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Quick Lit: Oct. 6-Oct. 12

David Talbot
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Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Litquake 2010 goes out with a bang featuring novelists, scientists, poets, comedians, sexy storytellers, and more, culminating in this year’s not-to-be-missed Lit Crawl.


Wednesday, Oct. 6

“The Art of Narrative Nonfiction”
Much is said about how to write fiction, but what about non-fiction? This panel moderated by best-selling author David Ewing Duncan will discuss the techniques for turning a biography into a National Book Award Winner. Featuring Tamim Ansary, Frances Dinkelspiel, Richard Rhodes, and T.J. Stiles.
6 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.litquake.org

Bawdy Storytelling
Hear real people sharing their bona fide sexual exploits in ten minutes or less. Storytellers are an eclectic mix of authors, poets, comedians, actors, and regular people, including Tim Barsky, Stephen Elliot, Johnny Funcheap, Jow Klocek, Joe Kukura, and Morgan.
7 p.m., $10
Blue Macaw
2565 Mission, SF
www.litquake.org

“The Complex Societies of Ants and Honeybees”
Join Litquake and the California Academy of Sciences for a discussion led by two leading experts, Mark W. Moffett and Dr. Thomas D. Seeley, on our planet’s smallest and most complex social organizations. Co-sponsored by KQED, and moderated by KQED’s QUEST TV series producer Amy Miller.
7 p.m., $15
Morrison Planetarium
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse
Golden Gate Park, SF
www.litquake.org

“Dance, Intergenerational Trauma, and the Diaspora”
Learn about the Katherine Dunham Technique at this lecture featuring Eyla Moore, teacher at ODC, Dance Commons, Hip Line, and Dance Fitness Studio, and Aliyah Dunn Salahuddin, dancer and tutor in City College of San Francisco’s African American Scholastic Program.
3 p.m., free
City College of San Francisco
Ocean Campus
Rosenberg Library, Room 305
50 Phelan, SF
(415) 239-3854

Flight of Poets
Internationally renowned sommelier Christopher Sawyer pairs six talented local poets with six great wines carefully selected to illuminate their work. Featuring Camille T. Dungy, Robin Ekiss, Paul Hoover, Ada Limón, Zachary Mason, Christopher Sawyer, and Matthew Siegel.
7 p.m., $15 includes wine flight 
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter, SF
www.litquake.org

The Funny Side of Sex
Join Daily Show correspondent Kristen Schaal as she celebrates her first book, The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex, along with Scott Jacobson, co-author of the new book Sex: Our Bodies Our Junk, illustrator Michael Kupperman, and actor and writer Ted Travelstead. This evening of live and uncensored sex-humor unfolds at San Francisco’s legendary Cobb’s Comedy Club. Co-sponsored by Chronicle Books.
8 p.m., $15
Cobbs Comedy Club
915 Columbus, SF
www.litquake.org

Lit on the Lake
Celebrate East Bay writers at this litquake event featuring acclaimed novelists including Melanie Abrams, Elaine Beale Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Jacqueline Luckett, Lisa Braver Moss, and Kristin McCloy.
6 p.m., $5-$10 donation
Gondola Room
Lake Chalet
1520 Lakeside, Oakl.
www.litquake.org

100th Literary Death Match
Celebrate the kickoff of a worldwide Literary Death Match tour where judges, W. Kamau Bell, Mark Fiore, and Jane Smiley, will pass centurial judgment on a must-see lineup featuring readers Jason Bayani, David Corbett, Kari Kiernan, and Joel Selvin. Hosted by Todd Zuniga, Elissa Bassist, Alia Volz, and M.G. Martin.
7 p.m., $15
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
www.litquake.org

Radar Reading Series: Litquake Edition
This monthly literary series brings in first-time novelists, playwrights, shoplifting poets, and riot girl historians for readings, followed by a Q&A session hosted by Michelle Tea. Featuring Chinaka Hodge, Tao Lin, Sara Marcus, and Beth Pickens.
6 p.m., free
Latino Reading Room
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.litquake.org

Thursday, Oct. 7

Booksmith Bookswap
Bring a book you passionately love but can part with and learn about dozens of new, fantastic books. Ticket price includes two drinks, appetizers, and a 20% discount card to purchase books after the event.
6:30 p.m., $25
Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
www.litquake.org

Feminine Wiles
Hear witty women read from their most recent books, featuring Elif Batuman, Marisa Crawford, Katie Crouch, Thaisa Frank, Joyce Maynard, Kaya Oakes, and Shawna Yang Ryan.
7 p.m., free
Noe Valley Recreational Center
295 Day, SF
www.litquake.org

The International Homosexual Conspiracy
Author Larry-bob Roberts offers humorous insights into the absurdities of modern life and queer culture, from contemporary topics like mistaken first impressions, to sustainable yet unaffordable pants, and critiques of bourgeois mindsets.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

Litquake Bites
Local food and books, two of San Francisco’s favorite pastimes, converge at this delicious and informative lunchtime event featuring presentations and tastings by four innovative food purveyors and authors including Sarah Billingsley, Gordon Edgar, Steve Sando, and Amy Treadwell.
Noon, free
Book Passage
1 Ferry Building, SF
www.litquake.org

Stories on the Stage
Hear short fiction stories about love lost, love never found, and love perpetually out of touch with authors Daniel Handler, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li. Directed by Sean San José, co-founder of Campo Santo, the award-winning resident theater company of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts.
7:30 p.m., $25
Roda Theater
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
2025 Addison, Berk.
www.litquake.org

Friday, Oct. 8

All-Memoir Women’s Night
From finding love in foreign lands to struggling with poverty, from being in the sandwich generation to making the perfect brownie, women are fearless when it comes to exploring life and its myriad joys and challenges. Hear authors Zoe Fitzgerald Carter, Katherine Ellison, Laura Fraser, Frances Lefkowitz, Meredith Maran, Kate Moses, Janice Cooke Newman turn inward to provide us with stories that delight, dismay, and entertain. Emceed by Litquake co-director Jane Ganahl.
6:30 p.m., $5-$10 donation
Paris Ballroom
501 Geary, SF
www.litquake.org

“How to Write and Sell Erotica”
Join a panel of editors, anthologists, and published authors as they offer practical tips and personal insights about how to write and sell all forms of erotica. Find out what magazines, websites, anthologies, and book publishers you can sell your work to, as well as  tips on how to write more marketable erotica.
7:30 p.m., $5-$15 donation
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

“It’s All Over But the Crying”
Enjoy a night of author talks on the world of sports, from the infinite variations of major-league baseball to the international phenomenon of the World Cup, with Alan Black, Howard Bryant, Dan Epstein, Dan Fost, David Henry Sterry, Jason Turbow, and Michael Zagaris. Special multimedia presentation by Bay Area sports photographer Michael “Z Man” Zagaris. Emceed by Litquake co-director Jack Boulware.
7 p.m., $10
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
www.litquake.org

Jonathan Lethem
Novelist, essayist, and short story writer Jonathan Lethem will discuss his latest novel, Chronic City. Co-presented by Litquake and San Francisco’s Jewish Community Center.
11 a.m., $20
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California, SF
www.litquake.org

Litquake at the Bikestore
In the late 19th century, an accountant named Frank Lenz quit his job to cycle around the world. Two years later he mysteriously disappeared during the final leg of the journey. Hear author David V. Herlihy discuss this mystery and his new book The Lost Cyclist. In conjunction with Green Apple Books.
7 p.m., free
Public Bikes
123 South Park, SF
www.litquake.org

Saturday, Oct. 9

Lit Crawl
Get your fill of literary entertainment at galleries and bars across the Mission, where each phase offers crawlers a choice of attending readings happening simultaneously at over a dozen venues. With best-selling authors, poets, professors, bawdy story-tellers, amateurs, and professionals, it’ll be tough to choose three.
Phase I 6pm-7pm, Phase II 7:15pm-8:15pm, Phase III 8:30pm-9:30pm; free
Various venues along the Valencia Street Corridor
Mission District, SF
www.litquake.org

Sunday, Oct. 10

Social Justice with Claudette Colvin
Attend this social justice event featuring a conversation between Enid Lee and Civil Rights legend Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery bus in 1955 and was the star witness in the federal case Browder v. Gayle, which desegregated the Montgomery buses. Also featuring a performance piece by Awele Makeba and a performance by poet, activist, and spoken word artist Bryonn Bain.
1:30 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.litquake.org

Tuesday, Oct. 12

Bill Bryson
Hear the author of At Home in conversation with Roy Eisenhardt.
8 p.m., $20
Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness, SF
www.cityboxoffice.com

Left in the Dark
Authors R.A. McBride and Julie Lindow celebrate twentieth century movie theatres and movie going in this book titled, Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres, a collection of personal essays and fine art photographs that casts the theatres as characters within the city’s cultural landscape.
7 p.m., free
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus, SF
www.litquake.org

Joseph O’ Neill
The award-winning novelist of Netherland will be discussing his new family memoir, Blood-Dark Track.
7 p.m., $20
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California, SF
(415) 292-1200

Ducking a lull

David Talbot
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1
Ducking a lull

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS He wouldn’t be ready for “a good 30 minutes,” my brother said.

This left me with time to kill. To be precise, it left me with 30 minutes. And not just any minutes — good ones.

But how does one differentiate? How can you be sure that the minutes you are fixing to kill are good, quality, law-abiding minutes? And then, once convinced, how do you do the dirty deed cleanly? How do you kill those minutes? Not to mention: in Glen Park.

On a heat wavy day.

A Sunday. Everyone else is at the beach, or out of town, on one last camping trip. I could, I suppose, have walked for 14.5 minutes into Glen Park Canyon, stood behind a rock and yipped like a coyote, then turned around. I love Glen Park Canyon and have never spent nonquality time there; but my right knee was the size of a pomelo and the color of a Concord grape. It had been this way for a week, and honestly, I didn’t know why.

The day before I had attended me a wedding, one of the funnest ones ever, and since it was way too hot for tights, I found myself for the first and hopefully last time ever putting makeup on my legs.

It’s not that they are exactly grotesque, or even necessarily hideous. In fact, I might have the prettiest legs in the Bay Area, just for all the wrong reasons. Instead of sexy, they are breathtaking. Like the Painted Hills region of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument at sunset, I achieve colors nobody ever knew were possible.

But excepting my National Monumentous knee, all the other disfigurements of both of my legs can be named, catalogued by type, and attributed. The scabbed over scratches and little red dots are Stoplight’s. (Kittens climb you if you stop moving. Who knew?) That yellow-centered black-and-blue supernova on my right shin is from a pliers mishap, taking apart my old bed at my ex shack. All the other-colored bruises are soccer specific.

I’m not sure what I’m driving at. I just know that I’m driving, because for the moment my knee won’t let me walk or ride a bike. Problem: I don’t have a car. Well, I did, but it was on loan from my brother, and he was back from Ohio, and in half an hour I was going to see him, and then we would be together for a couple days, and then his van would be his again. But I couldn’t, in good conscience, kill that time by just driving around. Could I?

No, and this is where Hong Ling Restaurant comes in, or, technically I guess, I come in to Hong Ling Restaurant. In spite of the heat wave, I ordered my favorite thing in the world, duck soup, because, like I said, I wanted these minutes to be the best possible minutes, so that afterward my brother would for sure be ready.

