For the past 20 plus years, I have been a freelance writer for publications like the Wine Spectator, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunset magazine, Where magazine, San Francisco Examiner, Marin magazine, Modern Maturity and more. I am the author of seven guidebooks and a cookbook.

I have two stories in Travelers' Tales books entitled: "A Fork in the Road' and "Whose Panties Are These?" In the first book, my story is "Chocolate with Julia." In the second book, my story is "Confessions of a Food Smuggler."

I have my own business conducting history-culinary tours of San Francisco, part time. My work involves dealing with visitors and locals, insuring they have a pleasant time.

Before I began writing about food, I worked in restaurants, as a cook, and had my own catering company.

I edited 86 Recipes a few years ago. The idea was recipes on cards from a variety of restaurants in the SF Bay Area.

It was a fun project and fun to work with all the chefs, besides testing all the recipes.

Here is a sample recipe from the box. You can still buy it through Amazon.

Chef Luke Sung, of the delightful Isa, once worked for Roland Passot of La Folie. He told me he learned this dish from him, although I think he added the chilies. It originally appeared in my cookbook, "86 Recipes San Francisco."

Potato-Wrapped Bluenose Seabass

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs seabass
2 large russet potatoes
Salt
Pepper
4 Tbsp olive oil
4 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp lightly chopped capers
1 Tbsp sliced Fresno chilies
(no seeds, no veins)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp chopped parsley

Special Equipment:
Mandolin (for thinly slicing the potatoes) *

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheight.

Skin and trim seabass, and cut into four portions of 4 1/2 oz each.

Peel the potatoes. Slice them lengthwise as thin as you can. Use a mandolin. In a pot of boiling water, blanch the potato slices for about 30 seconds. Let the slices bathe in the hot water quickly and then plunge them into a cold-water bath. Place on paper towels to dry.

Season the fish with salt and pepper, and wrap the potato slices tightly around the fish making sure they overlap.

In a nonstick skillet, heat oil and sear the potato-enrobed fish on all sides. Place in the oven to finish cooking the fish for about 2-4 minutes, depending on the thickness.

Check doneness by inserting a sharp paring knife in the center of the fish. Feel the temp on your lips. Knife tip should be warm.

Take the fish out of the pan and let rest. Pour off the fat in the skillet and wipe clean with a towel. In the same pan, add butter. Let the butter brown and then add capers, chilies, salt and pepper, lemon juice, and parsley.

Presentation
Place the fish on a plate and pour the brown butter sauce over it.

Executive Chef Luke Sung
Isa restaurant
3324 Steiner Street, San Francisco, CA
(415) 567-9588
www.isarestaurant.com

Published 1991 in Bay Food Magazine

Haight Street: Hard Times and Hope

Bay Food Magazine sent GraceAnn Walden to investigate the Dining Scene on upper Haight Street. Here's Walden's impressions of just four blocks and some quotes she overheard in her travels.

For more than 25 years the Haight has symbolized a place where breaking the rules was the order of the day. Journalists coined the words: "hippie" "alternative lifestyle". Life Magazine photographed it. Kids in every burg copied it. But the life itself scented with patchouli oil, wrapped in tie dye and founded on being different from the older generation, was invented in flats on Waller, Belvedere and Fell.

Hippie Street Urchin: Spare change?
Man in jeans: No, I leave here.
(Urchin laughs.)

In such a revolutionary place, you would expect the next step in social evolution to take its first tentative steps. Sixties veterans evolving beyond drugs to the kinder, gentler America are leaders give lip service to.
What you do find today is a booming commercial environment devoted to kitsch, nostalgia and icons from religion and the movies. It's hard to believe seeing the numbers of locals and well dressed tourists strolling Haight, that there's anyone left in the world without just the right studded leather jacket, rhinestone encrusted crucifix or Doc Maartens.

