Fermenation Stop 3: Bar Tartine Sandwich Shop

This is a picture of the counter where you order sandwiches that I shamelessly stole from the internets.

 Kitty will probably not be too happy that I posted these here. I apologize.

My sandwich. aka. heaven.

My sandwich two days later as a snack on the plane. It probably wasn't a good idea but I ate it anyways

Our our last stop on our Fermentation tour just Kitty and I went to Bar Tartine’s sandwich shop in the Mission. They pickle their own sauerkraut and use their own yeast to make absolutely delicious bread that sent my taste buds hurtling back to Germany.

I ordered a reuben with corned beef with farmer’s cheese, charred onions and sauerkraut and it was so freaking good. I mean, so so good. Like I still dream about it, good. I also had Kefir half & half: lemon ginger iced tea which I thought would be like a fancy Arnold Palmer. It wasn't, but it was very good just the same. Kitty had an everything sandwich with smoked sturgeon, quark and fried onion. That could be totally wrong though because I do not really remember. I do remember her loving it but loving her drink more. She fell in love with her drink, the marriage kind of love. It was fig leaf dairy kefir, which sounds nasty but is pretty good.

Bar Tartine was the perfect way to round out the tour. Here is a small part of their explanation from the restaurant's website:

Aged cheeses, spices, koji, and bottarga to name a few, are all processed at the restaurant and form the foundation on which the constantly evolving menu is built. The menu at Bar Tartine is a celebration of diverse traditional flavors presented with a modern, post-regional generosity. A dinner might consist of flavors from Jutland, Hokkaido and Budapest within the same meal- the whole seeming utterly familiar. Varied whole grains and the use of fermentation inform the food, as well as the innovative natural leavened breads baked on premise daily by owner/baker Chad Robertson.

Photo credit for the first picture: Inside Scoop SF

Fermentation Stop 2: Cultured Pickle Shop

Alex Hozven herself

The outside of the shop and the sign. Artsy. My uncle gets photocredz.

I'm going to have to say this is the list of things they sell.

It was a hard decision.

Where they ferment stuff.

Also where they ferment stuff. This stuff is kombucha.

This is bacteria. But good bacteria.

The pickles we bought that tasted "distinct". They looked distinct too.

This is our dinner. It's colorful. Like fall.

This is the face that I make when I try to hide my reaction to the bitterness.

Me and Ted talking. This is probably after his coughing fit. 

The next stop on our fermentation tour was Cultured Pickle Shop a couple blocks from Three Stone Hearth. The shop is owned by Alex Hozven and Kevin Farley. We met Alex Hozven, the artist behind the fermentation, and she took us on a quick tour of her shop. Because her shop is purely about pickling she makes far more than Three Stone Hearth. Everything is made my traditional fermentation methods dating back to ancient China. She knew a lot (which probably makes sense because it is her life). When my aunt asked her about a certain Japanese pickle Hozven told her that it had been created rather recently history-wise in Buddhist Monasteries because of some government introduction of Sake. (That could actually be completely wrong but it would be my memory not her answer.)

We ended up buying a bottle of beet kvass to try (meh. not my thing) and three different types of pickles. Much to my disappointment, they were definitely not my thing, which was upsetting because I was on such a role. In my defence, Kitty’s friend Ted had a coughing fit after having one and then called it “distinct”, I will now call everything that does not agree with my taste buds “distinct”.

This is an excerpt from the Cultured Pickle Shop website about pickles:

Within the American food lexicon, the pickle suffers from rigid and compartmentalized thinking. To many, the pickle is a sour cucumber, period. However, on any given day, one can visit the tasting area of The Cultured Pickle Shop and sample ten varieties of sauerkraut, four varieties of kimchi, fourteen different types of seasonal specialty pickles, eight different flavors of kombucha tea, two sake lees pickles, one rice bran pickle, and, of course, the ubiquitous Classic Dill. In the spirit of enlarging the collective culinary mind, Cultured challenges the narrow confines of America's pickle prejudices. Global pickling traditions of the past interact dynamically with the Northern California foodshed in our Berkeley shop.

If you are interested in the Cultured Pickle Shop their website and their blog are fascinating.

Here is a great video of Alex Hozven giving a tour of her shop, not unlike the one she gave us. Probably a little more detailed though.

Sandor Katz is one of the people that made fermentation popular across the states, he is a food activist who wrote Wild Fermentation about well...fermentation. If you want to know more about him or his book, his website of the same name is chalk full of fermentation facts. He also has a new book called The Art of Fermentation.

That night we had the bitterest meal I have ever eaten. Pickles, radishes, bok choy. It was delicious but whew, some of it was...distinct.

Fermentation Stop 1: Three Stone Hearth

This place is cool.

This is the inside of the cool place.

Action shot with Kitty and Catherine.

Dialogue shot with Kitty and Catherine and someone whose name I have forgotten. I am very sorry about that. She went to Georgetown U. though and I am jealous.

Kombucha shot. Yum.

It's a SCOBY. wow

Fermentation at its best.

 The Fermentation Guy.

So the first stop on our fermentation and foodie tour in Berkeley was the cooperative Three Stone Hearth co-founded by one of Kitty and Louis’s friends, Catherine Spanger. The company is a community-suported kitchen that makes and packages meals in mason jars for customers from around the Bay area to pick up or have delivered. The menu changes from week to week, while I visited they had some kind of chicken soup on the menu. The week of November 20 the menu is:

• Southern Style Chicken Stew
• Vegetable Mushroom with Beef Polpettini
• Irish Beef Stew with Mushrooms and Stout
• Rice-a-Cheesy with Greens
• Pork Rillettes
• Falafel Dough
• Beef Patties with Garlic & Rosemary
• Coconut Tikka Masala Sauce
• Tuscan White Bean Dip
• Tahini Yogurt Sauce with Lemon
• TSH Mayonnaise
• Autumn Harvest Relish
• Fudge Brownies with Crispy Walnuts
• Lemon Orange Tapioca Pudding

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Even though I just had my biweekly fix of Pad Thai, I could totally go for some of that Irish Beef Stew.

