Miso Pretty

This trip is such a whirlwind of information and eating that I'm surprised my brain hasn't short-circuited from all the ingredients I'm learning about and that my stomach hasn't short-circuited because of all the never-before-consumed foods I'm putting into it.

Yesterday we visited a miso-production factory and a Sendai beef farm. The miso is the same red miso that's produced for the label Eden Organics, and the moment our bus pulled into the parking lot an hour outside of Sendai city, the warm comforting smell of miso pulled us in.

We were given a presentation on miso's origins (made in this spot under a feudal lord for centuries, then 400 years ago was 'liberated' to the public) and on how it's made (soybeans are cooked and koji mold and salt are added, then the starter ferments for different lengths of time: white miso is the mildest and ferments only a few months, while at the other end of the spectrum black miso has an incredibly extracted taste after 2.5 years of fermentation).

Interestingly, Japan can't grow enough soybeans for its miso production, so imports soybeans from the USA and uses them to make miso (in combination with soybeans grown in Japan). We tasted two different kinds of miso soup: one was made with American soybeans and had been prepared for us with spinach and bacon (!!) and the second was a traditional miso soup with seaweed and tofu, made with milder Japanese soybeans.

Everyone scrubbed up (white suits and white hairnets) and trouped onto a catwalk to peer through the windows onto the floor below, where we unfortunately weren't allowed. 

The factory was almost reminiscent of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, complete with 24-hour-a-day automated machines to monitor the bean paste's fermentation and beeping machines belching out strange brown pastes.

One of the best things about traveling with a group of talented chefs (and there are many) is that every conversation turns into a think tank. Listening to them talk about different ways they'd use miso was fascinating--making a meat jus with miso and red wine or swapping out the anchovy in a puntarelle salad with miso were just a few things that probably wouldn't occur to us ordinary mortals.

Japan

Somehow I've gotten lucky enough to be selected as the media person that accompanies several well-known San Francisco chefs on a food tour of Miyagi prefecture, Japan.

I'm getting paid to travel to Japan for a week, eat a few bites of perfectly formed; perfectly presented Japanese food over several long meals, and write about it. I'm writing this blog post from my hotel room, where there's a nightie provided, in Sendai City. 

Sendai City is the capital of Miyagi prefecture. Sho-san, the executive chef of Yoshi's in San Francisco, recommended me as the media person to accompany this tour of Japan, a trip meant to introduce regional Japanese ingredients to people who matter; a.ka. San Francisco chefs, and I'm here to record the experience.

Here's who's on the trip:

Shotaro "Sho" Kamio, executive chef of Yoshi's in San Francisco and Oakland.

Ravi Kapur of Boulevard, a friendly acquaintance of mine since a few years back

Bruce Hill of Bix and Picco, and one of the calmest, kindest souls I've met in the food industry. He's been my go-

to for what to expect and how to act in Japan since I met him last week at a sake tasting.

Paul Canales of Oliveto; one crazy mo-fo who is always wearing a beret and always down for any kind of adventure. I've known Paul for three days and I already would trust him with my first-born.

Staffan Terje of Perbacco, a fellow northern European, with whom I can discuss rigid social customs and love of raw fish with; with no fear of judgement. He's also the only person on this trip who's taller than I am.

There are also some culinary school instructor-chefs, who I have not yet gotten to know as well as I should have as, I've been busy gossiping and eavesdropping on the SF chefs. Scott Saunder and Lars are representing Greystone in Napa (where I just spent an amazing week at the wine writers' symposium, and Damon is a chef-instructor at Le Cordon Bleu in San Francisco.

Dinner at Sho's family’s restaurant last night was one of the most amazing I’ve ever eaten. It was all served family style, with were huge steaming hot-pots on the table (long enough to accommodate about 25 diners, we only filled up about half the spaces, the other half which were filled by a rotating cast of Sho’s friends and family that stopped by here and there).