While I was killing my duck soup, which was very good, I thought about how I would thenceforth be a pedestrian. Not just in my writing, thenceforth, but in the world. So tomorrow a sports medicine cat is checking out my grape-colored pomelo, because I want to be good. I want to walk well, and get back on my bike, and the soccer field, and probably hopefully pain killers.

This duck soup, it had wontons in it, a lot of wontons. And roast duck, a lot of bones. And everything was juicy besides for being soup.

And cheap. Only $6 for duck soup! That’s good, and you can get it with noodles too, but the wontons have pork and shrimp in them, so that’s duck plus pork plus shrimp. In a desperate attempt to balance out all that meat, they also placed four sprigs of bok choy in the deep-dark broth, so in the end I felt not only happy, but healthy.

So now I have officially been to all the restaurants in Glen Park, except maybe some of them. This one is my favorite, because not just every Chinese restaurant makes a roast duck soup. In fact, very few. And it was cool and very basic in there.

But I think most people get it to go, crazy them. There’s a steam table near the door, with all the ready-mades. Me, I’d rather sit.

And wait. *

HONG LING

Sun.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.–9 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat. 11:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

2794 Diamond, S.F

(415) 333-1331

MC,V

Beer and wine

Appetite: Dinner and cocktails with a view

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Dinner and cocktails with a view

Wednesday  through Saturday nights there’s a ready-made date if you want romance without having to think too hard. At $80 a person, it’s a package deal between Luce Restaurant (which I’ve written about more than once) in the Intercontinental Hotel and Top of the Mark. Choose the order – three course dinner or cocktails first – with a cab ride included to the second location.

I’ve always loved the old world class (not to mention in-the-thick-of-it San Francisco views) of Top of the Mark and live jazz with dancing, but cover charges and mediocre cocktails priced in the mid-teens make it unrealistic too often. With this package, the cost of a drink, cover charge and the cab ride alone would make up half of the $80 and that’s not counting three courses and sparkling wine at Luce.

On one of our mild September nights, I took in an offer to try the package  with The Renaissance Man – we opted for dinner first. It started with a glass of champagne (we added in a Rustic Grappa Flight – $14, see Imbiber for more on grappa at Luce/Bar 888) and an amuse bouche of Chicken Confit with diced Granny Smith apples and vanilla cream. The chicken was tender with a crispy confit layer. Contrasted by sweet, creamy accents, I almost wished it was my main course.

Chef Dominique Crenn, who’s cooking earned Luce a Michelin star and is getting ready to launch her Atelier Crenn restaurant this winter, could have crafted a throwaway prix fixe menu, yet it does not feel so except for a basic salad with nothing but vinaigrette as a first course option. Instead, I chose Chilled Corn Soup with mussels and a speck chip on top. Redolent of Summer with fresh corn sweetness, it is refreshing and generously portioned.

Though there was a Vegetarian Risotto, The Renaissance Man and I stuck with fish and meat. I had “Poisson du Jour” (catch of the day): Seared Branzino with Black Mission figs, corn, trumpet mushrooms and Bloomdale spinach. He had Niman Ranch Flat Iron Steak cooked medium-rare, with romano beans, baby carrots, potatoes, drizzled with beef consumme. Again, good-sized portions, from three juicy cuts of steak to the crispy, buttery Branzino.

While there were two dessert options in the prix fixe (Chocolate Custard with cocoa crumbs & Pear Williams or Earl Grey Tea Panna Cotta with lemon zest and shortbread), we opted for two desserts on the regular menu. The first, called “Peaches”, resembled a wild, mossy garden with pistachio sponge cake growing over pistachio sorbet, crispy sesame and white peach mousse. Subtle and Spring-like, it looks like a fairyland dessert, even if flavors aren’t overwhelming. More exciting flavor-wise is “Chocolate”, which, despite the straightforward name has a lot going on: chocolate ganache, dehydrated chocolate and cacao nib sorbet are covered in a crumbled, Oreo-reminiscent chocolate ‘soil’, with dots of passion fruit puree, basil oil and micro mint contrasting with dark, earthy goodness. One of the more creative desserts I’ve had in awhile.

We then took our ride up the hill to Top of the Mark, mentioned we had the dinner with a view package (to be exempt from the usual cover charge), then enjoyed the cheesy fun of cocktails like a Grasshopper and other sweeter-than-I-normally-prefer choices (one cocktail each is included), while we spent the rest of the night swing dancing to the live band surrounded by a sea of San Francisco lights.

–Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

Quick Lit: Oct. 1-Oct. 5

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: Oct. 1-Oct. 5

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Litquake is back from Oct. 1-9 with more than 550 authors and events. Find out how to catch some this week after the jump.

Friday, Oct. 1

Litquake 2010 kickoff
Grab you litquake program and enjoy music by “Diva Deluxe” Suzy Williams and Brad Kay as they perform songs based on the work of well-known authors Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Chandler, and more. You can also sip cocktails while browsing the gallery’s latest exhibit “Everyday,” showcasing new works by California tattoo artists. Litquake programming through Oct. 9.
5 p.m., free
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna, SF
www.litquake.org

Saturday, Oct. 2

Off the Richter Scale
From poetry to comics to dad lit, this Litquake opening weekend event will feature literary tweeters, bloggers, illustrators, mystery writers, fathers, poets, historians, and more.
Noon – 4 p.m., free
Variety Preview Room Theatre
582 Market, SF
www.litquake.org
 
Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival
Enjoy a stellar line-up of poets and environmental writers including Brenda Hillman, Robert Haas, Allison Hawthorne Deming, Al Young, David Meltzer, Camille T. Dungy, and more. Also featuring a poem installation by Arthur Okamura, live music, environmental updates and information, and more.
Noon-4:30 p.m., free
Civic Center Park
Martin Luther King, Jr. at Center, Berk.
www.poetryflash.org

Sunday, Oct. 3

Barely Published Authors
Readings by up-and-coming masters of prose from the Bay Area including Jeremy Hatch, Mimi Lok, Caitlin Myer, Andre Perry, Paul Spinrad, Ian Tuttle, Alia Volz, and Olga Zilberbourg. Emceed by Ransom Stephens.
7 p.m., free
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
www.litquake.org

“CLA All-Stars: 25 Years of San Jose’s Center for Literary Arts”
Join best-selling authors Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior, Tripmaster Monkey), Mary Roach (Packing for Mars, Stiff, Spook, Bonk), Daniel Alarcon (Lost City Radio), and Andrew Sean Greer (The Story of a Marriage) as they read from their latest works. This program was developed in collaboration with the San Jose Center for Literary Arts and Litquake.
6:30 p.m., $10
The California Historical Society Museum
678 Mission, SF
(415) 357-1848

Ein Zweigabend: A Zweig Evening
Enjoy this literary and musical eveing dedicated to the works and memory of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, featuring violinist Gregory Sykes, pianist Ian Scarfe, and vocalist Patrick Marks playing some of Zweig’s favorite music. Wine, champagne, and hors d’oeuvres.
7 p.m., $20 suggested donation
Green Arcade
1680 Market, SF
(415) 431-6800

North Beach Literary Tour
Learn more about the literary tradition of North Beach, from the Gold Rush, to the Beats, and into the modern era. The one mile tour concludes at Focus Gallery on 1534 Grant with readings by political satirists, socially savvy novelists, outlaw poets, and cultural historians Phil Bronstein, Will Durst, Ben Fong-Torres, Alan Kaufman, Ellen Sussman, and Jody Weiner.
5:30 p.m., free
Meet at The Beat Museum
540 Broadway, SF
www.litquake.org

Off the Richter Scale, Day Two
Day Two of Off the Richter Scale features panel discussions on alternative publishing and literature in translation and readings by Hedgebrook Alums and writers on California and San Francisco.
Noon – 4 p.m., free
Variety Preview Room Theatre
582 Market, SF
www.litquake.org

Monday, Oct. 4

Final Flight
Join author Peter Stekel for a reading and discussion of his new book, Final Flight: The Mystery of a WWII Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra.
6 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
(510) 548-0585

Tao Lin
Tao Lin takes his trademark minimalism in a different direction as he ponders the meaning of illicit sex for a generation with no rules in his new book, Richard Yates, named after the real-life writer. In Richard Yates, Lin narrates a tale about a young man dealing with the consequences of an affair with an underage, self-destructive girl.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

“Original Shorts: Bottom’s Up”
Join this year’s esteemed scribblers as they reveal their original takes on the theme “Bottoms Up,” with Dodie Bellamy, Elizabeth Bernstein, Joshua Braff, Anne Finger, Shanthi Sekaran, Namwali Serpell, and James Warner.
7 p.m., free
Heart Wine Bar
1270 Valencia, SF
www.litquake.org

“Words and Waves”
A night of surf lit with Krista Comer and Elizabeth Pepin, Doug Dorst, Daniel Duane, Thomas Farber, Steven Kotler, emcee Mark Massara, Michael Scott Moore, Matt Warshaw, and Jaimal Yogis.
6:30 p.m., $5-$10 donation entitles you to order of the happy hour menu all night
Park Chalet
1000 Great Hwy, SF
www.litquake.org

Tuesday, Oct. 5

“Dave Cooper Gets Bent”
Award-winning cartoonist and illustrator Dave Cooper will sign his new book, Bent, and discuss his career in comics.
7 p.m., $5
Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission, SF
www.cartoonart.org

I Live in the Future and Here’s How It Works
Hear New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton explain why social networks, the openness of the Internet, and all the handy new gadgets are becoming the foundation for “anchoring communities” that tame information overload and help us to determine what is important at this reading of his new book, I Live in the Future and Here’s How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain are Being Creatively Disrupted. Part of Litquake.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
www.booksmith.com

“Tales of Hollywood Hell”
Litquake and Porchlight Storytelling collaborate for a special one-night show of true stories from inside the world’s entertainment machine. Book options, screenplays, adaptations, celebrity, and just plain Hollywood weirdness, explained without notes or memorization, featuring Exene Cervenka, Michael Tolkin, Martin Cruz Smith, Kristen Tracy, Jack Boulware, Joyce Maynard, and Jill Soloway. Hosted by Porchlight’s Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick.
8 p.m., $15
Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness, SF
www.litquake.org

“Virtual Reality: The Effect of Fiction on Your Mind”
Attend this Litquake panel discussion that looks into the readers’ interaction with the characters they meet in works of fiction, whether or not it’s healthy to visit imaginary worlds, and how well the authors themselves know their own characters. Featuring Robert Burton, M.D., former Chief of Neurology, Mt. Zion-UCSF Hospital, Elaine Petrocelli, President of Book Passage, Michelle Richmond, author of The Year of Fog and No One You Know, Blakey Vermeule, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, Stanford University, and Mark Vonnegut, M.D., pediatrician, memoirist, and son of the late Kurt Vonnegut.
6:30 p.m., $12
Mechanic’s Institute
57 Post, SF
(415) 393-0100

SKI-thal weapon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
SKI-thal weapon

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC E-A-SKI has been in the game nearly 20 years, producing tracks with then-partner CMT for Spice 1’s eponymous 1992 debut on Jive Records and subsequently working with the likes of Master P, Ice Cube, and even Dr. Dre. He’s also maintained a career as a rapper. Yet despite several local radio hits and four major-label deals — Priority, Relativity, Dreamworks, Columbia — he’s never released an album. The deals have always soured, yet the astute businessman has always made money on them, as his professional-grade studio in the middle of a huge house hidden beyond the Oakland Hills attests.

