Test Kitchen tips: St. Louis-style ribs

A couple of years ago, we ran a Culinary SOS recipe for the spice-braised pork ribs from Urban Tavern in San Francisco. The recipe calls for St. Louis-style pork ribs. If you've never heard of these before, St. Louis-style ribs are spare ribs that have been trimmed to give them a clean, mock baby-back look.

You can have your butcher trim the ribs for you, but it's just as easy to do at home (plus, you can cook up all the trimmings along with the ribs for some extra nibbles). Continue reading below for a quick tutorial on trimming the ribs yourself.

If you have any kitchen tips or questions you'd like us to explore, leave a comment below or email us at noelle.carter@latimes.com.

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-- Noelle Carter
twitter/noellecarter

Photo credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times

Hand-painted paper boxes in shapes to charm food lovers

Whenever I’m in San Francisco, I try to stop in for lunch at Zuni Café on Market Street. I’ve been going there ever since chef and co-owner Judy Rodgers started cooking there in 1987. At lunch, have a bowl of polenta swirled with mascarpone, house-cured anchovies with celery, or pipérade with a fried quail egg and rosemary toast — and if you have the time, the chicken for two roasted in the wood-burning brick oven and served with a Tuscan-style bread salad.

After an espresso -- and maybe a couple of biscotti (the recipe in "The Zuni Café Cookbook" is the best I’ve found) -- head over to Bell’occhio an enchanting shop tucked in an alley on the other side of Market.

Filled with beautiful ribbons, paper goods and romantic little treasures, Bell’occhio is perfect for whiling away a rainy afternoon. I just discovered the shop has a website too, which could be dangerous.

I have a thing for brushes and Bell’occhio has a wonderful collection of brushes for dusting, cleaning bottles, cleaning bicycle and motorcyle wheels, whatever. Poking around the website, I also found these charming hand-painted paper boxes in the shapes of a truffle, a morel, a strawberry, a raspberry (this one is flocked!), a lemon, an apricot (flocked too), an apple, a walnut, a flageolet, a cacao bean, a coffee bean — and a fuzzy green almond.

Bell’occhio, 10 Brady St., San Francisco, (415) 864-4048; www.bellocchio.com. Paper boxes, $16 to $28.

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-- S. Irene Virbila

Photo:  Fuzzy green almond box. Credit: Bell'occhio.

Jeremiah Tower's cookbook collection, and something else

This is how you can get lost in the great wide Web: I was checking in on the San Francisco Chronicle’s restaurant news site Inside Scoop SF and I read a beautiful post from Michael Bauer in tribute to cookbook author and cooking teacher Marion Cunningham on her 90^th birthday. Writes Bauer, "She did more for American cooking than just about anyone. Her 'Fannie Farmer Cookbook,'  'Fannie Farmer Baking Book,' 'The Breakfast Book' and her other works live on.  Happy birthday, Marion.”

When I checked back in the afternoon to look at the photo of Marion in her prime again, I found a new item by Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco, revealing that Jeremiah Tower had contacted her about selling his collection of cookbooks, most of them signed. And she bought all of them. For those who don’t know the name, Tower was chef at Chez Panisse in the early days and later opened Stars in San Francisco, a glittering restaurant where all of the city's society wined and dined.

Curious, like Sack, to see what Tower's influences had been, I hopped onto Omnivore’s site to see whether any of Towers’ books were left.  She still has his copy of the French classic “La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange" as well as “100 Recettes de Cuisine Russe,” a 1927 French cocktail book, and a few other regional French cookbooks from his library. 

I ended up rummaging around in the vintage category and found a 1929 cookbook from the Sierra Madre Woman’s Club for sale. “Great local ads and descriptions of subtropical fruits and their uses make this a gem. Light staining inside & out, else good. $30."

Somebody who has a sentimental attachment to Sierra Madre should pick it up for his or her collection. 

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 -- S. Irene Virbila
Twitter.com/sirenevirbila

Photos: Courtesy of Omnivore Books on Food, San Francisco.

Restaurant nudity in San Francisco on its way out

Public nudity is legal in San Francisco, but restaurants are looking to alter the dress code, or lack thereof, by requiring the unattired to cover up before sitting down to eat, reports Abby Sewell for The Times' L.A. Now blog.

