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"content": "\u003cp>Homa Dashtaki didn’t really think about her relationship to food until shortly after she was laid off from a career in law, and was living at home in California. She and her father would make yogurt together from scratch, just the way her Zoroastrian-Iranian ancestors had done for many generations. The comfort in taking up ancient traditions was enough to inspire her to completely pivot and start her own business selling yogurt at a local farmers’ market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the reaction of customers, she says, she realized they were onto something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13894263']After many hurdles — including an attempt, she says, at being shut down by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and a subsequent move to New York — \u003ca href=\"https://whitemoustache.com/\">The White Moustache\u003c/a> was born. Named in honor of her father’s bushy whiskers, the yogurt has become a cult item for the kind of New Yorker who shops in stores such as Whole Foods, Eataly and the Park Slope Food Coop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her new cookbook, \u003cem>Yogurt and Whey: Recipes of an Iranian Immigrant Life,\u003c/em> Dashtaki weaves her personal journey through nearly 100 recipes, old and new. One key ingredient is whey, the liquid byproduct of the yogurt-making process. With recipes such as whey cocktails and popsicles, the book demonstrates a central value of both her culture and business: nothing goes to waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every scrap is not thought of as trash,” Dashtaki says. “It’s thought of as an opportunity to celebrate that food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about butchering an animal — “from head to toe, you are using every single piece of it,” Dashtaki says. “And in a celebratory way … I think that very intense feeling has sort of informed everything I do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Yogurt and Whey\u003c/em> arrives just in time for this year’s Persian New Year (or \u003cem>Nowruz\u003c/em> in Persian), and the start of spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below, find Dashtaki’s recipe for pancakes featuring whey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13926603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13926603\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands in a bright, white kitchen, dressed in crisp white chef's uniform. She is standing over a white mixing bowl smiling.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1.jpg 1363w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Homa Dashtaki. \u003ccite>(Nicole Franzen/ The White Moustache)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Whey-to-Start-the-Weekend Pancakes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ingredients\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour\u003cbr>\n2 tablespoons sugar\u003cbr>\n1 teaspoon baking powder\u003cbr>\n1 teaspoon baking soda\u003cbr>\n1 teaspoon kosher salt\u003cbr>\n2 large eggs\u003cbr>\n1 cup yogurt whey\u003cbr>\n4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the skillet\u003cbr>\nNeutral oil (such as sunflower, canola, or grapeseed) or coconut oil for the skillet\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Makes about 8 (4-inch) pancakes\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Recipe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, whey, and melted butter until thoroughly combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and gently whisk just until incorporated. (A few lumps are okay and preferable to an overmixed batter, which will lead to denser pancakes). Set the batter aside for 15 minutes at room temperature, until the surface is dotted with bubbles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='bayareabites_94115']Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium light. Plop in approximately 1 teaspoon butter and 1 teaspoon oil (you get the flavor and browning properties of butter, while the oil tempers burning), and swirl the pan to coat well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pour about 1/3 cup batter per pancake into the hot pan. Bubbles will form on the tops of the pancakes; wait to flip them until most of the bubbles have popped and the surface begins to lose its wet, shiny look, 2 to 3 minutes. If you like, use a spatula to peek underneath when you think the pancakes are getting close — the bottom should be golden brown. Flip and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes, just until golden. Transfer to a plate and repeat to cook the remaining pancakes, adding more butter and oil as needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Serve with maple syrup, jam, yogurt, fresh fruit, or lemon juice and sugar… or all of the above. Or just stand at the stove and eat them with your hands. Hey, it’s the weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=If+you+want+to+up+your+yogurt+game%2C+this+Iranian+cookbook+will+show+you+the+whey&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about butchering an animal — “from head to toe, you are using every single piece of it,” Dashtaki says. “And in a celebratory way … I think that very intense feeling has sort of informed everything I do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Yogurt and Whey\u003c/em> arrives just in time for this year’s Persian New Year (or \u003cem>Nowruz\u003c/em> in Persian), and the start of spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below, find Dashtaki’s recipe for pancakes featuring whey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13926603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13926603\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands in a bright, white kitchen, dressed in crisp white chef's uniform. She is standing over a white mixing bowl smiling.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/f-w_white_moustache_0031_vert-a3cf5d907cf12cc8625ef6d5c848fd918baa4e8c-1.jpg 1363w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Homa Dashtaki. \u003ccite>(Nicole Franzen/ The White Moustache)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Whey-to-Start-the-Weekend Pancakes\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ingredients\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour\u003cbr>\n2 tablespoons sugar\u003cbr>\n1 teaspoon baking powder\u003cbr>\n1 teaspoon baking soda\u003cbr>\n1 teaspoon kosher salt\u003cbr>\n2 large eggs\u003cbr>\n1 cup yogurt whey\u003cbr>\n4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the skillet\u003cbr>\nNeutral oil (such as sunflower, canola, or grapeseed) or coconut oil for the skillet\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Makes about 8 (4-inch) pancakes\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Recipe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, whey, and melted butter until thoroughly combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and gently whisk just until incorporated. (A few lumps are okay and preferable to an overmixed batter, which will lead to denser pancakes). Set the batter aside for 15 minutes at room temperature, until the surface is dotted with bubbles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium light. Plop in approximately 1 teaspoon butter and 1 teaspoon oil (you get the flavor and browning properties of butter, while the oil tempers burning), and swirl the pan to coat well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pour about 1/3 cup batter per pancake into the hot pan. Bubbles will form on the tops of the pancakes; wait to flip them until most of the bubbles have popped and the surface begins to lose its wet, shiny look, 2 to 3 minutes. If you like, use a spatula to peek underneath when you think the pancakes are getting close — the bottom should be golden brown. Flip and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes, just until golden. Transfer to a plate and repeat to cook the remaining pancakes, adding more butter and oil as needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Serve with maple syrup, jam, yogurt, fresh fruit, or lemon juice and sugar… or all of the above. Or just stand at the stove and eat them with your hands. Hey, it’s the weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">visit NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=If+you+want+to+up+your+yogurt+game%2C+this+Iranian+cookbook+will+show+you+the+whey&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Hal the Hot Dog Guy Returns to Action — This Time for the Oakland Roots",
"headTitle": "Hal the Hot Dog Guy Returns to Action — This Time for the Oakland Roots | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although he officially retired from the Oakland Coliseum’s workforce, Hal Gordon, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13921216/hal-the-hot-dog-guy-oakland-coliseum-tribute-retiring\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the most beloved hot dogger in the East Bay\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, will return to action — for one night only — for the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://linktr.ee/oaklandrootssc.com\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland Roots\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> soccer club’s Saturday, March 25 home opener. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Hal the Hot Dog Guy,” as Gordon is best known, is busy completing his PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley. But he will appear for the one-time hot dog toss during halftime, when he’ll throw 25 pre-packaged hot dogs with ketchup and mustard packets into the fan section. Think of a T-shirt toss at any sporting event — except instead of fabric, you might catch an edible team memory.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re doing it because [Hal] has been in our supporter section for a while now and comes to our games as a fan,” says Tommy Hodul, a co-founder of the Oakland Roots SC. “It’s already a kind of halftime tradition. So there’s no better way than having the legend there himself to do it for our first game.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Inspired by a viral TikTok video of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/djromiesam/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Romie tha Homie\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at a Rolling Loud concert — when the DJ tossed a turkey leg into a swarm of music-loving fans — the team has adopted the concept but swapped the bulky Thanksgiving classic for hot dogs. (Romie himself was later invited to toss hot dogs at a game.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp0YeGzJrTu/?hl=en\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The March 25 matchup against the Memphis 901 FC will kick off the team’s fifth overall season, and third in the United Soccer League, after first bringing pro soccer to Oakland in 2018. Since then, they’ve been one of the last-standing representatives for professional sports in Oakland, after the Las Vegas Raiders and Golden State Warriors both left for more glamorous destinations. With the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/baseball-commissioner-says-time-has-run-out-on-oakland-keeping-the-as/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland A’s appearing to be on the move\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as well, the Roots are doing everything they can to maintain a familial sporting atmosphere in The Town.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Besides Hal, other notable home opener acts will include the performance of an original poem, “Write Your Roots,” written by Oakland teenagers in collaboration with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chapter510.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chapter 510\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — a nonprofit that publishes the voices of local youth. In addition, the Roots have teamed up with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://offthegrid.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Off the Grid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the popular food truck conglomerate, to handle a “Block Party” style of food offerings on 10th Street during every game. Vendors will include a rotating array of guests, such as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/coolinaria/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">COOL!NARIA\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/socokitchen/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Southern Comfort Kitchen\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kabobtrolley/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kabob Trolley\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@bayarea_munchiez?lang=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Area Munchiez\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside postID='arts_13914585,arts_13921216,arts_13914916']Even if you’re not a fan of sporting events and the jersey-staining foods that come with them, the Roots might win you over for the ways they’re building a different kind of sports club — one that is branded as “\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Are-the-Oakland-Roots-the-most-civic-minded-team-15661728.php\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the first purpose-driven sports team in the United States\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.” The franchise prides itself in being a civic-minded organization, having founded \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/time-to-take-action-to-end-racism-in-soccer/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the Anti-Racist Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and frequently collaborating with small businesses in the greater community. Though those kinds of partnerships may seem obligatory for any sports franchise, the Roots are locally owned and seem to have a particular affinity for creative social contributions, having teamed up with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/rar/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">graffiti artists\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aleindustries.com/townroots\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">breweries\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandish.com/collections/oakland-roots?gclid=CjwKCAjw_MqgBhAGEiwAnYOAekZGWHqbPA1fp9nY1d701BNR8AsAAb4ts_3732eyf5dzrzFn1Ocs9hoCFvoQAvD_BwE\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">popular clothing boutiques\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> throughout the city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This season, the team will introduce their “Small Biz Spotlight,” wherein \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/anthem-blue-cross-small-biz-spotlight/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">fans will be able to nominate their favorite small businesses\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to receive $1,000 during every home game played throughout the 17-game season, as well as amplification via the Jumbotron and social media. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We’d love for suggestions on who we can support,” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hodul says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They are also debuting the East Bay’s first \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/oaklandsoulsc/\">women’s soccer team, the Oakland Soul\u003c/a>, who have already amassed an energetic fanbase. Having this kind of culture-forward sports organization rooted in Oakland feels like a score for the community — no matter who’s tossing out the goods.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12904247 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland Roots SC\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> home opener will kick-off at 7 p.m. on Sat., Mar. 25. The Hot Dog Toss with Hal Gordon will take place at halftime. The opening home game for the Roots will be played at Laney College Football Field (entrance on E. 10th Street and 2nd Avenue in Oakland) and is accessible via Lake Merritt BART. Future games will be played at Merritt College.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although he officially retired from the Oakland Coliseum’s workforce, Hal Gordon, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13921216/hal-the-hot-dog-guy-oakland-coliseum-tribute-retiring\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the most beloved hot dogger in the East Bay\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, will return to action — for one night only — for the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://linktr.ee/oaklandrootssc.com\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland Roots\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> soccer club’s Saturday, March 25 home opener. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Hal the Hot Dog Guy,” as Gordon is best known, is busy completing his PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley. But he will appear for the one-time hot dog toss during halftime, when he’ll throw 25 pre-packaged hot dogs with ketchup and mustard packets into the fan section. Think of a T-shirt toss at any sporting event — except instead of fabric, you might catch an edible team memory.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re doing it because [Hal] has been in our supporter section for a while now and comes to our games as a fan,” says Tommy Hodul, a co-founder of the Oakland Roots SC. “It’s already a kind of halftime tradition. So there’s no better way than having the legend there himself to do it for our first game.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Inspired by a viral TikTok video of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/djromiesam/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Romie tha Homie\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at a Rolling Loud concert — when the DJ tossed a turkey leg into a swarm of music-loving fans — the team has adopted the concept but swapped the bulky Thanksgiving classic for hot dogs. (Romie himself was later invited to toss hot dogs at a game.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The March 25 matchup against the Memphis 901 FC will kick off the team’s fifth overall season, and third in the United Soccer League, after first bringing pro soccer to Oakland in 2018. Since then, they’ve been one of the last-standing representatives for professional sports in Oakland, after the Las Vegas Raiders and Golden State Warriors both left for more glamorous destinations. With the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/baseball-commissioner-says-time-has-run-out-on-oakland-keeping-the-as/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland A’s appearing to be on the move\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as well, the Roots are doing everything they can to maintain a familial sporting atmosphere in The Town.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Besides Hal, other notable home opener acts will include the performance of an original poem, “Write Your Roots,” written by Oakland teenagers in collaboration with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chapter510.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chapter 510\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — a nonprofit that publishes the voices of local youth. In addition, the Roots have teamed up with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://offthegrid.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Off the Grid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the popular food truck conglomerate, to handle a “Block Party” style of food offerings on 10th Street during every game. Vendors will include a rotating array of guests, such as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/coolinaria/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">COOL!NARIA\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/socokitchen/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Southern Comfort Kitchen\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kabobtrolley/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kabob Trolley\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@bayarea_munchiez?lang=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Area Munchiez\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Even if you’re not a fan of sporting events and the jersey-staining foods that come with them, the Roots might win you over for the ways they’re building a different kind of sports club — one that is branded as “\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Are-the-Oakland-Roots-the-most-civic-minded-team-15661728.php\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the first purpose-driven sports team in the United States\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.” The franchise prides itself in being a civic-minded organization, having founded \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/time-to-take-action-to-end-racism-in-soccer/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the Anti-Racist Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and frequently collaborating with small businesses in the greater community. Though those kinds of partnerships may seem obligatory for any sports franchise, the Roots are locally owned and seem to have a particular affinity for creative social contributions, having teamed up with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/rar/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">graffiti artists\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aleindustries.com/townroots\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">breweries\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandish.com/collections/oakland-roots?gclid=CjwKCAjw_MqgBhAGEiwAnYOAekZGWHqbPA1fp9nY1d701BNR8AsAAb4ts_3732eyf5dzrzFn1Ocs9hoCFvoQAvD_BwE\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">popular clothing boutiques\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> throughout the city.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This season, the team will introduce their “Small Biz Spotlight,” wherein \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/anthem-blue-cross-small-biz-spotlight/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">fans will be able to nominate their favorite small businesses\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to receive $1,000 during every home game played throughout the 17-game season, as well as amplification via the Jumbotron and social media. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We’d love for suggestions on who we can support,” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hodul says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They are also debuting the East Bay’s first \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/oaklandsoulsc/\">women’s soccer team, the Oakland Soul\u003c/a>, who have already amassed an energetic fanbase. Having this kind of culture-forward sports organization rooted in Oakland feels like a score for the community — no matter who’s tossing out the goods.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12904247 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland Roots SC\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> home opener will kick-off at 7 p.m. on Sat., Mar. 25. The Hot Dog Toss with Hal Gordon will take place at halftime. The opening home game for the Roots will be played at Laney College Football Field (entrance on E. 10th Street and 2nd Avenue in Oakland) and is accessible via Lake Merritt BART. Future games will be played at Merritt College.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "One of Tokyo’s Most Extreme Ramen Styles Finds a Home in San Jose",
