Amawele’s Cuisine serves what Wendy and Pam consider to be Durban-inspired dishes. Pam and Wendy grew up in Durban, South Africa, in a culturally diverse community. Not only was their community heavily diverse, so was their family. “We are what they consider as colored because of cultural mix,” says Pam. “Our family is extremely diverse. So we [have] Indian aunties, we have Black uncles, white grandparents. [Also], Cape Malaysian is part of our DNA as well.”

As a city, Durban is considered to have the largest concentrated population of Indians outside of India. Indian influences had a major impact on the dishes that Wendy and Pam consumed growing up, and they quickly learned how to prepare such dishes at a young age—many of which can be found on Amawele’s menu today.

One of the components that they use on their menu is Roti, a buttery, thin Indian flatbread that is dipped in a variety of sauces and curries. Although Roti is traditionally Indian, Pam and Wendy decided to reinvent it with secret spices; they call it South African Roti or Amawele’s Roti. (Currently, their South African Roti is headed to retail nationwide.)

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The idea of opening Amawele’s Cuisine didn’t materialize until they moved to the United States. In South Africa, they had both worked in finance, and were eager to travel. Their initial plan was to move to the U.S. for a year or two, but upon arrival they saw the opportunities for business and decided to stay. While working to pick up jobs to make ends meet, they kept the faith that something bigger and better was heading their direction.

When South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup, Pam and Wendy started planning a party with friends. They soon realized that San Francisco didn’t have any South African restaurants that could provide food for the party. Without a beat, they decided to prepare their favorite dishes, and sure enough, their spicy, flavorful meals were a hit. The next day, their friends encouraged them to open a restaurant. 

But Amawele’s Cuisine didn’t happen overnight—in fact, it took nearly three years to finally open. In the meantime, Pam and Wendy marketed their business while driving rideshare, saved money by working as nannies, and eventually borrowed $100,000 on credit cards. Although they had supportive friends, the realities of opening a business as two black immigrant women in San Francisco was a challenge. “People didn’t look at us and say, ‘Oh, I see success in you.’ It was a little hard,” Pam says. “it wasn’t like they just said, ‘Oh, well, yeah, they’ll just sign the lease. Go in.’ We had to do a lot of begging and pleading.”

In May of 2013, Amawele’s Cuisine finally opened its doors in the Financial District at San Francisco’s Rincon Center. Like most restaurants, the first few days were a struggle. “We went home and we literally cried ourselves to sleep,” Pam says. “We were like, ‘What did we do?’”

Fortunately, things changed by the end of the week, when customers came fluttering in. Some customers had trouble understanding the dishes, and even asked if the restaurant ever served exotic dishes like ostrich eggs or crocodile meat. “I never had an ostrich in my life, so I’m not going to sell something I don’t know,” says Pam. “And again, it’s not a typical South African dish, it’s not. So there was a lot of educating in terms of…South African Cuisine.” 

One of the most popular dishes at Amawele’s is Bunny Chow, a cross-cultural dish of English, Indian and Zulu cuisine. Bunny Chow is a hollowed-out quarter loaf of sweet white bread filled with either chicken curry, vegetable curry, lamb curry or beef curry, served with a side of pickled carrots to ease the spiciness. The name “Bunny” is another word for Bania, an Indian caste of merchants who used white bread as bowls to transport their curries.

Initially the twins were against putting it on the menu; they simply couldn’t imagine seeing men in suits digging into Bunny Chow. So they introduced it to diners as similar to a soup bowl, and it soon became their most popular dish on the menu.

Another best-selling item is their Cape Malay Rice, a popular dish from the Cape Malays of Capetown, South Africa. The rice, vibrant yellow from the tumeric, and made with curry, cinnamon, and vegetables. They like to call it a type of Biryani rice—familiar, but with a different taste. 

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Despite success at their brick and mortar, Pam and Wendy decided to close the restaurant in 2019 and focus primarily on online subscriptions, corporate catering and retail. “I feel like that was a massive blessing in disguise, because none of us knew what was going to happen in 2020,” Wendy says. 

Currently Pam and Wendy rent kitchen space at Eclectic Cookery, located in Bayview-Hunters Point, and have a monthly rotating subscription box of South African dishes for customers to order. Says Pam, “Each box has about three full South African meals. [Also], every month a double crusted savory pie is featured, because that’s also one of our signature dishes coming from Durban.”

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Online, Pam and Wendy also sell Rooibos Refreshers, an herbal brew made from leaves that can only be grown in Capetown, and Peri Peri hot sauce. At the moment, Amawele’s only accepts Bay Area orders, but will soon expand nationwide. 

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And as for the future? Says Wendy, “We just want to move forward.” 

For authentic Durban South African cuisine, head over to Amaweles.com. 

Oumar Diouf, born in Meckhe, Senegal, never imagined himself becoming a chef. In fact, it wasn’t customary for boys and men in Senegal to learn how to cook. But after his father passed away, his mother became the sole provider for the family’s six children, and she spent long hours working, returning home late to cook dinner. This caused enough heartache and tribulation for Oumar to step in and support his mother in the kitchen.

Despite the cultural backlash and mockery from his friends, he knew that cooking was his family’s saving grace. One day his mother told him, “You never know when you’re going to need this, because life is long. You’re helping me and you’re getting knowledge.”

Those words later rang true when Oumar left Senegal to play professional soccer in Argentina at the age of 22. After being let go due to an injury, he soon rediscovered his love for cooking. It was in Argentina where he learned about empanadas and the complex flavors wrapped into each savory pastry, which would later become a best-selling dish at The Damel, his brick-and-mortar restaurant in downtown Oakland.

But Oumar picked up another important experience before coming to the Bay Area. In 2008, three years after he’d moved to Argentina, he successfully opened a restaurant in Necochea, a small town off the coast of Buenos Aires. Despite his success in Argentina, it left him unfulfilled.

While on vacation in Brazil that same year, Oumar noticed something familiar in the sea of people, and their clothing and cuisines. He felt a sense of comfort. He was home.

“I decided to move to Brazil to pursue the idea of finding out more why Brazilian food was so similar to African food. I ended up traveling to Bahia and that’s where I kind of like, ‘Wow, this is so cool,’ because 80% of their culture in food and everything is African-descendant.”

One of those dishes is called Acarajé, which is similar to Senegal’s Àkàrà. Àkàrà, a West African dish, is a bean fritter made from cowpeas. The beans are washed and soaked overnight, then blended with red habanero peppers, onions, red bell peppers, and salt. The mixture is then scooped with a ladle into hot bubbling oil, where it’s fried to a golden brown.

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Acarajé is made in much the same way, with the variation of being fried in palm oil and stuffed with cassava puréed with coconut milk, and topped with Brazilian vinaigrette salsa. Acarajé is currently a staple at The Damel, where customers rave about the bold yet delicious flavors at play.

When Oumar moved to Oakland in 2017, he began an Afro-Brazilian catering business that quickly flourished after he catered a lunch for Salesforce. In May 2019, he opened his restaurant, The Damel, which features dishes from his travels to Argentina, Brazil, and home country Senegal. Along with best-selling Acarajé, it’s known for Oumar’s empanadas.

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The Damel’s empanadas are like no other—in fact, the dough is imported directly from Argentina to provide the most authentic flavor. “The ground beef is one of the most popular ones,” Oumar explains. “The ground beef, I’m making it in a way that nobody makes it here. We take the fat out, and we put a lot of flavor in it. So it makes you want to eat more, yet feel guilt-free, because it’s healthy. Although it has Argentinian influences, I bring my own touch to it. So far, we got a recipe that people love.”

Chef Oumar is on a mission beyond his brick and mortar. He developed a food truck that serves customers across the Bay who cannot visit his restaurant. Despite the circumstances of COVID-19, The Damel continues to strive forward; Oumar plans to open 10 more restaurants by 2022. He’s also launched a foundation, and hopes to build homes and playgrounds for orphaned children in need.

“Whenever I travel to Senegal, I am disheartened because I see a lot of children in the streets begging…when they’re supposed to be playing and learning,” Oumar says. “I already built one park, and I am planning on building more parks in each city that I know. It’ll be a place where kids can spend their time…instead of the streets.”

What started as a way to support his mother and provide for his family has gone beyond the family kitchen table. Oumar has successfully brought cross-cultural flavors to the Bay Area that leave customers coming back time and again.

The Damel, 1312 Broadway, Oakland. More details here.

After four years of planning, Horn Barbecue was finally about to open its doors to the public as a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Starting from the entrance, the line stretched down multiple blocks; walking it from end to end took almost five minutes.

