It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It

by Bill Heavey

  Damn. This was awesome. Kirk’s rant put me in mind of someone like Paula, only with more library time. I didn’t want him to stop. I would have stuck a quarter in his mouth and pumped his arm to keep him talking. I was dying to ask about leopard shark ceviche, hoping that might set him off again. But someone else had beaten me to it, only with a noninflammatory question that I couldn’t hear. “Ah, well,” he said. His knowledge of fish had come from exhaustive reading on the subject. Working for Fish and Game had involved endless hours waiting for party boats of anglers to return. But he wasn’t allowed to screw off during working hours and his bosses checked on him regularly. He couldn’t read, for example, unless the material related directly to his job. “So I spent thousands of hours reading up on fish and the history of fishing in the Bay area. My favorite book was Probably More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast, written by Dr. Milton Love.” In Kirk’s view, it was the definitive work on the subject.

  One woman in the group could stand it no longer. “Wait,” she blurted out. “Are you BS-ing us or is that a real book?”

  “Hell, yeah, it’s a real book,” Kirk said, affronted. It was impossible to know, of course, if he was truly insulted or just milking the moment. “He’s a research biologist with the Marine Science Institute at Santa Barbara. And he’s already working on the sequel, Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast: A Postmodern Experience.” He shook his head and smiled. “Milton Love is the man,” he said.

  I knew he was telling the truth. This was too preposterous to be a lie. “You think he’s serious?” a guy near me inquired of his friend. “Like, one book is Probably More Than You Want to Know and the other one is Certainly More Than You Want to Know?” The crowd liked Kirk, but people were having trouble deciding what was shtick and what was real. I was having a little trouble myself. The difference was that I didn’t care. Kirk’s passion for fish and his joy when connected to them were the real deal. His unlikely environmentalism was the real deal. That was enough for me. I was hooked.

  “I’m pretty sure he’s serious,” I told the guy in the crowd. “You can’t make up stuff like that on the fly. Trust me, I’m a freelance writer.” (Both titles turned out to be accurate. Milton Love is a respected marine biologist at the University of California and an authority on Pacific Coast fishing. And his books—with the titles Kirk mentioned—are a rare combination of heavy-duty research and deft humor.)

  As for me, having already discovered the joys of smoked herring and white perch, I was halfway to being a convert already. I’d even started buying anchovies, which I’d realized had nearly vanished from contemporary cuisine. They were no longer found on lists of pizza toppings or in Caesar salads. But I’d never heard the argument for eating small fish laid out either so comprehensively or with Kirk’s mix of eloquence and passion. It was bracing stuff. The way forward was a step back. We should eat the fish our species had eaten for thousands of years, the ones that were easy to catch, the little fish. Kirk was such a character you could almost miss the fact that he was also a man on a mission.

  The tour continued for another hour. By the end, everyone seemed ready to embrace the Kirk Lombard Gospel of Small Fish. Afterward, I invited him out for a beer. “Sure,” he said, “but there aren’t any decent bars around here.” We hopped into his little truck, which reeked of old bait and wet waders. Every time he took a turn, several pounds of sinkers beneath the seats rolled from one side to the other. We ended up at a wonderfully seedy bar in the Tenderloin. Kirk was about ten years my junior and, after the first beer, confessed that he’d been having a hard time finding employment since being laid off. It was hard because his wife was making a lot more money than he was. I asked about the tours for forageSF. “This is actually the first time I’ve done anything with them,” he said. “This was my trial run.” I asked if he was serious. He was. In that case, I said, he needn’t worry. He knew his stuff, knew how to spin it in a singularly entertaining way, and clearly loved to perform. People would definitely come. (They did. Later that year, in fact, Kirk’s wild seafood walks were named “Best Walking Tour” by SF Weekly, which dubbed him “guru of SF’s seafood foraging scene.”)

