Queue Up for Chocolate

Last weekend we headed to the city for the annual Ghirardelli Square chocolate festival, a two-day tasting event that takes place on Beach Street next to Aquatic Park. It’s a benefit for Project Open Hand, but also a chance for local chocolate vendors to promote their products.

Here’s how it works: You buy a large ticket for $20 that has numbers 1 through 15 on it. Then you find a line and stand in it.

If you’re lucky, at the end of the line you’ll receive a mini chocolate tart topped with whipped cream and a blueberry. If not, you get frosting. Or six bits of chocolate with nothing to put them in. Each taste costs you a number, which the vendors cross off your card. If you arrive toward the end of the event, like we did, you have the added fun of trying to get all your numbers crossed off by the 5:00 p.m. deadline.

Some of the better tastes included a cup of Ghirardelli’s intense chocolate drink and the Tea Room’s chai-infused chocolate bar. Those tarts were good, too, but I don’t know who sold them because I was too busy grabbing and moving on to the next line.

It was a lovely, sunny day on the water after an arctic summer, so I was happy to be at the square. But if I want a square of Ghirardelli chocolate, I’d rather just buy it at the checkout line.

A Slice of America

Every year, the owners of Black Butte River Ranch, deep in the mountains of eastern Mendocino County, hold a bluegrass concert and pig roast for the Fourth of July. The owners, former Oakland denizens, invite their Bay Area friends to camp on the land and host the ’cue. But many of the guests are locals: backwoods hippies who reek of pot — growing marijuana is the local industry — and dance stoned in front of the bands.

My parents have a cabin on the mountain above the store, so I and seven other members of the Erickson clan were up there for the long weekend. On Saturday, after a swim in the Eel River, we headed to the party. While kegs of beer (pay what you can afford) offered other mind-altering avenues, the focus of the gathering was the pig. It was certainly our reason, besides people watching, for attending.

The pig was rotating above a fuel-fed wood fire on a makeshift spit: a metal garbage can cut in half housed the logs while a bicycle wheel provided the turning mechanism. A clamp kept the animal fastened to the spit. By the time we arrived, Porky was sporting a lovely golden-brown hue and was unloading streams of grease into the fire.

As other guests wandered by to view the turning beast, I approached the head cook to ask about his techniques. Normally, I can’t get chefs to stop talking about their craft, but this guy wasn’t giving me anything. I finally realized why: this is barbecue, and I’m not a dude. So I sent my dad over, and he got the 411. The 80-pound pig, purchased in Oakland from J&M Meat Company, was stuffed with onions and garlic, salted and peppered, and placed on the spit at 10 that morning. 

A little after 8 p.m., the cooking crew decided Porky was done and pulled it off the fire. While they sliced the pig until it was a pile of glistening white meat, we lined up along with the campers, hippies, and other locals. We loaded our plates ($10 suggested donation) with tri-tip, chicken, beans, green salad, and, of course, pork, which was as succulent as we hoped. Stuffed, we headed back up the mountain and crawled into our sleeping bags.

Visual Appeal

Ever since I wrote an article about the baking competition at the San Mateo County Fair, I’ve been meaning to enter a cake, a loaf of bread, or a plate of cookies. I tasted the goodies along with the judges, and I think I could give the winners a run for their money. But here’s what holds me back: I can’t make anything look pretty. While taste is the most important factor, cuteness counts, too.

My pies are always dripping juice, my cakes break apart when I try to ease them out of the pan, and my breads come out lopsided. They look appetizing in a rustic, homemade sort of way, but they’re not for show.

The cookies sitting inside the glass cabinets at this year’s fair were adorable, and way beyond my capabilities. I’m thinking I’ll start next year with a quick bread — if there’s no frosting or cutting involved I might do okay.

Lost in Show

I always feel like an imposter at the Fancy Food Show. I made my third annual trip Sunday to the event, held every January at Moscone Center, and once again felt like I was sneaking in, though I had registered, paid the fee, and was wearing the badge. I attend under a pseudonym; perhaps that’s the reason. Or maybe it’s that the vendors eagerly handing me a piece of cheese on a cracker ask me, “Are you a retailer or distributor?” When I answer that I’m a writer, a scowl passes over their faces and they look to the next visitor.

The Fancy Food Show doesn’t really feature fancy food — not that I’m sure what fancy food is. It features food that keeps, food that can be shipped halfway around the world: cured meat, candy, olives, chips, beverages, ice cream. Some of it is excellent, some insipid, most unremarkable. Producers of these food products stand behind their booths, offering samples and pitching their selling points: organic, all-natural, anti-oxidants, a new taste, attractive packaging for your store. For some reason there’s always a ton of chocolate and cheese.

Each year presents a new trend. Last year it was aloe vera drinks; this year popcorn (caramel-, chocolate-, jalapeño-, and bacon-flavored) and iced tea (mint-, citrus-, and mango-flavored) seemed to share the spotlight. The cutest idea was ice cream cone bottoms — 2-inch-high sugar cones, like mini-Drumsticks. The most daring product name was Slow Cow, an “anti-stimulant” drink enhanced with valerian, chamomile, and hops.

In the international section, you hardly need the signs to tell you what country you’re in. Dark-eyed young men in expensive suits with thick accents — Italy; small groups huddled together speaking French — France; friendly vendors shouting out “Hallo!” — Australia.

Photography is not allowed at the show, and though attendees are prohibited from removing food from the floor, I snuck a few things out.

It's Lutefisk Season

Fish Jell-O. It’s the best way to describe lutefisk, the butt of many jokes, symbol of Scandinavian identity, and implement of childhood torture.

We Ericksons were dutifully downing it at the Sons of Norway Bjornson Hall in Oakland, which hosted its annual lutefisk and meatball fundraiser Saturday. Younger members of the family had their first taste and declared it “interesting.”

Eating lutefisk is a ritual that connects us Scandinavian Americans to the homeland (Swedes and Norwegians eat it less than their New World cousins). We like to serve it up during the holidays, mostly as a joke. Some cruel parents have been known to require their children to eat lutefisk before they are allowed to open gifts on Christmas Eve.

When it’s swimming in melted butter or cream sauce, lutefisk is usually palatable. I’ve had it fishy, when it’s truly disgusting, and merely tasteless, when it’s OK but I’d still rather be eating meatballs. There are people, however, who claim to enjoy its taste. Some even asked for seconds at Bjornson Hall.

It’s not clear how or why lutefisk got its start, but the Scandinavian countries have long produced and exported dried fish, so perhaps cooks were looking for ways to add variety to their monotonous winter diet.

Preparing lutefisk is a weeks-long process. Unsalted dried fish sits in a water bath for several days; then soaks in lye, which softens it; then spends several more days in water to rid it of the caustic lye. It’s boiled before eating. Properly prepared, lutefisk is off-white, translucent and gelatinous. It should wiggle as you carry your plate to the table.