillips’ craft requires a wide range of skills, but as he explains it, the work always starts with the wood.

Phillips restores as well as makes harpsichords. Photo: Janet Delaney.

“From lumber yard to music room is the path,” he says, explaining the need to use aged wood, so that it has time to expand and shrink before becoming an instrument. “This French instrument is made entirely out of basswood, with some oak and some spruce in it. This Italian instrument right here is made out of spruce, cottonwood, basswood, there’s some cedar in it and Italian Cyprus.”

Even using carefully chosen, aged wood, Phillips says that instruments take time to mature. “A new instrument — as we say, ‘fresh out of the box’ — is… terrible is the wrong word but maybe not completely. They sound very, very new and undeveloped. The wood still thinks it’s just a piece of wood and the wire that you put on it has just been pulled up to tension. None of it has gone through the changes that it will when it’s fully activated. So basically, you’re going to shake it. Just play it and play it and play it. I like to keep new instruments for a minimum of a month after I’m happy with their basic setup.” Phillips regularly invites local harpsichordists to his shop to help play in his instruments.

In addition to his new instruments, Phillips restores old harpsichords. “The process is different in that if I make a mistake in a new instrument, I throw the piece away.  If I make a mistake on an antique I… well, I can’t make a mistake.  You’re working as a conservationist. The object is to preserve the artifact. You have to document everything you do. All these things are critical because the responsibility you have towards the cultural legacy that that represents is huge.”

The responsibility he feels results in a deep concern about authenticity. “The act of authenticity is in doing something. So when you encounter an old instrument, you’re performing tasks on it that aren’t the same as analogous tasks on a new instrument, but you’re fixing things. You’re fixing mistakes, you’re fixing accidents, stupid things that other people have done… we spend a lot of time fixing stupid things other people have done. And I’m sure that the next person will wonder about what stupid things I’ve done,” he laughs.

When I ask Phillips whether he plays, the college student who fell in love with harpsichords emerges. “Yes, I do play.  Can someone make one without knowing how to play? There are people who do. It’s the hardest way, because you have to have some idea of what’s going on. And besides, they’re missing out on the fun.”

Emily Gordis is an intern on Berkeleyside. A 13-year old Berkeley resident, she blogs about baseball and has her own online magazine, Joy Today. John Phillips Harpsichords is at 933 Grayson Street.

Freight & Salvage was voted number one in two Best of the Bay categories. Photo: F&S.

Several Berkeley businesses won top honors in SFGate’s Best of the Bay Awards, which this year attracted more than 71,000 votes from readers.

The Awards are divided into 29 categories, each of which has many sub-categories, so apologies in advance if we missed some Berkeley winners — we trust you’ll inform us of any omissions.

• Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse placed first in two categories: Performing Arts Center and Nightlife.
• Berkeley Farmers Market won Best Farmers Market.
• Holy Land placed top for Best Cheap Eats/Falafel.
• Stonemountain and Daughters placed first in the Decorating/Fabrics category.
• Yucca Fitness won best Personal Trainer in the Fitness category.
• Grove Street Kids won for best Children’s clothing.
• Ajanta restaraunt placed first for Best Indian food in the Great Meals category.
• Sacred Rose Tattoo won Best Tattoo and Piercing spot.
• The Framer’s Workshop won in the Home Goods category for Best Custom Framing.
• Import Tile Company won in the Kitchen and Bath category for Best Tile Showroom.
• The Professional Tree Care Company placed first for tree services in the Lawn and Garden category.
• Beckett’s Irish Pub won Best Irish Pub in the Nightlife category.
• Tokyo Fish Market won in the Specialty Food and Drink for Best Fish Market, and
• Marmot Mountain Works placed first for Best Ski and Snowboard shop in the Sports supplies category.

Lisa Rogovin. Photo: Robert Durell.

A former ad sales rep for Gourmet magazine (R.I.P.), Lisa Rogovin had what she calls her Eat, Pray, Love moment in 2005, meaning she left an unhappy marriage, sold the house, and embarked on a food-fueled journey around the world, visiting 14 countries (yes, India was in the mix) in seven months.

Before she left on her edible adventure, though, the food enthusiast sowed the seeds for her future happiness, both personally and professionally. She met the man who would become her second husband and she led a group of hotel guests on a culinary expedition of San Francisco’s Ferry Building fine-food emporium.