Along with soups and stews and other forms of deliciousness, Three Stone Hearth specializes in fermentation. They make kombucha, kavass, sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles. If you’ve never had kombucha, try some. It takes like sunshine, and it's refreshing like a waterfall. That’s probably a lie but it is really good. It is fermented tea, made from a scobi. It is my drink addiction (pad thai is my food addiction). Because it is fermented it can be vinegary if you buy it bottled at the store like GT’s Kombucha. But the kombucha from Three Stone Hearth didn’t have that bite that the shelved kombucha has because it is incredibly fresh. (Both taste good if you ask me, I just felt cooler drinking the kind from Three Stone Hearth.) We tried three different kinds, Kitty’s favorite was the nettle but I liked the ginger-lime, the hibiscus was also delicious. They also let us try something called a Honey Cooler which I’m not 100% sure what it was but the Lavender Honey one was ah-mazing.

This is the amazing Three Stone Hearth website. http://www.threestonehearth.com/ Check it out. They are super cool.

I did some web-research (meaning prbly only 90% reliable) on kombucha but here is what I found:

• The Chinese called it the immortal health elixir. Take that Tuck Everlasting.
• It originated in East Asia but made its way to Germany at the turn of the century.
• People think it prevents cancer. At least the Russians and Germans do. I’m guessing the Chinese would agree.
• It detoxifies, has some chemical that can help prevent arthritis, aids digestion and “gut health” and, it boosts you immunities. Idk bout all of that but it does taste really good.
• Apparently it's “the new yogurt”. Now we know it's made it.
• Cancer.org claims kombucha is promoted to help cure “baldness, insomnia, intestinal disorders, arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and cancer” but that it has also been linked with several deaths. I guess some people would die before they go bald. Me, I would just die because I think it's tasty.
• You can brew it at home, apparently you can obtain a SCOBY on craigslist. Sketchy

This is the website that claims kombucha is a cure-all.

http://www.foodrenegade.com/kombucha-health-benefits/

This is the website that gives a lot of accounts that kombucha might kill you.

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/dietandnutrition/kombucha-tea

Here is an article written on the NY Times in the Fashion and Style Section about kombucha in San Francisco. None of those things add up to me but the article is interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/fashion/25Tea.html?_r=0

This is the article that called kombucha “the new yogurt”, for that epithet I like it best.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36571884/#.UovaKo3QGfo

San Fransisco is Foreign for Someone from the South

I'm pretty sure this could be a post card. But no, its what I saw when I woke up.

I was so aggravated that I was delayed that I bought myself a milkshake

My second lip looks like a mustache. You have to entertain yourself somehow.

If this is not Berkeley hipster then what is?

The fancy restaurants always try to look rustic.

Me staring with a look of awe and love at my salad.

The salad I stared so lovingly at. It was worth it.

The soup that also deserved a look of love.

Gluten. And lots of it.

 Farmers market sunshine.

On a not so recent article on Yahoo News I read that San Francisco is the second snobbiest food town in the US. This in my eyes is incredibly accurate, but in a good way. My mom’s twin (my aunt), Kitty, lives in SF with her partner Louis, and they are our family foodies. In a good way. I would be just as food snobby as them if I had the time and the taste buds for it. In a good way. I was on the phone with Kitty one day suffering a huge bout of senioritis and she offered to fly me out to visit them over break. I said yes because while sometimes stupid, I am not an idiot. The trip was part senioritis cure, part college apps session and part blog work. I mean, the second snobbiest town in the US is just about the best place to visit for a little mentoring project research. Second best, to be accurate but I am not related to venerate foodies in Santa Fe.

After a waiting on delays for a stupidly long amount of time I finally landed and woke up bright and early the next day to a view of the Golden Gate and our first food adventure. They took me to Berkeley for a full day food adventure. Kitty had planned the theme of our trip to be fermentation and that is why those parts of our adventures get their own blog post.

Our first stop was this delicious and fancy (for me) restaurant in Berkeley. Louis had a gluten allergy. Like a real one, not just one of those diet fads. The restaurant called Gather might be opening a second gluten free branch by Kitty and Louis’s apartment so they wanted to show it to me. It was so good. Delicious. While we waited for our reservation time we took a quick tour of UC Berkeley which was beautiful and amazing but totally unattainable and too hipstery for me. The tour and crisp (yes, I use that to describe weather) wind gave me a larger appetite than my normal elephant sized. It was perfect. Because of the whole no gluten thing Kitty rarely eats any because she has no one to share it with, so my presence allowed her to get her gluten fix. We split a pizza. It was so fancy that it had an egg cracked on top of it. If that isn’t fancy then I guess you are just too cool for me. But the salad was the biggest hit. It had homemade pickled things in it like beans and onions and other vegetables and it, like the wind, was perfectly crisp.  We all split a soup that we a red pepper tomato bisque that so good that I think I probably ate all of it which is bad because it wasn’t technically for all of us but I took it over.

After a fermentation tour of Berkeley we went to this beautiful organic farmers market where we bought chestnuts and sweet potatoes and goat cheese from a lady who talked with my aunt for about half an hour about goat food. That was pretty cool, I never thought I would know so much about a goat’s intestines. But now I do, and I am so much cooler.

The whole day was incredibly memorable and also did a great job at proving that the Bay area really is the place to go for a foodie.