"In the past there were some elements of the community that took a tolerant attitude to the street people. Now that has changed. We're walking the streets and we try to utilize referrals to social services, shelters and rehab programs to move them out". Sgt. Stephanie Turner, Park Police Station

What really evokes the feeling of a movie like Blade Runner is the number of homeless beggars, street urchins and drug/alcohol addicted men and women, especially after nightfall. It's as if Union Street had gone retro in style and been declared the open ward simultaneously. So there are panhandlers, leather bikinis at a shop called "Back Seat Betty", bargains at the modern Goodwill Store and interesting cookbooks at Forever After Books.

There are also some very good places to eat. The upper four blocks bordered by the park to the North and Masonic on the South offer locals and visitors alike exceptional dining, serviceable fare and cheap eats. Reflecting aspects of the New Age one finds more vegetarian choices on the menus in this district.

Roberts Hardware on Haight Street sells lava lamps
If you were to begin your food odyssey at Masonic you would be hard pressed to decide between the Crescent City Diner and The Pork Store for breakfast fare.
Many mornings I've crowded into the Pork Store for their yummy pork chops, hash browns and perfectly cooked eggs. My favorite breakfast at the Crescent City Diner is the crab cake, eggs and buttered grits. One Thanksgiving morning after a stint at the Haight Ashbury Food Projectchopping onions, I dined on crab cakes while listening to a particularly wonderful Elvis tape. Both are very convivial places for breakfast.

Back on Masonic, the Holey Bagel has been a fixture in the neighborhood for many years. To my taste I'd opt for Noah's over Holey's but I truly liked their spreads. The cream cheese with sundried tomato was divine.

"The Haight has the most beautiful architecture of any neighborhood in the city, and that's why we moved here. We live in a Queen Anne Tower House. The Haight was built as a middle class neighborhood and it's reverting to that now."

Neil Sechan and Matt Messner
home owners

Strolling further up the street you might want to opt for an afternoon cocktail at the Achilles Heel, a Victorian style pub smelling of Pinesol and ferns. It has comfortable sofa seating as well as an ornate wooden bar. Behind the bar is a New Hampshire license plate with the legend: Live Free or Die. More rule breaking. The only modern touch was a Sinead O'Connor tape playing "Put your hands on me".

Martin Macks was my next stop. This English-Irish bar is owned by Brian Malony, who painted many of the classic Victorians in the Haight. Martin Mack's serves lunch and dinner and has the street's greatest hamburger. Specials include stuffed pork chops, seafood and a very good mixed grill.

Next I decided to investigate the Persian Aub Zam Zam Club, which the beat cops told me has a reputation for serving the best Martini. Zam Zam is one man's world and in that world time stopped around 1952. The room is cocktail lounge dark, with antique Persian touches behind the bar and on the walls. The juke box stops with 50's Frank Sinatra, and pedals back to popular World War II tunes and to the twenties and thirties.

The Zam Zam is only open four nights a week, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Zam Zam is very much the owners domain and any misstep by a non-regular gets you booted. The young fellow next to me ordered a lite beer after a Martini and breaking some unwritten rule, was asked to leave. When reached for an interview for this article the owner refused saying, "I've been here 50 years, I don't want any publicity it only brings in rotten people".

"Come fill the cup and in the fires of spring - the winter garments of repentance fling".
cocktail napkin Persian Aub Zam Zam

Both Escape From N.Y. Pizza and Zona Rosa are packed with people at lunch and dinner. Both offer inexpensive and tasty food. I tried the low calorie "Veggie Lite Slice' at Escape topped with part skim mozzarella and veggies. It was a bargain at $2.08

Zona Rosa has nothing over $4.98 on its menu. Zona features a wide selection of tacos, quesadillas, fajitas and burritos. In addition to meat they have 100% vegetarian fare, using tortillas made without lard and no preservatives. Their food is low in fat and salt.

The Gulfspray Seafood store has been on Cole Street for about 10 years. The store is a very good purveyor of seafood, organic turkeys and game birds by special order. On a recent visit Salmon Steaks were only $7.75 a pound.

