Cooking with Seasonal, Regional Food

Have you ever cooked a meal of entirely seasonal and regional foods? Before last week, I really don't think I had.

Walking through the supermarket these days, you will see food coming from all around the world. Though it certainly convenient -- hey, it gives North Americans the ability to eat strawberries in December -- this global food market is also impacting the environment. Did you know that 90% of bananas eaten by people in the United States are grown in South America? How do these millions of bananas get to the U.S. from Brazil? And how do strawberries, seasonal only in summertime, magically appear in the produce section year-round? Let's just say some of your food may have more frequent flier miles than you do. Food is being shipped around the world for buyer convenience, but at the expense of the environment.

As if there weren't enough things to feel guilty about!

I was always overwhelmed by this fact. I felt helpless. Certainly I couldn't change the system. But I don't necessarily have to comply with it either.

When my Eating San Francisco class was assigned the final project of cooking a delicious dish of all seasonal, regional foods, I had a brief moment of panic. Cooking for me usually involves a trip to the grocery store and the use of at least SOME packaged or processed foods. I decided to check out a local farmers market and I hoped something would fall into place.


Lucky for me, my local farmers market was extremely local: USF recently started having a farmers market on weekends and, living on campus, it just doesn't get more convenient than that.

There I found an abundance of food that I would feel guilt-free about eating. Fruits and vegetables that come from local farms are not shipped halfway around the world, and the money goes directly to support small farmers and their families. And of course there are also your fresh meats, eggs, and dairy products. At a farmers market and you can assume the animals were treated way better than any you'll find at the supermarket.

At the farmers market, I met up with local food lover and recent USF alum Lulu McAllister, who secretly wishes she was in Eating San Francisco. She advised me on some ingredients to pick out, and we devised a sort of recipe for a fava bean dip with pita bread and feta cheese.

I put my recipe in a Flickr set. I think it makes more sense visually.

Look at all the delicious dishes my classmates made!!!

Thanks for the great semester ESF!

What's for dinner

ESF at McDonalds on Haight St.

ESF at Zazie on Cole St.

The question of what to eat for dinner has become increasingly complicated. With new technology and more efficient farming methods, the focus of food production is all about maximum profit and with little regard to quality. Quality seems to be the lowest of all priorities in the industrial food chain, as all efforts are focused on producing massive quantities of certain foods at low costs. And consumers eat it up -- most Americans value low price above all, which is why they are willing to eat mystery meat from McDonalds, so long as it's only 99-cents.

Let's back up. In our Eating San Francisco class, we've been lucky enough to eat at some pretty cool and interesting restaurants in one of the greatest culinary cities in the world. Our plan all semester was to end class by reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, and dine at none other than the McDonalds conveniently located on Haight Street.

But as we read Pollan's masterpiece, which explains just how screwed up America's food industry is, the thought of eating at this mega-chain (which is no worse than its competitors, but for better or for worse has become icon for fast food, and thus the brunt of all criticism) was no longer very appealing.


So our class decided to go to Zazie, a French Bistro in nearby Cole Valley. At around $15-20 per dinner entree, this place was clearly a cut above good old Micky-Ds. And oh, was it a noticeable difference! The quality was evident in the service and meal. It was the kind of place where the food was truly special, and the reason for being there. The waitress chatted with us about her favorite dishes and spoke enthusiastically about what drinks should accompany it. When the food was presented, each dish was a work of art.


I ordered salmon, and it was laid over a bed of couscous and sprinkled with fresh herbs, sweet cherry tomatoes, snap peas and a wedge of lemon. It was so fresh and well seasoned that each bite was exciting. Also, the food looked like what it was: the fillet of salmon clearly was fresh from the sea - no unnecessary processing or preservatives. The vegetables were fresh, not frozen, and came from local farms. Couscous is a processed wheat product but is still fairly natural, as it is an ancient dish, not a byproduct of the modern food industry.

There was something so pure and good about the meal. It's the feeling of eating "real food," not something we always get these days.

