The alumni network

A restaurant does not stay in business for four decades without graduating a few fascinating food folks.

The San Francisco Chronicle's story on Alice Waters and Chez Panisse highlights, among other things, the Berkeley eatery's impressive and far-reaching network of alumni, which extends "to high-end restaurants, artisan bakeries, ice cream shops and cafes - not to mention the pages of dozens of cookbooks throughout the years."

It includes:

Alison Barakat, co-owner of Bakesale Betty in Oakland.

Paul Bertolli, former executive chef of Oliveto in Oakland, and founder of Fra' Mani, a handcrafted salumi and sausage company.

Mary Canales, co-owner of Ici ice cream in Berkeley.

Diane Dexter, co-founder of Metropolis Baking Company in Berkeley.

Suzanne Goin, chef and co-owner of Lucques in Los Angeles, and cookbook author ("Sunday Suppers at Lucques: Seasonal Recipes from Market to Table").

Joyce Goldstein, former chef and owner of Square One, and cookbook author ("Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Salad Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings").

Rick Hackett, chef and owner of Bocanova in Oakland's Jack London Square.

Charlie Hallowell, owner of Pizzaiolo, and Boot and Shoe Service in Oakland.

Paul Johnson, president and founder of Monterey Fish Market in Berkeley and San Francisco.

David Lebovitz, cookbook author ("The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City").

Lili Lecoq, founder of La Farine in Berkeley.

Deborah Madison, founding chef of Greens, and cookbook author ("Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone").

Russell Moore, chef and co-owner of Camino in Oakland.

Mark Peel, opened Campanile in Los Angeles.

Gayle Pirie, chef and co-owner of Foreign Cinema in San Francisco.

Claire Ptak, owner of baking company, cafe and cake shop Violet in London's East End, and cookbook author ("The Whoopie Pie Book").

Judy Rodgers, chef and co-owner of Zuni Cafe in San Francisco.

Amaryll Schwertner, co-owner of Boulettes Larder in San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace.

Lindsey Shere, opened Downtown Bakery & Creamery in Healdsburg.

Peggy Smith, co-founded Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station.

Steve Sullivan, founded Acme Bread in Berkeley.

Jeremiah Tower, chef and co-owner of Stars in San Francisco.

Jonathan Waxman, chef and owner of Barbuto in New York City, and cookbook author ("A Great American Cook: Recipes from the Home Kitchen of One of Our Most Influential Chefs").

In the Sunday paper

Though we know him for the chocolates, John Scharffenberger apparently has done and now does considerably more. The San Francisco Chronicle details his pre- and post-chocolate endeavors:

"His food businesses have been nothing short of diverse. Besides having produced Champagne-style bubbly, high-end dark chocolate bars and now gourmet soy, Scharffenberger is also juggling a small sauerkraut enterprise and has teamed up with his hog-farmer neighbors to market cured hams."

Alas... if only we liked tofu - he is CEO of Hodo Soy Beanery in Oakland - half as much as we liked chocolates.

In the Sunday paper

Pegged in part to the publication of her cookbook "In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart," the San Francisco Chronicle's piece on Alice Waters sums up much of her food philosophy.

"For nearly 40 years, 'St. Alice,' as she's been called for her unrepentant views, has touted the importance of eating local, organically grown food; emphasized the necessity of being good stewards of the land; and tirelessly advocated and funded nutritional meal programs in public schools..."

Sating a thirst

Not until I met a guy in London who waxed nostalgic about Anchor Steam have I given significant thought to the iconic San Francisco brand, sold by Fritz Maytag to entrepreneurs Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio.

Only now have I developed a thirst for the beer.

Major marketing

"A magnet for locals, visitors and foodies attracted to its more than 100 merchants and fast-food stands," Borough Market is mecca for gastropods, those of us who travel on our stomachs.

It can also be a madhouse on weekends, when it is open for business to the general public. We wander from stall to stall to stall, eyeing everything from sausages and cheese to pies and pumpkins. We get full on looks alone.

Three-quarters plum, one-quarter apricot

Chip Brantley remembers eating a pluot for the first time at a farmers' market in Culver City in the middle of the week.