Buoyed from her travels, she took up where she left off when she returned. The Venezuelan golf pro became her hubbie, and she launched her own business, In the Kitchen with Lisa, leading intimate food forays around the Bay Area’s culinary epicenters. Her field trips include the Ferry Building’s Marketplace and Farmers’ Market, West Marin food and wine top spots, and, more recently, a tour of the city’s Mission District eclectic eats.

And for the past two years, every Thursday between 11 am and 2 pm, Lisa or one of her team of seven tour guides (they call themselves epicurean concierges) walks a group who pay $75 a pop for the privilege around the Gourmet Ghetto in North Berkeley — a spot many consider to be the birthplace of California cuisine and the growing food movement.  All while noshing on samples at eight different eateries and getting an insider’s perspective from the area’s food purveyors, restaurant owners, and chefs.

Last Thursday her tour began at Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen where, over local pastrami on Acme rye with house-made celery seed soda, co-owner Peter Levitt gave an impassioned overview of the demise of the Jewish deli and Saul’s controversial efforts to provide sustainable, yet authentic, Jewish foods.

One of Rogovin's culinary tours.

Next stop, around the corner to Walnut Square for a quick primer on the evolution of Peet’s Coffee + Tea (it took an immigrant from the Netherlands to bring decent coffee to the States way back in the 1960s, though Alfred Peet would likely turn in his grave at all the frou-frou coffee drinks his brewing revolution spawned). Something savory? Check. Something bitter? Check.

It’s time for something sweet, so we head upstairs for mini cupcakes at Love at First Bite (what’s not to like?), a quick nod to The Juice Bar Collective (this being Berkeley, food politics are never far away) and then it’s time to don our bon vivant hats as we head into Vintage Berkeley wine shop for a tasting of good drops that cost less than 25 bucks.

Turns out, we’re just getting started.

We take a spin through the Epicurious Garden, Berkeley’s genteel version of a food court, for samples of artisanal offerings from neighborhood newbie Lush Gelato and Alegio Chocolate. And there’s a celebrity sighting to boot: author Michael Lewis, disguised as a dad, buying pie with one of his kids.

I’m entering food coma territory at this stage, and I suspect the group of mostly out-of-towners appreciate the short walk past Cesar, and Chez Panisse (photo op!), and other restaurants before experiencing something completely different, culinarily speaking, at the raw food temple Cafe Gratitude.

After sampling I Am Insightful (chard wrapped spring rolls) and I Am Thankful (coconut curry soup)  — one local wag once wrote of the labor intensive eats here “I am hungry and impatient” — we made our way to the grand finale, a swing through the kitchen of The Cheeseboard Collective, where cheese, sourdough bread, pizza, and huge chocolate chip cookies are eagerly devoured.

Photo op on Berkeley tour.

As a local, it’s easy to take for granted all the gourmet goodies we have in easy reach. But seen through the eyes of this group of 16 or so food fans, who hailed from Canada, Utah, Arizona, coastal California, and the Eastern States, I’m reminded, yet again, of the abundance of delicious fare in town.

Well fed, I sat down post tour to talk food with Rogovin, 40, who lives in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood with her husband and young son.

What do you enjoy about your job?

I love to give people, whether they’re from the Bay Area or somewhere else, an opportunity to experience great, authentic, local food. And I like to demystify the experience. I want visitors to see the food world through the eyes of the people who run these businesses. It gives people an intimate and informative view of the food scene and access they couldn’t get on their own. People who are interested in food want to know the background and the stories behind the food businesses they visit.  And, of course, they want to taste what these purveyors have to offer. It’s like showing people an artichoke, you want to peel back the layers to get to the heart of the matter.

What kind of skills do you need for this line of work?

You have to do a lot of leg work in advance, both in terms of research and coordinating the logistics on the day. During the tour you have put out a lot of energy and have good time management skills. You have to give people firm directions and tell them what to do and where to go.

The Cheeseboard: a Berkeley tour stop.

You also need to be adaptable, depending on everything from the weather to the composition of the group, to what’s going on with the businesses you visit. You need to assess pretty quickly who your audience is and cater to it accordingly.