In comparison to Exhibit B: Fake Food


After dinner we headed over to McDonalds to basically fulfill our obligation of eating there. I eat at McDonalds from time to time, but it's not a decision I like to consciously think about. Having just read The Omnivore's Dilemma, and just dined on such high quality food at Zazie, the idea of McDonalds did not seem appealing.

In his book, Michael Pollan talks a lot about McDonalds. The most astounding point he makes about fast food (and all industrialized food) is that it is made up primarily of corn, due to corn farmers constantly growing a surplus and selling it for various uses (from feeding livestock to fueling cars as ethanol) on the cheap.

The French fries, for example, would seem to be a potato product, but really half of the calories come from corn, in form of the oil they're fried in. Or the McFlurry (I enjoyed an Oreo one that night) seems like an ice cream dish, but contains plenty of corn: corn syrup solids, mono and diglycerides (from corn) and milk from corn-fed cows. The chicken nuggets and hamburgers: corn. The soda: tons of corn. You'd really have to read the book to understand just how much corn goes into the food we eat. Pollan doesn't conclude that this is going to lead to mankind's extinction, but it sure doesn't seem like a good idea.

Comparing the two dining experiences, there was really no contest. Zazie was a relaxing culinary experience. We wined and dined slowly, conversed merrily, and practically licked our plates clean from the delicious entrees.

At McDonalds we were herded like cattle into a line where we ordered, waited, went up to the counter to retrieve our feed, and sat down at tables. We bussed our own trash. The employees seemed irritated that our large group had come. They told us not to take pictures. The food tasted good, but in that manufactured kind of way. The McFlurry had a fake feeling, not like real ice cream. It is cold and sweet but there is something different.

Nonetheless, there are obvious reasons we can't all eat at Zazie every night. For one thing, the price would make it impossible for many people to go. I personally could only go as a rare treat. My meal cost $16, which I would make in about two hours of working. I'd go broke in a hurry eating like that. Also there's the time factor. We spent about two hours at Zazie, whereas most days I devote about a half hour to eating dinner. If I had to eat out on a typical day, I'd have to go somewhere that could serve me quickly. And cheaply. Hence the reason why I do eat fast food occassionally.

However, reading The Ominvore's Dilemma has made me more conscious of the impact of these decisions. I do feel inspired to make an effort to eat whole, natural foods more often. There are farmers markets all over the city that put local, organic produce just a walk or busride away. While I may not be resolving to abstain from meat or fast food altogether, I am determined to make small, positive changes for the sake of the earth and my own health.

The Foghorn: A year in review

It's a Monday night. Well technically it's more like Tuesday morning, but let's leave my crazy insomniac lifestyle out of this. Most Monday nights are spent entirely in the Foghorn office. The Foghorn is the University of San Francisco's student newspaper. Our small staff spends Monday nights laying out the weekly paper, usually staying up til 2, 3, or 4 in the morning. It is a labor of love. We usually crawl off to our respective apartments (or just crash on the couch in the office) late and wake up the next morning, slightly refreshed, only to return back to the office to catch the mistakes made by our tired selves the night before. Classes, homework, projects, all seem to take a backseat to this.

But tonight that is not the case. The school year is quickly wrapping up, and the paper has gone to bed for the semester, leaving me and my colleagues to run around like chickens with our heads cut off with no paper to attend to until next fall. What do normal people do Monday nights?

This time has given me a chance to reflect on the crazy, crazy year the Foghorn has had. It really was groundbreaking, and not to sound self-important, but it was perhaps one of the most significant in the paper's 106 years.

I say this almost primarily because of the new website. After several years of an unimpressive online site, the Foghorn now has a dynamic, interactive, multimedia supporting and, most importantly, fun to utilize web PRESENCE. Yes the word presence is important. Presence implies that people know we are present, which they do. By the time content is uploaded to the site, often before the PAPER paper has been distributed around campus, page views are already soaring, and comment discussions beginning to heat up. There is an online presence.

Eternal thanks go out to Michael Villasenor for this, a USF senior and web guru, who envisioned and created the site. His creative vision and technical expertise made the site all that it is today: user friendly, engaging and community oriented with minimal technical difficulty.