The day was filled with a level of anticipation and energy not seen since the start of shelter in place. Some brought lawn chairs, blankets and books for their waits in line. All were masked and socially distant, but a sense of togetherness pervaded; these were Horn Barbecue devotees bonding over the essential love of food.

Early Attempts

Matt Horn’s journey to opening Horn Barbecue started during his childhood in Fresno, California, where he learned about barbecuing from family gatherings. After attending Valley Forge Military Academy, Horn moved to Los Angeles around 2006, where he latched on to the idea of opening a food truck—but didn’t quite know what to serve.[pullquote size=’medium’ align=’right’ citation=’Matt Horn’]‘We have to understand that what’s for us in life, is for us and nobody can take that away.’[/pullquote]

“I was putting the cart before the horse,” he says.

A family friend who had worked with barbecue inspired him to start learning how to smoke meats. He practiced in his grandparents’ backyard on an old smoker, describing those early attempts as “bad barbecue.”

“I had pursued so many different things passionately and it did not work out,” he remembers. And yet, he says, “We have to understand that what’s for us in life, is for us and nobody can take that away.”

Sometimes that determination meant not getting very much validation. “We were doing the farmer’s market, we would only maybe get 10 or 12, maybe 15 customers a day,” he says of his early pop-ups in L.A. “I told my wife that whether people come and buy the food, or if they don’t, I’m still going to cook it.”

From L.A., he looked to find a more permanent home for his endeavors, and he reached out to several breweries in the Bay Area. Just one got back to him, and so by default, West Oakland’s Ale Industries became Horn Barbecue’s pop-up home. But that’s where Matt Horn’s perseverance paid off.

The Ale Industries events became legendary, with the type of lines typically reserved for central-Texas style barbecue—in Texas. Here was a Californian responsible for three-hour waits for oak wood smoked meats, and people were singing high praises.

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The Long Awaited Day

The rising demand for Horn’s barbecue made it clear: it was time to open a brick-and-mortar location. In August 2019, he secured a legendary Oakland spot, the former site of Tanya Holland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen, once also a destination with long waits.

The next steps, however, weren’t so easy. Horn’s dedication to his dream would be tested time and time again. Among other renovations, Horn had to build a clear glass enclosure inside the restaurant to house what would become California’s first indoor smoker.

“I was instructed the only way for me to be able to have my offset smoker was I would have to put it inside the restaurant,” he says. “The restaurant was already a small space, so I had to get creative.” He ended up building a massive 26-foot-wide hood indoors to accommodate the smoker.

Later, the county, city and fire department reversed course. “We were told that we were able to have smokers outside now, after all the work had been done,” he says, per usual, unfazed.

Horn Barbecue was slated for a September 2020 opening date, but constantly changing pandemic restrictions delayed plans for an entire month. On Oct. 24, the long-awaited day finally arrived.

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At 10:59am, Horn and his employees busied themselves with final preparations. “One minute!” he yelled to the brigade.

“One minute!” they yelled back in hearty unison.

The smell of the meats and smoke stoked the anticipation both inside and out. Just 30 seconds before the doors opened, Etta James’ “At Last” began wailing through the restaurant speakers as Horn welcomed in the mob of patient BBQ lovers.

His first customer—a barbecue fanatic—had arrived at 6am. “What can I get for you?” Horn asked, knife in hand. He was masked, but undoubtedly beaming.

One by one, he offered the crowd his favorites: pulled pork, brisket, sausage links, turkey breast, and beef and pork ribs. He and his staff cut each item in front of the customer to ensure they walked away with the juiciest, freshest servings. Meals were rounded out with the usual-barbecue-sides-suspects of collard greens, mac and cheese, beans, potato salad, and coleslaw. Horn’s wife and partner Nina’s own recipe for banana pudding provided a sweet finish. Guests were elated.

Pivoting in a Pandemic

For its first few weeks the hours-long lines persisted. Even in the middle of a pandemic, people were able to sit down and eat in Horn Barbecue’s new outdoor area. But when Governor Gavin Newsom instituted a purple-tier stay-at-home order for Oakland, Horn was forced to do just take-out.

Nobody said opening a restaurant would be easy, but on top of everything that led him to this moment, Horn has had to contend with a pandemic—and with dining rules that are constantly changing. “We’re having a hard time, but we’re going to stay focused,” he says.

“You don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring,” he says. “At times it can be discouraging. But when you have somebody come through those doors and … you have people try your food for the first time or you hear people saying, ‘Hey man, this is my fifth time. I was here last week.’ That’s what keeps you hopeful.”

Horn shares these experiences with most restaurant owners. Between the moments of humble gratitude are frustrations. He’s personally taking all staff members’ temperatures, constantly monitoring hand-washing, and trying to quell fears on both sides of the slicing counter.

“I have to be able to create an environment where people are safe,” he says, “but then also still be able to enjoy the craft that I love. I’m like, ‘Okay, how do I still find the play in the midst of this storm and all these ups and downs?’”

It’s his faith, determination and discipline that prevented Horn from giving up a long time ago. What sort of character traits a person would have to possess to try to open a second restaurant during a pandemic have yet to be decided upon. But whatever they are, he has them.

Superfans will remember that Horn had a secondary pop-up concept he began publicizing early in 2020 called Kowbird. The Southern-style fried chicken sandwich pop-up that Horn put on in his—ahem—spare time, was slated to open in “Oakland Assembly” (that constantly evolving and devolving food hall rumored to be opening in the summer of this year) in Jack London Square. Only time and vaccination efforts will tell when any type of indoor food market can realistically consider opening.

“If I can give anybody any advice in terms of right now with the pandemic,” he says, “keep moving forward because without momentum, you die.”

It seems Horn lives by his own advice: he’s hoping for an early 2021 opening for Kowbird in a yet-to-be-determined location. The wait for Horn Barbecue is over, but as it turns out, that was just the beginning.

Horn Barbecue is currently open Thursday–Sunday from 11am to sellout for to-go orders. Pre-ordering is now available through the restaurant’s Instagram.

Priti Rama Narayanan, the company’s co-founder and chief ice cream engineer, clearly remembers the day the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013. It was the day she proposed to her wife. She also remembers how then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris performed the first federally recognized gay wedding in her home state.

“We felt validated in some way,” Narayanan says.

She and her wife, Madhuri Anji, who is Indo-German, co-founded Koolfi Creamery in 2018, drawing from their own mixed-South Indian roots to create a uniquely Bay Area ice cream company. Their latest flavor, Kamala Blossom, is a tribute to the vice president-elect in the form of a delicious, pink lotus seed-rose flavor.

“It’s been a really difficult four years,” Narayanan says. “But that shouldn’t take away from our ability or our desire to celebrate this historic inauguration of Kamala Harris as the first of so many things: first woman, first Indian American and first Black woman.”

The flavor has deep roots. Narayanan recalls that her father, who grew up in a village in southern India, told her about how he used to go swimming in a pond to find and munch on lotus seeds. As a child in Mumbai, Narayanan grew up eating them in popped form, like popcorn. She had always wanted to use them in an ice cream flavor, but struggled to figure out exactly how to showcase the “slightly nutmeg-y” taste.

After Joe Biden picked Harris as his VP, the choice was clear. The name Kamala, which means ‘pink lotus’ in Sanskrit, prompted Narayanan to experiment with rose water and come up with the flavor. “Her name was the seed for making this ice cream,” she says.

The Kamala Blossom flavor has been available since the beginning of December and can be found online and in select markets and cafes.

“It’s been extremely popular, and is the most popular flavor to date,” Narayanan says. After selling out of the first batch, she and Anji made another. “I think the flavor is very quintessentially a Desi flavor,” she adds, noting that it’s mild and sweet.

“All the flavors we make are like a two-tone silk sari,” Narayanan says, “with a first flavor that hits your palate and another flavor that follows it.” She’s considering making Kamala Blossom a permanent fixture of her brand.

Narayanan’s venture into ice cream came in part as a result of an unexpected accident. One evening, in 2014, she and Anji were walking in San Francisco after a performance by comedian Hari Kondabolu when they were hit by a bus.

“They took us to the E.R. at SF General, and the nurses were so funny, saying, ‘We can’t say anyone threw you under the bus anymore,’” says Narayanan. The incident was traumatic, but it gave her a break for the first time in a long while, allowing her the space and time to think about what she really wanted to do. “I should be doing something I like,” she thought at the time. And for her, the thing that kept popping up was Koolfi. “Why not take all the flavors that we grew up with and incorporate that into a fusion version of flavors?”