I’ve come by for a private screening of SKI’s new video, "No Problems," the first single from The Fifth of Skithoven, an album he plans to release next year through his own label, IMGMI. If "private screening" sounds highfalutin’, "No Problems" is no ordinary clip. It’s a six-minute film, directed by Wayans Brothers associate Michael Tiddes, that recently won an award for best music video at the 13th Okanagan International Film Festival in Kelowna, British Columbia.

"I didn’t just want to keep putting videos out there," SKI explains. "I wanted to do something more cinematic to express the music."

A John Woo-like allegory of rap integrity, "No Problems" finds SKI battling to reclaim his soul from the Devil, wagering the contents of a mysterious Pulp Fictionesque briefcase that he can do it. The "x-factor," as SKI puts it, is the actor playing the gravel-voiced, gangsta Devil: Danny Glover. After meeting years ago in activist circles — SKI frequently mentors inner-city youth — the two recently reconnected when they found themselves members of the same gym. Despite the demands of Glover’s schedule (seven films currently in post-production, according to imdb.com), the Lethal Weapon star made time for the shoot.

"I did it ’cause SKI kept bugging me," Glover laughs during a quick phone call. "No, seriously. I respect what he does with Oakland and the community, and I thought it’d be fun." Judging by his over-the-top supervillain meltdown as SKI emerges triumphant, Glover had plenty of fun with the role.

"It was an honor for him to even want to be in a hip-hop project," SKI says. "I did my first line with him and just froze, like, ‘This is Danny Glover!’ I ain’t gonna lie, I got star-struck! And I’ve done a lot of stuff."

It’s hard to imagine a tongue-tied E-A-SKI, but then again, even Frank Sinatra looks intimidated alongside Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls (1955). Getting Glover in his video is exactly the type of rabbit SKI consistently pulls out of his hat to keep himself relevant in a genre in which artists usually have short self-lives. Even on his own independent label, SKI routinely places videos on MTV, most recently 2009’s "Rare Form" by IMGMI-signee and Frontline-member Locksmith. Although there’s a trailer for "No Problems" on MTV’s movie blog, and SKI plans more film festival screenings, the video remains unreleased.

"I want to make its debut a big thing," SKI says. "Like MTV showing the trailer, having a build up, then boom! — a Jam of the Week. We have a relationship, so they’re open to it. But it’s still in the works because I’m trying to see what’s best for my album."

Like a rap Paul Masson, SKI will serve no wine before its time, and Skithoven is no exception, though he’s already lined up tracks with the likes of Tech 9ine, Freeway, and Ice Cube (whose upcoming I Am the West [Lench Mob] includes a bonus track produced by SKI). "It’s like a puzzle," he says. "I like to get the pieces and now I’m structuring it." But will we finally see an album from the man known as "The Bay’s Dre," or will there be more of the Detox-like delays that have led him to shelve previous discs like Earthquake and Apply Pressure? SKI’s patience is unwavering.

"I never let people dictate to me," he says. "I’m gonna do what I wanna do. I’ve always been a firm believer in, if I can’t do what I want to do at that time and then too much time goes by, it’s time to reinvent."

www.myspace.com/mreaski

Appetite: Forks up for two big events

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Forks up for two big events

10/3 CUESA 8th Annual Sunday Supper Fundraiser — CUESA (The Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture), which runs the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, is throwing its 8th Annual Sunday Supper on October 3. It’s a CUESA fundraiser, whole animal feast, chef gala and drink event all rolled into one. Not to mention a night where local farmers and purveyors mingle to enjoy a meal made from local ingredients and sustainably raised meats.

The chef lineup is pretty killer: there’s Chris Cosentino of Incanto, Craig Stoll of Delfina, Annie Somerville of Greens, Thomas McNaughton of Flour+Water, Mourad Lahlou of Aziza, and so on. Over 60 chefs represent with tableside carvings at each communal table, offering a range of meats from steer to lamb. It’s sure to be one raucous feast.
 
For those who can’t swing the $200 whole-package night, there’s the $75 reception, which will still fund CUESA’s worthy endeavors in local sustainable food education. The reception includes over 30 different hors d’oeuvres and five artisan cocktails made with local spirits, like the great Charbay and St. George Sprits. There’s also regional wines like Benziger and Hahn. In other words, a little something for everyone.
 
10/3, 5:30pm reception ($75), 7pm dinner ($200, includes reception)
One Ferry Building
Get a load of the chef line-up and buy tickets here: cuesasundaysupper.eventbrite.com

9/25 PRIMAL NAPA – “Celebrating Fire Cooking, Meat and the Art of Butchering” — Yes, butchery is an art and PRIMAL Napa throws its second annual shindig to highlight and celebrate that art. Many of the country’s best butchers and chefs will be butchering and grilling using hardwood fire cooking methods, local foods from responsible farms, and whole animal utilization. Held at Chase Cellars, wines and spirits will flow among breakdown demos of every kind of animal from lamb to cow. Locals like Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats and Peter McNee from Poggio will be there, but so will the likes of Joshua Applestone from Fleisher’s in New York, John Sundstrom from Seattle’s Lark, and Dave Varley from Bourbon Steak DC (he was 2010’s Grand Cochon winner).
 
Some of your ticket costs benefit the City of Napa Fire Explorers program, while Friday night there’s a special Chef & Butcher Dinner at Farmstead, one of my favorite restaurant additions to Napa County this year. There’s only a handful of seats at $150 each so hurry and reserve by emailing brady@tastenetwork.org.

It’s all-you-can-eat (and drink) and it all sounds mouth-watering, though if it were me, I’d make a run straight for Magnolia‘s Beer & Sausage Bar. They’ll be featuring a special Magnolia Meaty Brew beer and The Alembic‘s Daniel Hyatt is mixing spirits. Don’t forget all afternoon wine tastings (everything from CADE Winery to Rubicon Estate), and the Bacon Hall of Fame (2-5pm) featuring killer hams like Tennessee’s Benton’s and local Hobb’s Applewood Smoked.

9/25, 2-7pm
$75 (VIP – $125)
Chase Cellars’ Hayne Vineyard, 2252 Sulphur Springs Avenue, St. Helena
404-849-3569
www.artofthebutcher.com
twitter.com/ProteinU

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Carne, carnival

David Talbot
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0
Carne, carnival

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I fell in with some bad people. One was a clown. You don’t expect to even like clowns, let alone fall in with them, but this one was brilliant, in a Charlie Chaplinish way. Or early Woody Allen, meaning: all you have to do is look at him and you pee your pants.

And that’s when he’s out of character. In character, on stage, forget it! You’re going down. This actually funny clown works with a couple of other actually funny clowns, one of whom I talked to for a long time about food because she lives — like me — in San Francisco.

We were sitting around a campfire in front of the stage, after the show. Behind us, a lot of musicians were playing a lot of songs, but not me. I didn’t feel like jamming. I felt like making new friends. Fun, fucked up, and circus-y friends.

They call it a chautauqua, but in addition to the music, storytelling, and political humor, there were these clowns, a contortionist, a slack-rope walker, and a one-ball contact juggler — which, if you’ve never seen contact juggling, you should probably go see you some.

It’s beautiful.

My own role among this talented riff-raff was very, very background. I played bass in a three-piece band for a 25-minute micromusical about sea monkeys. Still, everyone hugged me backstage, or at least patted me on the back, and admired my hot water bottle.

The third night was more than sold out. More than a couple hundred people huddled together in the west-county, wine-country redwoods, oohing and ahhing and laughing our asses off, and afterward the resident pyro lit another careful bonfire. The musicians and nonmusicians among us jammed. I stayed until at least 1 a.m., talking mostly to the girlfriend of one of the sea monkeys. Or I guess technically she was the tank aerator. I hadn’t actually had the pleasure of seeing much of the play from the orchestra pit. Which wasn’t a pit so much as a platform or tree house.

Meat, was what me and the tank aerator’s girlfriend talked about. Her girlfriend, the tank aerator, was a vegan. A lot of the people were vegetarians. The two meals a day they made us in the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center kitchen were always delicious, but in a meatless, meatfree, where’s-the-meat kind of way. So we missed it, me and the tank aerator’s girlfriend, and we discussed this missing, our preference for meat over dessert in general, and where one might could find bacon cheeseburgers, for example, at 1 a.m., in Occidental.

"Rohnert Park," she said. She was thinking of an In-N-Out Burger, but that was 30 minutes away.

Which is, admittedly, closer than Brazil.

My own personal new favorite restaurant is in El Cerrito. Has anyone ever been to Rafael’s Shutter Café? You have to go way up San Pablo, past the Hotsy Totsy, past Albany Bowl, and then, I don’t know: keep going. It’s on your right.

They have live jazz on weekends, but when I was there, on something like a Wednesday, there was opera playing on the stereo. Which went perfectly with my sausage omelet, potatoes, toast, coffee, coffee, and more coffee.

I was sitting at the counter, waiting for the traffic outside to die down so I could cross the Richmond Bridge and go up and fall in with bad people, such as clowns and meat-eating girlfriends of tank aerators.

After I drank too much coffee there was nothing left to do but chat up the guy who runs the joint. "Where do you put your musicians?" I asked him.

He said I reminded him of his sister-in-law. He said, "Are you French or Spanish?"

"Italian," I said.

He said he was married to a French woman.

"Me, I’m waiting," I said. His phone rang. I said: "Traffic."

RAFAEL’S SHUTTER CAFE

Mon.–Thu. 9 a.m.–4 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat. 9 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

10064 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito

(510) 525-4227

MC,V

Beer and wine

Witchy ways

David Talbot
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0
Witchy ways

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS How to tear down a chicken coop: Step one, build a chicken coop. I used scrap wood, found objects, and recycled nails and screws to make this one. At the time, I was going through a divorce, so my spirits were all light and buildery, and I whistled while I worked and didn’t get too upset if I got a splinter.

Suffering for one’s art, not to mention eggs, seemed noble and not at all frightening. I was in love with the woods and fresh air, high on my new sense of self, which I have come to see, in retrospect, as merely a phase: for five years and change, I found myself involved in a kind of a secular witchcraft.

No incantations or Shakespearean hullabaloo; without any belief whatsoever, barely even with intent, I lured little children into a large pot and cooked and ate them. Often in omelets! I didn’t know what I was doing. In fact, it took one of these omelets to point it out to me. The youngest, and one of the first, she stood before my brand-new-yet-already-ramshackle chicken coop, took one look at my outdoor bathtub, half a look at my black and pink punk rock rubber ducky, then stared at the 25-gallon pot on a propane burner that almost blocked the door to my crooked little shack.

"You’re kind of a witch, aren’t you?" she said, her great big eyes getting ever even bigger.

"Um, no, well, I think more of a chicken farmer, if you ask me," I said.

"But this is all so … so … witchy," she said.

So, OK, so I went with it. It’s my nature to just go with things. But I didn’t have any idea what witches do, except for live in funky shacks in the woods (like me) with their big noses (like mine) and crazy black cats (like Weirdo, R.I.P.) and either oversized ovens or giant pots for cooking kids in.