And you need to make people comfortable and feel welcome, by interacting with them around interests, such as food and travel. Being an epicurean concierge definitely has a performance aspect to it. You need to be on for the entire three hours, even though most peoples attention span starts to wan around the 30 minute mark. That’s why we keep things moving.

Describe the typical demographics of someone on your tour?

Our tours draw 60-70% Bay Area people, mostly women, ranging in age from 30s-70s. But today, as you saw, we had lots of out-of-towners, a mix of men and women, as well as some moms with daughters, and a couple of family groups with teenagers who are interested in cooking.

What do you bring home to eat after a tour?

I always pick up a Cheeseboard pizza. My husband is a big fan, so Thursday is pizza night in our house. I also really like the soups at SOOP, they’re wholesome and satisfying. If I’m feeling a bit under the weather I’ll get matzo ball soup from Saul’s.

How would you describe the difference between the food scene in Berkeley versus San Francisco?

It’s a little slower paced here, there’s a little more rustic natural elegance. The city is a bit slicker in comparison.

Readers: Where would you want to eat on a Berkeley food tour. Where do you take visitors to eat here?

Each Friday in this space food writer Sarah Henry asks a well-known, up-and-coming, or under-the-radar food aficionado about their favorite tastes in town, preferred food purveyors and other local culinary gems worth sharing.

Henry muses about food matters on her blog Lettuce Eat Kale. Follow her on Twitter and become a fan of Lettuce Eat Kale on Facebook.

If you have an idea for a Berkeley Bites interview, send your suggestion to sarahhenry0509@gmail.com or leave a comment here. To read previous Berkeley Bites profiles click here.

Among the dozen items on tonight’s Zoning Adjustment Board meeting agenda is the seemingly uncontentious proposal to establish a new ice cream parlor on Solano Avenue. Robin Dalrymple, who has lived in Berkeley since working in a downtown restaurant in the early ’70s, wants to open iScream at 1819 Solano, next door to Mechanics Bank and just down from Peet’s and Nature’s Express.  Everyone likes ice cream, don’t they?

For the most part, the answer is yes. But the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association is seeking modified approval for the store. The problem, explains TONA vice-president (and Berkeleyside contributor) Jane Tierney, is not the proposed ice cream parlor. It’s that the local quota for “food service establishments” in the neighborhood is 12, but there are already 28 operating.

“Everyone wants the ice cream place,” Tierney says. “But the issue for us is why do we have quotas if they’re not going to enforce them?” Tierney believes that neighborhood associations are put in the invidious position of being obstructive because the council doesn’t want the “open debate” that examining the quota system would entail. “It’s a political sleight of hand,” she says. In the case of iScream, TONA is concerned that a different kind of restaurant could be grandfathered in on the site if the permit is granted without restrictions.

A local listserv is circulating a message (subject line: “ice cream is nice!”) encouraging residents to go to tonight’s meeting in support of iScream. Their pitch: “Believe it or not, there are people opposed to the idea of an ice cream store two doors down from Peet’s. I don’t think any of them are students at Thousand Oaks or King Middle School. This is the tastiest civics lesson I’ve seen in a long time!  Anyway, maybe we’ll go to the public hearing, maybe we’ll make compelling posters and email jpegs of them to the planning department?”

The planning department has recommended approval of the project, since iScream will fill a segment of the market that is not served by any of the other 28 food businesses in the neighborhood. Solano currently has a large number of vacant commercial properties. Dalrymple’s own statement to the planning department emphasizes the loss of family-oriented local places: “I remember picking my kids up from school and going to Ortman’s (now Starbucks) for a milkshake to celebrate good report cards. Coffee houses, for the most part, have replaced those places.” Dalrymple’s oldest daughter will be the ice cream maker and her younger daughters, students at Berkeley High, will be dipping and serving.

If iScream’s plan is approved, it will be the only ice cream parlor in the Berkeley part of Solano. Given the popularity of Ici on College Avenue in the Elmwood, and the crowded competition for ice cream and froyo downtown and in the Gourmet Ghetto, iScream may well have found a good market niche.

This culinary couple met cute at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, no less. He followed up his gastronomical studies with a stage at the prestigious Georges Blanc (three star Michelin) outside of Lyon, then the two headed to Miami, got married, and went to work at posh nosh spots in South Beach; Blue Door for him and Wish Restaurant for her.