In 2018, the partners started Koolfi Creamery. And while it’s not a traditional Indian koolfi made of milk boiled down with spices, Koolfi Creamery uses a French custard base combined with unique flavors like Bombay butterscotch and jackfruit pudding.

Narayanan sees her own Bay Area story as woven into that of VP-elect Harris. “I’m really proud of Kamala and particularly her mom, Shyamala [Gopalan Harris], for stepping out of the norm to be in this relationship,” she says, referring to her marriage to Harris’ father, Jamaican-born economist Donald Harris.

She sees acts of courage in relationships as a benefit to society. The act of “being who you are and being comfortable with that,” Narayanan says.

Anji echoes this sentiment: “To see someone who is biracial and of Indian heritage, like me, so visibly support gay marriage truly mattered to me, and I think someone who stands for equality and fairness is much needed in D.C. right now.”

Senegalese akara, South African bunny chow, Nigerian jollof rice — these are just a few of the flavorful dishes African immigrant chefs regularly share with their Bay Area neighbors. Each dish tells a story of ancestry, migration, and memory, and the tastes and aromas keep chefs and diners connected to home, even when they’re far away.

Dishes of the Diaspora, a new KQED web series premiering in February, tells their stories. In each episode, African restaurant owners from around the Bay invite viewers into the kitchen to share personal experiences, signature dishes, and fresh takes on comfort food. The series also provides a front-row seat to the unprecedented hardships for restaurants brought on by the pandemic. Running a restaurant in the most expensive region in the country is a feat in itself, and it can be doubly challenging for immigrants navigating a new culture and unfamiliar systems.

In the Dishes of the Diaspora premiere, we meet Oumar Diouf, chef/owner of The Damel, a restaurant and food truck in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood. After learning to cook to help his mother as a child in Senegal, Diouf’s journey to Brazil inspired a mission to share his cross-cultural flavors with the world. Now he cooks up a mix of Senegalese, Argentinian, and Brazilian street food, opening a window into the history of these cultures with every plate.

Dishes of the Diaspora premieres Wednesday, Feb. 3 on www.kqed.org/dishesofthediaspora.

Before I met my partner, Christmas felt more like a routine than a happy tradition. While I love some of my family traditions like watching Lakers games with my brothers, eating mom’s banana pudding and telling funny stories, cooking a rib roast and some sort of potato side year after year became a chore.

But last year, during my first themed Christmas party, my partner’s family welcomed me into the fold. Together we were preparing emotionally for two (known to us at the time) life-changing events in 2020: the birth of our first child in July, and her sister’s move to Osaka, Japan in February.

This year, our first holiday season as parents to a beautiful baby boy is special. I have been reliving my happiest Christmas memories as a child with the hope that we can create memories he will cherish. I am excited to get him in the kitchen so I can teach him how to stir the pudding and “clean” the pot like my mother did with me. I’m excited to watch him enthusiastically open one gift on Christmas Eve and try negotiating with us for the chance to open another.

This Christmas is also the first my partner and her sister have spent apart. As the only children of immigrant parents (a mother from Japan and a father from Puerto Rico), the two learned how to rely on each other’s strengths to persevere through adversity. They are each other’s emotional support and very best friends. So the joy of the arrival of our baby is somewhat tempered by a deep sense longing for a sister, daughter and aunt on the other side of the planet.

Upon her arrival in Osaka, we were inundated with beautiful pictures and stories of the rich food culture of the city. Each text message and social media post induced a drool reflex, so it made sense that this year’s Christmas party theme would recreate some of my partner’s sister’s favorite dishes, to connect us to a loved one, and to share her excitement of discovering the treasures of a new home.

Japanese cooking philosophy and techniques have played an important role in my development as a chef. Although my first introduction to Japanese cuisine was as a college student eating at restaurants along Sawtelle Avenue (Little Osaka) in Los Angeles, it was during a trip to Kyoto, before starting graduate school, that I really fell in love with Japanese food culture. Since that trip, I have incorporated years of learning and experimenting with Japanese flavors and techniques into my cooking style. So I am a little excited about cooking these dishes.

Our first dish is chawanmushi, an umami-forward savory egg custard. The chawanmushi my partner’s sister ate in Kyoto had a smooth, creamy texture that obsessed her for weeks. In an ideal world, the sisters would be cooking side-by-side in a kitchen, trying to figure out how to replicate this dish. Instead my partner has me, a science nerd, at her side.

A successful chawanmushi depends on understanding the essential variables of egg quality, seasoning, temperature control and limiting the amount of air bubbles in the custard base.

Although my partner used high quality farm eggs, homemade dashi and seasonings, her first attempt resulted in super tasty scrambled eggs rather than a smooth custard. The heat was too high, and despite skimming and straining, there was still residual air in the custard.

Slowly increasing the temperature allows the dashi (water), the sugar (mirin) and salt (Japanese sea salt and soy sauce) to create a protective environment for the egg proteins to gradually lose their native structure and form a new network of intramolecular bonds. At 160 F that network will have a custard consistency and around 180 F it begins to resemble scrambled eggs.

A high amount of air (think, frothy appearance) whisked into the custard will give the final dish a “spongy” texture. To remove as much air as possible, my partner puts the egg custard base in the chamber vacuum sealer. Then the custard was cooked with a gentler heat. Together these tweaks give my partner’s chawanmushi a “creaminess” we imagine her sister experienced. (Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean I stop experimenting.)

For dessert we are making kintsuba, which my partner’s sister describes as “sweet adzuki beans in squares, coated in flour and baked/lightly fried.” Kintsuba is yōkan, a thick jelly made from tsubuan (whole adzuki beans boiled with sugar), and agar. To unlock the full gelling potential of the agar, it must first be boiled in water. After that the agar is fully melted, the tsubuan is added and the mixture is then cooled inside a mold. Once cooled, the yōkan is cut into block form, coated in pancake batter and quickly cooked so as to not melt the agar. In her descriptions, it sounds delicious: “The lovely texture of a slightly chewy/crisp thin outer layer gives way to a soft bean paste studded with still-whole beans.”

Her description of kintsuba triggered a food memory of eating warm taiyaki on a cold February night during my brief stay in Kyoto. I have always loved the taste of sweet adzuki beans—I grew up eating bean pies from Muslim bakeries—and thus it was a great delight, while I was in Kyoto, to eat taiyaki fresh from the griddle. (Taiyaki is a tai-snapper-shaped waffle stuffed with adzuki bean paste.) It was a cold February night, and the heat of the taiyaki kept me warm and happy. Her more recent description of kintsuba instantly transported me back to that fond memory and forward to the day when we’ll see each other again.

This Christmas our son has just started eating solid foods; so far he seems to like bananas, avocados, pears and rice. In future Christmases, there will be opportunities to embrace the culinary traditions of his Black, Japanese and Puerto Rican heritage. What I love about the tradition my partner helped to create is that it makes Christmas less about the anxiety of buying gifts and more about coming together as a family to gain insight into unfamiliar cultures. This year, that means seeing a familiar culture through the eyes of a much-missed family member. What my partner has made me realize, and what she’ll teach our son, is that a constantly changing thematic Christmas is its own tradition with rich rewards.

Those familiar with tang yuan may picture glutinous balls shaped like miniature snowballs in sweet soup. The sweet tooth in me indulges in these black-sesame and peanut-filled balls whenever I have the chance. But my heart truly belongs to the salty tang yuan soup served on Dec. 21 in commemoration of Dong Zhi (冬至), known as winter solstice.

When I’m home for the holidays, I slurp up an embarrassing number of bowls, rich in shrimp and chicken flavor and served with shiitake mushrooms, crunchy cabbage and savory lap cheong, or Chinese sausage. The broth, steamy and thick from hours of boiling, clings to the tang yuan in my soup spoon, forming the perfect bite. A dinner with tang yuan soup is a not-to-miss occasion, and I, along with the rest of my family, would drop any obligation in a heartbeat to eat at.

This year, I wonder how my family, now miles apart, will celebrate Dong Zhi. When in person, our family can visit Chinatown or gather in our grandmothers’ kitchens to taste their own versions of tang yuan. At the thought of missing such an important celebration, I realize I have so many questions about this holiday and my family traditions, specifically: How can I mimic my grandmothers’ soup recipes? So I reach out.