Having the Foghorn Online become so important has helped the Foghorn in paper as well. I know I personally have stepped up the quality of stories I am working on and am taking extra care to cover things fairly. Heaven forbid, I think, if I covered an important story unfairly, I would be attacked by the online commenters. If the press is supposed to check big business and government, then finally readers have the opportunity to check the press, beyond a letter to the editor. There is now instant feedback, completely public for the world to see. Let's just say I'm being more careful than ever. I'm also choosing to cover more stories that are of significance to the community because, from an egotistical standpoint, I want to see people reading and discussing my articles. I expect other writers feel this way as well. This concern for what the readers want is obviously what we should have always been doing, but now it is just more clear to see what readers enjoy.

This has also been a year filled with some significant news in the University community. An alleged rape case made headlines around the Bay Area when a senior in the ROTC program was accused of rape by four unique female students, and I covered this for the Foghorn. It was one of the most interesting experiences I ever had as a student journalist: real news, right on my campus. The full news story can be read here. I also covered much of the aftermath: student reactions and anti-rape events. The whole issue also sparked a series of very thoughtful opinion columns by community members; such a great dialog I will never forget.

It was also the year that the 44th US President Barack Obama was elected and inaugurated into office, which I covered for the Foghorn as well. The night he was elected, sharing that moment with my campus community, and then heading into the newsroom to type up a story in time for print -- definitely something to tell the grandkids about.

I have also covered controversies involving USF faculty: a popular professor Andrej Grubacic not being rehired and faculty union negotiations (which I did a rather shoddy job at, but read anyway if you must).

After this monumental year, the Foghorn staff was surprised to have our stipends cut by the student government. Rather than sit idly by, we wrote an impassioned staff editorial. This article, within hours of being posted, received more comments than any other article ever posted to our site. Though I did not write this piece, it inspires me to see how powerful the Foghorn Online can become. The readers, the USF community, can have an extremely powerful voice. After this was printed (and we filled out a formal appeal), our stipends were almost completely reinstated. Perhaps because the student body at large was so widely in support of us. That felt good.

This year I went from co-news editor to managing editor of the Foghorn. Next year I will take over for the infamous Hunter Patterson as editor in chief. Hunter leaves large shoes to fill, not to mention he's pretty much the only EIC I've ever known here at the Foghorn. I am excited for another tumultuous year with the newspaper, hopefully with more drama and breaking news than ever.

Thanks for reading.

Dim Sum for Dim Dummies

I was most hesitant about the trip to Chinatown in the semester leading up to it in my Eating San Francisco class. Whereas all the other neighborhoods we visited were home to cuisines familiar to me, such as Mexican or Italian, the plan for Chinatown was to eat a brunch of Dim Sum, which I had never done before.

I'd been to Chinatown in the past, but mainly to the main tourist drag: through the Dragon Gate leading from Union Square area to Grant Avenue, which is lined with an endless array of souvenir shops. But I knew there was much more to this historic neighborhood than just cheap Buddha statues and paper fans and dragon-motived knick knacks.

A bit of online reading gave me a good sense of the history of this neighborhood. Chinatown actually started out as a ghetto for Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, when they began arriving in the 1850s in waves to work as cheap labor on the railroads or Gold Rush miners.

Americans soon began feeling hostile toward their new neighbors because they worked so hard for so little money and were coming in such an influx that jobs were at a shortage. Government began to enforce this discrimination with legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Despite these restrictions, Chinatown continued to flourish as a hub for Chinese immigrants, with schools, churches and shops owned by Chinese people.


Nowadays Chinatown is somewhat touristy and Disneyland-ified (given an exaggerated theme to draw more visitors), but it is not all a facade. Between the crowded sidewalks full of Chinese shoppers stocking up on fresh groceries and store owners tending to their small shops and markets, peppered with lively conversations in Cantonese, I actually feel like I've stepped into another country when I walk around there.

When I went with my ESF class, we stopped at the Tin How Temple, a dim sum restaurant called New Asia Chinese Restaurant, and finally to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookies factory.


