Winter is here

Omnivore Books in Noe Valley in San Francisco had booked Thomas Keller (the famous chef) for a book signing event at their bookstore on Dec 6th. The lovely owner, Celia, had contacted me a couple of months ago and asked me to come to sell chai to her patrons while they waited in line for Keller. 

Today, Dec 6th, I was all excited to take the Chai Cart all the way to Omnivore Books - not only will San Francisco foodies be there, maybe Keller himself may fancy a cup of chai. As usual, I made the chai, packed my cart, and off I went. I forgot to do 2 things - one, check the flattest way to get to the corner of Church St. and Ceaser Chavez from my house, and two, check the weather report. 

I struggled to ride up the hill on Ceaser Chavez (between Guerrero and Dolores), tugging the cart behind me but managed (i did stop to catch my breath halfway up). It sure was chilly and seemed like a smart idea to have hot chai for sale as almost everyone who was at the bookstore bought a cup. And then it started to rain - no wait, hail. 

 People have asked and had wondered what would happen to the food carts when the rain hits San Francisco. This is what happened today. I was lucky to have a tree to give cover to my bicycle trailer. So when the hail started to come down, I put all my stuff back in the cart and ran inside the bookstore for cover. It seemed like perfect timing as Thomas Keller came in 5 min later and I was up close to hear him speak. By the time he finished talking, the rain had subsided as well. I went back outside, sold a few more cups to people who were unfortunate enough to be stuck outside (it’s a tiny bookstore), packed my stuff, and rode back in the freezing cold. 

 The good thing about the pop-up food carts is that we control our own schedule. I guess I could've decided to stay home, had I checked the weather. People can expect food carts to be at indoor locations, such as art galleries, warehouses, etc. during the winter. Biking in the cold will be a challenge and I will need to visit the Sports Basement soon for some winter biking wear. 

 P.S. Thomas Keller asked for a double espresso, not chai :(

Diwali and its peculiar tradition

Last week was Diwali - the festival of lights and the beginning of Hindu New Year. Diwali is to India what Christmas is to the US. It's the time of year when Indians buy new clothes, send gifts, decorate their houses, and share good times with family and friends with lots and lots of food (read sweets). Buildings and streets are lit with special lights and fireworks adorn the skies. 

 There is a peculiar tradition that marks all Diwali parties, especially in the north and west India - playing teen patti (three cards, a version of three-card poker). I am not quite sure of the history behind this tradition, but gambling seems to exist in the Hindu culture for eons. After all, it was the root cause of the epic battle of Mahabharat where king Yudhister gambled away not only his entire kingdom but also his wife Draupadi. 

 Regardless of the vices of gambling, friends, and family get together the days leading up to Diwali, and play a friendly game of teen patti into the wee hours of the morning. Every year I invite my friends over for a Diwali party and I bring out the cards and poker chips to keep alive the tradition here in San Francisco. The game can get convoluted as the dealer can create different variations of the game - wild card(s), bust card(s), using combinations of cards as wild, etc. Unlike poker, this is a very lively and interactive game. So next year if you are invited to a Diwali party, take along your appetite as well as some cash. 

If you indeed want to celebrate Diwali the traditional way, a pack of cards and poker chips should be on the menu. Happy New Year!

In search for that perfect cup of tea

While I was looking for a distributor of organic black tea, I realized I had a lot to learn about tea itself. Even though all the tea basically comes from the same plant, camellia sinensis, there is more to tea than I had thought. 

 First, there are 5 major types of tea – White, Green, Oolong, Pu-erh, and Black. The type of tea is determined by various factors – the region, time of harvest, and how the leaves are picked and processed are some of the major factors. White tea has the least amounts of caffeine while black tea has the most (but still less coffee). 

Then there are other classifications, such as Full or Broken leaf, CTC (cut, tear, curl) or Orthodox picking methods, Bagged or Loose and finally, Vintage (all from the same estate and season) or Blend (blend of different tea leaves and other ingredients such as spices, flowers, etc). All of these contribute to the taste of the tea that is packaged and sold. Chai is made from black tea and I typically like Chai made from black Assam tea (Assam is a region in north-east India). And that was pretty much all I could tell any distributor. I was referred to contact Assam Tea Company, distributor of a family-owned tea garden in Assam. 

Saunam, the president of Assam Tea, talked about his 2 tea estates in Assam (one of them is organic) and explained why it was difficult to find economical organic black Assam tea. The organic certification process is fairly expensive and to get large tea farms certified is pretty costly. Only small farms that serve a niche market undergo the certification process. He went on to assure me that since he sells his tea in Europe, he doesn’t use harmful chemicals in order to comply with the European regulations (Europe has strict regulations on what food is sold, organic or not).

