dinner « (y)our food choices™

SF Underground at SOMArts and New Taste Market at St. Gregory's church.

We spent our weekend in two very different, but equally community-driven food “markets” where we ate amazing food while supporting causes we believe in. The somewhat regularly scheduled SF Underground Market, presented by forageSF, brings together a diverse collection of home cooks and small businesses that serve and sell foods not typically available in your local supermarket. The market supports small producers by providing them space to promote their creations to a sophisticated and ever hungry public. Markets like SF Underground Market encourage the production of healthful, organic, low-environmental impact foods. Consumers support it by buying. Like others we’ve attended, this weekend’s SF Underground Market was a huge success by any measure.

Tamales by Rudy

We loved the crunchy kalefornia “chips” which were tangy and flavorful by Samsara Natural Foods and we inhaled the chili relleno tamale served by Tamales by Rudy. We finished our first half of our lunch with individually filtered coffee by Telegraph Coffee and completed our tour around the floor with a giant bittersweet chocolate chip cookie, enhanced by the now-ubiquitous fleur de sel (sorry, we forgot the vendor’s name). The food was exceptional and the lines to get in were short but we also got there very late in the day and they we just about to switch over to the evening’s fare. Next time we’ll have to get there a wee bit earlier or show up later!

Pulled Pork Mole Sandwich by Mexican BBQ.

For most, spending time at one food market on a Saturday afternoon would be plenty. But for a couple of guys who can’t say no to variety, one just wasn’t enough. We’d picked up a flyer for the New Taste Marketplace, presented by St. Gregory of Nyssa, the week before while grabbing a huge sandwich at Hazel’s Kitchen, one of the many fine eateries on Potrero Hill. New Taste Marketplace was new to us so we marked our calendars and made a plan. We couldn’t have been happier with the decision to check it out. Like the SF Underground Market, New Taste Marketplace brings together under one roof a collection of local food purveyors. Most of them sell something they’ve concocted in their home kitchens. We ate a delicious pulled pork sandwich by Mexican BBQ’s Molly Raney, a bite full of a beautiful mini cupcake by Nute’s Cupcakes, and washed it down with fermented ginger beer compliments of Jesse Friedman of BeerandNosh.com. On our way out we chatted with a Sunset neighbor that makes granola, Michelle Pusateri of Nana Joes, and picked up a bottle of local lavender honey from California Native, compliments of Cheryl Hendrickson. Our bellies were too full to try the Cincinnati Chili Spaghetti by Urban Chef or the smoked meats from Slow Hand BBQ, but they are certainly on our list for our next visit. All of the participants are there to help raise money for St. Gregory’s food pantry which distributes food to hundreds of local families every Friday. Without exception, the food was terrific. And while we noshed on more good food than is right, we were blown away by the warmth and kindness of the volunteers who greeted us at the door and the cheerfulness of the vendors. This is a crowd of folks who are doing good things for all the right reasons. We even met a nice couple that we will soon be bartering with, some of our venison for photography lessons. Soon our photographs will be even more appetizing.

Desserts at New Taste Market; brownie bite with lavender frosting and white chocolate s'more.

Eating mindfully doesn’t always have to mean eating to avoid the negative. Our food choices come with a range of positive consequences that benefit our bodies, the farmers who supply our food and the farm workers who are able to support their families without risking exposure to toxic chemicals in the field. And our food choices can benefit our communities in direct ways. Our food choices do matter. How we spend our time and money to feed ourselves affects not only us, but our communities and the environments that sustain us. Make your food choices count for more than the satisfaction of a craving. We’ll continue to share our suggestions for how best to do that while bringing you delicious recipes to make it all work for you at home. We also suggest that those of you who are not as fortunate to live in San Francisco, or another large city, watch out for these types of neighborhood gatherings or create your own with a few friends. Helping to expand the family table to include your neighbors and make food that all of us should be eating, and not what the advertisers want you to eat, is a true gift of kindness. We should all be lucky enough to enjoy wholesome food choices.

Wonderful flavors of orange, rosemary, and red wine are perfect for a weeknight Valentine's day dish.