They ditched the hurricanes and humidity of Florida for the cold, wet winters of Chicago. She landed a great gig doing pastry at Charlie Trotter’s, he held a top spot at Everest. But the Windy City’s weather exacerbated Veronica’s asthma and allergies. She was miserable. So they decided to go cook in Chris Laramie’s homestate of Colorado in the more health-friendly dry air.

In retrospect, Colorado was perhaps not the best fit for a pair with a passion for small plates expertly executed in a state that revered big steaks slapped on a platter. They dreamed of opening a restaurant featuring a tasting menu, just the two of them, he’d handle savory courses she’d dish up desserts, in a place they could call their own.

So when a restaurant buddy who’d relocated to Berkeley told the couple about a little gem of a space right next to his own gourmet store, the Laramies knew they needed to check it out on a visit to the Bay Area in March last year.

Welcome to the microhood. This single block, on a still somewhat sketchy stretch of University between Bonita and Milvia Streets, boasts quality eats, including exquisite confections at Chocolatier Blue (owned by the Laramies’ friend Christopher Blue, formerly of Charlie Trotter’s).  And, soon to come, a lunch counter called Slow, run by Kyle Anderson (ex-Charlie T’s too.)

The couple moved out here a few months later. On a modest budget, they did much of the work themselves to design their first joint venture. He dug out the dirt for the grease trap, she sourced the Chulucanas pottery from her native Peru. They didn’t pay full price for any of the fixtures and transformed the vacant space into a striking black-white-and-lime eatery.

Last December, the 28-seat eVe, an intimate restaurant featuring a fixed-price dinner menu, opened. A favorable review in the East Bay Express a few weeks later put the place on the gastronomical map.

Christopher at work.

This is not your typical Berkeley chowhouse. The night starts with an amuse-bouche (palate tickler), then you pick from three choices of appetizers, entrees, and desserts, all featuring pristine ingredients, exquisite plating, and enough elements to make a waiter work hard to remember everything that’s going on.

Two plump scallops sit atop an edamame puree with a sea urchin sauce. Or a mushroom risotto with huitlacoche (a fungus that grows on corn, considered a culinary delicacy in Mexican cuisine) and a blueberry leather. There’s some molecular gastronomy going on too (think foams, purees, and jellies).

The recent transplants — he’s 31, she’s 30 — call an apartment at 8th and Gilman home. We spoke this week at the restaurant, where the couple were taking care of business on their day off.

Is there anything significant about the name of your restaurant?

Chris: eVe is the start of something new, like New Year’s Eve is the start of a new year. This restaurant represents a beginning for us. We also like the Adam and Eve connotation especially because food was the original temptation.  And being the geek that I am, I like anagrams.

What do you enjoy about running your own restaurant in Berkeley?

Chris: The access to all kinds of produce is first class. The first time I saw 20 different kinds of citrus at the market I was just blown away.

Veronica: The community here is willing to try new things. People are adventurous, open-minded, and have a lot of fun with food.

How would you describe your cooking?

Chris: I think of it as neo-artisanal. It’s back-to-basics but reinvented. We’re basically a mom-and-pop shop, a couple running a little restaurant in the European tradition.

Veronica: We make everything from scratch, in small batches, and we take classic flavor combinations and turn them on their head.

Chris: Our cantaloupe gazpacho is really a new rendition of that old-time favorite melon and prosciutto. Our cooking is slightly deconstructed and we do have some molecular gastronomy going on but it’s not Frankenstein food, we do every thing we do for taste, not just for show.

What’s challenging about owning your own place?

Chris: We have to handle all the details — there’s always something to take care of, some fire that needs to be put out, when you’re a restaurant owner.

And I’ve never had to deal with the public before. But in our space, we’re right there, the kitchen is open, everyone can see us working, and our customers want to engage with us.

Veronica: Like Chris said, we do it all — we’re the chefs, managers, sommeliers, and front-of-house staff all in one.

Veronica at work.

Veronica: We’re a great team. I dream in savory now too but that’s Chris’s domain. I do desserts and the prep. During service, I run the show and he does most of the cooking. I can be bossy but it works. I prioritize and he executes.

