Chez Panisse Biscotti to celebrate the 40th Anniversary!

It is not a secret that I love Alice and all that she has brought to our table. She is a true visionary and been unwavering in her quest for good, clean, fair and delicious food for first her friends and then those who could afford to eat at her legendary restaurant Chez Panisse, and now for us all and especially our children.

It is really hard to believe that it has been 40 years since she wanted to bring her friends around the table to cook for them and support herself doing it. I can relate.

As it happens, my Husband's job was eliminated at the end of July, so we really cannot afford to participate in any meaningful way in all the events going on this month in benefit for The Edible Schoolyard Foundation, but I decided this afternoon, we would do my small bit to join in, and I think that it is so simple and delicious, that Alice would really approve.

I decided to bake the famed Chez Panisse biscotti from Alice and Lindsey Shere's book to celebrate on our own. Published in 1985, Chez Panisse Desserts is a classic, but not dated. The recipes are timeless and the results delicious. See for yourself. THe recipe says that it makes 4 1/2 dozen biscotti, but all said I had three dozen when I was done. I didn't have any grappa in the house, so I used up the tiny bit of madeira left in the bottle from V. Sattui Winery. The original recipe calls for anise extract and anise seed....both of which I did not have on hand, so I added 2 tsp of almond extract to enhance the almond flavor. I also only had salted butter in the house, so I used it. The recipe below reflects my substitutions, but it maintains the integrity of the original recipe "Aunt Victoria's Biscotti" on page 199. I think that Alice and Lindsey would approve and agree that the results are delicious.

Almond Biscotti

1/2 cup whole almonds, toasted and chopped coarsely
1/2 cup Strauss Family salted butter
3/4 cup organic sugar
2 free range, organic eggs
2 tsp almond extract
2 tsp maderia, V. Sattui makes an excellent local one
2 cups organic white wheat flour
1 1/2 baking powder

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Cream the softened butter by hand until lightened. Add the sugar, a little at
a time beating well after each addition. Add the eggs, one at a time until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the madeira and almond extract, beating well.

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add into the wet ingredients a little at a time until just mixed. Stir in the chopped, toasted almonds.

On a lightly floured board, make two logs of dough equal size and approximately the length of the cookie sheet that you have lined with parchment. Lay each long log carefully onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake about 25 minutes, until just barely browned on the bottom and the logs just set.

Cool the logs on a rack for 5 minutes and then with a bread knife, slice the logs diagonally about 1/2 inch thick, carefully laying each slice back onto the baking sheet.

Return the sliced biscotti back to the oven for 3 to 5 minutes to continue to bake until very lightly browned. Turn the slices, then turn off the oven and let the slices dry for another 5 minutes before removing the sheet to a rack to cool completely.

Store in a tightly covered container if you can keep from eating them all immediately!

Edible Schoolyard Plant Sale today and tomorrow 9am - 4pm

Edible Schoolyard Plant Sale!!

Join us for our annual Mother's Day Plant Sale! Saturday, May 7th, 9:00am - 4:00pm!

Plants

Tomatoes, basil, herbs, annual and perennial flowers, vegetables, bee friendly plants, fruit trees, and more!

Food

Wood-fired pizza, Ici Ice Cream, Acme Breakfast Treats, Let's Be Frank Hot Dogs, Blue Bottle Coffee, Samantha Sunrae Sweets, and Cocina Poblana tamales!

Fun

Live music, face painting, student led garden and kitchen tours, Local 123 coffee workshops, Pop-Up General Store, Mother's Day treats, and more!

Raffle

Gift Certificates: Camino Restaurant, Chez Panisse, Phat Beets, Monterey Fish Market, 510 Skateboarding, Moe's Books, The Missing Link, AMC Theaters, and many more!

Happy Birthday Alice!!

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me even casually that I am president of Alice Waters and the Edible Schoolyard's fan club.

Alice has been so fundamental in my culinary sense and development. As I have become a Mother and grown in my own career as a Chef, I have seen first hand the magic in her philosophy and the work that has been the passion of her life.

I work with kids for whom it has been a big deal to get to go to Mc Donalds. I cook for these kids and their families, who's lives have been filled with nothing but processed foods. These families come to Seneca for help and counsel and I am the lucky one who has the privilege of introducing them to the freshest, local fruits and vegetables. Foods that they never have seen let alone tasted from organic farms grown locally in season. The looks on their faces when they first see an heirloom tomato with its tiger stripes and funky irregular shape! Then, finally, when they screw up the courage to try the thing......a sweet smile of amazement fills their faces as drips of tomato juice drip down their eager chins and I am filled forever and reminded why I do what I do!!

Both my parents, food mavericks in their own ways, and Alice are responsible for this. My career, my joy in the farmers at the markets hawking their home grown wares with the excitement of a new parent, my amazement in sharing my world with my own precious daughter Lucia, my deep appreciation for my sweet husband Troy who's motto since meeting and wooing me has become "shut up and eat it, it will be wonderful", and my devotion to sourcing the best for "my kids" at Seneca.....all of this, I give up to Alice.