  As we drank another beer, I mentioned the fish ID charts he’d done for the department. That was something only a geek’s geek would have undertaken. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, taking a long pull on his bottle. “That was an idea that got seriously out of hand.” Basically, he’d seen the need. There were dozens of species of small fish in the Bay that people caught but couldn’t identify. So he had decided to create the ID charts. He had easily caught and photographed most species. But there were some he knew about but couldn’t find photos of. So he began driving up and down the coast trying to catch and photograph like the longjaw mudsucker, a fish he had a soft spot for because it had once been the preeminent bait in the Bay area. Its dominance was due to the fact that it stayed alive and kicking on an angler’s hook long past the limit of other baitfish to endure. But few people used it anymore and no one knew where to catch one. So Kirk had spent days driving up and down the coast, visiting obscure places where people had reported catching them in the past. And once Kirk got obsessed, he stayed obsessed. He had spent between 400 and 500 hours of his own time (“At some point, it’s better not to know, you feel me?”) compiling the two charts.

  Another beer later, Kirk invited me to go catch night smelt about twenty-five miles down the coast. He had only recently found out that the little buggers existed, let alone that that there were people who fished specifically for them. “Dude, a fishery that I didn’t even know about? After the thousands of hours I’ve spent fishing and talking to fishermen around here?” He looked to see if I understood how unlikely that was. I did. I was, furthermore, realizing that Kirk’s degree of local fish knowledge was even deeper than I had thought. It seemed endless.

  The hidden nature of the night smelt fishery was understandable, he explained, given the particular fishermen who knew about it. “It was just these old Portuguese guys, all of whom are named Joe or Mike for some reason. Out of all the ethnic fishing communities, the Portuguese are the most secretive.” So, I asked, how’d you get them to teach you?“They took pity on me,” he said. “I was out there with a homemade dip net and didn’t have the faintest idea what I was doing. But I kept at it, you know? I just kept going out and trying. And they liked that.”

  He said that the smelt laid their eggs only on coarse beach sand, roughly BB-size, only when the tide was near full and going out, and usually on days when the water was fairly clear. “In northern California, that’s about ten percent of the time,” he said. In short, he was inviting me along on a fool’s errand. I said I was in.

  First, though, I had to work forageSF’s upcoming “Wild Kitchen” event. I had thought of the wild plant and seafood walks as steps toward this apex of my time in San Francisco, a dinner in this “roving underground supper club” featuring foraged wild foods. ForageSF hired a chef to put together the menu, but an unpaid army did the rest of the work required in pulling off such an ambitious event. Everything from helping with foraging and food preparation to greeting the guests as they arrived to waiting on them and busing their dirty dishes—it was all done by volunteers for no more remuneration than the chance to eat the same dinner for free, albeit in bites snatched in the kitchen between rounds of plate carrying. Wanting to see the Wild Kitchen from both sides, I had signed up both to attend and to work the event. I hoped to see how forageSF connected with the city’s elite foodies, people for whom the pursuit of the edgiest eating approached a competitive sport.

  For the paying diners, the deal was this. For $80—the price has since jumped to $100—forageSF offered a maximum of eighty diners (the number varied with the venue) an eight- or nine-course meal, each course “highlighting a sustainably foraged ingredient from the local landscape.” To get around regulations—licensing, inspections,
certifications, etc.—the enterprise billed itself as a “supper club” with a strict BYOB policy. Further, the location—typically an artist’s studio in a slightly dodgy part of town—was revealed only by e-mail the day of the dinner. Taken singly, any of these factors might have been off-putting. Most people, I’d have wagered, prefer food prepared in professional kitchens that have been certified as sanitary. Most would also prefer to know ahead of time where the restaurant was and to avoid the rougher neighborhoods. Taken together, however, the factors produced some alchemy, making a Wild Kitchen dinner one of the most sought-after tickets in town. They offered exclusivity, secrecy, and a chance for well-off eaters to add to their eating résumés, do a little slumming, even have an exhilarating frisson of illegality. Whatever it was, the Wild Kitchen dinners tended to sell out almost as soon as they were announced.

