San Francisco Food Blog

Love popcorn? After reading this, maybe not so much.

The Today Show is offering up news many movie-goers might already suspect: Even without "butter," theater popcorn is way far from healthy. New lab results from the Center for Science in the

Jonathan!/Flickr

Sooner or later, it'll kill you.

​Public Interest show that a medium popcorn and a soda serve up a whopping 1,610 calories, with 60 grams of saturated fat from coconut oil. Coconut oil contains 90 percent saturated fat, and those 60 grams are the suggested limit for three days of eating. Lard, in comparison, has 40 percent saturated fat, meaning it'd be far healthier for theaters to pop corn in pork fat than coconut oil. (Note to Boccalone and Humphry Slocombe: Any chance you'll be taking over concessions at the Roxie?)

If you'd rather get the same calories elsewhere than in a single box of popcorn, it takes three Quarter Pounders and 12 pats of butter to get the same amount of fat. For slightly healthier popcorn, seek out Cinemark theaters (the Century Centre 9 at Westfield Shopping Centre and CineArts @ Empire in West Portal), which pop in canola oil, resulting in lower levels of saturated fat. But still.

Welcome Books

Alice is all over it, big time.

​Zagat Guides and Slow Food have organized 33 nationwide dinners -- collectively called A Slow Taste of Tuscany -- happening Wednesday to celebrate the publication of Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town (Welcome Books, $50) by Douglas Gayeton. The Petaluma author plans to be present at the book signing and Slow dinner at Chez Panisse Café (1517 Shattuck at Walnut), the only one in the Bay Area. Look for a menu inspired by the book.

Participation by the restaurant Alice built makes sense, since Waters helped start Slow Food USA. She also wrote the intro for the photo-rich book, which is a celebration of Tuscan food traditions, Slow Food-style. In blurbage, Waters has given the book high praise: "Many have tried to explain Slow Food in written words, but few have managed to communicate the essence of this movement as successfully."

If you're a fan, there's no other place you'll want to be Wednesday. Seek reservations here.

oomni/Flickr

Hell-oo, anybody there?

​According to recent blog hoopla, Drewes Brothers Meats in Noe Valley is floundering in the wake of a Whole Foods invasion, and the resulting commotion has swollen into a temporary Ground Zero for concerns about the health of local businesses. As reported at Grub Street, owner Josh Epple suspects he'll have to close by the middle of 2010 if the register doesn't start ringing more mighty soon. Drewes fans worry Whole Foods threatens a landmark dispenser of first-rate flesh; naysayers call bullshit on purportedly shoddy customer service and inflated prices caused by the store's long-standing lack of worthy competition, suggesting that, if it can't adjust in time, Drewes deserves whatever fate it faces.

A few months ago, this blogger participated in a market research study on food shopping. As expected, three-quarters of the folks trapped for two hours in an ominously mirrored room preferred supporting local businesses over outposts of large corporations. A slender vegan extolled the virtues of his neighborhood produce market. A fast-talking bro in a backwards cap championed his favorite small-time butcher. "Organic," "sustainable," "local," "green," and "natural" -- those buzzwords were hurled like confetti, which was, fairly obviously the point of the whole ordeal. Someone -- or something, we should say -- was very curious about which words had real effects on shoppers, which ones, if affixed to a product, could sway the choices of everyday people. Of course, San Francisco people aren't really everyday with respect to buying food -- which was probably also part of the point -- but "local," more than any other word discussed, resonated most profoundly with participants.

Yet should we support a business like Drewes just because it's local and storied, even if its meats may be no finer than those behind the case at Whole Foods, its prices perhaps higher, and its staff potentially grumpier and less accommodating?

The moral debate about meat continues: whether to eat it, and if so, then what kind? Industrial meat, with its allegations of animal abuse, cramped quarters, and ongoing food safety violations, presents a certain queasiness in even the most rabid of carnivores. On the other hand, sustainably raised meat presents something of a middle ground.

Harper Collins

Is it possible to eat only "good" meat?

​That's what's under discussion at In Search of a Righteous Porkchop this Thursday, Oct. 29, at 6:30 p.m. Panelists include Nicolette Hahn Niman, an attorney, West Marin rancher, and author of Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms; David Evans, fourth generation rancher and owner of Marin Sun Farms; and Aaron French, chef at The Sunny Side Café in the East Bay, and ecologist and author of the forthcoming The Bay Area Homegrown Cookbook. Elanor Starmer, a researcher and policy analyst for the national consumer advocacy organization Food and Water Watch, moderates.