Is it ever tough working with your spouse?

Veronica: In a typical kitchen there’s a lot of cursing and insults. There’s a lot of pressure and no time for saying things with flowers — people speak bluntly to each other if something isn’t right.  It’s hard not to take that personally.  We’ve had to learn how to express what we need to say and not be mean to each other. It’s taken some time to figure that out.

Chris: Veronica has strong opinions and is strong willed for sure. But at the end of the day we both have very high standards and the same goals and we’re building something of quality together.

Do you cook at home?

Veronica: Almost never now. I don’t think I’ve made anything more than scrambled eggs at home since we opened.

So where do you like to eat on your days off?

Veronica: We go to Meal Ticket for corned beef and hash. And Zaki Kabob House for roasted spicy chicken, lamb hummus, and mint lemonade. And I get my Peruvian food fix by going to the city for ceviche and pisco sours at La Mar.

What’s next?

Chris: Family-style Sunday dinners on the back patio about once a month. We have this nice outdoor space that’s just been finished and we’ve noticed all these community gardens in the area. So we thought it would be great to have “dirt dinners” where we serve simple food — nothing like what we normally cook — in a casual setting at the weekend.

[Photos: Nick Vasilopoulos]

Each Friday in this space food writer Sarah Henry asks a well-known, up-and-coming, or under-the-radar food aficionado about their favorite tastes in town, preferred food purveyors and other local culinary gems worth sharing.

Henry muses about food matters on her blog Lettuce Eat Kale. Follow her on Twitter and become a fan of Lettuce Eat Kale on Facebook.

If you have an idea for a Berkeley Bites interview, send your suggestion to sarahhenry0509@gmail.com or leave a comment here. To read previous Berkeley Bites profiles click here.

Opened a year ago on San Pablo Avenue, Local 123 has met a need. Photo: Janet Delaney.

Photographer Janet Delaney has lived in West Berkeley for 22 years and she has watched the complexion* character of the neighborhood change, mostly for the better. Recently, she says, it took a great leap forward when Cafe Local 123 opened its doors at 2049 San Pablo Avenue and created community where before there had been little more than passing acquaintances.

“It’s transformed the area,” says Delaney of the cafe. “Every neighborhood needs somewhere public like this where people can run into each other. Artists, teachers, independent workers come here to work or just to say hi.” Delaney herself spends a lot of time at the cafe which was opened a year ago by Katy Wafle and Frieda Hoffman.

Wafle says they researched the area thoroughly before choosing the location — Hoffman would stand at various points on San Pablo with a clicker measuring foot traffic — and they quizzed local residents. “We found that people were hungry for community,” Wafle says.

Alder Thicket, Jewel Lake, Tilden Park, Berkeley, 2004, by Janet Delaney.

Local 123 has drawn customers in by offering more than a good cappuccino. Wafle and Hoffman organize events — such as a grow-your-own edibles workshop held on its back patio last month — and art shows, and serve weekend brunch as well as a tapas menu in the evenings. The cafe recently extended its hours so that it is open until 10.30pm most days.

Wafle says there’s a rotating clientele of regulars: employees from nearby Clif Bar tend to come in on Thursdays for reasons she can’t quite explain; others come for coffee and the newspapers; there’s the laptop contingent of course — although wi-fi is deliberately switched off at the weekends to encourage sociability; and one group of friends has set up a regular games of Mah-Jong there.

Local 123 owners Frieda Hoffman (left) and Katy Wafle. Photo: Janet Delaney.

San Pablo is not devoid of good cafes, of course. Caffe Trieste further up the street at number 2500 is part of a Bay Area institution and has been a go-to place for years, and there’s Cafe Leila at number 1724. Wafle says a new cafe is opening closer to them, nearer the University-San Pablo junction, perhaps spurred on by the success of Local.

An exhibition of Janet Delaney’s work — penetrating close-ups of trees and landscapes, taken on travels to Napa and Rhode Island, as well as nearer to home in Tilden Park — is currently hanging on the cafe’s expanse of white walls. Delaney, who is working on a book of photographs documenting San Francisco’s SoMa district, some of which have been bought by SFMOMA — is delighted her images are on view here. “I want to feel my work is close to home, seen by my neighbors.”