The Board of Supervisors' Public Safety Committee on Thursday approved a proposed ordinance on new public nudity etiquette rules, introduced by Supervisor Scott Wiener, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. It next will be considered by the full board. 

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-- Caitlin Keller

Photo: Naturist George Davis in the Castro district of San Francisco, where he resides. San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener recently introduced a city ordinance that would regulate nudity. Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino / AFP / Getty Images

'Bought, Borrowed & Stolen': 20 years of Allegra McEvedy's secrets

Allegra McEvedy has been cooking professionally for more than 20 years, working her way through a batch of restaurants in London, most notably the River Café and the Cow, in addition to stints at American eateries Rubicon (now closed) and Jardinière in San Francisco, and New York's Tribeca Grill. The Cordon Bleu alumnus was chef-in-residence at the Guardian for three years, has had a column in the Evening Standard and a seasonal food slot on Robert Elms' show for BBC London.

McEvedy's fifth book "Bought, Borrowed & Stolen: Recipes and Knives from a Travelling Chef" comes out this month. The cookbook traces 20 years of recipes, not to mention knives, from food diaries recorded during her travels. The English chef discusses her favorite fall food, her recently released cookbook and the time she spent on the West Coast, with the Los Angeles Times:

Q: What knife, of your collection, is your current favorite or most used?

A: Well, as you probably can tell I have a bit of an emotional attachment to all of my knives, so although it's hard to choose a favorite I am finding myself reaching for a beautiful example of the craft that I bought in New York about five years ago. It's the younger sibling of one I picked up when I was working at Tribeca Grill in '96; both are made by Michael Moses Lishinsky [of Wildfire Cutlery]. All his knives are full tang meaning the metal extends all the way to the base of the handle. And being someone who embraces difference, I love that he uses heat-treated steel, as opposed to the more fashionable stainless. I also like the fact that it's one of only two knives in my 70 strong collection that I can trace back to the maker. My favorite job for this beauty, where it really excels, is smashing cloves of garlic; Mr. Lishinsky may have created the perfect shape of the flat of the blade with this one purpose in mind!

Caitlin Williams Freeman and SFMOMA's latest edible art offering

Caitlin Williams Freeman is the in-house pastry chef at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's rooftop cafe. The former UC Santa Cruz photography student co-founded Miette. Then in 2001, in what she thought would be a temporary stint, she started making pastries for her husband James Freeman's Blue Bottle Coffee locations.

When his company landed a spot on SFMOMA's rooftop, Williams Freeman used the opportunity to channel her love for paintings and photography into her baking. Now the cookies and cakes available -- for visual and literal consumption -- at the coffee bar pay homage to artworks on view in the museum's galleries.

Constantly coming up with new ideas for art-inspired desserts, edible spinoffs have included a Katharina Fritsch ice cream sandwich, with poodle-shaped chocolate cookies sandwiching vanilla ice cream; a fudgsicle-take on Ellsworth Kelly's Stele I (located in the sculpture garden); and a Thiebaud cake inspired by the museum's large collection of Bay Area artist Wayne Thiebaud's paintings.

The latest addition to the menu is a popsicle created in reference to Santa Monica-born artist John Zurier's painting "Arabella," included in the "The More Things Change" exhibition, on view until Nov. 6. The popsicle, made of fresh spearmint ice milk and strawberry, costs $5 and will be available up until the exhibition's closing day.

The next dessert in the works will be ...

Le Sanctuaire hosts summer classes from Ideas in Food

Remember Le Sanctuaire, the luxe retail kitchen boutique on Main Street in Santa Monica? Opened in 2003, that's where chefs (and avid cooks) stocked up on spices, knives, imported cookbooks and elegant porcelain. The business moved north to San Francisco a while ago and is now mostly wholesale to chefs and restaurateurs, though individuals can visit the showroom by appointment and order herbs and spices and other high-end ingredients online.

    

You can check out Le Sanctuaire's classes if you happen to be in San Francisco the weekend of June 25 and 26 and have a burning desire to learn the ins and outs of sous-vide (Saturday 1:30 to 4 p.m.), extruded pasta (Saturday 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.) or, ta dum, the Thermomix (Sunday 1:30 to 4 p.m.). The duo behind the blog (and book) Ideas in Food will be offering classes. A two-and-a-half hour class is $125. Fortunately, ogling Le Sanctuaire's exquisite dinnerware and serving pieces is free.