Before anyone burns me at the stake or, worse, tries to ruin my career as a nanny, let me explain metaphor to you. No — cut metaphor, let’s skip straight to dada. The children who I made into omelets were for the most part 40- and 50-something-year-old men with hairy bellies and hardly any heart, who had somehow or other neglected to grow up. They were off-the-beaten-path truck drivers, errant farm hands, recovering ax murderers, and homeless mushroomers. Whereas the little girls, the little girls were two: a psychotic psychologist and the above-mentioned big-eyed young ‘un, 29, a highly educated and queerish knows-a-witchy-woman-when-she-sees-one college perfessor.

In my experience the brainier they are, the harder they hurt. Step two, set down that rusty, dull hatchet and fix your drill. It’s true you are liable to think of ugly, downlifting things while deconstructing your chicken coop. All the spider webs, moldy hay, and fossilized chicken shit … how can you not be reminded of heartless, hopeless, imaginationless fucks?

Thing is, this is not the time for anger. That time has passed, and hopefully you have kicked and screamed and howled and yowled and beaten your poor pillow (or in my case, reading public) into submission. Deconstructing a chicken coop, on the other hand, requires precision. Ergo: Step three, stack all the neatly de-screwed boards and things in a Future Dump Run pile.

Step four, roll all the chicken wire in tight-as-possible rolls and stack it separately. Neatly. Remember: what you are doing is more sacred than building; you are tearing down. You are creating blank space — empty, meaningless, and therefore full of potential. You will want to leave this site as clean as possible for the next person, who is somewhere in the world creating just such a space for you. In the name of which …

Step five: rake, scrape, shovel, and dump what was the floor into what will be the next tenant’s garden. Now, city girl, get your city ass back to town, slow and stylingly, and find yourself a new favorite restaurant. No meat for you: half a falafel sandwich drenched in tahini and a cup o’ cream o’ broccoli, babe. You deserve this.

TWILIGHT CAFE

Mon.–Fri. 8 a.m.–7 p.m.

2600 McAllister, SF

(415) 386-6115

MC, V

Beer and wine

Appetite: Drinking in the Wente Vineyards Concert Series

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Drinking in the Wente Vineyards Concert Series

There may be other Bay Area concert winery venues (Mountain Winery, for example), but none like family-run Wente Vineyards in Livermore. Run by the same family for five generations and set on a 3000-acre expanse of golden rolling hills and vineyards, Wente is managed by delightfully down-to-earth members of the family who keep the business alive, yes, with wine-making, but also with a scenic golf course, a restaurant, and the aforementioned concert venue.

It’s magic sitting out under the warm Livermore night sky, cradled by palms, vineyards and foliage, in a venue big enough to feel like an event, small enough to offer visibility. On August 19, I trekked out for a Chris Isaak show. I was a fan in high school, pleased to say he’s utterly charming in person, maintaining old-fashioned showmanship and witty banter in a sparkly, classic country/Elvis-style wardrobe. The setting could not have enhanced the enchantment of his music more. The range (and randomness) of Wente shows is wide — with appearances from my longtime hero, Harry Connick, Jr., or the likes of Liza Minnelli, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Fray, even ZZ Top (!)

The rest of this year’s line-up includes Willie Nelson with Ryan Bingham on Monday, September 13, the one-and-only Harry Connick (sadly, his show is sold out) on September 21st, and a just-added Don Henley show on September 20th. Tickets are pricey, running just shy of $90 to nearly $150 for seats, or anywhere from $150 to just below $300 with dinner, whether it be outdoor picnics or a multi-course meal, wine included, in their restaurant. Of course, you can eat at the restaurant on non-concert days without concert prices.

But the combo of the two certainly makes for a memorable special occasion or date, and what surprises most is the quality of the food in a full, three-course dinner. My dinner was paired nicely with bottles of 2006 Murrieta’s Well, a melon, vanilla-tinged white Meritage ($11 glass; $40 bottle), and a 2006 Annika Syrah, rich with plum and wild blackberry ($24 glass; $96 bottle).

Executive chef Eric Berg uses produce and herbs from their own organic garden (there’s even a master gardener, Diane Dovholuk, on staff) and unusual offerings, like bison tenderloin tartare with yellow beets, green onion, creme fraiche, sorrel puree and beet greens. It was a treat to eat bison raw, tender and fresh with garden accents. Simple and pure shines in the case of Frog Hollow Peaches with red onion, toasted hazelnuts, mizuna greens and pancetta vinaigrette. A perfect Summer dish.

Liberty Farms duck breast “scaloppini” with leg confit, horseradish gnocchi, charred lemon zest and smoked eggplant puree was appropriately prepared medium-rare with the confit leg adding succulence. Wagyu flatiron steak & Maine lobster is a pleasing “surf and turf” combo, prepared with stewed heirloom chiles, fingerling potato fondant, in a lobster-veal sauce.

Though I especially liked the sound of frozen horchata with hibiscus soup, local strawberries and mint, it was more like a bright palate cleanser than spiced with horchata flavor, while a local nectarine tartlette with sweet corn ice cream and salted caramel lingered longer and pleasurably.

Needless to say, it’s a hefty splurge, but the whole package, both dinner and concert, is a uniquely California experience: vineyards, palm trees, garden-fresh cuisine, even an Old West feeling of remoteness out among dry, rolling hills, create a bewitching evening.

Benefits: Sept 8-Sept 14

David Talbot
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0
Benefits: Sept 8-Sept 14

Ways to have fun while giving back this week


Thursday, Sept. 9

Coalition on Homelessness Auction
Attend this live and silent art auction featuring works by Bay Area artists, live music by Perranosperous, food by the California Culinary Academy, desserts from Kingdom Cake, and a raffle. Proceeds to benefit the Coalition on Homelessness.
5:30 p.m., $25
SOMArts
934 Brannan, SF
(415) 346-3740, ext. 307

Faubourg Tremé
Watch this documentary film about the history of the radical roots of one New Orleans community, where during slavery, Black people could earn their freedom and purchase a house. The film, fully titled Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, concludes with new challenges facing the Black community after the Katrina disaster.
7:30 p.m., $6 donation
ATA Theater
992 Valencia, SF
(415) 821-6545

Free Community Health Programs
Support two free community health programs at this benefit concert featuring Embers, Speed of Darkness, Somnolence, and Crucifixion. One of the programs, the Street Level Health Project, offers medical screenings, a lunch program, mental health support, herbal medicine and nutrition, and more services for urban immigrant communities in the Bay Area. The other program, Casa Besu, aims to bring alternative, holistic treatments to the people of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.
8 p.m., $5-$10
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
(510) 533-9906

Saturday, Sept. 11


A’s Firefighter Appreciation Night
Local firefighters from around the Bay Area and Northern California will be honored at the Oakland A’s vs. Red Socks game. A portion of the ticket proceeds will be donated to charitable organizations that support burn foundations, fire safety, educational programs, and other community organizations when you buy them through the webpage oaklandathletics.com/firefighters, passcode: HERO.
6:05pm
Oakland Coliseum
7000 Coliseum, Oakl.
(510) 563-2336
www.oaklandathletics.com/firefighters

Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival
Enjoy San Francisco’s signature chocolate delicacies, sip wine, and take part in family activities. Proceeds benefit Project Open Hand.
Sat. – Sun. Noon-5 p.m., $20 for 15 samples
Ghirardelli Square
900 North Point, SF
www.ghirardellisq.com

Sunday, Sept. 12


True Blood Party
Watch the Season 3 finale of HBO’s True Blood series and enjoy a night of entertainment with host comic Marcella Arguello, a live blues performance by I See Read, a lesbian firedancer show, live tattooing with SkinFiend, a look-a-like contest, Creole food, and more. Proceeds to benefit the Red Cross.
6 p.m., $25-$50
The New Parish
579 18th St., Oakl.
www.thenewparish.com

Wild Salmon BBQ
Enjoy a BBQ dinner featuring sustainably harvested wild Alaskan salmon, fine California wine, live music by the Bay, and a silent auction in celebration of the sustainable marine life of Pacific Rim and the work of Pacific Environment. Proceeds to support Pacific Environment. Vegetarian and vegan options available.
3 p.m., $60
Olympic Circle Sailing Club
1 Spinnaker, Berk.
(415) 388-8850, ext. 309

New twists on the Negroni challenge the original

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
New twists on the Negroni challenge the original

Those who know me well are aware of my love of the Negroni. The perfect aperitif and a favorite since my first visit to Italy 11 years ago, I crave Campari’s bitter crispness balanced with gin. I concur with Victoria Moore who says in her book, How to Drink: “The negroni is a beautiful thing, garnet in color, sweet-astringent to taste, and decisively highbrow. Drinking it feels like taking a sip of Florence, Renaissance frescoes, students swooping about on scooters…” My typically adventurous palate sees no reason to vary from a traditional, already perfect Negroni recipe (http://www.imbibemagazine.com/Negroni), but the skilled bartenders in our fair city and the makers of a brilliant new product, Gran Classico Bitter have been opening my eyes in recent months to other Negroni vistas.

TEMPUS FUGIT NEGRONI at Spoonbar — Scott Beattie offers three versions of Negronis at the wonderful new Spoonbar in Healdsburg. The Tempus Fugit Negroni ($8.50) particularly wows. Made with Ransom’s (http://www.ransomspirits.com) impeccable Old Tom Gin, Dolin Rouge Vermouth, orange zest and Tempus Fugit’s Gran Classico Bitter, it’s a musky, full revelation.

PISCO NEGRONI at Cantina — Duggan McDonnell at Cantina showed me another way as realized as a classic Negroni: a Pisco Negroni. Out of all four here, this one tastes most like the original, bright with pisco instead of gin, Gran Classico instead of Campari. It’s lush, almost caramel-y with his lovely Encanto Pisco, while the favored bitter/tart Campari offers is illuminated in the Gran Classico.

Brian MacGregor’s NEGRONI d’OR — Brian MacGregor is shaking cocktails for his last week at Jardiniere, a loss for that bastion of 1930’s, supperclub-style elegance, but a gain for the upcoming Locanda, opening in the Mission from the Delfina crew, where MacGregor will be Bar Manager. He went all the way to Cognac, France, for the G’Vine Gin World Finals with this pristine beauty that comes unadorned in a wine glass. It’s golden-hued and smooth with G’vine Nouasion gin, Dolin White vermouth and, yes, Gran Classico. It may no longer be on order at Jardiniere once MacGregor departs after 9/9, but if you ask nicely, he might be able to make it for you in his new digs.

LO SCANDINAVO at 15 Romolo
The gifted crew at 15 Romolo continually does it right, pushing boundaries while maintaining taste and classic standards. The Negroni gets a Scandinavian makeover with the Lo Scandinavo ($11), aka Aquavit Negroni: North Shore Aquavit, Gran Classico Bitter and Carpano Antica. Here, an astringent smoothness is accented by a slice of lemon peel. The aquavit forms a clean foundation for the bitter qualities to shine.

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Let’s date!

David Talbot
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0
Let’s date!

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS While the Maze’s mom was fighting for her life, he sat and stood by her side, in San Diego, and talked to her, even though she couldn’t hear him, or respond.

Her coma was induced, more-or-less medically, according to the Maze, who went to med school. After seven days, they more-or-less medically weaned her back into life as we know it. Where you breathe, you know, air, and eat, you know, food, and go to the bathroom. When he left San Diego, she could do some of the above, plus take six steps.

Coincidentally, as misfortune would have it, for the two weeks the Maze was with his mom, the woman the Maze dates was also bedridden back home here, on account of broken legs and surgery and shit.

I gave her a lot of movies, and some lasagna, but that was about it. And I thought about her a lot, and the Maze’s mom, who was only in her 60s. And the Maze: how the women in his life were all down, but not for the count.