The Tin How Temple is the first Chinese Temple in the United States. Walking inside, up about four flights of narrow stairs and finally into a tiny room, it was a wonder that anyone could ever find this place. The room inside was filled with the fragrant smoke of incense and stung my eyes. A group of elderly Chinese women seemed to be running everything here. One very kind woman showed our class many aspects of the temple unfamiliar to us and taught us how to ask for a fortune. Turns out you don't just crack open a cookie. I enjoyed learning about the rituals observed in the temple, which were new to me.

Next was brunch. I was starving by this point! We crawled out from the dreamlike haze of the temple into the bright daylight, ready for dim sum. We were walking through streets I had never been on before and I began to understand that Chinatown is for more than the tourist trap I previously thought it was. Many Chinese-Americans perused the streets, doing their everyday grocery shopping or meeting for a meal. Most of them seemed to be meeting at New Asia like we were -- it was absolutely packed inside. It's always a good sign to see locals dining at the establishment you choose, which seemed to be the case.


The restaurant was a huge open room full of many round tables, each surrounded by many chairs, all of which were filled with hungry patrons. Weaving between the tables were waiters wheeling carts of small dishes meant to be shared by the groups.

Finally seated, food was instantly presented to us by some rather pushy servers. They would usually hold a dish out to us, expecting an instant reply of "yes" or "no." They had little patience for questions or hesitation. We seemed to be choosing randomly. I had no knowledge of popular dim sum dishes prior to this, but it seems we tried most of the ones other tables had, and a few others.

Over all I felt pretty overwhelmed by the dim sum experience. It was a bit stressful trying to be mindful of servers shoving food at you constantly and trying to decide if you wanted it or not. Being a somewhat picky eater, a lot of the dishes looked off-putting to me. I tried most and was often pleasantly surprised that I liked them. However, others I would rather not have tried. What I did enjoy most about the dim sum meal is that it was very interactive and made us focus on our food, discussing what we liked and what we should order next as a group.


We walked off our meal as we strolled over to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie factory. Like the temple, it was tiny, located in an alleyway with a barely noticeable storefront. Inside we got to see fortune cookies being made, from flat discs made by a small machine and then folded in half with a fortune inside by hand. This process was mesmerizing to watch.

I was happy to have spent this day with ESF in Chinatown. It gave me a fresh perspective on the neighborhood that I thought was a mere tourist trap. It also gave me my first taste of dim sum, which I think, with more knowledge and experience under my belt, I will someday enjoy very much.

By the way, in my reading I found this fascinating account from a former chief of police Jesse B. Cook (1860-1938) where he describes Chinatown's sordid beginnings, which included gambling, prostitution, opium dens and gang wars. A fun and interesting read from a white man trying to keep the "Chinamen" under control, with some great old photos.

Cooking for my family

I've never been the cook in my family. Growing up, I was lucky enough to have a mother who cooked family dinners pretty regularly. I often sat on the opposite side of the kitchen counter watching her, but my older sister Lindsay was always the one to jump in and help. Lindsay developed all the essential cooking skills early on: how to best chop various vegetables, how long to cook different dishes, and what spices accompany different ingredients.

The more her skills grew, and mine remained amateurish at best, our roles became clearly defined. Lindsay and my mom would handle dinner, and I would be in charge of setting the table. Sometimes I would be trusted to prepare a salad, heat up rolls, or even make dessert, but preparing main dishes was pretty much off limits to me. *cue tear jerking music*

I've always envied Lindsay's ability to not only cook but enjoy doing so and experimenting with her dishes. She has made homemade Italian pasta, French crepes and various Thai and Indian cuisines. There is no dish that she is too intimidated to attempt. Also, she has been documenting her dishes for years, and there are probably enough photos of Lindsay's masterpieces to fill an entire album.

Last weekend I decided to follow suit and prepare dinner for my whole family: my mom, stepdad, sister, brother-in-law, and boyfriend. I chose to make enchiladas because they are tasty, and I could make them with meat or without for my vegetarian brother-in-law Phil. I documented the process to show how easy it was -- even a novice like me could whip them up easily. I didn't use a recipe, instead going by intuition. I documented the whole process.