The free event includes farmers' market snacks, and is open to the public; donations are accepted. Head to the Port Commission Hearing Room, on the second floor of the Ferry Building (One Ferry Building at the Embarcadero).

Life Begins @ 30

Job trainees in the Meals for Change kitchen.

​Nibbles, film, discussion, and a good cause: Sounds like a recipe for an interesting evening. Got any plans for tonight?

Meals for Change is a nonprofit, food-based social enterprise kitchen that seeks to boost Bay Area Community Services' programs for the elderly and disabled, all while supporting family farms and keeping food spending in the local community. Oh, and shrinking our carbon footprints here in the Bay. Whew! How? By selling packaged vegetarian and vegan entrées made from locally sourced ingredients, stuff like onion-chard bread casserole, mixed mushroom polenta pie, and Moroccan vegetable couscous. Find them at DeLano's IGA (4201 18th St. at Collingwood), Rainbow (1745 Folsom at 13th St.), and both S.F. Real Foods stores (3060 Folsom at Filbert, and 2140 Polk at Vallejo). Home delivery is also available via Planet Organics.

Tonight's Commonwealth Club event in the Port Commission Hearing Room at the Ferry Building (second floor, One Ferry Building at the Embarcadero) combines a food and wine tasting with a short documentary about the venture, as well as a panel discussion and the official Meals for Change entréee product launch. The panel discussion features Brahm Ahmadhi of People's Grocery, with Larry Bearg of Planet Organics, Kent Ellsworth of Bay Area Community Services, and chef Dominique Crenn of Luce. Moderator is Jen Maiser, Life Begins @ 30 blogger and co-organizer of the Eat Local Challenge. Tickets are $18 for the general public, $12 for Commonwealth Club members. Advance purchase (like, right now) through the Commonwealth Club's Web site is recommended, or just show up. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., the tasting is from 6 to 7 p.m., and the panel and film are from 7 to 8 p.m.

Soul Food Farm

A fire in early Sept. wiped out acres of pasture.

​An auction and raffle to benefit a post-blaze Soul Food Farm wrapped up over the weekend. Organizer Bonnie Powell estimated some 250 people showed up at Pizzaiolo in Oakland to hear the winning bidders announced. Soul Food Farm's Alexis Koefoed told SFoodie that fund-raising efforts for the pastured chicken and egg operation left her feeling invigorated. "I'm happy to live in this part of the world, where people say, 'We're gonna help you out,'" Koefoed said. "That's been a bit of an eye opener in this cynical world."

Yesterday's fundraiser caps off a handful of benefit dinners (including one last night at Il Cane Rosso). The farm has also received direct donations. "As a very rough estimate, I'd say the events, all told, will raise roughly $30,000," Powell said, adding that the figure means Soul Food Farm met its funding target. Last month a raffle organized by Bi-Rite in San Francisco raised a little over $10,000 for the farm, which lost pasture, chicks, and a pair of chicken houses in the Sept. 3 fire.

The prize that saw the most furious bidding was a pitch lunch with Chronicle Books cookbook editor Bill LeBlond. Dinner for two at the kitchen table at Chez Panisse also drew some stiff competition (the winning bid? $800).

Gare and Kitty/Flickr

The makings of a kickass pair of wedgies?

​If you want another option for your used champagne and wine corks -- beyond using them in bad art projects -- there are fashion-forward options in the works. Cork is one material that's migrating from the recycling bin to the shoe store.

A new "upcycling" program plans to utilize some of the billions of old, used natural cork wine and champagne closures to make shoes. This week, a company called ReCORK America announced a new recycling program between Amorim of Portugal, and SOLE, a North American shoe manufacturer. ReCORK's local recycling partners include Rodney Strong Wine Estates, Cakebread Cellars, Whole Foods, the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, Rutherford Wine Co., and PlumpJack. Other cork donors include American Airlines/Sodexo, The Wine Tasting Network (WTN), and biggie Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines. So far, the sustainability-forward project has collected four million corks since starting in 2007.

SOLE shoes are used by pro teams from the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Look for corky SOLE products at REI, Zappos.com (love the free shipping!), and other specialty retailers.

artandresistance/Flickr

Wear your crunchiest outfit.