The first response comes from my father’s mother, who sends me a trove of voice recordings and pictures of her tang yuan soup through WeChat, our primary communication platform these days. In her recordings, she orders me to boil the chicken bones and skim the fat from the broth, and to absolutely not forget the white pepper garnish. Photos of her tang yuan, blurred into indistinguishable pixels by her shaky hands, make me chuckle at our generational divide.

The second message comes from my mother’s mother, who dictates her recipe to my mother as she supervises her cooking in our tiny kitchen. My mother then translates the recipe from Taishanese to English into digestible steps and forwards me the directions via email. I marvel over how every step of her recipe is straightforward and precise—slice the mushrooms ¼ inch, roll dough balls into banana-shaped logs for easy cutting, boil the broth for 15 minutes—and how these instructions must travel through two brains in order to reach my own.

I spend several days untangling the differences between my two grandmothers’ recipes. I spot small discrepancies between them; perhaps they are insignificant, but I want to understand what counts as important. Does the dried shrimp make a difference? Can we substitute daikon radish for turnips? Fresh chicken bones or boxed broth?

In most cases, I opt for the harder-to-find ingredients and time-consuming steps. I want to make a soup most loyal to both my grandmothers’ visions, which means scouring multiple supermarkets for daikon radish and spending hours in the kitchen bouncing between burners and cutting boards in search of their holiday kitchen bliss.

Normally when winter arrives, my family celebrates this holiday separately with my two grandmothers. Now, bestowed with my family’s tang yuan recipes, I plan to bring my relatives together on a video call to honor this day, and dig into a dish that unites us. Dong Zhi falls on the longest night, after all, and we’ll need the company this winter.

Winter Solstice Dough Ball Soup

Serves 6–8

Soup Base

• 4–4 ½ lbs of bone-in chicken (drumsticks, thighs, breasts)
• 7 cups of water

Directions

1. Put chicken drumsticks (skinned) and water in a large stockpot. Bring water to a boil and simmer on low for 2.5 to 3 hours.
2. Strain the soup to remove the drumsticks and any other residue.
3. Cool broth for 30 to 40 minutes, then cover the pot, and put in the refrigerator overnight. The fat should rise to the top.
4. Skim fat from the top and save to use for dough ball soup.

Dough Ball Soup Ingredients

• 3 cups of glutinous rice flour
• 1¼ cups of water
• ½ napa cabbage
• 3 Chinese sausages
• ½ large daikon radish (turnip)
• ½ of large napa cabbage
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 3 green onion stalks
• ¼ cup dried shrimp, rinsed with water and soaked in water overnight
• Cilantro, for garnish
• White pepper (optional)
• Shiitake mushrooms (optional)

Directions

1. Cut napa cabbage, mushrooms and daikon radish into small slices. Cut up Chinese sausage into ¼-inch-thick slices.
2. In a separate big pot or wok, heat 1 tablespoon of oil. Once hot, pour in dried shrimp along with the water. Sauté for 2 minutes. Pour in soup and wait until it boils. Then add radish, napa cabbage and mushrooms into the broth and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Add salt to taste.
3. To form the dough balls, mix warm water with the glutinous rice flour. The mixture will be powdery at first, but continue mixing until the dough turns more firm and can be rolled into balls. You may need to add more flour or water slowly to get the right consistency. The dough should be firm and not too sticky.
4. Prepare two or three plates for the formed dough balls. To make a perfectly round dough ball, form a tube and break off enough dough to roll balls approximately ¾ inch in diameter. Don’t make them too big as they will expand when cooked. Place each rolled ball onto a plate, making sure they don’t touch each other.
5. Place the dough balls into water one by one. Do not drop them all at once as they will stick together.
6. Boil for 5–10 minutes or until they float to the top. Drain the water and place dough balls immediately into the pot of soup with the vegetables. Bring back to a boil.
7. Garnish bowls with cilantro, green onions and white pepper. Serve and enjoy while hot!

Thanksgiving and Christmas are hard for me. Allow me to give you some context.

Currently, I live in the capital city of Dakar. I moved to Senegal several weeks ahead of the 2020 presidential elections. I was under duress. COVID-19 was in its first phase, blazing largely through the Black and Latinx community. Statistics persisted showing an acutely disproportionate illustration of how, once again, Black people bear the brunt of national degradation due to white tyranny. I’ve never been able to dismiss this factuality as happenstance or coincidence.

The anxiety and upset I experienced during this time due to the blatant dehumanization of Black people perpetuated by American hypocrisy was paramount. The efforts made to carry on about my business became more and more dreadful, and caused a series of health problems that affected my fertility, mental health and physical well-being. Essentially, this country was killing me. I was facing a near-nervous breakdown and, even deeper than that, I was embodying the same energy that my life’s work seeks to extinguish in the world. I was bitter, angry, and most importantly I was hurt. I was in dire need of reconnecting to my center, so radical self-care was the recipe for my resurrection. Such precious time with myself lent the opportunity to understand that at the heart of my disdain was the culture of America, and its systems of oppression and racism. Within six weeks of my revelation, I was on Sénégalais land.

So I find myself here in Dakar during the American holiday months and a global pandemic. Every aspect of my life has shifted, so I’ll explain first what that shift looks like for me here.

Senegal finds itself at the top of a global ranking in its response to COVID-19. As a result, cases are low and the death toll is miniscule, considering the density of the country. One can attribute this success largely to the government’s early response and firm actions rooted in science-based information, prompt and reliable testing, a clear and detailed plan of action and consistent national messaging to its constituents. Yet as I’m constantly reminded, this virus exists and still very much affects the people of Senegal.

I live in an economically modest neighborhood where the idea of America likens itself to an iconic dream sold through Hollywood movies. The concept of being here in Dakar during Christmas and not the perceived money pot of America is baffling for some of my friends. As I speak French, I find difficulties in expressing detailed matters of the heart, so I simply state that I do not like America and I find more happiness here. People never ask me about Thanksgiving, as it’s strictly an American festivity, but Christmas has global appeal.

When I analyze the premise of Thanksgiving, I’m constantly wondering why we celebrate the start of the genocide of an indigenous people on their own native land. This brainwashing of Thanksgiving has embedded itself into the lifestyles of Black Americans and non-Black Americans alike. I actually understand why. A fundamental emotion all humans experience is this desire to be in community, to be loved and to love. Thanksgiving offers a resolve to these essential feelings of gratitude, generosity, family and feasting, even if such festive roots are cursory or delusional.

The dominant religion in Senegal is Islam, though there are those who identify with Christianity as well. (The coolest part of Christmas here is that Santa Claus is Black.) I’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Christmas. Most years I end up stewing with sadness in my Oakland apartment alone, wishing I had someone to share a moment with. Although one year, as a child, I recall waking up on Christmas morning with my siblings to find brand new bikes waiting for us all. To this day that memory serves as a respite from life’s inevitable tribulations.

In my apartment building here in Dakar, my friend and landlord (she is American and her husband is Sénégalais) is excited to wrap gifts for her children and embody an American-style expression of Christmas. I wish I could get into it, but honestly, I just want to make really good food, sit on my balcony and ponder my life.

As a chef, I’m placed in an interesting situation regarding the holidays. There is an assumption that I revel in this moment all year—rubbing my hands together and salivating about all of the business to come my way. But that’s not true for me. Being a food industry professional, all I want to do is shop at open air markets, bask in the glory of seasonal produce, adopt new and creative ways of expressing said produce and share elaborate or modest meals with friends and family. But I am here in Senegal, and not afforded that luxury.

What I will do instead to celebrate the holidays, considering COVID-19 restrictions and my geographic location, is this: I will be grateful for all that I am so privileged to have. I, too, live a modest life, yet I maintain two homes on two different continents, I am healthy and I am gainfully employed. My family is all COVID-free, and we are expecting a new addition to the family this New Year. I will buy small gifts for the children in my life here; I can’t help it, and I love them dearly. I will cook something special for myself, maybe lamb or a family favorite, Soupa Kanja (okra soup), with all of the seafood I can find.

My heart is quite heavy as I write, weeping tears of liberated sorrow. Whichever course of holiday action I take, I’m confident it will never resemble the life once experienced without the constraints of social distancing and the geographic distance Africa presents. I will attempt to Facetime with my father and my dear friends. COVID-19 exacerbated the symptoms of the racist society America is founded on, and I’m grateful for such unmasking while acknowledging there is so much more heartache ahead.

The pandemic has placed a dagger into the heart of the community, causing us to go deeper and forge a new expression of who we are and what honestly matters to us most. May these moments never be in vain.

Below are three different traditions, complete with recipes, celebrated around the world during the Winter Solstice.

