Squash blossom and flower bud fritters new garlic aioli

Devils gulch pork, radish, pickled cherry, buckwheat crisp bread

Grilled tiny cabbages crème, bacon, chervil

Little city gardens salad with cucumbers, favas, flowers and fresh pine haven farm goat cheese

Grilled fig leaf sardines, lime, orange blossom water, harissa, herbs and leaves

Duck egg, grilled porcini, nasturtium custard

Roots and shoots

Grilled rabbit confit with plum and preserved Meyer lemon, everyone’s greens

Apricot strawberry galette with grilled figs and berries novellas green coriander Chantilly
Johnny’s honeycomb

Kevin Bayuk -duck eggs
Amy belorka- favas, potato, flowers,
Novella-honey, fennel, squash, rabbits, green coriander, flowers, fig leaves, mulberries, potatoes, turnips
Monterey fish-sardines
Knoll farms figs and apricots
Frog hollow-nectarines
Blossom bluff-plums + foraged
Esperanza pallana-rabbits
Bohemian farms-flowers, greens, baby vegetables, squash blossoms
Star route- baby carrots and agretti
Anders -squash blossoms, herbs, garlic, flowers
Abeni-tomatoes + padrones
Pine haven farms-goat milk
Little city farms – salad greens, herbs
Edible school yard- flowers and herbs
Urban sprouts- favas beans
Johnny- honeycomb
Devils gulch-pork shoulder
Firebrand- breads
Dirty girl-cabbages , strawberries
Porcini- twain heart

i am having a blast with the littles….Foraged Plum gallette today

Liminal Society
What, exactly, will June 19 taste like? The Liminal Society aims to find out.
​In The BFG, our second-favorite Roald Dahl book, the plucky little protagonist Sophie, unable to sleep during the predawn “witching hour,” spies a stooped bald giant blowing dreams through the windows of houses along her street. This “special moment of the night” when buildings look “bent and crooked, like houses in a fairy tale” and everything is “pale and ghostly and milky-white” is a time of transition, just before moonlit darkness gives way to the first flickers of dawn. It is a space between two movements, in a sense, liminal in that it exists between two defined states. The witching hour is neither here nor there, and when you’re awake then (and not falling down the stairs at some stupid party), the silence and absence of human motion and voices encourages the sensing of invisible spirits.

We thought of this when we read about the young Liminal Society’s June 19 dinner party. Plenty of special serial dinners celebrate the seasons; most restaurants self-consciously do the same, kind of to the point where half the menus in town look strikingly similar at any given time of year, changing practically in unison each month. Chef Nicole LoBue’s Liminal Society feasts focus tighter in on the spaces between the seasons we think we know ― we like to think of them as joints linking one section of the year to the next. LoBue and her comrades came up with the concept last year as summer turned to fall. In searching out a way to express the shifts in seasons, they’ve found a satisfying conceit around which to construct thoughtful, layered food parties.

LoBue shared her thoughts on the upcoming event with us: “For the feast into summer, we’re feeling like it’s all about the fruiting and flowering and lushness; a general lack of restraint, leaving behind the tartness of the last season.”

She does have a menu in mind (a whole-lamb plate, sardines with gypsy pepper harissa, and a rosewater pine nut brioche cake, for starters), but she also asked that she not be held to it. We think we understand why. A dinner like this must evolve constantly. Most market-driven meals require a certain flexibility, but the seasonal shift LoBue intends to articulate isn’t a static phase. It’s more like a wave, sometimes slow and casacading, and then, suddenly, crashing surf. A chef trying to ride it has to be prepared to improvise. You just have to buy tickets.

A Liminal Feast to Summer
When: Sat., June 19, 7-11 p.m.
Where: Somewhere in San Francisco (find out precisely where after buying your ticket)
Cost: $75 for five courses; BYO drinks
Purchase: Via Brown Paper Tickets

With one week left to go Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway are gearing up to begin production on a new space here in the city.

I admire this project so much and am so in love with what they are producing.

Little City salad is simply the best available.

Congratulations !

The new site is ready.

I am so very excited for them and the implications for our city!

Little city Gardens

lovely images here .

Oh Spring! Here is a little seasonal discussion I had with friend and journalist Heather Smith for Mission Local. About some of our newly sprung treasures.

April

Plant identification walk April 25th

I will also be leading a plant walk on Montara mountain with class mate and friend Joolie Geldner.

Come and stroll through the blooms with Joolie Geldner and Nicole LoBue, Second Year students at the Ohlone Herbal Center, while feeling the wind of the ocean on your face at Montara Mt.  We will be heading on a short walk, visiting plants that can help us with many things from digestive issues to insomnia.  The walk is moderate with slight inclines but we will be moving very slowly to insure  time to spend with the plants and the fantastic ocean view.  Please bring anything you need for a hike: sunscreen, snacks, water, camera, notepad and pen, any plant ID books and your natural curiousity.  All levels are welcome and all stories and plant experiences are encouraged!

RSVP to gurlshare@gmail.com

We will meet at 2621 Bryant St, San Francisco @ 10am to carpool and caravan.

June

Join us for the third Liminal feast June 19th . Jennifer Lynch and I collaborate for this dinner club project. This time we will be capturing the transition of spring to summer

Here are some more pictures from our last feast by Robin Jolin

July

I will be  guest teaching for a bit with Bryan Welch a wonderful educator and an inspiration.I will be cooking with the kiddos for the curious cafe and my son will join in for some of the other fun as well.I highly recommend taking a look at the program.

A Curious Summer is a series of one-of-a-kind workshops driven by the curiosity of your child. We aim to induce wonder and spark enthusiasm for the everyday world around us. We consider play, the mysterious work of the child, to be an advanced and sophisticated endeavor, profoundly central to a child’s individual development and theories about the world. A Curious Summer workshops encourage discovery through free play, tinkering, and imagination.

A curious summer

This camp will be based out of the Studio for Urban projects. Where I also have a class series happening right now. I can not speak highly enough of the events and collaborations happening there  . Have a look and pass along.

Cheese April 10th~

Fermentation June 5th

Sourdough bread baking July 24th

Canning August 28th

Come gleam some gourmet granny skills.

I am so thrilled to be chef for an Outstanding In The Field dinner on July 5th at Donkey and Goat Winery in Berkeley. A celebration of Urban Agriculture.

Here is the

description and link to purchase tickets

We like urban agriculture and a lot of other people do too. This year it’s been in the news; people are growing things, raising animals, making wine right in the city. We are going to explore this trend, this interest with a good look at who’s doing what and where it’s happening. Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, will open her garden gates for a look at what it means to mix farm and city. For dinner we’ll move on to Donkey & Goat Winery where Tracey and Jared make wine some distance from the vineyard. Don’t look for a garden here, this will be gritty city dining and there certainly isn’t enough room for a long table at Novella’s place. We’ll be joined by other urban agriculture champions and our chef of the evening will be Nicole LoBue, who is usually busy with secret supperclubs and is an avid forager and supporter of urban ag. Her food is killer and she only sources sustainable high end product.

The self sustaining kitchen series

Here