  The night before, I called Michelle from my tiny single room—if I stretched out my arms I could just about touch both sides at once—at the San Remo Hotel and confessed that I didn’t really understand the appeal.

  “It’s San Francisco,” she said.

  “I know where it is,” I said.

  “You know where it is, but not what it means. San Franciscans are like”—she paused, apparently searching for a comparison that I could grasp—“the Navy SEALs of foodies. The trendiest of the trendy. And, you know, what’s trendier than a little danger? Plus there’s the grunge factor. I totally get it.”

  I told her I did, too. Even though I really didn’t.

  “Baby, this trip is kind of wasted on you,” she said, not unsympathetically. “You’re the opposite of most people. You don’t do trendy. I mean, it makes you actively uncomfortable.”

  Damn. She’d nailed me again. We’d known each other only a few months, but Michelle already knew things about me that I didn’t know. Or that I’d never brought into consciousness. Now that I thought of it, trend and I seldom crossed paths. Actually, we were more like opposing forces. On the few occasions I’d found myself surrounded by stylish, vivid achievers, my instinct had invariably been to flee. I left by the front door if possible, but I’d climbed a few back fences when that was the only escape. Like everyone, I had a deep hunger to be seen for who I was and loved in spite of that. It was wonderful to feel that with Michelle. It also scared the bejesus out of me. I realized then that I could never lie to Michelle. She would see through it even before I’d gotten the words out. I had fallen for a really hot polygraph.

  At 12:30 the next day, six hours before the doors opened for dinner, I knocked at the gated front door of a two-story row house in the Mission District belonging to an artist who went by the name Chicken John. No one answered. I walked around the block, wondering if I’d come to the right place. Twenty minutes later, I rang again. No response. A few minutes after that, however, a big guy in full black leather backed a heavyset motorcycle to the curb, got off, and unlocked the door. He was Jordan Grosser, a classically trained chef and veteran of restaurants in Tucson and San Francisco. He also had his own cheese business, Flossa Creamery, and was the freelance chef in charge of tonight’s dinner.

  For the next six hours, I sliced, chopped, carried, and swept. I quartered platters of potatoes. He instructed me in handpicking Italian parsley. He wanted just the leaves—no stems—from three huge bunches of the stuff. After an hour of this tedious labor, I was handed another, slightly larger batch. I took a deep breath and dug back in. Other volunteers started drifting in. There were two young women and a subdued, purposeful guy in his early twenties, all of whom brought their own knives, the mark of a working cook or at least a serious amateur. There was a dance teacher. There was a handsome young Indian actor, currently starring in a production of Julius Caesar. He would work the front of the house, welcoming guests. I listened in as the actor talked about food events he was planning—hoping to make some quick money doing other kinds of onetime “by subscription only” and “underground” dinners—with another chef on the side. It was tricky, because he was timing those ventures so he could also be in Los Angeles for winter casting calls, when actors were chosen for the upcoming season of TV sitcoms and dramas. I was the old man in a group that mostly consisted of young people in a hurry. They volunteered here because it was fun and a good, free meal—and also, apparently, a good opportunity to network.

  Grosser assigned tasks and periodically checked on the large hunk of wild boar that had been in the oven at 225 for fourteen hours. The boar was part of the main dish of the evening, the chef’s take on poutine, the famously downscale Canadian dish of chipped potatoes with curd cheese and gravy. At one point, I was given a tray of astonishingly stinky yellow-orange ginkgo fruits. Imagine a malevolent cheese made from fermented diapers and you’re in the olfactory ballpark. It was a powerful appetite suppressant. My job was to separate the fruit from the husks, each of which contained a tiny green nut. It probably took forty-five minutes, seemed much longer, and left me unable to smell or taste anything for a good while afterward. When finished, I had less than half a cup of these pea-sized suckers, which eventually were doled out like diamonds, one or two per plate, atop the dessert.