Jump to:

Ash Reshteh, from Iran

Patjuk

Dongji (Korean Culture)

The deep red hue of the Korean bean soup, patjuk, that is eaten on Dongji (the winter solstice) is believed to have the power to ward off evil spirits and, traditionally, was sprinkled around the house to chase them away.

Having grown up in Seoul, Selina S. Lee, an Oakland restaurant consultant for new Korean restaurants, doesn’t remember her mother making a big deal out of Dongji, but she always made patjuk. Lee contrasts life in modern Seoul to the surrounding villages, where she suspects that Dongji is celebrated more widely, especially among the older generation.

“My mom made the red bean soup every year,” says Lee, “but I had no idea it was for the winter solstice. She didn’t tell me we are eating it for the beginning of winter. Now I know. I don’t really celebrate Dongji, but I want my kids to know it.” Lee now has two boys, age 14 and 12, and makes patjuk every year.

“I have figured out an easier way,” says the recipe developer, “because the traditional method takes a lot of time. First you have to wash, soak the beans, make sure there are no bad ones, then you are supposed to boil them several times and strain it by hand so that all the skin gets separated. I love that kind of cooking, slow rather than fast and easy. But a couple of years ago, looking online for different recipes, I found that people were just blending the beans in the food processor and eating the skin as well. There was something nutritional about the skin. Actually, it turns out smoother and silkier.

“My kids aren’t the biggest fans,” Lee admits, “but it reminds me when I was little, and my mother gave me patjuk with just some salt and I didn’t like it much. Then I realized you could make it with sugar, more like a dessert.”

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Besides red beans, an essential ingredient of patjuk are little rice balls, which symbolize birds’ eggs and new life. “You are supposed to eat the number of rice balls that equals your age. But you really can’t after you reach a certain age,” says Lee, laughing. “You can’t eat 40 rice balls.”

Adds Lee: “I would love to make this into my own tradition now and share stories with my followers, especially Korean-Americans, if they were born here, I’m sure they have had no exposure to it.”

Red Bean Porridge (동지팥죽, Dongji Patjuk)
Makes 4-6 servings
By Selina S. Lee

2 cups red beans (a.k.a. azuki beans)
½ cup sweet rice flour (a.k.a. mochiko rice flour)
Pine nuts – optional
Sugar
Salt
Water

· Wash your beans in cold water and soak them for about 30 minutes. You can pick out broken beans.

· In a large pot, add clean beans to 3 cups of water and bring it to a boil on medium-high heat. Drain the water out after the first boil, and put the beans back in the pot with 4 cups of new water. Boil on medium-low heat for 1 hour with the lid on. Stir the beans a few times to make sure they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Lower the heat if necessary.

· While the beans are cooking, you can make your sweet rice balls (called ‘sae al shim’) by making a dough with ½ cup sweet rice flour, 2 tsp sugar, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ cup of hot boiling water. Add the hot water a little bit at a time and mix and fold/knead gently with your fingers (when it’s not piping hot!) into a long 1-inch-thick dough log. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 15 minutes.

· Roll out your dough with your hand until it becomes 8-10 inches long, then cut it evenly into pieces to mold into small round balls using the palm of your hand. I like to keep them at about ½ inch size. Cover your rice balls so they don’t get dried out.

· After about 1 hour of boiling, the beans should be soft and mashable. Drain, wait until they cool down a little, then add the beans to the blender with about ¼ cup of water until it’s a smooth, silky texture. I do this in 2 batches. You can add more water if needed. It will be a little grainy at first because of the skin, but will smooth out when you cook it. You can store this mixture in your freezer for later use.

· Add blended red beans and sweet rice balls to your pot and bring them to a boil by adding a little bit more water (about ¼ cup), sugar (1 tsp) and salt (pinch). Keep stirring for about 10-15 minutes until achieving desired consistency. I like mine a little bit more runny than a thick porridge.

· Serve with some pine nuts, salt or sugar on the side. I prefer to eat it with salt first, then eat a second bowl with some sugar.

Lussekatt Buns

St. Lucia’s Day (Swedish Culture)

Instead of soup, Swedes hunger for warm, saffron-scented buns on the cold, dark morning of St. Lucia’s Day. The Swedish holiday features a procession of singing children dressed in white gowns, led by the appointed “St. Lucia,” who wears a crown of lit candles (or nowadays, a safer battery-powered version).

Berkeley resident Birgitta Holma Durell, who grew up in a small city in Southern Sweden, remembers the ritual fondly. “My sister and brother and I would get up early in the morning. My mother had already baked the Lucia rolls, which we warmed up in the oven. Then we made coffee for my parents. We would put on our white gowns, and my brother would wear the cone shaped hat with stars on it. Because I had blond hair, I got to wear the crown and we walked upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, singing the Lucia songs and bringing them coffee and Lucia rolls. I liked that we kids did something for our parents.”

The co-founder of Berkeley-based Cult Crackers (which are inspired by Swedish crispbread) explains that after the morning ritual, another procession commenced at school, and often one at church. The choir would sing away the gloom and darkness and hasten rosy skies. “One girl was picked to be Lucia with candles on her head and a red band around her waist,” says Durell. “The rest of us would have glitter in our hair and around our waist. Then everybody would eat Lucia rolls and gingerbread cookies with tea or cocoa.”

Although St. Lucia’s Day celebrates the return of the light, Swedes celebrate it on Dec. 13 (not the 21st) because when Sweden followed the old Julian calendar, that was the date of the winter solstice. In the early 18th century, the country switched to the Gregorian calendar, but kept their traditional celebration on the 13th.

Santa Lucia was a Sicilian saint. Her name means “carrier of light.” Legend has it that Lucia secretly brought food to persecuted Christians who hid in catacombs beneath Rome. She wore candles on her head in order to keep her hands free to carry more food. She died a martyr in 304, and her Saint day is Dec. 13.

The traditional Swedish rolls, called Lussekatt (Lucia cat), are only eaten in December. Their curled-up shape represents a sleeping cat (an animal believed to be the devil in disguise). To keep the devil away, the sweet buns are colored a cheery yellow with the precious spice saffron, and adorned with two raisins to represent the cat’s eyes.

Lussekatt (Lucia’s cat) Buns
By Birgitta Holma Durell

2 teaspoons dry active yeast
¾ cup butter
2 cups of milk
½ teaspoon saffron threads
½ cup natural cane sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6½ cups all-purpose flour
1 egg

To finish:
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup of raisins

· Put the saffron threads in a mortar with a spoonful of the sugar, and crush the saffron with the sugar.
· Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the saffron/sugar mixture.
· Add the milk to the butter and saffron/sugar. Heat until about 110° F.
· In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in 4 tbsps of the warm milk mixture and set aside for a few minutes until small bubbles form.
· In a large bowl, whisk 1 egg and blend in the rest of the sugar, the salt, and then the saffron/milk mixture. Stir until well blended.
· Slowly add the flour to the liquid. Mix with a wooden spoon until you can make a ball out of the dough.
· Knead the dough until smooth. If the dough sticks to your fingers and bowl, add a little more flour.
· Cover the bowl with a tea towel and place it in a warm and draft-free place until doubled in size (about 1 hour).
· Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk an egg for the wash.
· Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it a little more.
· Cut the dough into 35 equally sized pieces. Roll them into balls, and then into snake shapes.
· Curl the top of the snake one direction and the bottom in the other direction (so it resembles the letter “S”).
· After your 35 “lussekatter” are rolled up and put onto sheet pans, cover them with a tea towel and put them back in the same warm spot. Let them rise another 40 minutes.
· Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400° F.
· Brush the rolls with the egg, and add two raisin eyes to each “lussekatter,” one in the center of each spiral
· Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.

Ash Reshteh

Yalda Night (Persian Culture)

A hearty soup is also common fare for Yalda Night, an ancient Zoroastrian celebration of the winter solstice, observed in Iran and the Persian diaspora. But the essential elements of Yalda are watermelons (traditionally saved from the summer in cellars) and pomegranates. These are traditionally set, along with dried fruit, nuts and candles, on a low table with a heater underneath, where the family gathers round. To protect against evil forces on the longest night, guests keep the festive mood going until past midnight, drinking wine, telling stories and reading poetry. The red colors of the fruit symbolize the crimson dawn and life; the word “yalda” means “birth” or “rebirth.”

Yalda Modabber is the co-founder and executive director of Golestan, the first Persian language immersion school in the United States, located in El Cerrito. She happens to share her name with the holiday. “It was unusual when my parents named me, like calling your kid Easter. But now it’s become more popular as a name.”

