Lois Porter and her signature sweet potato pies Lois Porter took a beloved family recipe and developed a sweet potato product that takes some of the time out of cooking with these nutritious tubers. With the seasonal shift to fall and Thanksgiving around the corner, her perishable product was recently picked up by both Berkeley […]
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Berkeley Bites: Jim Montgomery, Green Faerie Farm
Jim Montgomery and friend. Photos: Bret Turner, East Bay Pictures Jim Montgomery, one of the co-founders of Green Faerie Farm, isn’t your typical red-headed, disabled, gay, geeky urban homesteader. But then how many of those do you know? The gently-spoken 45-year-old likes to joke that in 1995, when he and two friends bought a 1920 house […]
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Berkeley Bites: Alice Waters
Alice Waters at the King Middle School Edible Schoolyard Do Berkeleyside readers even need an introduction to the mother of the American fresh, local, sustainable, organic food movement? Alice Waters is a living legend. For four decades, the California cuisine innovator, Chez Panisse chef, Edible Schoolyard founder, school food reformer, and Slow Food advocate, has […]
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Berkeley Bites: Berkeley Student Food Collective
It seems unthinkable that the People’s Republic of Berkeley has existed without a food co-operative for more than two decades. Well, try not to choke on your non-GMO, organic, fair trade, soymilk chai latte, but the co-op is coming back to Berkeley. The Consumer’s Cooperative of Berkeley was the place to shop for the politically correct […]
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Berkeley Bites: Aaron Betesh, Blue Heron Farms
Aaron Betesh. Photo: Sarah Henry For 10 years, Blue Heron Farms vendor Aaron Betesh has been selling organic vegetables to customers at all three Berkeley Farmers’ Markets. Betesh is part of the Blue Heron crew which, for much of the year, hawks salad greens, Asian greens, herbs and flower — along with carrots, kale, and […]
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Berkeley Bites: Michael Wild, BayWolf
The restaurant game is notoriously tough. Profit margins are thin, the dining public fickle, feeding people day in and day out is bloody hard work. The life span of a typical eatery: a few years, tops. When a place survives — thrives even — for 35 years, attention should be paid. Michael Wild. Photo/David Johnson […]
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Berkeley Bites: Fearless critic Robin Goldstein
Robin Goldstein: anything but a toffee-nosed gourmand. Photo: Heeb Magazine Robin Goldstein has the kind of pedigree that might make you expect him to be, frankly, a bit of a wine and food snob. He studied neuroscience and philosophy at Harvard, earned a law degree from Yale, picked up a cooking credential from the French […]
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Berkeley Bites: Minh Tsai, Hodo Soy Beanery
Minh Tsai: making impressive headway promoting a humble little legume. Minh Tsai is on a mission to make tofu the next hip artisanal food. He knows he has a ways to go to get many Americans to even taste tofu, but if anyone can make it cool to eat bean curd, this enthusiastic self-described tofu […]
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Berkeley Bites: Kara Hammond, Elmwood Café
A decade ago, and fresh out of North Carolina, Kara Hammond landed a gig at Café Fanny, a tiny slip of a place in North Berkeley opened 25 years ago by, oh, a certain famous local chef. Hammond, who had run a homespun bakery in Greensboro, wanted to get some kitchen experience in the Bay […]
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Berkeley Bites: Suzanne Schafer & Shari Washburn, Ebbett’s Good to Go
The Twitter handle pretty much sums things up. Two food-obsessed moms try to have their cake and eat it too: Start a food truck and still be home with the kids. Meet the newest truck on the block to hit the streets of Emeryville. You can’t miss the baby-blue colored vehicle emblazoned with the Ebbett’s […]
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Berkeley Bites: Tu David Phu, Saul’s Delicatessen
Tu David Phu at Saul's. Photo: Stephen Loewinsohn. What’s a nice, young, tattooed Vietnamese boy from West Oakland doing as the top chef in a Jewish deli in North Berkeley? I’m so glad you asked. Tu David Phu wanted to take a break from working the stoves in Bay Area fine dining establishments — his […]
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Berkeley Bites: Lucia Sayre, Physicians for Social Responsibility
In many ways Lucia Sayre is your typical Berkeley resident: She has a fondness for farmers’ markets, growing her own greens, and eating local foods. As director of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit group that promotes public health policies, she wants to do more than make a […]