​Big Ag sucks, high-fructose corn syrup is toxic like antifreeze, and even a cursory look at the American food system is enough to make any thinking person yearn to be a hermit goat farmer in Humboldt. That's why we often turn to Grist food editor Tom Philpott. A farmer-philosophe from North Carolina, Philpott has a way of breaking down monumentally unpalatable issues of food politics into Scooby-sized blog snacks, with opinions that sometimes waver from the progressive recipe book. He's smart.

Just so happens Philpott is in town at the moment -- he swung by SFoodie world headquarters yesterday, for an illuminating chat about current thinking around school lunch and the state of the American Slow Food movement. You'll have your own chance to chat tomorrow evening, when Philpott and Grist CEO Chip Giller host a (no-host) happy hour at 111 Minna Gallery (111 Minna at Second St.), 6-8 p.m. You'll leave feeling better, we promise. And not just from the Coronas.

Sesame Workshop

Better messaging as Boba Fett?

​In The Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell wrote of America's longest running and most beloved children's television series: "Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them."

As the show creaks towards its 40th anniversary season, producers have rounded up some popular humans to help keep the tiny eyes and ears of multitudes of little boys and girls primed to soak up its lessons both large and wee. We're assuming Kobe Bryant will dunk on Big Bird while the Count keeps score, Ricky Gervais will torment Oscar with uncomfortable prattle, and Eva Longoria-Parker will sit on the sidelines, well-shaded, sipping a pricy Beso cocktail -- but what, oh what, will this season's most illustrious non-furry guest contribute?

As reported yesterday, Michelle Obama will kick off the season on November 10. In her special segment, the farmer's market-fancying First Lady will draw parallels between home-grown vegetables and healthy living -- and drop some entry-level Michael Pollan. "All these seeds need to grow are sun, soil and water. If you eat these healthy foods, you're going to grow up to be big and strong, like me," Obama reportedly says -- clearly fudging some crucial genetic facts. "I know you're going to like these vegetables, because in addition to being healthy, they really taste great!"

We're happy someone in such a lofty position has made food policy a serious initiative -- especially when it comes to the Muppet demographic -- but given our intimate day-to-day trials and tribulations with a pack of charming, half house-broken 4-year-olds, and our resulting sense of their cultural predilections, we're thinking Obama, for all her fame and the respect and admiration she warrants, will more successfully sell young'uns on sprouts and shoots if she dons a Boba Fett costume or some Ariel fins.

foodista.com/Flickr

Just let it go.

​Last week, we called attention to Lou Bendrick's stinging backhand to canned tuna -- that mercury-harboring, dolphin-slaughtering staple delis have been mashing with sweet green relish and mayo since the early 20th century. Bendrick suggests water-packed sardines as an alternative. Disgusto, we say. Sardines should be fresh, roasted and blanketed in oil-soaked bread-crumbs. Likewise, we'd rather switch food groups altogether than pick the bones from the squishy, stinky contents of a can of salmon. Bendrick's other solution to the health and environmental concerns canned tuna poses -- eat less of it, and when you do, stick to the good stuff -- is more palatable. She considers Wild Planet, Eco Fish, and Vital Choice -- companies with reliably sustainable fishing methods and a history of conducting independent tests for mercury and PCBs -- smarter options than the average aluminum-cased chicken of the sea.

On Sunday, the Chronicle ran its weekly Taster's Choice column. As luck would have it, the foodstuff of focus was olive oil-packed tuna. You''ll be happy to know the Trader Joe's entry (by a long, long, long, long shot the most modestly priced, at $1.99 a can) placed a respectable fourth, with several brands carrying tags nearly eight times as weighty.

Now, tuna stowed in water or insipid broth is truly barely edible. In her seminal tome Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan dubbed it "wholly tasteless." The oily sort, on the other hand, makes for quick, good pasta sauces, impromptu salads with chickpeas and lemon, and salade Niçoise sans fuss. Question: Do expensive, imported brands of oil-packed tuna suffer from the same ailments as Starkist and its water-logged ilk? We're guessing yes. We'd prefer not to turn into Mad Hatters on account of lunch. If we can stop doing hard drugs, smoking cigarettes, and drinking to excess with frequency, we can probably quit tuna cold turkey -- if we decide we really want to. We hear salami melts are pretty good.

Violating California law?