“I didn’t celebrate Yalda as a child, because it was past my bedtime,” says Modabber. “But, at Golestan, this has traditionally been our biggest event of the year, when we recognize Yalda and all the holidays celebrating light that are rooted in the solstice. That month, the children make lanterns and learn about the ways different cultures celebrate their festivals of light. One evening we have a big bonfire with hundreds of people gathering outside, where we all stand around the fire and sing songs.”

This year, because of the pandemic, the school families will not be able to gather as a community, but the classroom teachers will continue the tradition of having each child peel their own pomegranate. At Golestan, food is recognized as an important vehicle of culture, and the school chef always makes Ash (pronounced “osh”), a thick, hearty soup that includes a medley of beans, lots of herbs, turmeric, onions and special noodles.

Ash Reshteh – Bean and Noodle Soup
Serves 4-6
By Azita Mehran

Ingredients:

1 cup red kidney beans, soaked overnight, drained
1 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight, drained
1 cup lentils
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 bunch spinach, fresh, chopped
1 bunch scallion or chives, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
6 ounces dried noodles for ash; you may find reshteh (noodles) in Persian/Iranian grocery stores.
Water

For Garnish:

1 large onion, thinly sliced
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons dried mint
½ teaspoon turmeric
Vegetable oil or olive oil
1 cup kashk (liquid whey)
2 teaspoons liquid saffron, optional

· Place the chickpeas, beans and lentils in a large pot with 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook for 1 1/2–2 hours or until beans are tender.

· Add the chopped vegetables, noodles, salt and pepper. Stir well, cover and cook for another 30-40 minutes on medium-low heat.

· Add more water if needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

· In medium pan, heat 3-4 tbsps olive oil over medium-high heat. Add sliced onions and cook until golden.

· Add the garlic and sauté for another 3-5 minutes.

· Add the turmeric powder, stir well.

· Add the dried mint and sauté for 2-3 minutes.

· Pour the soup in a large serving bowl, top with fried onion, garlic and mint mixture, drizzle with liquid saffron and a generous amount of liquid kash. Serve hot with warm bread and extra kashk on the side.

WE TRUST YOU. PLEASE TAKE WHAT YOU NEED AND LEAVE THE MONEY ON THE TABLE. —PASTA KING.

For drivers who’d notice the “Pasta King” sign from the rural Sonoma County road and pull into in Ibleto’s driveway, the door to the kitchen was always unlocked. The fridge was always full of penne, marinara, pesto and lasagna. And when Ibleto wasn’t around to take people’s money, the desk was nearly always covered with folds of cash next to the touch-tone landline phone and old Rolodex, accompanied by notes of appreciation.

Ibleto, who died Tuesday morning at the age of 94, was the kind of person for whom this honor system was natural, instead of novel. For all of Ibleto’s philanthropy and civic service to the Sonoma County community that he adopted as a young immigrant from Italy, one fact sticks with many of the Pasta King’s fans most: he trusted you.

The word “iconic” is overused these days. But Ibleto was, without question, a Sonoma County icon. The man was everywhere—at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds where he built his “Spaghetti Palace” in the early 1970s; at Santa Rosa’s Wednesday Night Market; at all manner of charity feeds and bakes and luncheons and parties, many for which he donated his time and food; at special events, celebrations, weddings and funerals; and back at his home kitchen in Cotati, where he’d greet visitors in a thick Italian accent: “Ciao bella! You like pasta? Red or green?”

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Ibleto’s life wasn’t always so public. As a teenager in Italy drafted into Mussolini’s army, he escaped and joined the resistance forces as an underground freedom fighter in hiding, planting explosives on roads and railroads to thwart fascism’s spread across Europe. At 22, he immigrated to the United States and settled in Petaluma, trusting not only the people in his new chosen home, but in hard work, common sense and a we’re-all-in-this-together belief.

Over at the Press Democrat, Ibleto’s longtime friend and biographer Chris Smith tells the details of the Pasta King’s long life, including his business ventures and philanthropy. It’s worth a read.

But Ibleto touched even those who hadn’t the faintest awareness of his stature in the community. Often, he ignored his own honor system and simply gave pasta away for free—to those down on their luck, or to people he thought looked too thin—a gesture that was rarely forgotten.

The whole reason I’m writing this, probably, is because I was one of those people once, a skinny kid without the $6 for a plate of pasta at Santa Rosa’s Wednesday Night Market. Later, when my wife and I got married, it only made sense to hire the Pasta King to cater our wedding; even later, when we had a daughter, we occasionally brought her by Ibleto’s place so he could see the results.

And of course, there was his loud, deep laugh. When, a few years back, I found myself without the proper change to leave on his old wooden desk for some lasagna, I knew I couldn’t cheat his trust. So I wrote him a letter when I got home and enclosed the missing amount of two quarters, taped to the letter, with two stamps to cover the extra weight.

Ibleto never put the quarters in his till. Instead, he taped the letter to his refrigerator, along with the quarters and the stamps, in what many presumed was a proud display of reciprocal trust; the public’s allegiance to the honor system.

I learned the real reason later, when a friend reported stopping in and telling Ibleto that he knew the sender of the quarters. Ibleto pointed to the stamps, amused.

“He your friend? You see what he do?!” Ibleto said. “He spend 88 cents to send me 50 cents! Maybe I have a bridge to sell him!”

And then, after a long, heavy laugh, he looked up and said, “So. You like pasta? Red or green?”

And that was the Pasta King. It truly won’t be the same without his huge, gracious presence here in Sonoma County.

Learn more about the Pasta King here.

Thankfully, the winery was elevated enough to not be affected. Then October brought historic fires that damaged at least 27 wineries across Sonoma and Napa counties. With her winery located right off of River Road, Enriquez says, the fire came close, crossing Highway 101 just south of the River Road exit, toward Coffey Park.

Since 2017, fires are becoming more frequent—and destructive. In 2020, when the August Complex Fire became the largest fire in California history, Enriquez had to manage evacuations and power outages.

“You get so used to them that you already have things ready to go,” Enriquez says. “It becomes part of your normal everyday life.”

Like Enriquez, the California wine industry at large has struggled with the effects of climate change: drought, earlier and earlier harvests, floods and fires. But beyond structural damage, possibly the biggest impact that vintners and wineries have had to deal with is smoke taint.

Reversing the Effects of Smoke

Smoke taint occurs when grapes are exposed to wildfire smoke, which can result in an overwhelming quality to the wine, often described as “campfire,” “burnt” or “medicinal.” With the extent of the fires in 2020, many wineries had to decide what to do with fruit that was tainted. And, since 2017, wineries like Gundlach Bundschu in Sonoma County have experimented with technologies that both test for the presence of smoke taint and work to reverse it.

“There are efforts to mitigate climate change and there’s just kind of adaptation,” says Towle Merritt, the vice president of operations and general manager at Gundlach Bundschu, who has plenty firsthand experience with smoke taint. In 2017, multiple Gundlach Bundschu properties had fire on-site. Going into this year, the winery wasn’t looking to take in any grapes after October.

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But because of new technology, the winery decided to take in some late-season grapes that had been affected by smoke. The process uses the sanitizing agent known as ozone, which Merritt had used fairly regularly in to reduce microorganisms in barrels. The inorganic molecule has also been used in produce transport to increase food safety and in hotel rooms to remove tobacco smoke odor. There were claims, Merritt says, that ozone could eliminate 50-90% of smoke’s volatile compounds in grapes by permeating the cell wall.

“It actually fixed the issue than hid the issue,” says Merritt. “[Ozone] atomizes the volatile compounds. We like the prospect of actually trying to mitigate the root problem.”

Enriquez decided to go with a different method by using Bioclear or Clear Up BIO, which binds to the smoke taint in the grape juice and stays at the bottom of the barrel when it’s racked. She treated all grapes that came in this year with it as a precautionary measure, even though smoke wasn’t noticeably present. “We’ve had very clean wine thus far,” says Enriquez. “But that’s not to say it’s not going to show up later in life.” (In 2014, for example, some ash briefly fell around the estate in Petaluma; the grapes remained clean in fermenting and bottling, but a couple of months later, Enriquez noticed a little bit of smoke. “Not overpowering, but you could definitely taste that there was smoke in there compared to previous vintages.”)

‘Mother Nature Does Not Have a Schedule’

Not all wineries can afford to use smoke technologies. Some have chosen to work with smoke-tainted grapes and ferment with them, or else sell them wholesale to other wineries. Meanwhile, others with crop insurance often decide to forgo making wine from smoke-tainted grapes.