"headTitle": "One of Tokyo’s Most Extreme Ramen Styles Finds a Home in San Jose | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>San Jose’s most extreme bowl of ramen comes topped with a mountain of bean sprouts so massive, you can barely see the broth underneath. Everything about the “Buta MAX” ramen at \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ramenchampsj/\">Ramen Champ\u003c/a> is extra: the noodles and pork that are cut extra, extra thick. The vampire-murdering portion of raw garlic. The portion size, in general, abundant to the point of intimidation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a meal you would eat to prepare yourself for a long winter hibernation. And it also happens to be one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cloistered away in an anonymous South San Jose shopping plaza, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904835/san-jose-immigrant-food\">city jam-packed with similar-looking strip malls\u003c/a>, Ramen Champ is the only Bay Area ramen shop I’m aware of that specializes in what’s known in Japan as “Jiro-style” ramen. The restaurant is the creation of chef-owner Shogo Hara, who opened Ramen Champ in December of 2021 after spending the past several years working at other South Bay and Peninsula ramen shops while also running a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fujibentosc.com/\">bento box catering business\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Chef Shogo] wanted to have a different style of ramen, as opposed to the very neat-looking ramen styles,” explains Kento Takahashi, a Ramen Champ employee who helped translate for Hara and spoke on his behalf. “The Jiro style was very visually appealing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13926241\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13926241\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior.jpg\" alt='Exterior of a ramen restaurant. The sign reads \"CHAMP\" in bold yellow lettering, with \"Japanese Ramen\" in white underneath.' width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ramen Champ is located in an anonymous-looking strip mall in San Jose. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To really understand the legend of Jiro ramen, however, you have to trace the style back to its origins in Tokyo, where it enjoys a cult following that’s unusually fervent even in a nation of dedicated ramen heads. Yamada Takumi opened the original Ramen Jiro in the Meguro neighborhood in 1968, but the shop’s popularity didn’t take off until a few years later when it moved to a storefront near Keio University. There, it carved out a niche \u003ca href=\"https://sabukaru.online/articles/ramen-jiro\">selling huge, relatively inexpensive bowls of ramen to frugal college kids\u003c/a>. That in itself wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, but the specifics of the ramen style that Yamada developed were: the absurdly large mound of bean sprouts and cabbage, the raw garlic, the nubs of soft pork fat and generous quantity of braised pork belly, which came in big chunks instead of your typical sliced chashu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramen Jiro soon came to be known as a quintessential \u003ca href=\"https://www.sankei.com/article/20220323-MAIBUZRJA5GI3CAUP5SV74LWHE/\">soul food for Tokyo’s university students\u003c/a>. The style is probably too heavy and rich — and the portions too large — for it to achieve broad mainstream popularity. (One skeptical Japanese food writer even \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20120610052321/http://ss-foodlabo.com/series/series_001_03.html\">speculated\u003c/a> that 90 percent of the people in Japan \u003ci>don’t \u003c/i>like Ramen Jiro.) But the shop has a legion of devotees who call themselves “\u003ca href=\"https://sabukaru.online/articles/ramen-jiro\">Jirorians\u003c/a>” and consider it a point of pride to visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.sankei.com/article/20220323-MAIBUZRJA5GI3CAUP5SV74LWHE/\">all 42 of the restaurant’s current locations\u003c/a>, each offering its own slight variation on the style. \u003ca href=\"https://gigazine.net/news/20090419_ramen_jiro/\">Online reviews\u003c/a> tend to focus on what a monumental challenge it is to even finish the bowl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You either love it or you don’t,” says chef Tommy Cleary of San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hinayakitori/?hl=en\">Hina Yakitori\u003c/a>, who is a fan of the style. He first came across Ramen Jiro in 2009 when he was working as an apprentice at a yakitori restaurant in Tokyo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being a lot younger, I was totally into eating huge amounts of food, and I was broke. Seeing [the Jiro ramen] was like looking at a piece of art for the first time,” he says, recalling how awestruck he was by the portion size. “I’ve never seen anything like it before or since — it’s a one-of-a-kind creation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ7wCBRPbG0/\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has no shortage of stunt ramen — the five-pound bowl you have to finish within a fixed time limit in order to win a T-shirt, or the various wallet-busting versions that come topped with every luxury ingredient under the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13925701,arts_13898743,arts_13923840']Ramen Champ isn’t that kind of shop. The other more traditional styles that it offers, like its tonkotsu and its soupless, fat-slicked mazesoba, are all top of the line for the Bay Area. As for the Jiro-style Buta MAX, once I got past the shock factor of the portion size, all I could do was marvel at what a well balanced and artfully crafted bowl of ramen it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like the original Jiro ramen, its foundation is a clear, shoyu (soy sauce-based) pork broth that’s surprisingly light on the palate. The little nubs of slow-simmered pork fat, perhaps the most luxurious of the toppings, serve a secondary function of flavoring the soup while it steeps, so that the broth becomes richer and more intense over the course of the meal. The noodles are custom-made by Iseya Craft Noodle, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/ramen-noodles-iseya-17547602.php\">a Hayward-based noodle maker\u003c/a> that provides fresh ramen noodles for a handful of top-tier Bay Area ramen shops. In the classic Jiro style, the noodles are thick and wide so that they can hold their texture while you work your way through the mountain of vegetables. They have a delightful bounce and chew that remind me of hand-pulled Chinese noodles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13926244\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13926244\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of sliced cucumber served as an appetizer.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cucumber appetizer at Ramen Champ. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mostly, though, what makes the Buta MAX memorable are those toppings — the classic combination of well-seasoned bean sprouts and tender, fatty pork and the addicting pungency of the raw garlic, which keeps you coming back for another spoonful, and then another, until, to your great surprise, you’ve somehow managed to finish the entire massive bowl. By the time you trudge back to your car, slightly woozy, you’re already thinking about when you’ll come back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Could such an extreme style of ramen be the next big food trend here in Northern California? In the copycat world of Bay Area ramen, stranger things have happened. Already, Ramen Champ’s Takahashi says, a couple of other South Bay ramen shops have added versions to their menu. But for now, their restaurant is the only one that truly specializes in the Jiro style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s our bestseller,” Takahashi says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ramenchampsj/\">\u003ci>Ramen Champ\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci> is located at 6229 Santa Teresa Blvd. in San Jose. It opens at 11:30 a.m. daily — check the \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ramen-champ.com/\">\u003ci>restaurant’s website\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci> for exact hours.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Jose’s most extreme bowl of ramen comes topped with a mountain of bean sprouts so massive, you can barely see the broth underneath. Everything about the “Buta MAX” ramen at \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ramenchampsj/\">Ramen Champ\u003c/a> is extra: the noodles and pork that are cut extra, extra thick. The vampire-murdering portion of raw garlic. The portion size, in general, abundant to the point of intimidation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a meal you would eat to prepare yourself for a long winter hibernation. And it also happens to be one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cloistered away in an anonymous South San Jose shopping plaza, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904835/san-jose-immigrant-food\">city jam-packed with similar-looking strip malls\u003c/a>, Ramen Champ is the only Bay Area ramen shop I’m aware of that specializes in what’s known in Japan as “Jiro-style” ramen. The restaurant is the creation of chef-owner Shogo Hara, who opened Ramen Champ in December of 2021 after spending the past several years working at other South Bay and Peninsula ramen shops while also running a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fujibentosc.com/\">bento box catering business\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Chef Shogo] wanted to have a different style of ramen, as opposed to the very neat-looking ramen styles,” explains Kento Takahashi, a Ramen Champ employee who helped translate for Hara and spoke on his behalf. “The Jiro style was very visually appealing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13926241\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13926241\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior.jpg\" alt='Exterior of a ramen restaurant. The sign reads \"CHAMP\" in bold yellow lettering, with \"Japanese Ramen\" in white underneath.' width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_exterior-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ramen Champ is located in an anonymous-looking strip mall in San Jose. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To really understand the legend of Jiro ramen, however, you have to trace the style back to its origins in Tokyo, where it enjoys a cult following that’s unusually fervent even in a nation of dedicated ramen heads. Yamada Takumi opened the original Ramen Jiro in the Meguro neighborhood in 1968, but the shop’s popularity didn’t take off until a few years later when it moved to a storefront near Keio University. There, it carved out a niche \u003ca href=\"https://sabukaru.online/articles/ramen-jiro\">selling huge, relatively inexpensive bowls of ramen to frugal college kids\u003c/a>. That in itself wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, but the specifics of the ramen style that Yamada developed were: the absurdly large mound of bean sprouts and cabbage, the raw garlic, the nubs of soft pork fat and generous quantity of braised pork belly, which came in big chunks instead of your typical sliced chashu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramen Jiro soon came to be known as a quintessential \u003ca href=\"https://www.sankei.com/article/20220323-MAIBUZRJA5GI3CAUP5SV74LWHE/\">soul food for Tokyo’s university students\u003c/a>. The style is probably too heavy and rich — and the portions too large — for it to achieve broad mainstream popularity. (One skeptical Japanese food writer even \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20120610052321/http://ss-foodlabo.com/series/series_001_03.html\">speculated\u003c/a> that 90 percent of the people in Japan \u003ci>don’t \u003c/i>like Ramen Jiro.) But the shop has a legion of devotees who call themselves “\u003ca href=\"https://sabukaru.online/articles/ramen-jiro\">Jirorians\u003c/a>” and consider it a point of pride to visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.sankei.com/article/20220323-MAIBUZRJA5GI3CAUP5SV74LWHE/\">all 42 of the restaurant’s current locations\u003c/a>, each offering its own slight variation on the style. \u003ca href=\"https://gigazine.net/news/20090419_ramen_jiro/\">Online reviews\u003c/a> tend to focus on what a monumental challenge it is to even finish the bowl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You either love it or you don’t,” says chef Tommy Cleary of San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hinayakitori/?hl=en\">Hina Yakitori\u003c/a>, who is a fan of the style. He first came across Ramen Jiro in 2009 when he was working as an apprentice at a yakitori restaurant in Tokyo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Being a lot younger, I was totally into eating huge amounts of food, and I was broke. Seeing [the Jiro ramen] was like looking at a piece of art for the first time,” he says, recalling how awestruck he was by the portion size. “I’ve never seen anything like it before or since — it’s a one-of-a-kind creation.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Bay Area has no shortage of stunt ramen — the five-pound bowl you have to finish within a fixed time limit in order to win a T-shirt, or the various wallet-busting versions that come topped with every luxury ingredient under the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Ramen Champ isn’t that kind of shop. The other more traditional styles that it offers, like its tonkotsu and its soupless, fat-slicked mazesoba, are all top of the line for the Bay Area. As for the Jiro-style Buta MAX, once I got past the shock factor of the portion size, all I could do was marvel at what a well balanced and artfully crafted bowl of ramen it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like the original Jiro ramen, its foundation is a clear, shoyu (soy sauce-based) pork broth that’s surprisingly light on the palate. The little nubs of slow-simmered pork fat, perhaps the most luxurious of the toppings, serve a secondary function of flavoring the soup while it steeps, so that the broth becomes richer and more intense over the course of the meal. The noodles are custom-made by Iseya Craft Noodle, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/ramen-noodles-iseya-17547602.php\">a Hayward-based noodle maker\u003c/a> that provides fresh ramen noodles for a handful of top-tier Bay Area ramen shops. In the classic Jiro style, the noodles are thick and wide so that they can hold their texture while you work your way through the mountain of vegetables. They have a delightful bounce and chew that remind me of hand-pulled Chinese noodles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13926244\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13926244\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of sliced cucumber served as an appetizer.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/ramen-champ_cucumber-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cucumber appetizer at Ramen Champ. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mostly, though, what makes the Buta MAX memorable are those toppings — the classic combination of well-seasoned bean sprouts and tender, fatty pork and the addicting pungency of the raw garlic, which keeps you coming back for another spoonful, and then another, until, to your great surprise, you’ve somehow managed to finish the entire massive bowl. By the time you trudge back to your car, slightly woozy, you’re already thinking about when you’ll come back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Could such an extreme style of ramen be the next big food trend here in Northern California? In the copycat world of Bay Area ramen, stranger things have happened. Already, Ramen Champ’s Takahashi says, a couple of other South Bay ramen shops have added versions to their menu. But for now, their restaurant is the only one that truly specializes in the Jiro style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s our bestseller,” Takahashi says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ramenchampsj/\">\u003ci>Ramen Champ\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci> is located at 6229 Santa Teresa Blvd. in San Jose. It opens at 11:30 a.m. daily — check the \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ramen-champ.com/\">\u003ci>restaurant’s website\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci> for exact hours.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "SF's Queer, Filipina-Owned Chocolate Shop Celebrates Love Year-Round",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>¡Hella Hungry! is a column about Bay Area foodmakers, exploring the region’s culinary cultures through the mouth of a first-generation local.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a bite-sized confession to make: I originally planned to write about San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kokakchocolates/\">Kokak Chocolates\u003c/a> last month for Valentine’s Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, the LGBTQ woman-owned chocolate business was preparing to debut a love-themed set of flavors, including “Heat of the Moment,” which is a combo of dark and white chocolates with Mexican Comapeño chiles sourced from the woman-owned \u003ca href=\"https://www.boonvillebarn.com/\">Boonville Barn Collective\u003c/a>. But I wasn’t able to make it happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To be fair, my first child was born just days ahead of my scheduled interview with Carol Gancia, the self-taught Filipina chocolatier who founded Kokak — so I spent the following weeks, including Valentine’s Day, with a small, heartwarming human in my arms instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Kokak, it turns out, is just as good in March as it is in February — or any time of year, for that matter. In fact, having to wait that extra month infused me with even more desire to taste the premium Bay Area chocolates, which are filled with joy and spices in all their flavorful forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With creative options that defy the conventional notions of chocolate — Kokak’s seasonal flavors include pizza and ramen, for example — Gancia doesn’t play it safe. Instead, she enjoys challenging herself to push past her comfort zone, a trait she gained when she first immigrated to California from her native Philippine islands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooted in her vibrant Asian Pacific heritage and driven by a passion to connect with ancestral flavors through rare, organic ingredients like \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190916-the-worlds-most-exquisite-chocolate\">Ecuadorian Nacional cacao\u003c/a>, Kokak is more than just chocolates. It’s a way, Gancia says, to tell others, “I love you just the way you are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">********\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>ALAN CHAZARO: When did your appreciation for chocolates first begin?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CAROL GANCIA: \u003c/b>I grew up on the Philippine islands. I was lucky, being from a middle-class family, to have an uncle who was a sought-after engineer. He got contracts that had him travel abroad, around Western Europe, where they have quality chocolates. He would bring them back home — dark chocolate, mint, even liqueurs. I had a chance to taste those, not realizing my love of chocolate came from him. I [later] realized chocolate is a memory, a happy memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925997\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925997\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"dried mangoes dipped in chocolates\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tropical flavors like these chocolate-dipped dried mangoes are inspired by Carol Gancia’s upbringing on the Philippine islands. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>How did that translate into you becoming a professional chocolatier?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I make chocolates in the form of truffles and bars. I do it every day with two other chocolatiers. The kind of shop we have is tropically inspired and based on my background. We’re a couple blocks from Castro Street on 18th and Sanchez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was growing up, chocolate was in the background; I always had chocolate in my pockets. But I started out as a journalist broadcasting in the Philippines. I got involved in video production and continued that work in the U.S. [after moving here in 2004]. I even worked as a producer for “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/checkplease\">Check, Please! Bay Area\u003c/a>” on KQED. I produced for Jacques Pépin, and that helped me improve my palette. You read the recipe, and plan it out with the executive producer. That’s how I learned informally about the culinary world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was still producing, and after 20 years — about five years ago — I was eager to do something different that I would be scared about. I was too complacent [as a video producer]. I wanted to feel what it was like to start something and be clueless. I decided to learn about chocolates and sell on the side until it became a full business [in 2020]. Sometimes I still don’t know what I’m doing. I’m still learning, and I still operate a video production business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925999\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925999\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A tray of colorfully decorated chocolates at Kokak in San Francisco\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A preview of the seasonal Easter chocolates that will be available at Kokak this month. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>What does the word “kokak” represent for you?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kokak literally means “ribbit” in English. I was conceptualizing the name of my shop and noticing the [other] chocolate brands and names. It was usually last names or serious words. I wanted to make a splash, [since] I had no background in chocolate. I chose Kokak and added an exclamation point because I wanted to represent myself and who I am. I studied in the Philippines, and my campus had lily pads, beautiful flowers, ponds and frogs. Kokak reminds me of my home — the wonderful tropical life. It’s a conversation starter as well. Customers ask me what it means, and I can tell the story of the Philippine islands. My shop is more than selling chocolates. It’s an experience, a borrowed memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Your Filipina heritage is an important aspect of your identity. Tell us about how that emerges in your variety of chocolate flavors.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think of kalamansi — it’s a lime in the Philippines and is abundant there. My mom would make me hot kalamansi juice when I was sick. But in the summer, it was served cold, like lemonade. We included that as a popular flavor at Kokak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"large\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Carol Gancia\"]“My shop is more than selling chocolates. It’s an experience, a borrowed memory.”[/pullquote]We opened our shop during the pandemic, and we had a lot of time to think. We had about 50 recipes I created from the start, and we rotate that throughout the year. My favorite is our guava truffle — all made from scratch. Coconut pie is another. There’s a place in the southern part of metro Manila where they make buko pies — coconut pies. They’re not sweet, they’re just full of coconut meat. That’s a memory and an inspiration for our truffles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Do you serve anything besides chocolate?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also have our cacao porridge. Growing up in the Philippines, every Christmas season we make champurrado — it’s a [beverage] mix of chocolate and rice. A long time ago, in the 1500s, there was trade happening between the Philippines and Mexico. Mexico brought chocolates to us. Back then, most [Filipinos] were rice farmers. It’s a testament to the friendship between Mexicans and Filipinos — champurrado. That’s available year round, and we offer dine-in at our shop as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>What’s your connection to the Bay Area, and how is that reflected in your business?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As far as flavors, we have Earl Grey, which is a very San Francisco afternoon tea I enjoy with the ladies. I don’t always get to do that much these days (laughs). I looked for Earl Grey and infused it with berry and chocolate for the filling. The Earl Grey tea we use is organic, fair trade and local. We also have coffee truffles, and the coffee is local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925998\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925998\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-800x1200.jpg\" alt='a t-shirt at Kokak reads: \"love is love is love is chocolate is love...\"' width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Love Is Chocolate Is Love” t-shirt at Kokak. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As much as we can, we keep our ingredients local. I can get tea from the grocery, but we find really premium teas from here. Same with our dairy. You don’t want your truffles to taste faint. Our truffles stay fresh, and the flavors are punchy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also identify as an LGBTQ shop and ship all over the country with our Pride-inspired chocolates. One of my favorite things is reading note cards that we write to ship for our customers. One customer wrote, “Dear [Anonymous], I love you just the way you are. From Mom.” It made me teary-eyed. And made me realize I was in the right place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Who are some of your favorite chocolatiers right now in Northern California?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I like chocolates not just for flavor but also meaning. I like to support female chocolatiers, too. The reality is that if you sum up all the chocolate makers, it’s still very male dominated. There are two [local chocolatiers] who are my competition but also my friends: \u003ca href=\"https://www.socolachocolates.com/\">Socola\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.jadechocolates.com/\">Jade Chocolates\u003c/a>. We meet up every once in a while. We’ve done events and have camaraderie. I love this industry because of that. In the video production business it’s competitive. But in chocolate, we help each other. We’re excited to see each other at the pop-up events. It’s supportive in a weird way. That’s motivating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>For someone like me, who doesn’t usually go out of their way for chocolates, what makes Kokak worthwhile?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13923127,arts_13919707,arts_13914042']I’m a small business owner. I never dreamed about earning billions of dollars and growing an empire. I enjoy the human-to-human touch. I want to connect with people. We’re already making less profit than a factory setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I made a tough decision that cut into our profitability [with] our biggest ingredient, which is a rare cacao. It’s the first domestically grown cacao tree [in the world] from several thousand years back. I let that melt slowly in my mouth and imagine what our ancestors were tasting years and years ago. This rare [Nacional] cacao in Ecuador is grown for flavor, not yield. A lot of chocolate growers sell ingredients for much cheaper, but they are from chocolate strains that were grown for volume production. Flavor is less of a priority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nacional wins over that. The genetics of the chocolate that we use is the same as our ancestors tasted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12904247 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Kokak Chocolates (3901 18th St., San Francisco) is open Tues. 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wed. through Sun. 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With creative options that defy the conventional notions of chocolate — Kokak’s seasonal flavors include pizza and ramen, for example — Gancia doesn’t play it safe. Instead, she enjoys challenging herself to push past her comfort zone, a trait she gained when she first immigrated to California from her native Philippine islands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooted in her vibrant Asian Pacific heritage and driven by a passion to connect with ancestral flavors through rare, organic ingredients like \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190916-the-worlds-most-exquisite-chocolate\">Ecuadorian Nacional cacao\u003c/a>, Kokak is more than just chocolates. It’s a way, Gancia says, to tell others, “I love you just the way you are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">********\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>ALAN CHAZARO: When did your appreciation for chocolates first begin?