​A doctors' group wants consumers to know they may want to hold off on ordering Kentucky Fried Chicken's grilled bird for now. The group is the 7,000-member-strong Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Yesterday afternoon, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the docs are suing KFC. The lawsuit accuses the Colonel of selling grilled chicken containing dangerous levels of PhIP, a substance thought to cause cancer, and which was added to California's list of carcinogens waaaay back in 1994. (The PhIP is a byproduct of KFC's grilling process.) The Colonel is also accused of violating Prop. 65, which mandates that all California businesses have to warn customers about exposure to things that cause cancer or birth defects. KFC company spokesman Rick Maynard said KFC's Kentucky Grilled Chicken "meets or exceeds all federal and state regulations for food safety." The doctors' organization, he added, "promotes a vegetarian agenda." Can't say we blame them.

La tartine gourmande/Flickr

Heirloom apples: How many can you find?

​Renewing America's Food Traditions Alliance (RAFT) wants you to hunt apples. Yes, we know you're busy. You have disastrous holiday parties to begin planning, expensive airplane tickets to buy, impossible jobs to find, and desperate grad school plans to hatch. All the same, in an effort to restore dignity and diversity to our country's iconic tooth-chipper of a fruit, Gary Paul Nabhan's noble organization is sending you, faithful Slow Food-ist, on a scavenger hunt.

Your task, should you choose to accept it: Zip around the countryside, taking photographs of as many heirloom apple varieties as you can find, noting the farms where you found them. Send RAFT your list of apples, your pictures, and any appropriate recipes, emailing all submissions to raftalliance@slowfoodusa.org.

Your reward for participation: Your name will be entered in a drawing. Ten winners will receive a DVD of the upcoming film The Botany of Desire. The deadline is October 15.

CoryOBrien/Flickr

​Today, another food challenge is happening. Today is Eat Local Challenge day, which, as all good locavores should know, means eating foods grown or found within 150 miles or less from where you cook. Bon Appétit Management Co. is organizing the annual event. Bo Appétit provides food service for several restaurant and café kitchens in the Bay Area, including eBay, Oracle, Palm, Yahoo!, AT&T Park, and is partners with Traci Des Jardins in Acme Chophouse.

This is the fifth Eat Local Challenge. Committed locavores believe that local sourcing benefits the local farms and producers, and helps bolster family farms and our wider collective agricultural heritage.

Thomas Hawk/Flickr

Despite all the kilowatts, Doc's Clock skews green.

​Usually, we hit the bar to avoid thinking about heady issues like sustainability and the greening of our planet. Well, a -- you guessed it -- green consulting firm may get us to modify that just a tad, because, hey, even that after-work mojito can do more than just impair your judgment. It can mess up the planet.

Green & Tonic is a startup that works with bar owners to reduce waste and energy use, helping with everything from biodegradable straws to composting -- hey! The G&T firm (gotta say, it's a catchy name) is also into local and sustainable adult bevies. Tomorrow, the Green & Tonic folks are putting on what they're calling a Zerowasted Pub Crawl to the following "green" bars: Doc's Clock, Casanova Lounge, and Elixir. Expect discounted drinks, a green auction, and a sustainable scavenger hunt. It starts at Doc's Clock (2575 Mission at 22nd St.) at 4 p.m., Saturday, September 19, heads to Casanova (527 Valencia at 16th St.) at 5:30, then on to Elixir (3200 16th St. at Guerrero) at 7 p.m. Feel better already? Wait'll you get a few sustainable drinks in you.

Michael Halberstadt/Flickr

The Mission District market is seeking to raise $10,000 for the farm.

​The fire that destroyed a barn and several acres of pasture at Soul Food Farm in Vacaville last Thursday has succeeded in kindling a measure of community support. Today, Bi-Rite Market co-owner Sam Mogannam kicked off of a raffle to raise money for the stricken poultry farm.

"Soul Food is one of our favorite purveyors of incredible pastured chickens and eggs," Mogannam's email announcement read. "Without the immediate support they need to recover, the farm will not survive." Today, Bi-Rite began selling raffle tickets, with a goal of raising $10,000 for Soul Food by October 1. Prizes include a dinner for eight at 18 Reasons, a gift card to Bi-Rite Creamery that translates as a year's worth of ice cream, as well as wines and food items from Bi-Rite Market. Mogannam said the company would also provide a match of up to $2,000. Raffle tickets are $5 each, or five for $20.