With some pretty tasty ingredients before me, I felt excited but nervous to embark on this adventure: cooking a whole meal from scratch for my family.

I started by chopping and sauteing some fresh garlic. If there's one thing I know about cooking it's that fresh sauteed garlic can enhance almost any dish.

Next I browned the ground beef, tossing in some garlic for flavor. I also sprinkled on some cumin.

Now, time to prepare the cheesy spinachy filling. I microwaved two boxes of frozen spinach and drained the water very well.

I incorporated the spinach into a mixture of sour cream and cream cheese, sprinkling in some grated cheddar and jack cheese as well.

Now the fun begins! Assembling the enchiladas:

Step 1: Coat the baking pan with some canned enchilada sauce.

Step 2: Top a medium corn tortilla with desired fillings. In this case, spinach/cheese blend, enchilada sauce, and ground beef.

Step 3: Fold both ends of tortilla over and place in saucey baking dish.

Step 4: When dish is full'o'enchiladas, top with more sauce and sprinkle on some cheese.

Ta da! I baked for about 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Taking them out of the oven, they looked saucy, cheesy and gooey.

I heated up some black beans with more garlic and cumin and threw together a salad with tomato and avocado to accompany the enchiladas.

Alas! the final product:

I'm so glad to have made this delicious dish. I finally gained some confidence in my cooking skills. Sharing the meal that I prepared with my family made me feel like I was able to give back to the people I love. Also, my ability to cook a meal (main course, side dish and salad!) from start to finish was finally recognized... Victory!

What I ate today

Food is such an intrinsic part of life that virtually everyone has their own set of values and factors that influence what they will eat. Some people are vegetarians or vegans and avoid any animal products in their meals. Some people worry about what impact their diet is having on the environment. Some people eat a diet based primarily on what is healthiest, focusing on eating low fat or high in fiber or vitamins and minerals. Some people simply go by what tastes best and indulge their taste buds as desired.

My personal eating philosophy is kind of non-existent, other than trying to eat moderately healthily with very little time and money to spare. Being a college student, I think I do better than some (I don't eat Top Ramen EVERY day, though I do have it on hand), but I could certainly improve the sophistication of my diet.

Here is a typical day in the life of me. I find it impossible to separate what I ate from what I did in that day. What we consume has so much to do with our circumstances -- if we're out or at home, if we're busy or if we have the day off. Just a thought.

I rolled out of bed at 11 am yesterday. I had worked from 2 to 6 am the night before and could have slept til 1 or 2 in the afternoon if my alarm hadn't interfered. I had to get up to clean my room and then go down to the DMV to register my car. I didn't think to eat breakfast in my quasi-comatose state, but did have the strength to down a quick Five Hour Energy. I love these things.

Completely shameful. I don't know what's in these things. Supposedly it's like a shot of straight vitamins and a little bit of caffeine, but somehow I don't think I'd consider it a health food.

On my walk to the DMV I had to stop at the bank and while doing so, got a drink at the grocery store next door. It was a warm day out, I was parched, and my sleep-deprived one-track mind couldn't resist another drink that promised me increased energy.

Second drink of the day and still nothing to eat.

While I continued my walk to the DMV, I enjoyed the sunny day and sipped my Vitamin Water. I arrived at the DMV and finally registered my car. It expired in November of 2008 and it only took til March 2009 to register it! Success!

No, I didn't eat the registration tag. I was just really proud of myself for finally registering my car. Though I was getting pretty hungry by that point...

Like I said, I was getting pretty hungry by that point. My boyfriend and I felt like taking advantage of the lovely weather and decided to eat lunch outside at an adorable little place on Geary called Tony's Cable Car Restaurant (click to read my Yelp review). It's simple American comfort food, close to school and home, and has a fun outdoor seating area.

Don't know who Tony is but I love his little cable car shaped restaurant just a hop skip and jump away from USF.

At Tony's I ordered the classic hamburger and french fries. It was darn good. What I couldn't finish of my fries I fed to the lingering pigeons who were salivating over my lunch.