Nor did it escape my attention that I am, in many respects, a woman in the Maze’s life, so I was careful to look both ways before crossing streets, drive defensively, and wash my hands many times during a day. I might have even eaten more healthily, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Whatever the reason, I was very, very hungry when the Maze called me from the airport on Monday. Did I want to get something to eat?

"I do!" I said. I told him I’d been thinking all day about barbecue. This meant nothing to him, not because he’s cruel but because he knows me well. I might as well have said, "All day long my heart has been pumping blood through my veins and arteries."

Or: "Yep, I checked, and I still have hands!"

Since the Maze is one of many friends I suspect of being a closet vegetarian, we settled for pizza. At … Delfina Pizzeria. Finally!

Because I live on one side of it, and park on another, I have been walking past this place for years, often with my one-string water-jug-on-a-toilet-plunger bass, the smell of diapers all over me, or some other symbol of my not being able to eat there. And I have slowed down and stared. Not at the beautiful people who litter the sidewalk in front of Delfina, lunchtime and evenings. I have stared at their pizzas.

I think it’s cruel and unusual for establishments to serve food that looks and smells that damn good on narrow sidewalks with a lot of foot traffic in not entirely affluent neighborhoods.

I’ve seen me some pies with some pretty amazing things on them, like fried eggs, and I have fantasized about sitting down with some party of two or three and pretending like I know one of them. Or just grabbing a slice and flying. I’m pretty fast for an aging ex chicken farmer.

It’s not like Delfina’s out-of-reachably expensive, either. I think of it as a date place. I just don’t, as a rule, have dates. So when the Maze nixed my barbecue idea and suggested Delfina, if there wasn’t a line, I jumped on it.

Here was a special occasion. His mom was alive! He was coming home! I still had hands! And — and this is a big and — it was early enough that we wouldn’t have to wait in line. So there we had it, and you have it, everything stacked up so that at 6 p.m. on a Monday. I ate my first Delfina pizza.

It was good. As good as it always looked. And in spite of the fact that we didn’t get one of the meat ones, the Maze being a closet vegetarian. I think the pizza, with broccoli raab, olives, mozzarella, and hot peppers, was $14.50. Share-able, sure, but barely so. Put it this way: either one of us could have eaten the whole thing alone.

Plus salad plus drinks = yeah, not cheap eats. But damn good ‘uns. I can’t wait to have dates.

DELFINA PIZZERIA

Mon. 5–10 p.m.; Tue.–Thu. 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m.;

Fri. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sat. noon–11 p.m.;

Sun. noon-10 p.m.

3611 18th St., S.F.

(415) 437-6800

AE,D,MC,V

Beer and wine

Meow mix

David Talbot
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0
Meow mix

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I was about halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge by the time I knew for sure: big mistake. Stoplight the cat was not happy. I was not happy. It was hot. No air conditioning. I required food. Occidental is an hour and 15 driving minutes beyond the bridge.

That’s a lot of minutes to have to listen to a cute little kitten that you love screaming and screeching in horror. Not to mention how many minutes it is to have to be that kitten. But I was running late for an important rehearsal for this thing I’m in, so there was no turning back.

"The show must go on," I said to Stoplight.

"You mother fucking fucker," he said, in so many meows. "If I ever get big enough I’m going to shred you into confetti, eat your internal organs, and leave your tangled intestines on the bed so I can spend the rest of my little life playing with them."

"Oh," I said. "Really? Say, have you ever heard of people who throw their pets out of car windows on the freeway? I’m not saying I’m one of those people, but what makes you so certain that every one of those people who are one of those people wouldn’t have said, 10 minutes before losing it, that they weren’t one of those people.

"I’m just saying," I said, "that the human psyche is a fragile and funny thing."

"Yeah, well, you think those little kitty scratches on your arms are bad, and the tiny puncture wounds all over your legs?" my little kitty said, partially overlapping me because he doesn’t yet have manners. "Wait until I pull your ears off your head, claw your eyeballs out, and swat them across the floor like ping pong balls until they roll under the refrigerator.

"I’m just saying," he said. "I wouldn’t go to sleep tonight, if I were you, I’m saying," he said. In so many meows.

"Fuck you," I said.

"Fuck you," he said.

We were off to a great start in our little long-term committed relationship. And it was all my fault. I decided to get off at the next exit with visible food, and just … eat. Something. Anything. Whatever. I just didn’t want to go all-the-way crazy, not in my brother’s stinking van. Not on an empty stomach. The first place I see, I said to myself.

The first place I saw was McDonalds. (What are the chances?) Luckily, I am not an honorable woman. I mean, technically, I keep my word where there are other people involved, but tend to break every single promise I make to myself. Including, to everyone’s cheap eaterly relief, this one.

I continued down that road, meow meow meow, until I came to the second restaurant I saw, which was Strawberry Gourmet Deli in the Strawberry shopping center.

As soon as the car stopped rolling, I poured out of it like a beer commercial, opened the sliding side door, grabbed the cat carrier, put it on the floor in the wayback, behind the third seat, and left that door open too.

He could see me through his little caged door as I ran-walked into the deli. "Get back here," he shrieked, "you stinking bitch!"

Or maybe he said, "Get cat beer! A pink sandwich!"

Whatever, it was loud, and it looped. You could still hear him at the counter.

"Can I help you?"

"The vet said it was okay," I said. "For a kitten. If you travel with them while they’re young, they get used to it. I want to die."

"Excuse me?"

I wish I could have got a salad or baked thing, such as lasagna, because it’s hard to drown your sorrows in a sandwich. But I needed something I could eat in the car. "Turkey sandwich," I said.

Opened it up on my lap in the drivers seat, cranked Green Day, and got back on the freeway. What a lame lunch. Not enough meat. Not enough anything, except bread. All of us, we drive like maniacs, and are lucky to be alive.

STRAWBERRY GOURMET DELI

Mon.–Fri.: 7 a.m.–5 p.m.;

Sun.: 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

1216 Strawberry Village Road, Mill Valley

(415) 381-2088

AE,D,MC,V

Beer and wine

Appetite: Wine Country’s new hot spots

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Wine Country’s new hot spots

SPOONBAR, Healdsburg – I could write a piece on the cocktails alone at brand new Spoonbar in the h2hotel off of Healdsburg’s town square. You’ve already heard me mention Scott Beattie over the years, who is truly one of our country’s great bartenders. His cocktail menu at Spoonbar is a revelation.

Yes, you’ll get waylaid by the initial cocktail list, but don’t let that stop you from asking for the additional one. It’s a glory of new creations, featuring edible flowers and the herbal, produce-driven beauties Beattie has perfected since his Cyrus days. But there’s the added bonus of classics done with a Beattie sensibility. I get giddy at the site of three versions each of Old-Fashioneds, Negronis, Manhattans, and Sazeracs, the holy foursome of cocktails. I sampled five, each exquisite. It feels right seeing Beattie behind the bar again.

I chose the Tempus Fugit Negroni ($8.50). How could I not? Made with Ransom‘s impeccable Old Tom Gin, Dolin Rouge Vermouth, orange zest and Tempus Fugit’s brilliant Gran Classico Bitter, it’s a musky, full revelation. As I mentioned in my last Appetite, I’m beginning to see a whole new possibility when it comes to Negronis, thanks to Gran Classico and bartenders willing to experiment with it.

On the classics front, Beattie’s Dark ‘n Stormy trumps all others. There’s a lovely Appleton Reserve version for $7.50 (or pitcher for five at $37.50). I’ll put my money on the version with Ron Zacapa Solera 23 (a rum I’ve long been a fan of already) for $9/$45. With fresh lime juice and Angostura bitters, Beattie adds drops of essential oil of ginger for a more pure, round taste. Locally grown sunflower leaves are a vivid garnish.

Going the creative Beattie route is equally thrilling. John Chapman ($10.5) is a taste of fall. When you take St. George Whiskey and Pear Eau de Vie, then mix it with lemon, apple, ginger and a Thai coconut foam, you get magic. Ditto, on the other side of the spectrum, for the Summery taste of  Siddartha ($9.5). I normally wouldn’t choose a vodka drink, but this one utilizes Hangar One Buddha’s Hand Citron with Beefeater Gin, St. Germain Elderflower, lemon, Thai coconut milk and lemon verbena. It’s silky, seductively bright and garden fresh.

But the joys at Spoonbar are many as the food and wine list are likewise robust, the space open and airy (playful with hints of mid-century modern), the price point a nice mid-range. In early opening weeks, this has automatically become my # 1 Healdsburg spot for drink or food (since I can only afford Cyrus for a special occasion), and one of my tops in all of Wine Country.

Where to start? There’s wines on tap, a trend I am happy to see growing from an environmental and casual accessibility standpoint. Let wine director Ross Hallett, choose and you’ll likely get a nice range of local and international wines. With dinner, he paired a dry 2000 Villa Claudia Gattinara and a full  ‘05 Savuto Odoardi that yielded spice notes when paired with the Spoonbar Burger. For dessert, he poured thoughtful choices like Rare Wine Co.’s New York Malmsey Special Reserve Madeira, rich with earthy, coffee notes, and Ratafia de Bourgogne, a sweet but balanced liqueur.

The food? With Moroccan and Mediterranean influences, Chef Rudy Mihal’s menu shines as fine bar food with cocktails or as multi-course dinner. Appetizers offer all kinds of goodness, like addictive little Fried Smelt Fish ($8) dipped in a caper aioli. Or how about skewers of plump, grilled Calamari ($12) in a preserved lemon vinaigrette? You’ll find me equally hyped over imported Burrata ($13), creamy heaven in a pool of fine olive oil with meltingly soft brioche and a finely diced beet tartare.

On the entree front, the lamb/beef mix is right in the Spoonbar Burger ($15), albeit small, on a house-sesame bun with a mini-bucket of fries. Kudos for a restrained but permeating burger topping of sweet tomato confit, cucumber chutney and spiced yogurt.

Though I am easily bored with chicken, their signature Moorish-style Brick Chicken ($24) is rife with flavor from herbs and spices, tender over grilled lemon couscous. Definitely a highlight.

Restaurant Manager, Darren Abel, runs a relaxed, festive restaurant that truly is the whole package. I’ll be plotting my next chance to get to Spoonbar when up that way – at the very least for cocktails and apps. If only this place was in the city…

MORIMOTO NAPA, Napa – Despite the celebrity chef status of the one and only Masaharu Morimoto (yes, I love the original Iron Chef), and the high price tag, the brand new Morimoto Napa restaurant is an experience and a welcome addition to Wine Country.

The space is huge, with a sea of greys enlivened by bright, yellow chairs. There’s patio waterfront seating and an ultra-cool touch of grape vines dramatically running the wall over the bar and in the lobby, as if to say, “Morimoto is now in Wine Country.”

As for the food, it adds up fast, but thankfully there’s beyond-the-norm presentations lending excitement to the expensive meal. Like me, you may have eaten a thousand tartares, but you haven’t had one quite like this: Toro Tartare ($25) comes on a little wood tray you scrape with a mini paddle, then dip in nori paste, wasabi, sour cream, chives, or a house dashi soy, smoky with a hint of bonito. Finish with a bright palate cleanser of Japanese plum.