"She needs the money," Mogannam told SFoodie, referring to Soul Food owner Alexis Koefoed. "We were strategizing the best way to do it - we were originally thinking about auctioning off a dinner at 18 Reasons, like we did for La Cocina [for last month's S.F. Street Food Festival], but we decided that at some point one item would be too expensive for people to bid on." Before the fire, Bi-Rite was selling three to four dozen Soul Food chickens and up to 160 dozen eggs per week.

Mogannam said the initial response to the raffle has been overwhelming. "The phone's been tied up all day. Just about an hour ago David Evans from Marin Sun Farms bought 75 tickets." He said the roster of prizes might expand to include donations from other businesses. "I'm totally blown away by the community," Mogannam said. "We need to do something like this more often."

Raffle tickets are available at Bi-Rite Market (3639 18th St. at Guerrero) and Bi-Rite Creamery (3692 18th St. at Dolores), or by calling 241-9760. Sales will continue through September.

foodietots/Flickr

Who could be against veggies? A still life from the Dupont FreshFarm Market.

​First Lady Michelle Obama is trying to bring farm fresh food to her own 'hood near the White House. Washington D.C. residents and farmers' market fans are closely watching the First Lady -- she took out a request this week to periodically close a section of Vermont Street to set up a farmers' market. The street is within walking distance of the White House, and is thick with commuters on weekdays.

Some folks seem to think that using the area for a farmers' market -- even only one day a week -- will cause major traffic headaches. According to a recent WTOP.com report, "FreshFarm Markets is asking that Vermont Avenue between H and I Streets, NW be closed every Thursday between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. -- a stretch of time that would cover the entire afternoon rush hour." FreshFarm Markets operates several other farmers' markets in the D.C. area. Some accept food stamps and senior citizen coupons.

tanabutler/Flickr

Workers at Swanton Berry Farm are covered by a UFW contract.

​Food for thought: Keep that labor discussion going well into this work week. Tomorrow night, CUESA, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, is putting on a free panel debate called The Fruits of Their Labor. CUESA's goal is to get people thinking and tawkin' about fair labor's place in sustainable food -- in this case, farm workers. Expect these questions to be discussed:
• Who are our farm laborers, and what are their lives like?
• What can farm owners do to keep their workers safe and happy, without breaking the bank?

Panelists include Sandy Brown, co-owner of Swanton Berry Farm near Santa Cruz, the first organic farm where workers have a UFW contract, and Maisie Greenawalt of Bon Appétit Management Co., which forged a buying agreement with the Imokolee workers. The panel runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, September 10, and takes place in the Port Commission Hearing Room on the second floor of the Ferry Building. The event is open to the public and free (donations accepted). There'll be a short reception afterwards, with what are described as "farmers' market snacks."

mental.masala/Flickr

The Civic Center event was one of several in the city.

​Slow Food San Francisco president Dava Guthmiller estimated about 400 people showed up at a potluck in Civic Center yesterday. The event was one of more than 300 Labor Day Eat-Ins organized by Slow Food USA, a kickoff to its Time for Lunch campaign to pressure Congress to enact reforms to national school lunch programs. Organizers had been hoping for as many as 700 in Civic Center.

Guthmiller reckoned that 80 to 85 percent of participants showed up with a dish to share at communal tables set up in Civic Center Plaza. "There was plenty of food, plenty of stuff from Eatwell Farm, Frog Hollow. Let's Be Frank brought some of their hot dogs, and a lot of people did bring large-portion items." Guthmiller's own contribution? Broiled tomatoes with goat cheese and chives. (Watch our slide show -- including luscious food photos -- here.)

State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco/San Rafael) spoke at the Civic Center event. So did local nutritionist Daphne Miller, author of The Jungle Effect. Smaller Eat-Ins happened at Crissy Field, Dolores Park, Brooks Park in Ingleside, and the 18th and Rhode Island Community Garden on Potrero Hill, and in other Bay Area cities.

visionshare/Flickr

Pollan: Show up with hummus, change the world.

​There's still time to sign up for one of the Bay Area's several potluck Labor Day Eat-Ins this Monday, September 7, organized by Slow Food USA. They'll mark the launch of Slow Food's Time for Lunch, an initiative to improve school lunches and introduce farm-to-table curricula for the 30 million children covered by the National School Lunch program. If you need more of a nudge than that, there's always Michael Pollan.

