On Food and Eating

For many people, the 1990’s in California were an extravaganza of good food and a growing understanding of how to eat well. They certainly were for me. I had just moved back to San Francisco after a decade in the East Bay and it turned out that many of my friends were food connoisseurs. It wasn’t that we had a lot of money, but that we knew how to spend it!

Sean Thackrey, courtesy of DineGirl

Dinners turned into a discussion of each item in front of us, including its provenance, how it was being cooked and why. The food was often simple, in the Italian manner, relying on produce and meats from the organic farms which had grown up in response to the needs of Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and other restaurateurs. We drank the Orion and Pleiades blends of the great Sean Thackrey, still one of the best winemakers in our area, as Michael and Chris told us everything they knew about them. Chris worked as the sous chef for Robert Reynolds’ Le Trou and I shared several wonderful meals there. Reynolds was a born teacher who wanted people to “cook, taste and think for themselves.” He served Edward Espe Brown the radishes featured in Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings.

Many delightful restaurants surrounded us. In my journals, I find this about an evening at Café Jacqueline, a tiny place on Grant Avenue where Jacqueline Margulis herself still finishes every soufflé served: “Sharon chooses a glass of cote du Rhone that isn’t on the menu. The soup is spinach with a thick ladle of cream on top. Both Sharon and I know that the cream is what makes the soup. When the soufflé comes, the waiter carefully loosens it around the edge. It is Gruyere made with leeks, like ambrosia to me. We eat every bit of the soufflé, scraping the brown edges from the bowl.”

Another group of friends introduced me to Zuni, the quintessentially San Franciscan restaurant from whose wood-fired brick oven come perfect roasted chickens, gratins and savory tarts. I loved the feeling of the odd triangle-shaped building with the beautiful windows and its many levels and locations providing a perfect atmosphere for talk. These friends also hosted many Chinese meals for the shifting group of tai chi scholar warriors, teaching us to love the light Shanghai food of the best Chinese chefs in the city.

In the second half of the decade I lived on Russian Hill, a neighborhood full of tempting, intimate restaurants, such as Zarzuela, Frascati and the very Italian Amarena where we ate luscious pasta dishes such as homemade ravioli stuffed with butternut squash, sage and ricotta. We often went to I Fratelli, “so homelike with its blue checked woven tablecloths, strings of lights in the trees, delicious, unpretentious food.”

Cafe Jacqueline, by John Storey

But Hyde Street was also a good place to cook. Farmers’ markets were thriving and I tried to go whenever I could, buying organic produce for the sake of health and taste. I also loved the Real Food Company, a couple of blocks down the hill. I learned to bring my own cloth bags to the store and bought my first All-clad pan. In my notebook, I write that I served “fish steaks with baked celery root in olive oil with lots of herbs. Also winter salad with asiago cheese, toasted walnuts, sliced pear and fennel.” In the spring I served “penne primavera (asparagus, baby carrots sautéed in olive oil with garlic, fresh thyme and oregano) with Pugliese bread, Sauvignon Blanc from Sonoma County and a favorite salad of butter lettuce with fresh mushrooms, avocado and pistachios.” It was all new and exciting.

As my understanding progressed, I also tried to buy local things, preferably from within 100 miles of where I lived to save the environmental cost of shipping. This was easy to do in the Bay Area, though I still hold out for a few things, Italian pasta, certain cheeses that are made better in Europe. But there is no need to buy wine from Europe, New Zealand or Chile when you live in California!

Real, organic produce. Grains and legumes sold in bulk. Artisan breads. Local wines. Tea from leaves bought in Chinatown. It became a healthy platform upon which to build when I married Don Starnes (who cares even more about food than I!) at the end of the decade.