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CAROL GANCIA: \u003c/b>I grew up on the Philippine islands. I was lucky, being from a middle-class family, to have an uncle who was a sought-after engineer. He got contracts that had him travel abroad, around Western Europe, where they have quality chocolates. He would bring them back home — dark chocolate, mint, even liqueurs. I had a chance to taste those, not realizing my love of chocolate came from him. I [later] realized chocolate is a memory, a happy memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925997\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925997\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"dried mangoes dipped in chocolates\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_mango-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tropical flavors like these chocolate-dipped dried mangoes are inspired by Carol Gancia’s upbringing on the Philippine islands. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>How did that translate into you becoming a professional chocolatier?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I make chocolates in the form of truffles and bars. I do it every day with two other chocolatiers. The kind of shop we have is tropically inspired and based on my background. We’re a couple blocks from Castro Street on 18th and Sanchez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was growing up, chocolate was in the background; I always had chocolate in my pockets. But I started out as a journalist broadcasting in the Philippines. I got involved in video production and continued that work in the U.S. [after moving here in 2004]. I even worked as a producer for “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/checkplease\">Check, Please! Bay Area\u003c/a>” on KQED. I produced for Jacques Pépin, and that helped me improve my palette. You read the recipe, and plan it out with the executive producer. That’s how I learned informally about the culinary world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was still producing, and after 20 years — about five years ago — I was eager to do something different that I would be scared about. I was too complacent [as a video producer]. I wanted to feel what it was like to start something and be clueless. I decided to learn about chocolates and sell on the side until it became a full business [in 2020]. Sometimes I still don’t know what I’m doing. I’m still learning, and I still operate a video production business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925999\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925999\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A tray of colorfully decorated chocolates at Kokak in San Francisco\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_truffles.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A preview of the seasonal Easter chocolates that will be available at Kokak this month. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>What does the word “kokak” represent for you?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kokak literally means “ribbit” in English. I was conceptualizing the name of my shop and noticing the [other] chocolate brands and names. It was usually last names or serious words. I wanted to make a splash, [since] I had no background in chocolate. I chose Kokak and added an exclamation point because I wanted to represent myself and who I am. I studied in the Philippines, and my campus had lily pads, beautiful flowers, ponds and frogs. Kokak reminds me of my home — the wonderful tropical life. It’s a conversation starter as well. Customers ask me what it means, and I can tell the story of the Philippine islands. My shop is more than selling chocolates. It’s an experience, a borrowed memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Your Filipina heritage is an important aspect of your identity. Tell us about how that emerges in your variety of chocolate flavors.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think of kalamansi — it’s a lime in the Philippines and is abundant there. My mom would make me hot kalamansi juice when I was sick. But in the summer, it was served cold, like lemonade. We included that as a popular flavor at Kokak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>We opened our shop during the pandemic, and we had a lot of time to think. We had about 50 recipes I created from the start, and we rotate that throughout the year. My favorite is our guava truffle — all made from scratch. Coconut pie is another. There’s a place in the southern part of metro Manila where they make buko pies — coconut pies. They’re not sweet, they’re just full of coconut meat. That’s a memory and an inspiration for our truffles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Do you serve anything besides chocolate?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also have our cacao porridge. Growing up in the Philippines, every Christmas season we make champurrado — it’s a [beverage] mix of chocolate and rice. A long time ago, in the 1500s, there was trade happening between the Philippines and Mexico. Mexico brought chocolates to us. Back then, most [Filipinos] were rice farmers. It’s a testament to the friendship between Mexicans and Filipinos — champurrado. That’s available year round, and we offer dine-in at our shop as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>What’s your connection to the Bay Area, and how is that reflected in your business?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As far as flavors, we have Earl Grey, which is a very San Francisco afternoon tea I enjoy with the ladies. I don’t always get to do that much these days (laughs). I looked for Earl Grey and infused it with berry and chocolate for the filling. The Earl Grey tea we use is organic, fair trade and local. We also have coffee truffles, and the coffee is local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925998\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925998\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-800x1200.jpg\" alt='a t-shirt at Kokak reads: \"love is love is love is chocolate is love...\"' width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/kokak_shirt-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Love Is Chocolate Is Love” t-shirt at Kokak. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As much as we can, we keep our ingredients local. I can get tea from the grocery, but we find really premium teas from here. Same with our dairy. You don’t want your truffles to taste faint. Our truffles stay fresh, and the flavors are punchy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also identify as an LGBTQ shop and ship all over the country with our Pride-inspired chocolates. One of my favorite things is reading note cards that we write to ship for our customers. One customer wrote, “Dear [Anonymous], I love you just the way you are. From Mom.” It made me teary-eyed. And made me realize I was in the right place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Who are some of your favorite chocolatiers right now in Northern California?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I like chocolates not just for flavor but also meaning. I like to support female chocolatiers, too. The reality is that if you sum up all the chocolate makers, it’s still very male dominated. There are two [local chocolatiers] who are my competition but also my friends: \u003ca href=\"https://www.socolachocolates.com/\">Socola\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.jadechocolates.com/\">Jade Chocolates\u003c/a>. We meet up every once in a while. We’ve done events and have camaraderie. I love this industry because of that. In the video production business it’s competitive. But in chocolate, we help each other. We’re excited to see each other at the pop-up events. It’s supportive in a weird way. That’s motivating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>For someone like me, who doesn’t usually go out of their way for chocolates, what makes Kokak worthwhile?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I’m a small business owner. I never dreamed about earning billions of dollars and growing an empire. I enjoy the human-to-human touch. I want to connect with people. We’re already making less profit than a factory setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I made a tough decision that cut into our profitability [with] our biggest ingredient, which is a rare cacao. It’s the first domestically grown cacao tree [in the world] from several thousand years back. I let that melt slowly in my mouth and imagine what our ancestors were tasting years and years ago. This rare [Nacional] cacao in Ecuador is grown for flavor, not yield. A lot of chocolate growers sell ingredients for much cheaper, but they are from chocolate strains that were grown for volume production. Flavor is less of a priority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nacional wins over that. The genetics of the chocolate that we use is the same as our ancestors tasted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12904247 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Kokak Chocolates (3901 18th St., San Francisco) is open Tues. 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wed. through Sun. 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "durian-bay-area-love-letter-singaporean-culture",
"title": "A Bay Area Love Letter to Durian",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dropcap]D[/dropcap]urian. The King of Fruits. 榴蓮. The heart of my Singaporean Chinese family and the gateway to knowledge of my father’s culture. I grew up with no true understanding of Singapore. For those living in the Bay Area of the ’80s and ’90s, it barely even registered as a country. My father’s vague stories of his Singaporean past always read as being about China in my immature mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then he would bring home a durian. A spiky ball that looks like a medieval weapon, with a pungent, pale yellow, fleshy interior. Dad would find a soft spot between those spikes to stab the fruit’s bottom and wedge it open with a knife and rice paddle. The strong rind once fought back, breaking the tip off of his massive chef’s knife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was serious work, but Dad is serious about durian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Durian may be nature’s most misunderstood fruit. It grows high up in trees from precariously thin stems — a falling durian can literally kill you. Searching for the word “durian” online will dredge up articles on the fruit’s “terrible smell” and videos of people eating under-ripe specimens and gagging on camera for the likes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925895\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925895\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian.jpg\" alt=\"Woman holds up a piece of fresh durian, with the one of the fruit's large seeds on a plate in front of her.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author enjoys a piece of Red Prawn durian purchased from the online company Year of Durian. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Admittedly, to the untrained nose, durian smells strange, even rank. But the fruit also has an unexpectedly custardy texture and — with hundreds of varieties — complex flavor profiles akin to wine, coffee and chocolate. For those of us who hail durian as our king of fruits, the smell elicits an undeniable longing — for both the fruit itself and the cultural remembrance it represents. That feeling sticks with you, sits deep within your bones. It stayed with my father even as he crossed an ocean to live in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My father immigrated to San Francisco in the ’70s. While he and his siblings found camaraderie amongst other first- and second-generation Chinese here, they rarely encountered other Singaporeans. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had only just reversed the racist immigration policies codified by the Asian Exclusion Act. And Singapore had just gone through its own transformation, separating from Malaysia that same year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size=\"large\" align=\"right\"]“For those of us who hail durian as our king of fruits, the smell elicits an undeniable longing.”[/pullquote]\u003c/span>In his first decades in the States, Dad also never encountered his favorite tropical fruits — jackfruit, rambutan and the infamous durian. He speculates that many Bay Area folks at the time hadn’t even heard of durian. Even if they had, shopkeepers probably wouldn’t have wanted it in their stores because of the smell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925897\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925897\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad.jpg\" alt=\"A man sits in his doorway wearing protective gloves as he prepares to open a durian.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author’s father prepares to open a durian. \u003ccite>(Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first time Dad saw durian after he immigrated was on a road trip to Vancouver, Canada, in the early ’80s. He and his sister Patty spotted them at a market. Elated, they bought one quickly, not noticing that it was previously frozen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Was this sad, unripe durian an indicator of progress?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed it was! My father estimates that he first saw (or maybe smelled) frozen whole durians in San Francisco not long after, in the late ’80s or early ’90s, at a Chinese grocery on Clement Street. Seeing them brought back wistful memories of his own father bringing home durians by the basketful, and how he and his family would “eat it like crazy.” It was a different experience in Singapore, he explains. You would have a durian feast with family, opening several durians at once and pigging out. There were always mangosteens to balance out the durian’s 熱氣 — “yeet hay,” or build-up of internal heat, according to traditional Chinese medicine. Mangosteens are cooling by contrast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Durian is too costly in the U.S. for it to have ever been an everyday occurrence for our family. But Dad would bring one home when he “got a craving,” he tells me. Whenever he did, my brother and I used to run away, hiding with my mom in our parents’ bedroom and leaving dad alone with his bounty. Eventually, we came around — first for a taste and now for handfuls of the delicious fruit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I love about durian is the tactile feeling of pulling out a seed, the luscious, custardy texture and the complex flavor. Whenever I take a bite, the room goes quiet while my mouth analyzes whether the durian is sweet or bitter, smooth or stringy, fruity or nutty. My fellow durian enthusiasts and I discuss which pieces are our favorites and trade bites — after all, it’s nearly always a social event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925901\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925901\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01.jpg\" alt=\"Durian eaters hold up sticky fingers at a durian stall in Singapore.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author, her father and his cousin hold up sticky fingers at a durian stall in Singapore. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A Newfound Appreciation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>My first trip to Singapore in 2007 was a massive eye-opener. I thought my one ethnic identity was Cantonese, which felt ordinary in San Francisco, where Chinese Americans make up 21% of the population. Singapore, on the other hand, is a melting pot of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasian. It’s a tropical island nation filled with exciting foods I’d never even heard of and rich cultures I barely recognized. How could this be part of my own identity?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reality could not be further from how I had envisioned my father’s childhood. Government-subsidized public housing developments almost touching the clouds were nothing like the kampongs he described. I met dozens of family members that I’d never even heard of — great-aunts and uncles, first and second cousins. And instead of the simple choice of “durian or no durian” that I’d experienced in San Francisco, Singaporean durian came in endless, eye-popping varieties — D24, Musang King, XO and other names in Chinese that I couldn’t read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What remained familiar were the family gatherings in the name of our king. On one of my first days there, we convened at a great-auntie’s flat to feast on durian and mangosteen. About a dozen of us across generations sat around in the summer heat with fans blasting. One of my dad’s cousins, Katherine, taught me how to open a mangosteen, which I quickly fell in love with. Each of us ate durian until we had our fill, then rested, satisfied, in the cool breeze of the fans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of my dad’s cousins, Geraldine, brought us to a neighborhood durian stall, where she ordered more whole durians than there were people in our party because “each one has a different taste. You have to try many.” We had leftover durian for days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925902\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925902\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie.jpg\" alt=\"A spread of split durian, still in its spiky green rind, spread on top of sheets of newspaper.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A durian feast at the author’s great-auntie’s flat. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I came back to SF with a newfound appreciation for my Singaporean heritage. This understanding even put my grandmother’s accent into perspective — I had always thought of it as a Chinese accent, when in fact it was Singaporean. I was finally part of the inside joke when my grandmother purchased a durian for our white elephant gift exchange. I now sought out connections to Singaporean culture wherever I went, and a big part of that was trying to eat durian as often as I could.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Durian Renaissance\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Thankfully, durian is widely available in the Bay these days, much to the delight of Dad and the rest of the family. You’ll find it everywhere from mom-and-pop Asian grocery stores to name-brand shops like H-Mart and even Costco. Tracy Goh, chef-owner of \u003ca href=\"https://damansarasf.com/\">Damansara\u003c/a>, a Malaysian restaurant in San Francisco, likes to buy hers through a specialty online ordering service called \u003ca href=\"https://www.yearofthedurian.com/\">Year of the Durian\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Compared to when I first arrived 10 years ago, the varieties have expanded beyond Thai Monthong and the occasional Malaysian Musang King,” Goh tells me. “And I am seeing more genuine appreciation for durian outside of the Southeast Asian community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size=\"large\" align=\"right\"]“My love of durian ties me back to my Singaporean culture. It’s a secret language that I use to find my people.”[/pullquote]\u003c/span>In San Francisco alone, you can now find durian in ice cream from \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/gelatoMP/\">Marco Polo\u003c/a>, chocolates from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/socolachocs/\">Socola\u003c/a>, mooncakes from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/pineapplekingbakery/\">Pineapple King\u003c/a> and desserts from \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/mangomedley/\">Mango Medley\u003c/a>. Socola even has a special mailing list for releases of their durian truffles. (Of course, I’m subscribed.) At the same time, a growing number of Singaporean and Malaysian restaurants have opened across the Bay to much fanfare, including Damansara, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dabaosingapore.com/\">Dabao Singapore\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/liondancecafe/\">Lion Dance Cafe\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sataybythebaysf/\">Satay by the Bay\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside postID='arts_13923127,arts_13924997,arts_13915312']\u003c/span>The durian renaissance has been fueled in part by the 2004 U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement and the fact that many more Singaporeans have come to this country to study in the past decade. Here in the Bay Area, where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are \u003ca href=\"https://bayareaequityatlas.org/BayArea-API-diversity\">the fastest growing demographic\u003c/a>, new immigration always leads to a mixing of cultures and exposure to new foods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My love of durian ties me back to my Singaporean culture. It’s a secret language that I use to find my people. As Goh puts it, “I used to feel more compelled to give a whole crash course on my ‘complicated’ identity. I no longer feel the need to explain my existence in this country to someone who questions it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, I might just offer you some durian. For me, the fruit is a litmus test for those who hope to understand the Singaporean part of my identity. If I introduce someone to durian and they’re not even willing to try it, they might never understand me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, even my cat loves durian! And whenever I feel the tug of nostalgia, I know I don’t have to go far. If I’m lucky, Dad will call to say that he brought a durian home. He’s just waiting for me and my brother to come over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925903\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925903\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat.jpg\" alt=\"A cat reaches its paw out to snatch a piece of durian from its owner.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Even the cat loves durian. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">D\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>urian. The King of Fruits. 榴蓮. The heart of my Singaporean Chinese family and the gateway to knowledge of my father’s culture. I grew up with no true understanding of Singapore. For those living in the Bay Area of the ’80s and ’90s, it barely even registered as a country. My father’s vague stories of his Singaporean past always read as being about China in my immature mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then he would bring home a durian. A spiky ball that looks like a medieval weapon, with a pungent, pale yellow, fleshy interior. Dad would find a soft spot between those spikes to stab the fruit’s bottom and wedge it open with a knife and rice paddle. The strong rind once fought back, breaking the tip off of his massive chef’s knife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was serious work, but Dad is serious about durian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Durian may be nature’s most misunderstood fruit. It grows high up in trees from precariously thin stems — a falling durian can literally kill you. Searching for the word “durian” online will dredge up articles on the fruit’s “terrible smell” and videos of people eating under-ripe specimens and gagging on camera for the likes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925895\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925895\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian.jpg\" alt=\"Woman holds up a piece of fresh durian, with the one of the fruit's large seeds on a plate in front of her.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2020-thanksgiving-durian-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author enjoys a piece of Red Prawn durian purchased from the online company Year of Durian. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Admittedly, to the untrained nose, durian smells strange, even rank. But the fruit also has an unexpectedly custardy texture and — with hundreds of varieties — complex flavor profiles akin to wine, coffee and chocolate. For those of us who hail durian as our king of fruits, the smell elicits an undeniable longing — for both the fruit itself and the cultural remembrance it represents. That feeling sticks with you, sits deep within your bones. It stayed with my father even as he crossed an ocean to live in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My father immigrated to San Francisco in the ’70s. While he and his siblings found camaraderie amongst other first- and second-generation Chinese here, they rarely encountered other Singaporeans. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had only just reversed the racist immigration policies codified by the Asian Exclusion Act. And Singapore had just gone through its own transformation, separating from Malaysia that same year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>In his first decades in the States, Dad also never encountered his favorite tropical fruits — jackfruit, rambutan and the infamous durian. He speculates that many Bay Area folks at the time hadn’t even heard of durian. Even if they had, shopkeepers probably wouldn’t have wanted it in their stores because of the smell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925897\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925897\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad.jpg\" alt=\"A man sits in his doorway wearing protective gloves as he prepares to open a durian.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-dad-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author’s father prepares to open a durian. \u003ccite>(Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first time Dad saw durian after he immigrated was on a road trip to Vancouver, Canada, in the early ’80s. He and his sister Patty spotted them at a market. Elated, they bought one quickly, not noticing that it was previously frozen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Was this sad, unripe durian an indicator of progress?