"You guys are the leaders in the sustainable food movement," the Berkeley author and journalism prof said during a recent press conference for Slow Food USA, "and I want to applaud that. I want to talk about political power. The amazing cover of Time magazine, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, was kind of an incredible story -- a lot of things the mainstream hasn't said in this way."

Pollan thinks supporters of a sustainable food system are winning the media war, but Washington is just starting to listen. "There's a gap between media and reality -- 2 or 3 percent of U.S. food production is sustainable. Congress sees this as a gnat or a fly on a behemoth of an industry. In connecting farms to schools, the tremendous impediment is Congress. The food industry is the biggest lobby on the hill."

Soul Food Farm

Soul Food Farm's chickens get to walk around and eat stuff.

​Starting in October, you might be able to score monthly pickups of the same chickens and eggs that the restaurants Coi, Quince, and Chez Panisse serve up.

Alexis Koefoed of Soul Food Farm in Vacaville told SFoodie she's trying to organize a CSA for chickens and eggs. Koefoed -- whose pastured chickens are in fierce demand by four-star chefs -- said she's hoping to make monthly dropoffs to Davis, the East Bay, and the Mission District. If it turns out there's enough demand in the city, the Mission might end up with two deliveries a month. Currently, city residents can buy Soul Food Farm chickens and eggs at Avedano's Meats, Prather Ranch Meat Co. in the Ferry Building, and Bi-Rite.

"It's been an idea of mine for quite some time, but I just hadn't put it together," Koefoed said. "It seemed like a good opportunity to do it now, since I have an opportunity to raise more chickens." The authentically free-range broiler chickens, which subsist on a diet of bugs and worms supplemented by a grain-based feed, will weigh in at between 3 and 4 pounds, with heads and feet attached, at a cost of $6.50 per pound. Eggs will be $6.50 a dozen. CSA subscribers will be able to order as many chickens as they like; eggs will be limited to three dozen at a time.

Subscribers will prepay an amount Koefoed has yet to determine, then make purchases against it, giving them the ability to skip deliveries. Local writer and editor Bonnie Powell, who helped Clark Summit Farm in West Marin organize its meat CSA last year, is aiding with the startup. Koefoed said she's looking for additional volunteers to help with distribution. Check out Soul Food Farm's Web site for more details or to sign up.

Mad City Chickens

Mmm, chicken-y.

The folks at Slow Food on Film continue to spread the local-farm-to-table word with a screening this weekend of the fascinating documentary Mad City Chickens at the Delancey Street Theater (600 Embarcadero at Brannan). The film tells the story of the so-called Chicken Underground, a group in Madison, Wisconsin, that raised urban birds before chicken-keeping in the city was legalized. The intertwined stories chart the recent (and very Slow Food-friendly) resurgence of poultry as a universal food source -- the chickens themselves, and their eggs. Once a common feature of American life, the practice largely vanished with the rise of industrial farming, but has been gaining ground with foodies nationally.

Following the movie will be a reception with tapas and wines by the glass. It's happening Sunday, August 9, at 6 p.m., and costs $15 per person. Buy tickets online.

Daniel Greene/Flickr

You could make someone's '83 Volvo very happy with this.

​You can now repurpose used cooking oil in the greenest of ways, even if you haven't converted your own car to drive on biofuels. If you live in San Francisco, you can now get rid of that dodgy fry oil left from cooking chicken wings or lumpia at a handful of drop-off spots.

In 2007, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission launched SFGreasecycle, a program for restaurants and food service businesses to recycle their used cooking oil. It's been a cost-effective alternative to pouring oil down the floor drain, since backed-up pipes cost money and time. The program's kudos list details participating businesses, including Alembic, Farmerbrown, Gordon Biersch, and several King of Thai Noodle Houses. City officials have collected more than 20,000 gallons of used cooking oil since the program began. They decided to extend the program to residents after holiday residential collection events last year.

How to process your goo before heading out to the collection location? First, cool the oil in a pan. Pour it into a clean, nonbreakable, leak-proof container with a tight lid - one free of all water, soap suds, and food scraps. The take it to one of the following drop-off points:
• Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center 755
Frederick (at Arguello). Mon.-Sat. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sun. noon-4 p.m.
• Dogpatch Biofuels 765 Pennsylvania (at 22nd St.) Tue.-Fri. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
• The city's Whole Foods stores accept drop-offs between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on different Fridays. On the first Friday of each month, head to the Whole Foods at 1765 California (at Franklin). On third Fridays, go to the store at 399 Fourth St. (at Harrison). On fourth Fridays, take your oil-filled goodness to the store at 450 Rhode Island (at 17th St.).

