Tracey Taylor

San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 2010

Photographs by Peter DaSilva for The Chronicle.

If you had told Ruth Bailey a few years ago that she would one day be back living in the home in which she grew up, a ranch-style house in Orinda, she would probably have laughed. Bailey, whose family’s roots run deep in this lush part of Contra Costa County, was in a home she loved, also in Orinda, with views that allowed her to watch the fog rolling in over the hills.

The vistas from her childhood home were less expansive, although in their own way just as compelling. For the property’s piece de resistance was without a doubt its garden, cultivated over many years by Bailey’s father, something of a renaissance man, whose passions included Japanese architecture and nurturing prize rhododendrons.

With its beautiful landscaping and abundance of mature trees - all planted since 1963 when the estate was bought by the Bailey family - it is no surprise to hear that the garden is a regular on the garden tour circuit. But when Bailey decided to take over the property from her father, Fred Cummings, after tending it became too much of an effort for him, the house itself left something to be desired. “It was dark with lots of hallways and corridors,” she says. “You were always turning corners.”

Bailey consulted Jon Larson and Carolyn Van Lang from Jarvis Architects in Oakland, with whom she had worked before, and asked them to consider how the house could be modernized while retaining its midcentury modern spirit and Japanese-influenced aesthetic. In December, the home received the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Architecture.

When he built the home, Cummings had been inspired by no less than Katsura, the Imperial Villa in Kyoto, and his daughter was keen to retain those design touches in the remodel.

No more darkness

Working with contractor Whitney Collins, the architects began work in January of last year by gutting the interior of the house to eradicate all the nooks and crannies. The addition of a few inconspicuous skylights and new sets of sliding, floor-to-ceiling glass doors provided the home with the natural light it badly needed.

The kitchen, which had previously been both small and awkward, was relocated to the front of the house with an adjoining patio and outdoor barbecue area.

A five-bedroom home that had served a family raising four children well, was transformed in 10 months into an airy three-bedroom, four-bathroom home for one of those same children whose own offspring have flown the nest.

The space gained in the reconfiguration has been given over to a sweep of three distinct areas - living room, dining room and family den - which can be kept open-plan when entertaining, or made more intimate using sets of sliding shoji-style doors featuring bands of frosted glass.

The original coffered ceilings have been stained a warm walnut and enhanced with recessed lighting. Horizontal bands of walnut trim complement the ceiling and, with their strong linear forms, contribute to the Japanese feel. Architect Van Lang says the repeating horizontal lines are known to create a soothing effect.

Now that the house has been opened up, the sumptuous garden is visible from every room with discrete, always lovely vistas framed by the large windows and plate-glass doors. Two smoothly planed support posts inside the living area echo those used outside under the home’s roof overhang, and mirror the multitude of trees in the yard.

Bailey recalls that the property was originally a horse pasture - the original barn still stands on the grounds of the home - and the first trees planted by her parents were some Scarlet oaks and a zelkova.

“My grandmother gave my mother a seedling Magnolia that was planted by the garage. My mom’s best friend then gave Mom a seedling Catalpa tree in a coffee can. That was the start of the shade required for my dad’s rhododendrons. And he went wild for another 40 years with shade trees (maples, dogwoods, oaks, pines, magnolias).

“And my siblings and I got seedling redwoods in milk cartons in grammar school on Arbor Day. It’s got to the point now where it’s hard to grow plants requiring a lot of light. My mom’s attitude is ‘no more trees.’ ”

Another whimsical touch, very much in tune with the Japonesque style of the house, is the waterfall and fish pond put in by Cummings, who has since passed away. The pond now bursts with giant koi and outsize goldfish.

A bigger bedroom

Bailey’s bedroom is the one she slept in as a child, although barely recognizable as such. Now a generous-size corner room enveloped by the greenery of a lush lawn and gentle hillside outside, it also boasts a magnificent master bathroom with a tub enclosed in frameless glass that offers views of the walled moss and stone garden outside shaded by the canopy of a tall tree.

“I feel like the house has been recycled while being totally transformed. I love it,” says Bailey, pointing out that the house’s footprint has remained the same, and many of her parents’ Japanese antiques still look completely at home in the remodel.

An element of drama was introduced in the previously unprepossessing entryway by opening up walls and raising the ceiling height. The finishing touch was a new, curved Venetian plaster wall at the apex of which a large skylight creates a well of sunlight which pours down, via a staircase, into the lower level of the home. This is where Bailey has her study.

The front door is the same one that Bailey’s mother, Clare Cummings, commissioned after seeing a House Beautiful article reporting on Japanese influence in American architecture. The piece was headlined “Old Story - Being Told Again,” which seems appropriate given that it could equally be applied to the approach that was taken with this remodel.

