Romano Isole just showed up with some beautiful porcini foraged from the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. We bought up a whole bunch and Chef Canales plans to have them popping up all over the menu, starting tonight, in such dishes as:
Gnocchi with porcini
an entree of Riverdog Farm pasture-raised eggs poached in olive oil and porcini
The news of discord at Monterey Market is terribly serious and important. If this is new information for you, the short version is that Bill Fujimoto, the head of Monterey Market in Berkeley (and for many, the heart of Northern California’s extraordinary small farm food revolution over the past 30 years), has been at odds with family members about the way the business is run, and he and his wife Judy have resigned effective June 3, 2009.
In hopes of reversing this outcome, many people have suggested notifying the Fujimoto family Board members of their intention to no longer shop at Monterey Market after June 3. We completely support Bill and Judy, but have waited to write something, hoping that the family could find an agreement, and not wanting to inflame a sensitive situation. But it seems to have reached inferno status, with email campaigns flying all over the Bay Area.
June 10 marks the beginning of our eighth annual Oceanic Dinner event, which our trusted co-conspirator Tom Worthington of Monterey Fish Company says is looking very good for all our fishery sources (except local salmon).Our Oceanic Dinners are the most spectacular of our special events. We will serve some sixty species of sea beings and plants, all absolutely fresh, harvested sustainably, and prepared deliciously, skillfully, imaginatively, and respectfully.[We’ve been taping “footage” about fisheries and fishermen, the dinners, and the fish themselves for years, and, with our new website, finally have a venue for showing that compelling material.Watch video of Tom Worthington and Chef Canales discussing the menu with Oliveto staff in preparation for the 2005 dinners and see a partial menu for this year's dinners.]
As well as raising beautiful pigeons, Phillip Paine, has also been busy raising a thoroughbred race horse. Clarence Peak won his first race April 23, 2009 at Golden Gate Fields against 25 to 1 odds. The second race of his career is scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday May 17th at Golden Gate Fields, 8th race (4:30 pm). We’ll be there cheering him on.
Soft-shell crabs are available for only a narrow window of time while the crabs moult in the spring. We’ve just started soft-shell crab season with a delivery from Monterey Fish Company of crabs from the Chesapeake Bay.
We’re about halfway through morel season & just now seeing the first really beautiful specimens. These ones were foraged in the Lake Shasta area and were delivered yesterday. They’ll be on the menu starting tonight served with pasture-raised hen egg tagliatelle. We have around fifteen pounds we expect will go quickly.
After performing a thorough battery of tests, Chef Canales thinks he’s found just the right eggs to create the lush, deep yellow pasta often only found in Italy. The secret is pasture-raised hens. Hens allowed to pasture ingest a much wider range of nutrients producing egg yolks that offer a particular richness and superior flavor. We get to see some of the pasture raised hens at Riverdog Farm in action and hear about the downside of producing such wonderful eggs: EGG RAGE.
In the most basic etymological terms, the word crazy derives from ‘to shatter’ or ‘to crack’. This fracturing relates customarily to the mental state, but in the instance of Hangar One it seems applicable in terms of distrupting boundaries, expectations, and limitations, or rather cracking from the mold. Watch video.