For more information, visit www.SFGreasecycle.org or call 695-7366.

meatpaper/Flickr

A panel of sustainable foodies breaks it down tomorrow at Acme.

Don't be so smug. You might think you know the difference between local and sustainable, but think again -- there's always room for debate about these ever-evolving hot-button concepts.

Not sure if there's such a thing as organic seafood, or if the whole farmed vs. wild thing is still a-ragin'? (Hint: it is.) Come find out tomorrow at Acme Chophouse (24 Willie Mays Plaza at Third St.) from 6 to 9 p.m. Food industry types, locavores, and anyone fretting over the state of sustainable food systems are invited to a panel discussion on the current state of the local and sustainable food debate, sponsored by the San Francisco Professional Food Society. Acme chef Thom Fox will share the mic with Sheila Bowman of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program, Marin Sun Farms ranch manager Nate Chisholm, and Colin Lafrenz of Ports Seafood. Helene York of Bon Appétit Management Company will moderate.

Reception to follow. Promised goodies include Iacopi Farm butter bean and Oregon pink shrimp salad with preserved lemon and dill, heirloom tomato salad with olives, artisan cheeses from Wisconsin, La Quercia prosciutto panini, fingerling potato and Blue Lake bean salads, and an as-yet-unspecified free-range beef dish. Purchase tickets ($45-$55) online via Acteva.

sarahmroos/Flickr

Last year's Slow Food Nation eat-in at Dolores Park is serving as a national model.

Remember Slow Food Nation, the sprawling food fest that gripped San Francisco over Labor Day weekend last year? Organizers had pledged it would be an annual event, with the likelihood that this year's fest would again take place in S.F.

This morning, Brooklyn-based Slow Food USA announced a change in plans that appeared to acknowledge lessons learned from last year's event. Instead of the confab of chefs, food artisans, and farmers, Slow Food USA is focusing on, well, just plain eating. This year on Labor Day, Slow Food is launching its Time for Lunch campaign with a series of nationwide community potlucks, called eat-ins.

Modeled after the eat-in that snaked through Dolores Park during Slow Food Nation last year, the idea is that local Slow Food chapters will organize communal meals in public spaces on Monday, September 7. Participants are asked to bring a cooked dish and begin to organize around Time for Lunch, a Slow Food initiative seeking to improve lunches and initiate farm-to-table curricula for the more than 30 million kids under the National School Lunch Program. Slow Food's ultimate goal? Influencing the Child Nutrition Act, which Congress will reauthorize later this year.

wnyc/Flickr

Robert Kenner (right) with author Michael Pollan.

Food, Inc., a documentary opening today at Landmark Theatres' Embarcadero Center, takes a grim look at the American industrial food system. (See the trailer below.) Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser is a producer (he'll be in the city tomorrow, appearing at the 4:50 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. showings). Director Robert Kenner spoke with SFoodie this morning about the impact making the film has had on his own food choices, as well as the backlash against Food, Inc. by Big Ag.

SFoodie: How has making the film changed the way you eat?
Kenner: The most shocking thing to me in making this film was just how much information has been denied to us. I've become much more conscious of a system that's been hidden from me. Some people have seen this film and say, I'm never going to eat chicken again. Well that's not the point of our film. It's to show the lack of transparency. And we're up against billions of dollars of advertising from the other side -- if my distributor spent half a million getting the word out about this film I'd be thrilled! All we want is transparency and a good conversation about these things. Eric Schlosser said that after Fast Food Nation came out there wasn't that much interest in this stuff. Today we're part of a huge movement -- even Michelle Obama is part of it, whether she knows it or not, just by having the audacity to grow a vegetable garden without chemicals. And there's organized resistance against it! It's truly an Orwellian world out there.

Food, Inc., the documentary that blasts Big Ag the way An Inconvenient Truth blasted carbon dioxide, is racking up breathless reviews. The film, which exposes the nation's industrial farming practices as ruinous, rapacious, and just plain gross, opens tomorrow at Landmark Theatres' Embarcadero Center. Producer and Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser will be on hand Saturday for the 4:50 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. screenings.