Financial Times, February 5 2010

Lunch options for the designers and architects who work near South Park, a pocket of green space in the heart of San Francisco, recently became much more interesting, writes Tracey Taylor. For the past few months, half a dozen street-food vendors have appeared on the square once a week, opening up shop for a couple of hours. You can get spicy chicken and rice from Adobo Hobo; a smoky Andouille sausage stew from Gumbo Man; a dessert of raspberry red babycakes from Wholesome Bakery; or quindim, a traditional sticky coconut custard, made by Brazilian Bites. Urban Nectar will probably have whipped up some freshly squeezed watermelon and strawberry juice to wash it all down.

The Crème Brûlée Man(@cremebruleecart) often turns up, too, with his pushcart and his kitchen blowtorch to produce a brittle, scorched crust on his lavender or Grand Marnier flavoured creams. Like several of the city’s street-food vendors, Crème Brûlée Man has become something of a local celebrity and media darling but he won’t reveal his name, for, like many of the chefs plying their trade from trucks and carts, he is unlicensed. But his 9,736 Twitter followers know precisely where to find him on any given day.

In San Francisco, where a new culinary trend makes headlines every week, street food has proved to have legs. Other US cities embraced the concept earlier. New York has always had its hot dog and pretzel carts. In Los Angeles, the Kogi Korean BBQ truck (@kogibbq), launched by Mark Manguera, was a pioneer in late 2008 and is now, thanks to its 53,400-plus Twitter followers, nothing less than a phenomenon. Newsweek magazine named it “America’s first viral eatery”.

But now that the Bay Area has got its teeth into kerb-side treats, it is making sure food carts are here to stay. Three separate street-food festivals were launched in 2009. “Street Food” took place in San Francisco itself; “Eat Real” was held in Jack London Square, a foodie destination near the port of Oakland; and the wine country jumped on the bandwagon with the World Street Food conference in Napa Valley.

The festivals lent a sheen of legitimacy to street food but a good percentage of the cart vendors are unlicensed, which means there is an element of subterfuge to how they operate. Many of them use social media, posting information about their new sandwich fillings and current locations on Twitter and Facebook. It is a strategy that seems to have appealed to tech-savvy Bay Area residents, many of whom relish a whiff of the underground.

Street food on the West Coast can trace its roots to the ubiquitous Mexican taco truck, and a good number of the new generation of vendors has renovated decommissioned taco trucks to launch their businesses.

Kate McEachern, though, opted for a mail truck when she went down the mobile route to sell cupcakes, and her turf is principally the streets of Berkeley. She posts the whereabouts of her Cupkates truck (@cupkatestruck) every morning to her 1,502 Twitter followers as well as her seasonal flavours, be it pumpkin spice in the autumn or fleur de sel caramel in the spring.

“I had dreams of opening a quaint cupcake store but it’s really difficult to raise start-up capital,” she says. “The truck lets me test the market. One aspect I love right now is the ability to interact closely with my customers every day.”

Some traditional restaurateurs have embraced the informality and “pop-up” nature of street carts as a refreshing alternative to running a restaurant. For budding chefs they offer a way to build a customer base with low overheads. And established chef-proprietors also see the appeal. Laurent Katgely, owner of Spencer’s Restaurant in San Francisco, opened takeaway truck Spencer On The Go(@chezspencergo) in May last year.

“It started as a fun idea but it has turned out to be a great advertising tool,” says Katgely, who points to the fact that the restaurant just had its best two months for business in seven years. He says the truck has also attracted a new crowd who were not previously drawn to French food because of the expense. “It’s great that we can offer $2 escargots or $10 foie gras this way.”

The economic downturn has been a key motivator for both street cart owners hoping to make a living and for customers looking to source fresh food relatively cheaply.

John Birdsall, online food editor at SF Weekly, says some street-food vendors favour gathering at private events but there’s always the threat of being shut down by the police. “There’s been a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ attitude from local authorities so far,” he says. But when particular food trucks begin to attract large crowds, it’s difficult to remain under the radar. Birdsall says there are signs that some vendors want to become legitimate. A workshop held in December that addressed the practical issues involved in securing a licence was well attended.

In San Francisco, some of the more recent arrivals on the scene include the Sexy Soup Lady and Sam’s Chowder Mobile. There’s also the Boozely’s Pickles and Preserves cart run by waiter Brad Koester; That Guy’s Fries, launched by two recent college graduates; and Crêperie Saint Germain, that serves chestnut, banana and vanilla ice-cream pancakes. Such variety suggests that diversity is still the name of the game in this city with its long history of politically correctness.