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed it was! My father estimates that he first saw (or maybe smelled) frozen whole durians in San Francisco not long after, in the late ’80s or early ’90s, at a Chinese grocery on Clement Street. Seeing them brought back wistful memories of his own father bringing home durians by the basketful, and how he and his family would “eat it like crazy.” It was a different experience in Singapore, he explains. You would have a durian feast with family, opening several durians at once and pigging out. There were always mangosteens to balance out the durian’s 熱氣 — “yeet hay,” or build-up of internal heat, according to traditional Chinese medicine. Mangosteens are cooling by contrast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Durian is too costly in the U.S. for it to have ever been an everyday occurrence for our family. But Dad would bring one home when he “got a craving,” he tells me. Whenever he did, my brother and I used to run away, hiding with my mom in our parents’ bedroom and leaving dad alone with his bounty. Eventually, we came around — first for a taste and now for handfuls of the delicious fruit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I love about durian is the tactile feeling of pulling out a seed, the luscious, custardy texture and the complex flavor. Whenever I take a bite, the room goes quiet while my mouth analyzes whether the durian is sweet or bitter, smooth or stringy, fruity or nutty. My fellow durian enthusiasts and I discuss which pieces are our favorites and trade bites — after all, it’s nearly always a social event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925901\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925901\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01.jpg\" alt=\"Durian eaters hold up sticky fingers at a durian stall in Singapore.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2009-durian-dad-auntie-geraldine-01-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author, her father and his cousin hold up sticky fingers at a durian stall in Singapore. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A Newfound Appreciation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>My first trip to Singapore in 2007 was a massive eye-opener. I thought my one ethnic identity was Cantonese, which felt ordinary in San Francisco, where Chinese Americans make up 21% of the population. Singapore, on the other hand, is a melting pot of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasian. It’s a tropical island nation filled with exciting foods I’d never even heard of and rich cultures I barely recognized. How could this be part of my own identity?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reality could not be further from how I had envisioned my father’s childhood. Government-subsidized public housing developments almost touching the clouds were nothing like the kampongs he described. I met dozens of family members that I’d never even heard of — great-aunts and uncles, first and second cousins. And instead of the simple choice of “durian or no durian” that I’d experienced in San Francisco, Singaporean durian came in endless, eye-popping varieties — D24, Musang King, XO and other names in Chinese that I couldn’t read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What remained familiar were the family gatherings in the name of our king. On one of my first days there, we convened at a great-auntie’s flat to feast on durian and mangosteen. About a dozen of us across generations sat around in the summer heat with fans blasting. One of my dad’s cousins, Katherine, taught me how to open a mangosteen, which I quickly fell in love with. Each of us ate durian until we had our fill, then rested, satisfied, in the cool breeze of the fans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of my dad’s cousins, Geraldine, brought us to a neighborhood durian stall, where she ordered more whole durians than there were people in our party because “each one has a different taste. You have to try many.” We had leftover durian for days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925902\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925902\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie.jpg\" alt=\"A spread of split durian, still in its spiky green rind, spread on top of sheets of newspaper.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/2007-durian-at-2nd-auntie-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A durian feast at the author’s great-auntie’s flat. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I came back to SF with a newfound appreciation for my Singaporean heritage. This understanding even put my grandmother’s accent into perspective — I had always thought of it as a Chinese accent, when in fact it was Singaporean. I was finally part of the inside joke when my grandmother purchased a durian for our white elephant gift exchange. I now sought out connections to Singaporean culture wherever I went, and a big part of that was trying to eat durian as often as I could.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Durian Renaissance\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Thankfully, durian is widely available in the Bay these days, much to the delight of Dad and the rest of the family. You’ll find it everywhere from mom-and-pop Asian grocery stores to name-brand shops like H-Mart and even Costco. Tracy Goh, chef-owner of \u003ca href=\"https://damansarasf.com/\">Damansara\u003c/a>, a Malaysian restaurant in San Francisco, likes to buy hers through a specialty online ordering service called \u003ca href=\"https://www.yearofthedurian.com/\">Year of the Durian\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Compared to when I first arrived 10 years ago, the varieties have expanded beyond Thai Monthong and the occasional Malaysian Musang King,” Goh tells me. “And I am seeing more genuine appreciation for durian outside of the Southeast Asian community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>In San Francisco alone, you can now find durian in ice cream from \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/gelatoMP/\">Marco Polo\u003c/a>, chocolates from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/socolachocs/\">Socola\u003c/a>, mooncakes from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/pineapplekingbakery/\">Pineapple King\u003c/a> and desserts from \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/mangomedley/\">Mango Medley\u003c/a>. Socola even has a special mailing list for releases of their durian truffles. (Of course, I’m subscribed.) At the same time, a growing number of Singaporean and Malaysian restaurants have opened across the Bay to much fanfare, including Damansara, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dabaosingapore.com/\">Dabao Singapore\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/liondancecafe/\">Lion Dance Cafe\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sataybythebaysf/\">Satay by the Bay\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>The durian renaissance has been fueled in part by the 2004 U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement and the fact that many more Singaporeans have come to this country to study in the past decade. Here in the Bay Area, where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are \u003ca href=\"https://bayareaequityatlas.org/BayArea-API-diversity\">the fastest growing demographic\u003c/a>, new immigration always leads to a mixing of cultures and exposure to new foods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My love of durian ties me back to my Singaporean culture. It’s a secret language that I use to find my people. As Goh puts it, “I used to feel more compelled to give a whole crash course on my ‘complicated’ identity. I no longer feel the need to explain my existence in this country to someone who questions it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, I might just offer you some durian. For me, the fruit is a litmus test for those who hope to understand the Singaporean part of my identity. If I introduce someone to durian and they’re not even willing to try it, they might never understand me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, even my cat loves durian! And whenever I feel the tug of nostalgia, I know I don’t have to go far. If I’m lucky, Dad will call to say that he brought a durian home. He’s just waiting for me and my brother to come over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925903\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925903\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat.jpg\" alt=\"A cat reaches its paw out to snatch a piece of durian from its owner.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/durian-cat-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Even the cat loves durian. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jennifer Wong)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A New Farmers Market in West Oakland Promises Healthy Foods and Community Flavor",
"headTitle": "A New Farmers Market in West Oakland Promises Healthy Foods and Community Flavor | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The West Oakland neighborhood where Elliot Johnson grew up during the 1980s was filled with community abundance — but hampered, at times, by a lack of fresh, organic foods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On 14th and Center there was a store, but a real grocer wasn’t really around until Acorn Super. Then they closed,” he remembers. “The people were happy, but it was real bad poverty back then. You had to go to Alameda or Rockridge for fresh food. It was tough. So when [West Oakland Farmers Market] started, we knew we had to be part of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Johnson and his wife, Shawlaya, operate \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/goldisgourmetspices/?hl=en\">Goldi’s\u003c/a>, a small-batch spice business that pops up every Sunday at the quirky \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/westoaklandfarmersmarket/?hl=en\">West Oakland Farmers Market\u003c/a>. The new outdoor market — located in the Prescott neighborhood on Peralta Street, between 18th and 20th Streets — offers a mosaic of goods provided by a diverse spectrum of local vendors and artisans. The hope is to reflect the neighborhood’s robust past and evolving future in order to serve the community’s present needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On any given Sunday, you can browse the market’s selection of tasty beverages and natural foods while strolling a quiet, two-block road sentineled by nearby Victorian homes. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll notice that the market is helping to open a fresh lane in the community: one that creates a path for aspiring entrepreneurs in the area’s overlooked pocket of healthy foods commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925807\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925807\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A man stands in front of his spice booth at the market\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elliot Johnson grew up in West Oakland in the 1980s and now sells his spices at the new farmers market. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Launched in the summer of 2022 with the support of Oakland Councilmember Carroll Fife and the \u003ca href=\"https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Neighborhood-Council-Meeting-Schedule-2_2022-09-20-192105_fkcl.xlsx\">Prescott Neighborhood Council\u003c/a>, the market is currently the neighborhood’s only farmers market. Less than a year later, the market has turned into the only intersection in West Oakland where such a collection of organic farmers, florists, breadmakers, honey purveyors, ranchers, meat suppliers and wide-ranging community members like the Johnsons can share their homemade offerings to a steady base of market-goers..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Featuring anywhere from 25 to 50 vendors each week — and predominantly representing Black, brown and Asian diasporas — the market spotlights a potpourri of creative offerings with an emphasis on providers who aren’t usually the biggest demographic at other farmers markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Working with future generations of diverse organic farmers, it’s harder for them to get into more established markets,” says Harvindar Singh, the founder of \u003ca href=\"https://www.foragersmarket.org/about\">Foragers Market\u003c/a>, the organization that operates West Oakland Farmers Market along with a handful of similar markets around the Bay Area. “But things are changing. [The idea of] traditional, old, white hippie farmers is beginning to open up to more diverse farmers and vendors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming on the heels of last year’s sudden closure of \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/02/24/oakland-community-foods-brahm-ahmadi\">People’s Community Market\u003c/a>, one of West Oakland’s only grocery stores, the farmers market arrives at a time when the neighborhood once again finds itself with limited access to such resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often described as a “food desert,” West Oakland — like many communities shaped by decades of segregation and systemically racist practices — has struggled to maintain a sustainable, concentrated supply of high-quality groceries, particularly in recent years as the Bay Area has only become increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible for working class families. Besides small, community-led sources like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bottomsupcommunitygarden/?hl=en\">Bottoms Up Community Garden\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityslickerfarms.org/about-us/\">City Slicker Farms\u003c/a>, which supply fresh produce directly to the immediate area, the neighborhood doesn’t have many options. \u003ca href=\"https://www.good.is/articles/change-through-food-bringing-an-oasis-to-the-west-oakland-food-desert\">Mandela Foods Cooperative\u003c/a> is a heralded beacon, providing the only walkable source of varietal produce for those who call the area home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within this complex landscape of food injustice, the West Oakland Farmers Market — which partners with Mandela to allow its vendors to distribute at the co-op in order to foster a mutually beneficial relationship — is hoping to shift the narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925810\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925810\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"the inside of a commercial building that is planning to be turned into a foodhall\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plans for a food hall near the West Oakland Farmers Market will feature local foodmakers. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the same time, it’s necessary to look at any emerging venture in West Oakland with a certain degree of skepticism — to perhaps wonder if this is another attempt to gain footing in an increasingly gentrifiying sliver of land. After all, the farmers market is funded by a commercial real estate developer, \u003ca href=\"https://srmernst.com/\">srmERNST Development Partners\u003c/a>, which is also in the process of building a new food hall nearby — an impressive space that will host local foodmakers as well. Joe Ernst, srmERNST’s founder, and the folks behind West Oakland Farmers Market all seem to have good intentions. They say they want to deliver a promising, collaborative space for the neighborhood’s residents. But the larger issue of community revitalization is layered and intersectional, and no single effort can resolve more than nearly a half-century of institutional neglect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we know from mounting research over the past four to six years is that geographic access inequalities are actually a pretty poor explanation of dietary inequalities,” said Priya Fielding-Singh, author of \u003ci>How the Other Half Eats\u003c/i>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13907528/how-the-other-half-eats-food-deserts-food-inequality-bay-area\">in a past interview with KQED\u003c/a>. In other words, food deserts are only a small part of the problem, and the addition of a single farmers market can only do so much to improve the way that people in West Oakland eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, the West Oakland Farmers Market does represent a tide of change and opportunity, with potential to become a generative outlet for both vendors and market-goers. In \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/west-oakland-farmers-market-17782486.php\">a recent \u003ci>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/i> interview\u003c/a>, Ernst, the developer, said he wants to “have an impact on the area, not just build and lease.” What better way to make an impact than through good food?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh, who has over 10 years of experience as the “local forager” for Whole Foods and has built relationships with farmers around Northern California, seems to be the right man for the task, with his empathetic outlook and understanding of what’s at stake for small businesses and community members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Markets like these are incubators,” Singh says. “They’re designed to give people a way to start up, scale, grow and then go to broader markets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under Singh’s energetic leadership, the new farmers market is taking a community-first approach to ensure that the space will remain accessible — and useful — to local buyers and sellers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, 80% of the vendors at the market are BIPOC and representative of the neighborhood, Singh tells me. It’s an intentional effort to provide a space for fledgling micro-businesses around the area. For many of the vendors, it’s one of the only markets they have a chance to sell at, allowing them to supplement their pop-up business while trying to expand sustainably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925808\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925808\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"two local siblings sell smoothies and granola at the market every Sunday\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cristian and Grisela Sánalo can be found selling smoothies every Sunday at the new market. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One such vendor is \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sanalo2022/\">Sánalo\u003c/a>, a smoothie and snack company founded by Cristian and Grisela Sánalo, two Mexican American siblings with roots in Oakland and Hayward. The young venture is a part-time hustle for the Sánalos, who work full-time jobs and side gigs on weekdays, then set up on weekends to serve treats like toast and granola.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Living in a major city, it can be difficult to find [a feeling of community],” says Cristian Sánalo. “But the culture [at West Oakland Farmers Market] is definitely inclined to feel like a community. They’re good people who want everyone to do their thing and be successful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sánalo’s “Green Magic” smoothie is a rich blend of chia, dates, apple, kale, pineapple, celery and spinach. And the “Apapacho” (a hot beverage made from oats, kabocha squash, ginger and cinnamon) — whose Spanish name, derived from indigenous Nahuatl, roughly translates to “tender affection” — allows customers to tap into less commonly available flavors that reflect the Sánalos’ heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If beverages aren’t your thing, there’s amazing sourdough from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rizeupbakery/?hl=en\">Rize Up Bakery\u003c/a>, a Black-owned bakery from San Francisco that, \u003ca href=\"https://rizeupsourdough.com/pages/about\">according to founder Azikiwee Anderson\u003c/a>, was “born as a way to channel energy into something healing during the social unrest caused by the murder of George Floyd.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking for less carbs? Bassline Coffee — whose owner, Brad Katz, is \u003ca href=\"https://www.waveworksav.com/\">involved in the local music industry\u003c/a> as an audio-video engineer and first dipped into coffee-making during the pandemic — is pouring “a roast for every rhythm” and supplements his coffee company with his passion for mixtapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13905374,arts_13915889,arts_13908432']Don’t do caffeine? A few booths away you’ll come across \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/clandestinacocinaberkeley/?hl=en\">Clandestina Cocina\u003c/a>, a Berkeley-based Cuban eatery serving island-style soul food and classic favorites like ropa vieja (shredded steak in tomato sauce with bell peppers and onions) and the eternally-delicious Cubano sandwich. Havana-born chef Lilian Duran is happy to feed others, including Chari Parla, a Cuban American who used to work at the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My first day at the market was such an amazing, dreamlike treat to look up from my booth and see Clandestina across the way,” says Parla, originally from Miami. “I’ve been living [in Oakland] for six years, and I can count on one hand how many Cuban people I’ve met. We don’t find each other often. For me to see, smell, taste and hear all of those Cuban elements is really just warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the sort of feeling that Singh hopes to facilitate, often surveying customers and nearby residents about what else they would like to see. The Sunday market has featured live music and, at one point, curated open mic poetry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an effort to be inclusive, Singh has also lowered, or in some cases removed, the entrance fees for vendors in need, making it easier for non-traditional suppliers to participate. The market also donates products to \u003ca href=\"https://www.acdsal.org/farms\">Dig Deep Farms\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://westoaklandhealth.org/\">West Oakland Health Council\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1028996737152976&paipv=0&eav=AfY-Rcqphpmcxw2XqrXOeF-Er55s2YHMJsNxFrdjBL7sCfKrKHC4zSHr63ISC8UwZEo&_rdr\">Eritrean Task Force-Orthodox Church\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925809\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925809\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a group of friends pose for the camera while exploring the new market\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of friends pose for the camera while exploring the new market. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In many ways, the West Oakland Farmers Market doesn’t feel like most other farmers markets. Singh’s track record of investing in nascent, grassroots business is a strong focus, and his compassionate compass helps him navigate the market’s larger civic goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fernando [from Catalan Farm] is an organic farmer from Alba,” says Singh. “He teaches immigrant farmers how to grow organically. He’s the perfect example of how this market is about uplifting space to converse and support locally. It’s gonna take time to build, but we’re in it for the long haul. I’m having a blast, I love this community and these customers communing and supporting each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the aforementioned food hall already under construction in partnership with the developer, Ernst — who initially funded the West Oakland Farmers Market during its start-up phase before it became self-sufficient — Singh says Foragers Market hopes to continue to provide enriching economic opportunities for vendors and accessible, affordable and natural foods that meet customers wherever they’re at. It will require care, awareness and precise management — much like a field of crops, I imagine — but if done right, could yield a cornucopia of possibilities. And for many, it’s what they’ve been waiting for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like being back home,” Johnson, the spice vendor who grew up in West Oakland, says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12904247 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>West Oakland Farmers Market is open every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (on Peralta Street between 18th and 20th Streets). WIC/EBT accepted.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Vendors say the West Oakland Farmers Market represents new opportunities for a long-neglected neighborhood.",