Manzanita Chaparral, Napa Valley 2007, by Janet Delaney.

Of her work, she says it always reflects her state of mind. An early series of photographs, Housebound, shows lovingly shot details taken when, as she put it, she was “trapped in domestic bliss” caring for a young daughter and a frail father.

Delaney now walks over to  Local 123 often — a home away from home. On a morning in early July she greets three separate friends who drop in — one has driven from another part of Berkeley to frequent the cafe because she likes it more than her local spot.

Janet Delaney's exhibition, "Between Chaos and Grace", runs to July 31. Photo: Janet Delaney.

But perhaps Jessen Kelly best expresses Local 123′s gravitational pull. Kelly, an art history graduate student at UC Berkeley, lives in Oakland but bikes to the cafe regularly — with her boyfriend Martijn Van Exel when he’s over from the Netherlands where he lives.

Recently the couple decided they loved the place so much they would hold their wedding there. “We spent so much time there drinking coffee and studying and we like the atmosphere,” says Kelly. “When we were looking for places, we were overwhelmed by the wedding industry. This is more personal and a local business — and is itself deeply supportive of local businesses.”

In October the couple, who have known each other two years, will be married in Tilden Park and then repair with friends and family to Local 123 for a party, which will include, Kelly hopes, a little dancing on the back patio.

*Editor’s note: We have replaced the word “complexion” with the word “character” because several Berkeleyside readers were concerned that the word “complexion” had a racial inference. We would like to state for record that the word “complexion” was employed to mean “appearance, character or aspect” as defined in the dictionary.

“People really wanted to stay in their beautiful Berkeley homes,” explains Janis Brewer, executive director of the non-profit, volunteer-led Ashby Village. According to Brewer, a small group of local residents came up with the idea for Ashby Village nearly three years ago. They modeled the project on the pioneer effort, Beacon Hill Village, which was founded in Boston in 2001.

Ashby Village is a membership organization, with fees currently ranging from $675 per year for individuals to $1,080 per year for households. Members have access to what Brewer calls “an army of volunteers” and a service provider network. Service providers have been recommended by members and Ashby Village has negotiated special rates with some of them. Volunteers “do anything that wouldn’t be done by our providers”, says Brewer. That could range from changing the battery in a smoke alarm for an 82-year old member to picking up a prescription.

In addition, the group does a lot of work to build connections between members: member-only events at least twice a month, lunch groups, movie clubs and speaker series are among the activities.

Brewer is currently the only paid staff member, working 20 hours a week. She said Ashby Village is engaged in a search for a full-time executive director.

Ashby Village launched with 85 members and a nascent volunteer network. Brewer says they hope to have the volunteer network largely complete by the end of the summer. Membership is open to anyone aged 55 or older living in Berkeley, Rockridge, Albany, Kensington, Emeryville or El Cerrito.

Photo of volunteers courtesy of Ashby Village

Berkeley Patients Group, the largest of Berkeley’s licensed medical marijuana dispensaries, is providing consulting services to the company that won licenses for half of the newly permitted dispensaries in Maine.

SF Weekly reported today that BPG had in fact invested “over $100,000″ in the Northeast Patients Group. According to Brad Senesac, director of communications for BPG, the relationship is purely an advisory one and no investment was made. Senesac said that Northeast Patients Group spent over $100,000 in setting up and submitting its applications in Maine, but BPG did not provide any funding.

A glimpse at the website of the Maine non-profit shows a strong visual similarity between the two organizations. Becky DeKeuster, CEO of Northeast Patients Group, is a former general manager of BPG who returned to her native Maine last year.  According to Senesac, the board of Northeast Patients Group will be comprised entirely of Maine residents and will have no connection to BPG. DeKeuster did not answer calls from Berkeleyside today.

However, the Northeast Patients Group will start paying BPG for consulting services within the next few weeks, according to Senesac. He and others at BPG will advise on where to locate the four new Maine dispensaries, how to handle media and outreach, and other matters. No contract has yet been drawn up, so Senesac could not put a dollar value on the relationship. Any profits made on the consulting services will return to BPG and help pay for operating expenses, he said.

BPG and Berkeley’s other dispensaries are under the spotlight as the City Council considers tomorrow placing two amendments to the current medical cannabis regime on the November ballot.