Alice.......with all of my heart, thank you for your determination. Thank you for your commitment to all of our children and putting the future of food squarely in their eager hands. And lastly, thank you for your patience, for 30 years, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Happy Birthday Alice!!

Top Chef Should do School Lunch!

This is from Marc R. has over at Ethicurean, challenging Top Chef to take up the ultimate challenge: school lunch.

With school lunch being debated on Capitol Hill, "Top Chef" should get in on the action and focus some kitchen challenges on school meals. One challenge could have each contestant try to cook a collection of delicious and healthy meals (breakfast and lunch) that spend less than $1 on food per meal. Another might be to cook in a real school, perhaps H.D. Cooke Elementary School, the setting of The Slow Cook’s excellent multi-part series on school meals, or use the actual school kitchen staff as assistants, though this one might be getting a bit close to the upcoming Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on ABC. The contestants could also integrate ingredients from local farms with USDA-provided material.

Washington and the school lunch community also offers plenty of interesting possibilities for guest judges: First Lady Michele Obama, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Chef Ann Cooper (the "renegade lunch lady"), or a room full of cute and opinionated schoolchildren.

I think this idea is genius.......what do you think?

Teaching Children About the Circle of Life

Occasionally I get to be the parent that my parents were at their best. The parent that all parents want to be. That time happened recently around one of my favorite and most heart-felt subjects... food and where it comes from.

Children are natural foragers. Their curiosity and sense of adventure allow an ability to taste, smell, see and feel things in ways that are already ruined for us adults. Life sometimes jades us into beliefs, especially about food….and often our tastes and preferences become our child’s, because they are such apt little mimics. But what happens when we are aware (brief gifts from above for moments at a time) of standing in our child’s (and our own) way? They are allowed to come to their own decisions about what they like and don’t like, about what is good and not, about whether they are okay with something.

My daughter Lucia, is an old soul. She is a spitfire and emotional, fun to be around, a trial when she is overwhelmed and tired and bossy. In fact, she is a lot like her mother. I have made a conscious effort to expose her to much, especially around food, which my life seems to revolve deliciously around.

We have planted three years of backyard gardens together. We have tasted our way through the farmer’s market every Saturday of her little life. By and large, I don’t make “kid food”…I make real food. She puts it best when she sees a fast food commercial, “Mama! They are lying when they say THAT food is good! It is fast food! It is BAD for you! People shouldn’t eat fast food!  They should eat SLOW FOOD”. Not bad for my little disciple…but even then, I have tried to show her why I make the choices for our family (and my work family) that I do, and let her come to her own ideas and ideals. So far so good.

So when it comes to letting kids know where their food comes from it is pretty simple isn’t it? We have planted gardens, know the farmers at the farmers markets better than most….easy to see and tell where our fruits and vegetables come from. Especially easy for a mother and a kid who both are animal people because trees and shrubs don’t scream when you pick their fruit.

Recently, I have had something in the back of my mind that was troubling me. How could I tell this kid who kisses chickens and cows when she meets them and gives a hug to the merry go round horses after they let her ride, that we kill animals for food? I know about this sensitivity because I have always been an animal person. Shoot, I even cried when my parents cut down real trees for Christmas and I watched them die a slow death in our living room! My daughter is me times twenty, and though I am slowly getting over my own squeamishness on the subject….I desperately wanted to make it easier for her to understand.

This past summer gave me my opportunity. Lucia and I volunteered at Slow Food Berkeley’s pig roast. Surrounded by like minded folks, we arrived when the pig was already buried in the Caja China box over slow coals….and would be there most of the day.

While we waited, along with about fifty other hungry folks, I talked to my daughter about how sometimes animals give their lives so that we can live to be strong and healthy. She listened intently, and she nodded, seeming to get it with little fan fare or drama. If you know my daughter at all, you know that this is rare!

We talked about how plants are living too and that they do the same for us, give us the fruit that they grown to feed us and make us strong. I told her about how her Papa, that she never knew, took me fishing when I was her age. How we baited the flies that Papa made especially and caught fish to eat. We likened that to the wonderful fish mongers at Monterey Fish, who take at least thirty minutes out each time we visit to show Lucia the lobsters or crabs or big mouthed fish in ice in the window…they answer her questions focusing only on her (never mind that they have other customers and a business to run!), they let her touch them and she is happy as a clam each time we visit.

When it came time for the piggy to be taken out of the box, we talked again about how “this piggy gave his life so that we all could share him and be healthy and strong”. That, “yes, the piggy is cooked and yes, again, we are going to eat him with all our friends”. I must admit, as the Slow Food people parted so that my little girl could watch as the man who roasted the pig could bring him up from the coals, face and all, I had knots in my stomach. Was my animal loving little girl really going to be okay with this?

For a moment, after the pig was on the carving table, LuLu turned to look back at me, I was nervous. I must have hid it well though, because I smiled at her questioning little face….and then a miracle happened! She smiled easily back. It was going to be okay. She “got” it. The circle of life made sense and she got it!