  As the dinner hour approached, the pace quickened in the kitchen. At one point, I remarked on Grosser’s calm. He shrugged. “Would you feel better if I was nervous?” he asked. Absolutely, I told him. It would make for a much better story. He just smiled. Jordan was a veteran of high-pressure kitchens. This was a walk in the park. Also, I reminded myself, this was California. It was highly uncool to appear stressed out, even if you were. The diners began arriving. The popping of corks and buzz of conversation could be heard from the studio. The communal nature of the meal had been part of the pitch. What “communal” meant here was two long rows of wooden tables covered in what looked to be printing press paper with forty folding chairs pulled up to each row. When the menu, on unadorned printer paper, was distributed, the buzz of conversation increased.

  Trout Crostini

  with Pickled Nasturtium Seed Pods

  and

  Gleaned Apples

  Wild Clam Tomato Chowder

  with

  Wild Nori

  Brasied Wild Mushrooms, Poached Farm Egg

  Foraged Watercress

  and

  Crispy Potatoes

  Flossa Creamery Goat Cheese

  with

  Pickled Gleaned Fruit

  and

  Roasted Boquerónes

  with

  Shisito Peppers, Foraged Grapes

  and

  Chorizo Lentil Vinaigrette

  Wild Boar Poutine

  with

  Parmesan, Gremolata, and Pickled Shallots

  Salad of Foraged Nasturtium Greens and Flowers

  with

  Candied Walnuts with an Orange Sage Vinaigrette

  Pumpkin Panna Cotta

  with

  Bruléed Gleaned Fig

  and

  Wild Fennel Pollen Mascarpone Cream

  Just before the first course went out, Grosser strode to the front of the room to address the guests. He seemed the picture of low-key self-possession, still wearing his apron as he popped the cap off a beer with the bottom of his lighter, a trick I’ve ruined any number of lighters trying to learn. He tapped a very large pocketknife against his beer bottle for quiet and then described what was coming, a procedure he would repeat before each course of the dinner. He spoke as if this were an impromptu dinner for eighty of his closest friends. In retrospect, I think that he knew full well what I then only vaguely suspected, which was that these diners had shown up ready and eager to be entertained, charmed, and even enthralled. One of the hallmark phrases of the anti–industrial food movement is “food with a story.” Knowing how and where the animals and plants on your plate were raised was essential to the experience of eating them. The more you
knew, the richer the story. By contrast, industrial food would most definitely prefer anonymity about those particulars. These diners were clearly eager for stories, and they were going to get them. Grosser apologized in advance for the fact that not all of the mushrooms served tonight were wild. He and some friends had driven up to Mendocino the day before in search of chanterelles and oyster mushrooms. They had found some, but not enough, so they augmented their haul with some store-bought chanterelles. The diners seemed just as charmed by this story of failed foraging as by the accounts of successes, maybe more. On cue, a parade of five or six of us waiters emerged to serve the trout crostini.

  Having not worked as a waiter in thirty-five years, I was both surprised and pleased when the skill set came back instantly. There was the endorphin buzz of rushing to serve and pick up plates. There were the different kinds—micro and macro—of attention and focus required. As I served each diner, I also scanned the length of the table for anyone trying to catch my eye to replace a dropped utensil or refill a water glass. I had forgotten the pleasure of the dance of waiting tables, the sudden, nonverbal intimacy with strangers. Those of us who had worked in restaurants instantly recognized one another by the way we moved. We also recognized those who hadn’t. Outgoing food, for example, always has the right of way. This is true everywhere, but it was especially important here at the bottleneck of the kitchen’s swinging door. Experienced waiters knew how to make themselves small in such situations in a way others didn’t. Some of us got to know each other well simply by the necessity of constantly reading and adjusting to each other’s body language, the better to serve and bus tables more efficiently. A backward glance to another server while retreating with a tray laden with stacked dishes might translate as a call for help serving or clearing. A cock of the head might signal that although the server was carrying all he could, there were still more plates back there waiting to be taken away. There was a sheer physical pleasure to this work that I’d forgotten.