The Guerrilla Gourmet

A Picnic to Remember

2010-06-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

County fairs aren't really my thing. The rows upon rows of apple pies and jam jars and foppishly coifed horses awaiting inspection seem a bit silly to me. And the petty dramas (will Mrs. Finnywick win the home preserves competition this year, or will the upstart Mrs. Winndefrock take the ribbon?) aren't my thing either. I grew up in the suburbs and now I live in the city and my mother never made

Just like Peanut Butter and Jelly, or bacon and brussel sprouts...

2010-05-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

As many of our readers, since most of our readers are our friends and family, know Eric and Tiffany finally made it official and got married on May 22nd, 2010. If you hadn't already been drug into the wedding extravaganza you may have been missing our charismatic chefs. We've been forced into to taking a bit of a break and eating lots of delivery pizza and In-N-Out while planning, but we can't

A new blog may be sprouting soon...

2010-04-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

Here at the Guerilla Gourmet, good food is our priority, but urban food gardening has always been simmering away on the back burner, making it's own contributions. Indeed, a revolutionary cook understands that while the steps that your food takes from the kitchen to your mouth are the most delightful, they must also understand the journey it takes from the soil to the kitchen. Lately, however,

A belated shout out!

2010-04-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

I've been fiddling for a while now with a new, micro-commercial vision for my little garden, one that I think fits better in the urban landscape. And I'm proud to announce that I made a few steps toward inking in that vision last week by selling my very first crops! My thanks to Chef Alison Mountford of SquareMealsSF (don't forget to fan her on Facebook) and to Chef Stephanie, Culinary Mistress,

We're going! To a fry party! It's the best party! That's ever been!

2010-04-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

Deep-fried food is delicious, if not nutritious, and I cram it into our home menu as often as possible. But it's a pain to deep fry at home what with the slick of oil that always seems to collect on the counter, or the risk of burns, or the fact that in our deep-fryer/electric wok. It's better to go out to a restaurant if you want a fry up, but the absolute ideal situation is a fry party!

Pan e Panelle - Sicilian Chickpea Fritter Sandwiches

2010-04-09T00:25:00.000-07:00

I first encountered this recipe on the great, kitschy PBS cooking show, Lydia's Italy. The target demographic is retired old ladies, but Lydia really knows her stuff and she shares the serious technique that Giada sometimes skips over... Pan e Panelle was on Lydia's Sicily show, and that episode ignited my interest in the humble, delicious, ancient fusion food of Sicily. What's Guerrilla:

Egging you on...

2010-03-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

Eggs are inexpensive, nutritious and delicious, and one of my favorite ways to enjoy them is in huevos rancheros. But the guerrilla gourmet has been in decidedly Italian territory lately, so we turned instead to uova ai purgatorio (eggs in purgatory) - a poetic name for eggs poached in tomato sauce. You can use any tomato-based sauce for this, but the rich, simple Ragu a la Napoletana makes

The never-ending stock pot

2010-03-09T13:17:00.000-08:00

I used to think boxed chicken stock was great. Sure I preferred to make my own, but I didn't always have a chicken carcass on hand, and It's an easy way to add a bit of flavor to your meal without too much work, it stacks easy in the pantry, and at $2 a pop at Trader Joes, it doesn't cost much. But now $2 is a quarter of our daily food budget! That means either we give up boxed stock, or we

Ragu a la Napoletana

2010-03-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

I love to cook, I love to write about cooking, I love to take pictures about food (that's why I started this whole thing). But I'm a bad blogger. Half the time I start cooking, get absorbed in it, then when I'm elbow deep in crushed tomatoes or hands covered in dough, hey, I should blog this! So pardon the incomplete photography on this one... A16 Food+Wine is my favorite kind of

And we're off!

2010-02-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took a quick peak under the cold frame, and it looks like our radishes are just beginning to sprout. The 2010 gardening season is officially off and running, but we're still waiting on the peas... I'm surprised by the amount of light that gets through the fleece and by the amount of heat that doesn't escape. The material looks so flimsy, but my high-tech climate monitoring system (a

A "Kickstart" to something great

2010-02-24T12:01:00.000-08:00

All winter I've mulled over the idea of selling my produce commercially. I love gardening and most of what I grow goes into the kitchen - I'm certainly not in this for the money! But I haven't had a regular job for a few months, freelance stuff is far from lucrative, and amendments, seed, and horticultural fleece cost money! So if I can sell the produce of one or two beds to cover the cost of the

More stirrings in the garden

2010-02-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

It's February, a difficult month for gardeners in San Francisco, or at least for me. On the one hand, night time low temperatures are edging up into the 50s and this past week we had a delicious amuse bouche of early spring sun. I can practically feel myself germinating! On the other hand, the ground is still soggy and the rain won't officially leave our reliable Mediterranean climate until the

Some true words...

2010-02-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

...from James Beard's "How to Eat Well for Less Money". I couldn't have said it better myself, so I didn't.

Possibilities in the garden...