Street Food Is Slow Food

What fast food is to the US, street food is to Asia. It's quick, cheap, and tasty. Take a closer look and you'll see that street food a lot more. It is freshly prepared, uses local and traditional food products, preserves its lore and preparation, and is made on a small scale. Kinda sounds like Slow Food doesn't it? 

Working on The Chai Cart is a lot of work for very little monetary reward. I have very little time to do anything else and hardly any time to be social. However, today I am more committed to it than ever. Not just to The Chai Cart but to the community of the new street vendors and the street food revolution as a whole. 

 The new Street Food "2.0" movement is more than using Twitter, or seeking the thrill of decoding locations and finding a cart, or being part of the trendy hipster crowd who are "in the know". To me, this movement represents a revolution against the fast-food culture that has haunted Americans for decades. Instead of opting for heavily processed food, wouldn't it be nice to have the choice of getting freshly prepared food at the same price? Thai Curry, Gumbo, Organic Soup, fresh Samosas, homemade Pies, Cakes, or even lavender Creme Brulee or Gobs. And of course authentic Indian Chai. Many of the new age street vendors are making and selling food they hand-make from recipes they have perfected over time or have been passed on for generations. 

These street food vendors are providing San Francisco residents a different choice, a healthier choice, in quick, fresh, and inexpensive gourmet food. This should not be viewed as a threat to restaurants; in many cities around the world, street food and sit-down restaurants have co-existed for decades. This should be seen as a support to the slow food movement. 

The city has every right to crack down on the unlicensed street food vendors. I don't disregard the value of having the right permits to sell food; it is important to be hygienic and abide by health safety codes. Getting a food safety certification is in fact easy and inexpensive, $60 for the test, $130 for the class and test. But that alone does not help in getting a food permit, which is expensive and complicated. Here is the list of various permits you need. As this trend grows and street food becomes mainstream, I hope instead of cracking it down, the city of San Francisco thinks of an alternate plan to embrace it, while regulating it. For this to happen there needs to be a mandate from the residents of San Francisco that they indeed would want such a choice.

Save Money, Save the Planet.

What's more compelling - saving money or saving the planet? Surely an entertaining topic for debate - especially between the capitalists and the tree-hugging hippies. This, however, begs the question - how about solutions that save money while saving the planet? I know what you are thinking - if it were that simple, we would be doing it already. Really? There are simple solutions out there that can accomplish both. 

Composting is one of them. It reduces your garbage collection costs while reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. All it requires is a little consciousness and a change in habit. The city of San Francisco charges garbage collection fees based on the waste they collect, that is neither recycled nor composted. It is expensive for the city to dispose of this waste and there are only so many landfills around that one can dump into. I live in a multi-unit building (150+ units), and the only reason we didn't have the green compost bins in the garbage room is b'coz no one has asked for them before. 

When I first looked into it, I was surprised at the perception people had about the composting service - it's expensive, it's smelly, it's messy, etc. A little bit of research debunked some common myths. 

1. Composting service is provided by the city - i.e. they provide green bins for the food waste and will pick it up. Residents don't have to create soil from the food waste on their premises (unless they choose to do so).

2. Adding a composting service to your garbage collection is absolutely free. Sunset Scavenger ( the garbage collection agency) will not only provide the large green cans for your garbage room, but they will also even give residents a green kitchen pail to hold the compost waste. 

3. Everything that now goes into the green composting bin would have been in the garbage bin anyway. So really, the garbage room is not going to smell any different. 

4. Just as there are plastic garbage bags, there are compostable bags to line the kitchen pail. Use these (or paper bags) to hold the food waste before disposing of it in the large green bin. No-fuss, no mess. 

5. Just as you would with your other garbage bins, periodically clean all your green bins as well. 

6. For multi-unit building or business (esp. restaurants), adopting the composting service actually results in significant savings (in thousands of dollars) in garbage collection fees every year. 

There you have it - composting is not a luxury, but a cost-cutting measure. The fact that a significant amount of the waste will end up as soil and not in a landfill or otherwise converted to toxic gas, is just an additional benefit. Think before throwing - recycle, compost or waste? That thought will save you money and the planet.

Michael Pollan, you truly are a rock star!

I attended a lecture by Michael Pollan this past Tuesday. What amused me the most was the general reaction of the typical, wholesome San Francisco crowd you would expect at these events. Imagine a teenager squeal “Oh my god, it's Michael Pollan!” - I heard different versions of that sentiment among the not-so-young audience. 