My three favorite restaurants in the Haight were Cha Cha Cha, a Caribbean style restaurant with Mediterranean and Latin influences, Ozone Cuisine serving upscale American food, and Cafe Paradiso a no-frills restaurant and full bar concentrating on making everything from scratch.

The lines start forming about five o'clock to get into Cha Cha Cha. Costa Rican born Executive Chef, Gabriela Salas has been working here on and off for about three years. Salas says her tenure has been on and off because the owners believe in keeping their cooks from burning out by letting them take time off to travel.

Salas started cooking in a number of Bay Area hotels, graduated San Francisco City College Hotel and Restaurant program, and before Cha Cha Cha worked at the Avenue Grill in Mill Valley. She says the restaurant employs cooks from all over the world who bring their ideas to the menu. Particularly wonderful are the 9-12 tapas featured nightly.

Some recent items were: Shrimp sauteed in Cajun spices, another was Jamaican jerk chicken over rice. Most of these dishes are under $5. Cha Cha Cha has about the best warm Spinach salad dressed with generous slices of thick cut bacon and sliced mushrooms in a creamy vinaigrette. Entrees and specials cost about $10 and run the gamut from Red Snapper in Banana leaves to a seasonal vegetable plate served with fried plantain, rice and beans. There's a small bar and seating in the gaily decorated room for about 30.

Two men walking down Haight Street:
Man # 1: Have you seen Ernie lately? How's his hair?
Man # 2: He's still got the pink ponytail.

Ozone Cuisine is Chef Sharna Gross' very special place with out of this world food. The menu will delight your taste buds with a Saute of Calamari, scallops and rock shrimp served with a roasted garlic aioli. Don't miss the uncooked Ahi Tuna with a coriander-pepper crust served on a fried ginger vinaigrette with addictive thin cut lemon-pepper onion rings. Gross who grew up in a Jewish family in Los Angeles says she tries to do the kind of food she grew up with, "nurturing updated homestyle food." Gross who went to the CCA has cooked at Domaine Chandon, Stars and opened Stars Cafe. Gross says that on any given night 70% of her patrons are neighborhood regulars.

Cafe Paradiso is my kind of joint. I haven't tried the entire menu but what I have tried I liked in this casual bar/restaurant. First the friendly bartender makes Whiskey Sours from scratch. Priced at only $2.50 they're a bargain. One night he made me a Meyer's rum punch that consisted of fresh sweet and sour juice, a dash of cranberry and pineapple juices, Meyer's dark rum, a touch of cherry brandy and Grenadine, with a splash of club soda. A tall refreshing drink for just $3. The long rectangular room is filled with paintings by Robert Carter and the night I was there Blind Faith and The Talking Heads had me tapping my foot.

I tasted the house Paradiso Sandwich a delicious, hearty loaf of rice, toasted nuts, veggies and cheese served on Tassajara bread with homemade mayonnaise on one side and coarse mustard on the other. Even the most carnivorous diner would love this sandwich. Another day I tried the focaccia with vegies, herbs and cheese. A bargain at $2.75 for bar snacking. Opened since January 1991, this kitchen is also the purview of a woman, Peri Prestotino. Manager Buck Rollins and owner Betsy Rix strive to serve large portions of wholesome, affordable food.

Rix bought and renovated the entire building more than 16 months ago, leasing half the space to the Red Vic Movie Theater. The Red Vic evokes the best of the alternative culture in that it is run by a five person collective who wanted to work together and who just happen to love movies. I finished my last trip to the Haight with a visit to the Red Vic where I saw the movie Eating.

Here is one of my stories from the long-gone Bay Food magazine.

Visions Run 12/91 BAY FOOD

In the Bay Area, there are a number of individuals in the food industry who started their business lives in entirely different professions. Although they may have been artists, engineers or aspiring architects, they have foregone their initial career choice for long hours behind the stove or tending to the front of the house. Some have struck it rich in the restaurant or food business. Others earn less money in their food career, but truly wouldn't go back to their "real jobs' for anything.