The menu, copied from my Moleskine pocket notebook (Chef Hill asked me "How many of those do you use a month? Because it looks like you're BLOWING through that one"):

Sea pineapple, a “sea squirt” only found in Miyagi. It is kind of like a big, orange oyster that is extra slimy and tastes like cucumber. They grow whole on rocks, two meters down. There are two polyps on top and to cut it open, you stab a knife first in the polyp with the + sign, then the one with the - sign.

Mackerel sashimi. The best I’ve ever had. 

Pickled pig ears with kim chee.

Skewers of beef and beef tendon with hot mustard. They were boiling in a big square metal pan 

that was connected to a gas outlet. Delicious!

Pickled pig skin in strips with grated daikon. The daikon here is not spicy, it's fresh and grated.

The textures were what really wowed all of us. In the same dish, there was chewy, slimy, crunchy, and every flavor delicious.

There were whole cabbage leaves cooked in hot-pots. There were four different kinds of

 hot-pots that started out with raw ingredients and were cooked by the time our second courses arrived on the table...unfortunately I was only able to taste two as my stomach is not as big as I wish it was.

All the food is local, and the ingredients are surprisingly similar to what we find in San Francisco (Sendai City is actually on the same latitude).

The food kept coming and coming. Luckily I've been in the business long enough to only swallow what really appeals to me...unfortunately everything appealed to me last and I already have a stomacheache from eating too much.

Here comes a chicken wing.

The crowning glory of the evening was the two platters of horse sashimi that were brought out as our last course. Tenderloin, vein, ice-cold liver, and the neck fat from right underneath the mane were on the plate.

The pure flavors, the richness, the textures...the food here is almost overwhelming, but not quite. It's deeply satisyfing. I din't know if I could have been this open to strange foods if I wasn't already a 'food person.' I mean, pickled strips of pig ears and pig skin? tripe? weird chewy things that I have no idea what they are but am pretty sure they come from the inside of a pig? I've only been in Japan for three hours and I'm already obsessed.

65 Effing Covers

I'm back in full force. With my A Game on. I worked my first Friday night at The New Restaurant last night and it was like getting kicked in the face. Some restaurants serve 65 people dinner and drinks in one night...I personally served 65 people dinner and drinks last night (and I'm only one of four waiters working at any given time there).

I arrived almost an hour before I was scheduled to; The Restaurant has more than 40 wines by the glass, all of which I'm required to know, none of which I knew before starting work there a few weeks ago. I have a growing stack of flashcards stuffed in my purple suede Mariano Toledo bag (a relic of my life as a fashionista in Buenos Aires), and when I went to retrieve them a thin gay coworker with a fondness for jazz hands shrieked at me, "Is that your bag? I just stole it. It's mine now." 

I missed working in restaurants.

I'm back, bitches!

For reasons that will be explained later, Restaurant Girl is back, after a two-year hiatus. When I left my last job and said I'd never wait another table again, my funniest co-worker said, "Honey, NEVER say NEVER!"

He was right.

I'm back working at a Restaurant, a really good one. Waiting tables fits into my life perfectly; so perfectly that I'm living in my first home in San Francisco and I'm not even having any wait-mares this time around. My focus lately has been on wine, and this New Restaurant has a killer wine list.

This time around, I can finally speak Spanish. I spent the last two years living in Buenos Aires with my Che, and while it sadly didn't work out between us, I was left with a good understanding of Spanish--the reason I travelled to South America in the first place. I wanted to learn what my bussers were saying about me.

The bussers in the new Restaurant are great--the best I've ever worked with. Tonight, the The Wolf and Romeo were on the floor. They're the only bussers I've ever seen drink wine at the end of their shift (most bussers pound cerveza) while still on the floor (this Restaurant gives its employees the respect they deserve, which includes an end-of-shift drink). 

I dropped the check on my last table and headed toward the bus station, rubbing my stomach. I've gained about 15 pounds since working harvest and being on vacation, and while it's mostly muscle it doesn't sit well. I've decided that this newest incarnation of Restaurant Girl will not pork out from late-night snacks and post-shift cocktails.

"Hey, you feeling sick?" asked Romeo, in Spanish.

"No man, I'm not sick." 

