Page 33 - 2014 Travel Guide to California

CA.CUISINE
BY JUDY ZIMOLA
Local Flavor
Set with linens or served standing up, the California
table offers something wonderful for everyone
SAN FRANCISCO
BAY AREA FOOD
San Francisco has more restaurants per
capita than any other U.S. city, and most
of them are good. Old standards that
have been around for decades still hold
their own against innovative new
arrivals. SF’s Mission district has become
a foodie haven and surrounding
communities from Berkeley to Palo Alto
to Napa and Sonoma all bring exquisite
food to the table. For more on this region,
see pages 72-91.
YOU MUST TAKE A TASTE at San
Francisco’s farmers markets, above; things
are sizzling at the Crabcake Cook-off in
Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, top right.
Back in the dawn of California food,
before gray salt and blue corn chips and
infused olive oils grabbed headlines, there
was the alfalfa sprout. It adorned its host,
usually a tomato-cucumber-on-whole-
wheat sandwich, like a doodle. Perched in
a loose scribble of “that’s cool, man” green,
it tasted like it looked: airy, good-natured,
nothing too challenging.
The food scene continued in that
fashion for quite some time. Anything
with an avocado on it earned the label
“California,” a joke that wore thin with the
public and the avocadoes after about the
third telling. Then in 1971 came Alice
Waters, owner and chef at Berkeley’s Chez
Panisse. She, along with peers Wolfgang
Puck, Jeremiah Tower and Jonathan
Waxman, brought fresh, local, organic
food to the forefront of culinary con-
sciousness. Suddenly, dear old Brussels
sprouts and beets found themselves the
2014 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A 31