Someone not psyched about the movie's opening? The very lobbying groups and megafood coporations the film takes to task. They aren't being silent about it. Multinational biotech corporation Monsanto created a special Web page - the "Monsanto Fact Site" -- to debunk what it calls the film's bias, and a fact sheet that describes the movie as demonizing American farmers.

heather/Flickr

Heart of the City market: Low carbon footprint?

Agoraphobic? Is it raining out? Or maybe you're just too lazy to drag your ass to the farmers' market. Spud, the largest organic food delivery service in North America, can hook you up. But is that entirely a good thing?

It is if convenience is your chief value. Spud, which began its grocery delivery business in Vancouver more than a dozen years ago, launched locally in January 2008, before the proliferation of city farmers' markets (we count eight, with at least one more planned for July). Spud's highly customizable program allows you to put together an a la carte box of organic produce, delivered right to your door. You can also get staples like butter, milk, and bread, and even a few prepared foods (there's a 5 percent discount on standing orders).

Prices are pretty good when you consider that you have to do nothing more than point and click to accomplish your week's grocery shopping. A quart of Clover organic milk is $3.59 and you can get a head of organic butter lettuce for $2.55. The company is carbon neutral, meaning, in this case, it purchases carbon credits from My Climate to offset emissions it can't avoid in running this huge, er, industrial operation. My Climate then puts this money to use for projects that reduce the use of fossil fuels and promote the use of renewable energy sources, many in developing countries.

B. Gohacki via Flickr

The Alemany Saturday market: Rock the vote

Do you schedule your Saturdays around your weekly walk-through of the Alemany farmers' market? Feeling territorial about Heart of the City? Cast your vote for them in a contest sponsored by American Farmland Trust (AFT) to select the best small, medium, and large markets in the U.S.

We understand if you're cynical, preferring not to take part in America's current national pastime, i.e., competition for its own sake. The farmers' market contest is a different animal entirely, more 4-H camp than Make Me a Supermodel, since it's mostly about bragging rights. The spoils are merely a buttload of No Farms No Food tote bags.

AFT's hope is to promote connections between food and farmers, something even we of the Bay Area's bountiful harvests could use more of. It also promotes AFT's Growing Local initiative, which encourages the protection of farmland and the development of local food systems, especially around cities where demand for local food is greatest. Now that's something even cynical local foodies can get passionate about.

Vote at AFT's Web site. Polls are open until August 8.

Northfield.org via Flickr

Jessica Prentice: The original locavore?

Yammering about food is a local pastime, whether it's talk about the latest street-food find, the endless debate about organic versus local, or what "green" really means (do Veev cocktails count?). Now there's an organized space for such musings: Kitchen Table Talks, a new series of conversations about the American food system. Organizers are the food politics blog Civil Eats and 18 Reasons, the artsy, food-steeped nonprofit arm of Bi-Rite. They invite a different speaker each session, with topics ranging from the wonky to the practical. Who can attend? Policy geeks, activists, and mere eaters.

Last month's first installment featured Elanor Starmer, research analyst for the food program at Food and Water Watch, who sought to demystify the USDA -- explaining what they actually do -- and dissect the Obama admin's policy approach. The second session is scheduled for Tuesday, June 23. Called What to Eat: A Revolutionary Act, the speaker is Jessica Prentice, a partner in the subscription prepared-foods biz Three Stone Hearth and the woman who reportedly coined locavore, which the New Oxford American Dictionary deemed word of the year for 2007. There'll also be a teaser for Edible City, a feature-length documentary about the local food movement.

What to Eat: A Revolutionary Act At Linden Tree, in the offices of Sagan-Piechota Architecture, 315 Linden (at Gough), 6:30-8:30 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Space is limited -- RSVP to ktt@civileats.com or call 925-785-0713.

Ryanrules via Flickr

The mega retailer couldn't confirm its foie gras supplier's claims

A representative of Costco called SFoodie today to clarify the retailer's position around yesterday's reported foie gras ban, announced in a press release by anti-cruelty group the Animal Protection and Rescue League. Mike Dorpat, wine and food buyer for Costco.com, said he did indeed make the decision to banish the controversial luxury item from the company's online inventory, though he acknowledged it was never a significant presence there in the first place.

"We did carry goose foie gras, and we did take it off," Dorpat said. Costco.com offered canned foie gras from a French producer as a seasonal item starting in September. Dorpat declined to say how much foie the $72 billion retailer based in Issaquah, Wash., typically sold, though he said the amount wasn't large. "This was not a million-dollar decision," he said.