A Cook’s California

Filbert Steps

San Francisco has 300 stairways connecting streets and alcoves on its steepest hills. Most were built as neighborhoods were laid out 100 or so years ago. There is a surprising number of homes anchored to slopes where no streets can be built, accessible only by public staircases. Some stairways are hidden shortcuts connecting busy boulevards, giving pedestrians a moment of quiet with stunning vistas. The longest and most famous stairways climb Telegraph Hill from the Embarcadero to Coit Tower. On a recent sun-filled morning I set out with a map and 2 hours free to stair-step up and down Telegraph Hill then go find lunch.

 Telegraph Hill was inhabited during the 1850’s by Irish and Italian immigrants whose livelihoods depended on the nearby wharves. They were longshoremen, fishermen and warehouse workers of low wages and built modest dwellings along dirt paths on the hill. The eastern flank was made into a sheer cliff by local contractors who, in the 1880’s, began dynamiting the hill to use it as a rock quarry. During the early 20th century Telegraph Hill were largely by- passed by city transit lines and the area remained under developed, attracting artists and providing grazing for goats until 1928. Read More…

Country lane in Pescadero

It is late summer, perfectly clear and warm on the coast, and we head to Pescadero, 17 miles south of Half Moon Bay, 34 miles north of Santa Cruz . Each autumn we drive to Phipps Country Store, several miles up the road from Pescadero, to buy the new harvest of unusual beans. But today we are looking for lunch in this tiny 2 block coastal town (population 643 in 2010).

On the main street we find a 117 year old tavern designated as an “American Classic” by the James Beard Foundation, a general store recently remodeled to include wood-burning oven and a striking modern blue glass bar, a New England style church built by Yankee settlers in 1867 and a wooden statue of a goat and girl pointing down a country lane. Read More…

Tagine, traditional Moroccan clay cookware

We are gazing at shelves stacked with handcrafted cookware, all made of clay and representing both New and Old World, wondering if we really need another pot. Each design has evolved over generations for a specific cuisine…rustic cazuelas from Spain, sienna-hued Vulcania bean pots from Tuscany, steep-sided Hala for Egyptian stews, black La Chamba pots from Colombia. My eye keeps returning to the elegant sloped lid of the Moroccan Tagines.

We have found Bram, a shop devoted to clay pot cookware on the town square in the city of Sonoma. These pots are a direct link to the past, to how slow cooking has been done for hundreds or thousands of years. In my hands they feel substantial, formed from the earth and look like they will visually warm a contemporary kitchen. I will soon learn that claypots are very practical for overcoming a fault of modern stove tops. I think I need one. At least one. Read More…