Ultimately, “Mother Nature does not have a schedule,” says winemaker Erica Stancliff of Trombetta Family Wines. “Mother Nature does what Mother Nature wants, and we are along for the ride.” Stancliff’s adjustments include pruning later in the winter to delay bud break and to mitigate the risk of frost early in the spring; she’s also been proactive with watering and irrigation, and in moving more toward dry farming.

“I think 2017 was sort of a wake-up call,” says Merritt. “But really a wake-up call in the sense that there is just not enough research out there that you can speak to with any sort of absolute.”

For Napa winemaker Dan Petroski, a longtime advocate for talking about climate change in the wine industry, it’s hard to pinpoint climate change as the sole cause for fires and other major disasters. “It’s a cumulative effect over time that is causing all this to happen,” he says. A big factor in the LNU Lightning fires, which were caused by lightning strikes during hot, dry weather that ended up burning more than 363,000 acres, was human expansion, he says.

“We’re just going to keep continuously expanding and growing and thinking that we are indestructible,” Petroski says. “We’ve built houses in places that shouldn’t be there, and put telephone poles with electric wires in places that shouldn’t have been there, that weren’t there 100 years ago.”

Petroski is the winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards, which just celebrated its 125 anniversary this year as a family winegrowing estate. In the late 2000s, he was a part of the climate task force in Napa Valley which issued a detailed report on climate change’s future effects. Petroski started becoming vocal about climate change, he says, because generational wineries like Larkmead want to continue their legacies 10, 20, and 30 years from now.

In order for Napa Valley to survive and thrive, Petroski says there needs to be a shift in how wineries think of the region as a destination. People come for the experience, even if it’s during the winter months, he says, and not necessarily for the valley’s famous varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon. In other words, it’s about rethinking and adapting to the continuously changing landscape.

“They come to absorb the sunshine and the good time,” Petroski says, optimistically. “It’s going to continue to get better.”

Every Sunday since early March, the Guatemalan bakery transforms into a packing and distribution site for the Mission Meals Coalition (MMC), a new mutual aid collective that provides groceries and hot meals for folks across the Bay Area.

The coalition is made up of several community partnerships with local businesses and organizations—each of which fundraise and advocate for a range of underserved groups, from the houseless to the undocumented.

MMC is founded and run by womxn of color—Gaby Alemán, her sisters, Xiomara and Cynthia, and their mother, Gabriela Ramírez. The coalition was formed in response to the systemic disparities in food security that the coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated.

The sisters credit the initial steps in MMC’s conception to their mother. Ramírez, a local event vendor, owns a chair and table rental business called Mom Chairs on 20th and Mission streets. While shelter-in-place orders meant a huge blow to her business, she started a list of people within her personal network who she knew would be impacted just as harshly by the economic effects of the pandemic.

Many of Ramírez’s friends and colleagues are neighborhood street vendors, a sector of the informal economy that is especially vulnerable during the pandemic due to their exposed work environment, their immigration status and the lack of protective benefits. Seeing this, Ramirez knew the pandemic was bound to impact her colleagues’ access to food.

Ramírez and her daughters purchased 100 tamales from Eterna Primavera Bakery to provide for the folks she had identified. Thus, MMC was born. Since then, the list of MMC’s recipients has expanded to migrant day laborers, asylum seekers, the edlerly and the unemployed in order to address the number of institutional gaps these communities often fall into.

Nonprofit organizations geared toward addressing resource accessibility sometimes impose strict eligibility criteria on their services. Depending on the organization, a person’s zip code, immigration and employment status could all have an effect on whether or not they stand a chance at receiving the help they need.

“A lot of nonprofits have limitations on their funding with regard to who can be served, especially if they’re funded by the local or federal government,” said Alemán, who currently works as the Community Engagement manager at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. “A lot of our beloved street vendors are MMC recipients and we have some who, even though their community is here in San Francisco, may actually live in places like Oakland, Richmond, or Antioch. We make sure that they have their food delivered to them because they’re still an integral part of our Mission neighborhood.”

Almost 90 percent of MMC recipients —as well as its founders— are Central American. “In addition to having grown up relying on food banks for many of our meals, we understand what it feels like to have frozen food thrown at you,” said Alemán. “Of course we were grateful but I remember feeling such a lack of human dignity when we received these services, so we really want to ensure that our recipients’ dignity remains at the center of all of this.”

MMC has partnered with Eterna Primavera Bakery, El Faro SoMa, La Guerrera’s Kitchen and Tacos El Precioso.

El Faro Taquería—hailed as the home of the famous “Mission style burrito”—has been a San Francisco staple since 1961. Since the SIP orders were implemented, El Faro’s SoMa location has seen a drastic drop in sales which has put the family-run shop in a tough position. “We’re making 80 percent less than what we used to make,” said Yolanda Ontiveros, owner of El Faro SoMa.

It’s circumstances like these that make mutual aid organizing so vital. Through their partnership with MMC, El Faro SoMa has had an increase in profit thanks to the coalition’s orders for hot meals that are distributed to their houseless and day laborer recipients.

“We’re very appreciative to have this extra income,” said Yolanda’s daughter Valeria Olguín, who also helps run the business. “These orders also create extra hours for our employees to work since the number of hours we can offer have been compromised by the pandemic.”

Reyna Maldonado, who co-owns La Guerrera’s Kitchen with her mother Ofelia Barajas in Oakland, emphasized the significance of the role that womxn of color play in building and preserving the community.

“I really admire [MMC],” Maldonado said. “Our partnership has pushed me to understand the interconnected inequities our communities face and the work needed to address them. They have also reminded me of the strength that womxn in the community have and how creative we can be.”

MMC had recently run into an obstacle in keeping their resources accessible. On July 3rd, Alemán was alerted by Mission Food Hub—the food space through which the coalition had been able to subsidize groceries for their growing list of recipients—that their accessibility would now be contingent on the release of MMC recipients’ personal information such as full names, addresses and phone numbers. A shift in Mission Food Hub’s funding was ultimately what prompted this sudden demand.

Due to their status, protection under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the warranted fear of repercussions under the Trump administration’s new Public Charge Rule—releasing identifiable information puts MMC recipients in an even more vulnerable position than they currently find themselves.

The coalition has remained firm in their stance against releasing sensitive information despite the consequences because for MMC, basic human needs should be prioritized over fulfilling repressive institutional qualifications. In an open letter posted on MMC’s Instagram after learning of these new demands, the coalition said “Providing sensitive information is a safety issue and institutionally negating food to the most systematically marginalized in our communities is violence.”

Despite the obstacles, MMC’s consistent transparency and unwavering advocacy has secured the coalition as one of the Bay Area’s most indomitable WOC-run mutual aid coalitions solely funded by community donations. MMC’s latest developments in their expansion like their flourishing Patreon and their partnership with SF Community Fridge at Adobe Books on 24th and Shotwell Street surely serve as a hopeful glimpse of what’s to come for the coalition as well as the community as a whole.

While the narrow space’s two-tops were often filled with hearing couples, the back of the room held the only space large enough to accommodate a big group. Celebrating a birthday, graduation or job well done with a bunch of Deaf friends was the perfect excuse for a festive night out at Mozzeria.  But no excuse was needed. After a week of feeling isolated as the only Deaf person in a hearing workplace, Mozzeria was just the place to unwind and probably bump into Deaf friends or friends of friends and relax, chatting the night away. 

That rare instance of 100% communication access was a big draw for Deaf diners. As co-founder Russ Stein explained in a video interview for KQED a few months after Mozzeria’s opening:

“Growing up in my Deaf family, when we went out to restaurants, it was a very isolating feeling. We would always be the only Deaf people in the place. This restaurant provides one of the very few opportunities for the tables to be turned… When a waiter brings over the menu. Deaf customers can ask detailed questions for the first time. Deaf people are so used to the waiters rattling off the specials, while they kind of nod politely and just guess at what was said. Now when the server mentions the special, the customer can ask questions and find out about the ingredients and preparation. It’s very exciting… Deaf people have never really had this opportunity… .” 

Among its hearing customers (who definitely outnumbered their Deaf counterparts most nights), some knew that they were coming to a Deaf restaurant and came specifically to practice their American Sign Language (ASL). Others had no clue of Mozzeria’s uniqueness until their waiter affably gestured, pointed, and mimed. Many left having at least learned one sign: “thank you.” 

The Steins met in 1995 when they were graduate business administration students at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the world’s only university specifically designed for Deaf people. Melody always nurtured the dream of owning a restaurant. Russ was game, if it could supply him with his favorite food, pizza. The pair did their homework to prepare.