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"description": "Vendors say the West Oakland Farmers Market represents new opportunities for a long-neglected neighborhood.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The West Oakland neighborhood where Elliot Johnson grew up during the 1980s was filled with community abundance — but hampered, at times, by a lack of fresh, organic foods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On 14th and Center there was a store, but a real grocer wasn’t really around until Acorn Super. Then they closed,” he remembers. “The people were happy, but it was real bad poverty back then. You had to go to Alameda or Rockridge for fresh food. It was tough. So when [West Oakland Farmers Market] started, we knew we had to be part of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Johnson and his wife, Shawlaya, operate \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/goldisgourmetspices/?hl=en\">Goldi’s\u003c/a>, a small-batch spice business that pops up every Sunday at the quirky \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/westoaklandfarmersmarket/?hl=en\">West Oakland Farmers Market\u003c/a>. The new outdoor market — located in the Prescott neighborhood on Peralta Street, between 18th and 20th Streets — offers a mosaic of goods provided by a diverse spectrum of local vendors and artisans. The hope is to reflect the neighborhood’s robust past and evolving future in order to serve the community’s present needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On any given Sunday, you can browse the market’s selection of tasty beverages and natural foods while strolling a quiet, two-block road sentineled by nearby Victorian homes. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll notice that the market is helping to open a fresh lane in the community: one that creates a path for aspiring entrepreneurs in the area’s overlooked pocket of healthy foods commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925807\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925807\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A man stands in front of his spice booth at the market\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/goldis_alanchazaro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elliot Johnson grew up in West Oakland in the 1980s and now sells his spices at the new farmers market. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Launched in the summer of 2022 with the support of Oakland Councilmember Carroll Fife and the \u003ca href=\"https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Neighborhood-Council-Meeting-Schedule-2_2022-09-20-192105_fkcl.xlsx\">Prescott Neighborhood Council\u003c/a>, the market is currently the neighborhood’s only farmers market. Less than a year later, the market has turned into the only intersection in West Oakland where such a collection of organic farmers, florists, breadmakers, honey purveyors, ranchers, meat suppliers and wide-ranging community members like the Johnsons can share their homemade offerings to a steady base of market-goers..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Featuring anywhere from 25 to 50 vendors each week — and predominantly representing Black, brown and Asian diasporas — the market spotlights a potpourri of creative offerings with an emphasis on providers who aren’t usually the biggest demographic at other farmers markets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Working with future generations of diverse organic farmers, it’s harder for them to get into more established markets,” says Harvindar Singh, the founder of \u003ca href=\"https://www.foragersmarket.org/about\">Foragers Market\u003c/a>, the organization that operates West Oakland Farmers Market along with a handful of similar markets around the Bay Area. “But things are changing. [The idea of] traditional, old, white hippie farmers is beginning to open up to more diverse farmers and vendors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming on the heels of last year’s sudden closure of \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/02/24/oakland-community-foods-brahm-ahmadi\">People’s Community Market\u003c/a>, one of West Oakland’s only grocery stores, the farmers market arrives at a time when the neighborhood once again finds itself with limited access to such resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often described as a “food desert,” West Oakland — like many communities shaped by decades of segregation and systemically racist practices — has struggled to maintain a sustainable, concentrated supply of high-quality groceries, particularly in recent years as the Bay Area has only become increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible for working class families. Besides small, community-led sources like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bottomsupcommunitygarden/?hl=en\">Bottoms Up Community Garden\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityslickerfarms.org/about-us/\">City Slicker Farms\u003c/a>, which supply fresh produce directly to the immediate area, the neighborhood doesn’t have many options. \u003ca href=\"https://www.good.is/articles/change-through-food-bringing-an-oasis-to-the-west-oakland-food-desert\">Mandela Foods Cooperative\u003c/a> is a heralded beacon, providing the only walkable source of varietal produce for those who call the area home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within this complex landscape of food injustice, the West Oakland Farmers Market — which partners with Mandela to allow its vendors to distribute at the co-op in order to foster a mutually beneficial relationship — is hoping to shift the narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925810\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925810\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"the inside of a commercial building that is planning to be turned into a foodhall\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_foodhall_alanchazaro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plans for a food hall near the West Oakland Farmers Market will feature local foodmakers. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the same time, it’s necessary to look at any emerging venture in West Oakland with a certain degree of skepticism — to perhaps wonder if this is another attempt to gain footing in an increasingly gentrifiying sliver of land. After all, the farmers market is funded by a commercial real estate developer, \u003ca href=\"https://srmernst.com/\">srmERNST Development Partners\u003c/a>, which is also in the process of building a new food hall nearby — an impressive space that will host local foodmakers as well. Joe Ernst, srmERNST’s founder, and the folks behind West Oakland Farmers Market all seem to have good intentions. They say they want to deliver a promising, collaborative space for the neighborhood’s residents. But the larger issue of community revitalization is layered and intersectional, and no single effort can resolve more than nearly a half-century of institutional neglect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we know from mounting research over the past four to six years is that geographic access inequalities are actually a pretty poor explanation of dietary inequalities,” said Priya Fielding-Singh, author of \u003ci>How the Other Half Eats\u003c/i>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13907528/how-the-other-half-eats-food-deserts-food-inequality-bay-area\">in a past interview with KQED\u003c/a>. In other words, food deserts are only a small part of the problem, and the addition of a single farmers market can only do so much to improve the way that people in West Oakland eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, the West Oakland Farmers Market does represent a tide of change and opportunity, with potential to become a generative outlet for both vendors and market-goers. In \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/west-oakland-farmers-market-17782486.php\">a recent \u003ci>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/i> interview\u003c/a>, Ernst, the developer, said he wants to “have an impact on the area, not just build and lease.” What better way to make an impact than through good food?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh, who has over 10 years of experience as the “local forager” for Whole Foods and has built relationships with farmers around Northern California, seems to be the right man for the task, with his empathetic outlook and understanding of what’s at stake for small businesses and community members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Markets like these are incubators,” Singh says. “They’re designed to give people a way to start up, scale, grow and then go to broader markets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under Singh’s energetic leadership, the new farmers market is taking a community-first approach to ensure that the space will remain accessible — and useful — to local buyers and sellers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, 80% of the vendors at the market are BIPOC and representative of the neighborhood, Singh tells me. It’s an intentional effort to provide a space for fledgling micro-businesses around the area. For many of the vendors, it’s one of the only markets they have a chance to sell at, allowing them to supplement their pop-up business while trying to expand sustainably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925808\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925808\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"two local siblings sell smoothies and granola at the market every Sunday\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/sanalo_alanchazaro-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cristian and Grisela Sánalo can be found selling smoothies every Sunday at the new market. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One such vendor is \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sanalo2022/\">Sánalo\u003c/a>, a smoothie and snack company founded by Cristian and Grisela Sánalo, two Mexican American siblings with roots in Oakland and Hayward. The young venture is a part-time hustle for the Sánalos, who work full-time jobs and side gigs on weekdays, then set up on weekends to serve treats like toast and granola.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Living in a major city, it can be difficult to find [a feeling of community],” says Cristian Sánalo. “But the culture [at West Oakland Farmers Market] is definitely inclined to feel like a community. They’re good people who want everyone to do their thing and be successful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sánalo’s “Green Magic” smoothie is a rich blend of chia, dates, apple, kale, pineapple, celery and spinach. And the “Apapacho” (a hot beverage made from oats, kabocha squash, ginger and cinnamon) — whose Spanish name, derived from indigenous Nahuatl, roughly translates to “tender affection” — allows customers to tap into less commonly available flavors that reflect the Sánalos’ heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If beverages aren’t your thing, there’s amazing sourdough from \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rizeupbakery/?hl=en\">Rize Up Bakery\u003c/a>, a Black-owned bakery from San Francisco that, \u003ca href=\"https://rizeupsourdough.com/pages/about\">according to founder Azikiwee Anderson\u003c/a>, was “born as a way to channel energy into something healing during the social unrest caused by the murder of George Floyd.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking for less carbs? Bassline Coffee — whose owner, Brad Katz, is \u003ca href=\"https://www.waveworksav.com/\">involved in the local music industry\u003c/a> as an audio-video engineer and first dipped into coffee-making during the pandemic — is pouring “a roast for every rhythm” and supplements his coffee company with his passion for mixtapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Don’t do caffeine? A few booths away you’ll come across \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/clandestinacocinaberkeley/?hl=en\">Clandestina Cocina\u003c/a>, a Berkeley-based Cuban eatery serving island-style soul food and classic favorites like ropa vieja (shredded steak in tomato sauce with bell peppers and onions) and the eternally-delicious Cubano sandwich. Havana-born chef Lilian Duran is happy to feed others, including Chari Parla, a Cuban American who used to work at the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My first day at the market was such an amazing, dreamlike treat to look up from my booth and see Clandestina across the way,” says Parla, originally from Miami. “I’ve been living [in Oakland] for six years, and I can count on one hand how many Cuban people I’ve met. We don’t find each other often. For me to see, smell, taste and hear all of those Cuban elements is really just warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the sort of feeling that Singh hopes to facilitate, often surveying customers and nearby residents about what else they would like to see. The Sunday market has featured live music and, at one point, curated open mic poetry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an effort to be inclusive, Singh has also lowered, or in some cases removed, the entrance fees for vendors in need, making it easier for non-traditional suppliers to participate. The market also donates products to \u003ca href=\"https://www.acdsal.org/farms\">Dig Deep Farms\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://westoaklandhealth.org/\">West Oakland Health Council\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1028996737152976&paipv=0&eav=AfY-Rcqphpmcxw2XqrXOeF-Er55s2YHMJsNxFrdjBL7sCfKrKHC4zSHr63ISC8UwZEo&_rdr\">Eritrean Task Force-Orthodox Church\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925809\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13925809\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"a group of friends pose for the camera while exploring the new market\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/westoakfarmersmarket_shoppers_alanchazaro.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of friends pose for the camera while exploring the new market. \u003ccite>(Alan Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In many ways, the West Oakland Farmers Market doesn’t feel like most other farmers markets. Singh’s track record of investing in nascent, grassroots business is a strong focus, and his compassionate compass helps him navigate the market’s larger civic goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fernando [from Catalan Farm] is an organic farmer from Alba,” says Singh. “He teaches immigrant farmers how to grow organically. He’s the perfect example of how this market is about uplifting space to converse and support locally. It’s gonna take time to build, but we’re in it for the long haul. I’m having a blast, I love this community and these customers communing and supporting each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the aforementioned food hall already under construction in partnership with the developer, Ernst — who initially funded the West Oakland Farmers Market during its start-up phase before it became self-sufficient — Singh says Foragers Market hopes to continue to provide enriching economic opportunities for vendors and accessible, affordable and natural foods that meet customers wherever they’re at. It will require care, awareness and precise management — much like a field of crops, I imagine — but if done right, could yield a cornucopia of possibilities. And for many, it’s what they’ve been waiting for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like being back home,” Johnson, the spice vendor who grew up in West Oakland, says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12904247 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>West Oakland Farmers Market is open every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (on Peralta Street between 18th and 20th Streets). WIC/EBT accepted.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "One of the East Bay’s Best Ramen Shops Takes Its Cues From Hawaii",
"headTitle": "One of the East Bay’s Best Ramen Shops Takes Its Cues From Hawaii | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/masaramenbistro/?hl=en\">Masa Ramen Bistro\u003c/a>, one vintage travel poster on the wall depicts a woman in a stylized kimono. In another, a young man crouches on a surfboard, riding a wave alongside a school of flying fish. “Fly to Hawaii,” the poster reads, and that’s also the promise that the restaurant offers to prospective diners: It’s a marriage between Japanese traditionalism and chill island vibes — between tonkotsu on one side of the menu and Spam musubi on the other. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not for nothing, the restaurant also serves some of the tastiest ramen in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Open since September on University Avenue, a few blocks away from the UC Berkeley campus, Masa Ramen is the brainchild of its namesake, chef Tim Masa Kawamoto. He and his partners in the venture, Clyde and Jackie Ulep, were born and raised in the Honolulu area, and upon arriving on the mainland, they identified what seemed like a surefire business opportunity. They met a lot of Hawaiians who’d relocated to the Bay Area, and, at the same time, they hadn’t been very impressed with the local ramen scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just felt like there was a niche for it,” Kawamoto says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Kawamoto, who is Japanese and has spent the better part of his career cooking at Japanese restaurants in Hawaii, set out to create his own unique mix of the two culinary traditions. Hawaii itself has its own rich ramen culture, Kawamoto explains. Because there are so many people of Japanese descent who live there — and many Japanese tourists who visit — there are a lot of high-quality traditional ramen shops, which span many of the different regional styles that are popular in Japan. At the same time, Hawaii has its own local style known as saimin, a noodle soup created by Chinese and Japanese workers on the pineapple plantations during the early 20th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925722\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925722\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of Hawaiian-style mochiko fried chicken with shredded cabbage and lemon wedges on the side.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The restaurant serves both Japanese-style karaage and Hawaiian-style mochiko fried chicken — the crunchy, sweet-and-savory version pictured here. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Masa Ramen Bistro doesn’t serve saimin. And, for the most part, it doesn’t really aspire to serve “Hawaiian ramen,” in that literal sense. If anything, the focus of the menu is comfort food, both Hawaiian and Japanese — but the two sides are mostly kept separate. The Hawaiian side includes things like mochiko (sweet rice flour) fried chicken, Spam musubi and loco moco. On the Japanese side, the restaurant serves curry plates and karaage-style fried chicken, in addition to its daily lineup of six or seven different ramens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Kawamoto says he wouldn’t necessarily characterize the ramen itself as any kind of “fusion” food. The Diamond Head, for instance, is a straight-ahead tonkotsu ramen, and it’s about as satisfying a version as you’ll find in the area — rich without being overly heavy. But that’s not to say that the ramens don’t have a certain Hawaiian sensibility to them as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take the restaurant’s signature “Broke Da Mouf” ramen, for instance, which takes its name from a Hawaiian expression used to describe something very, very delicious. (Or, as Kawamoto puts it, “It’s just so good, you can’t wait to have it.”) The base of the dish, again, is Kawamoto’s creamy tonkotsu broth, which he spikes with black garlic oil, garlic butter and chili sauce, all made in-house. Thin, straight ramen noodles are custom-made for the restaurant by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/iseya_craft_noodle/?hl=en\">Iseya Craft Noodle\u003c/a>, the same Hayward-based noodle maker that supplies San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13898743/noodle-in-a-haystack-ramen-pop-up-sf-richmond\">Noodle in a Haystack\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/ramen-noodles-iseya-17547602.php\">a few other highly touted ramen shops\u003c/a>. Most striking, a little mound of hand-grated Parmesan cheese sits on top, providing an extra layer of unctuousness once you mix it into the broth. It’s a bold bowl of ramen, both in its flavors and in the way it manages to strike just the right balance between so many disparate components.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13911062,arts_13898743,arts_13923840']There’s nothing Hawaiian per se about any of those ingredients, Kawamoto explains. But the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spirit behind the dish \u003ci>is\u003c/i> purely Hawaiian. “You know how they say in Texas, everything is bigger?” he says. “In Hawaii, the term is ‘go for broke.’ If you’re going to go, then go all the way. If you’re going to eat, then \u003ci>eat.\u003c/i>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another nod to Hawaii’s multicultural food traditions: The restaurant serves oxtail soup, a slow-simmered, star anise–fragrant dish that came out of Hawaii’s Chinese immigrant community. Masa Ramen Bistro serves the soup in the traditional way, with a side of white rice. But, fittingly for a Hawaiian ramen restaurant, you can also order it over ramen noodles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the five months since it has been open, the restaurant has already picked up a devoted following among Cal students and folks who live in the surrounding neighborhood. Kawamoto says he understands why some hardcore ramen heads may have been a little bit skeptical at first, perhaps worried that the “Hawaiian ramen” concept was just a gimmick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is one demographic, however, that Kawamoto says has embraced the restaurant from the start: “Japanese people love Hawaii,” he says. “For them, it’s the best of both worlds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925724\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925724\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam.jpg\" alt=\"Spam musubi — spam and rice wrapped in a large piece of toasted seaweed — served on a black plate.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spam musubi, Masa Ramen Bistro style. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Masa Ramen Bistro is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m.–2:45 p.m. and 5–8:30 p.m., at 1923 University Ave. in Berkeley.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "At Berkeley’s Masa Ramen Shop, comfort food comes in the form of Spam musubi, Japanese curry and some of the Bay Area’s most delicious ramen.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/masaramenbistro/?hl=en\">Masa Ramen Bistro\u003c/a>, one vintage travel poster on the wall depicts a woman in a stylized kimono. In another, a young man crouches on a surfboard, riding a wave alongside a school of flying fish. “Fly to Hawaii,” the poster reads, and that’s also the promise that the restaurant offers to prospective diners: It’s a marriage between Japanese traditionalism and chill island vibes — between tonkotsu on one side of the menu and Spam musubi on the other. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not for nothing, the restaurant also serves some of the tastiest ramen in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Open since September on University Avenue, a few blocks away from the UC Berkeley campus, Masa Ramen is the brainchild of its namesake, chef Tim Masa Kawamoto. He and his partners in the venture, Clyde and Jackie Ulep, were born and raised in the Honolulu area, and upon arriving on the mainland, they identified what seemed like a surefire business opportunity. They met a lot of Hawaiians who’d relocated to the Bay Area, and, at the same time, they hadn’t been very impressed with the local ramen scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just felt like there was a niche for it,” Kawamoto says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Kawamoto, who is Japanese and has spent the better part of his career cooking at Japanese restaurants in Hawaii, set out to create his own unique mix of the two culinary traditions. Hawaii itself has its own rich ramen culture, Kawamoto explains. Because there are so many people of Japanese descent who live there — and many Japanese tourists who visit — there are a lot of high-quality traditional ramen shops, which span many of the different regional styles that are popular in Japan. At the same time, Hawaii has its own local style known as saimin, a noodle soup created by Chinese and Japanese workers on the pineapple plantations during the early 20th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925722\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925722\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of Hawaiian-style mochiko fried chicken with shredded cabbage and lemon wedges on the side.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_michiko-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The restaurant serves both Japanese-style karaage and Hawaiian-style mochiko fried chicken — the crunchy, sweet-and-savory version pictured here. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Masa Ramen Bistro doesn’t serve saimin. And, for the most part, it doesn’t really aspire to serve “Hawaiian ramen,” in that literal sense. If anything, the focus of the menu is comfort food, both Hawaiian and Japanese — but the two sides are mostly kept separate. The Hawaiian side includes things like mochiko (sweet rice flour) fried chicken, Spam musubi and loco moco. On the Japanese side, the restaurant serves curry plates and karaage-style fried chicken, in addition to its daily lineup of six or seven different ramens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Kawamoto says he wouldn’t necessarily characterize the ramen itself as any kind of “fusion” food. The Diamond Head, for instance, is a straight-ahead tonkotsu ramen, and it’s about as satisfying a version as you’ll find in the area — rich without being overly heavy. But that’s not to say that the ramens don’t have a certain Hawaiian sensibility to them as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take the restaurant’s signature “Broke Da Mouf” ramen, for instance, which takes its name from a Hawaiian expression used to describe something very, very delicious. (Or, as Kawamoto puts it, “It’s just so good, you can’t wait to have it.”) The base of the dish, again, is Kawamoto’s creamy tonkotsu broth, which he spikes with black garlic oil, garlic butter and chili sauce, all made in-house. Thin, straight ramen noodles are custom-made for the restaurant by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/iseya_craft_noodle/?hl=en\">Iseya Craft Noodle\u003c/a>, the same Hayward-based noodle maker that supplies San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13898743/noodle-in-a-haystack-ramen-pop-up-sf-richmond\">Noodle in a Haystack\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/ramen-noodles-iseya-17547602.php\">a few other highly touted ramen shops\u003c/a>. Most striking, a little mound of hand-grated Parmesan cheese sits on top, providing an extra layer of unctuousness once you mix it into the broth. It’s a bold bowl of ramen, both in its flavors and in the way it manages to strike just the right balance between so many disparate components.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There’s nothing Hawaiian per se about any of those ingredients, Kawamoto explains. But the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spirit behind the dish \u003ci>is\u003c/i> purely Hawaiian. “You know how they say in Texas, everything is bigger?” he says. “In Hawaii, the term is ‘go for broke.’ If you’re going to go, then go all the way. If you’re going to eat, then \u003ci>eat.\u003c/i>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another nod to Hawaii’s multicultural food traditions: The restaurant serves oxtail soup, a slow-simmered, star anise–fragrant dish that came out of Hawaii’s Chinese immigrant community. Masa Ramen Bistro serves the soup in the traditional way, with a side of white rice. But, fittingly for a Hawaiian ramen restaurant, you can also order it over ramen noodles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the five months since it has been open, the restaurant has already picked up a devoted following among Cal students and folks who live in the surrounding neighborhood. Kawamoto says he understands why some hardcore ramen heads may have been a little bit skeptical at first, perhaps worried that the “Hawaiian ramen” concept was just a gimmick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is one demographic, however, that Kawamoto says has embraced the restaurant from the start: “Japanese people love Hawaii,” he says. “For them, it’s the best of both worlds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925724\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925724\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam.jpg\" alt=\"Spam musubi — spam and rice wrapped in a large piece of toasted seaweed — served on a black plate.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/masabistro_spam-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spam musubi, Masa Ramen Bistro style. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Masa Ramen Bistro is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m.–2:45 p.m. and 5–8:30 p.m., at 1923 University Ave. in Berkeley.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "from-the-soil-viticulture-for-the-culture",