In a series that will appear from time to time, GraceAnn Walden will interview chefs, waiters, restaurant owners, wine people, and specialty food manufacturers to discover what drives these people to work long, hard hours creating their cuisine. This month we begin with three restaurateurs, who opened their unique restaurants, in the very tough Bay Area market. Our interviewees come all over the globe, but the one thing they share is their vision to serve the food of their homeland to an enthusiastic public.

Mahmood Karzai
Helmand, Afghan restaurant
430 Broadway, San Francisco

In Afghanistan I was a pre-med student at the University of Kabul. I am from a city in the South, Kandahar. It's the second largest city. My family has always been prominent in the politics of my country. We are liberal anti-communists and of course nationalists. I left my country to study in the Washington D. C. area. My wife Wazhma, was studying law in Afghanistan. After the coup she was harassed at school.

When the revolution and coup occurred in 1978, my father was put in prison. I was going to school and working part time in restaurants in the United States. I also had a brother in school in India, and with my father in prison, I had to work two jobs to keep him in school. This brother is now in Pakistan with my father working against the communist government in my country.

I got the idea for having an Afghan restaurant from a successful one I knew about in Georgetown. It was small but had a huge following. I thought our authentic food could be successful in other American cities.

We considered Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Unfortunately friends told us there already was an Afghan restaurant here, so we went to Chicago. I still believe only one Afghan restaurant can be successful in a market. We opened the Helmand in Chicago in 1985. It has 66 seats and is in a good location on the North Shore. One of my brothers runs it now. At the end of 1986 I came to San Francisco on a visit. I found there was no Afghan restaurant here. We moved immediately. San Francisco had always been my first choice.

When we got here I worked at the Carnelian room for two years until we opened this place in October 1989. We do a very authentic menu. We have tried certain dishes and they just don't sell. (One of these dishes,that is very popular in Afghanistan, is served to us as we talk. Called "Head to Foot" it is a delicious braised dish of tripe and lambs tongues.) We wanted to introduce our food. People love our leek ravioli, rack of lamb and baked pumpkin.

In our country we don't have a restaurant culture. There is street food, but we primarily celebrate with food in our homes. Here in Concord, where we live, with our three children, we have parties with food and music with ten other families. It rotates from home to home. The best cooks are women. It's not unusual for a man to call me up and brag that his wife makes the best version of a particular dish. My wife Wazhma and her sister Gamila are the cooks here at Helmand. My wife makes certain dishes that she does well and the pastries. Her sister is a wonderful cook.

We are hopeful that Broadway will improve when Enrico's reopens in March. Eventually we would like to open another restaurant in the Bay Area.

Pino Spinosa
Caffe Macaroni
59 Columbus Ave., San Francisco

I was born in a little town in Italy east of Rome, Venusia. I emigrated with my family to Germany in 1965 for work. I was fifteen. Two of my uncles own restaurants in Germany and now my brother owns a restaurant in Bologna. So I come from a restaurant family. Eventually I wound up owning my own restaurant in Germany. I had cooked at my uncles' restaurant as well as my own. When I was 23, I came to the United States in 1983 for a visit. I got stuck. I was attracted to life here because of commercials I had seen by Marlboro and Coca Cola. You know "a wonderland where everyone rides a horse and everyone is always at the beach." I wanted to surf.

Eventually I wound up in California, first L.A. and then here. I started working at Umberto's, then Le Central and then the Blue Fox in 1988. I was a waiter. What we do here at Caffe Macaroni is country style food from all over Italy. Restaurants in Italy, whether country style or not, could not work here. In Italy when they hit on a specialty they keep doing it over and over. In the States if you always do the same thing people won't come. Our antipasto has 20-25 dishes in it.