2010-01-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

If you've followed the blog for a while, you may remember our very first garden post, nearly two years ago! Well the Schaefer Manor Farm has made great strides since then, adding two more vegetable beds, lots more herbs, cold frames, a drip watering system, and a dwarf Meyer lemon tree, but I'm sad to say that this last winter I let things slip, and weeds took over most of the yard. Even after a

Some plans brewing for the New Year!

2010-01-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, Comrades! I hope you enjoyed your Hopping John this year, we sure did. Check out the recipe (via Bryant Terry) here. Our first order of business, of course, is to keep on cooking, but we've also got some more detailed projects. See the details after the jump! 1) Every gardener knows that January is the month for plotting and planning, and we'll be going over seed catalogs

Hoppin' John!

2010-01-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

I have no clue why eating Hoppin' John on New Year's Day is considered good luck (I guess you're supposed to eat poor tonight and rich the rest of the year) or how the dish got it's rather unlikely name (edible Chesapeake has a bit of history) but even a Yankee-boy like me can tell it's delicious! Bryant Terry's vegan version is less porky than your average Southern indulgence, but still very,

A look back at our favorite posts from 2009

2009-12-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

1) Reverse-Engineered Ponzu Roasted Brussels Sprouts a la Namu: I love trying to copy a dish from a fancy restaurant. The brussels sprouts served at the Foodbuzz awards dinner were delicious, and surprisingly easy to make at home. 2) The Best of the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival: Number two in this list of the top 10 things we've blogged this year is a list of the top 10 things we blogged at the

Shove it in (the new year's) face!

2009-12-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is past: time for new beginings. At Guerrilla Gourmet Headquarters, that means holiday leftovers (including a LOT of roast beef), and getting into some new stuff from Christmas. My grandmother gave me Jamie Oliver's newest book, Jamie's Food Revolution, and we're going to try a few things. I must admit that when I first paged through the book, I scoffed a bit -

Reverse engineered Ponzu-Roasted Brussels Sprouts a la Namu

2009-11-22T11:46:00.000-08:00

There were many high points of the Foodbuzz blogger festival, but the blowout dinner from Outstanding in the Field, held in the "field" of the Greenleaf Produce Warehouse off Bayshore Avenue, was the uncontested star of the show. Dennis Lee of Namu led the effort in the kitchen, and turned out course after course of pan-asian-fusion food including mushroom dashi with three mushrooms, rare sea

10 reasons to wish you had gone to the Foodbuzz Food Blooger Festival!

2009-11-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

10. The magic of a mid-afternoon Merlot tasting with Alder Yarrow at the Metreon (Tif preferred the Blackbird, but Eric fell for the La Paloma!) 9. Pats of Irish butter eaten off of toothpicks...that's right - eating straight, pure BUTTER. 8. A delicious, devilish delight in street food and tacos that are, in fact "tacolicious." 7. Knowing that the Prather ranch is actually interested in your

The Meat of the Matter

2009-11-13T02:03:00.000-08:00

Last weekend's Foodbuzz Blogger Festival here in San Francisco was an unprecedented opportunity to taste, sip and mingle. Plenty of things stood out from the weekend, including Roli Roti's mini-porchetta sandwich with crispy skin, a delightful merlot from Blackbird, and all the great friends we made, but the chance to meet "spreadsheet cowboy" Brian Kenny of Hearst Ranch in San Simeon and hear a

Grab your Guerilla, to-go!

2009-11-05T16:31:00.000-08:00

We may not have a drive through (yet) but you can now get the same great Guerrilla Gourmet action, to-go! We've been resistant to jump on the Twitter bandwagon for awhile...but with Foodbuzz Food Blog Festival approaching, we just had to admit it's brilliance. And thus, we bring you - Guerrilla To-go. Follow us this weekend as we meet people from the food blogging community that has so warmly

Grab your hat Grandpa! We're headed to CALIFORNIA!

2009-10-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, balls. We live here, don't we? Ohhh well, that's ok, because we are still really excited to announce that we will be attending the first annual Foodbuzz Blogger Festival!! We'll be there to kiss babies, shake hands and exchange MooCards with fellow food bloggers. If you'd like to join us in San Francisco, we're happy to squeeze in space for another friend at the table. And we're looking

Food-Stamp Diet: Day Four

2009-09-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Tonight: Chilaquiles con leftovers. What's Guerrilla: This is basically tortillas, salsa, and broth... What's Gourmet: But it's so good! Materials: Six homemade tortillas ($0.10) the recipe said store-bought and I'll definitely make it that way. The homemade ones are very cheap, but they get way too tough. One 12-ounce jar of tomatillo sauce ($1.99) Half of a cup of chicken broth ($0.25)

A Balanced Diet

2009-09-24T13:25:00.001-07:00

Here's a little video bit from Glenn Beck, to provide much needed ideological balance to our discussion of hunger in America. Glenn is such a very persuasive person. We might as well just scrap SNAP, and go with the solution that the Dead Kennedy's proposed 30 years ago...