"title": "From The Soil: Viticulture for the Culture",
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"content": "\u003cp>On a steep hillside in San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Park, nestled between the Alemany Apartments, the 280 Freeway and the Bernal Heights Neighborhood, there’s a wine vineyard that doubles as a teaching tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A patch of land adjacent to \u003ca href=\"https://alemanyfarm.org/\">Alemany Farm\u003c/a> is being cultivated by Christopher Renfro and Jannea Tschirch, the co-founders of \u003ca href=\"https://www.280project.com/\">The 280 Project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their aim is to use public land to grow crops and introduce people to the world of agriculture, with a specific focus on getting young African-American residents of San Francisco interested in viticulture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a chilly day in the dead of winter, the Rightnowish team got a tour of the farm, the vineyard and the view from the hillside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week we bring you a story that exemplifies a unique way to use public land– as a classroom and potential career pathway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925352\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13925352 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Christopher Renfro standing on a hill overlooking San Francisco's Alemany Farm.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christopher Renfro stands on a hill overlooking San Francisco’s Alemany Farm. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5121346573&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://bit.ly/3IvEH4C\">Read the transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Below are lightly edited excerpts of my conversation with Christopher Renfro.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>PENDARVIS HARSHAW:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I read that each row [in the vineyard] has a specific name. What are the names of the rows and what are the significance of the names? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>CHRISTOPHER RENFRO\u003c/b>\u003c/span>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah. So first row is Carver, George Washington Carver. Then the second is the MLK row… Harriet Tubman, and then you have Huey P. So, Huey Newton of the Black Panthers. Each one of these people, I feel like, is a significant figure in Black history and should not be forgotten but each one of them had ties to the land. They all had ties to freedom, especially around the land. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>HARSHAW:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Inspired by these icons, Christopher’s goal with this small vineyard is to empower Black people by showing folks the benefits of being tapped into the land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s less about commercial wine production and more about serving as an educational hub for folks of color– specifically, the young Black children from the neighboring housing complex.These vines are a tool to assist people in reconnecting with the land and learning agricultural skills that can open up doors for employment and entrepreneurial opportunities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RENFRO:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there is a lot of opportunity and if we look at this industry as a whole, we don’t see a lot of Black folks in it. The way I got to this was I worked in restaurants and I wanted to get further in the wine industry. I already have a horticulture background but Napa always seemed so far away. Napa seems so far and it seems so white. And I was just like, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get there. So when this popped up, I was like, this is my Napa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>HARSHAW:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What story does this land tell? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RENFRO:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A beautiful glimpse into what I would say is like a nightmare in America. I think that we are battling telling the truth of how harmed African-American people have been from being robbed of their land, from being treated as second class citizens.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, why are young black men going to prison over and over again? Because they don’t have this connection that young white men just are born with this privilege of being like, Oh, we’ll just go camping, I’ll just go outside. I’ll just ride my bike, I’ll just go do these things. When we do it, it feels like we’re demonized.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The city needs to give back a lot to people that have been taken from, that have been redlined from, that have been, you know, treated horribly in school systems. Like, why are Black people leaving the city so fast? This place tells that same story. They don’t feel like they have the access or the safety. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>HARSHAW:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So symbolic of second class citizenship.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RENFRO:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I want this place to be a place where people of all different walks of life literally come together and respect each other and love each other and see each other as individuals and as a community. And I feel like that’s what we could do with farming.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/721590300/rightnowish\">NPR One\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/7kEJuafTzTVan7B78ttz1I\">Spotify\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rightnowish/id1482187648\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Rightnowish-p1258245/\">TuneIn\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/rightnowish\">Stitcher\u003c/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]=\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "From The Soil: Viticulture for the Culture | KQED",
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"headline": "From The Soil: Viticulture for the Culture",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On a steep hillside in San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Park, nestled between the Alemany Apartments, the 280 Freeway and the Bernal Heights Neighborhood, there’s a wine vineyard that doubles as a teaching tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A patch of land adjacent to \u003ca href=\"https://alemanyfarm.org/\">Alemany Farm\u003c/a> is being cultivated by Christopher Renfro and Jannea Tschirch, the co-founders of \u003ca href=\"https://www.280project.com/\">The 280 Project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their aim is to use public land to grow crops and introduce people to the world of agriculture, with a specific focus on getting young African-American residents of San Francisco interested in viticulture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a chilly day in the dead of winter, the Rightnowish team got a tour of the farm, the vineyard and the view from the hillside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week we bring you a story that exemplifies a unique way to use public land– as a classroom and potential career pathway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925352\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13925352 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Christopher Renfro standing on a hill overlooking San Francisco's Alemany Farm.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/DSC04990-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christopher Renfro stands on a hill overlooking San Francisco’s Alemany Farm. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5121346573&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://bit.ly/3IvEH4C\">Read the transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Below are lightly edited excerpts of my conversation with Christopher Renfro.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>PENDARVIS HARSHAW:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I read that each row [in the vineyard] has a specific name. What are the names of the rows and what are the significance of the names? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>CHRISTOPHER RENFRO\u003c/b>\u003c/span>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah. So first row is Carver, George Washington Carver. Then the second is the MLK row… Harriet Tubman, and then you have Huey P. So, Huey Newton of the Black Panthers. Each one of these people, I feel like, is a significant figure in Black history and should not be forgotten but each one of them had ties to the land. They all had ties to freedom, especially around the land. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>HARSHAW:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Inspired by these icons, Christopher’s goal with this small vineyard is to empower Black people by showing folks the benefits of being tapped into the land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s less about commercial wine production and more about serving as an educational hub for folks of color– specifically, the young Black children from the neighboring housing complex.These vines are a tool to assist people in reconnecting with the land and learning agricultural skills that can open up doors for employment and entrepreneurial opportunities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RENFRO:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there is a lot of opportunity and if we look at this industry as a whole, we don’t see a lot of Black folks in it. The way I got to this was I worked in restaurants and I wanted to get further in the wine industry. I already have a horticulture background but Napa always seemed so far away. Napa seems so far and it seems so white. And I was just like, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get there. So when this popped up, I was like, this is my Napa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>HARSHAW:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What story does this land tell? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RENFRO:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A beautiful glimpse into what I would say is like a nightmare in America. I think that we are battling telling the truth of how harmed African-American people have been from being robbed of their land, from being treated as second class citizens.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, why are young black men going to prison over and over again? Because they don’t have this connection that young white men just are born with this privilege of being like, Oh, we’ll just go camping, I’ll just go outside. I’ll just ride my bike, I’ll just go do these things. When we do it, it feels like we’re demonized.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The city needs to give back a lot to people that have been taken from, that have been redlined from, that have been, you know, treated horribly in school systems. Like, why are Black people leaving the city so fast? This place tells that same story. They don’t feel like they have the access or the safety. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>HARSHAW:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So symbolic of second class citizenship.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RENFRO:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I want this place to be a place where people of all different walks of life literally come together and respect each other and love each other and see each other as individuals and as a community. And I feel like that’s what we could do with farming.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/721590300/rightnowish\">NPR One\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/7kEJuafTzTVan7B78ttz1I\">Spotify\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rightnowish/id1482187648\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Rightnowish-p1258245/\">TuneIn\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/rightnowish\">Stitcher\u003c/a> or wherever you get your podcasts. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Thailand's Famous Gay Pink Milk Comes to Oakland",
"headTitle": "Thailand’s Famous Gay Pink Milk Comes to Oakland | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The menu at \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dekdoicafe/\">Dek Doi Cafe\u003c/a>, the new Thai boba shop on Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue, begins with the expected taro and matcha, Thai tea and mango — the usual flavors in the usual order. But the end of the menu has a surprise: drinks called nom sod and nom chompuu, nom Milo and nom mocha, all in Thai sans translation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pary Phusawadrattana, a co-owner of the cafe who is manning the cashiers during its soft opening, tells me that this is a deliberate bait and switch. “Customers come in for milk tea, but they get curious about what is ‘nom,’ and they order it. We want to introduce people to Thai drinks, so we keep it on the menu.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nom” means milk in Thai, and it’s served flavored and cooled by street vendors throughout Thailand. The most iconic flavor is the blindingly sweet nom chompuu, literally “pink milk,” which is colored by the addition of bright-red sala syrup, which is made with a kind of palm fruit. Other popular flavors include sod (plain), Milo (a malted chocolate drink similar to Ovaltine) and mocha (exactly what it sounds like).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I admit, I fell for Pary’s gambit and ordered the nom chompuu out of curiosity. I had vaguely heard of it before: I knew it as nom yen (“cold milk”), the name more often used in Bangkok, Thailand’s media capital. As a watcher of Thai BL (Boys’ Love) dramas — gay romantic television shows that have developed \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/6208817/thailand-bl-dramas-popularity/\">a huge following in Thailand\u003c/a> — I knew that \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIvDMvO9Qjs&t=48s\">pink milk had become a meme among the genre’s overseas fans\u003c/a>, who are fascinated by the colorful drink the handsome protagonists tote around the streets of Bangkok.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/perayuhhh/status/1272465135232114688\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pary served the drink to me in a tall boba glass. I was prepared for it to be sweet — anything that shade of neon pink would be — but it was so sugary that I felt a little lightheaded after a swig. Still, I loved it. The creaminess of the milk, the cold ice and the buzz of the sugar rush all sent me back to the strawberry milkshakes and lychee Calpicos of my childhood. Nom chompuu felt like one of the great South/Southeast Asian pink drinks I nostalgically love, up there with rooh afza, falooda and bandung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later on, I asked Wawa Maneewan — another co-owner of Dek Doi and the brains behind the menu — if the drink’s newfound subcultural popularity influenced her decision to serve it in her new cafe. Wawa said it had more to do with her background: “I’m from Chiang Mai,” she says, referring to the northern Thai city, “and I remember all the cafes that used to be there. That’s why I named the cafe Dek Doi, meaning ‘mountain child’ in Thai. I wanted to make a cafe just like the ones I grew up with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why she makes it a point to include classic street food like nom chompuu and sweet roti, to represent her roots. The roti, a type of flaky pancake, might be more familiar to Americans as a savory appetizer in Thai restaurants. Dek Doi, however, serves the roti in its street food form, as a dessert topped with either coconut and corn or nutella and banana. It is delicately flaky and tender, much less dense than the frozen roti that you can find in freezer aisles. “The roti is the same one I serve in all my restaurants, except sweet,” Wawa explains. “I wanted to find something fresh, nothing frozen. I eventually found a Thai woman in Daly City who makes roti by hand — I call her Grandma, but she’s not my real grandma — and she makes thousands of them every week for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925325\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925325\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up view of the cafe's sweet roti topped with coconut and corn.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1282\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Most Thai restaurants serve roti as a savory appetizer. At Dek Doi, it’s served as a sweet dessert. Here it’s topped with corn and coconut.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Maybe the most regional item on the menu is the “Chiang Mai Mocha,” a tribute to her city’s famous coffee industry. “I source the beans from my sister’s coffee fields in the Chiang Rai mountains,” Wawa says. “The beans are very aromatic, but the caffeine content is very small. That way you can have a lot more coffee without feeling bad!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, to make Dek Doi financially viable, Wawa and her partners added boba and milk tea to the menu. At Dek Doi, you can even add boba to traditional Thai pink milk if you really want to. To a Thai person, that might sound strange, but it’s part of an American trend born out of necessity. Here in the Bay Area, Asian food businesses often capitalize on the widespread recognition of boba to make more niche Asian desserts accessible. In that way, Dek Doi is just like Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kubobaspot.com/\">Kuboba\u003c/a>, which serves Filipino buko pandan mixed with tapioca pearls, or San Jose’s Soyful Desserts, which sells Japanese tofu pudding untraditionally topped with the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13904913,arts_13915004,arts_13908947']Wawa says she’d rather put top-selling items on her menu than compromise on the quality. “I do this at my other restaurants [\u003ca href=\"https://www.wawathaifood.com/\">Wawa Thai\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/pladaek_thai/?hl=en\">Pla Daek\u003c/a> in Oakland] too. My restaurants are \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayexpress.com/home-plate/\">known for quality\u003c/a>, so we use only fresh ingredients. We want everything to be just as they serve it in Thailand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wawa also wants to bring another aspect of a Thai cafe from Chiang Mai to Oakland: the street-side cafe’s role as a community hangout and social venue. Dek Doi is a joint venture between Wawa, Pary (who owns Grand Avenue Thai and Amarin Thai in Oakland), and Ook Papartassee (Neecha Thai), long-time friends who have decades of experience of running restaurants between them. There’s a communal spirit to the business — the day I stopped by, Pary had invited her husband to play the guitar for customers on a little stage at the back of the store, while she kept a watchful eye on her two daughters doing homework in the front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want this to be a community space,” says Wawa. “It doesn’t matter if you have money, I want people to come by and ask for help. Maybe local musicians can come to the back and play for tips. I don’t know, but I want this to be a place for everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Dek Doi Cafe is located at 4125 Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, in the Piedmont Alley complex. It will offer a limited soft opening menu until at least the end of February. \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Dek Doi Cafe wants to introduce Bay Area customers to the world of Thai drinks and sweets.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The menu at \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dekdoicafe/\">Dek Doi Cafe\u003c/a>, the new Thai boba shop on Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue, begins with the expected taro and matcha, Thai tea and mango — the usual flavors in the usual order. But the end of the menu has a surprise: drinks called nom sod and nom chompuu, nom Milo and nom mocha, all in Thai sans translation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pary Phusawadrattana, a co-owner of the cafe who is manning the cashiers during its soft opening, tells me that this is a deliberate bait and switch. “Customers come in for milk tea, but they get curious about what is ‘nom,’ and they order it. We want to introduce people to Thai drinks, so we keep it on the menu.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nom” means milk in Thai, and it’s served flavored and cooled by street vendors throughout Thailand. The most iconic flavor is the blindingly sweet nom chompuu, literally “pink milk,” which is colored by the addition of bright-red sala syrup, which is made with a kind of palm fruit. Other popular flavors include sod (plain), Milo (a malted chocolate drink similar to Ovaltine) and mocha (exactly what it sounds like).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I admit, I fell for Pary’s gambit and ordered the nom chompuu out of curiosity. I had vaguely heard of it before: I knew it as nom yen (“cold milk”), the name more often used in Bangkok, Thailand’s media capital. As a watcher of Thai BL (Boys’ Love) dramas — gay romantic television shows that have developed \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/6208817/thailand-bl-dramas-popularity/\">a huge following in Thailand\u003c/a> — I knew that \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIvDMvO9Qjs&t=48s\">pink milk had become a meme among the genre’s overseas fans\u003c/a>, who are fascinated by the colorful drink the handsome protagonists tote around the streets of Bangkok.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pary served the drink to me in a tall boba glass. I was prepared for it to be sweet — anything that shade of neon pink would be — but it was so sugary that I felt a little lightheaded after a swig. Still, I loved it. The creaminess of the milk, the cold ice and the buzz of the sugar rush all sent me back to the strawberry milkshakes and lychee Calpicos of my childhood. Nom chompuu felt like one of the great South/Southeast Asian pink drinks I nostalgically love, up there with rooh afza, falooda and bandung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later on, I asked Wawa Maneewan — another co-owner of Dek Doi and the brains behind the menu — if the drink’s newfound subcultural popularity influenced her decision to serve it in her new cafe. Wawa said it had more to do with her background: “I’m from Chiang Mai,” she says, referring to the northern Thai city, “and I remember all the cafes that used to be there. That’s why I named the cafe Dek Doi, meaning ‘mountain child’ in Thai. I wanted to make a cafe just like the ones I grew up with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why she makes it a point to include classic street food like nom chompuu and sweet roti, to represent her roots. The roti, a type of flaky pancake, might be more familiar to Americans as a savory appetizer in Thai restaurants. Dek Doi, however, serves the roti in its street food form, as a dessert topped with either coconut and corn or nutella and banana. It is delicately flaky and tender, much less dense than the frozen roti that you can find in freezer aisles. “The roti is the same one I serve in all my restaurants, except sweet,” Wawa explains. “I wanted to find something fresh, nothing frozen. I eventually found a Thai woman in Daly City who makes roti by hand — I call her Grandma, but she’s not my real grandma — and she makes thousands of them every week for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925325\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925325\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up view of the cafe's sweet roti topped with coconut and corn.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1282\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/Natera_DekDoiCafe_04-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Most Thai restaurants serve roti as a savory appetizer. At Dek Doi, it’s served as a sweet dessert. Here it’s topped with corn and coconut.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Maybe the most regional item on the menu is the “Chiang Mai Mocha,” a tribute to her city’s famous coffee industry. “I source the beans from my sister’s coffee fields in the Chiang Rai mountains,” Wawa says. “The beans are very aromatic, but the caffeine content is very small. That way you can have a lot more coffee without feeling bad!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, to make Dek Doi financially viable, Wawa and her partners added boba and milk tea to the menu. At Dek Doi, you can even add boba to traditional Thai pink milk if you really want to. To a Thai person, that might sound strange, but it’s part of an American trend born out of necessity. Here in the Bay Area, Asian food businesses often capitalize on the widespread recognition of boba to make more niche Asian desserts accessible. In that way, Dek Doi is just like Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kubobaspot.com/\">Kuboba\u003c/a>, which serves Filipino buko pandan mixed with tapioca pearls, or San Jose’s Soyful Desserts, which sells Japanese tofu pudding untraditionally topped with the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Wawa says she’d rather put top-selling items on her menu than compromise on the quality. “I do this at my other restaurants [\u003ca href=\"https://www.wawathaifood.com/\">Wawa Thai\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/pladaek_thai/?hl=en\">Pla Daek\u003c/a> in Oakland] too. My restaurants are \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayexpress.com/home-plate/\">known for quality\u003c/a>, so we use only fresh ingredients. We want everything to be just as they serve it in Thailand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wawa also wants to bring another aspect of a Thai cafe from Chiang Mai to Oakland: the street-side cafe’s role as a community hangout and social venue. Dek Doi is a joint venture between Wawa, Pary (who owns Grand Avenue Thai and Amarin Thai in Oakland), and Ook Papartassee (Neecha Thai), long-time friends who have decades of experience of running restaurants between them. There’s a communal spirit to the business — the day I stopped by, Pary had invited her husband to play the guitar for customers on a little stage at the back of the store, while she kept a watchful eye on her two daughters doing homework in the front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want this to be a community space,” says Wawa. “It doesn’t matter if you have money, I want people to come by and ask for help. Maybe local musicians can come to the back and play for tips. I don’t know, but I want this to be a place for everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Dek Doi Cafe is located at 4125 Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, in the Piedmont Alley complex. It will offer a limited soft opening menu until at least the end of February. \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "pre-hispanic-mexican-cuisine-indigenous-mayan-food-truck-taco-truck-san-jose",
