We came back from taking down the recycling yesterday evening to find we had locked ourselves out of our apartment. "Noooo!!" [Insert Emo Darth Vader ballad here. Warning -- audio.] We dialed the apartment manager on the call-box but got his voice mail. Lucky for us, the manager, who wouldn't be back until 10:00, called our s.o., who wouldn't be back until 8:00, and our s.o. called our friend who lives a few blocks away.......

By Evan Roberts One of the few remaining knife sharpeners left in SF these days, this is a must-listen. Why? Because it's important to get your knives sharpened. (America's Test Kitchen can't stress it enough!) But Jivano sharpens more than haughty Sur La Table cutlery. Take a listen. If you're reading this via an RSS reader, please click through to access the sound file. And, as always, if you have or know of a......

Last week's winner, the San Jose Metro. Alas! They haven't updated their site for this week yet, and we didn't manage to snag a hard copy of the paper, so they'll have to forfeit in the Weekly of the Week contest for the week. Next up, let's call it for the SF Weekly. Ephraim the Track Bike is back! And he mentions us! We love you, Ephraim the Track Bike! Did Ed Jew's people spearhead......

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

Andrea Froncillo and Jennifer Jeffrey teamed up last year to write stinky prose. (We'll re-use that pun as much as we please.) He is a chef/partner in a bunch of restaurants in the city, including the Stinking Rose and the Crab House, and she's a San Francisco-based freelance writer. We'll link to Andrea's blog too, but he hasn't updated it in a year. Slacker! We're especially frustrated since it's titled "Sex and the Kitchen," and......

Why on earth would an almost 60-year-old former city councilman from Vallejo want to be on Hell's Kitchen<? To be continually called a "donkey" ("don-keeeeeh!") on route to embarassing yourself on national television?...

We had a good time going through the recipes and eating stories in Street Food, the new book by wunderkind Tom Kine - that is, when we got over the insane jealousy. He got a book contract to travel for three months and eat all he could! How do we get something like that? We're excited to try his takes on bolani (Afghan flat bread) and Kadu (roast pumpkin paste), which he got from......

Derrick Schneider has an excellent food-focused blog called "Obsession With Food." He also wrote for SFist regularly for quite a long time, most notably his still-popular SFist in the Kitchen series. So of course we were very pleased to see that he wrote an article appearing in the Wine Section of today's Chron. He writes all about "fruit wine," or wine made with fruit other than grapes....

-- Writers With Drinks not only boasts an awesome substance-abuse party, but overlaps it with readings from some of your favorite local and national (that is to say, usually New York City- or LA-based) scribes and novelists. Who knew writers like to drink? But brace yourselves for tonight's edition: an "honest" look at the (dying? dead? necessary?) state of print publishing. Such inky icons as Ben Fong-Torres (from Rolling Stone), Lynn Peril (publisher of......

--The SF Weekly writes us (us the site and you the readers!) a totally nice note about the mix-up over our dueling Day Around The Bay columns! Hugs! [The Snitch] --An ABC 7 blog doesn't think all this Chris Daly and Ed Jew stuff is funny! Of course it's funny! [ABC 7's The Kitchen Think.] --Thought today in the SFist comments were bad? It could always be worse. [Craigslist's SF Local Politics Discussion Forum.] --The......

Oh wait a minute. By white slave, we are referrring to the UK title of super chef Marco Pierre White's new tome. He's white, did a cookbook called White Heat, and has the last name of White. Get it? The slavery he endured was oftentimes brutal kitchen work starting in the seventies. Apparently Brits don't have a problem with the slave reference. No suprise that the U.S. version is titled The Devil in the Kitchen:......

It's our week up on the weekly-reading duties! Last week's winner from SFist Sarah L, the SF Weekly. A letter writer says: "While Matt [Gonzalez] may not be the next Picasso (but don't count him out)..." It doesn't matter what the rest of the letter says. The SF Fire Department gave a bad test. Cover article: We hate baby boomers and their dirty self-centered hippie ways. Carnivorous plants! Yay, the SFIFF! A flyer fell out......

As noted in this week's SF Weekly and SFist Rita's "We Read the Weeklies" column, the Bay Area's (and beyond) beloved Kitchen Sink—the magazine for people who think too much—is calling it quits this spring. Kitchen Sink is the latest of several independent publications to shut down due to the Independent Press Association's failure to fulfill its commitments before going under. Before Kitchen Sink's proverbial well runs dry, they will be producing one last issue. But they need your help to do it! Stop on by Edinburgh Castle this Saturday night for their fundraiser, which will feature lots of bands and a raffle with prizes from Amoeba, the Believer and local artisans....

Last week's winner, the Guardian. Tim Redmond says, war, war is stupid. Okay, it's kind of funny that the lead editorial describes PG&E's latest electrical scheme as an extension cord running from Pittsburg to SF. Josh Wolf pens an editorial -- if he wasn't a reporter before, he's certainly a reporter now. Someone who talked to the Guardian about their job on Alcatraz got fired, allegedly in retaliation. More on the anti-war protests (but Matt......

The fruit and vegetable world overflows with deceptive names, from English's lemongrass—there's no lemon in it—to French's pommes de terre—they'r'e not really apples. But you'll find no trickery in celery root. The warty, blobby vegetable is the underground portion of the thick green stalks everyone knows so well, though celery root usually comes from a variety raised for large roots and slim stalks. Celery root, or celeriac, has the herby taste of celery and parsley......