Time to go home. I went to put my registration tag on my car and very ironically found that I had gotten a parking ticket for expired tags! Really what are the odds.. really.

Ah cruel irony of the San Francisco Deptartment of Parking and Traffic: the day I register my car is the day you choose to spite me so?

Recovering from this tragic blow, I went up to my apartment and tried to maintain a positive attitude. I had to work on a big paper due on Thursday, so that kept me occupied for a while. I think I took a nap somewhere in there. I have no classes on Tuesday so it was a low-key afternoon.

At 8:00 I had a meeting for the Residence Hall Association, for which I am in charge of producing their newsletter called The Final Flush. Our president, Hoa, made delicious chocolate covered almonds that she chose to share with us, and which I neglected to photograph. Oops! Thanks Hoa!

9:15 and time for dinner. I trekked home and pulled out of the pantry a can of tomato soup, some bread and cheese. Voila! Grilled cheese and tomato soup.

No I'm not five years old. If you haven't eaten this since you were a kid, you should revisit it. It's quite the culinary combo I must say.

While my dinner may have lacked sophistication, it was tasty and easy. I devoured my meal happily, continued to work on my midterm paper, and fell into bed around 2 am.

And there you have it: A day in the life -- of me and my stomach.

For kicks I decided to evaluate my daily diet on a few of the different scales that the world wide web has to offer.

First I calculated the carbon impact of my diet using a calculator at EatLowCarbon.org

It's hard to read in this screen shot, but the site said I'd used 2,756 CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) points in my day of eating. These came almost all from the hamburger I'd had at lunch, as the production of beef is incredibly taxing to the environment. My entire day of eating contributed about 4.4 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere. Eek!

Next I decided to track the healthfulness of my diet using MyPyramid.gov. I had to sign up for an account, enter my height/weight and what I ate for a day, and then it told me how I did nutritionally.
I don't think this was entirely accurate. I'm pretty sure I consumed more than 1119 calories and from the looks of this chart I'm practically malnourished, which is hardly a reality. Still if I took the time to do this more accurately an regularly, I would probably get a good sense of my overall health.

And that's the flipside to eating... There are always repercussions to the choices we choose. Who knew that even something as simple as deciding what to have for lunch has repercussions on our body and our earth's environment?

The woes of being an extremely amateur blogger

I don't know how many of you bloggers out there use StatCounter.com or a similar site, but it's really cool to check out. It's a service that shows you on a given day how many people have been on your blog, where in the world they're reading it, what page they entered on, how they found it (be it a link or google search, etc.) and even how long they stayed and what they looked at. All you have to do is sign up for a free account, embed an html code into your blog, and wait for the stats to pour in.

The stats depicted in this chart in no way reflect my own. This chart is taken from Google images from a blog or web site with over 30,000 visitors a month. I probably have around 150 visitors a month. If I'm lucky.

I have made a few interesting observations from this site, some good and some bad.
One surprising observation I made is that even when I am not blogging regularly (i.e. 99% of the time) I still get a fair amount of page views. This is pretty surprising because I really don't know who would be looking on my blog. Fortunately with StatCounter, I am able to see how and why they are finding it.

For example, one entry I wrote for my Digital Journalism class last spring is often searched on Google. It is about Makoto Hagiwara, the original landscape designer and maintainer of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Through StatCounter I learned that many people were searching Google for information about him, and found my blog entry as a result. Very cool!
Sadly, I have also learned a harsh reality that many people who find my blog soon choose to turn around and leave before they even make themselves comfortable. A whopping 61% of visitors stay on my blog for less than five seconds. LESS THAN FIVE SECONDS!?!? Is it really that bad?

Ok, ok, so I won't take it personally.

I've chosen to use the information from StatCounter as inspiration to blog more often and about a wider variety of topics. Seeing that a random topic such as the Japanese Tea Garden could generate so many page views is inspiring to write and write and write some more! Write about odd and interesting things that no one else is writing about. Then more people will randomly stumble upon my blog, and who knows... maybe if it's interesting enough, they'll want to stay for more than five seconds.