There's alot of labor involved. So we're working today for tomorrow. We start to cook around 8AM. My partner Mario goes and buys the fish and vegetables. At 11:30AM we open for lunch. At the same time we're prepping for dinner. Because we have a very tiny kitchen, we have just one guy doing the plates and the prep and the other fires the order. Mario and I put together the antipasto plates and work the front of the house. The biggest challenge is to keep the recipes authentic. We're creating from what we have.

Mario Ascione
Caffe Macaroni

I'm from Torre del Greco, near Naples. I was a sculptor with Capodi- monte, hand making ceramics. I also went to culinary arts school in in Sicily and Sorrento. I wanted to travel so I learned to cook and worked 6 years off and on, on a cruise line. I met my wife on the cruise line so that's how I came to emigrate to Cleveland. She was from there.

After 18 months we came here. I started at Ernie's as a waiter and captain. I also worked at the Blue Fox. I was a partner in Il Gallo, which is now Pane e Vino. After I left Il Gallo it didn't last. About 18 months ago Pino and I decided to open Macaroni. We cooked in the morning, opened just for lunch then did our night jobs from 4PM on. Pino was waiting at the Blue Fox and I was managing at Umberto's. We did it this way because we didn't have much money. So we supported the restaurant with our other jobs for six months.

The concept of this restaurant is "cucina del mercata." In addition to veal, fish and chicken we're not afraid to serve tripe, brains, sweetbreads, horse, and octopus. In San Francisco in 1991, there is enough people who know food, that we're not afraid to cook anything.

Laxman Moorjani
New Delhi Junction
Berkeley, Ca.

I came here to work for Safeway as an industrial engineer, to do business analysis. Included in my job was the setting of standards against which you can judge performance, for example that of labor and materials. So if your costs are going up you can quickly analyze and isolate the problem and remedy it. Later I got my MBA at Berkeley.

I was single and I loved to cook gourmet meals for my buddies. So when these two friends of mine wanted to open a restaurant they said, "You have to be our partner and oversee the cooking." They also said there's no fine Indian restaurant in San Francisco. At that time, in the early seventies, there was just three. I said I wasn't interested because I was going out five nights a week to the discos and dining out. I would read reviews than try new places. I was having alot of fun. The first book I purchased in this country was "The Underground Gourmet." I liked the idea of finding little out of the way places that have really good food.

So we opened Anjoli in Embarcadero Center One in 1974. It suffered from it's location, tucked away with no visibility, although we started to break even in three months. After about a year and a half I sold my shares and went back to being an engineer. When I first did Anjoli I realized I loved the business. I really liked cooking and being my own boss. I realized I was very entrepreneurial. Most corporate environments don't reward that kind of thinking. At this time, I got married so I deferred my plans for opening a restaurant.

What changed my life, was that despite my glorious performance, I was quite unceremoniously laid off from Bank of America. I was making $60,000 when I left the B of A.

My vision is to do real authentic Indian food from scratch. In most Indian restaurants they make one basic sauce in huge quantities. One of the major preoccupations of every chef that I hire is "gotta make curry sauce, gotta make curry sauce." They will cook an enormous pot of curry sauce - gallons of it. This one sauce would be used for almost all the curries. This is not real Indian cooking - it's an adaptation of Indian cooking for restaurants. This is the only way Indian chefs here know how to cook.

Indian restaurants here all have identical menus. At New Delhi Junction I do regional dishes from all over India. I do quail, rabbit, duck, inventive vegetarian dishes with collard greens and stuffed okra. Because the way I want to present Indian food, means so much more work, I met with alot of resistance from the chefs I hired. Finally I decided to acquire intelligent, willing apprentices who I could train to cook real Indian food my way.

After three years I'm still working 12 hours a day at the restaurant training a new apprentice, developing new and regional recipes, running the front of the house and the bookkeeping. I'm still not making what I was when I was an engineer. I wouldn't go back to engineering ever. In fact I'd like to do a beautiful upscale restaurant that will really showcase my food. If I had a place where I could charge more, and thus spend more on labor to do these dishes, I could do dishes fit for a rajah.