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If you're a hardcore foodie --and why else would you be reading this?-- it's likely crossed your mind that the French, and most old world cuisine extremists, don't waste any part of the animals they butcher. And they make it glorious while they're at it. Tête de veau comes to mind (pun intended).

Prather Ranch takes the same approach, and delivers similarly exceptional, if more rustic, results in its American Eatery restaurant adjacent to its new butcher shop digs in the Ferry Building.

To Doug Stonebreaker, Prather's founder, the Eatery is a natural extension to his approach to butchery. "I always thought this would be our model," he says, "an integrated, whole-animal approach."

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​ The Good Food Awards is kind of like the Oscars, only a touch less glamorous and a lot more focused on cured meat and pickles. This weekend, awards will be given out in categories such as charcuterie, cheese, coffee, and chocolate. If you ask us, those are a lot more exciting than Best Costume Design.

In addition to hosting a marketplace full of products from national competition finalists, this year brings the first Beer and Spirits Garden at the event. Attendees can sample and purchase award winning foods downstairs, and bring them upstairs to pair with beers and spirits in the garden. Since many of the brews are from other parts of the country, this is a good opportunity to try some popular beers that don't get distributed to the Bay Area. Think of it like celebrity spotting, but the red carpet looks suspiciously like the Grand Hall of the Ferry Building.

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​Cowgirl Creamery is best known for its aged, European style, cheeses like Mt Tam and Red Hawk. But the ladies parcel our a fair selection of fresh cheeses as well, all of which can lift your morning, or your entertaining, to another level.

Yesterday, we looked at Cowgirl's aged cheeses. Here's a look at the line of fresh products from the Cowgirl fridge at the Ferry Building shop.

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Cowgirl Creamery has always been an SFoodie favorite, and since the ladies have started adding new cheeses this year, we felt a more inclusive survey of the line was warranted. Here's a look at the new, and the old, aged cheeses.   (We'll get to the fresh cheeses in another post.)

Wagon Wheel


The newest cheese from Cowgirl is distinct from the rest in being made in 25 pound wheels rather than the smaller, self-contained ones that the Mt Tam variants come in. Cowgirl markets this as their "everyday" cheese.  Mid-yellow color, with a darkened, slightly waxy rind, this is dense and firm, with a modestly rubbery body, like a lightly aged mozzarella. It's pleasant and mild with a slight note of the rennet bringing a tiny tang toward the finish -- like gruyère without the noticeable nuttiness.

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Alan Scherstuhl

​ The current iteration of San Francisco-style pancetta seems at times a cheap ploy by the fancier restaurants in town at making good old American bacon an elegant side dish for the peaking trend of dignified brunches. It's too often straight slabs of seasoned pork that bear a striking resemblance to the rectangular cuts of fatty swine 1950s-raised mother used to fry up for our Sunday breakfast. Nothing to scoff at, but certainly an inadequate introduction to the beauty of a delicious fried bit of true pancetta

Enter Il Cane Rosso, the Ferry Terminal Building's lone stab at casual Italian fare, and their utterly surprising rounds of pancetta. One might assume for the measly 2 dollars Il Cane Rosso charges for their pancetta what might arrive in front of you will be a stereotypical slab of bacon gussied up with a fancy name.

Oh how wrong you are.

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Om nom nom

​ I understand that the very existence of breakfast sandwiches is evidence that something is deeply wrong with our society: They're scarfables not meant to be tasted, cheesebombs we gulp down as we dash through a world that affords us not just no time to cook, but not even time for last-century niceties like utensils or eating while sitting down.

That's how I ate my first Golden Gate Meat Company breakfast sandwich. It's not how I've eaten the 10 or so that have followed, once a week. These are a treat, not some on-the-go staple, and savoring one in the shadow of a Bay Bridge jumping with traffic is a serious morning pleasure.

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iStockphoto/Stepan Popov

​Scharffen Berger is hosting two free baking lessons Saturday, Oct. 8 which use chocolate -- surprise! -- to teach you how to "elevate a classic dessert with Scharffen Berger."

Yes, your grandmother's dessert recipe may wholly deserve the title "classic," but it can always get better. Watch and learn. Spoiler alert: these sound so indulgent, even reading the dish descriptions might leave you with a toothache.

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Erin Kunkel/New York Times

​ Free Scream Sorbet
Where: Ferry Building
When: Wednesday, Sept. 7, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Cost: Free!

Scream Sorbet is a favorite of farmers' market denizens throughout the Bay Area, and on Sept. 7, you can get it free.

The Cooking Channel's ice cream truck will make a stop on its national tour to provide SF foodies "a scoop or two of Scream Sorbet."

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Happy Girl's dry-farmed tomato juice

​Happy Girl Kitchen Grand Opening Party
Where: Ferry Building
When: Friday, Sept. 2, 4-8 p.m.
Cost: Free

Even though it has been open for a few weeks in its dedicated Ferry Building location, Happy Girl Kitchen is having its "Grand Opening Party" on Friday: all the better for you since you haven't missed it yet.

First item on the invite, and likely first in the interests of many 21 and over, is "complimentary cocktails (including bloody marys made with our delicious tomato juice!)"

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CUESA

Roberto Gonzales mixing up market fresh cocktails

​Where: Ferry Building Marketplace, 1 Ferry Building (at Embarcadero)

When: Wednesday, Aug. 24, 5:30-8 p.m.

Cost: $45 online via Eventbrite; 21 and over

The rundown: We're counting down the days to San Francisco Cocktail Week (Sept. 19-25), which this year promises to be bigger, better, and boozier. With tickets already on sale and the event lineup continuing to fill up, it can feel a little daunting knowing which events to attend.

CUESA is hosting a liquid preview to help you decide which events to attend: 16 different drinks stations will feature cocktail tastes and info from each of the events and also include snacks from 15 Romolo, Jasper's Corner Tap, Monk's Kettle, Ozumo, and more.

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