The most delicious day of the summer

Sometimes the stars align right, and today that was to give me the most delicious day in my adult memory.

Right now I'm sitting with a glistening dressed bowl of greens from Little City Gardens, thanks to the lovely Rosita belonging to their wonderful CSA program. Little violet and yellow blossoms, fronds of purslane (more on that later), thin and fierce arugula and the usual carrot/radish/avo thrown in with shredded parm and hand-smooshed sungold tomatoes.

The day started with a delicious meet and greet with Geets at the top of dolores park. The air, the whole day in front of us, was tasty.

Then on to Wise Sons Deli, my first time to visit. I felt like a pro. It was pretty empty, what I took as a reward for being there by 10....turns out we were the suckers who missed our chance for a reuben due to being there before 11. No charming of chef Leo could change our fate, so we sated ourselves on a combo of the rest:
-smoked trout salad sandwich on rye. This was like clouds of pink fishy magic on the softest, moistest rye you've ever had, with a great cornmeal crust
-the sons' pickle plate: overcoming all odds due to my current state of SF pickle fatigue, this plate wowed me between the pickled purslane (my new favorite veggie), pickled spring onions, and pickled cukes which tasted decidedly different from the pickled cukes served with the sandwiches
-chopped liver plate: so satisfying spreading the sweet/salty/funky paste on slices of fresh rye

They sampled their chocolate babka throughout our visit, and despite a bit of confusion around the service format (for some reason our group was slow on the uptake that it's an order-at-the-front-and-set-your-own-table kind of place), I ate it up. Must have been the combination of nostalgic warm and fuzzy feeling from eating the food my jewish ancestors ate in nyc with inspiration watching two guys my own age pull off such a delicious spread.

From there it was on to kimchee making, about which i'll write about separately because it's a story unto itself; fast forward through an amusing burning man shopping trip in valencia's vintage stores and it was time to think towards dinner.

What was so satisfying about my dinner choice is that it was the third thing I crossed off my list of things I'd wanted to do for months. Along with learning to make kimchee and trying wise sons deli pop up, I've been wanting to grill sardines ever since we got a backyard grill.

I had fun gutting the sardines, vacillating between feeling conviction about my recent vegetarian tendencies as I cringed at sacs of burgundy guts trickling out of the middle of each fish, and feeling proud about getting my hand dirty. The grill was easy enough for this laywoman to figure out, so after a brush of the cilantro chutney I'd made from other Little City Farms CSA box treasures, I laid em on there. A few minutes on each side and my dinner was made!

I'm not sure whether most people put as many of the whole sardines with bones still in right into their mouth, but I think chewing through a few featherweight bones puts a little hair on the old chest. Thus with a different version of satisfying fishy moisture, I closed my delicious day!

Kansha: One thing we SHOULD be able to toot our own horn about

I've decided that while I don't like braggers, there's one thing I think we all SHOULD be allowed to brag about: avoiding food waste.

Sounds silly, but hear me out. My favorite word of late is Kansha, a Japanese phrase that to me means something along the lines of "no waste cooking and eating".

As described by Kansha author Elizabeth Andoh in her gorgeous book (which we sell at Bi-Rite, might I add!): "The celebration of Japan’s vegan and vegetarian traditions begins with kansha—appreciation—an expression of gratitude for nature’s gifts and the efforts and ingenuity of those who transform nature’s bounty into marvelous food. The spirit of kansha, deeply rooted in Buddhist philosophy and practice, encourages all cooks to prepare nutritionally sound and aesthetically satisfying meals that avoid waste, conserve energy, and preserve our natural resources."

So if I were to brag about how I observe Kansha, it could go something like this:

-I was born with a love for leftovers (part of my broader preference for cold, soft foods). Or maybe it comes from good training by mom and dad (and granny and gramps). I've been able to leave no leftover uneaten by bringing last night's dinner in for breakfast, and will pretty much go as far as breaking dinner plans if it means leftovers going bad in my fridge. If you're heading to the airport, do what I do and make a leftover feast to clean out your fridge and bring on the trip--way better than dropping dough on bad aiport food.

-I eat the skin of veggies and fruit whenever possible: carrots, squash, kiwis...vitamins, texture, need I say more?

-After shelling favas for a crostini app I made recently, I saved all the pods and used them for a great nutty fava stock that's played a nice role in some recipes since.

-I wear my big neon green Kansha t-shirt to bed more often lately than i maybe should

You get the idea.

So what Kansha can you brag about?

Kiko's Follies at Bi-Rite Farms

Simon got to give me a hard time yesterday for a series of mini "follies" I committed while weeding, planting, and hoeing at the Bi-Rite farms in Sonoma.

Despite my solid efforts of harvesting/rinsing 7 cases of little gem lettuces plus summer squash and arugula, planting three rows of basil, and raking/hoeing beds for planting, I managed to commit a few flops that I'm not above admitting:

1. While weeding I took out a few cucumber sprouts, ending their life unnecessarily early (give me a break, it's been a year since I've been on the farm!)
2. I also weeded out some of the alyssum flowers, the dainty little white flowers that (Simon taught me a couple minutes too late) attract beneficial insects that feed on garden pest insects (oopsie daisies)
3. I couldn't seem to keep from stepping in the wrong part of the beds we had raked and laid out. Somehow my feet would touch down in the planting rows instead of walking rows. (OK, this I'll admit was poor form, but it only happened a couple times)

Yesterday was a rush of inspiration. It had been way too long since I'd been up there. So many thoughts I hadn't had in a while came back, like how good it feels to squat down and drop veggie starts in the ground or how delicious the dirt smells when it's hit with strong sun. Plus I got to work with Riley, who Si's brought on as a new set of able hands to work our two Sonoma farm plots by his side (and when he needs to be at the store).

My favorite new tool was the scuffle hoe--simple yet so effective and gratifying to use. And award for favorite item harvested goes to purslane, which I was actually picking as a weed but found particularly beautiful and deliciously zingy and tender to bite into; I took a bit to plant back at home in my Bernal backyard.

Can we take a moment for the gorgeous bee hives at the farm? All great until 10 bees decide to sting Riley all at one time (this happened last week! Don't worry folks, he's ok...oh, the perils of home honey harvesting). What you don't see next to the hives is the chicken coop, which Sam and Riley were getting to work on when Si and I pulled out to head home.

Only downer of the day was registering how hot and tired I was after "toiling" in the field for 4 hours, then thinking about the real farmworkers who grow our food in cali, mexico, and everywhere else where it's hotter than Sonoma and whose every day is spent bent over like this under the sun. Their work is way under appreciated and in most cases, under paid for.

When we drove back to Bi-Rite to drop off the days' harvest, I was proud to find Vanessa (our one woman "art department") working on a sign for the deli that said "From the Bi-Rite Farm with Love Straight to Your Plate." Perfect.