Apparently pre-heating the pan before applying flaxseed oil helps the seasoning adhere better. The low smoke-point of flaxseed concerns some, even though you'll cook with another oil, so repeat seasonings with sturdier oils might be a good idea.
Better regular care is advised for the klutz. For basics, here's America's Test Kitchen:
Disaster capitalism might not be all bad... or at least not as bad as Franco-Ameri-can spaghetti that came out of a can, a Day-Glo reddish-orange.
The Campbell Company of Canada is [...] taking bold steps to be a different kind of food company, from our organization-wide commitment to hunger relief to our focus on simple, healthy foods and meal preparation that are low in sodium with more vegetables and whole grains, and no artificial colours or flavours.
There's undoubtedly more behind the scenes, but here's a few appetizers for the Julia Child black & white segment on editing (with kitchen utensils) & Dan Ackroyd's SNL homage (or Daily Motion or bad Youtube) below:
@michaelpollan noted the release of Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Their walnut bread is delightful and available warm at 5pm five days a week (call to reserve it). Other favorites include the bread pudding and banana cream pie (lined with dark chocolate to protect the crust).
If you're visiting and can't find a seat at the busy Tartine (winners of James Beard awards), good coffee can be had within walking distance at Four Barrel, Ritual Coffee, and maybe Blue Bottle.
On Monday, Democracy Now hosted Michael Pollan on Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,
'the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, discusses the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the “nutritional-industrial complex,” the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating. “The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid,” says Michael Pollan. “So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket.” Today we air an excerpt of the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. and then spend the rest of the show with Michael Pollan.'
PopTech, reminiscent of TED, posted videos with presentations by Michael Pollan, Will Allen, and Marije Vogelzang on Edible Futures. Here's Michael Pollan:
"It was the cooking of food that allowed our bodies to absorb more nutrients and our brains to get big. It allowed culture to form and even social arrangements such as dinnertime where we all ate what one of us spent time cooking; it probably even resulted in marriage (a kind of primitive protection racket, in Wrangham’s words). We’re really the only animal that does it, that cooks. That alone says a lot."
You can read about chef Bayless' own experience of this dish and episode at his blog Root4Rick. Michael Chiarello's blog is not so active, but he's done well with the food:
Food, Inc. is a film that looks inside America's corporate controlled food industry. It opens this June and features Michael Pollan, who spoke with Bill Moyers on security & food matters a few months ago, and other experts. The PBS show Now featured the director of Food, Inc. last Friday. It could be long if you're in a hurry, so the preview of Food, Inc. is also a fine lead-in to the main item of this post. (Note: free markets are not subsidized)
The feature documentary The Future Of Food is on Hulu for now. It "offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind [genetically] engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade."
Author Sara Winge also posts an interview with Pollan At Web 2.0 Summit last month, and asks: "can tech innovators and entrepreneurs create technology to make the food system more transparent and carbon-neutral, and figure out how to make money creating solar food production systems?"
There's a high quality version of the video on YouTube, and another Pollan talk with Bill Moyers.
Spending time outside normal surroundings can be strange: I can imagine living by walnut bread from Tartine and artisanal coffee alone.
Coffee in San Francisco is great, and has been since before the guys who started Starbuck's worked at Peet's Coffee & Tea. Alfred Peet worked at the now-closed Freed, Teller, & Freed before he opened in Berkeley, and the coffee pioneer list goes on from Cafe Trieste and Beatniks to the foundation of Hills Bros. and Folgers Coffee. Except for Palo Alto and Los Gatos, coffee around Silicon Valley used to be sad; even in Cupertino decent coffee was a bit like junior college.
As specialty houses expanded and now serve cups of uncertain quality, artisanal coffee houses have popped up, forming a "3rd wave" (more on that from the Man Seeking Coffee blog). What's cool about these places is that the coffee is about the same price as Starbuck's, and is ultra fresh because recently roasted beans are ground and brewed per cup, usually dripped through a brown paper filter. Then you can hang around drinking strong yet not bitter coffee and say clever things to your single-serving friends (or Tyler Durden).
I haven't gotten around to visiting the most recent offshoots, and despite the ratings for espresso by the dedicated blog TheShot, for me the best cup of regular coffee in SF is Ritual Coffee Roasters in the Mission on Valencia near 21st [later, Four Barrel seems consistently better to this consumer and closer to transport hubs].
The Blue Bottle Coffee Company is also quite impressive, especially with the vacuum pot coffee show at the siphon bar downtown; even the New York Times was interested. Plus, Blue Bottle has carts at other locations like the Ferry Building Farmer's Market.
There's more "best" specialty coffeehouse listings from around the US at Food and Wine and links from major newspaper round-ups at TheShot. Obscure equipment, beans, and a virtual coffee university can be found at Sweet Maria's, and freshly-roasted beans at Counter Culture Coffee. It's a matter of taste though: some Cuban-style coffees like NaveriA can be good despite the low price if it doesn't sit around long.
Update: AE-oriented Twitter following led to 3 interesting articles from I Need Coffee and Coffee Geek (which has a podcast):
Bill Moyers spoke with Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilema and Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley) about food and food policy on his PBS show, which you can also watch on the web.
Among topics discussed by Moyers and Pollan were personal choices, the health of people in cities, the Farm Bill, hunger in the US, and eating locally (as with Alice Waters' The Edible Schoolyard or the "Victory Gardens of WWII, when Eleanor Roosevelt planted a garden to help the war effort. Twenty million Americans followed suit, and at their height, Victory Gardens supplied 40% of America's domestic food supply").
The New York Times Magazine recently featured Michael Pollan's open letter on the food issue to President-Elect, the "Farmer in Chief," and there's more Pollan video around the web including talks at TED and at Authors@Google.
As huge quantities of methane escape the unfrozen permafrost of Arctic landmasses in an ecological meltdown, the New York Times Magazine prints Michael Pollan's open letter on the food issue to President-Elect, the Farmer in Chief:
"...with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."
New York Times food writer Mark Bittman did a TED Talk "on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk." If you haven't heard Michael Pollan talk on similar matters, he also talked at TED.