"I was warm and hungry, and it looked like a plum... When I bit into it, it felt almost liquid, like plum jelly. I ate it outside the fruit tent, bent forward, dripping juice onto the pavement, and I used my two front teeth to scrape off the flesh that clung to the pit."

He remembers learning its name and proper pronunciation at another farmers' market a few days later.

"Feeling somewhat justified for having majored in French, I asked the man at the stand what the story was with the 'plew-ohs.' He looked over at me and said, 'PLEW-ott. PLUH-um and ay-prick-OT. Plu-ots.' 'Pluots,' I said, turning it over in my mouth."

In "The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot," Brantley details his affection for the unique fruit. He sings its praises. Co-founder of the website cookthink.com, he traces the development in California of the hybrid fruit and its increasing popularity among growers and shoppers in recent years.

Three-quarters plum and one-quarter apricot, the pluot is prettier and substantially sweeter than either of the individual fruits. The Flavor King, for instance, one of a handful of pluot varieties, is "dark purple, almost blue, and lightly specked with gold," Brantley tells us. It tastes "of caramel and almonds."

Pluots appeared initially in the early 1990s in markets on the West Coast, after decades of experimentation by Floyd Zaiger, "considered by many who knew about these things to be the foremost fruit breeder in the world."

A scientist in Modesto and owner of Zaiger Genetics, Zaiger, 83, has helped to create more than 200 new and improved fruits, from low-acid peaches to different types of apples and pears. For his contributions, he was awarded the American Pomological Society's Wilder Medal in 1995, "the fruiticultural equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize."

Brantley sheds light on the late Luther Burbank, too, a botanist in Northern California who cultivated numerous strains and varieties of plants during his lifetime, including the Santa Rosa plum and the plumcot, equal halves plum and apricot. He describes Burbank's work and achievements in the field, remarkable accomplishments that preceded Zaiger's by a generation.

Part personal narrative, part food world exegesis, "The Perfect Fruit..." brings to mind other nonfiction titles. The author's love for the pluot, for instance, recalls David Mas Masumoto's devotion to the peach in "Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm."

His look into the lives of fruit breeders and his forays into the Central Valley, "that enormous trough that occupies the whole middle of California," remind us in some way of Susan Orlean's experiences with orchid collectors in South Florida in "The Orchid Thief."

And his talk of taste, of pluots grown primarily for mouth feel rather than size or durability, makes us want to re-read Russ Parsons' "How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table." It makes us want to celebrate, and indulge in, truly amazing summer fruit.

Straightforward and occasionally humorous, Brantley's book provides insight on a burgeoning industry, one that can benefit farmers and retailers as well as consumers. It makes agricultural science accessible, helping us to realize where some of our best foods come from and the effort involved in producing them.

(This review appears originally in the San Francisco Chronicle.)

Food for thought

"We only have three meals a day. I hate to waste one."

Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," in an interview last year with the San Francisco Chronicle.


And so I think often about what to eat: the vanilla yogurt in the refrigerator, the rhubarb cooked down with sugar and orange juice, the granola. I think about what to drink. Do I want coffee, the first sip that goes down warm and smooth?

I think about what to have for lunch. Leftover rice or pasta? Salad, soup or a sandwich? I wonder if I will get five servings of fruits and vegetables; there is that mango on the counter ripening nicely. I think about what to prepare for dinner as well, how to shop and chop and braise. I do all this before I make it out of bed.

"The Ramen King and I"

Andy Raskin's book is difficult to define. On one level, "The Ramen King and I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life" recalls the writer's deep and utter fascination with Momofuku Ando, "the 94-year-old billionaire who invented instant ramen in his back yard." It charts his career as founder and chairman of Nissin Food Products in Japan.

On another level, Raskin's work examines the ways in which Ando affected him personally. Through a series of frank and reflective letters he directs to the chairman but does not send, the San Francisco resident learns from his own mistakes with women he has dated. He discovers reasons for his infidelities and insecurities. He vows to do better.