"title": "A New Food Truck Brings Indigenous Mexican Flavors to San Jose",
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"headTitle": "A New Food Truck Brings Indigenous Mexican Flavors to San Jose | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/prehispanicmxcuisine/\">Pre-Hispanic Mexican Cuisine\u003c/a> food truck, a taco might come seasoned with a Mayan spice paste, stuffed with huitlacoche or drizzled with fiery xni-pec salsa — all ingredients that predate Spain’s colonization of Mexico by hundreds of years. That makes it one of just a handful of food businesses in San Jose that specialize in Indigenous Mexican cooking.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chef Jesus Varguez started the truck in 2021 because he wanted to introduce these Indigenous flavors to the South Bay. He’d had years of experience cooking at upscale restaurants such as Alexander’s Steakhouse, Orchard City Kitchen and Zona Rosa, but he decided to pursue a path that he found more personally meaningful: sharing the cuisine of his Mayan roots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pre-Hispanic, for me,” Varguez says, “is a way to bring back what our ancient food tastes like. I always had this interest to open my own restaurant to my tradition in the Yucatán peninsula. What I see from my grandma and [other] Natives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925242\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925242\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena.jpg\" alt=\"A taquero in a baseball cap cooks meat on the grill inside his taco truck.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jesus Varguez started the food truck as a way to connect to his family’s Mayan roots. \u003ccite>(Octavio Peña)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Varguez considers his menu the rebirth of the food of his ancestors. The dishes come in a familiar format — tacos, burritos and quesadillas. But almost every item features pre-colonial ingredients and techniques that set them apart from your typical taco truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, the truck offers quesadillas stuffed with huitlacoche, which the Aztecs first enjoyed 700 years ago when they learned that the fungus stunting the growth of their diseased corn had a nutty, mushroomy taste. The quesadillas come with a bright-orange salsa from the Yucatán called xni-pec, which dates back to the Mayan civilization and is made by pickling slices of habanero and onions in citrus juice, providing acidity to balance the fat from the cheese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make his al pastor Yucateco, Varguez marinates pork in recado negro — a traditional Mayan marinade made by charring chilies and other ingredients — and tops it with fresh pineapple, epazote oil, lime and onion. And while most taco trucks only serve pork, chicken and beef, Varguez also offers an octopus and chorizo taco with a layer of crispy cheese, a drizzle of chili oil and a spritz of lime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the most basic building block of Mexican cuisine, the corn tortilla, has pre-Hispanic roots — especially when they’re made from scratch using a 3,500-year-old technique known as nixtamalization, a process the Mayans used to soften corn kernels and break down the niacin to make it more nutritious. Varguez makes his multi-colored tortillas in this traditional way: He soaks purple and yellow heirloom corn from Oaxaca in a bath of calcium hydroxide, then grinds it to form a pliable masa dough. His freshly pressed tortillas are pillowy and have a more prominent corn flavor than their factory-made counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925243\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1707px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925243\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Overhead view of a plate of four tacos, with a side of bright orange salsa.\" width=\"1707\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-scaled.jpg 1707w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-1365x2048.jpg 1365w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1707px) 100vw, 1707px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Another view of the food trucks Indigenous-influenced tacos, served with a side of Mayan xni-pec salsa. \u003ccite>(Octavio Peña)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pre-hispanic Mexican Cuisine is part of a larger movement of talented chefs who are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13900187/molcaxitl-kitchen-taco-stand-outer-sunset-indigenous-mexican-food\">recreating the food of Mexico’s pre-colonial past\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/people/Xokol/100063747542621/\">Xokol\u003c/a> in Jalisco, for instance, honors the importance of maize to Indigenous Mexican communities by serving dishes that incorporate corn in different forms. It specializes in making a kind of concentric, tri-colored tortilla that Indigenous people in Mexico would hide in a stack of standard tortillas \u003ca href=\"https://www.bonappetit.com/story/patterned-tortillas-instagram-indigenous-mexican-ceremony\">as a symbol of resistance to the Spanish conquest\u003c/a>. Here in the Bay Area, San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nopalitosf.com/\">Nopalito\u003c/a> combines its handmade masa with Native ingredients to create tamales stuffed with heirloom ayocote beans and panuchos topped with chicken tinted red with achiote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13900187,arts_13912976,arts_13903531']Through these restaurants’ combined efforts, more people are tasting a new side of Mexican cuisine — and people with Indigenous heritage are reconnecting with their roots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Varguez says he’s proud to represent the flavors of his community here in California. While some customers are surprised by the unfamiliar dishes and modify their order to resemble something more traditional, the chef says most people are enthusiastic to try something new. By dedicating his skills to preserve these flavors, he’s giving a new generation of diners the opportunity to taste a cuisine from long ago and far away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s something that’s happening right now,” Varguez says. “It’s a new way to see Indigenous food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Pre-Hispanic Mexican Cuisine’s location changes daily. For the food truck’s weekly schedule, check its \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/prehispanicmxcuisine/\">\u003ci>Instagram account.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Pre-Hispanic Mexican Cuisine is a celebration of its chef's Mayan heritage.",
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"title": "A New Food Truck Brings Indigenous Mexican Flavors to San Jose | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/prehispanicmxcuisine/\">Pre-Hispanic Mexican Cuisine\u003c/a> food truck, a taco might come seasoned with a Mayan spice paste, stuffed with huitlacoche or drizzled with fiery xni-pec salsa — all ingredients that predate Spain’s colonization of Mexico by hundreds of years. That makes it one of just a handful of food businesses in San Jose that specialize in Indigenous Mexican cooking.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chef Jesus Varguez started the truck in 2021 because he wanted to introduce these Indigenous flavors to the South Bay. He’d had years of experience cooking at upscale restaurants such as Alexander’s Steakhouse, Orchard City Kitchen and Zona Rosa, but he decided to pursue a path that he found more personally meaningful: sharing the cuisine of his Mayan roots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pre-Hispanic, for me,” Varguez says, “is a way to bring back what our ancient food tastes like. I always had this interest to open my own restaurant to my tradition in the Yucatán peninsula. What I see from my grandma and [other] Natives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925242\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925242\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena.jpg\" alt=\"A taquero in a baseball cap cooks meat on the grill inside his taco truck.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-jose-varguez_octavio-pena-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jesus Varguez started the food truck as a way to connect to his family’s Mayan roots. \u003ccite>(Octavio Peña)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Varguez considers his menu the rebirth of the food of his ancestors. The dishes come in a familiar format — tacos, burritos and quesadillas. But almost every item features pre-colonial ingredients and techniques that set them apart from your typical taco truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance, the truck offers quesadillas stuffed with huitlacoche, which the Aztecs first enjoyed 700 years ago when they learned that the fungus stunting the growth of their diseased corn had a nutty, mushroomy taste. The quesadillas come with a bright-orange salsa from the Yucatán called xni-pec, which dates back to the Mayan civilization and is made by pickling slices of habanero and onions in citrus juice, providing acidity to balance the fat from the cheese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make his al pastor Yucateco, Varguez marinates pork in recado negro — a traditional Mayan marinade made by charring chilies and other ingredients — and tops it with fresh pineapple, epazote oil, lime and onion. And while most taco trucks only serve pork, chicken and beef, Varguez also offers an octopus and chorizo taco with a layer of crispy cheese, a drizzle of chili oil and a spritz of lime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the most basic building block of Mexican cuisine, the corn tortilla, has pre-Hispanic roots — especially when they’re made from scratch using a 3,500-year-old technique known as nixtamalization, a process the Mayans used to soften corn kernels and break down the niacin to make it more nutritious. Varguez makes his multi-colored tortillas in this traditional way: He soaks purple and yellow heirloom corn from Oaxaca in a bath of calcium hydroxide, then grinds it to form a pliable masa dough. His freshly pressed tortillas are pillowy and have a more prominent corn flavor than their factory-made counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925243\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1707px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925243\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Overhead view of a plate of four tacos, with a side of bright orange salsa.\" width=\"1707\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-scaled.jpg 1707w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/pre-hispanic-tacos_octavio-pena-1365x2048.jpg 1365w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1707px) 100vw, 1707px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Another view of the food trucks Indigenous-influenced tacos, served with a side of Mayan xni-pec salsa. \u003ccite>(Octavio Peña)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pre-hispanic Mexican Cuisine is part of a larger movement of talented chefs who are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13900187/molcaxitl-kitchen-taco-stand-outer-sunset-indigenous-mexican-food\">recreating the food of Mexico’s pre-colonial past\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/people/Xokol/100063747542621/\">Xokol\u003c/a> in Jalisco, for instance, honors the importance of maize to Indigenous Mexican communities by serving dishes that incorporate corn in different forms. It specializes in making a kind of concentric, tri-colored tortilla that Indigenous people in Mexico would hide in a stack of standard tortillas \u003ca href=\"https://www.bonappetit.com/story/patterned-tortillas-instagram-indigenous-mexican-ceremony\">as a symbol of resistance to the Spanish conquest\u003c/a>. Here in the Bay Area, San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nopalitosf.com/\">Nopalito\u003c/a> combines its handmade masa with Native ingredients to create tamales stuffed with heirloom ayocote beans and panuchos topped with chicken tinted red with achiote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Through these restaurants’ combined efforts, more people are tasting a new side of Mexican cuisine — and people with Indigenous heritage are reconnecting with their roots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Varguez says he’s proud to represent the flavors of his community here in California. While some customers are surprised by the unfamiliar dishes and modify their order to resemble something more traditional, the chef says most people are enthusiastic to try something new. By dedicating his skills to preserve these flavors, he’s giving a new generation of diners the opportunity to taste a cuisine from long ago and far away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s something that’s happening right now,” Varguez says. “It’s a new way to see Indigenous food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Pre-Hispanic Mexican Cuisine’s location changes daily. For the food truck’s weekly schedule, check its \u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/prehispanicmxcuisine/\">\u003ci>Instagram account.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How The Woks of Life Helped a New Generation of Chinese Americans Learn to Cook",
"headTitle": "How The Woks of Life Helped a New Generation of Chinese Americans Learn to Cook | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or the first 18 years of my life, my mom cooked Chinese food every day — a couple of homey stir-fries, a whole steamed fish, a pot of white rice, all served family-style. She rarely even glanced at a recipe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when it came time for me to teach myself how to cook, I didn’t ask my mom for help. Instead, like so many young people who came of age in the ‘90s and early 2000s, I turned to the Food Network and the online recipes of the early internet. I bought three Jamie Oliver cookbooks. And by the time I started my own family, I was making coq au vin for fun on the weekends and could cook a mean risotto. What I didn’t really know how to cook at all, however, was Chinese food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the problem was that I only knew how to cook by following recipes. And up until maybe five or 10 years ago, the number of English-language recipes for Chinese dishes you could find in a cookbook or on the internet still felt extremely limited — at least when it came to homey, everyday recipes written with a younger Chinese American audience in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was the experience, too, for sisters Sarah and Kaitlin Leung, co-authors — along with their parents, Bill and Judy — of \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/the-woks-of-life-cookbook-now-available/\">\u003ci>The Woks of Life\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, a new Chinese American cookbook published this past November, based on the Leungs’ popular blog of the same name. Their book tour will arrive in the Bay Area on Saturday, Feb. 11, with the two sisters appearing at events at Omnivore Books in San Francisco and the main branch of the Berkeley Public Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925003\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925003\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of The Woks of Life cookbook shows a bowl of spicy wontons against a red backdrop.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2392\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-800x997.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-1020x1271.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-160x199.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-768x957.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-1233x1536.jpg 1233w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-1644x2048.jpg 1644w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cookbook version of the blog was published by Clarkson Potter this past November. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Clarkson Potter/Penguin Random House)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We learned to cook from Rachael Ray and Ina Garten and Giada DeLaurentiis,” Sarah recalls. “But we learned to \u003ci>eat \u003c/i>from our parents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many other ABCs (American-born Chinese) and younger first- and second-generation Chinese immigrants, the Leung sisters reached a point in their adult lives when they started to crave the food they’d grown up on, but found it really difficult to learn how to prepare it. There was such a “representation gap,” as Sarah puts it, in terms of what kinds of cuisines were prominently featured in those early days of TV celebrity chefs and the emerging food blogosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size=\"large\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sarah Leung\"]“We learned to cook from Rachael Ray and Ina Garten and Giada DeLaurentiis. But we learned to \u003ci>eat \u003c/i>from our parents.”[/pullquote]\u003c/span>As it turns out, though, the Leung sisters were uniquely positioned to do something about it: Bill, their father, had spent years cranking out beef and broccoli at his family’s Chinese American takeout restaurant in the Catskills in New York. Judy, their mom, was born and raised in Shanghai and had deep knowledge about traditional Shanghainese cooking. Meanwhile, the two sisters had grown up in the New Jersey suburbs, eating their parents’ food, but also immersed in America’s own food-obsessed culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, in 2013, the Leungs did what so many young people did at that time: They started a food blog. What differentiated \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/\">The Woks of Life\u003c/a> from other blogs was that the intergenerational transfer of knowledge that the Leungs were so eager for was baked right into the concept: The four family members took turns posting recipes, each sharing their own favorites, tapping into their own areas of expertise. In that way, Sarah says, the blog reflected — and continues to reflect — the diversity of the Chinese diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925005\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925005\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2.jpg\" alt=\"A family photo of a Chinese American family taken during the 1990s. A father, mother and two daughters sit at the dinner table.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Leungs at dinner time in a family photo taken during the 1990s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of The Woks of Life)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Woks of Life was one of the forerunners of a new generation of food blogs that started around that time — along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.maangchi.com/\">Maangchi\u003c/a> (for Korean food) and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13920714/just-one-cookbook-japanese-recipe-food-blog-namiko-chen\">Just One Cookbook\u003c/a> (Japanese) — all geared, to a large extent, toward Asian Americans looking to reconnect with the food of their heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was in that exact target demographic: I wanted to learn how to cook Chinese food like my mom, but she was never in the habit of writing down recipes or giving precise measurements. Then, four or five years ago, I started coming across Woks of Life recipes on the regular. Their recipe for \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/steamed-pork-patty-preserved-vegetables/\">steamed pork patty\u003c/a> was the closest thing I found on the English-language internet to a dish my grandma always made for me when I was a kid. Their \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/taiwanese-beef-noodle-soup-instant-pot/\">Instant Pot Taiwanese beef noodle soup\u003c/a> recipe was such a resounding hit with my entire family, I basically gave up on trying to find an adequate restaurant version here in the Bay. (To show off the richness of regional Chinese cuisine, the blog has expanded far beyond just Shanghainese and Americanized Chinese dishes — and it now features dishes from Taiwan, Malaysia and Macau as well.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stories like mine are why the Leungs have kept the blog going for all these years. “We’re getting this incredible feedback,” Sarah says. “For us collectively, especially my mom, she feels like we’re doing this as a public service so that these recipes don’t get lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925006\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925006\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of boiled dumplings drizzled with red chili oil.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2421\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-800x1009.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-1020x1286.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-160x202.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-768x968.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-1218x1536.jpg 1218w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-1624x2048.jpg 1624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dumplings drizzled with the now-famous Woks of Life chili oil. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of The Woks of Life)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kaitlin stresses that The Woks of Life follows a long line of trailblazers — folks like Joyce Chen, Martin Yan and Ming Tsai, who first started to bring Chinese home cooking into the mainstream in the U.S. “We feel proud that we have made a meaningful mark over the past decade, shedding a light that there’s a huge demand for these recipes,” she says. “It’s about representation, yes, but there’s also a huge demand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13920714,arts_13910817,arts_13904835']Five years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to find a ton of Chinese recipes in the \u003ci>New York Times \u003c/i>food section, Kaitlin notes. Now you can. She says the clearest example of that shift is the popularity of the Woks of Life recipe for Chinese-style \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-make-chili-oil/\">chili oil\u003c/a>. In 2015, when Kaitlin first posted that recipe, if you Googled “chili oil,” the top search result was a Giada De Laurentiis recipe for Calabrian chili oil. Now, the Woks of Life recipe is the top result. And more than that, she says, the American public’s idea of chili oil has changed to the point that now, for a lot of Americans — maybe even \u003ci>most \u003c/i>Americans — the first thing they think of is something you might use as a dipping sauce for dumplings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These dishes are becoming more part of the American consciousness,” Sarah says. “I think that’s a great thing. There’s a little bit more diversity out there on the internet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Kaitlin and Sarah Leung will give a presentation on the Woks of Life cookbook — and the blog’s role in cultivating Chinese cooking in America — at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/events/author-talk-woks-life-centralmr\">main branch of the Berkeley Public Library\u003c/a> (2090 Kittredge St.) on Saturday, Feb. 11, from 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. On the same day, they’ll do a book talk and Q&A session at San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://omnivorebooks.myshopify.com/collections/events/products/author-event-sat-feb-11-bill-leung-kaitlin-leung-judy-leung-sarah-leung-the-woks-of-life-recipes-to-know-and-love-from-a-chinese-american-family-3-00-p-m-free-to-attend-the-price-listed-is-for-the-book\">Omnivore Books on Food\u003c/a> (3885 Cesar Chavez St.) starting at 3 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public and will include book signings afterwards.