"So why you touching your stomach like that?" he asked.

I decided to go for brutal honesty. Latinos always respect the straight-up, especially when it comes to body image.

"I'm not sick in my stomach, just fat there," I responded in Spanish.

I began to struggle through my sidework (it's always hardest the first week or so) as the two bussers compared their glasses of Syrah.

"Hey Lobo," Romeo said, as he peered at me over the rim of his Spiegelau Bordeaux. "You think the new girl is fat?"

The Wolf looked me up and down with an objective eye.

"Where you think you look fat, New Girl?" he asked.

I thought about it. "Right here," I answered after a pause, rubbing my lower belly and muffin top. "I gained a little weight last month."

The Wolf and Romeo looked me up and down again.

"Naw, you still look all right," said The Wolf (who could take on any street thug in any neighborhood in this city).

"Don't worry about it."

"Thanks, guys..." I said as I turned back to my sidework. 

I knew they would tell it like it really is. Bussers always do. I remembered a huge fight I'd gotten into with my busser at the last restaurant I'd worked at, two years ago. He told me if I got any fatter I wouldn't be cute anymore. I flew off the handle and accused him of sexual harassment...then dated a Latin man for two years and appreciated the honesty and objectivity he always presented me with. 

Sometimes, things just come across better in Spanish.

Cellar Rat: Week One at Unti

Cellar Rat: Week One at Unti Vineyards

Fri Sep 12, 2008 at 08:53:07 AM

(first published in the SF Weekly)

When the price of a burrito in Healdsburg bypassed that of a burrito in the Mission, I knew it was time to hightail it from my hometown to the big city. That was four years ago, and I hadn’t pictured heading up north again any time soon. This summer, though, I was offered a job as a seasonal cellar worker during harvest and I wasn’t about to turn it down.

Unti is a small-production (6,000-7,000 cases annually) winery in the Dry Creek Valley, making European-style reds like Barbera and Grenache quite well. I’ve always been a fan of their wines and I leaped at the chance to be winemaker Sebastien Pochan’s assistant, especially since I am the first female to ever work in the cellar at Unti.

Healdsburg during crush-time is a flurry of activity, and it’s most apparent at this time of year where the town’s main revenue and tourism comes from. Wineries crank into overdrive, with big-production facilities like Kendall-Jackson and Clos du Bois working 24 hours around the clock to churn out millions of gallons of juice coming from
thousands of tons of grapes. Unti is not like that.

Saturday at 8 a.m. there was already fruit waiting for us--several half-ton plastic boxes of Sangiovese that had just come in from the vineyard. Unti has 60 acres of vineyards and all of their wines are made from estate-grown grapes. The winery also sells fruit to numerous other wineries and individual winemakers, including Boulevard Restaurant Wine Directors John Lancaster and Robert Perkins.

Besides me (who is working 6 days a week), there are three part-time workers: two noted restaurateurs (one from Sonoma County, one from San Francisco)--friends of the owner and the winemaker--and an Unti cousin, up from Santa Cruz on the weekends.

I climbed into a stainless steel tank and began hosing it down, learning how to sterilize the equipment we’d be using to crush and de-stem the fruit: tanks, hoses, clamps, and gaskets all had to be cleaned with a solution, rinsed, neutralized and rinsed again. Within an hour or so we were sorting through the grapes, raking the discarded stems and making sure none of the hoses or pumps backed up with fruit and juice that was rapidly getting dumped into a stainless steel tank the size of a Manhattan apartment.

After we finished the first lot, the two tasting room employees came out onto the crush pad and the equipment ground to a halt.

“It’s time! It’s time!” Sebastien called as he jumped down from the platform. “Time for tradition!”

The six of us took seats at the picnic tables and George Unti produced a bottle of vintage Champagne.

“We always have a champagne toast after we crush the first lot of the harvest season,” he explained, as the yeasty bubbles were poured into my glass.

I clinked flutes with my new co-workers and looked out over the Dry Creek Valley: land where my family lived and farmed for more than five generations. I might be able to get used to being home again.