Before Mozzeria opened, Russ set up a wood-fired oven in their backyard and practiced making pizzas for two years. Melody traveled to Italy, where she learned how to make pasta in Rome and pizza in Sorrento and Positano.

After finally securing a space, they hired a Deaf electrician, Deaf wood refinishers, and a Deaf woodworker to design and construct their tables, shelves, and marble-topped counter. They also featured Deaf artists on the walls of their restaurant.

Mozzeria opened on December 9, 2011. Word quickly spread around the world from accounts in the New York Times, Washington Post and on TV news stories and scores of other media outlets. Soon they were welcoming Deaf visitors from across the globe, from Sweden, Italy, China, Australia, Brazil, Japan and other countries. (Even though each country uses a different sign language, when two Deaf people from different countries meet, their shared visual orientation, comfort with gesturing and the iconicity of some signs makes it much easier for them to quickly communicate the basics, compared to hearing people who speak different languages).

The restaurant, at times, reflected cross-cultural clues in its menu, like Melody’s signature dish the Peking Duck Pizza  topped with sliced cucumber, green onions and sesame seeds. The dish is an homage to Melody’s family owning several Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong and later San Francisco. 

Soya Mori, a Deaf developmental economist and sign language linguist from Tokyo, spent a year as a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley. “The first week of my stay at UC Berkeley, I visited Mozzeria with my family,” says Mori. “It was one of our dreams, because it was so famous to foreign visitors. Deaf-owned businesses like Mozzeria are so important for our Deaf community. We are really sorry to know of its closing.”

“Mozzeria inspired Deaf people all over the US that it is possible to open their own restaurant,”  said Nichola Schmitz, a Deaf relay interpreter. “It also gave a host of jobs to Deaf workers, and not just as dishwashers, hidden away in the kitchen, but as cashiers, servers, everything. When hearing people read the reviews, instead of looking down on Deaf people, they looked up to the owners of Mozzeria and wanted to support them.”

“Melody and Russ were more than restaurateurs,” says Julie Rems-Smario, a Deaf Education Consultant for the California Department of Education. “They were very involved with the Deaf community. They sponsored a host of fundraisers at Mozzeria and gave us the whole place for free one Monday so we could shoot a film to bring awareness about domestic violence in the queer community. They also invited students at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont to have internships at Mozzeria,” Rems-Smario adds. “And when they graduated, many became employees there.”

 Part of Mozzeria’s decision to have an all-Deaf work force came from the intimate knowledge that Deaf people face huge hurdles in finding employment. Less than 40 percent work full time.

Rachel Zemach, a Deaf writer and former teacher of Deaf children, speaks of the hope, empowerment and financial freedom that comes with having a job. “Mozzeria was important to counter the despair that Deaf people feel at being blocked from working, even at the lowest level jobs. Mozzeria gave Deaf people another way of thinking about their power in the world. It was a venue that raised up Deaf people in the world of work. Their impact went much deeper than food.”

 Former employee Jason Wittig worked as a server at Mozzeria for three years before he got his dream job doing photography at SFMOMA. “Mozzeria was a great place for Deaf people who needed employment and experience to improve their skills in dealing with both the hearing and Deaf public. Melody and Russ Stein graciously provided a safe and wonderful environment for Deaf people, no matter what their skill level, to be employed, which can be very difficult in the hearing world. They knew it was important for Deaf people to be able to provide for themselves by making a living on their own terms.”

In 2017, Mozzeria partnered with the CSD Social Venture Fund (CSD SVF), which supports Deaf entrepreneurs in growing their businesses. and expanded as Mozzeria Inc., to transform itself into a national brand. In September 2020, the second Mozzeria, in Washington DC, opened during the pandemic. Future plans for expansion are up in the air.

 While San Francisco Mozzeria’s brick and mortar has closed, it still has a huge food truck, which regularly appears at Off The Grid, will still be used for private events.  

Ryan Maliszewski, CEO of Mozzeria, Inc. says, “right now our primary focus is to maximize our food truck visibility across the Bay Area so that we can bring Mozzeria much closer to our current as well as new customers. We also plan to explore the idea of doing a traveling “Mozzeria Food Truck Tour” across the Pacific Northwest or even southern California where we could also test new markets for potential brand expansion down the road.”

 Around the world, there are just a handful of Deaf-owned-and operated restaurants. Many have recently closed, but some, including Crêpe Crazy in Austin, 1000&1 Signes, a Moroccan restaurant in Paris, Sign with Me Social Café in Tokyo, and Bravo Caffe in Taipei, are struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic.

The absence of the smoked veggie duck was upsetting for those of us who had eaten it with almost religious fervor for years. Over the last six months, each time I stepped through Love N’ Haight’s door, bell ringing above me, I checked to see if “OUT DUCK” was still on the board, then muttered the same thing. “Man. That duck really is gone forever. But it’s okay. As long as Love N’ Haight stays open, everything is okay.”

As you probably know by now, everything is not okay—Love N’ Haight permanently closed its Lower Haight St. doors on Oct. 1, 2020. And it wasn’t the “OUT DUCK” that was the problem. (We’d all just switched to the vegan chicken.) Like hundreds of businesses around the Bay Area, its closure was a side effect of the pandemic, exacerbated by an expiring lease.

Losing Love N’ Haight represents more than just the loss of a long-time veggie favorite. Its closure means the loss of a time capsule; a constant; a very special hole in the wall that steadfastly refused to change over the course of its 21 years in business. (Unless you count the one time prices went up by a dollar, or the disappearance of real meat from the menu in 2013.)

Make no mistake: Love N’ Haight was weird in a quintessentially San Francisco way. Its interior walls and ceiling were decorated with a painting of the lost city of Atlantis, specifically designed to make you feel like you were underwater. The shop never played music, preferring instead to blast droning Buddhist chants, some of which were layered to the point of anxiety-inducing. The chairs and tables were mismatched and rickety. Inside, the only truly aesthetically pleasing sight was the immaculate Buddhist shrine, always replete with offerings. Love N’ Haight stayed this way the entire time it was open, despite the gentrification going on outside its front door.

The reason Love N’ Haight didn’t need to fuss, or create a fancy decor to keep its customers coming, was because its sandwiches were unmatched. (Yes, even in a region as vegetarian-friendly as the Bay Area.) Now that the shop has closed, those sandwiches remain unmatched. (Though it’s worth noting that Rhea’s Deli in the Mission comes close.) This leaves many of its patrons in the predicament of trying to recreate Love N’ Haight sandwiches at home. And this week, I did just that.

Much of the initial battle revolved around locating the right kind of soy meat. Love N’ Haight’s was special—thick steaks that offered a chew much closer to real meat than the average seitan. This is not meat you can pick up in any regular supermarket, and it’s not readily available within the confines of San Francisco. A pilgrimage to Layonna Vegetarian Health Food Market in Oakland’s Chinatown (accessible via BART), or to Saudagar Cash & Carry in Hayward is first necessary. Both carry the Meatless Smoked Drumsticks that most closely resemble the smoked veggie duck of old.

Through a process of trial and error, I found that the only way to get them cooked to Love N’ Haight perfection is to first defrost them, then throw them in the oven at 375° for 12-15 minutes. (The package suggests frying, sautéing, or grilling—none of which gave me an even cook because of the drumsticks’ awkward shape.) After that, it’s just about replicating your order (mine was always on sliced wheat with extra avocado and cucumber) and doing it with the care and meticulous attention that Fey Chao used to give it. Evenly layer those veggies like your life depends on it!

The sandwich I made, it turns out, was great. Extremely similar to the ones Chao used to make for me. It filled the hole in my stomach just fine—but the one in my heart still remains. Because never again will I eat one while chatting across the counter to Chao’s sweet daughter, Virginia. Never again will my friends attempt to FedEx me a sandwich on my birthday because I’m out of town and they know it’s my favorite. (This really happened.) And never again will I drunkenly leave Molotov’s at 1am and fall into the comfort of a sober-up sandwich right across the street.

At the time of Love N’ Haight’s closing, Fey Chao told SF Gate that she intends to re-open in a new location once conditions return to normal. “I can’t retire,” she said, “but right now it’s very difficult to open a new shop. This year, I will relax for a couple months, but I’ll find something to do for next year.” Chao should relax while she can. As delicious as my home sandwich was, if and when Love N’ Haight opens in a new location, I, and countless others like me, will enthusiastically return, “OUT DUCK” or not.