June 16, 2009

No sleep for the wicked. Cold or no cold, I still had major book research to do, and fortunately my ability to taste was not affected. Last week I did a tablehoppin' trip around Oakland (Flora, Tamarindo, MUA, Bar Lata), plus a mini Italian tour of 54 Mint (pictured), flour + water, and Pizza Nostra, and let's not forget Sunday brunch at Pomelo on Church, and a boozy dinner at Heaven's Dog. Quite the international tour, no? I have a little over three weeks left before the SF portion of my manuscript is due, and I have about 40 places to check out in the meantime, eep. If you want to keep up with 140-word reports of my tablehopping, you can follow my Twitter feed.

And now in the media file: I'm going to be heading down to Palo Alto to be on the Ask "Dr." Business show with Roy Blitzer this Thursday June 18th as part of his cable access series on PEOPLE WHO EARN THEIR LIVING WITH FOOD AND WINE. The show is live at 9pm with viewer call-ins, so please call in with questions at 650-856-1491. I'd be really stoked to have some tablehopper readers call in, and to answer any questions you have about how to make it as a food writer! Reach out and touch someone, yo. Anyone can watch via the internet through the webcast, here's the link. The channels are 27 or 30.

I am making one exception to my "no food or wine events this month" rule (you know it is KILLING me to not go to The Golden Glass this Sunday), and will be swinging by the SummerTini event this Friday June 19th at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Since ticket sales are down a bit this year, they wanted to offer a special tablehopper discount: for just $65 you can sip on martinis, graze on hors d'oeuvres from restaurants like Poleng Lounge, Ducca, LarkCreekSteak, 4505 Meats, and more, and help fight homelessness in San Francisco. Really good auction lots, too. Will I see you this Friday? It's from 6pm–9pm. Just write in "Tablehopper" as the discount code when buying your tickets on brownpapertickets.com. All proceeds benefit CHEFS (Conquering Homelessness through Employment in Food Service). Please consider coming (surprise a friend with a ticket?)—it's an effective and very important cause to support.

Thanks to my guest writer this week, Pete Mulvihill from Green Apple, I have a bookworm to share with you about Novella Carpenter's new book, Farm City. Watch out, you might get inspired to raise some critters. Although really now, who am I kidding? The most I can currently manage is making my own kombucha (batch two was a success!); but I do hope to have my own chickens someday—I love eggs too much. I just can't quite raise them on a fire escape, the extent of my "backyard" at the moment.

On that note, let's get crack-a-lackin'.

Bwok!
~Marcia