Still, on another level, "The Ramen King and I" offers occasional looks into Japanese food and drink, both in the Bay Area and abroad, as well as Japanese films and comics. Raskin references these throughout his narrative, citing cinematic warriors, for example, and manga titles such as "Shota's Sushi" and "Ramen Discovery Legend." It is a tangle of threads. But it is a tangle that mostly succeeds.

With great enthusiasm and substantial clarity, Raskin talks of Ando's early days and experiences. He was born in Taiwan in 1910 and raised alongside two brothers and a sister by his paternal grandfather, a textile distributor. He considered the old man "a strict disciplinarian" and "an excellent role model for life as an entrepreneur."

In 1958, Ando experimented in a shed in his back yard in Japan and figured out a way to flash-fry noodles. This led to the creation of instant ramen. (A replica of the shack now stands "like a shrine" at the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda.) Thirteen years later, Ando developed Cup o' Noodles, utilizing a foil that would "serve as the top of a revolutionary packaging design in which instant noodles could be sold, cooked, and eaten." The product was subsequently renamed Cup Noodles.

Raskin devours as many books and articles by and about Ando as he possibly can, often quoting passages from autobiographies such as "Conception of a Fantastic Idea," "Magic Noodles" and "Thus Spake Momofuku." He attends a massive memorial service at Kyocera Dome Osaka when the chairman passes away in 2007, too; it is among the most endearing and compelling moments in the story.

The time the author spends researching Ando's beliefs, values and accomplishments coincides with the time he spends abstinent. He decides to stop dating in order to give himself the emotional distance necessary to understand his failures.

Heeding advice from a friend in a local support group, Raskin begins to pen letters that reveal intimate details of his fears and faults. Instructed to select a deity or a spirit to whom to address the letters (and thinking constantly then of ramen), he chooses Ando. His correspondence becomes an exercise in honesty. It is therapeutic and enlightening.

Eventually, Raskin realizes that the goals Ando established for ramen applies to his situation as well. The inventor wanted noodles that were tasty, long lasting, economical, healthy and safe. In the end, these words "also described the kind of healthy romantic relationship that had eluded me."

Does Ando actually repair Raskin's love life, as the author suggests? That is still debatable. The connection between the two men remains somewhat of a stretch. Though Raskin tries repeatedly to arrange interviews with Ando in Japan, for example, they never meet face to face. They never interact personally or professionally. The bond is tenuous.

For some reason, however, Raskin's memoir is oddly entertaining. Perhaps it is his earnestness and determination. So long as he believes Ando will guide and support him, who are we to spoil the illusion?

Perhaps it is the way Raskin peculiarly juxtaposes love with food, history with pop culture, and his life in San Francisco with his travels through Asia. Perhaps it is his voice, confident yet humble, self-effacing and unassuming. Or perhaps it is simply how he reminds us of the guys we knew in college, the ones who frequently faltered but genuinely meant well, who were inherently flawed but had significant potential, the ones who carried themselves a certain way, in short, the ones we couldn't help rooting for.

(A version of this review runs in the San Francisco Chronicle.)

In the Sunday paper

The San Francisco Chronicle looks at French macarons, "perfectly round cookie sandwiches in pastel greens, bright pinks and vibrant yellows."

(Photo credit goes to Eric Luse of the San Francisco Chronicle.)

I have been thinking about macarons on and off for months now. I first tried them at Miette in the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco. True, they are wickedly expensive. Then again, they are wickedly good.

The reporter highlights a handful of other places in the Bay Area where these cookies are also available, including Masse's Pastries in Berkeley, Pamplemousse in Redwood City and Bouchon Bakery farther out in Yountville. Grab the sunscreen. I feel a road trip coming on.

In the Sunday paper

The San Francisco Chronicle writes of Bill Niman, co-founder of Niman Ranch, subsumed in January by its primary investor, Chicago-based Natural Food Holdings LLC.

Theirs is an engaging piece on the "idealist, whose mission was to change the way people eat and encourage them to think ethically about their food."

Excess fruit

One day, I swear, I will come up with a good food idea, too, something noble and selfless that benefits the community.

For now, I will admire Asiya Wadud and the work she and her friends do with Forage Oakland.