New York Times, February 4, 2010

What’s not to like about Berkeley’s favorite deli? Why all the kvetching?

In many ways Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen in Berkeley — just a few doors down the street from Chez Panisse, the grande dame of the slow-food movement in the Bay Area — is the quintessential farm-to-table restaurant. It features local food, organic produce and a seasonal menu.

So why the consistent grumbling from perhaps one customer in five? Nostalgia, said Peter Levitt, the co-owner and chef who is a Chez Panisse alumnus. “We have so many culinary memories under one roof,” he said.

Which is a nice way of saying that some people prefer pastrami made the old-fashioned way — industrially — and feel that anyone who doesn’t approve of the high-fructose corn syrup in Dr. Brown’s cream soda should just suck it up and adjust.

If there’s one dining experience above others which is pregnant with expectations, it’s the Jewish deli. The pastrami sandwich had better be so large you can barely get your teeth into it. The blintzes had better taste like the ones your grandmother made.

The problem is that the deli menu many people regard as authentic, and which reached its heyday in the 1950s, is rooted in the industrial food system. Those towering pastrami sandwiches are typically created with factory-produced meat. The rye bread? Pasty and processed.

Ever since Mr. Levitt and his partner, Karen Adelman, took over Saul’s in 1995, they have tried to make the restaurant’s voluminous menu more sustainable, as they describe on the deli’s blog.

In 1998, Acme bread (founded in Berkeley) replaced the spongy white rye the deli had shipped in from New York. It is now broadly appreciated. They source their fish from Monterey Fish Company and their beef from Marin Sun Farms.

A year ago, they did away with Dr. Brown’s sodas, both because of the food miles they incurred and the high-fructose corn syrup on the label. The change proved to be the last straw for some die-hard deli fans.

“There were those who said if you don’t have Dr Brown’s, you’re not a Jewish deli,” Mr. Levitt said. “People forget that the original Jewish sodas were handmade and sold off the back of street carts.”

The house-made celery, cream and black cherry artisanal sodas, which took the place of Dr. Brown’s, now have their own loyal following.

Worried about what would happen if he went forward with more changes, Mr. Levitt called for a “referendum on the deli menu.” The event, which was set for Tuesday at the deli, will now be held at a bigger venue (the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay) to accommodate the more than 175 people who are paying $10 each to attend. It promises to explore questions like these: “What taste memories and flavors of the deli have been provided by an industrial food system? How can we look at our nostalgia and expectations critically?”

In fact, most customers appreciate the changes. Their grass-fed corned beef sandwich may be smaller or more expensive than the ones they ate back East, but it’s tastier, healthier and easier on the conscience.

But the restaurant staff also meets resistance, sometimes even hostility: One customer vowed never to return after seeing that gefilte fish was off the menu because it was out of season; another complained loudly when chilled borscht wasn’t an option in November.

Now, Mr. Levitt and Ms. Adelman say they have reached a crossroads — there is more they would like to do to the menu, yet they fear the backlash. That is what inspired Tuesday night’s event. They are bringing out the big culinary guns to put the future of their restaurant under the spotlight. Is the concept of the sustainable deli itself sustainable?

On the panel next Tuesday: Michael Pollan, a Saul’s lunchtime regular; Willow Rosenthal, the founder of City Slicker Farms; Gil Friend, the author of “The Truth about Green Business;” and Evan Kleiman, the Los Angeles chef and radio host.

Ms. Adelman says they are in effect seeking permission from their customers to continue tweaking what she describes as “an ossified menu.” Just as Jewish food has evolved over the centuries, those who run Saul’s are hoping customers will, for instance, rediscover traditional Sephardic-inspired dishes, which put vegetables, legumes and seafood at the center of the plate rather than meat.

“We want to bring our customers with us,” she said. “They’re our family, our heart.”

It’s a familiar story for David Sax, who wrote the recently published book“Save the Deli.” He has spoken at Saul’s.

“The deli customer is very opinionated, the feedback never stops — which is a blessing and a curse,” he said. “No one is more committed to a new approach to the deli than Karen and Peter. And their concept of taking deli food back to a time when food was respected is a good indicator of where delis could go from here.”

Mr. Pollan also supports the efforts at Saul’s.

“They are trying to do something very admirable, but it’s challenging,” he said. “Good meat costs considerably more than feed-lot meat, and it’s easier for a white-table establishment to absorb the costs of doing it right.”

As for Mr. Levitt, he admits he’s frustrated. “Alice Waters looked at the French menu and reinvented it,” he said. “Why can’t we do the same for the Jewish deli menu?”