She watched him cut up the pig, as he gave away the ears and feet. Still no drama. No problem. We waited in line to get our share of fresh roasted pork on our favorite Acme rolls with homemade salsas and a bounty of potluck items that everyone had brought from home.

I still almost cry when I think back on this amazing day. It was a day when I am certain that my own dear parents were smiling down on me.  The day I "got it". It was the day that I was a good mother, the one that I am meant to be.

Rainy Day Fantasy

Saturday morning, Lucia and I awoke to the unthinkable in the Bay Area in September.

Rain!  Wow!  My heart automatically started yearning for the crunch of Fall colors beneath

my feet and the smell of Autumn coming on.

I love the rain.  Especially when I don't have to drive in it! Though it was no where close to 

being cold or even "brisk", we quickly decided to dress quickly and hop on Bart to go to the

Ferry Plaza Farmer's market.  As Lucia commented on the Oakland roof tops and the other 

Bart trains whizzing by, I let my mind wander, thinking that our trip to the market today 

might be blessed with less tourists because of the rain, and that after my business was done,

we might be able to endulge the moody day by sitting under the eaves, watching the grey

clouds dart around the newly reopened Bay Bridge, and sip the amazingly thick, and not 

too sweet warm chocolate from a cup, dolluped with just whipped, not to sweet cream.

Happy Rainy Day!!

Note:  There were less tourists, but the Ferry Plaza is always crowded, and after actually getting

our warm chocolate and watching the clouds, we met up with our friend Alice Waters.  Lucia and

Alice love each other and hugged ardently and with great enthusiasm!  Truly great day!

PS.....Boulette's larder also makes AMAZING English Muffins on Saturday!

Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch EAT-IN, Time for REAL food in schools!

Okay so most of you who know me well, know that I cook for kids and several times a year do special food functions for the CEO of Seneca Center and Alameda Board of Education representative, Ken Berrick. Ken is a master fund raiser and for the 22 or so years he has headed up Seneca, he has been fighting to make things better for Bay Area kids. The meals are important, because they keep Seneca at the fore front in legislators minds.

One thing is common, among all the people who visit Seneca each and every year. They all say what a good job our staff and administrators do in living and modeling our motto "unconditional care" and they say how great the food is.

I have been with Seneca for eight years. In that time, many changes have happened. But constant is the support that I have gotten in planning, ordering and producing good, clean and fair food for my kids and staff here. I would like to think that other therapeutic agencies and schools are modelling this part of what we have done here at Seneca, but alas....they are not.

Kids in most California public schools and in schools all over the country are treated like bargain trash compactors. The schools sell the USDA mass produced product that they get for free to our kids, and as a result, our kids are the fattest, most lethargic and unhealthiest in recorded history. In my opinion, this is due to several reasons....one of the most important being the quality of food that they are being offered and served in schools.

It is bad enough in our society that most of us cannot afford our own homes, and have to choose to put good, clean and fair food on the table or put gas in our cars to get to work each day. No matter what challenges we face as adults, our children deserve to have good food in their bellies. Food that will not only nourish their bodies and minds...but their souls!!

Where our food comes from makes a difference! If you have not yet seen the barrage of politics of food and food supply books and movies out recently, I urge you to educate yourself about this issue if you haven’t already. Books like Fast Food Nation and the Omneviores Dilema. Movies like: SuperSize Me, Food Inc, King Corn and Fresh....show mass food production like it is. When a sick and injured cow is herded by a forklift into the slaughter house, alive and knowing what is about to happen...does that fear that rushes into that poor animal's brain also rush cortisol and adrenaline into the meat that we later consume? My opinion is that it does.

Modern day enslavement and abuse of immigrant and low-income American workers, mistreatment of our livestock and animals, diabetes, disease, death. If these costs were exposed to the average person, they would understand clearly that real, healthy, locally- and fairly-produced food is actually much cheaper than fast-food.

The time to act is now. Legislation for The Child Nutrition Act is a federal law that comes up for re-authorization in Congress every four to five years. It governs the National School Lunch Program, which sets the standard for the food that more than 30 million children eat every school day.

In the last few decades, as school budgets have been cut, our nation's schools have struggled to serve children the real food they need.

The deadline for reauthorizing the current Child Nutrition Act is September 2009. Unless we speak up this summer, “business as usual” on Capitol Hill will let Congress pass a Child Nutrition Act that continues to fail our children.

I urge all who read this to sign the petition and "EAT IN" for change this Labor Day. Around this great country of ours, Slow Food conviviums are organising huge community pot lucks to draw attention to this issue. If you really care about our children and believe that they deserve better food and food education in schools, then please click on the link below and sign up to join us in the fight! You will have the opportunity to eat some great food yourselves, get to know your neighbors and local food activists and learn what you can do to help.

Alice Waters says it best. "Good, clean and fair food is your right...as a human being". Let's work with her and Michelle Obama to make we don't let our kids health slip through the cracks and good nutrition in schools is a great place to start!

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/campaign/time_for_lunch/about/