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">F\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>or the first 18 years of my life, my mom cooked Chinese food every day — a couple of homey stir-fries, a whole steamed fish, a pot of white rice, all served family-style. She rarely even glanced at a recipe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when it came time for me to teach myself how to cook, I didn’t ask my mom for help. Instead, like so many young people who came of age in the ‘90s and early 2000s, I turned to the Food Network and the online recipes of the early internet. I bought three Jamie Oliver cookbooks. And by the time I started my own family, I was making coq au vin for fun on the weekends and could cook a mean risotto. What I didn’t really know how to cook at all, however, was Chinese food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the problem was that I only knew how to cook by following recipes. And up until maybe five or 10 years ago, the number of English-language recipes for Chinese dishes you could find in a cookbook or on the internet still felt extremely limited — at least when it came to homey, everyday recipes written with a younger Chinese American audience in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was the experience, too, for sisters Sarah and Kaitlin Leung, co-authors — along with their parents, Bill and Judy — of \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/the-woks-of-life-cookbook-now-available/\">\u003ci>The Woks of Life\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, a new Chinese American cookbook published this past November, based on the Leungs’ popular blog of the same name. Their book tour will arrive in the Bay Area on Saturday, Feb. 11, with the two sisters appearing at events at Omnivore Books in San Francisco and the main branch of the Berkeley Public Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925003\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925003\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life.jpg\" alt=\"Cover of The Woks of Life cookbook shows a bowl of spicy wontons against a red backdrop.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2392\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-800x997.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-1020x1271.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-160x199.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-768x957.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-1233x1536.jpg 1233w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/COVER_Woks-of-Life-1644x2048.jpg 1644w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cookbook version of the blog was published by Clarkson Potter this past November. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Clarkson Potter/Penguin Random House)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We learned to cook from Rachael Ray and Ina Garten and Giada DeLaurentiis,” Sarah recalls. “But we learned to \u003ci>eat \u003c/i>from our parents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many other ABCs (American-born Chinese) and younger first- and second-generation Chinese immigrants, the Leung sisters reached a point in their adult lives when they started to crave the food they’d grown up on, but found it really difficult to learn how to prepare it. There was such a “representation gap,” as Sarah puts it, in terms of what kinds of cuisines were prominently featured in those early days of TV celebrity chefs and the emerging food blogosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "“We learned to cook from Rachael Ray and Ina Garten and Giada DeLaurentiis. But we learned to \u003ci>eat \u003c/i>from our parents.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>As it turns out, though, the Leung sisters were uniquely positioned to do something about it: Bill, their father, had spent years cranking out beef and broccoli at his family’s Chinese American takeout restaurant in the Catskills in New York. Judy, their mom, was born and raised in Shanghai and had deep knowledge about traditional Shanghainese cooking. Meanwhile, the two sisters had grown up in the New Jersey suburbs, eating their parents’ food, but also immersed in America’s own food-obsessed culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, in 2013, the Leungs did what so many young people did at that time: They started a food blog. What differentiated \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/\">The Woks of Life\u003c/a> from other blogs was that the intergenerational transfer of knowledge that the Leungs were so eager for was baked right into the concept: The four family members took turns posting recipes, each sharing their own favorites, tapping into their own areas of expertise. In that way, Sarah says, the blog reflected — and continues to reflect — the diversity of the Chinese diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925005\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925005\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2.jpg\" alt=\"A family photo of a Chinese American family taken during the 1990s. A father, mother and two daughters sit at the dinner table.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-90sFamilyPhoto2-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Leungs at dinner time in a family photo taken during the 1990s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of The Woks of Life)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Woks of Life was one of the forerunners of a new generation of food blogs that started around that time — along with \u003ca href=\"https://www.maangchi.com/\">Maangchi\u003c/a> (for Korean food) and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13920714/just-one-cookbook-japanese-recipe-food-blog-namiko-chen\">Just One Cookbook\u003c/a> (Japanese) — all geared, to a large extent, toward Asian Americans looking to reconnect with the food of their heritage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was in that exact target demographic: I wanted to learn how to cook Chinese food like my mom, but she was never in the habit of writing down recipes or giving precise measurements. Then, four or five years ago, I started coming across Woks of Life recipes on the regular. Their recipe for \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/steamed-pork-patty-preserved-vegetables/\">steamed pork patty\u003c/a> was the closest thing I found on the English-language internet to a dish my grandma always made for me when I was a kid. Their \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/taiwanese-beef-noodle-soup-instant-pot/\">Instant Pot Taiwanese beef noodle soup\u003c/a> recipe was such a resounding hit with my entire family, I basically gave up on trying to find an adequate restaurant version here in the Bay. (To show off the richness of regional Chinese cuisine, the blog has expanded far beyond just Shanghainese and Americanized Chinese dishes — and it now features dishes from Taiwan, Malaysia and Macau as well.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stories like mine are why the Leungs have kept the blog going for all these years. “We’re getting this incredible feedback,” Sarah says. “For us collectively, especially my mom, she feels like we’re doing this as a public service so that these recipes don’t get lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13925006\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13925006\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of boiled dumplings drizzled with red chili oil.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2421\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-800x1009.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-1020x1286.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-160x202.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-768x968.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-1218x1536.jpg 1218w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/TWOL-Dumplings-1624x2048.jpg 1624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dumplings drizzled with the now-famous Woks of Life chili oil. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of The Woks of Life)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kaitlin stresses that The Woks of Life follows a long line of trailblazers — folks like Joyce Chen, Martin Yan and Ming Tsai, who first started to bring Chinese home cooking into the mainstream in the U.S. “We feel proud that we have made a meaningful mark over the past decade, shedding a light that there’s a huge demand for these recipes,” she says. “It’s about representation, yes, but there’s also a huge demand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Five years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to find a ton of Chinese recipes in the \u003ci>New York Times \u003c/i>food section, Kaitlin notes. Now you can. She says the clearest example of that shift is the popularity of the Woks of Life recipe for Chinese-style \u003ca href=\"https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-make-chili-oil/\">chili oil\u003c/a>. In 2015, when Kaitlin first posted that recipe, if you Googled “chili oil,” the top search result was a Giada De Laurentiis recipe for Calabrian chili oil. Now, the Woks of Life recipe is the top result. And more than that, she says, the American public’s idea of chili oil has changed to the point that now, for a lot of Americans — maybe even \u003ci>most \u003c/i>Americans — the first thing they think of is something you might use as a dipping sauce for dumplings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These dishes are becoming more part of the American consciousness,” Sarah says. “I think that’s a great thing. There’s a little bit more diversity out there on the internet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Kaitlin and Sarah Leung will give a presentation on the Woks of Life cookbook — and the blog’s role in cultivating Chinese cooking in America — at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/events/author-talk-woks-life-centralmr\">main branch of the Berkeley Public Library\u003c/a> (2090 Kittredge St.) on Saturday, Feb. 11, from 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. On the same day, they’ll do a book talk and Q&A session at San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://omnivorebooks.myshopify.com/collections/events/products/author-event-sat-feb-11-bill-leung-kaitlin-leung-judy-leung-sarah-leung-the-woks-of-life-recipes-to-know-and-love-from-a-chinese-american-family-3-00-p-m-free-to-attend-the-price-listed-is-for-the-book\">Omnivore Books on Food\u003c/a> (3885 Cesar Chavez St.) starting at 3 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public and will include book signings afterwards.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How Dungeness Crab Brings Bay Area Communities Together",
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"content": "\u003cp>After several delays, Dungeness crab season is finally upon us. That’s a big deal in the Bay Area: Whether the crabs are caught on a boat or off a pier, served in cioppino or over garlic noodles, a shared love for the ingredient has long brought together folks from all different cultural backgrounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It always is just a ritual of togetherness, of hoping that you get more than what you got,” journalist, emcee, author and activist Rocky Rivera said of her own crab fishing experiences in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101892038/its-dungeness-crab-season-and-time-to-rhapsodize-about-our-iconic-crustacean\">recent episode of All You Can Eat\u003c/a>, KQED Forum’s biweekly exploration of Bay Area food cultures. “[You’re] having a good time and spending that time together with your family, with your friends, and of course, feasting afterward. That’s a memory that everybody associated with the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivera wrote about how integral Dungeness crab was to her San Francisco childhood in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13923127/dungeness-crab-fishing-filipino-american-treasure-island-san-francisco\">recent essay\u003c/a> for KQED, describing late nights spent fishing and cooking with friends and family in the Filipino American community. The biggest response to the article, she said, is that people from all over shared their own personal stories about Dungeness crab — the kinds of stories that formed the basis of the Forum episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13923170\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13923170\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Rocky Rivera watches from a camping chair while her cousin-in-law prepares a crab net.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rocky Rivera watches while her cousin-in-law, Alyssa Tiglao (foreground), prepares a crab net during a fishing trip on Pacifica Municipal Pier. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One caller, Maury from Berkeley, said that the show gave her a sense of nostalgia for her 90s childhood, when she would travel to San Francisco from Modesto to catch crabs. “I remember — whether it be with a bunch of homies or family — we would make an adventure out to Frisco, off of the Fort Mason Pier, and just throw a few nets and play dominoes or play cards and just picnic as we waited to catch crabs,” she said. “It is such a vibe to be able to go out there, put on our favorite Bay rap music as we were journeying out there from Modesto, and then coming back, excited about eating the crabs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other callers described Cambodian-style stir fry dishes, steamed crab paired with latkes and even a seasonal crab burrito. Indeed, it seems like everyone in the Bay Area has a Dungeness crab story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the reason why Dungeness crab lends itself to so many different regional cuisines is because of the characteristics of the ingredient itself. “It’s a very luxurious crab,” said KQED food editor Luke Tsai, pointing out that it’s both sweeter and meatier than most other crabs. Charlie Chang, owner of \u003ca href=\"http://www.ppqcrab.com/\">PPQ Dungeness Island\u003c/a>, agreed: “The sweetness of the crab — I mean, you just can’t beat that.” Chang had come on the show to talk about his own restaurant’s contribution to the Bay Area Dungeness crab scene: Vietnamese-style butter-roasted crabs and peppercorn crabs, served with garlic noodles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13923127,arts_13900855,arts_13909648']Edward Wooley of \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/chefsmelly/?hl=en\">Chef Smelly’s\u003c/a> in Oakland, on the other hand, said he ate so much crab as a child that he no longer enjoys the taste. ““My mother went to an all-you-can-eat crab fest,” the chef recalled. “I just ate so much crab when I got home that I was done with crab.” That hasn’t prevented Wooley’s Oakland restaurant from becoming one of the most well known crab restaurants in the East Bay. The most popular dishes? Wooley’s garlic-butter crab with Creole lemon pepper sauce and his crab gumbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite Dungeness crab’s iconic status in the Bay Area food scene, the West Coast crab industry has faced its share of challenges in recent years. Climate change, dangerous weather conditions and competition from big business all impact the haul brought in by local fishermen. “We’ve seen the season just get postponed later and later each year,” Tsai added, noting that the commercial crab season didn’t start until Dec. 31 this past year — more than six weeks later than usual. He explained that these delays are usually caused by toxic domoic acid levels driven by climate change and warmer water, as well as difficult negotiations between fishermen and penny-pinching seafood distributors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One local fisherman, Matt Juanes, called in to explain that the delays have been especially hard on his business. Here in the Bay Area, he said, it’s traditional to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with Dungeness crab. But for the past few years the crab season has only just barely arrived in time for New Year’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13924815\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13924815\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman.jpg\" alt=\"A crab fisherman in a trucker hat smiles as he holds up a live Dungeness crab from the deck of his fishing boat.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For crab fisherman Matt Juanes, the Dungeness crab season delays of the past few years have been hard on his business. \u003ccite>(Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Oh, it’s definitely very difficult for all of us,” Juanes said. “But we’re just trying to work together with nature and do the best we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Rivera, this year’s delay was especially frustrating. “Having a birthday in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there usually was a guarantee that I would have crab there as my birthday cake,” she said. This was one of the first years that didn’t happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivera’s KQED essay series, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/frisco-foodies\">Frisco Foodies\u003c/a>, uses nostalgic food memories as a way to explore all of the ways the Bay Area is changing — all of the traditions that are in danger of being lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like many San Francisco families, especially immigrant families, we’ve incorporated traditions like cioppino and Dungeness and all types of seafood dishes into our celebrations,” Rivera said. “And to not have that for Christmas is really just an indicator of things changing deeply across the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13900955\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13900955\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Overhead view of a plate of garlic noodles and roast crab.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of Chef Smelly’s legendary seafood plates, piled high with garlic noodles, shrimp and, of course, Dungeness crab. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A recent Forum episode celebrated the iconic West Coast crustacean — and explored local crab traditions that are being lost.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After several delays, Dungeness crab season is finally upon us. That’s a big deal in the Bay Area: Whether the crabs are caught on a boat or off a pier, served in cioppino or over garlic noodles, a shared love for the ingredient has long brought together folks from all different cultural backgrounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It always is just a ritual of togetherness, of hoping that you get more than what you got,” journalist, emcee, author and activist Rocky Rivera said of her own crab fishing experiences in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101892038/its-dungeness-crab-season-and-time-to-rhapsodize-about-our-iconic-crustacean\">recent episode of All You Can Eat\u003c/a>, KQED Forum’s biweekly exploration of Bay Area food cultures. “[You’re] having a good time and spending that time together with your family, with your friends, and of course, feasting afterward. That’s a memory that everybody associated with the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivera wrote about how integral Dungeness crab was to her San Francisco childhood in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13923127/dungeness-crab-fishing-filipino-american-treasure-island-san-francisco\">recent essay\u003c/a> for KQED, describing late nights spent fishing and cooking with friends and family in the Filipino American community. The biggest response to the article, she said, is that people from all over shared their own personal stories about Dungeness crab — the kinds of stories that formed the basis of the Forum episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13923170\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13923170\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Rocky Rivera watches from a camping chair while her cousin-in-law prepares a crab net.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/RS61775_009_KQEDArts_RockyRiveraCrabbing_12192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rocky Rivera watches while her cousin-in-law, Alyssa Tiglao (foreground), prepares a crab net during a fishing trip on Pacifica Municipal Pier. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One caller, Maury from Berkeley, said that the show gave her a sense of nostalgia for her 90s childhood, when she would travel to San Francisco from Modesto to catch crabs. “I remember — whether it be with a bunch of homies or family — we would make an adventure out to Frisco, off of the Fort Mason Pier, and just throw a few nets and play dominoes or play cards and just picnic as we waited to catch crabs,” she said. “It is such a vibe to be able to go out there, put on our favorite Bay rap music as we were journeying out there from Modesto, and then coming back, excited about eating the crabs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other callers described Cambodian-style stir fry dishes, steamed crab paired with latkes and even a seasonal crab burrito. Indeed, it seems like everyone in the Bay Area has a Dungeness crab story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the reason why Dungeness crab lends itself to so many different regional cuisines is because of the characteristics of the ingredient itself. “It’s a very luxurious crab,” said KQED food editor Luke Tsai, pointing out that it’s both sweeter and meatier than most other crabs. Charlie Chang, owner of \u003ca href=\"http://www.ppqcrab.com/\">PPQ Dungeness Island\u003c/a>, agreed: “The sweetness of the crab — I mean, you just can’t beat that.” Chang had come on the show to talk about his own restaurant’s contribution to the Bay Area Dungeness crab scene: Vietnamese-style butter-roasted crabs and peppercorn crabs, served with garlic noodles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Edward Wooley of \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/chefsmelly/?hl=en\">Chef Smelly’s\u003c/a> in Oakland, on the other hand, said he ate so much crab as a child that he no longer enjoys the taste. ““My mother went to an all-you-can-eat crab fest,” the chef recalled. “I just ate so much crab when I got home that I was done with crab.” That hasn’t prevented Wooley’s Oakland restaurant from becoming one of the most well known crab restaurants in the East Bay. The most popular dishes? Wooley’s garlic-butter crab with Creole lemon pepper sauce and his crab gumbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite Dungeness crab’s iconic status in the Bay Area food scene, the West Coast crab industry has faced its share of challenges in recent years. Climate change, dangerous weather conditions and competition from big business all impact the haul brought in by local fishermen. “We’ve seen the season just get postponed later and later each year,” Tsai added, noting that the commercial crab season didn’t start until Dec. 31 this past year — more than six weeks later than usual. He explained that these delays are usually caused by toxic domoic acid levels driven by climate change and warmer water, as well as difficult negotiations between fishermen and penny-pinching seafood distributors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One local fisherman, Matt Juanes, called in to explain that the delays have been especially hard on his business. Here in the Bay Area, he said, it’s traditional to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with Dungeness crab. But for the past few years the crab season has only just barely arrived in time for New Year’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13924815\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13924815\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman.jpg\" alt=\"A crab fisherman in a trucker hat smiles as he holds up a live Dungeness crab from the deck of his fishing boat.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-800x550.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-1020x701.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-768x528.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/matt-juanes-crab-fisherman_azul-dahlstrom-eckman-1536x1056.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For crab fisherman Matt Juanes, the Dungeness crab season delays of the past few years have been hard on his business. \u003ccite>(Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Oh, it’s definitely very difficult for all of us,” Juanes said. “But we’re just trying to work together with nature and do the best we can.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Rivera, this year’s delay was especially frustrating. “Having a birthday in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there usually was a guarantee that I would have crab there as my birthday cake,” she said. This was one of the first years that didn’t happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivera’s KQED essay series, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/frisco-foodies\">Frisco Foodies\u003c/a>, uses nostalgic food memories as a way to explore all of the ways the Bay Area is changing — all of the traditions that are in danger of being lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like many San Francisco families, especially immigrant families, we’ve incorporated traditions like cioppino and Dungeness and all types of seafood dishes into our celebrations,” Rivera said. “And to not have that for Christmas is really just an indicator of things changing deeply across the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13900955\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13900955\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Overhead view of a plate of garlic noodles and roast crab.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/016_Oakland_ChefSmellys_08072021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of Chef Smelly’s legendary seafood plates, piled high with garlic noodles, shrimp and, of course, Dungeness crab. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
"title": "Science Friday",
"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"snap-judgment": {
"id": "snap-judgment",
"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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},
"soldout": {
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