After the lecture, I stood in line to get both Michael Pollan’s books (The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food) signed by him. As we were nearing the front of the line, the woman behind me exclaimed yet another “Oh my god, it's Michael Pollan!” and added, “What am I going to say to him?”. As I stepped forward, my friend, new to Michael Pollan’s work, asked her what was it about Pollan that impressed her. I handed my books to Pollan and said “You’ve changed the way I look and food and the way I eat”. I think I heard a very similar response from the woman behind me. 

 After living in the US for 11 years and constantly struggling to maintain an optimal weight with diet and exercise, I left for France to do my MBA in 2005. In the one year, I was outside the US, I lived a student’s life in France and Singapore, eating mostly in the campus cafeteria or local restaurants, drinking cheap but good wine, and barely finding time to work out. A year at INSEAD is often described as drinking out a fire hose – it's intense and there is no time to obsess about weight. I didn’t have to, it was maintaining itself. 

 I was convinced there was something wrong with the way we eat food in America when after returning to the US a year later, I gained 8lbs in less than 3 weeks. I banned all canned food from my kitchen, joined a gym, and picked up The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In this book, Pollan doesn’t really tell the readers what they should or should not eat. He basically traces every food group to its origin - the way it is grown or raised, processed, packaged, and brought to the consumer. It’s a heavy read, but eye-opening. You learn all about agriculture and farming and the distribution of food via supermarkets. You learn why a majority of the items in the supermarket contain high fructose corn syrup and how the popularity of the term “organic” has led to an industrialized organic food system. 

 The book was the last push I needed to change my food habits forever. And it wasn’t hard. Three simple rules – buy local, eat fresh, avoid heavily processed and packaged food as much as possible. I am lucky I live in California, which grows a lot of vegetables and fruits, and the closest grocery store to me is one that sells locally grown organic produce. Freshly baked goods from local bakeries taste so much better than any packaged cookies or bread; it is well worth the extra dollar. Turning cooking into a hobby rather than a chore keeps me interested and excited about new recipes and seasonal produce. I will admit I am not a fanatic about it. I still eat out a lot (it's still freshly prepared food), drink European beer and wine, and buy imported chocolates. And how do I feel about my health and weight issues? It’s never been better. All it took is for a journalist to break down barriers and bring transparency to the American food system so that we all actually understand what we eat.

Will Slumdog win?

In the last 2 months, it has been hard to read any entertainment news without reading “Slumdog Millionaire”. The Oscar buzz, the protests in India, the controversy over child actors, the music of A.R Rahman (and surprisingly not much about M.I.A).

I saw the movie the weekend it premiered in the U.S. without any expectations. My reaction to the movie was – a well made film with an interesting story. But I failed to LOVE it as I couldn’t emotionally connect with the main characters. Reason: the kids were great (really awesome), but as soon as they turned teenagers, they became British. As soon as I heard the 13-year-old Latika, training to be a prostitute in the slums of Mumbai, mouthing dialogues in English with a refined British accent, the characters didn’t seem genuine enough. Jamal seemed too suave for an uneducated guy who had to “slum” it out. The movie soon turned into a Disney version of a fairytale of Jamal and Latika. Not that it is a bad thing; I just couldn’t feel for the characters like I did for, lets say, the family in “Little Miss Sunshine”.

Very few people, including Indians, had the same reaction. Infact, that is usually a sign of a good movie - it’s engrossing enough that the audience doesnt notice things like it was shot in black and white, or it had subtitles, or characters were switching languages, etc. I am happy Slumdog is getting credit for being such a movie. I am sure if it were based in another country, I too wouldn’t notice or care for the authenticity of accents and appearances of the main characters.

So, what do I think of the protests in India? Notable people, like Amitabh Bachchan, who have said that the movie doesn’t portray India in a good light, are living in denial about India’s poverty. The slums do exist. The riots, the exploitation of orphans, it all happens and happens in their backyards. Then there were protests on the word “dog”. Danny Boyle didn’t expect to make a runaway hit and unfortunately the title it didn’t translate well in Hindi. I can understand the sentiment; no one wants to be insulted by foreigners. Can you imagine the outrage if a movie had “Jew” and “Dog” in the title?

Regardless of how I feel about the movie, I will be rooting for Slumdog at the Oscars tomorrow. Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan are one of the finest indian actors and deserve it. And for A.R Rahman, who is my favourite Indian music composer. If not for anything else, I will be rooting for Slumdog for the little kids in the movie- that was my favourite part of the movie. I sincerely hope the success of this movie does indeed transform those kids' lives. That will touch me in a way no other Oscar winning movie has.