Category — East Bay

One of my friends from high school started a great food company, Hodo Soy Beanery. It’s an all organic, fresh, locally produced soy product company–from tofu, to soy milk, and special textures of soy that you typically can’t find at a market. They sell at farmers markets such as the Ferry Building in San Francisco, the Berkeley Farmers market, the Marin Farmers market and recently in Oakland and San Mateo. I’ve tried their tofu, soy milk and other products and it all tastes very fresh and light.

I recently started to watch KQED’s new series, QUEST. I love this show–it’s all about the Bay Area and how we are dealing with different environmental and science issues. It’s in high definition and you can download free videos of previous episodes on their website. Some of the ones that I like include: plug-in modified hybrid cars that carry 100mpg, a biodiesel road trip from LA to San Francisco, Earth Day in the Bay Area, green building, and Silicon Valley’s investments in green technology. If you have high definition, definitely check this out. Disclaimer: I am a KQED member, but this is still an interesting show to watch.

There’s a lot going on this weekend to celebrate Earth Day. Here are some events that look interesting to me:

• The Green Apple Music and Arts Festival, a three day series of fun Earth Day events in SF
• Digital Be-In 15: Biomimicry, mixing green techies demos and talks plus food, fun and music in SF
• Earth Day Fair in Berkeley
• Plant an Earth Day Herb Garden in Palo Alto
• Spring in Guadalupe Garden in San Jose

But you can find many more events in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Earth Day listings.

With the sunny weather now in season, it’s a great time to start growing some organic plants and vegetables. I was inspired by the farms I had seen in Uganda especitlly their ability to do so much with very little AND using organic practices. Try to buy organic seeds and fertilizers for your garden. If you live in an urban area, here are some local community gardens you can use:

• Brisbane Community Garden, Brisbane
• Hayward Community Garden, Hayward
• Oakland Community Gardens, Oakland
• Garden for the Environment garden list or San Francisco Park Department Community gardens, San Francisco
• San Jose Community Gardens, San Jose

Get your tickets to this event before it sells out on Feburary 1. This is going to be an amazing event: the CEO of Whole Foods and Michael Pollan (author of Omnivore’s Dilemma) having a discussion about organic, local agriculture and the role Whole Foods plays in these markets.
The event is in Berkeley on Tues Feb 27th at 7pm and tickets go on sale for $5 Feb 1st (get them fast!).

If you can’t make it to Berkeley, they will be airing the discussion live online as well:
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/details.php?ID=368

For a little more background on the relationship b/w these two, check out this blog:
http://www.ethicurean.com/2007/01/10/mackey-pollan-chat/

UPDATE: Here is the videocast of the debate, download here.

One Saturday morning, I took some very cool classes at a vegan cooking workshop in Oakland. Set in the First Unitarian Church near downtown, Compassionate Cooks is one of the few vegan cooking classes in the Bay Area.

In about three hours, we made:
-Hearty Three-Bean Chili
-Marvelous Mushroom Risotto
-Peanut Pumpkin Soup
-Polenta with Sundried Tomatoes & Fresh Basil -Farm-Fresh Apple Pecan Muffins

Even as a long time vegetarian, I enjoyed learning how to make vegan foods and I liked Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, the founder and head chef’s funky and energetic personality. She shopped locally and also recommended places to buy food like the Oakland farmer’s markets and the Old Mill, a natural food store in Oakland.

Compassionate Cooks won Veg News’ 2005 Veggie Awards. Come check out this cool series of classes! They offer classes once a month on Saturdays, or you can buy their DVD and recipies.

Yesterday, I got my CSA box for the month from Capay Farms’ Farm Fresh to You program. All the produce is organic and locally grown through Capay or one of their partners. I’ve been with them for about half a year and so far I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. You just let them know what box size you want, and whether you want the mix of veggies/fruits. They come and deliver straight to your door each month or week depending on your preference.

For $21.50 a box (I get the smaller box), you get 4 veggies and 2 fruits. This week I got about 1 lb of heirloom tomatoes, 2 lbs of star frinson red pears (see picture to the left), 1.5 lbs of organic grapes, 2 lemon cucumbers (never seen this before!), and organic bok choy. In the picture below, I stir fried the bok choy for dinner today in fresh ground garlic and ginger and then tossed some salt, soy sauce and sesame oil to complete the dish. Give this CSA program a try! They deliver to most of the Bay Area.

Thanks to Om Organics‘ resource directory, here are companies that deliver organic meals to your door in the Bay Area:

• Aubergine Service: Catering, meal delivery Area: San Francisco & East Bay (Oakland, Berkeley, Albany & El Cerrito) p/e: 510.704.8847, joan@auberginecatering.com Specialty: Vegetarian & meat options.
• Convergence Catering Service: Catering, meal delivery Area: Bay Area p/e: 831.469.4643, converge@convergencefoods.com Specialty: Vegetarian & vegan options.
• Cook SF Service: Meal delivery Area: San Francisco p/e: 415.513.5328, info@cook-sf.com Specialty: Vegetarian and meat options. Specializing in California cuisine.
• Dining In SF Service: Meal delivery Area: San Francisco, Marin, East Bay, Peninsula p/e: 415.255.2433, traci@dininginsf.com Specialty: Vegetarian & meat options.
• Marcus Rios Service: Catering, personal chef, meal delivery Area: Bay Area p/e: 415.350.3113, marcus@chefmarcusrios.com Specialty: Customized vegetarian or meat menus
• Peal Cuisine Service: Meal delivery Area: San Francisco p/e: 415.826.2133, pealweb@gmail.com Specialty: Gourmet vegetarian & vegan options.