Green Fig Tempura ($16) is a playful change of pace on the tempura front, but the real clincher is a creamy peanut butter foie gras sauce underneath, dotted with pomegranate reduction. Again, as a big beef tartare fan, I’ve had many a version. This one stands out. Beef Tartare ($18) Morimoto-style comes with asparagus flan hiding an egg in the center. As you slice through it, it oozes over the beef, asparagus slivers, lotus chips and teriyaki sauce. Morimoto Bone Marrow ($16) is an intriguing version: one giant bone loaded with gloppy, warm marrow, perked up with caramelized onions, teriyaki and spices on top.

Entrees continued in this creative vein, though Whole Roasted Lobster “Espice” ($35) had its flaws. It’s a generous portion but the lobster meat is lost in too much garam masala spice, coriander, peppercorn, and cayenne, even though that was what sold me on the dish initially. It was over-spiced but the saving grace was a divine, whipped lemon creme fraiche, contrasting the blackened spice aspect with airy tart.

Duck Duck Goose ($36) was my preferred entree – essentially duck in four parts, from a bowl of duck confit fried rice with frozen foie gras shavings topped with duck egg, to duck soup, duck confit leg, and slices of duck meat with gooseberries. Tofu Cheesecake ($12) in coffee maple syrup with maple ice cream is a signature dish for Morimoto, but though I liked the light texture of the tofu cheesecake, it was overwhelmed by thick maple syrup. A Raspberry Wasabi Sorbet was a better finish for me, hitting strong on both key ingredients.

Morimoto sat at the table next to us with friends, surveying the expansion of his growing restaurant empire. The GM stopped by our table to see how things were going and mentioned that Morimoto loved it so much here he was staying for a couple months. Even when the novelty of his first West Coast venture wears off (he’s opening in LA next – http://eater.com/archives/2010/07/23/morimoto-hits-la.php), my initial visit, merely a week after opening, suggests that this restaurant will long remain one of downtown Napa’s destinations.

Appetite: 2 delicious food events on the horizon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 2 delicious food events on the horizon

8/21 LA COCINA SF STREET FOOD FESTIVAL: Everyone who was there last year recalls the nightmare that was the SF Street Food Festival: three hour waits for a bite, only to find much of it gone by the time you reached the front of the line. I went at the 11am start time last year, yet still only got to try two vendors in two hours. At least I was able to hang out in the cocktail and beer garden awhile, as I heard that, too, was an impossible wait before long.

The organizers of the event are intent on making it different this year. Only time will tell, but the physical space is seven times larger, with four times as many vendors. I have long been a fan of La Cocina as a community treasure, and there are some new people behind the scenes this year who have a good track record with organizing large events. I’m hopeful… but you’ll still find me there at 11am, just in case.

Yes, beer, wine and spirits gardens have returned. You know I’m looking forward to cocktails by bartenders from Rye, The Alembic, and Beretta. There’s an eating contest hosted by none other than Pepto-Bismol (oh, the irony!) How about a scavenger hunt and silent auction? Or an after party at Cocomo with live salsa, dancing and street food? La Cocina will host the first annual San Francisco Street Food Conference on August 22-23 following the festival, with panelists discussing the political, economic, and social impact of street food vending.

At the festival, expect 40 food vendors and restaurants, plenty of drink and a celebration of all things street food in SF. Whether you’re eating street food treats from stellar restaurants like Aziza, Nombe or Flour+Water, from actual street carts and trucks like Curry Up Now or Kung Fu Tacos, or La Cocina greats such as Kika’s and El Huarache Loco, you should not leave hungry.

Saturday, August 21, 11am-7pm
In the Mission at Folsom from 24th-26th Sts., 25th from Shotwell-Treat Sts., Treat St. from 25th-26th Sts.; Garfield Park
Passports for eating range from $25-$150 can be purchased in advance, or bought a la carte the day of
www.sfstreetfoodfest.com

8/27-29 EAT REAL FESTIVAL IN JACK LONDON SQUARE: I also attended Oakland’s three-day Eat Real Festival last year and, being in a much bigger space with more vendors, it was considerably easier to navigate than the SF Street Food Festival. In fact, I tried well over a 15 vendors last year, finding many exciting eats and drinks from SF and East Bay purveyors. About five hours into Saturday, the heat and lines became unbearable, but I got in five great hours of eating first, with no body-to-body crowds.

Eat Real Fest focuses on sustainably produced products and regional food producers and farmers. With 80 street food trucks and carts comes a limitless amount of eating possibilities. There’s also an Urban Homesteading Zone highlighting DIY food acts like canning and preserving, cheesemaking, animal husbandry, and vertical gardening – with contests, in case you want to enter your own wares. Try fermentation tasting stations with kombucha, wine, handcrafted beer, iced teas and lemonades. There’s an outdoor short film fest, a literary portion of the festival with Bay Area writers talking food, and an entertainment stage with music, sure, but also pizza tossing, noodle pulling and a Flying Knives butchery contest.

Friday-Sunday, 8/27-29, 2pm-9pm (Fri), 10:30am-9pm (Sat), 10:30am-5pm (Sun)
Jack London Square, Oakland
Food and drink tickets will be sold on-site
www.eatrealfest.com

Lingering vermicelli

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Lingering vermicelli

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I keep finding myself in Emeryville, which is a problem. Once I was running early so I stopped at the Comeback Café and ordered a Vietnamese sandwich, pork, no mayonnaise.

The young guy at the counter wrote it all down, passed it along to the kitchen, and I picked up a Giants’ schedule from a stack by the cash register. It made me feel at home.

This is the thing about me: whenever I am running early, I wind up late. Even later than when I am running late. At least I know myself. So I called Crawdad de la Cooter, and let her know. It was a prediction, disguised as a question: “Do you want me to bring anything for the kids?”

“What do they have?”

I read the menu.

“Shrimp rolls,” she said. So good, so now I had a proper excuse for being late. And it would be in the kids’ best interest, because shrimp rolls, as a rule, rock. Everybody knows, give or take two- and three-year-olds.

It was already taking them forever to make my sandwich, and now it was going to take foreverer.

I read the whole 2010 S.F. Giants season, April to October, in one sitting, only I was standing up. And finally, my order was ready.

Not wanting to run the risk of having to share my pork sandwich with the children, I decided to eat it in the car. And that was how, just one bite in, I learned why they call the place the Comeback Café. I did an immediate U-turn and went back.

“Mayonnaise,” I said.

“So sorry, I forgot to tell them,” he said.

So they made me a new one and I was even later. The sandwich was great this time, plenty of grilled pork and fresh cilantro, shredded carrots … On the minus side, the jalapenos had very little heat, and: $5. Did I miss something? Is that the going rate for Vietnamese sandwiches these days? Even in the Tenderloin?

Well, leave it to Emeryville.

The fresh shrimp rolls ($5.50 for three) were lame. I don’t think I ever tasted a non-vegetarian Vietnamese cold roll with less flavor. Too much lettuce and not enough (if any) other green things. Cilantro? Basil? Mint?

Well, the kids enjoyed their stickiness: the rice paper wrapper and especially the rice vermicelli noodles, which they were delighted to find inside, and spread all over.

I was about to spend five days and four nights with them. In fact, I did. It’s Day 5, mom’s on the airplane home, as we speak, and I am still picking vermicelli noodles out of her two little uns’ hair and wardrobes.

Besides taking them on their first-ever BART train ride, which was the highlight of at least two of our lives, my favorite time was on Sunday when their father took us all out to dinner at Khana Peena, this great Indian restaurant at the Berkeley Hills end of Solano. I’d seen it a million times but had never eaten there because Zachary’s is just a couple doors down.

Anyway, they have this great happy hour special between I think 4 to 7 p.m. every day, where you get 50 percent off on all your food. Which I’m guessing is overpriced so maybe it comes out to “about right.”

Well, the chicken tikka masala was so good we had to order it again. And probably would have ordered it again again, if the kids weren’t starting to get fussy. Soooooo good, but I gotta say: tiiiiiny portion. Half price, order twice … Again: I don’t know, you do the math.

All’s I’m saying is I don’t remember ever loving chicken tikka masala so much. Nor do I remember ever feeling so thoroughly momlike as I did eating out with two small kids and their dad. I can’t speak for the girls, but I think I might have goofed around a little less than usual.

KHANA PEENA INDIAN CUISINE

Lunch: 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m.;

Dinner: 5 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

1889 Solano, Berk.

(510) 528-2519

AE/D/MC/V

Beer and wine

Appetite: 3 gourmet cheap eats on Sonoma

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: 3 gourmet cheap eats on Sonoma

Not far off Sonoma’s idyllic town square lie these three unique gems – you can eat high quality Eastern European, BBQ or Mexican food at a reasonable price.

EL MOLINO CENTRAL: In a sea of taquerias lining Sonoma’s Highway 12, there’s a new addition I’ve been excited to tell you about that opened early this Summer: El Molino Central. I pulled over after doing a double take — it looks like a charming taqueria, but reading hand-painted “tortillas… tamales… blue bottle coffee” on the side of the building made me say, “Wait… what?”

With no dining space inside, there’s a leisurely patio out back. Inside, it’s an open kitchen where you survey Mexican street food prepared with a high level of care and quality ingredients. The staff hand-grinds corn masa and press tortillas in wood presses. There are even fresh tortillas and pre-prepared dishes to heat up at home. The menu offers merely a handful of items: chilaquiles, tostadas, enchiladas and delightful tamales (I like the white corn and cheese version).

What surprises is the Blue Bottle Coffee menu straight down to New Orleans’ Iced Coffee (perfect on a hot Wine Country summer day). You can get your individual drip or a cappuccino, happily savored with a tamale made from local ingredients.

The place looks plucked out of LA with palm trees and all, but exemplifying Slow Food sensibilities. The shock is the quality level (which costs a little more than an average taqueria, though still under $10)… and the Blue Bottle. You, too, can have your Blue Bottle and homemade tamales in a Mexican food joint. Sonoma is lucky to get this lovably quirky new addition.

Pork Schnitzel sandwich and white corn soup at Lokal

LOKAL: Just off the Sonoma square, Lokal has been getting some love lately from SF folk like Michael Bauer. I’m in when you say Eastern European and Hungarian food — difficult to find done well anywhere, much less in Wine Country.

Lokal won me over with shelves full of records and LPs in the dining room, then with sunny, back patio picnic tables. There’s a fine selection of beers making the patio beer garden-reminiscent. Service has it’s kinks, including a pricing discrepancy on their menu it took awhile to work out on my bill, but the food is a pleasure and is now a favored stop in downtown Sonoma.

Lokal makes a mean German Potato Salad ($5), sweetened by grilled red onions, punchy with mustard, maintaining a fresh profile despite starchiness. A Summer special of White Corn Puree Soup ($3.50 a cup) is sweet and bright. Count me in on the Eva Gabor’s Pork Schnitzel Sandwich/”Rueben” ($12). You almost forget there’s no pastrami in there with a breaded pork cutlet layered with mustard and sauerkraut. There’s a satisfying savoriness here reminiscent of a great Rueben. Lightly crunchy brown bread and house pickles seal the deal.

Jalapeno poppers stuffed with carnitas and cheese at Mondo

MONDO: Mondo, a short drive from downtown Sonoma, has the largest beer selection in the area: 23 on tap and more by the bottle, with a little beer garden courtyard through the restaurant. A couple years ago, this was a sausage and burger joint.