To see if you're interested in the classes, check out the Ideas in Food blog or dip into "Ideas in Food, Great Recipes and Why They Work" by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot. 

Reserve classes by contacting Le Sanctuaire at (415) 986-4216. Individuals can purchase herbs and spices online. For a list of retailers, visit Seesmelltaste.com.

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-- S. Irene Virbila

Credit: Le Sanctuaire

 

David Tanis leaving Chez Panisse?

There's big news from up north, according to the San Francisco Chronicle's Paolo Lucchesi. David Tanis, one of two co-chefs at Berkeley's landmark Chez Panisse restaurant, with a few brief interruptions since the 1980s, is leaving. Tanis has shared the kitchen pass with Jean-Pierre Moulle -- Tanis taking the summer shift and Moulle working the winter. The remainder of the year Tanis lives in Paris. He's written two well-received books, most recently "Heart of the Artichoke," which came out last fall. Tanis couldn't be reached for immediate comment.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo courtesy of Artisan books

Of oysters, salt cod, stuffed pasta and running away to the Bay Area

Running away to the Bay Area for the weekend is always a good idea, particularly if you like to eat. In a little more than three days, I tried some old favorites and discovered a new one. I had gone up to make some comments at Thomas Keller's induction into the French Legion of Honor on Thursday afternoon and decided to spend a couple extra days. After the event, a bunch of us gathered at Bouchon (salt cod fritters and boudin blanc). Good as always. Friday lunch at Chez Panisse Cafe (halibut tartare and pork with choucroute) and Sunday brunch at Zuni Cafe (oysters, Caesar salad, pizza). These are time-honored rituals for me; I've been eating at both places for probably 25 years, and it's nice to know that there are some things you can always count on.

But Saturday was one of the best food days I can remember. A friend and I drove up the coast to Tomales Bay to the Marshall Store. Three dozen raw oysters, a dozen barbecued, a big tinfoil bag of barbecued mussels, some of the new house-made sausages and half-bottles of Sancerre and Chablis later, we left sated and happy. If you haven't been there yet, make this a stop on your next trip. It's only about an hour from the city, most of it rolling through idyllic Marin County dairylands.

That night, on restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila's recommedation, we hit Cotogna, the new casual dining restaurant from the Quince couple, Michael and Lindsay Tusk. This is another place you've got to go to. Some of the best stuffed pastas I've ever had anywhere. And all the wines on the list are $40 a bottle or $10 a glass. Terrific exploring.

Isn't that what a vacation should be all about?

-- Russ Parsons

Photo: Some offerings from the Marshall Store. Credit: Russ Parsons

Honey bees on restaurant rooftops [Updated]

Who would imagine? While I was eating at Cotogna in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, bees were making honey on the rooftop. That's the work of Terry Oxford and her partner Brian Linke of UrbanBee SF.

Linke didn't know a thing about bees until he started dating Oxford and helping her with the bees she'd been keeping on top of her San Francisco high-rise for several years. The two have a habit of walking the city at night, and one evening they found themselves staring in the window of Quince's open kitchen. 

At that moment, chef Michael Tusk who owns both Quince and Cotogna next door, came out to say hello. They introduced themselves and mentioned they'd been wanting to put beehives on top of a restaurant for a while, says Linke. Funny thing, Tusk said he'd been thinking about the same thing just that week.

Done. A month and a half later, bees were in residence on the rooftop shared by Quince and Cotogna. The seven hives have been in place for about a year, producing the honey that goes into the roasted carrots with rooftop honey on Cotogna's menu, a dish I wish I'd tried when I was there.

Right now, just one other restaurant in San Francisco has them, Farm:Table on Post Street. UrbanBeeSF will soon be establishing honey programs at Nopa and Mission Beach Cafe, both in San Francisco. And next month, they'll be moving bees onto the roof at Blue Bottle Coffee's roasting facility in Oakland.

Because the bees forage around the city where there's lots of wild fennel growing, Oxford says the honey has an anise note and tends to lean more toward the savory than the sweet.

Later this year, they plan to start selling the honey. Stay tuned for an update. 

Urbanbeesf.com

[Corrected at 1:30 p.m. April 21: An earlier version of this post referred to the name of the organization as Urban Bees SF.]

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-- S. Irene Virbila

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Photo: Chef Michael Tusk with Terry Oxford. Credit: UrbanBeeSF