When we see parsnips at the store or in most markets, they're big, with a tough inner core. We were thrilled, then, to see smaller, in-season parsnips, split down the middle like a serpent's tongue, at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. The slimmed-down root vegetables have not yet formed the woody center that we chop from normal versions. That means higher yield and less work for the home cook. Given the odd carrot colors......

Winter's deep chill has arrived, and you can expect it to stay here for a few months. Forget salads for dinner; our bodies need food that coats our bellies and warms our hearts. And few dishes heat us like cheese fondue, the perfect dish with which to greet cold friends coming to your home for dinner. When was the last time you dunked bread cubes into a simmering soup of liquid cheese? Fondue went......

We know how it is with onions. You treat them as kitchen staples, something to throw on the shelf until you need an aromatic for the saute pan. You take them for granted. But in the cold snap of winter, root vegetables come to the front. Gone are the vibrant, ripe tastes of summer produce; gone are the warm, mellow flavors of fall. The intense, peppery taste of vegetables on sale at farmers' markets......

We remember the late 90's when every food magazine offered the definitive risotto technique. Writers trudged to Italian villages to learn how rural matrons made this popular dish. Even as newbie foodies, we rolled our eyes at these accounts. Why make it sound so treacherous? We have a tried and true technique, learned not at the side of a Piemontese peasant woman but through observation and common sense. Risotto is a stress-free dish that's perfect......

We all know the picturesque way to roast chestnuts. Come on, sing along; you know you want to. And believe us, if the SFist test kitchen possessed an open fire, we'd buy a chestnut pan and snuggle in front of the fireplace, toasting the dark-brown nuts and popping the sweet meat into our mouths like bonbons. Provided, of course, that the pan fit behind the spitjack we plan to buy when the fireplace appears.......

Is the sheen off the apple, or was this crappy episode just a one-time thing? Gosh, we hope it's just the latter, because we'd like for this to remain our favorite show. Why were we displeased this show? Guest judge Ming Tsai was kind of a schmuck.Marcel, who we hoped to continue loving to hate, seemed to take a pill. Oh, and the ridiculous "steal the crate of fruit" melodrama? Handled poorly by everyone....

You won't find jujubes at your average farmer's market stall. If you want to buy the olive-sized, black and brown fruits, hunt out Asian-themed markets or tables selling Asian ingredients. We're not sure why Chinese dates, as they're also called, haven't made more inroads into Western cuisine, though some historians think that Homer's lotus-eaters were riding a jujube high. The chalky texture of a raw jujube isn't very appealing, but the flavor—a subtle mix......

Last week we were shopping at a local farmer's market and overheard two women discussing what to buy for dinner. "How about spinach?" said one. The other greeted her suggestion with a smirk and they both nervously chuckled before moving on to other vegetables in the stand. These days, it's not easy being greens. No sooner had newspapers tired of the spinach-borne E. Coli onslaught than another Salinas company issued a voluntary recall on......

Every cook wants their guests to swoon over the food, and few things induce fainting spells like a velvety, savory sauce. A good sauce transforms a dish from simple to elegant, but few home cooks take the time to make one. Even here in the SFist test kitchen, we're inclined to skip the fancier dressings for a simple meal. Fortunately, we make great pan sauces, which we assemble after we sear or sauté meat in......

We're going to San Francisco Zoo its annual Night Tour. While in the past, the Night Tour has been a Members Only (not the jackets, silly) affair, tonight the Zoo is releasing 1000 tickets to regular slobs like us, for tonight's tour only. Visitors will revel in this ultimate after-hours adventure that includes more than 10 special animal presentations and feedings and continuous live entertainment...Highlights include the African Savanna at dusk; exclusive behind-the-scenes tours......

Fleshy summer fruit on a hot day sings a siren song of sorbet. We see plump, yellow peaches and imagine a spoonful of frozen fruit that holds firm for a single flap of a hummingbird's wing. On the tip of our tongue, the sorbet melts into a liquid alive with the flavor of the season. You can buy sorbet, but a little effort will give you the chance to try bold new flavor combinations.......

Tomato crops haven't fared well in California's recent heat wave, which might explain why market stalls aren't overflowing with the iconic summer vegetables. We spotted some recently, and took some home for a tomato tasting in the SFist test kitchen. Honest, we came up with this idea before the New York Times ran an article about a similar tasting . We used tomatoes from the Grand Lake Farmer's Market and stored them at room......

The debate rages on about whether Bevan Dufty is right to try and cancel Halloween in the Castro, and what that all means about the future of San Francisco. How do we balance the idea of fun for the city and security for neighborhood residents? As always, you readers impress us with your articulateness, thoughtfulness, and intense dedication to our beloved burg. Thanks, MattyMatt, for bringing up the subject and giving people a place......

Unless you shop at farmer's markets—and we know you do, so send this to your friends—you probably have never tasted good garlic. Supermarkets usually carry one of two types that travel better than they taste. No surprise, since 70% of that garlic comes from overseas, where cheap labor keeps costs down. But there are 200 or more strains of the famous aromatic, and each tastes different from its cousins. Some have more heat, some......

As much as we enjoy planning dinners, sometimes we just want to assemble a quick meal from fresh ingredients at the farmer's market. How often do you get to the many markets here in the Bay Area? If you haven't been in a while, we'd like to urge you visit your neighborhood market and taste the treats on display. Scrumptious stone fruits such as cherries and nectarines are at the peak of their flavor......