The burgers remain but there’s also the kind of bar food that puts a grin on my face: plump Jalapeno Poppers ($7.50) oozing with cheese and shreds of carnitas (pork). There’s fatty Braised Beef Brisket Sandwich ($9.50) piled with crumbly blue cheese and shaved red onion. For a little healthy balance, try specials like Sweet White Corn Salad ($5) tossed in lime, cilantro, red peppers and red onion.

This is a welcome Wine Country respite where you can break from excess wine for beer and cheap, gourmet bar fare. 

Burmese Kitchen

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Burmese Kitchen

paulr@sfbg.com

DINE Burma isn’t quite as isolated as North Korea, but it did take a new name about 20 years ago and isn’t exactly on the beaten path these days. Since I am an admirer of David Lean’s 1957 movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness, I still think of that faraway land as Burma, not Mynanmar.

Even under authoritarian military rule, Burma/Myanmar has no real hope of matching North Korea in dreadfulness since, if nothing else, it has better food. You can find nice examples of Burmese cooking at a pair of longtime restaurants just a few blocks from each other in the Inner Richmond — Burma Superstar and Mandalay — but last year saw the arrival of a new entrant, Burmese Kitchen, a reinvented deli along a run of Larkin Street from the Civic Center to Geary densely populated with Asian restaurants.

Burmese cooking is distinctive, at least to this occidental person, in its blending of the effects of the southeast Asian peninsula and Indian subcontinent. So you will find ong no kau swer ($5.50), a marvelous soup based on coconut milk with diced chicken and fat wheat noodles. It’s as if a bowl of udon and tom kha gai had an impetuous liaison and produced, as a love child, an east Asian version of chicken-noodle soup.

On the other hand, you have a dish like chicken chana dal ($6.50), a piece of boneless chicken set on a coarse berm of yellow split peas, with a gentle hint of what we might call curry flavor. The use of legumes here seemed to be a nod to the west, toward India, land of legumes. If I’ve ever come across a lentil or other legume in Thai or Vietnamese cooking, I don’t remember it.

Burmese Kitchen also offers a version of the baked-rice dish known in India as biryani. Here it’s called dan pauk ($8.95) and is heavily laced with flaps of beef — not, maybe, the protein you’d be most likely to find in an Indian biryani.

Several of the dishes feature ingredients I hadn’t come across before. A tea-leaf salad ($5.95) included cabbage, tomato, fried garlic, and a heavy shower of sesame seeds and peanuts — the salad’s chief effects were crunch and tartness. But while the tea leaves themselves laid there docilely while we ate them, we felt their avenging presence later, in the middle of the night. Tea leaves might not have the caffeine charge of coffee beans, but they have enough to make themselves known.

Then there’s the prawn and sour leaf salad ($6.50). The owner, Dennis Lin, personally recommended this, and one taste revealed why. The salad (which includes bamboo shoots and sliced onions, along with tamarind leaves for sour power) was powerfully tart in a way unlike that of either vinegar or lemons and limes, our most common sources of tongue-curling acidity. If the sourness reminded me of anything, it was of verjus, the unfermented wine-grape juice the French sometimes use in vinaigrettes.

Lin, incidentally, roams the dining room like an Italian patrone, checking, recommending, chatting, confirming. When the owner of a restaurant actually does this, you are made aware of how few actually do it. It’s the restaurant-owners equivalent of boots on the ground, and there’s no substitute for it if the owner wants to know how a place is running and how people feel about the food and, indeed, the whole experience. And most diners tend to feel better about a place if the owner is at hand.

We did find a few dishes that flew slightly wide of the mark. The pork with pickled mango ($6.50), touted by Lin, had a muddy look that affected the way we perceived its taste. A sprig of something green would have been a simple corrective. And the fish with tamarind sauce ($6.50) seemed underpowered, the sauce tasting more of soy sauce than anything else, with just a suggestion of fruitiness.

Yet one is hard-pressed to think of a dish anywhere that overachieves as spectacularly as Burmese Kitchen’s fried golden tofu ($4.95). It sounds like something someone would bring to a hippie Thanksgiving potluck. But tofu need not be gelatinous and white; here it was made with yellow split peas, and when cut into wafers and fried, the result was something like polenta sticks. The spicy dipping sauce was so good that I finished it off like a shot of espresso after the tofu was gone. Did the owner catch this small affront to good manners? If so, he was too polite to say anything.

BURMESE KITCHEN

Mon., 10:30 a.m.–3 p.m.;

Tues.–Sat., 10:30 a.m.–8:30 p.m.

452 Larkin, SF

(415) 474-65569

www.burmesekitchen.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Average noise

Wheelchair accessible

 

West Coast represents

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
West Coast represents

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Dance is inherently sexy. The millions of devoted fans obsessed with shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars certainly think so. But why, when so many people love watching dance, does the general public still place modern dance on an out-of-reach pedestal? Maybe the overly general words “modern dance” scare people away. Whatever the aversion, the question still remains: why is it so difficult to get people to go see something they’ll ultimately love?

ODC’s fourth annual “Summer Sampler,” held July 30-31, proved that ODC/Dance artistic directors and choreographers Brenda Way and KT Nelson not only know how to get people to see dance, they know how to create works that keep people coming back for more. “Summer Sampler” offered pre-performance wine and snacks, an early enough showtime (6:30 p.m.) to allow a Friday and Saturday night out, and most important, an hour of breathtaking dance.

The show opened with the epitome of dance-y dance, Nelson’s Stomp a Waltz (2006). Continually in motion, the dancers ran across the stage, threw each other into the air, and incorporated their entire bodies in fast-paced, rhythmically complex gestures. The ODC dancers possess great athleticism. and Friday night was no exception. Eating up the space around them, they took Nelson’s already daring choreography to the edge. I’ve seen these dancers command the large stage at Yerba Buena’s Novellus Theater, but watching them perform in the ODC Dance Commons — a space so intimate I could hear their breath and see their sweat — was an entirely new and exciting experience.

While Nelson’s very technical Stomp a Waltz was visually exhilarating, there was more to the piece than pretty tricks and leaps. A sense of raw emotion underlies Nelson’s abstract choreography. With the eye of an architect and spirit of a musician, she layered movement phrases that paired perfectly with Marcelo Zarvo’s rhythmically driving, highly emotional music.

Following Nelson’s piece, Way’s newest work Waving Not Drowning: (A Guide to Elegance) demonstrated that dance can be as tongue-in-check and cerebral as it is aesthetic. Inspired by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux’s 1963 A Guide to Elegance, the piece used playful humor and inventive movement to articulate the absurdity of gender norms. A commissioned score by Pamela Z looped text from Dariaux’s original guide, snippets of fashion advice, and a list of “important” feminine concerns like “adaptability, age, weddings, and Xmas” to confront everything from femininity and grace to sex and submission. The dancers — moving through doll-like movements, a sexy hip-swaying waltz, sexually-charged duets, and silly facial expressions — owned Way’s playful yet profound choreography with sassy elegance and bold maturity.

Though ODC is known as one of the nation’s top contemporary dance companies, it hasn’t lost sight of the importance of a local dance community. As a state of the art dance facility — housing a dance company, a pre-professional training school, recreational dance classes, a dancers’ clinic open to the public, and a performance space upstairs — the ODC Dance Commons is making dance accessible for Bay Area residents and visitors. A new ODC Theater is set to open at the end of September, making ODC’s 36,000-square-foot, two building campus the largest, most comprehensive dance facility on the West Coast.

On the Cheap listings

David Talbot
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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 11

Ethical Borders  Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia, SF; www.mtbs.com. 6pm, free. In his new book, Bill Ong Hing examines the relationship between NAFTA, globalization, and undocumented migration and discusses policy options for immigration control, including opening the U.S./Mexican border while improving the conditions that give people incentive to migrate.

THURSDAY 12

“What Cannot Be Taken Away” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 863-1414. This new exhibition titled, “What Cannot Be Taken Away: Families and Prisons Project,” consists of eight collaboratively designed and created portraits that resulted from creative dialogue between Bay Area youth who have incarcerated parents and fathers who are currently incarcerated in San Francisco jail.

FRIDAY 13

American Craft Council Show Herbst and Festival Pavilions, Fort Mason Center, Laguna at Beach, SF; 1-800-836-3470. Fri. 10am-8pm, Sat. 10am-6pm, Sun. 10am-5pm; $5-$12. Check out crafts made by over 250 artists from around the country, an AltCraft exhibit featuring upcycled jewelry, “trashion”, and eclectic handmade pieces, an Etsy craft bar, wine tastings, and more for DIY enthusiasts and craft lovers alike.

“New Frequencies Unplugged” Grand Lobby, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2700. 6pm, free. Part of YBCA’s Thursday and Friday Art Tap happy hours, this week’s party invites attendees to stroll through the galleries while enjoying live jazz from the Nice Guy Trio, playing original compositions representing folk traditions from around the globe.

SATURDAY 14

“Color en el Barrio” Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; (415) 643-5001. 5pm, free. Learn about the challenges that graffiti artists face when trying to transition from tagging to creating murals that serve a public function at this panel discussion with celebrated urban artists Francisco “Twick” Aquino, Jonathan Brumfield, Jet Martinez, and Marina “Mincho” Perez-Wong. All panelists have participated in the StreetSmARTS program, which connects urban artists with private property owners to create vibrant murals and reduce vandalism.

DIYbca Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 9pm, free. This TechnoCRAFT inspired, do-it-yourself night highlights the Bay Area’s pioneering brand of homemade, homespun crafting weirdness by inviting participants to create their own instruments, customize their own shoes with Mrs. Vera’s Sole Makeover, create stencils with public artist Jeremy Novy, and more.

Make Piñatas! Flax Art and Design, 1699 Market, SF; (415) 552-2355. 1pm, free. Get ready for your next fiesta at this workshop where you can learn to make your own piñata out of tissue and balloons. Supplies provided.

Sea Turtle Benefit Art Show 10 Arkansas, SF; www.seaturtles.org/artshow. Noon-6pm, free. Fifteen fine artists and craftspeople will exhibit work available for purchase at a silent auction to benefit the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. Show to feature on-site artisan food vendors, music performances, and presentations throughout the afternoon.

Sideshow Happening Root Division Gallery, 3175 17th St., SF; (415) 863-7668. 7pm, $5-$20 sliding scale. Celebrate the link between conceptual art and carnival at this exhibit featuring stand-up comedy, glass eating, lectures, living sculpture, noise music, snake charming fantasy travel, film, slideshow, dance, and more from Root Division Artists, artists from their Adult Ed program, and other performers.

Tomato Cooking Contest Omnivore Books, 3885a Ceasar Chavez, SF; (415)282-4712. 4pm, $5. Cook up an inventive dish that utilizes tomatoes from August’s fabulous tomato bounty and enter for a chance to win cash. Cut your dish into as many pieces as possible for judges and tasters. Free admission for all who enter a dish.

SUNDAY 15

Candlestick Park Antique Faire Candlestick Park, Hunter’s Point Expressway at Jamestown, SF; (510) 217-8696. 6am-3pm, $5-$15. Over 500 vendor booths filled with antiques and collectibles will be selling treasures all day at Candlestick Park. Food vendors will be available.

North Beach by Night Meet at Spec’s, 12 Saroyan Place, SF; www.sfcityguides.org. 7pm, free. There is plenty to do and see in North Beach during the day, but the most interesting things happen here by the light of the neon signs. Learn about this colorful neighborhood where food, culture, and history have intersected in many unexpected ways. Bring warm layers.