With so many new kitchen gadgets coming onto the market these days, it’s easy to understand why home cooks feel overwhelmed by the expanding kitchen toolbox on offer from our favorite retailers. We thought it would be nice to take a step back in time by returning to a classic, trusted device we’ve come to love – the pressure cooker. As we write “trusted,” our thoughts turn to our mothers and their fears of exploding lids, shattered glass and hot molten food blown all over ceilings and walls. Some love these things, some hate them, and some don’t know what the hell we’re talking about. Read on, we’ll explain.

Pressure cookers are stove top pans with locking lids on them that use steam and pressure to cook food very, very quickly. Think of it as a sort of precursor to the microwave that hisses but doesn’t emit electromagnetic waves (or reheat coffee). There are so many great uses for the pressure cooker it’s a wonder why there aren’t more of them in U.S. households. But when we bring up the joys of the pressure cooker to our moms, we can see shrieks of terror in their eyes. Modern pressure cookers are infinitely safer than those our grandmothers used to put up preserves. With built-in safety features that prevent explosions even under the most negligent use, these cookers provide the perfect solution to the home cook who wants to prepare slow food quickly. Slow cookers, used for long braising of roasts and all-day simmering of stews, certainly have their time and place in the kitchen, but when you want to cook a stew or beans extra fast there’s only one device that will get the job done and it isn’t your microwave oven.

If you’re in the mood for a hardy yet elegant dish for Valentine’s day, without all the stress, may we suggest that you try epicurious.com’s Lamb and Shitake Mushroom Stew in the pressure cooker. The wonderful thing about this recipe is that you can substitute almost any meat for the lamb (our latest version made use of wild elk). You can use button or portabella mushrooms in place of the shitake if you don’t like the shitake’s slippery texture. It’s even better made a day or two ahead and reheated, served over buttered noodles, orzo, polenta, rice, or simply in a bowl with a nice piece of baguette on the side to sop up the delicious sauce. So there’s no need to stress over what to cook on Monday night’s romantic dinner if you’ve planned ahead, just reheat and serve.

Pressure cookers are safe and easy to use. They’re also energy efficient. So put away any fear of catastrophe inherited from the cooks in your family and invest in a tool you’ll love the very first time you put it to use. You can spend a little or a lot on a good pressure cooker. Our suggestion is to start modestly. Our pressure cooker was a gift, but we suspect it wasn’t a bank breaker. We don’t need a lot of bells and whistles on a pressure cooker – quick pressure release, low pressure settings, etc. We’ve experimented with ours and know how to get the best out of it. With a little time, you’ll get there too.

This Lamb and Shitake Stew recipe makes use of some of our favorite flavors – red wine, rosemary, orange and salty Kalamata olive. Use grass-fed beef if you can’t find good lamb. You’ll still be pleased by the results. In the pressure cooker, all those great flavors come together in minutes. Enjoy!

Pressure Cooked Meat and Mushroom Stew (aka Lamb and Shitake Stew)
Can be doubled and frozen for a quick dinner later in the month

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb. lamb shoulder meat or chops, beef, elk or pork roast cut into 3/4-inch cubes
6 ounces fresh mushrooms, shitake (stemmed), button, or portabella mushroom cut into 1/2-inch pieces,
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 3×1/2-inch strips orange peel (orange part only)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup Chianti, Sangiovese, or other fruity red wine
10 Kalamata olives or other brine-cured black olives, pitted, halved

Heat oil in a pressure cooker pot over high heat. Sprinkle lamb, or whatever meat you are using, with salt and pepper. Add the meat to pot; sauté until light brown, about 5 minutes, you may need to do this in two steps to avoid overcrowding the pan. Add the next 5 ingredients; sauté until onion is golden, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes with juices and wine; bring to boil. Put the lid on top of the pressure cooker and reduce heat to medium-low for about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat, release the pressure and stir, checking to make sure that the stew does not burn on the bottom of the pan. If the sauce is still too thin then put the lid back on, bring back to pressure and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add olives to stew and season with salt and pepper. (Can be made a day or two ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated. Rewarm over medium heat, adding water by tablespoonfuls to thin sauce if desired.) Serve with orzo, buttered noodles, or rice as the base for the stew.