BAY AREA

Bike Church Manifesto Bicycles, 412 40th St., Oakl.; (510) 595-1155. 10:30am, free. Come one, come all to a non-religious community gathering for bike lovers featuring live music, brunch by Jon’s Street Eats, and lots of friendly people.

TUESDAY 17

Idiolexicon Rancho Parnassus, 132 6th St., SF; (415) 503-0700. 7pm, free. The new creative space, art gallery, café, and community gathering venue, Rancho Parnassus, is hosting the Idiolexicon poetry reading series featuring experimental poets Carrie Hunter, Della Watson, and Jessica Wickens.

One For None Space Gallery, 1141 Polk, SF; (415) 377-3325. 7pm; $10, includes copy of book. Attend the launch for m.g. martin’s first book of poems featuring performances by spoken word poet Charlie Getter, fiction writer Alia Volz, comedian Janine Brito, music performances by Jess Silva and Andrew Paul Nelson as HoneyBaby, and DJ Benito spinning funk, dub-step, and more.

 

Our Weekly Picks: August 4-10, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

WEDNESDAY 4

MUSIC

Blondie

Emerging from the early punk and new wave scenes of New York City in the mid-1970s, Blondie incorporated a variety of musical styles into its overall sound, helping to set itself apart from its contemporaries and creating a following that perseveres today. It’s hard to believe that firebrand singer Deborah Harry is now 65, but she, along with founding members Chris Stein and Clem Burke, continues to powerfully rollick through the band’s impressive back catalog of favorites such as “Call Me,” “Heart of Glass,” “Atomic,” and its cover of The Paragons’ “The Tide Is High.” With Gorvette (featuring Nikki Corvette alongside Amy Gore of the Gore Gore Girls). (Sean McCourt)

With Gorvette

8 p.m., $55

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

 

COMEDY

Tim Lee

There are many career paths available to someone with an advanced degree in biology, but standup comedy usually isn’t one of them. That explains the immediate appeal of Tim Lee, a PhD from UC Davis who’s made his name mining the rich comedic veins of fossil records and molecular geometry. This is actually way better than it sounds — think of the guy as your witty high school science teacher writ large. His use of PowerPoint slides makes him a kind of Demetri Martin for the un-stoned. But what ultimately sets Lee apart is his undeniably charming wonkiness. Sure, you’ve heard a million Larry King jokes, but have you heard one that manages to work in the Cambrian explosion? (Zach Ritter)

8 p.m., $20

Punch Line Comedy Club

444 Battery, SF

(415) 397-7573

www.punchlinecomedyclub.com

 

THURSDAY 5


DANCE/THEATER

CounterPULSE artists-in-residence

What is feminine? Answering such a broad and loaded question undoubtedly generates some anxiety. Not so for CounterPULSE’s summer artists-in-residence, Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewit. Merging dance and theater, these two emerging choreographers aren’t afraid to dive head-first into notions of sex, gender, and authenticity. Their shared showcase at CounterPULSE (a nonprofit community performance space) features Arrington’s latest piece, Hot Wings — which centers around four women in a cardboard castle — and Hewit’s newest creation, Tell Them That You Saw Me, a work with everything from lipstick and large tanks of water to sacred hymns and sex stories. (Katie Gaydos)

Thurs/5-Sat/7, 8 p.m.; Sun/8, 3 p.m., $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2060

http://counterpulse.org

 

THEATER

Sex Tapes for Seniors

If you have a comfortable relationship founded on bridging the generational gap, Sex Tapes For Seniors is a show you can see with your grandparents. They can relate to, or at least chuckle at, the plight of old folks clinging to their libidos before slipping into senility, and you can appreciate it because this is your future. Yet as Mario Cossa –– playwright, director, and choreographer –– fills your imagination, you might realize you don’t want to be sitting with grandma and grandpa after all. Upon retiring, a group of seniors starts making their own instructional sex tapes and thus, the locals get all verklempt. In the words of the late TV series Party Down, this musical is “seniorlicious!” (Lattanzio)

Through Aug. 22

Previews tonight, 8 p.m.

Runs Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m., $20–$40

Victoria Theater

2961 16th St, SF

(415) 863-7576

www.stfsproductions.com

 

EVENT

“Exploratorium After Dark: Nomadic Communities”

As thousands of Bay Area residents prepare for their annual pilgrimage to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, the monthly Exploratorium After Dark series takes on the topic of nomadic communities. “While true nomads are rare in industrialized countries, hybrids of whimsical and economically inventive itinerancies are evolving here in the Bay Area,” notes the program. Burning Man board member and chief city builder Harley Dubois will discuss the evolution of Black Rock City while attendees have the chance to nosh on one of the blue plate specials at the mobile Dust City Diner, a project developed by Burning Man artists that brings the ’40s-style diner experience to the most random spots. Exploratorium biologist Karen Kalumuck will also talk about nomads from the animal world and how they’ve come to live and thrive in the Bay Area, with interactive exhibits. (Steven T. Jones)

6–10 p.m., $15

Exploratorium

3601 Lyon, SF

(415) 561-0360

www.exploratorium.edu

 

FRIDAY 6

 

THEATER

The Norman Conquests

The Shotgun Players invade the Ashby Stage with British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests, a triptych of farce, lunacy, and suburban malaise. The Conquests feature three freestanding yet complementary plays set in separate rooms of a house revolving around the same characters: Table Manners happens in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and finally Round and Round the Garden in the … well, you get it. In 2009, a revival garnered one Tony and five nominations. A three-play package affords you many chances to catch each, but on Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, you can see them all in one marathon. (Lattanzio)

Through Sept. 5

Performance times vary, $20–$25 (three-play package, $50)

Ashby Stage

1901 Ashby, Berk.

(510) 841-6500

www.shotgunplayers.org

 

VISUAL ART

“Gangsters, Guns, and Floozies”

The cinematic microverse populated by shamuses and femmes fatales is fodder for plenty of critical writing as well as contemporary neo-noir film, but a gallery of visual art inspired by the form stands to capture the shadows from a different angle. Nicole Ferrara’s works depict harsh gray moments in time, with the titular floozies, guns, and gangsters as primary subjects. The immediacy of the faces on Ferrara’s characters is enough to convey the continued relevance of this decades-old aesthetic. Whether painted or caught on film, the desperate acts of desperate people are riveting and revealing. Ferrara also paints B-movie inspired art, apparently drawing inspiration from the alternate visual reality presented in such films. (Sam Stander)

Through Aug. 31

Reception 6 p.m., free

Hive Gallery

301 Jefferson, Oakl.

www.hivestudios.org/hive_gallery.html

 

VISUAL ART

“Por Skunkey”

Big Umbrella Studios is a cooperative gallery and a community of artists, and with them comes DIY-chic culture to the Divisadero Corridor. “Por Skunkey” brings together the artists-in-residence –– including the abstract, gestural paintings of Umbrella co-owner Chad Kipfer –– along with a few guests to pay tribute to Skunkey, also known as canine-in-residence, also known as Mama Skunk. And if you’d like some oil spill on the side of your oil painting, then under the Umbrella you’ll find artist responses to this summer’s BP disaster. Here’s hoping Skunkey herself shows up, so be nice and pet the pooch. When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you. (Lattanzio)

Through Aug. 31

7 p.m., free

Big Umbrella Gallery

906 1/2 Divisadero, SF

(415) 359-9211

www.bigumbrellastudios.com

 

SATURDAY 7

 

MUSIC/PERFORMANCE

Slammin’ All-Body Band

Clap, snap, stomp, slap, step, tap. Try it and you’ll see it’s easy to make sound with your body. Making music though, proves far more difficult. Keith Terry — a trained percussionist and drummer for the original Jazz Tap Ensemble — has mastered what he terms body music. He’s been clapping and stomping his way through awe-inspiring kinetic soundtracks for more than 30 years. In 2008 he founded the International Body Music Festival out of his nonprofit Oakland arts organization, Crosspulse. This benefit show with Slammin’ All-Body Band — plus guest dancers and renowned hambone artist Derique McGee — highlights the artists before they head off to the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival. Proceeds help fund the group’s NYC debut. (Gaydos)

8 p.m., $25–$100

La Peña Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 849-2568

www.crosspulse.com

 

FILM/PERFORMANCE

“Night of 1,000 Showgirls“

Can you believe it’s been 15 years since Showgirls was first released? The crowning achievement in a directing career that also included 1997’s Starship Troopers, 1992’s Basic Instinct, 1990’s Total Recall, and 1987’s RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven’s trashiest, most glorious film is, by extension, probably the trashiest, most glorious film of all time. Peaches Christ (now a filmmaker in her own right, thanks to alter ego Joshua Grannell’s All About Evil) hosts “Night of 1,000 Showgirls,” maybe the biggest tribute the tit-tastic classic has ever enjoyed. In addition to a Goddess–themed preshow, there’ll be a contest for Nomi Malone look-alikes — don’t forget the nails! And don’t eat all the chips … or the doggie chow. (Cheryl Eddy)

8 p.m., $18

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.peacheschrist.com

 

SUNDAY 8

DANCE

San Francisco Ballet

An afternoon at the ballet doesn’t come cheap. Rarely ever, free. But thanks to the annual performing series Stern Grove Festival, park-goers can see one of the nation’s top ballet companies, San Francisco Ballet, for a grand total of zero dollars. In its one and only Bay Area summer appearance, SFB performs Christopher Wheeldon’s romantic pas de deux, After the Rain; Mark Morris’ playful ensemble piece, Sandpaper Ballet; the classic pas de deux from act three of Petipa’s Don Quixote; and the neoclassical work Prism by SFB artistic director Helgi Tomasson. So skip out on Dolores Park for one Sunday this summer, trade in your tall can for a bottle of wine, and head to Stern Grove for a tutu-filled midsummer afternoon. (Gaydos)

2 p.m., free

Sigmund Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

www.sterngrove.org

 

MONDAY 9

 

EVENT

“The Evolving Landscape of Local Journalism”

In the face of the ever more hectic state of print journalism, as exemplified by the recent strife at the San Francisco Chronicle and the disappearance of other local publications, new modes of reporting are cropping up to fill the need for engaged investigative coverage. Tonight at the Booksmith, Lisa Frazier from the recently opened Bay Citizen, SF Public Press’s Michael Stoll, and Mission Local’s Lydia Chavez discuss the future of local journalism as a significant alternative to our standard methods of news delivery and consumption. If these three aren’t enough San Francisco journalistic players for you, the panel discussion will be moderated by Christin Evans, co-owner of the Booksmith and a contributor to the Huffington Post. (Stander)

7:30 p.m., free

Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

www.booksmith.com

 

TUESDAY 10

MUSIC

Weird Al Yankovic

Must we seek to encapsulate Weird Al Yankovic in 130 words or less? Some would call this treason against the United States of Awesome. Yankovic has been marshaling the ludricrousness of pop culture music into parodies no less farcical since 1979 — and his campaign (surprise!) continues to this day. Certainly, “Eat It,” “I Love Rocky Road,” and “Amish Paradise” — the track that incurred the wrath of Coolio at the height of his celebrity powers — were classics seared into our souls like the brand on a cow’s behind. But rest assured of the future’s brightness by his recent offerings, like an ode to that modern day zeitgeist, “Craigslist.” (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m., $36-50

Warfield

982 Market, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com 

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